APPENDIX,
CONTAINING EXTRACTS FROM SPEECHES, ETC[10]
RECEPTION SPEECH
At Finsbury Chapel, Moorfields, England, May 12, 1846.
Mr. Douglass rose amid loud cheers, and said: I feel
exceedingly glad of the opportunity now afforded me of presenting
the claims of my brethren in bonds in the United States, to so
many in London and from various parts of Britain, who have
assembled here on the present occasion. I have nothing to
commend me to your consideration in the way of learning, nothing
in the way of education, to entitle me to your attention; and you
are aware that slavery is a very bad school for rearing teachers
of morality and religion. Twenty-one years of my life have been
spent in slavery—personal slavery—surrounded by degrading
influences, such as can exist nowhere beyond the pale of slavery;
and it will not be strange, if under such circumstances, I should
betray, in what I have to say to you, a deficiency of that
refinement which is seldom or ever found, except among persons
that have experienced superior advantages to those which I have
enjoyed. But I will take it for granted that you know something
about the degrading influences of slavery, and that you will not
expect great things from me this evening, but simply such facts
as I may be able to advance immediately in connection with my own
experience of slavery.
Now, what is this system of slavery? This is the subject
of my lecture this evening—what is the character of this
institution? I am about to answer the inquiry, what is American
slavery? I do this the more readily, since I have found persons
in this country who have identified the term slavery with that
which I think it is not, and in some instances, I have feared, in
so doing, have rather (unwittingly, I know) detracted much from
the horror with which the term slavery is contemplated. It is
common in this country to distinguish every bad thing by the
name of slavery. Intemperance is slavery; to be deprived of the
right to vote is slavery, says one; to have to work hard is
slavery, says another; and I do not know but that if we should
let them go on, they would say that to eat when we are hungry, to
walk when we desire to have exercise, or to minister to our
necessities, or have necessities at all, is slavery. I do not
wish for a moment to detract from the horror with which the evil
of intemperance is contemplated—not at all; nor do I wish to
throw the slightest obstruction in the way of any political
freedom that any class of persons in this country may desire to
obtain. But I am here to say that I think the term slavery is
sometimes abused by identifying it with that which it is not.
Slavery in the United States is the granting of that power by
which one man exercises and enforces a right of property in the
body and soul of another. The condition of a slave is simply
that of the brute beast. He is a piece of property—a marketable
commodity, in the language of the law, to be bought or sold at
the will and caprice of the master who claims him to be his
property; he is spoken of, thought of, and treated as property.
His own good, his conscience, his intellect, his affections, are
all set aside by the master. The will and the wishes of the
master are the law of the slave. He is as much a piece of
property as a horse. If he is fed, he is fed because he is
property. If he is clothed, it is with a view to the increase of
his value as property. Whatever of comfort is necessary to him
for his body or soul that is inconsistent with his being
property, is carefully wrested from him, not only by public
opinion, but by the law of the country. He is carefully deprived
of everything that tends in the slightest degree to detract from
his value as property. He is deprived of education. God has
given him an intellect; the slaveholder declares it shall not be
cultivated. If his moral perception leads him in a course
contrary to his value as
property, the slaveholder declares he
shall not exercise it. The marriage institution cannot exist
among slaves, and one-sixth of the population of democratic
America is denied its privileges by the law of the land. What is
to be thought of a nation boasting of its liberty, boasting of
its humanity, boasting of its Christianity, boasting of its love
of justice and purity, and yet having within its own borders
three millions of persons denied by law the right of marriage?—what must be the condition of that people? I need not lift up
the veil by giving you any experience of my own. Every one that
can put two ideas together, must see the most fearful results
from such a state of things as I have just mentioned. If any of
these three millions find for themselves companions, and prove
themselves honest, upright, virtuous persons to each other, yet
in these
cases—few as I am bound to confess they are—the
virtuous live in constant apprehension of being torn asunder by
the merciless men-stealers that claim them as their property.
This is American slavery; no marriage—no education—the light of
the gospel shut out from the dark mind of the bondman—and he
forbidden by law to learn to read. If a mother shall teach her
children to read, the law in Louisiana proclaims that she may be
hanged by the neck. If the father attempt to give his son a
knowledge of letters, he may be punished by the whip in one
instance, and in another be killed, at the discretion of the
court. Three millions of people shut out from the light of
knowledge! It is easy for you to conceive the evil that must
result from such a state of things.
I now come to the physical evils of slavery. I do not
wish to dwell at length upon these, but it seems right to speak
of them, not so much to influence your minds on this question, as
to let the slaveholders of America know that the curtain which
conceals their crimes is being lifted abroad; that we are opening
the dark cell, and leading the people into the horrible recesses
of what they are pleased to call their domestic institution. We
want them to know that a knowledge of their whippings, their
scourgings, their brandings, their chainings, is not confined to
their plantations, but that some Negro of theirs has broken loose
from his chains—has burst through the dark incrustation of
slavery, and is now exposing their deeds of deep damnation to the
gaze of the christian people of England.
The slaveholders resort to all kinds of cruelty. If I
were disposed, I have matter enough to interest you on this
question for
five or six evenings, but I will not dwell at length
upon these cruelties. Suffice it to say, that all of the
peculiar modes of torture that were resorted to in the West India
islands, are resorted to, I believe, even more frequently, in the
United States of America. Starvation, the bloody whip, the
chain, the gag, the thumb-screw, cat-hauling, the cat-o'-nine-tails, the dungeon, the blood-hound, are all in requisition to
keep the slave in his condition as a slave in the United States.
If any one has a doubt upon this point, I would ask him to read
the chapter on slavery in Dickens's
Notes on America. If
any man has a doubt upon it, I have here the "testimony of a
thousand witnesses," which I can give at any length, all going to
prove the truth of my statement. The blood-hound is regularly
trained in the United States, and advertisements are to be found
in the southern papers of the Union, from persons advertising
themselves as blood-hound trainers, and offering to hunt down
slaves at fifteen dollars a piece, recommending their hounds as
the fleetest in the neighborhood, never known to fail.
Adver
tisements are from time to time inserted, stating that
slaves have escaped with iron collars about their necks, with
bands of iron about their feet, marked with the lash, branded
with red-hot irons, the initials of their master's name burned
into their flesh; and the masters advertise the fact of their
being thus branded with their own signature, thereby proving to
the world, that, however damning it may appear to non-slavers,
such practices are not regarded discreditable among the
slaveholders themselves. Why, I believe if a man should brand
his horse in this country—burn the initials of his name into any
of his cattle, and publish the ferocious deed here—that the
united execrations of Christians in Britain would descend upon
him. Yet in the United States, human beings are thus branded.
As Whittier says—
". . . Our countrymen in chains,
The whip on woman's shrinking flesh,
Our soil yet reddening with the stains
Caught from her scourgings warm and fresh."
The slave-dealer boldly publishes his infamous acts to the
world. Of all things that have been said of slavery to which
exception has been taken by slaveholders, this, the charge of
cruelty, stands foremost, and yet there is no charge capable of
clearer demonstration, than that of the most barbarous inhumanity
on the part of the slaveholders
toward their slaves. And all
this is necessary; it is necessary to resort to these cruelties,
in order to
make the slave a slave, and to
keep him a
slave. Why, my experience all goes to prove the truth of
what you will call a marvelous proposition, that the better you
treat a slave, the more you destroy his value
as a slave,
and enhance the probability of his eluding the grasp of the
slaveholder; the more kindly you treat him, the more wretched you
make him, while you keep him in the condition of a slave. My
experience, I say, confirms the truth of this proposition. When
I was treated exceedingly ill; when my back was being scourged
daily; when I was whipped within an inch of my life—
life
was all I cared for. "Spare my life," was my continual prayer.
When I was looking for the blow about to be inflicted upon my
head, I was not thinking of my liberty; it was my life. But, as
soon as the blow was not to be feared, then came the longing for
liberty. If a slave has a bad master, his ambition is to get a
better; when he gets a better, he aspires to have the best; and
when he gets the best, he aspires to be his own master. But the
slave must be brutalized to keep him as a slave. The slaveholder
feels this necessity. I admit this necessity. If it be right to
hold slaves at all, it is right to hold
them in the only way
in which they can be held; and this can be done only by shutting
out the light of education from their minds, and brutalizing
their persons. The whip, the chain, the gag, the thumb-screw,
the blood-hound, the stocks, and all the other bloody
paraphernalia of the slave system, are indispensably necessary to
the relation of master and slave. The slave must be subjected to
these, or he ceases to be a slave. Let him know that the whip is
burned; that the fetters have been turned to some useful and
profitable employment; that the chain is no longer for his limbs;
that the blood-hound is no longer to be put upon his track; that
his master's authority over him is no longer to be enforced by
taking his life—and immediately he walks out from the house of
bondage and asserts his freedom as a man. The slaveholder finds
it necessary to have these implements to keep the slave in
bondage; finds it necessary to be able to say, "Unless you do so
and so; unless you do as I bid you—I will take away your life!"
Some of the most awful scenes of cruelty are constantly
taking place in the middle states of the Union. We have in those
states what are called the slave-breeding states. Allow me to
speak plainly. Although it is harrowing to your feelings, it is
necessary
that the facts of the case should be stated. We have
in the United States slave-breeding states. The very state from
which the minister from our court to yours comes, is one of these
states—Maryland, where men, women, and children are reared for
the market, just as horses, sheep, and swine are raised for the
market. Slave-rearing is there looked upon as a legitimate
trade; the law sanctions it, public opinion upholds it, the
church does not condemn it. It goes on in all its bloody
horrors, sustained by the auctioneer's block. If you would see
the cruelties of this system, hear the following narrative. Not
long since the following scene occurred. A slave-woman and a
slaveman had united themselves as man and wife in the absence of
any law to protect them as man and wife. They had lived together
by the permission, not by right, of their master, and they had
reared a family. The master found it expedient, and for his
interest, to sell them. He did not ask them their wishes in
regard to the matter at all; they were not consulted. The man
and woman were brought to the auctioneer's block, under the sound
of the hammer. The cry was raised, "Here goes; who bids cash?"
Think of it—a man and wife to be sold! The woman was placed on
the auctioneer's block; her limbs, as is customary, were brutally
exposed to the purchasers, who examined her with all the freedom
with which they would examine a horse. There stood the husband,
powerless; no right to his wife; the master's right preeminent.
She was sold. He was next
brought to the auctioneer's
block. His eyes followed his wife in the distance; and he looked
beseechingly, imploringly, to the man that had bought his wife,
to buy him also. But he was at length bid off to another person.
He was about to be separated forever from her he loved. No word
of his, no work of his, could save him from this separation. He
asked permission of his new master to go and take the hand of his
wife at parting. It was denied him. In the agony of his soul he
rushed from the man who had just bought him, that he might take a
farewell of his wife; but his way was obstructed, he was struck
over the head with a loaded whip, and was held for a moment; but
his agony was too great. When he was let go, he fell a corpse at
the feet of his master. His heart was broken. Such scenes are
the everyday fruits of American slavery. Some two years since,
the Hon. Seth. M. Gates, an anti-slavery gentleman of the state
of New York, a representative in the congress of the United
States, told me he saw with his own eyes the following
circumstances. In the national
District of Columbia, over which
the star-spangled emblem is constantly waving, where orators are
ever holding forth on the subject of American liberty, American
democracy, American republicanism, there are two slave prisons.
When going across a bridge, leading to one of these prisons, he
saw a young woman run out, bare-footed and bare-headed, and with
very little clothing on. She was running with all speed to the
bridge he was approaching. His eye was fixed upon her, and he
stopped to see what was the matter. He had not paused long
before he saw three men run out after her. He now knew what the
nature of the case was; a slave escaping from her chains—a young
woman, a sister—escaping from the bondage in which she had been
held. She made her way to the bridge, but had not reached, ere
from the Virginia side there came two slaveholders. As soon as
they saw them, her pursuers called out, "Stop her!" True to
their Virginian instincts, they came to the rescue of their
brother kidnappers, across the bridge. The poor girl now saw
that there was no chance for her. It was a trying time. She
knew if she went back, she must be a slave forever—she must be
dragged down to the scenes of pollution which the slaveholders
continually provide for most of the poor, sinking, wretched young
women, whom they call their property. She formed her resolution;
and just as those who were about to take her, were going to put
hands upon her, to drag her back, she leaped over the balustrades
of the bridge, and down she went to rise no more. She chose
death, rather than to go back into the hands of those christian
slaveholders from whom she had escaped.
Can it be possible that such things as these exist in the
United States?
Are not these the exceptions? Are any such
scenes as this general? Are not such deeds condemned by the law
and denounced by public opinion? Let me read to you a few of the
laws of the slaveholding states of America. I think no better
exposure of slavery can be made than is made by the laws of the
states in which slavery exists. I prefer reading the laws to
making any statement in confirmation of what I have said myself;
for the slaveholders cannot object to this testimony, since it is
the calm, the cool, the deliberate enactment of their wisest
heads, of their most clear-sighted, their own constituted
representatives. "If more than seven slaves together are found
in any road without a white person, twenty lashes a piece; for
visiting a plantation without a written pass, ten lashes; for
letting loose a boat from where it is made
fast, thirty-nine
lashes for the first offense; and for the second, shall have cut
off from his head one ear; for keeping or carrying a club,
thirty-nine lashes; for having any article for sale, without a
ticket from his master, ten lashes; for traveling in any other
than the most usual and accustomed road, when going alone to any
place, forty lashes; for traveling in the night without a pass,
forty lashes." I am afraid you do not understand the awful
character of these lashes. You must bring it before your mind.
A human being in a perfect state of nudity, tied hand and foot to
a stake, and a strong man standing behind with a heavy whip,
knotted at the end, each blow cutting into the flesh, and leaving
the warm blood dripping to the feet; and for these trifles. "For
being found in another person's negro-quarters, forty lashes; for
hunting with dogs in the woods, thirty lashes; for being on
horseback without the written permission of his master, twenty-five lashes; for riding or going abroad in the night, or riding
horses in the day time, without leave, a slave may be whipped,
cropped, or branded in the cheek with the letter R. or otherwise
punished, such punishment not extending to life, or so as to
render him unfit for labor." The laws referred to, may be found
by consulting
Brevard's Digest; Haywood's Manual; Virginia
Revised Code; Prince's Digest; Missouri Laws; Mississippi Revised
Code. A man, for going to visit his brethren, without the
permission of his master—and in many instances he may not have
that permission; his master, from caprice or other reasons, may
not be willing to allow it—may be caught on his way, dragged to
a post, the branding-iron heated, and the name of his master or
the letter R branded into his cheek or on his forehead. They
treat slaves thus, on the principle that they must punish for
light offenses, in order to prevent the commission of larger
ones. I wish you to mark that in the single state of Virginia
there are seventy-one crimes for which a colored man may be
executed; while there are only three of
these crimes, which,
when committed by a white man, will subject him to that
punishment. There are many of these crimes which if the white
man did not commit, he would be regarded as a scoundrel and a
coward. In the state of Maryland, there is a law to this effect:
that if a slave shall strike his master, he may be hanged, his
head severed from his body, his body quartered, and his head and
quarters set up in the most prominent places in the neighborhood.
If a colored woman, in the defense of her own virtue, in defense
of her own person, should shield
herself from the brutal attacks
of her tyrannical master, or make the slightest resistance, she
may be killed on the spot. No law whatever will bring the guilty
man to justice for the crime.
But you will ask me, can these things be possible in a
land professing Christianity? Yes, they are so; and this is not
the worst. No; a darker feature is yet to be presented than the
mere existence of these facts. I have to inform you that the
religion of the southern states, at this time, is the great
supporter, the great sanctioner of the bloody atrocities to which
I have referred. While America is printing tracts and bibles;
sending missionaries abroad to convert the heathen; expending her
money in various ways for the promotion of the gospel in foreign
lands—the slave not only lies forgotten, uncared for, but is
trampled under foot by the very churches of the land. What have
we in America? Why, we have slavery made part of the religion of
the land. Yes, the pulpit there stands up as the great defender
of this cursed institution, as it is called. Ministers of
religion come forward and torture the hallowed pages of inspired
wisdom to sanction the bloody deed. They stand forth as the
foremost, the strongest defenders of this "institution." As a
proof of this, I need not do more than state the general fact,
that slavery has existed under the droppings of the sanctuary of
the south for the last two hundred years, and there has not been
any war between the religion and the slavery of the
south. Whips, chains, gags, and thumb-screws have all lain under
the droppings of the sanctuary, and instead of rusting from off
the limbs of the bondman, those droppings have served to preserve
them in all their strength. Instead of preaching the gospel
against this tyranny, rebuke, and wrong, ministers of religion
have sought, by all and every means, to throw in the back-ground
whatever in the bible could be construed into opposition to
slavery, and to bring forward that which they could torture into
its support. This I conceive to be the darkest feature of
slavery, and the most difficult to attack, because it is
identified with religion, and exposes those who denounce it to
the charge of infidelity. Yes, those with whom I have been
laboring, namely, the old
organization anti-slavery society
of America, have been again and again stigmatized as infidels,
and for what reason? Why, solely in consequence of the
faithfulness of their attacks upon the slaveholding religion of
the southern states, and the northern religion that sympathizes
with it. I have found it difficult to speak on this matter
without persons coming forward and
saying, "Douglass, are you not
afraid of injuring the cause of Christ? You do not desire to do
so, we know; but are you not undermining religion?" This has
been said to me again and again, even since I came to this
country, but I cannot be induced to leave off these exposures. I
love the religion of our blessed Savior. I love that religion
that comes from above, in the "wisdom of God, which is first
pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of
mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.
I love that religion that sends its votaries to bind up the
wounds of him that has fallen among thieves. I love that
religion that makes it the duty of its disciples to visit the
father less and the widow in their affliction. I love that
religion that is based upon the glorious principle, of love to
God and love to man; which makes its followers do unto others as
they themselves would be done by. If you demand liberty to
yourself, it says, grant it to your neighbors. If you claim a
right to think for yourself, it says, allow your neighbors the
same right. If you claim to act for yourself, it says, allow
your neighbors the same right. It is because I love this
religion that I hate the slaveholding, the woman-whipping, the
mind-darkening, the soul-destroying religion that exists in the
southern states of America. It is because I regard the one as
good, and pure, and holy, that I cannot but regard the other as
bad, corrupt, and wicked. Loving the one I must hate the other;
holding to the one I must reject the other.
I may be asked, why I am so anxious to bring this subject
before the British public—why I do not confine my efforts to the
United States? My answer is, first, that slavery is the common
enemy of mankind, and all mankind should be made acquainted with
its abominable character. My next answer is, that the slave is a
man, and, as such, is entitled to your sympathy as a brother.
All the feelings, all the susceptibilities, all the capacities,
which you have, he has. He is a part of the human family. He
has been the prey—the common prey—of Christendom for the last
three hundred years, and it is but right, it is but just, it is
but proper, that his wrongs should be known throughout the world.
I have another reason for bringing this matter before the British
public, and it is this: slavery is a system of wrong, so blinding
to all around, so hardening to the heart, so corrupting to the
morals, so deleterious to religion, so sapping to all the
principles of justice in its immediate vicinity, that the
community surrounding it lack the moral
stamina necessary to its
removal. It is a system of such gigantic evil, so strong, so
overwhelming in its power, that no one nation is equal to its
removal. It requires the humanity of Christianity, the morality
of the world to remove it. Hence, I call upon the people of
Britain to look at this matter, and to exert the influence I am
about to show they possess, for the removal of slavery from
America. I can appeal to them, as strongly by their regard for
the slaveholder as for the slave, to labor in this cause. I am
here, because you have an influence on America that no other
nation can have. You have been drawn together by the power of
steam to a marvelous extent; the distance between London and
Boston is now reduced to some twelve or fourteen days, so that
the denunciations against slavery, uttered in London this week,
may be heard in a fortnight in the streets of Boston, and
reverberating amidst the hills of Massachusetts. There is
nothing said here against slavery that will not be recorded in
the United States. I am here, also, because the slaveholders do
not want me to be here; they would rather that I were not here.
I have adopted a maxim laid down by Napoleon, never to occupy
ground which the enemy would like me to occupy. The slaveholders
would much rather have me, if I will denounce slavery, denounce
it in the northern states, where their friends and supporters
are, who will stand by and mob me for denouncing it. They feel
something as the man felt, when he uttered his prayer, in which
he made out a most horrible case for himself, and one of his
neighbors touched him and said, "My friend, I always had the
opinion of you that you have now expressed for yourself—that you
are a very great sinner." Coming from himself, it was all very
well, but coming from a stranger it was rather cutting. The
slaveholders felt that when slavery was denounced among
themselves, it was not so bad; but let one of the slaves get
loose, let him summon the people of Britain, and make known to
them the conduct of the slaveholders toward their slaves, and it
cuts them to the quick, and produces a sensation such as would be
produced by nothing else. The power I exert now is something
like the power that is exerted by the man at the end of the
lever; my influence now is just in proportion to the distance
that I am from the United States. My exposure of slavery abroad
will tell more upon the hearts and consciences of slaveholders,
than if I was attacking them in America; for almost every paper
that I now receive from the United States, comes teeming with
statements about this fugitive Negro, calling
him a "glib-tongued
scoundrel," and saying that he is running out against the
institutions and people of America. I deny the charge that I am
saying a word against the institutions of America, or the
people, as such. What I have to say is against slavery and
slaveholders. I feel at liberty to speak on this subject. I
have on my back the marks of the lash; I have four sisters and
one brother now under the galling chain. I feel it my duty to
cry aloud and spare not. I am not averse to having the good
opinion of my fellow creatures. I am not averse to being kindly
regarded by all men; but I am bound, even at the hazard of making
a large class of religionists in this country hate me, oppose me,
and malign me as they have done—I am bound by the prayers, and
tears, and entreaties of three millions of kneeling bondsmen, to
have no compromise with men who are in any shape or form
connected with the slaveholders of America. I expose slavery in
this country, because to expose it is to kill it. Slavery is one
of those monsters of darkness to whom the light of truth is
death. Expose slavery, and it dies. Light is to slavery what
the heat of the sun is to the root of a tree; it must die under
it. All the slaveholder asks of me is silence. He does not ask
me to go abroad and preach
in favor of slavery; he does
not ask any one to do that. He would not say that slavery is a
good thing, but the best under the circumstances. The
slaveholders want total darkness on the subject. They want the
hatchway shut down, that the monster may crawl in his den of
darkness, crushing human hopes and happiness, destroying the
bondman at will, and having no one to reprove or rebuke him.
Slavery shrinks from the light; it hateth the light, neither
cometh to the light, lest its deeds should be reproved. To tear
off the mask from this abominable system, to expose it to the
light of heaven, aye, to the heat of the sun, that it may burn
and wither it out of existence, is my object in coming to this
country. I want the slaveholder surrounded, as by a wall of
anti-slavery fire, so that he may see the condemnation of himself
and his system glaring down in letters of light. I want him to
feel that he has no sympathy in England, Scotland, or Ireland;
that he has none in Canada, none in Mexico, none among the poor
wild Indians; that the voice of the civilized, aye, and savage
world is against him. I would have condemnation blaze down upon
him in every direction, till, stunned and overwhelmed with shame
and confusion, he is compelled to let go the grasp he holds upon
the persons of his victims, and restore them to their long-lost
rights.
DR. CAMPBELL'S REPLY.
From Rev. Dr. Campbell's brilliant reply we extract the
following:
FREDERICK DOUGLASS, the beast of burden," the portion
of "goods and chattels," the representative of three millions of
men, has been raised up! Shall I say the man? If
there is a man on earth, he is a man. My blood boiled within me
when I heard his address tonight, and thought that he had left
behind him three millions of such men.
We must see more of this man; we must have more of this
man. One would have taken a voyage round the globe some forty
years back—especially since the introduction of steam—to have
heard such an exposure of slavery from the lips of a slave. It
will be an era in the individual history of the present assembly.
Our children—our boys and girls—I have tonight seen the
delightful sympathy of their hearts evinced by their heaving
breasts, while their eyes sparkled with wonder and admiration,
that this black man—this slave—had so much logic, so much wit,
so much fancy, so much eloquence. He was something more than a
man, according to their little notions. Then, I say, we must
hear him again. We have got a purpose to accomplish. He has
appealed to the pulpit of England. The English pulpit is with
him. He has appealed to the press of England; the press of
England is conducted by English hearts, and that press will do
him justice. About ten days hence, and his second master, who
may well prize "such a piece of goods," will have the pleasure of
reading his burning words, and his first master will bless
himself that he has got quit of him. We have to create public
opinion, or rather, not to create it, for it is created already;
but we have to foster it; and when tonight I heard those
magnificent words—the words of Curran, by which my heart, from
boyhood, has ofttimes been deeply moved—I rejoice to think that
they embody an instinct of an Englishman's nature. I heard, with
inexpressible delight, how they told on this mighty mass of the
citizens of the metropolis.
Britain has now no slaves; we can therefore talk to the
other nations now, as we could not have talked a dozen years ago.
I want the whole of the London ministry to meet Douglass. For as
his appeal is to England, and throughout England, I should
rejoice in the
idea of churchmen and dissenters merging all
sectional distinctions in this cause. Let us have a public
breakfast. Let the ministers meet him; let them hear him; let
them grasp his hand; and let him enlist their sympathies on
behalf of the slave. Let him inspire them with abhorrence of the
man-stealer—the slaveholder. No slaveholding American shall
ever my cross my door. No slaveholding or slavery-supporting
minister shall ever pollute my pulpit. While I have a tongue to
speak, or a hand to write, I will, to the utmost of my power,
oppose these slaveholding men. We must have Douglass amongst us
to aid in fostering public opinion.
The great conflict with slavery must now take place in
America; and
while they are adding other slave states to the
Union, our business is to step forward and help the abolitionists
there. It is a pleasing circumstance that such a body of men has
risen in America, and whilst we hurl our thunders against her
slavers, let us make a distinction between those who advocate
slavery and those who oppose it. George Thompson has been there.
This man, Frederick Douglass, has been there, and has been compelled to flee. I wish, when he first set foot on our shores, he
had made a solemn vow, and said, "Now that I am free, and in the
sanctuary of freedom, I will never return till I have seen the
emancipation of my country completed." He wants to surround
these men, the slaveholders, as by a wall of fire; and he himself
may do much toward kindling it. Let him travel over the island—east, west, north, and south—everywhere diffusing knowledge and
awakening principle, till the whole nation become a body of
petitioners to America. He will, he must, do it. He must for a
season make England his home. He must send for his wife. He
must send for his children. I want to see the sons and daughters
of such a sire. We, too, must do something for him and them
worthy of the English name. I do not like the idea of a man of
such mental dimensions, such moral courage, and all but
incomparable talent, having his own small wants, and the wants of
a distant wife and children, supplied by the poor profits of his
publication, the sketch of his life. Let the pamphlet be bought
by tens of thousands. But we will do something more for him,
shall we not?
It only remains that we pass a resolution of thanks to
Frederick Douglass, the slave that was, the man that is! He that
was covered with chains, and that is now being covered with
glory, and whom we will send back a gentleman.
[[10]]
Mr. Douglass' published speeches alone, would fill two
volumes of the size of this. Our space will only permit the
insertion of the extracts which follow; and which, for
originality of thought, beauty and force of expression, and for
impassioned, indignatory eloquence, have seldom been equaled.