THE INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE.
Extract from an Oration, at Rochester, July 5, 1852.
Take the American slave trade, which, we are told by the
papers, is especially prosperous just now. Ex-senator Benton
tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. He
mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. This
trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. It
is carried on in all the large towns and cities in one-half of
this confederacy; and millions are pocketed every year by dealers
in this horrid traffic. In several states this trade is a chief
source of wealth. It is called (in contradistinction to the
foreign slave trade) "the internal slave trade." It is,
probably, called so, too, in order to divert from it the horror
with which the foreign slave trade is contemplated. That trade
has long since been denounced by this government as piracy. It
has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of
the nation, as an execrable traffic. To arrest it, to put an end
to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the
coast of Africa. Everywhere in this country, it is safe to speak
of this foreign slave trade as a most inhuman traffic, opposed
alike to the laws of God and of man. The duty to extirpate and
destroy it is admitted even by our doctors of divinity.
In order to put an end to it, some of these last have consented
that their colored brethren (nominally free) should leave this
country, and establish themselves on the western coast of Africa.
It is, however, a notable fact, that, while so much execration is
poured out by Americans, upon those engaged in the foreign slave
trade, the men engaged in the slave trade between the states pass
without condemnation, and their business is deemed honorable.
Behold the practical operation of this internal slave
trade—the American slave trade sustained by American politics
and American religion! Here you will see men and women reared
like swine for the market. You know what is a swine-drover? I
will show you
a man-drover. They inhabit all our southern
states. They perambulate the country, and crowd the
highways of the nation with droves of human stock. You will
see one of these human-flesh-jobbers, armed with pistol, whip,
and bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men, women, and
children, from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans.
These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit
purchasers. They are food for the cotton-field and the deadly
sugar-mill. Mark the sad procession as it moves wearily along,
and the inhuman wretch who drives them. Hear his savage yells
and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted
captives. There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray.
Cast one glance, if you please, upon that young mother, whose
shoulders are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling
on the brow of the babe in her arms. See, too, that girl of
thirteen, weeping, yes, weeping, as she thinks of the mother from
whom she has been torn. The drove moves tardily. Heat and
sorrow have nearly consumed their strength. Suddenly you hear a
quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and
the chain rattles simultaneously; your ears are saluted with a
scream that seems to have torn its way to the center of your
soul. The crack you heard was the sound of the slave whip; the
scream you heard was from the woman you saw with the babe. Her
speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains;
that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Follow this
drove to New Orleans. Attend the auction; see men examined like
horses; see the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the
shocking gaze of American slave-buyers. See this drove sold and
separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose
from that scattered multitude. Tell me, citizens, where, under
the sun, can you witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking.
Yet this is but a glance at the American slave trade, as it
exists at this moment, in the ruling part of the United States.
I was born amid such sights and scenes. To me the
American slave trade is a terrible reality. When a child, my
soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. I lived on
Philpot street, Fell's Point, Baltimore, and have watched from
the wharves the slave ships in the basin, anchored from the
shore, with their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorable
winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. There was, at that time,
a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt street, by Austin
Woldfolk. His agents were
sent into every town and county in
Maryland, announcing their arrival through the papers, and on
flaming hand-bills, headed, "cash for negroes." These men were
generally well dressed, and very captivating in their manners;
ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. The fate of
many a slave has depended upon the turn of a single card; and
many a child has been snatched from the arms of its mothers by
bargains arranged in a state of brutal drunkenness.
The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and
drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. When a
sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered,
for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile or to New
Orleans. From the slave-prison to the ship, they are usually
driven in the darkness of night; for since the anti-slavery
agitation a certain caution is observed.
In the deep, still darkness of midnight, I have been often
aroused by the dead, heavy footsteps and the piteous cries of the
chained gangs that passed our door. The anguish of my boyish
heart was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my
mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very
wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the
heart-rending cries. I was glad to find one who sympathized with
me in my horror.
Fellow citizens, this murderous traffic is to-day in
active operation in this boasted republic. In the solitude of my
spirit, I see clouds of dust raised on the highways of the south;
I see the bleeding footsteps; I hear the doleful wail of fettered
humanity, on the way to the slave markets, where the victims are
to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the
highest bidder. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly
broken, to gratify the lust, caprice, and rapacity of the buyers
and sellers of men. My soul sickens at the sight.
"Is this the land your fathers loved?
The freedom which they toiled to win?
Is this the earth whereon they moved?
Are these the graves they slumber in?
But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous
state of things remains to be presented. By an act of the
American congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been
nationalized in its
most horrible and revolting form. By that
act, Mason and Dixon's line has been obliterated; New York has
become as Virginia; and the power to hold, hunt, and sell men,
women, and children as slaves, remains no longer a mere state
institution, but is now an institution of the whole United
States. The power is coextensive with the star-spangled banner
and American christianity. Where these go, may also go the
merciless slave-hunter. Where these are, man is not sacred. He
is a bird for the sportsman's gun. By that most foul and
fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every
man are put in peril. Your broad republican domain is a
hunting-ground for
men. Not for thieves and robbers,
enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. Your
law-makers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this
hellish sport. Your president, your secretary of state, your
lords, nobles, and ecclesiastics, enforce as a duty you owe to
your free and glorious country and to your God, that you do this
accursed thing. Not fewer than forty Americans have within the
past two years been hunted down, and without a moment's warning,
hurried away in chains, and consigned to slavery and excruciating
torture. Some of these have had wives and children dependent on
them for bread; but of this no account was made. The right of
the hunter to his prey, stands superior to the right of marriage,
and to
all rights in this republic, the rights of God
included! For black men there are neither law, justice,
humanity, nor religion. The fugitive slave law makes MERCY TO
THEM A CRIME; and bribes the judge who tries them. An American
judge GETS TEN DOLLARS FOR EVERY VICTIM HE CONSIGNS to slavery,
and five, when he fails to do so. The oath of and two
villains is sufficient, under this hell-black enactment, to send
the most pious and exemplary black man into the remorseless jaws
of slavery! His own testimony is nothing. He can bring no
witnesses for himself. The minister of American justice is bound
by the law to hear but
one side, and that side is the side
of the oppressor. Let this damning fact be perpetually told.
Let it be thundered around the world, that, in tyrant-killing,
king hating, people-loving, democratic, Christian America, the
seats of justice are filled with judges, who hold their office
under an open and palpable
bribe, and are bound, in
deciding in the case of a man's liberty,
to hear only his
accusers!
In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of
the forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap
the defenseless,
and in diabolical intent, this fugitive slave
law stands alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation. I
doubt if there be another nation on the globe having the brass
and the baseness to put such a law on the statute-book. If any
man in this assembly thinks differently from me in this matter,
and feels able to disprove my statements, I will gladly confront
him at any suitable time and place he may select.