Faithfully yours,



The Dishonor of Labor.

The fundamental, essential cause of slavery and its concomitants, ignorance, degradation and suffering on the one side, as of idleness, prodigality and luxury-born disease on the other, is a false idea of the nature and offices of Labor.

Labor is not truly a curse, as has too long been asserted. It only becomes such through human perverseness, misconception and sin. It was no curse to the first pair in Eden, and will not be to their descendants, whenever and wherever the spirit of Eden shall pervade them. It is only a curse because too many seek to engross the product of others' work, yet do little or none themselves. If the secret were but out, that no man can really enjoy more than his own moderate daily labor would produce, and none can truly enjoy this without doing the work, the death-knell of Slavery in general—in its subtler as well as its grosser forms—would be rung. Until that truth shall be thoroughly diffused, the cunning and strong will be able to prey upon the simple and feeble, whether the latter be called slaves or something else.



The great reform required is not a work of hours nor of days, but of many years. It must first pervade our literature, and thence our current ideas and conversation, before it can be infused into the common life. Meanwhile, it would be well to remember that—

Every man who exchanges business for idleness, not because he has become too old or infirm to work, but because he has become rich enough to live without work;

Every man who educates his son for a profession, rather than a mechanical or agricultural calling, not because of that son's supposed fitness for the former rather than the latter, but because he imagines Law, Physic or Preaching, a more respectable, genteel vocation, than building houses or growing grain;

Every maiden who prefers in marriage a rich suitor of doubtful morals or scanty brains to a poor one, of sound principles, blameless life, good information and sound sense; Every mother who is pleased when her daughter receives marked attention from a rich lawyer or merchant, but frowns on the addresses of a young farmer or artisan of slender property, but of well-stored mind, good character and industrious, provident habits;

Every young man who, in choosing the sharer of his fireside and the future mother of his children, is less solicitous as to what she is good for, than as to how much she is worth;

Every youth who is trained to regard little work and much recompense—short business-hours and long dinners—as the chief ends of exertion and as assurances of a happy life;

Every teacher who thinks more of the wages than of the opportunities for usefulness afforded by his or her vocation;

Every rich Abolitionist, who is ashamed of being caught by distinguished visiters while digging in his garden or plowing in the field, and wishes them to understand that he so works, not for occupation, but for pastime; and

Every Abolition lecturer who would send a hireling two miles after a horse, whereon to ride three miles to fulfil his next appointment respectably; Though meaning no such thing, and perhaps shocked when it is suggested, is a practical and powerful upholder of the continued enslavement of our fellow-men.

In the faith of the "good time coming," I remain yours,

HORACE GREELEY.

NEW YORK, Nov. 7, 1853.



The Evils of Colonization

I speak the words of soberness and truth when I say, that the most inveterate, the most formidable, the deadliest enemy of the peace, prosperity, and happiness of the colored population of the United States, is that system of African colonization which originated in and is perpetuated by a worldly, Pharoah-like policy beneath the dignity of a magnanimous and Christian people;—a system which receives much of its vitality from ad captandum appeals to popular prejudices, and to the unholy, grovelling passions of the canaille;—a system that interposes every possible obstacle in the way of the improvement and elevation of the colored man in the land of his birth;—that instigates the enactment of laws whose design and tendency are obviously to annoy him, to make him feel, while at home, that he is a stranger and a pilgrim—nay more,—to make him "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked;"—to make him "a hissing and a by-word," "a fugitive and a vagabond" throughout the American Union;—a system that is so irreconcilably opposed to the purpose of God in making "of one blood all nations for to dwell on all the face of the earth," that when the dying slaveholder, under the lashes of a guilty conscience, would give to his slaves unqualified freedom, it wickedly interposes, and persuades him that "to do justly and love mercy" would be to inflict an irreparable injury upon the community, and that to do his duty to God and his fellow-creatures, under the circumstances, he should bequeath to his surviving slaves the cruel alternative of either expatriation to a far-off, pestilential clime, with the prospect of a premature death, or perpetual slavery, with its untold horrors, in his native land. Against this most iniquitous system of persecution and proscription of an inoffensive people, for no other reason than that we wear the physical exterior given us in infinite wisdom and benevolence, I would record, nay engrave with the pen of a diamond, my most emphatic and solemn protest; more especially would I do so, as the system, under animadversion, is most inconsistently fostered, and shamelessly lauded, by ministers of the gospel in the nineteenth century, as a scheme of Christian philanthropy! "O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united."



TORONTO, C. W., Oct. 31st.



The Basis of the American Constitution

"Happy," (said Washington, when announcing the treaty of peace to the army,) "thrice happy shall they be pronounced hereafter, who shall have contributed anything, who shall have performed the meanest office in erecting this stupendous fabric of freedom and empire on the broad basis of independency, who shall have assisted in protecting the Rights of Human Nature, and establishing an asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions."

You remember well that the Revolutionary Congress in the declaration of independence placed the momentous controversy between the Colonies and Great Britain on the absolute and inherent equality of all men. It is not, however, so well understood that that body closed its existence on the adoption of the Federal Constitution with this solemn injunction, addressed to the people of the United States: "Let it be remembered that it has ever been the pride and boast of America, that the Rights for which she contended were the Rights of Human Nature."

No one will contend that our Fathers, after effecting the Revolution and the independence of their country, by proclaiming this system of beneficent political philosophy, established an entirely different one in the constitution assigned to its government. This philosophy, then, is the basis of the American Constitution.

It is, moreover, a true philosophy, deduced from the nature of man and the character of the Creator. If there were no supreme law, then the world would be a scene of universal anarchy, resulting from the eternal conflict of peculiar institutions and antagonistic laws. There being such a universal law, if any human constitution and laws differing from it could have any authority, then that universal law could not be supreme. That supreme law is necessarily based on the equality of nations, of races, and of men. It is a simple, self-evident basis. One nation, race, or individual, may not oppress or injure another, because the safety and welfare of each is essential to the common safety and welfare of all. If all are not equal and free, then who is entitled to be free, and what evidence of his superiority can he bring from nature or revelation? All men necessarily have a common interest in the promulgation and maintenance of these principles, because it is equally in the nature of men to be content with the enjoyment of their just rights, and to be discontented under the privation of them. Just so far as these principles practically prevail, the stringency of government is safely relaxed, and peace and harmony obtain. But men cannot maintain these principles, or even comprehend them, without a very considerable advance in knowledge and virtue. The law of nations, designed to preserve peace among mankind, was unknown to the ancients. It has been perfected in our own times, by means of the more general dissemination of knowledge and practice of the virtues inculcated by Christianity. To disseminate knowledge, and to increase virtue therefore among men, is to establish and maintain the principles on which the recovery and preservation of their inherent natural rights depend; and the State that does this most faithfully, advances most effectually the common cause of Human Nature.

For myself, I am sure that this cause is not a dream, but a reality. Have not all men consciousness of a property in the memory of human transactions available for the same great purposes, the security of their individual rights, and the perfection of their individual happiness? Have not all men a consciousness of the same equal interest in the achievements of invention, in the instructions of philosophy, and in the solaces of music and the arts? And do not these achievements, instructions, and solaces, exert everywhere the same influences, and produce the same emotions in the bosoms of all men? Since all languages are convertible into each other, by correspondence with the same agents, objects, actions, and emotions, have not all men practically one common language? Since the constitutions and laws of all societies are only so many various definitions of the rights and duties of men as those rights and duties are learned from Nature and Revelation, have not all men practically one code of moral duty? Since the religions of men, in their various climes, are only so many different forms of their devotion towards a Supreme and Almighty Power entitled to their reverence and receiving it under the various names of Jehovah, Jove, and Lord, have not all men practically one religion? Since all men are seeking liberty and happiness for a season here, and to deserve and so to secure more perfect liberty and happiness somewhere in a future world, and, since they all substantially agree that these temporal and spiritual objects are to be attained only through the knowledge of truth and the practice of virtue, have not mankind practically one common pursuit through one common way of one common and equal hope and destiny?

If there had been no such common Humanity as I have insisted upon, then the American people would not have enjoyed the sympathies of mankind when establishing institutions of civil and religious liberty here, nor would their establishment here have awakened in the nations of Europe and of South America desires and hopes of similar institutions there. If there had been no such common Humanity, then we should not ever, since the American Revolution, have seen human society throughout the world divided into two parties, the high and the low—the one perpetually foreboding and earnestly hoping the downfall, and the other as confidently predicting and as sincerely desiring, the durability of Republican Institutions. If there had been no such common Humanity, then we should not have seen this tide of emigration from insular and continental Europe flowing into our country through the channels of the St. Lawrence, the Hudson, and the Mississippi,—ebbing, however, always with the occasional rise of the hopes of freedom abroad, and always swelling again into greater volume when those premature hopes subside. If there were no such common Humanity, then the poor of Great Britain would not be perpetually appealing to us against the oppression of landlords on their farms and work-masters in their manufactories and mines; and so, on the other hand, we should not be, as we are now, perpetually framing apologies to mankind for the continuance of African slavery among ourselves. If there were no such common Humanity, then the fame of Wallace would have long ago died away in his native mountains, and the name even of Washington would at most have been only a household word in Virginia, and not as it is now, a watchword of Hope and Progress throughout the world.

If there had been no such common Humanity, then when the civilization of Greece and Rome had been consumed by the fires of human passion, the nations of modern Europe could never have gathered from among its ashes the philosophy, the arts, and the religion, which were imperishable, and have reconstructed with those materials that better civilization, which, amid the conflicts and fall of political and ecclesiastical systems, has been constantly advancing towards perfection in every succeeding age. If there had been no such common Humanity, then the dark and massive Egyptian obelisk would not have everywhere reappeared in the sepulchral architecture of our own times, and the light and graceful orders of Greece and Italy would not as now have been the models of our villas and our dwellings, nor would the simple and lofty arch and the delicate tracery of Gothic design have been as it now is, everywhere consecrated to the service of religion.

If there had been no such common humanity, then would the sense of the obligation of the Decalogue have been confined to the despised nation who received it from Mount Sinai, and the prophecies of Jewish seers and the songs of Jewish bards would have perished forever with their temple, and never afterwards could they have become as they now are, the universal utterance of the spiritual emotions and hopes of mankind. If there had been no such common humanity, then certainly Europe and Africa, and even new America, would not, after the lapse of centuries, have recognized a common Redeemer, from all the sufferings and perils of human life, in a culprit who had been ignominiously executed in the obscure Roman province of Judea; nor would Europe have ever gone up in arms to Palestine, to wrest from the unbelieving Turk the tomb where that culprit had slept for only three days and nights after his descent from the cross,—much less would his traditionary instructions, preserved by fishermen and publicans, have become the chief agency in the renovation of human society, through after-coming ages.

WM. H. SEWARD.



A Wish.

"Could I embody and unbosom now, That which is most within me;—could I wreak My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings strong or weak, All that I would have sought, and all I seek, Bear, know, and feel, and breathe,—into one word, And that one word were lightning"—

I would speak it, not to crush the oppressor, but to melt the chains of slave and master, so that both should go free.



NEW YORK, November 8th, 1853.



A Dialogue.

SCENE.—A BREAKFAST TABLE.

MRS. GOODMAN, a widow. FRANK GOODMAN, her son. MR. FREEMAN, a Southern gentleman, brother to Mrs. Goodman. MR. DRYMAN, a boarder.

MR. FREEMAN. (Sipping his coffee and looking over the morning paper) reads—

"The performance of Uncle Tom's Cabin attracts to the theatre very unusual audiences. In the "genteel row" last evening, we observed the strictest religionists of the day, not excepting puritanic Presbyterians, and the sober disciples of Wesley and Fox. For ourselves, we must candidly confess we have never witnessed such a play upon all the emotions of which humanity is susceptible. Mrs. Stowe, however unworthy the name of Patriot, is at least entitled to the credit of seizing the great thought of the age, and embodying it in such a form as to make it presentable to every order of mind and every class of society. She says, in effect, to Legislators, let me furnish your amusements, and I care not who makes your laws."

* * * * *

Politicians would do well to look to this—(laying down the paper and speaking in a tone of impatience)—so, so, Fanaticism is leading to its legitimate results. Uncle Tom in our parlors, Uncle Tom in our pulpits, and Uncle Tom in our plays.

Mr. Dryman. Truly "he eateth with publicans and sinners."

Mr. F. (Not noticing Mr. D's remark.) One would think this last appropriation of the vaunted hero would be sufficient to convince the most radical of the demoralizing influence of these publications.

Frank. (Modestly.) How differently people judge. Why, last evening, when I saw crowds of the hardened and dissipated shedding tears of honest sympathy, when Uncle Tom and Eva sang,

"I see a band of spirits bright, And conquering palms they bear"—

I felt that the moral sentiment was asserting its supremacy even in places of amusement.

Mr. F. Worse and worse, my nephew and namesake a theatre-goer.

Mr. D. (In an under tone.) Namesake! "that's the unkindest cut of all."

Frank. Not exactly a theatre-goer, uncle, though I confess I might be, were the performance always as excellent as last evening.

Mrs. Goodman. Frank, my son, I hope thee will not attempt to drink from a dirty pool because a pure stream flows into it.

Frank. But the rank and file of Democracy drank deep libations to Liberty there, mother.

Mr. D. (Passing his cup.) "Drink deep or taste not of the Pierian spring."

Mr. F. (Sarcastically.) Take care, you'll be found using the products of slave labor!

Frank. (Jocosely.)

"Think how many backs have smarted, For the sweets," &c.

Take a bit of toast, Mr. Dryman, our northern products are perfectly innocent, you know?

Mr. D. (Helping himself bountifully.) "Ask no questions for conscience's sake."

Mr. F. The practice of you Northerners is consistent with your professions.

Mr. D. "Consistency, thou art a jewel!"

Frank. It is very hard to be consistent in this world, uncle. My mother once made a resolution to use nothing polluted by Intemperance or Oppression, but finding that it required her to take constant thought "what we should eat and drink, and wherewithal we should be clothed," she was fain to relax her discipline.

Mrs. G. Frank, thee must not transcend the truth in thy mirthfulness.

Frank. Well, mother, did not some experiment of the kind lead to the conclusion, that I might exercise my freedom in worldly amusements?

Mrs. G. Yes, my son, but thy enthusiasm about the theatre makes me fear I have gone beyond my light.

Mr. F. (Bitterly.) Never fear, sister, the young man will soon prove that Abolition Societies and Theatres are admirable schools of morals.

Frank. Uncle Tom at least has a good moral, and so has William Tell and Pizarro—indeed I do not remember of ever reading a play which had not.

Mr. F. (In a tone of irony.) When I see a young man spending his time at the theatre, in search of good morals, I think he "pays too dear for his whistle."

Mrs. G. And yet brother Frank speaks the truth. What success does thee think a play would meet, which should represent such a man as Uncle Tom yielding his principles and faith to the will of a Legree?

Mr. F. (With great asperity.) Do you, too, Rebecca, advocate theatres?

Mrs. G. It is not of theatres, but of books, that I am speaking. Does thee recollect any work, the whole plot and design of which is made to turn upon the triumph of the wicked over the good?

Mr. F. (Musing.) Why—I—don't remember now—

Frank. (In great surprise.) Why, mother, are there no books written in favor of Slavery?

Mrs. G. I cannot think of any book which can be said to be written for Slavery, in the sense that Uncle Tom's Cabin is written against it. Such a work is, I think, impossible. No poet would attempt to portray its moral aspects, and delineate its beauties, with the idea of exciting our admiration and approval.

Mr. F. Spoken just like a woman! Your sex always seize upon some thought gained through the sensibilities, and then bring in a decision without farther investigation.

Frank. And is not the instinct of a woman a more perfect guide in morals, than the reason of man?

Mr. F. (Sarcastically.) Certainly—if it direct her son to the theatre.

Mr. D. Or teach him the supremacy of the "Higher Law."

Frank. (With warmth.) My mother did not direct me to the theatre, sir; she has taught me to love better things;—to her I owe all the lofty sentiments of virtue and truth.

Mrs. G. Softly, softly Frank, theatres and Slavery will be quite sufficient for this discussion, without introducing Woman's Rights. (To Mr. Freeman.) Would it not be more consistent, brother, for thee to disprove my argument, than to object to my method of obtaining it?

Mr. F. Nothing can be easier—you have asserted in round terms that no work was ever written in favor of Slavery. What an absurdity! If you have any information you must know that the southern press groans with publications upon this topic.

Mrs. G. Still if thee examine the matter, thee will find that every one of these books treats Slavery as a curse, and describes it not as a good but an evil, of which each man loads the guilt upon his forefathers or his neighbors.

Mr. F. Granted they call it a curse, but assuredly they bring forward a defence.

Mrs. G. Yes, they defend the Constitution; they defend the rights of the south; they advocate Colonization, or point out the errors of Abolitionists, but what one in word or in effect advocates the principles of human Slavery? The truth is, brother, the system has the literature of the world against it; and the south ought to see in this reading age an infallible sign that the days of its cherished institutions are numbered. Does thee not perceive that every novel and every poem carries to the parlor, or, if it please thee, to the theatre, an influence which will eventually re-act on the ballot-box.

Frank. Do you mean, mother, to include in your remarks the discourses of Reverend Divines upon the Patriarchal Institution?

Mrs. G. I cannot except even these; for they acknowledge it an evil, though they contend it exists by divine ordination, just as they assert Original Sin to be the offspring of Eternal Decrees; but they no more convince the Slaveholder, that he loves his bondman as himself, than they convict him of the guilt of Adam's transgression.

Mr. F. What do you say to Webster's great speech on the compromise measure?

Mrs. G. (Pleasantly.) Is not the moral view of a question, about as far as a woman's instinct ought to go?

Mr. F. Oh, no; go on, your strictures are quite amusing.

Mrs. G. Well, then, since we have taken the position of a reviewer, we must confess that the last effort of the great Daniel appears to us to be on an Act of Congress.

Mr. D. And at the Presidential chair.

Mrs. G. (Continuing.) It did not touch the merits of slavery at all. Webster knew the feelings of the constituents too well to attempt such a task. He therefore skilfully diverted their attention from his real issue, to the glorious Union, and its danger from agitators, and he thus carried with him the sympathies of many honest haters of oppression.

Mr. F. Well, sister, I do not know but you will prove that there is not an advocate for slavery on the face of the earth.

Mrs. G. Only such advocates as there is for robbery and war. Those who find it for their interest to practice these crimes condemn them in the abstract, or at most only apologize for them, as necessary and expedient, under peculiar circumstances.

Frank. (Laughing.) Why, mother, I shall certainly subscribe for your "North American Review," particularly if you fill the literary department as ably as you have the moral and political, to test which, let me propound a question? If the reward of the good be the charm of fiction, how do you account for the pleasure derived from tragedy, where the good are overwhelmed with the evil?

Mrs. G. (Smiling.) With great diffidence we reply to the query of our learned friend. The force of tragedy consists in its depicting evil so ruinous as to involve even the innocent in the catastrophe; the pleasure is derived, we think, from the failure of the mischievous design, and the merited retribution which falls upon the head of the plotters. In Romeo, "a scourge is laid upon the hate of the Montagues and Capulets, by which all are punished;" Hamlet's wicked uncle is justly served, drinking the poison tempered by himself; and Iago pulls down ruin upon himself no less than upon Cassio.

Frank. (Bowing playfully.) Your review meets my entire approbation, inasmuch as it confirms my doctrine, that theatres always give their verdict in favor of virtue.

Mr. D. "Casting out devils through Beelzebub."

Mrs. G. The artistic effect of every work of the imagination is wrought upon what critics call the "sympathetic emotion of virtue," and the decisions of this faculty, so far as we understand them, always correspond with what Christians believe concerning the "final restitution of all things."

Frank. The theatre, then, ought to promote good morals—why does it not?

Mr. D.

"And many worthy men Maintained it might be turned to good account, And so perhaps it might, but never was."

Mrs. G. The "sympathetic emotion of virtue," not having an object, never rises to passion, and therefore never produces action. Philosophers tell us that a thought of virtue passing often through the mind, without being wrought out into a fact, weakens the moral sense; thus people may read the best of books, and witness the finest exhibitions of moral beauty, and constantly retrograde in virtue. The dissolute characters of players, who continually utter the loftiest sentiments, and practice the lowest vices, are accounted for on this principle; and we ought to judge the theatre as we do slavery, by its demoralizing effect upon those engaged in it.

Mr. F. Do you mean to say, Rebecca, that slaveholding has the same effect upon me that stage-playing has upon the actor?

Mrs. G. Well, brother, I put it to thy own conscience. Does thee not, daily, in dealing with thy slaves, stifle thy emotions of piety, generosity, and love, and is it not easier to do this now than it was twenty years ago, when, with a heart full of tenderness and truth, thee left us for thy southern home?

Mr. F. (Rising and pacing the room with great agitation.) Now, sister, you are going to introduce another absurdity! Do I practice the principles learned in the nursery? No, I do not! Do I believe "honesty is the best policy" and its kindred humbugs? Of course I don't! Show me the man who does? Do I follow the precepts of the sermon on the Mount? Not I! The man who should undertake to do so would make himself a perfect laughing-stock. I should like to see one of your northern hypocrites attempt it. Ha! ha! ha! "Lay not up treasure upon earth," and "take no thought for the morrow;" why, what else do people take thought for, either North or South? It is not what they shall eat, drink, or wear to-day, that worries them, but how they shall lay up something for themselves or their children hereafter. You silly women are always talking about righteousness, as if you really thought it could enter in human plans, but we men of the world, who have to wring the precious dollar from the hard hand of labor, know better! I tell you, Rebecca, I don't believe there is a business-man in your pious Quaker city even, who would dare acquaint his wife and daughters with all his little arrangements for amassing wealth. Ha! ha! ha! How the pretty things would stare at the tricks of the trade, and simper: "Is that right?" As though anybody thought business principles were gospel principles! As though they expected a man was going to love his neighbor as himself, when he was making a bargain with him! It provokes me to see you make yourself so ridiculous! You ought to know that every man acts on the principle, that "Wealth is the chief good;" and you ought to know, too, that there the slaveholders have the advantage of you entirely. They do right to work, and grind it out of the slaves on a large scale, and call Abraham and Moses to witness the patriarchal method, while your northern mercenaries scheme and speculate how they can turn a penny out of ignorance and poverty, and have not even the apology of a precedent for their meanness. Why, one of our generous southern planters is as far above one of your stingy shave-three-cents-on-a-yard-tradesmen, as Robin Hood is above a miserable tea-spoon burglar. The south sails under false colors, does it? What flag do your platform men give to the wind, I should like to know? What do they care for the Fugitive Slave Law? Half of them would help a runaway to Canada with as good a will as they'd eat their dinner. (Coming close and sitting down, so as to look fixedly in her face.) I'll tell you what, sister, the chivalry of the south responds to you northern Christians who prate so loud of brotherhood and charity, in the words of young Cancer to his mother—"Libenter tuis praeceptis obsequar, si te prius idem facientem videro."

Mrs. G. (very gently.) These strictures, brother, are too keenly just. They remind me of Kossuth's assertion, that there is not yet a Christian nation on the earth, nor yet a Christian church, that dare venture entirely upon the principles of the Gospel. Still, the aberration of reformers proves no more in favor of slavery, than the vices and miseries of civilized life prove that barbarism is the natural and happy state of the human race; nay, these very aberrations prove that a centripetal power counteracts the opposing force, and holds them within the genial influence of the sun of truth.

The law of spiritual gravitation is little understood. But thousands of philosophers are closely observing the phenomena, and carefully comparing them with the data given in the Sermon on the Mount; and it is not too much to hope that this generation will give to the world a Newton, whose moral mathematics shall demonstrate that the law of love is the true theory of individual and national prosperity.

Mr. F. Well, sister, I wish you much joy of your millennial state; but before the Sermon on the Mount becomes the code of nations, I guess you will find—

Mr. D. (interrupting.) "A little more grape, Captain Bragg!"

Frank. I tell you, uncle, "there's a good time coming." Mother is a prophet. I have watched her words all my life, and I never knew them fall to the ground.

Mrs. G. Observe, my friends, that the Sermon on the Mount puts blessing before requirement. If you accept these beatitudes as the gift of your Divine Master, you will find that obedience to the precepts which follow, is not the unwilling service of a bondsman, but the free and natural action of an unfranchised spirit.



CLOVER STREET SEM., November 10th, 1853.



A Time of Justice will Come

We are conscious of the odium that rests upon us. We feel that we are wronged; but we are not impatient for the righting of our wrongs. We bide our time. The men that shall come after us, will do us justice. The present generation of America cannot "judge righteous judgment," in the case of the uncompromising friends of freedom, religion, and law. They are so debauched and blinded by slavery, and by the perverse and low ideas of freedom, religion, and law, which it engenders, that they "call evil good, and good evil; put darkness for light, and light for darkness; put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter." They have been living out the lie of slavery so long, and have been, thereby, deadening their consciences so long, as to be now well nigh incapable of perceiving the wide and everlasting distinctions between truth and falsehood.

GERRITT SMITH.



Hope and Confidence.

O! What a strange thing is the human heart! With its youth, and its joy and fear! It doats upon creatures that day-dreams impart,— Full sorely it grieves when their beauties depart, And weeps bitter tears over their bier.

The veriest gleamings that dart into birth, Reveal to its being of light: The dimliest shadows that flit upon earth, Allure it, with promise of pleasure and mirth In a country, where never is night.

It leaves the sure things of its own real home, To pursue the mere phantoms of thought! Well knowing, that certain, there soon must come, An end to the visions, that so gladsome, It bewilder'd, has eagerly sought.



It fleeth the wholesome prose of life, With its riches all sure and told: And scorning the beauties, that calmly in strife Truth fashions, it longs for the things all rife With glitter, and color, and gold.

It buildeth its home 'neath an ever calm sky, Near streams wherein crown-jewels sleep,— And there it reposeth: while soothingly nigh, Some loved one, perchance, doth most wooingly sigh, As the zephyrs all full-laden creep.

Thus it musingly wasteth its strength, in dreams Of bliss, that can never prove true: And ever it revels amid what seems, A paradise smiling with Hope's warm beams, And flowers all spangled with dew.

But, even as flowers are broken and fade, And yield up their perfumes—their souls,— So vanish the colors of which dreams are made,— So perish the structures on which Hope is staid, And the treasures to which the heart holds.

In vain does it follow the wandering forms That promise, yet always recede:— Too briefly the sunshine is darken'd by storms: Hope minstrels it onward, yet never informs Of the dangers unseen, that impede.

The Heart trusts the outward: "Of man 'tis the whole." Thus Confidence clings to decay! It feels the sweet homage that riches control,— And laughs in contempt at the wealth of the soul: And behold! now, friends wait for their prey.

It trusteth in glory, and beauty, and youth,— In love-vows that ne'er are to die: But soon the Death-king, in whose heart is no ruth, Enfolds it,—and mounting aloft, of Truth Thus sings, as turns glassy the eye.

"There's nothing so lovely and bright below, As the shapes of the purified mind! Nought surer to which the weak heart can grow, On which it can rest, as it onward doth go, Than that Truth which its own tendrils bind.

"Yes! Truth opes within a pure sun-tide of bliss, And shows in its ever calm flood, A transcript of regions, where no darkness is, Where HOPE its conceptions may realize, And CONFIDENCE sleep in 'The Good.'"



A Letter that Speaks for Itself.

To T—— M——.

Disinterested benevolence, my dear sir, has nothing at all to do with abolitionism. Nay, I doubt very much if there is such a thing as disinterested benevolence; but be this as it may, there is no occasion for it in the anti-slavery ranks.

It is selfishness,—sheer selfishness, that has thus far carried on the war with slavery and wrong in all times; and selfishness must break the chains of the American slave.

Self-love has fixed the chain around the arm of every leader and every soldier in the American anti-slavery army. Where would William Lloyd Garrison have been to-day, if any combination of circumstances could have shut in his soul's deep hatred of oppression, and prevented its finding utterance in burning words? He would have been dead and rotten. It is necessary to his own existence that he should work,—work for the slave; and in his work he gratifies all the strongest instincts of his nature, more completely than even the grossest sensualist can gratify his, by unlimited indulgence.

Gerritt Smith, too. Suppose he was compelled to hoard his princely fortune, or spend it as most others do! O dear! what a dyspeptic we should have in six months; and all the hydropathic institutes in the country could never keep him alive five years.

John P. Hale would soon be done with his rotund person and jovial face, if he could no longer send the sharp arrows of his wit and sarcasm into the consciences of his human-whipping neighbors.

It is a necessity of all great nations to hate meanness, and nothing under God's heaven ever was so mean as American slavery. Think of it. Men who swagger around with pistols and bowie-knifes to avenge their insulted honor, if any one should question it,—imagine one turning up his sleeves to horsewhip an old woman for burning his steak, or pocketing her wages, earned at the wash-tub!

No one with a soul above that of a pig-louse, could help loathing the system, the instant he saw it in its native meanness. Then, in order to keep his own self-respect,—to gratify the love of the good and true in his own soul, he must express that loathing.

No disinterestedness about doing right, for nobody can be so much interested in the act as the doer of it.

Wrong-doing is the only possible self-abnegation, of which the whole range of thought admits.

All the humiliation and agony of the Saviour himself, were necessary to himself. Nothing less could have expressed the infinite love of the Divine nature; and in working out a most perfect righteousness for those he loved, he also wrought out a most perfect happiness for himself.

The eternal law of God links the happiness of all the creatures made in His image in an electric chain, united in the Divine love; and He, who has "a fellow-feeling for our infirmities," has given us a fellow-feeling with the sufferings of each other. So that no soul in which the Divine image is not totally obscured, can know of the misery of another, without a sympathetic throb of sorrow.

The true heart in Maine cannot know that the slave-mother in Georgia is weeping for her children, torn from her arms by avarice, without feeling her anguish palpitating in its inmost core.

It is the pulsations of the sympathetic heart which stretches out the hand to interfere between her and her aggressor; and abolitionists are just seeking a soft pillow that they may "sleep o' nights."

It is selfishness, I tell you, all selfishness! The great whale when she gives up her own large life to protect her young one, and the little wren when she carries all the nice tit bits to her babies, are as true to themselves as the old pig when she shoulders all her little family out of the trough.

The whale enjoys death, and the wren her little fellows' supper, with a better zest than an old grunter does her corn, and Wm. Gildersten in spending money and laboring to prevent any more scenes of brutal violence in his State, by punishing the one past, gratifies his own loves and longings quite as much as Judge Grier in grunting out his wrath against all lovers of liberty.

The one would enjoy being hanged for the cause of God and Humanity, more than the other would the luxury of hanging him, even if he could have all the pleasure to himself,—be not only judge and persecutor, as he prefers, but marshal, jailor, and hangman to boot.

More than this, every creature, so far as other creatures are concerned, has a right to be happy in his own way. Nero had as much right to wish for power to cut off all the heads in Italy at one blow, as an innocent pig to wish for capacity to eat all the corn in the world. Mankind has no right to punish either for the desire or its manifestation. They should only make fences to prevent the accomplishment of the wish.

Americans have no right to punish Judge Grier for wishing to persecute everybody who attempts to enforce State laws against murderous assaults by his officers. They should content themselves with fencing his Honor in, or, if necessary, putting a ring in his nose. He has as much right to be Judge Grier as George Washington had to be George Washington, and is no more selfish in following the instincts of his nature, than Washington was in following his.

Without any great respect, I am your friend,



On Freedom.

Once I wished I might rehearse Freedom's paean in my verse, That the slave who caught the strain Should throb until he snapt his chain. But the Spirit said, "Not so; Speak it not, or speak it low; Name not lightly to be said, Gift too precious to be prayed, Passion not to be exprest But by heaving of the breast; Yet,—would'st thou the mountain find Where this deity is shrined, Who gives the seas and sunset-skies Their unspent beauty of surprise, And, when it lists him, waken can Brute and savage into man; Or, if in thy heart he shine, Blends the starry fates with thine, Draws angels nigh to dwell with thee, And makes thy thoughts archangels be; Freedom's secret would'st thou know?— Right thou feelest rashly do.



Mary Smith,

AN ANTI-SLAVERY REMINISCENCE.

Some years ago a free colored woman, who was born in New England, and had gone to the south to attend upon some family, was shipwrecked, as she was returning northwards, on the coast of North Carolina. She, however, as well as some of the crew of the vessel, was saved. The half-civilized people of that region rendered some assistance to the shipwrecked party; but Mary Smith was detained by one of the natives as a slave.

The poor woman succeeded in getting a letter written to some person in Boston, in which the particulars of her story were narrated. Either this letter, or one afterwards written, contained references to people in Boston who were acquainted with her.

It was not very easy, even with these references, to get sufficient evidence to prove the freedom and identity of an obscure person, who had been away from Boston for some years. A strong interest, however, was felt in the case wherever it became known. And Rev. Samuel Snowden, well-remembered by the name of Father Snowden, with his usual indomitable energy and perseverance in aiding persons of his own color in distress, succeeded in finding people in Boston who were well acquainted with Mary Smith, and recollected her having left that place to go to the south. Pursuing his inquiries with great diligence, he ascertained the place of her birth, which was somewhere in New Hampshire. I forget the name of the town.

Affidavits were now procured, which established the place of Mary Smith's birth, her residence in Boston, and the time of her departure for the south, and other circumstances to corroborate her story.

Edward Everett, who was at this time Governor of Massachusetts, at the request of Mary Smith's friends, forwarded the documents they had obtained, accompanied with an urgent letter from himself, demanding her release from captivity, on the ground of her being a free citizen of Massachusetts.

The Governor of North Carolina replied very courteously to Governor Everett. He admitted the right of the woman to her freedom, and acknowledged that no person in North Carolina could lawfully detain her as a slave. But, at the same time he said, that as Governor, he had no power to interfere with the person who held her in custody. The decision on her right to freedom, depended on another department of the government. He promised, however, to write to the man who held her, and solicit her release.

The remonstrances of the Governor of North Carolina proved successful. Mary Smith soon arrived in Boston. And some of her old acquaintances who had given the evidence which led to her release, hastened to meet her and congratulate her on her escape from bondage. At the meeting they looked on her for some moments with astonishment, for they could trace in her features no resemblance to their former companion. A speedy explanation took place, from which it appeared that all the documents sent to North Carolina related to one Mary Smith; but the woman whose liberty they procured, was another Mary Smith.

Governor Everett had a hearty laugh when Father Snowden told him the happy result of his letter to the Governor of North Carolina.

The moral of this story is, that a plain, common name, is sometimes more useful to its owner, than a more brilliant one.



NOTE.—I have endeavored to give the facts of Mary Smith's story with exact accuracy, writing from memory only, without the aid of anything written. It is possible I may be mistaken in some immaterial circumstance.



Freedom—Liberty.

Freedom and Liberty are synonymes. Freedom is an essence; Liberty, an accident. Freedom is born with a man; Liberty may be conferred on him. Freedom is progressive; Liberty is circumscribed. Freedom is the gift of God; Liberty, the creature of society. Liberty may be taken away from a man; but, on whatsoever soul Freedom may alight, the course of that soul is thenceforth onward and upward; society, customs, laws, armies, are but as wythes in its giant grasp, if they oppose, instruments to work its will, if they assent. Human kind welcome the birth of a free soul with reverence and shoutings, rejoicing in the advent of a fresh off-shoot of the Divine Whole, of which this is but a part.



NEW-YORK, Nov. 22d, 1853.



An Aspiration.

You want my autograph. Permit me, then, to sign myself the friend of every effort for human emancipation in our own country, and throughout the world. God speed the day when all chains shall fall from the limbs and from the soul, and universal liberty co-exist with universal righteousness and universal peace. In this work I am

Yours truly,



NEW YORK, Nov. 22d.



The Dying Soliloquy of the Victim of the Wilkesbarre Tragedy.

He was approached from behind by Deputy Marshal Wyncoop and his assistants, knocked down with a mace and partially shackled. The fugitive, who had unsuspectingly waited upon them during their breakfast at the Phenix Hotel, was a tall, noble-looking, remarkably intelligent, and a nearly white mulatto; after a desperate effort and severe struggle, he shook off his five assailants, and with the loss of everything but a remnant of his shirt, rushed from the house and plunged into the water, exclaiming: "I will drown rather than be taken alive." He was pursued and fired upon several times, the last ball taking effect in his head, his face being instantly covered with blood. He sprang up and shrieked in great agony, and no doubt would have sunk at once, but for the buoyancy of the water. Seeing his condition, the slave-catchers retreated, coolly remarking that "dead niggers were not worth taking South."

Than be a slave, Dread death I'll brave, And hail the moment near, When the soul mid pain, Shall burst the chain That long has bound it here.

Earth's thrilling pulse, Man's stern repulse, This weary heart no longer feels; Its beating hushed Its vain hopes crushed, It craves that life which death reveals.

That moment great My soul would wait, In awe and peace sublime; Nor bitter tears, Nor slave-born fears, As I pass from earth to time.

The angry past, Like phantoms vast, Glides by like the rushing wave; So soon shall I, Forgotten lie, In the depths of my briny grave.

The time shall be, "When no more sea" Shall hide its treasures lone; Then my soul shall rise, Clothed for the skies, To find its blissful home.

Foul deeds laid wrong The whip and thong, Have scored my manhood's heart, But ne'er again Shall fiends constrain My body to the slave's vile mart.

The 'whelming wave, This corpse shall lave; Let the winds still pipe aloud, Let the waters lash, The white foam dash, O'er mangled brow and bloody shroud.

Roll on, thou free, Unfettered sea, Thy restless moan, my dirge, My cradle deep In my last lone sleep, Is the scoop of thy hollow surge.

Would I might live, One glance to give, To those whose hearts would bless, Each word of love, All price above, As mine to theirs I press.

The wish is vain; My frenzied brain, Is dark'ning even now; Above, above, Is Heaven's love, And mercy's wide arched bow.

Glad free-born soul With grateful hold, Now grasp the gift from Heav'n— Thy freedom won, New life begun, Forgive, thou'rt there forgiv'n.



Let all be Free.

Unbounded in thy expanse—far reaching From shore to shore—ever beautiful Are thy crystal waters—O sea. Beautiful—when thy waves, the white pebbles lave, When the weary sea-birds sleep, upon the bosom of the deep. But when thy storm-pressed billows burst, The grasp which man would "lay upon thy mane," Then do I most love thee, sea, Thou emblem of the Free.

When above me beam the stars, How beautiful in their infinitude of light, O'er the blue heavens spread, like gems Upon the brow of youth! Far, far away, beyond the paths of day, More glorious yet, as suns which never set, In darkness never! but shining forever! You are more loved by me— Ye emblems of the Free.

All earth of the beautiful is full. Beautiful the streams which leave the rural vales, Fringed with scarlet berries and leafy green! O world of colors infinite, and lines of ever-varying grace, How by sea and shore art thou ever beautiful! But the torrent rushing by, and the eagle in the sky, The Alpine heights of snow where man does never go, More lovely are to me, For they are Free.

Beautiful is man, and yet more beautiful Woman: coupled by bare circumstance Of place or gold, still beautiful. But this must fade! Only the soul, grows never old: They most agree, who most are free: Liberty is the food of love! The heavens, the earth, man's heart, and sea, Forever cry, let all be Free!



KENTUCKY, 1853.



To the Editor of the "Autographs for Freedom."

DEAR MADAM,—

If the enclosed paragraph from a speech of mine delivered in May last, at the anniversary meeting of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, shall be deemed suited to the pages of the forthcoming annual, please accept it as my contribution.

With great respect,



ROCHESTER, November, 1853.

Extract.

No colored man, with any nervous sensibility, can stand before an American audience without an intense and painful sense of the disadvantages imposed by his color. He feels little borne up by that brotherly sympathy and generous enthusiasm, which give wings to the eloquence, and strength to the hearts of other men, who advocate other and more popular causes. The ground which a colored man occupies in this country is, every inch of it, sternly disputed. Sir, were I a white man, speaking for the right of white men, I should in this country have a smooth sea and a fair wind. It is, perhaps, creditable to the American people (and I am not the man to detract from their credit) that they listen eagerly to the report of wrongs endured by distant nations. The Hungarian, the Italian, the Irishman, the Jew and the Gentile, all find in this goodly land a home; and when any of them, or all of them, desire to speak, they find willing ears, warm hearts, and open hands. For these people, the Americans have principles of justice, maxims of mercy, sentiments of religion, and feelings of brotherhood in abundance. But for my poor people, (alas, how poor!)—enslaved, scourged, blasted, overwhelmed, and ruined, it would appear that America had neither justice, mercy, nor religion. She has no scales in which to weigh our wrongs, and no standard by which to measure our rights. Just here lies the grand difficulty of the colored man's cause. It is found in the fact, that we may not avail ourselves of the just force of admitted American principles. If I do not misinterpret the feelings and philosophy of my white fellow-countrymen generally, they wish us to understand distinctly and fully that they have no other use for us whatever, than to coin dollars out of our blood.

Our position here is anomalous, unequal, and extraordinary. It is a position to which the most courageous of our race cannot look without deep concern. Sir, we are a hopeful people, and in this we are fortunate; but for this trait of our character, we should have, long before this seemingly unpropitious hour, sunk down under a sense of utter despair.

Look at it, sir. Here, upon the soil of our birth, in a country which has known us for two centuries, among a people who did not wait for us to seek them, but who sought us, found us, and brought us to their own chosen land,—a people for whom we have performed the humblest services, and whose greatest comforts and luxuries have been won from the soil by our sable and sinewy arms,—I say, sir, among such a people, and with such obvious recommendations to favor, we are far less esteemed than the veriest stranger and sojourner.

Aliens are we in our native land. The fundamental principles of the republic, to which the humblest white man, whether born here or elsewhere, may appeal with confidence in the hope of awakening a favorable response, are held to be inapplicable to us. The glorious doctrines of your revolutionary fathers, and the more glorious teachings of the Son of God, are construed and applied against us. We are literally scourged beyond the beneficent range of both authorities,—human and divine. We plead for our rights, in the name of the immortal declaration of independence, and of the written constitution of government, and we are answered with imprecations and curses. In the sacred name of Jesus we beg for mercy, and the slave-whip, red with blood, cracks over us in mockery. We invoke the aid of the ministers of Him who came "to preach deliverance to the captive," and to set at liberty them that are bound, and from the loftiest summits of this ministry comes the inhuman and blasphemous response, saying: if one prayer would move the Almighty arm in mercy to break your galling chains, that prayer would be withheld. We cry for help to humanity—a common humanity, and here too we are repulsed. American humanity hates us, scorns us, disowns and denies, in a thousand ways, our very personality. The outspread wing of American Christianity, apparently broad enough to give shelter to a perishing world, refuses to cover us. To us, its bones are brass, and its feathers iron. In running thither for shelter and succor, we have only fled from the hungry bloodhound to the devouring wolf,—from a corrupt and selfish world to a hollow and hypocritical church.



Extract from an unpublished Poem on Freedom.

Oh, Freedom! when thy morning march began, Coeval with the birth and breath of man; Who that could view thee in that Asian clime, God-born, soul-nursed, the infant heir of time— Who that could see thee in that Asian court, Flit with the sparrow, with the lion sport, Talk with the murmur of the babbling rill And sing thy summer song upon the hill— Who that could know thee as thou wast inwrought The all in all of nature's primal thought, And see thee given by Omniscient mind, A native boon to lord, and brute, and wind, Could e'er have dreamed with fate's prophetic sleep, The darker lines thy horoscope would keep, Or trembling read, thro' tones with horror thrilled, The damned deeds thy future name would gild?

Lo! The swart chief of Afric's vergeless plains, Poor Heaven-wept child of nature's joys and pains, Mounts his fleet steed with wind-directed course, Nor checks again his free unbridled horse, But lordless, wanders where his will inclines From Tuats heats to Zegzeg's stunted pines! View him, ye craven few, ye living-dead! Wrecks of a being whence the soul has fled! Ye Goths and Vandals of his plundered coast! Ye Christian Bondous, who of feeling boast,[7] Who quickly kindling to historic fire Contemn a Marius' or a Scylla's ire,[8] Or kindly lulled to sympathetic glow, Lament the martyrs of some far-off woe, And tender grown, with sorrow hugely great Weep o'er an Agis' or Jugurtha's fate![9] View him, ye hollow heartlings as he stalks The dauntless monarch of his native walks Breathes the warm odor which the girgir bears,[10] Shouts the fierce music of his savage airs, Or madly brave in hottest chase pursues The tawny monster of the desert dews; Eager, erect, persistent as the storm, Soul in his mien, God's image in his form! Yes, view him thus, from Kaffir to Soudan, And tell me, worldlings, is the black a man?

See, the full sun emerging from the deep, Climbs with red eye, the light-illumined steep, And brightly beautiful continuous smiles A fecund blessing on those Indian Isles! Like eastern woods which sweeten as they burn, So, the parched earths to odorous flowrets turn, And feathered fayes their murmurous wings expand, Waked by the magic of his conjuror's wand, Flash their red plumes, and vocalize each dell Where browse the fecho and the dun-gazelle,[11] While half forgetful of her changing sphere, The loathful summer lingers year by year. Here, in the light of God's supernal eye— His realms unbounded, and his woes a sigh— The dusky son of evening placed whilcome Found with the Gnu an ever-vernal home, And wiser than Athenas' wisest schools,[12] Nor led by zealots, nor scholastic rules, Gazed at the stars that stud yon tender blue, And hoped, and deemed the cheat of death untrue; Yet, supple sophist to a plastic mind,[13] Saw gods in woods, and spirits in the wind, Heard in the tones that stirred the waves within, The mingled voice of Hadna and Odin, Doomed the fleeced tenant of the wild to bleed A guileless votive to his harmless creed, Then gladly grateful at each rite fulfilled, Sought the cool shadow where the spring distilled, And lightly lab'rous thro' the torpid day, Whiled in sweet peace the sultry eve away.

Or if perchance to nature darkly true, He strikes the war-path thro' the midnight dew, Steals in the covert on the sleeping foe, And wreaks the horrors of a barbarous woe; Yet, yet returning to the home-girt spot— The vengeful causes and the deed forgot—[14] Where greenest boughs o'er sloping banks impend, And gurgling waves to bosky dells descend; Intent the long expectant brood to sea, He halts beneath the broad acacia tree; And warmly pressed by wonder-gloating eyes, Displays the vantage of each savage prize; Stills with glad pride and plundered gems, uncouth, The ardent longings of his daughter's youth;

Bids the dark spouse the tropic meal prepare, Mid laughing echoes from the bird-voiced air; Passes before him in a fond review The merry numbers of his crisp-haired crew;[15] Recounts the dangers of the last night's strife, Joys with their joy, and lives their inner life; And then when slow the lengthened day expires, Mid twilight balms and star-enkindled fires, With all the father sees each form retire, A ruthless heathen, but a loving sire.[16]

Innocuously thus, thro' long, long years Untaught by learning, yet unknown to fears, The swarthy Afric whiled the jocund hours, A petted child of nature's rosiest bowers, Till lured by wealth the hardy Portuguese,[17] Seeks the green waters of his Eastern seas, And venturous nations more excursive grown, Scan his glad coast from radiant zone to zone, Then Fortune's minion in a foreign clime, Cursed by his own and damned to later time, Of incest born and by the chances thrown A tainted alien on a ravished throne, Gapes the foul flatteries of a fawning train, And fatuous mock'ries, which themselves disdain, A fancied monarch, but the witless sport Of adulation, and a practiced court, Vaunts to his broad realms and Timour-like proclaims Illusive titles of barbaric names, Cheats his own nature, and now generous grown,[18] Dispenses souls and empires not his own, Draws the deep purple round his royal seat, Lifts his low crest, affects the God complete, By giving with light breath, oh, shame to tell! These heirs of Heav'n unto the fate of hell. Sped by the mandate of his recreant train, Lo! commerce, broad winged seraph of the main! Shook her white plumage and coqueting, won Propitious favors from the southern sun, Till manly hearts and keel-impelling gales, Furled on the coast her half-reluctant sails.

Abashed, amazed, with fear-dilated eye The marvelling tribes these new-born wonders spy; See from the shore, bright glittering in the sun, The moving freightage of each galleon; Wait till the measured strokes of oars bring near These way-lost wanderers of another sphere, Then timorously glad, yet awe-struck still, Lead from the sunshine to the breezy hill; With courteous grace a resting place assign 'Neath rustling leaves and grape-empurpled vine, And led by craft in artless pride make known The lustrous lurements of their gorgeous zone, As in the field some skilful ranger sets The fraudful cordage of his specious nets, Places some fragrant viand in the snare, And captive takes the unsuspicious hare; So the bold strangers with superior will Lay their base plans with disingenuous skill, Ope their stored treasures and with art display Their worthless figments to the air of day, Roll their large lids, and with grave gestures laud Each tinsel trinket and each painted gaud; With mystic signs of strange import apply Some gew-gaw bauble to the gloating eye; Touch with nice skill, yet craft-dissembled smile, Gems from the mine and spices from the Isle, Affect no care, yet hope a thrifty sale— The wealth of Empires in th' opposing scale— While he, the poor victim of their selfish creed, Prescient of evil art foredoomed to bleed, Pleased yet alarmed, desiring but deterred, Flutters still nearer like a snake-charmed bird; Alas, too often taken with a toy— Too soon to weep a kindred fate with Troy!

Evils received, like twilight stars dilate, The less the light, the larger grows their state; Thus the first error in that savage air, Spreads as a flame, and leaves a ruin there. Too dearly generous and too warmly true,[19] The simple black wears out the fatal clew,— From barter flies to trade; from trade to wants; From wants to interests and derided haunts; Thence, rolls from off the once-sequestered shore, The turgid tide of havoc and of war; No warning ringing from the red adunes, No prophets rising, and no Laocoons, Remotest tribes the baleful influence own; Feel to extremes, and at their centres groan. Now laughs the stranger at their anguished throes,[20] Feeds on their ills, and battens on their woes; Glads his freed conscience at each pillaged mine, And finds forgiveness at a Christian shrine; By specious creeds and sophists darkly taught,[21] To semble virtue and dissemble thought, With Saviour-seeming smile, adds fuel to the flame,— Ulysses' craft, without Ulysses' aim,— And sadly faithful to his dark designs, Fiction improves; heroic rage refines; For lo! Achilles, victor of the train! Draws Hector lifeless, round the Ilian plain; But ah! these later Greeks more cruel strive, And bind their victim to the load alive!

Oh, beats there, Heaven, beneath thy gorgeous blue, One heart so basely to itself untrue, So dead of pulse, and so insensate grown, It feels not such a cause dear as its own? Dwells there a being 'neath thine eye, oh, God! A fellow-worm from out the self-same clod, Whose fevered blood does not impatient boil, Fierce as a tiger's in the hunter's toil, To see degenerate men and States prolong, So foul a deed—so thrice accursed a wrong? Tell me, ye loud-voiced winds that ceaseless roll, Eternal miracles from pole to pole, Breathes there on earth so vile and mean a thing That crushed, it will not turn again and sting? And say! ye tyrants in your boasted halls, Read ye no warnings on your darkened walls? Hear ye no seeming mutterings of the cloud Break from the millions which your steps have bowed? Think ye, ye hold in your ignoble thrall, Mind, soul, thought, taste, hope, feeling, valor, all? No; these unfettered scorn your nerveless hand, Sport at their will, and scoff at your command, Range through arcades of shadow-brooding palms, Snuff their free airs and breathe their floating balms, Or bolder still, on fancy's fiery wing—[22] Caught from their letters at the noon-day spring— With star-eyed science, and her seraph train Read the bright secrets of yon azure plain; Hear Loxian murmurs in Rhodolphe's caves[23] Meet with sweet answers from the nymph-voiced waves; Sit with the pilot at Phoenicia's helm, And mark the boundries of the Lybian realm; See swarthy Memnon in the grave debate, Dispute with gods, and rule a conqu'ring state, And warmly and kindling dare—yes, dare to hope, A second Empire on the future's scope!

And thou, my country, latest born of time! Dearest of all, of all the most sublime! How long shall patriots own, with blush of shame, So foul a blot upon so fair a name? How long thy sons with filial hearts deplore, A Python evil on thy Cyprean shore? What! and wilt thou, the moral Hercules Whose youth eclipsed the dream of Pericles, Whose trunceant bands heroically caught, The Spartan phalanx with the Attic thought, The wizard throne of age-nursed error hurled, Defied a tyrant and transfixed a world! Wilt thou see Afric like old Priam sue, The bones of children as in nature due, And foully craven, ingrate-like forget, Thy life, thy learning's her dishonored debt? Say; wilt not thou, whose time-ennobling sons— Thy Jay's, thy Franklin's and thy Washington's, Caught the bright cestus from fair freedom's God, And bound it as a girdle to thy sod; Ah! wilt not thou with generous mind confess The might of woe, the strength of helplessness? High-Heaven's almoner to a world oppressed, Who in the march of nations led the rest![24] Will there no Gracchus in thy Senate stand And speak the words that millions should command? No Clysthementhe 'neath thy broad arched dome, Predict the fortunes with the crimes of Rome? Shall time yet partial in his cycling course, Bring thee no Fox, no Pitt, no Wilberforce? Still must thou live and corybantic die, A traceless meteor in a clouding sky; Thy name a cheat; thyself, a world-wide lie? No; there will come, prophetic hearts may trust, Some embryo angel of superior dust, With brow of cloud and tongue of livid flame— Another Moses, but in time and name— Whose Heaven-appealing voice shall bid thee pass— On either hand a wall of living glass;— Ope for the Lybian with convulsive shock His more than Horeb's adamantine rock, And gazing from some second Pisgah, see Thy idol broken and thy people free.



RICHMOND, Dec. 1st, 1853.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] "Ye Christian Bondous who of feeling boast!"

Unable in the whole range of my vernacular, to find an epithet sufficiently expressive to enunciate the aggravated contempt which all feel for that pseudonymous class of philanthropists, who flauntingly parade a pompous sympathy with popular and distant distresses, but studiously cultivate a coarse ignorance of, and hauteur to, the Greeks, which "are at the door," I have had recource to the Metonymy, Bondou, as rendered mournfully significant through the melancholy fate of the illustrious Houghton.—Vide Report African Discovery Society.

[8] "Contemn a Marius' or a Scylla's ire."

Napoleon in his protest to Lord Bathurst, provoked by the petty tyranny of Sir Hudson Lowe, said of the "Proscriptions," and (by negative inference) in extenuation of them, that they "were made with the blood yet fresh upon the sword." A sentence, which, falling from the lips of one of the most imperturbably cool and calculating of mankind, under circumstances superinducing peculiar reflection on every word uttered, cannot but come with the force of a whole volume of excoriative evidence against the demoralization of war, even upon the most abstracted and elevated natures.—Vide Letters of Montholon and Las Cases.

[9] "Weep o'er an Agis' or Jugurtha's fate."

Agis, King of Lacedemon and colleague of Leonidas, was a youth of singular purity and promise. Aiming to correct the abuses which had crept into the Spartan polity, he introduced regenerative laws. Among others, one for the equalization of property, and as an example of disinterested liberality, shared his estate with the community. Unappreciated by the degenerated Senate however, he was deposed, and, with his whole family, strangled by order of the ingrate State.—Edin. Encyc.

It is said that when Jugurtha was led before the ear of the conquerer, he lost his senses. After the triumph he was thrown into prison, where, whilst they were in haste to strip him, some tore his robes off his back, and others, catching eagerly at his pendants, pulled off the tips of his ears with them. When he was thrust down naked into the dungeon, all wild and confused, he said, with a frantic smile, "Heavens! how cold is this bath of yours!" There struggling for six days with starvation, and to the last hour laboring for the preservation of his life, he came to his end.—Plut. Cai. Mar.

[10] "Breathes the warm odor which the girgir bears,"

The girgir, or the geshe el aube, a species of flowering grass. Piercing, fragrant, and grateful in its odor, it operates not unlike a mild stimulant, when respired for any length of time, and is found chiefly near the borders of small streams and in the vicinage of the Tassada.—Lyn. Gui. and Soud.

[11] "Where browse the fecho and the dun-gazelle."

Among the wild animals are prodigious numbers of the vari-colored species of the gazelle, the bohur sassa, fecho, and madoqua. They are extremely numerous in the provinces depopulated by war and slavery, enjoying the wild oats of the deserted hamlets without fear of molestation from a returning population.—Notes on Central Africa.

[12] "And wiser than Athenas' wisest schools, Nor led by zealots, nor scholastic rules, Gazed at the stars which stud yon tender blue, And hoped and deemed the cheat of death untrue."

Though Socrates and Plato, particularly the former, are generally admitted by writers of authority, among whom, indeed, are Polycarpe, Chrysotom, and Eusebius, to have in a manner suspected rather than believed, the immortality of the soul; yet we have no evidence of their ever having, by the finest process of ratiocination, so thoroughly convinced themselves as to introduce it generally as a tenable thesis on the portico. A beautiful thread of implicit belief and fervent hope, of after life, assimilating to the hunting-ground of our own American Indians, and though sensuous still, a step far in advance of the black void of ancient philosophy, has always run through the higher mythologies of the Negro. So notorious, indeed, was the fact among early Christians, that that ubiquitous riddle, "Prestor John," was, by believers, regarded as having a locale in Central Africa; while Henry of Portugal actually despatched two ambassadors, Corvilla and Payvan, to a rumored Christian court, south of the Sahara.—Edin. Encyc. Early Chris. His. Port.

[13] "Yet supple sophist to a plastic mind, Sees gods in woods, and spirits in the wind."

The imagination of the African, like his musical genius, which extracts surprising harmony from the rudest of sources, the clapping of hands, the clanking of chains, the resonance of lasso wood, and perforated shells, seems to invest everything with a resident spirit of peculiar power. Accordingly, his mythologies are most numerous and poetical—his entire catalogue of superior gods alone, embracing a more extended length than the Assyro-Babylon Alphabet, with its three hundred letters.

[14] "The vengeful causes and the deed forgot."

All travellers agree in the facile ductility and inertia-like amiability of the native African character.—BREWSTER on Africa.

[15] "The merry numbers of his crisp-haired crew."

The negro race is, perhaps, the most prolific of all the human species. Their infancy and youth are singularly happy. The parents are passionately fond of their children.—GOLDBURY'S Travels.

"Strike me," said my attendant, "but do not curse my mother." The same sentiment I found universally to prevail.

Some of the first lessons in which the Mandings women instruct their children is the practice of truth. It was the only consolation for a negro mother, whose son had been murdered by the Moors, that "the boy had never told a lie."—PARK'S Travels.

[16] "With all the father sees each form retire, A ruthless heathen, but a loving sire."

"Or led the combat, bold without a plan, An artless savage, but a fearless man." CAMPBELL.

[17] "Till lured by wealth the hardy Portuguese, Sought the green waters of his Eastern seas, And venturous nations more excursive grown, Pierced his glad coast from radiant zone to zone."

Vasquez de Gama, a Portuguese nobleman, was the first to discover a maritime passage to the Indies; unless, perhaps, we credit the improbable achievement of the Phoenicians, related by Herodotus as occurring, 604 B.C.

De Gama doubled the cape in 1498, explored the eastern shores as far as Melinda, in Zanguebar, and sailing thence arrived at Calcutta in May. This expedition, second to none in its results, save that of Columbus six years before, drew the attention of all Europe. Whole nations became actuated by the same enthusiasm, and private companies of merchants sent out whole fleets on voyages of discovery, scouring the entire coast from Cape Verd to Gaudfui, and discovering the Mascharenhas and most of the islands of the Ethiopean Archipelago.

[18] "Cheats his own nature and now generous grown, Dispenses realms and empires not his own."

Charles V. granted a patent to one of his Flemish favorites, containing an exclusive right to import four thousand negroes!—Hist. Slavery.

The crime of having first recommended the importation of African slaves into America, is due to the Flemish nobility, who obtained a monopoly of four thousand negroes, which they sold to some Genoese merchants for 25,000 ducats.—Life of Cardinal Ximenes.

They (the Genoese) were the first to bring into a regular form, that commerce for slaves, between Africa and America, which has since grown to such an amazing extent.—Robertson.

[19] "Too warmly generous and dearly true, The simple black," &c.

It will remain an indelible reproach on the name of Europeans, that for more than three centuries their intercourse with the Africans has only tended to destroy their happiness and debase their character.—Edin. Ency.

[20] "Now laughs the stranger at their anguished throes."

The arts of the slave-merchant have inflamed the hostility of their various tribes, and heightened their ferocity by sedulously increasing their wars.—Ibid.

[21] "By specious creeds and sophists darkly taught."

Hamlet's advice to his offending mother;—

"Assume a virtue, tho' you have it not."

Adding hypocrisy to avowed unworthiness, was the acknowledged injunction of the church, wherever and whenever she participated in secular affairs, with a view of emolument. For a peculiar illustration of this favorite doctrine, see Clement VI.'s edict, when, in virtue of the right arrogated by the holy see to dispose of all countries belonging to the heathen, he erected (1344) the Canaries into a kingdom, and disposed of them to Lewis de la Corda, a prince of Castile.

[22] "Or bolder still on fancy's fiery wing."

That I do not exaggerate the belle lettres and classical accomplishments of at least two of the "chattels" of the "peculiar institution," in the lines following the above, see "Poems written by Rosa and Maria," property of South Carolina, and published in 1834.

[23] "Hear Loxian murmurs in Rhodolphe's caves."

Loxian is a name frequently given to Apollo by Greek writers and is met with, more than once, in the "Choephorae of Eschylus."—Campbell.

Euripides mentions it three times, and Sophocles twice, its euphony recommends it more than any other name of the fair-haired god.

[24] "And in the march of nations led the van." Campbell



Letter

BROOKLYN, December 6th, 1853.

Dear Sir,—

Your note of November 29th, requesting a line from me for the Autographs for Freedom, is received.

I wish that I had something that would add to the literary value of your laudable enterprise. In so great a cause as that of human liberty, every great interest in society ought to have a voice and a decisive testimony. Art should be in sympathy with freedom and literature, and all human learning should speak with unmistakable accents for the elevation, evangelization, and liberation of the oppressed. In a future day, the historian cannot purge our political history from the shame of wanton and mercenary oppression. But there is not, I believe, a book in the literature of our country that will be alive and known a hundred years hence, in which can be found the taint of despotism. The literature of the world is on the side of liberty.

I am very truly yours,



A Day spent at Playford Hall.

It was a pleasant morning in May,—I believe that is the orthodox way of beginning a story,—when C. and I took the cars to go into the country to Playford Hall. "And what's Playford Hall?" you say. "And why did you go to see it?" As to what it is, here is a reasonably good picture before you. As to why, it was for many years the residence of Thomas Clarkson, and is now the residence of his venerable widow and her family.

Playford Hall is considered, I think, the oldest of the fortified houses in England, and is, I am told, the only one that has water in the moat. The water which is seen girdling the wall in the picture, is the moat; it surrounds the place entirely, leaving no access except across the bridge, which is here represented.

After crossing this bridge, you come into a green court-yard, filled with choice plants and flowering shrubs, and carpeted with that thick, soft, velvet-like grass, which is to be found nowhere else in so perfect a state as in England.

The water is fed by a perpetual spring, whose current is so sluggish as scarcely to be perceptible, but which yet has the vitality of a running stream.

It has a dark and glassy stillness of surface, only broken by the forms of the water plants, whose leaves float thickly over it.

The walls of the moat are green with ancient moss, and from the crevices springs an abundant flowering vine, whose delicate leaves and bright yellow flowers in some places entirely mantled the stones with their graceful drapery.

The picture I have given you represents only one side of the moat. The other side is grown up with dark and thick shrubbery and ancient trees, rising and embowering the whole place, adding to the retired and singular effect of the whole. The place is a specimen of a sort of thing which does not exist in America. It is one of those significant landmarks which unite the present with the past, for which we must return to the country of our origin.

Playford Hall is a thing peculiarly English, and Thomas Clarkson, for whose sake I visited it, was as peculiarly an Englishman,—a specimen of the very best kind of English mind and character, as this is of characteristic English architecture.

We Anglo-Saxons have won a hard name in the world. There are undoubtedly bad things which are true about us.

Taking our developments as a race, both in England and America, we may be justly called the Romans of the nineteenth century. We have been the race which has conquered, subdued, and broken in pieces, other weaker races, with little regard either to justice or mercy. With regard to benefits by us imparted to conquered nations, I think a better story, on the whole, can be made out for the Romans than for us. Witness the treatment of the Chinese, of the tribes of India, and of our own American Indians.

But still there is an Anglo-Saxon blood, a vigorous sense of justice, as appears in our Habeas Corpus, our jury trials, and other features of State organization, and, when this is tempered in individuals, with the elements of gentleness and compassion, and enforced by that energy and indomitable perseverance which are characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon mind, they form a style of philanthropists peculiarly efficient. In short, the Anglo-Saxon is efficient, in whatever he sets himself about, whether in crushing the weak, or lifting them up.

Thomas Clarkson was born in a day when good, pious people, imported cargoes of slaves from Africa, as one of the regular Christianized modes of gaining a subsistence, and providing for them and their households. It was a thing that everybody was doing, and everybody thought they had a right to do. It was supposed that all the coffee, tea, and sugar in the world were dependent on stealing men, women, and children, and could be got no other way; and as to consume coffee, sugar, rice, and rum, were evidently the chief ends of human existence, it followed that men, women, and children, must be stolen to the end of time.

Some good people, when they now and then heard an appalling story of the cruelties practiced in the slave ship, declared that it was really too bad, sympathetically remarked, "What a sorrowful world we live in," stirred their sugar into their tea, and went on as before, because, what was there to do—hadn't everybody always done it, and if they didn't do it, wouldn't somebody else?

It is true that for many years individuals, at different times, remonstrated, had written treatises, poems, stories, and movements had been made by some religious ladies, particularly the Quakers, but the opposition had amounted to nothing practically efficient.

The attention of Clarkson was first turned to the subject by having it given out as the theme for a prize composition in his college class, he being at that time a sprightly young man, about twenty-four years of age. He entered into the investigation with no other purpose than to see what he could make of it as a college theme.

He says of himself: "I had expected pleasure from the invention of arguments, from the arrangement of them, from the putting of them together, and from the thought, in the interim, that I was engaged in an innocent contest for literary honor, but all my pleasures were damped by the facts, which were now continually before me.

"It was but one gloomy subject from morning till night; in the day time I was uneasy, in the night I had little rest, I sometimes never closed my eyelids for grief."

It became not now so much a trial for academical reputation as to write a work which should be useful to Africa. It is not surprising that a work, written under the force of such feelings, should have gained the prize, as it did. Clarkson was summoned from London to Cambridge, to deliver his prize essay publicly. He says of himself, on returning back to London: "The subject of it almost wholly engrossed my thoughts. I became at times very seriously affected while on the road. I stopped my horse occasionally, dismounted, and walked.

"I frequently tried to persuade myself that the contents of my essay could not be true, but the more I reflected on the authorities on which they were founded, the more I gave them credit. Coming in sight of Wade's Mill, in Hertfordshire, I sat down disconsolate on the turf by the roadside, and held my horse. Here a thought came into my mind, that if the contents of the essay were true, it was time that somebody should see these calamities to an end."

These reflections, as it appears, were put off for awhile, but returned again.

This young and noble heart was of a kind that could not comfort itself so easily for a brother's sorrow as many do.

He says of himself: "In the course of the autumn of the same year, I walked frequently into the woods that I might think of the subject in solitude, and find relief to my mind there; but there the question still recurred, 'are these things true?' Still the answer followed as instantaneously, 'they are;' still the result accompanied it,—surely some person should interfere. I began to envy those who had seats in Parliament, riches, and widely-extended connections, which would enable them to take up this cause.

"Finding scarcely any one, at the time, who thought of it, I was turned frequently to myself, but here many difficulties arose. It struck me, among others, that a young man only twenty-four years of age could not have that solid judgment, or that knowledge of men, manners, and things, which were requisite to qualify him to undertake a task of such magnitude and importance; and with whom was I to unite? I believed, also, that it looked so much like one of the feigned labors of Hercules, that my understanding would be suspected, if I proposed it."

He however resolved to do something for the cause by translating his essay from Latin into English, enlarging and presenting it to the public. Immediately on the publication of this essay, he discovered to his astonishment and delight, that he was not the only one who had been interested in this subject.

Being invited to the house of William Dillwyn, one of these friends to the cause, he says: "How surprised was I to learn, in the course of our conversation, of the labors of Granville Sharp, of the writings of Ramsey, and of the controversy in which the latter was engaged, of all which I had hitherto known nothing. How surprised was I to learn that William Dillwyn had, himself, two years before, associated himself with five others for the purpose of enlightening the public mind on this great subject.

"How astonished was I to find, that a society had been formed in America for the same object. These thoughts almost overpowered me. My mind was overwhelmed by the thought, that I had been providentially directed to this house; the finger of Providence was beginning to be discernible, and that the day-star of African liberty was rising."

After this he associated with many friends of the cause, and at last it became evident that in order to effect anything, he must sacrifice all other prospects in life, and devote himself exclusively to this work.

He says, after mentioning reasons which prevented all his associates from doing this: "I could look, therefore, to no person but myself; and the question was, whether I was prepared to make the sacrifice. In favor of the undertaking, I urged to myself that never was any cause, which had been taken up by man, in any country or in any age, so great and important; that never was there one in which so much misery was heard to cry for redress; that never was there one in which so much good could be done; never one in which the duty of Christian charity could be so extensively exercised; never one more worthy of the devotion of a whole life towards it; and that, if a man thought properly, he ought to rejoice to have been called into existence, if he were only permitted to become an instrument in forwarding it in any part of its progress.

"Against these sentiments, on the other hand, I had to urge that I had been designed for the church; that I had already advanced as far as deacon's orders in it; that my prospects there on account of my connections were then brilliant; that, by appearing to desert my profession, my family would be dissatisfied, if not unhappy. These thoughts pressed upon me, and rendered the conflict difficult.

"But the sacrifice of my prospects staggered me, I own, the most. When the other objections which I have related, occurred to me, my enthusiasm instantly, like a flash of lightning, consumed them; but this stuck to me, and troubled me. I had ambition. I had a thirst after worldly interest and honors, and I could not extinguish it at once. I was more than two hours in solitude under this painful conflict. At length I yielded, not because I saw any reasonable prospect of success in my new undertaking, for all cool-headed and cool-hearted men would have pronounced against it; but in obedience, I believe, to a higher Power. And I can say, that both on the moment of this resolution, and for some time afterwards, I had more sublime and happy feelings than at any former period of my life."

In order to show how this enterprise was looked upon and talked of very commonly by the majority of men in these times, we will extract the following passage from Boswell's Life of Johnson, in which Bozzy thus enters his solemn protest: "The wild and dangerous attempt, which has for some time been persisted in, to obtain an act of our Legislature, to abolish so very important and necessary a branch of commercial interest, must have been crushed at once, had not the insignificance of the zealots, who vainly took the lead in it, made the vast body of planters, merchants and others, whose immense properties are involved in that trade, reasonably enough suppose, that there could be no danger. The encouragement which the attempt has received, excites my wonder and indignation; and though some men of superior abilities have supported it, whether from a love of temporary popularity, when prosperous; or a love of general mischief, when desperate, my opinion is unshaken.

"To abolish a statute which in all ages God has sanctioned, and man has continued, would not only be robbery to an innumerable class of our fellow-subjects, but it would be extreme cruelty to the African savages, a portion of whom it saves from massacre, or intolerable bondage in their own country, and introduces into a much happier state of life; especially now, when their passage to the West Indies, and their treatment there, is humanely regulated. To abolish this trade, would be to

'—— shut the gates of mercy on mankind.'"

One of the first steps of Clarkson and his associates, was the formation of a committee of twelve persons, for the collection and dissemination of evidence on the subject.

* * * * *

The contest now began in earnest, a contest as sublime as any the world ever saw.

The Abolition controversy more fully aroused the virtue, the talent, and the religion of the great English nation, than any other event or crisis which ever occurred.

Wilberforce was the leader of the question in Parliament. The other members of the Anti-slavery Committee performed those labors which were necessary out of it.

This labor consisted principally in the collection of evidence with regard to the traffic, and the presentation of it before the public mind. In this labor Clarkson was particularly engaged. The subject was hemmed in with the same difficulties that now beset the Anti-slavery cause in America. Those who knew most about it, were precisely those whose interest it was to prevent inquiry. An immense moneyed interest was arrayed against investigation, and was determined to suppress the agitation of the subject. Owing to this powerful pressure, many who were in possession of facts which would bear upon this subject, refused to communicate them; and often after a long and wearisome journey in search of an individual who could throw light upon the subject, Clarkson had the mortification to find his lips sealed by interest or timidity. As usual, the cause of oppression was defended by the most impudent lying; the slave-trade was asserted to be the latest revised edition of philanthropy. It was said that the poor African, the slave of miserable oppression in his own country, was wafted by it to an asylum in a Christian land; that the middle passage was to the poor negro a perfect elysium, infinitely happier than anything he had ever known in his own country. All this was said while manacles, and hand-cuffs, and thumb-screws, and instruments to force open the mouth, were a regular part of the stock for a slave ship, and were hanging in the shop windows of Liverpool for sale.