"You have accused," said Jay, "an indefinite number of your fellow-citizens, without designation of name or residence, of making unconstitutional and wicked efforts, and of harbouring intentions which could be entertained only by the most depraved and abandoned of mankind; and yet you carefully abstain from averring which article of the Constitution they have transgressed; you omit stating when, where, and by whom these wicked attempts were made; you give no specification of the inflammatory appeals which you assert have been addressed to the passions of the slaves. You well know that the 'moral influence' of your charges will affect thousands and tens of thousands of your countrymen, many of them your political friends—some of them heretofore honoured with your confidence—most, if not all of them, of irreproachable character; and yet, by the very vagueness of your charges, you incapacitate each one of this multitude from proving his innocence.... It is deserving of notice that the attempt to circulate our papers is alone charged upon us. It is not pretended that we have put our appeals into the hands of a single slave, or that in any instance our endeavours to excite a servile war have been crowned with success. And in what way was our most execrable attempt made? By secret agents, traversing the slave country in disguise, stealing by night into the hut of the slave, and reading to him our inflammatory appeals? You, sir, answer this question by declaring that we attempted the mighty mischief by circulating our appeals through the mails! And are the Southern slaves, sir, accustomed to receive periodicals by mail? Of the thousands of publications mailed from the antislavery office for the South, did you ever hear, sir, of one solitary paper being addressed to a slave? Would you know to whom they were directed, consult the Southern newspapers, and you will find them complaining that they were sent to public officers, clergymen, and other influential citizens. Thus, it seems, we are incendiaries who place the torch in the hands of him whose dwelling we would fire! We are conspiring to incite a servile war, and announce our design to the masters and commit to their care and disposal the very instruments by which we expect to effect our purpose!... To repel your charges and to disabuse the public was a duty we owed to ourselves, to our children, and, above all, to the great and holy cause in which we are engaged. That cause we believe is approved by our Maker; and while we retain this belief, it is our intention, trusting to His direction and protection, to persevere in our endeavours to impress upon the minds and hearts of our countrymen the sinfulness of claiming property in human beings, and the duty and wisdom of immediately relinquishing it. When convinced that our endeavours are wrong, we shall abandon them, but such conviction must be produced by other arguments than vituperation, popular violence, or penal enactments."
In 1836 Judge Jay resigned the presidency of the New York State Antislavery Society. The distance of his home from the headquarters of the society made the office nearly nominal, and he thought that it should be filled by a person more favourably situated for usefulness. "We commenced the present struggle," he wrote in his letter of resignation, "to obtain the freedom of the slave; we are compelled to continue it to preserve our own. We are now contending, not so much with the slaveholders of the South about human rights, as with the political and commercial aristocracy of the North, for the liberty of speech, of the press, and of conscience. Our politicians are selling our constitutions and laws for Southern votes. Our great capitalists are speculating, not merely in land and banks, but in the liberties of the people. We are called to contemplate a spectacle never, I believe, before witnessed—the wealthy portion of the community striving to introduce anarchy and violence on a calculation of profit; making merchandise of peace and good order! In Boston we have seen the editor of a newspaper led through the streets with a halter by gentlemen 'of property and standing.' The New York mobs were excited, not by the humble penny press, but by the malignant falsehood and insurrectionary appeals of certain commercial journals. Rich and honourable men in Cincinnati have recently at a public meeting proclaimed lynch law, and through their influence a printing-press devoted to freedom has been destroyed, and the whole affair, we are coolly and most truly told, was a business transaction.
William Jay
"... It cannot be, it is not in human nature that judges and lawyers and rich merchants will long enjoy the exclusive privileges of trampling on the laws. These men are sowing the wind and they will reap the whirlwind. They may see the buddings of their harvest in the recent assaults upon the Holland Land Company. When the tempest of anarchy they are now raising shall sweep over the land it will not be the humble abolitionist, but the lofty possessor of power and fortune, who will first be levelled by the blast.... The obligations of religion and of patriotism; the duties we owe to ourselves, to our children, the cause of freedom, and the cause of humanity—all require us to be faithful to our principles, to persevere in our exertions, and to surrender our rights only with our breath. Duties are ours and consequences are God's, and while we discharge the first we may be confident that the latter will be entirely consistent with our true welfare."
CHAPTER V.
GRADUAL DECLINE OF RIOTOUS DEMONSTRATIONS AGAINST THE ABOLITIONISTS.—CHANGES OCCUR IN THE DOCTRINES AND METHODS OF THE AMERICAN ANTISLAVERY SOCIETY.—JUDGE JAY RESIGNS HIS MEMBERSHIP, WHILE CONTINUING HIS EFFORTS ON BEHALF OF EMANCIPATION.
The effort to suppress the antislavery movement by force, which was carried on by Northern people at the instigation of the South, continued through the years 1837 and 1838. The incidents which attracted the most attention were the murder of Lovejoy at Alton and the burning of Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia by a mob. By assassination and arson a considerable portion of the American people sought to destroy the right to free speech and free assemblage guaranteed by the American Constitution and cherished hitherto as a birthright. The right of free discussion, wrote Alexander H. Everett at the time, "is not only endangered, but for the present, at least, is actually lost." "The newspapers of every day," he continued, "bring to our view the account of some new case in which a printing-press has been seized and thrown into the river; a public meeting broken up; a citizen tarred and feathered, scourged—too often, I add with horror, put to a violent death by a lawless mob for no other cause or crime than the free discussion of the subject of slavery." The impunity with which these crimes were committed, the connivance or leniency of the authorities whose sworn duty it was to uphold the laws, made this time a critical one for the security of American liberties. In pursuing their lawful course undaunted through this "reign of terror," when so large a portion of their fellow-countrymen seemed to have forgotten the obligations of citizens to established law, the abolitionists not only maintained the existence of their cause, but they preserved those rights which Americans value above all others. That free speech continued to exist in the United States was duo to their indomitable courage. Such a state of affairs could not endure long. Lawless feeling exhausted itself in fruitless violence. Antislavery societies increased in numbers and membership. Comparative order and toleration gradually displaced the disgraceful passions which had placed the liberties of the country in hazard.