The Way to Abolish Slavery

by Charles Stearns

But the great question after all, is not what the Constitution says in words, but what use is made of it? If it is a suitable one for a free nation, it could not be capable of such an awful perversion as has been made of it by the legislation of the country ever since its adoption, Mr. Spooner's idea being correct. If it is Anti-Slavery, it is the first Anti-Slavery document, and the only one, Calhoun &. Co. were ever known to cherish and swear by. How remarkably keen-sighted must these wily southerners be, not to detect the Anti-Slavery spirit of the Constitution; and be hugging an abolition monster, when they fancy they are pressing to their bosoms their own bill of rights to hold Slaves. The southerners are not generally duped this way, and it is strange they should be so much so, in this case. For our own part, the very fact that the Constitution is valued so highly by the South, casts a shadow of suspicion over it, and induces us to reject it as an Anti-Slavery instrument. The South excludes even Sunday school books, tainted with Anti-Slavery, and poems alluding to freedom, are hardly allowed a circulation there; how strange then, that this great magna charta of human liberty should be so eulogised by them. The fact is, it suits them well. They never have complained of its not being pro-slavery enough, but have always rested satisfied with it, as their supporter and guide; and yet northern Anti-Slavery men will talk of its being an Anti-Slavery instrument. As well might the robber press to his bosom the precepts of Jesus Christ, or the gambler and drunkard, works on morality, as the slave-holder the Constitution, if he believed it Anti-Slavery.

We are aware of all that can be said in favor of independence of mind; we would by no means wish to bind any man down to the opinions of the past, or to say to any bold departure from established usages and opinions, "You are wrong, because you differ from great and learned men;" but still we would ask, if the Constitution is as Anti-Slavery as Mr. Spooner asserts it to be, how happens it that such egregious mistakes have been made concerning it? Can a real Anti-Slavery document be so misconstrued, as to satisfy slave-holders, who dread the least appearance of Anti-Slavery, as Satan does the truth of God? We will grant for the sake of argument, that it does not directly sanction Slavery; still we assert that it is a pro-slavery document for the following reason. Anti-Slavery is a bold, outspoken, and unmistakable thing. It is "known and read of all men, a living epistle," and can be no more mistaken for pro-slavery, than the shining of the sun, for total darkness. The difference between the two is so great, that they can never be mistaken, the one for the other; or at least genuine Anti-Slavery can never be regarded as pro-slavery to the full satisfaction of slave-holders. We cast our eyes over the history of our country, and from the commencement of its political existence until the present time, we see Slavery justified by the Constitution. From the President seated in the chair of State, to the representative of the smallest village in the most insignificant State of the Union; from the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to the petty lawyer and esquire of the country village; from the wisest statesman, to the most ignorant politician; from all who ever filled the presidential chair, down to him who hopes to fill it soon; from politicians of all parties, to men who abjure politics; we hear but one voice respecting the character of the Constitution, excepting a few persons like our friend Spooner, who seem to be disposed, for want of better employment, to test the power of their minds in arguing its Anti-Slavery character; as the philosophers of olden times, polished their logical weapons in discussing such questions, as "Whether God loved a possible unexisting angel, better than an existing insect;" or "whether an angel in travelling from point to point, passed through the intermediate points;" and "whether more than one can exist in the same space, at the same moment." Those mighty enquiries were the intellectual jousts and tournaments of the age of chivalry and knight errantry. Happy will it be for us, if a moral Don Quixotism does not intrude itself into our efforts for true reform. There is to us a great similarity between that celebrated genius's battle with the wind-mill, and our friend's long and laborious fight, to prove the Anti-Slavery character of the Constitution; for after he has made good his arguments, and proved, to the demonstration of all, that technically the Constitution does not uphold Slavery, what good has he accomplished? He has indeed fought the letter, and perhaps come off victorious; but does he invalidate its spirit? He rests like the knight of olden time, upon the field of chivalric combat, with a deep sense of having been engaged in mortal warfare; he has fought hard and valiantly; but alas, his foe still stands as powerful as ever, and not at all disposed to yield the field.

If the Constitution, as we sail across the waters of political life, affords us no sure and certain guide, but is like a chart, which has always misled the mariner, and instead of pointing the way to a city of civilization and virtue, has directed him to the rocky shores of some cannibal island, of what earthly use is it to us? We are sailing over a troublesome ocean. Dark and ominous clouds hang over our vessel. The sky begins to gather blackness. The red lightning shoots its lurid flashes before our eyes. The thunder utters its dismal groan in our ears. The waves begin to lash and foam against each other. Our course is uncertain; but amid the gathering darkness, we discern a light-house, dimly visible in the distance. We look upon our chart, not knowing where we are. That describes our past route, and asserts that a light-house is erected at the entrance of the harbor we wish to enter. We consult our compass. It indeed agrees not with the delineations of the chart; but a lawyer stands at our side and proves the correctness of the chart. We accordingly steer our vessel towards the light, but to our dismay find that it is but a false one, held out by miserable wreckers. Our chart was wrong. It had misled us. We tacked about and escaped the snare. We were not quite wrecked. Other seamen have experienced the same danger, but we still cling to the chart. We refuse to cast it from us, and even hearken to the suggestions of one who would tell us, that the chart is right enough. It is only our wrong way of reading it that has led us into danger. We resume our voyage, confident that we shall this time avoid all harm, for we now know what our chart means. Accordingly we hoist all our sails, and proceed in confidence to our destined haven. But a blacker cloud than before casts its dismal shadow over our vessel. We can hardly discern the words of our chart. The efforts to correct its false interpretations, have so marred its surface, that we can get no light from it. At one moment it seems to direct us as we are now sailing, then immediately in an almost totally opposite course, so that bewildered and confused, we drop it entirely. We then look to the unerring needle of our compass, and by its undeviating direction to the star of hope to the mariner, as well as to the fugitive Slave, we are able to keep from destruction,,until a correct chart is procured—one which admits of no evasion, nor contradiction, and by which we are able to steer our course, until we reach the haven desired.

Thus with the Constitution. It has misled us until we were well nigh wrecked on the shores of southern oppression. We now are not able to discover what it does mean. Its literal meaning conflicts with its real one. Shall we continue to trust the safety of the ship of State to such a Constitution; one which has misdirected us long, and the meaning of which all its interpreters have decided erroneously; or shall we abandon it, and trust temporarily to the northern star of hope; to the light which gleams from the hearts of those Anti-Slavery men, who are living Anti-Slavery epistles, and true apostles of liberty; to the faithful pointing of the needle of principle, as it ever inclines in an opposite direction from the South, and thus preserve our liberties until a true and safe Constitution can be adopted? Shall we trust to the dubious and contradictory readings of a bit of parchment, composed by men like ourselves; or shall we cut loose from all connexion with the dangerous islands of human oppression lying southward, surrendering our profitable trade with worse than cannibals; and launch our vessel upon the high sea of freedom and liberty, away from the rocky shores of these islands of death, steering with an undeviating course for some northern harbor, where we may moor our vessel, and safely land our passengers? What is there in the Constitution, after all, so much in favor of liberty, as to satisfy the sons of freemen? It may, indeed, do for such freemen as could fight for themselves, and yet bind chains upon their brethren; but for those who wish to abjure all oppression it will not answer. The constitutions of the true sons of liberty must be like their hearts, polished brightly; and free from the dust of pro-slavery, as well as from its grosser filth.

But Constitution or no Constitution, it is human liberty we are contending for. We cannot stop in our labors for the oppressed, to prove the truthfulness of our enemies' weapons. We cannot step aside amid the heat and dust of the conflict between light and darkness, to read lessons upon legal technicalities. The cries of the bleeding bondman sound too loudly in our ears, to allow us to deviate from our course so much as to descend to arguing for the sanctity of human constitutions. As we hear the noise of the wailings of the Slave, and every breeze wafted from the South is laden with the cries of 3,000,000 of stricken ones, how can we care whether constitutions or churches, are in the way of their emancipation, any more than a mother would care for the flames around her, while endeavoring to rescue her child from a burning dwelling? The fires of Slavery, tended by northern priests, and fed by northern politicians, have burnt fiercely these many years, scorching and blistering even those who stood by and watched over them; the Slave's form has become almost a blackened corpse; the little ones of a fond mother's love, are already gasping in the agonies of death; and the shrieks of the living are reaching heaven, while the glaring flames, have illuminated the firmament, like the flames of burning Moscow; and shall we turn the streams of the water of life away from these terrible flames, because forsooth sacred idols block the wheels of our engines? No, let us rather flood them all, Slavery, pro-slavery, churches and constitutions, with such a deluge of celestial waters, as shall as effectually sweep from the land all these supporters of Slavery, as Noah's flood, removed from the earth the sinners of his day. If we would abolish Slavery, we must be destructionists. The word has gone forth from the mouth of the Almighty, that Slavery shall be destroyed. The advancing spirit of the age in which we live, has decreed its overthrow; its fate is even now registered on the scroll of destiny, which contains the end of all oppression, and we cannot thwart this inevitable tendency. Reform has commenced to ride triumphantly across our earth. Error is fleeing to its native dwellings, in the rocks and caves of the earth; and truth with her holiday dress, is ascending the throne of the hearts of mankind. Truth, too long hidden in the fastnesses of the forests, almost afraid to exhibit its face, although thickly veiled, is removing her garb of concealment; is stepping from her wilderness retreat, and is boldly disputing the reign of the earth, with the monsters who have so long ruled it, but to curse it, and reign over it, but to mar its life. Henceforward, although many a long and bloody battle is to be fought, between the enemies of God and man; yet truth shall conquer. Man is arousing himself to noble deeds. Slavery, that giant of despair, so long planted in the road pursued by the pilgrims of truth, like Bunyan's gloomy giant of Doubting Castle, is retreating from all its former strongholds. There is scarcely a country within the bounds of this green earth, upon which the warm sun of heaven sheds its benignant rays, but what is delivering itself from this foul blot, America only excepted! Britons and French, Danes and Norwegians, Russians and Turks, Seminole Indians and Mexicans, Algerines and Tunisites, themselves, are all casting the execrable system from them, as a reproach to their fair names; but young America, loudest in her boasts of purity, freedom and piety, is lagging behind. She only, of all the nations of the earth, seems unwilling to let the captive go free. She who fought for her own liberty, the greatest of tyrants, almost the only Pharoah of the earth!

But thanks to a few in her borders, even her proud heart begins to grow faint; her limbs tremble slightly, and like the mariners in a storm, who rush to the bottle to drink their fill for the last time, she is growing desperate, and drinking more deeply than ever of the cup of Slavery, as the last draught she can obtain from its noisome fountain.

Courage, friends of your race! Let the breath of the Almighty inspire you, let his fiat strengthen you! Clothe yourselves in the panoply of truth afresh; gird on the gospel armor anew, and make a bolder attack than ever upon the Bastile of Slavery. This gloomy castle, which has so long frowned upon our liberties, shall be razed to the ground, and its pining inmates set free, to breathe the pure air of liberty.

Onward, friends of reform! Remember that "the battle is not to the strong, nor the race to the swift only, but that stronger is the armor of the Almighty, than all the weapons of your enemies." Gird on, not the clumsy armor of King Saul, but the "breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit," the weapons which are not "carnal, but mighty through God, to the pulling down the strong holds of Satan."

One enquiry more remains for us to answer, which is, how shall we dissolve the Union? It was asserted that if the Constitution could be altered without dissolution, such a step would be unnecessary; but be it remembered, that this event can never take place, until the South is partly Anti-Slavery. The consent of the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, is necessary to accomplish this, and we leave it to all candid persons to judge whether there is any hope of such consent ever being given. The only remedy plainly is for us to abjure the Constitution, proclaim ourselves free and independent of the South, and organize a new and separate government at the North.

The steps necessary are briefly these. Let a convention of the people of the Free States in favor of this movement be called; let the legislatures of the several States withdraw their Representatives and Senators from Congress, and let them meet together, and send delegates to this general convention, as our fathers did to the convention where the Declaration of Independence was adopted. Let them meet, and adopt a Constitution, fix upon some conspicuous place for a seat of government, Buffalo for instance, send home the constitution to be ratified by the several northern States, and having thus formed their own government, let them withdraw their portion of the Army and Navy from the South, refuse to pay duties to the general government, and send a minister to the southern government for the adjustment of all claims between the two. Of course the South would be too busy in settling their own affairs to disturb us for awhile; and if war come at last, it is easy to see who would be victorious; the North with all her resources, or the South with her 3,000,000 of Slaves in her borders. The whole territory north of Mason and Dixon's line would then be open to the fleeing fugitive. No Slave hunter would dare to venture on our soil, to recover his lost victim. Thus Slave property would be useless in Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, and probably those States would soon knock at our doors for admission to our union. That would destroy the value of Slaves still farther South, and eventually the whole country would become free. But there is another view of it. The Slaves could then arise and demand their freedom, and nought could prevent them from attaining it. "At the first tap of the drum, there are 10,000 northern bayonets, ready to be thrust into the bosoms of the Slaves, should they attempt an insurrection," says Mr. Underwood of Kentucky, on the floor of Congress. This danger would have vanished. No northern foe could then be ready to strike down the Slave fighting for liberty, but millions would sympathize with and assist him. Of course the people of the North must be converted before this change can take place, but come it must. It is the only remedy for Slavery that we have any confidence in, and there is no time to be lost.