1. The first objection, founded on alleged danger to the master, most generally takes the extravagant form, that the slave, if released from his present condition, would “cut his master’s throat.” Here is a blatant paradox, which can pass for reason only among those who have lost their reason. With absurdity having no parallel except in the defences of Slavery, it assumes that the African, when treated justly, will show a vindictiveness he does not exhibit when treated unjustly,—that, when elevated by the blessings of Freedom, he will develop an appetite for blood never manifested when crushed by the curse of bondage. At present, the slave sees his wife ravished from his arms,—sees his infant swept away to the auction-block,—sees the heavenly gates of knowledge shut upon him,—sees his industry and all its fruits unjustly snatched by another,—sees himself and his offspring doomed to servitude from which there is no redemption; and still his master sleeps secure. Will the master sleep less secure when the slave no longer smarts under these revolting atrocities? I will not trifle with your intelligence, or with the quick-passing hour, by arguing this question.
There is a lofty example, brightening the historic page, by which the seal of experience is affixed to the conclusion of reason; and you would hardly pardon me, if I failed to adduce it. By a single Act of Parliament the slaves of the British West Indies were changed at once to freedmen; and this great transition was accomplished absolutely without personal danger of any kind to the master. And yet the chance of danger there was greater far than among us. In our broad country the slaves are overshadowed by a more than sixfold white population. Only in two States, South Carolina and Mississippi, do the slaves outnumber the whites, and there not greatly, while in the entire Slave States the whites outnumber the slaves by millions. It was otherwise in the British West Indies, where the whites were overshadowed by a more than sixfold population. The slaves were 800,000, while the whites numbered only 131,000, distributed in different proportions on the different islands. And this disproportion has since increased rather than diminished, always without danger to the whites. In Jamaica, the largest of these possessions, there are now upwards of 400,000 Africans, and only 15,000 whites; in Barbadoes, the next largest, 120,000 Africans, and only 16,000 whites; in St. Lucia, 24,000 Africans, and only 900 whites; in Tobago, 14,000 Africans, and only 160 whites; in Montserrat, 7,000 Africans, and only 150 whites; and in the Grenadines, upwards of 6,000 Africans, and only about 60 whites.[11] And yet the authorities in all these places attest the good behavior of the Africans. Sir Lionel Smith, Governor of Jamaica, in a speech to the Assembly, declares that their conduct “amply proves how well they have deserved the boon of Freedom”;[12] the Governor of the Leeward Islands dwells on “the peculiarly rare instances of the commission of grave or sanguinary crimes amongst the emancipated population of these islands”;[13] and the Queen of England, in a speech from the throne, has announced that the complete and final emancipation of the Africans had “taken place without any disturbance of public order and tranquillity.”[14] In this example I find new confirmation of the rule, that the highest safety is in doing right; and thus do I dismiss the objection founded on alleged danger to the master.
2. I am now brought to the second objection, founded on alleged damage to the slave. It is common among partisans of Slavery to assert that our Enterprise has actually retarded the cause it seeks to promote; and this paradoxical accusation, which might naturally show itself among the rank weeds of the South, is cherished here on our Northern soil among those who look for any fig-leaf with which to cover indifference or tergiversation.
This peculiar form of complaint is an old device, instinctively employed on other occasions, until it ceases to be even plausible. Thus, throughout all time, has every good cause been encountered. The Saviour was nailed to the cross with a crown of thorns on his head, as a disturber of that peace on earth which he came to declare. The Disciples, while preaching the Gospel of forgiveness and good-will, were stoned as preachers of sedition and discord. The Reformers, who sought to establish a higher piety and faith, were burnt at the stake as blasphemers and infidels. Patriots, in all ages, striving for their country’s good, have been doomed to the scaffold or to exile, even as their country’s enemies. Those brave Englishmen, who, at home, under the lead of Edmund Burke, espoused the cause of our fathers, shared the same illogical impeachment, which was touched to the quick by that orator statesman, when, after exposing its essential vice, in “attributing the ill effect of ill-judged conduct to the arguments which had been used to dissuade us from it,” he denounced it as “absurd, but very common in modern practice, and very wicked.”[15] Ay, Sir, it is common in modern practice. In England it has vainly renewed itself with special frequency against Bible Societies,—against the friends of education,—against the patrons of vaccination,—against the partisans of peace,—all of whom have been openly arraigned as provoking and increasing the very evils, whether of infidelity, ignorance, disease, or war, which they benignly seek to check. To bring an instance precisely applicable to our own,—Wilberforce, when conducting the Antislavery Enterprise of England, first against the Slave-Trade, and then against Slavery itself, was told that those efforts, by which his name is now consecrated forevermore, tended to increase the hardships of the slave, even to the extent of riveting anew his chains. Such are precedents for the imputation to which our Enterprise is exposed; and such, also, are precedents by which I exhibit the fallacy of the imputation.
Sir, I do not doubt that the Enterprise produces heat and irritation, amounting often to inflammation, among slave-masters, which to superficial minds seems inconsistent with success, but which the careful observer will recognize at once as the natural and not unhealthy effort of a diseased body to purge itself of existing impurities; and just in proportion to the malignity of the concealed poison will be the extent of inflammation. A distemper like Slavery cannot be ejected like a splinter. It is too much to expect that men thus tortured should reason calmly, that patients thus suffering should comprehend the true nature of their case and kindly acknowledge the beneficent cure; but not on this account can it be suspended. Nor, when we consider the character of Slavery, can it be expected that men who sustain it will be tranquil. Conscience has its voice, and will be heard in awful warning hurrying to and fro in the midnight hour. Its outcry is more natural than silence.
In the face of this complaint, I assert that the Antislavery Enterprise has already accomplished incalculable good. Even now it sweeps the national heart, compelling it to emotions of transforming power. All are touched,—the young, the middle-aged, the old. There is a new glow at the household hearth. Mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters are aroused to take part in the great battle. There is a new aspiration for justice on earth, awakening not merely a sentiment against Slavery, such as prevailed with our fathers, but a deep, undying conviction of its wrong, and a determination to leave no effort unattempted for its removal. With the sympathies of all Christendom as allies, already it encompasses the slave-masters by a moral blockade, invisible to the eye, but more potent than navies, from which there can be no escape except in final capitulation. Thus it has created the irresistible influence which itself constitutes the beginning of success.
Already are signs of change. In common speech, as well as in writing, among slave-masters, the bondman is no longer called slave, but servant,—thus, by soft substitution, concealing and condemning the true relation. Newspapers, even in the land of bondage, blush at the hunt of men by bloodhounds,—thus protesting against an unquestionable incident of Slavery. Other signs appear in the added comfort of the slave,—in the enlarged attention to his wants,—in the experiments now beginning, by which the slave is enabled to share in the profits of his labor, and thus finally secure his freedom,—and, above all, in the consciousness among slave-masters that they dwell now, as never before, under the keen observation of an ever-wakeful Public Opinion, quickened by an ever-wakeful Public Press. Nor is this all. Only lately propositions were introduced into the Legislatures of different States, and countenanced by Governors, to mitigate the existing Law of Slavery; and almost while speaking, I have received drafts of two different memorials, one to the Legislature of Virginia, and the other to that of North Carolina, asking for the slave three things, which it will be monstrous to refuse, but which, if conceded, will take from Slavery its existing character: I mean, first, the protection of the marriage relation; secondly, the protection of the parental relation; and, thirdly, the privilege of knowledge. Grant these, and the girdled Upas tree soon must die. Sir, amidst these tokens of present success, and the auguries of the future, I am not disturbed by complaints of seeming damage. “Though it consume our own dwelling, who does not venerate fire, without which human life can hardly exist on earth?” says the Hindoo proverb; and the time is even now at hand, when the Antislavery Enterprise, which is the very fire of Freedom, with all its incidental excesses and excitements, will be hailed with similar regard.