THE MAYFLOWER AND THE SLAVE SHIP.
Letter to the New England Society at New York, December 21, 1863.
At the anniversary of the Society speeches were made by Rev. Dr. Hitchcock, Mayor Opdyke, General Dix, General Burnside, General Sickles, Senator Hale, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, and James T. Brady, Esq. Among the letters read was one from Mr. Sumner.
Senate Chamber, December 21, 1863.
MY DEAR SIR,—I had counted on partaking of your patriotic, invigorating, and gratifying festival, where New-Englanders away from home annually meet for fellowship; but the Senate is in session, and you know it is not a habit with me to leave my post. I must put off to another occasion the pleasure I had promised myself.
Never before, since the Mayflower landed its precious cargo, have New-Englanders had more reason for pride and gratulation than now. We are told that a little leaven shall leaven the whole lump, and that saying is verified. The principles and ideas which constitute the strength and glory of New England have spread against opposition and contumely, till at last their influence is visible in a regenerated country,—tried, it may be, by murderous conspiracy and rebellion, but aroused and stimulated to the manly support of Human Rights.
Amid all the sorrows of a conflict without precedent, let us hold fast to the consolation that it is in simple obedience to the spirit in which New England was founded that we are now resisting the bloody efforts to raise a wicked power on the corner-stone of Human Slavery, and that as New-Englanders we could not do otherwise.
If such a wicked power can be raised on this continent, the Mayflower traversed its wintry sea in vain.
We remember, too, that another ship crossed at the same time, buffeting the same sea. It was a Dutch ship, with twenty slaves, who were landed at Jamestown, in Virginia, and became the fatal seed of that Slavery which has threatened to overshadow the land. Thus the same ocean, in the same year, bore to the Western Continent the Pilgrim Fathers, consecrated to Human Liberty, and also a cargo of slaves. In the holds of those two ships were the germs of the present direful war, and the simple question now is between the Mayflower and the slave ship. Who that has not forgotten God can doubt the result? The Mayflower must prevail.