On the 5th of March, 1775, the Boston massacre occurred—the fearful tragedy of State Street! All Boston was aroused, murders dreadful had been committed by the British troops, and it was a difficult task to allay the excitement occasioned thereby. What was the amount of this terrible massacre? Why, three Boston citizens had been shot in the heat of an affray with the British soldiery! What horror seemed to seize upon the hearts of the people! Why, “our brothers are being shot down in the face of open day, and our turn may come next.” Terrible was the indignation of our fathers! And yet we, their descendants, calmly allow the South to slay our citizens at their leisure. The blood of a murdered Lovejoy, still cries out from the ground for vengeance! A Baltimore prison, still contains the impress of a departed spirit’s feet, which left an impression on its gloomy pavement, as he fled from an earthly prison-house to the mansions of the blest. A C. C. Torrey still calls for redress for his wrongs at the hands of Southern tyrants. The jail of our own capital if it could speak, would tell of him who pined away within its noisome walls, as he lay in that republican enclosure, a victim to Southern tyranny. Yes, Dr. Crandall’s blood has not yet been atoned for, by the wicked South. Here are, at least three victims who have been slain, at the cruel dictation of Slavery’s dreadful power. But time would fail me, to tell of a Van Zandt, of a Fairbanks, and of numerous others, whose lives have been forfeited to the South. And yet we submit to her dictation. Our own citizens slain, imprisoned, and cruelly beaten, but yet we have no heart to break away from this degrading alliance with our Southern man-stealing brethren.
But, I must bring this expostulation to a close, and proceed to show the consequences of this event, the formation of a new government. Of these it may be said; they could not be more disastrous to the North than Slavery has been; for like the “horse-leech’s two daughters,” she continually cries “give, give,” and never seems to have enough. Hardly through with the digestion of the tremendous morsel just administered to her gormandizing appetite, she commences to lick her lips, and daintily ask for a dessert, with which to finish the full meal which she has already made of California and New Mexico, and as her mother deems it her duty, never to deny any of her darling daughter’s reasonable requests, probably the Island of Cuba, will soon be placed at her side, for her to nibble upon at leisure.
Many persons deprecate our plan, for fear of a civil war; and terrific ideas of rivers of blood rolling across our fields, and piles of bones heaped on our shores, startle them in their slumbers, as the rustling of a leaf fills the slaveholder’s heart with fear. In the first place, how very absurd is this idea of a civil war being the result of disunion. Can any one seriously urge it, as an objection to this movement? Look at the vast extent of territory open to the incursions of an enemy, if the North should withdraw from the South. There are the Islands of the West Indies, filled with emancipated slaves, ready, some of them to join in an effort to redeem the Southern slaves from bondage. Then there is the long line of sea-board, entirely unprotected, which even in the last war was devastated in part by the British army, and the capital of our country reduced to ashes. On the Northern frontier, runs that talismanic line, over which a slave has but to place his foot, and glorious liberty becomes his possession. Here stand, twelve millions of freemen, ready to fight in behalf of the panting fugitive, while nearly 20,000 sturdy hearts beat quick to the sound of the trumpet of freedom, and are ready to leave their homes in Canada, to assist their brethren. Then, there is ill-treated and insulted Mexico, burning under a sense of the wrongs inflicted upon her, and watching an opportunity to redress those wrongs. Last of all, are the numerous Indian tribes, smarting under a deep sense of the wrongs they have received at our hands. Now will any sensible person assert that five millions of Southerners, allowing all her white population to be in favor of Slavery, with an intestine foe, ready to spring upon her, as soon as the last chance of freedom presents itself, will be in danger of fighting twelve millions of free Northerners, who can call to their aid all these, and numerous other allies? Why, the idea is preposterous, and none but an insane man, can seriously entertain it. Who would fight the North, if war should be declared? At the first sound of the trumpet of war, every slave would be instantly free; for never could the Southerners leave their homes exposed to the fury of an insurgent population, as they would be obliged to, if an army should be organized to fight the North.
But who are those persons who cry out “civil war, and bloodshed?” Are they not mostly those who believe the revolutionary war to have been right? If Slavery is wrong, to be consistent, they ought to hail any movement which will hasten an insurrection among the Slaves. What is a civil war of a few years’ continuance, in comparison to the seven years’ war we waged with Great Britain? Then our resources were limited, our treasury light, and we were only three millions strong. But now, we abound in resources, have become plethoric on account of our riches, and are twelve millions strong, while our enemy is less than half that number. We coped with twenty millions of British subjects, when we numbered but three millions, can we not now with twelve millions cope with five? Then has our glory departed indeed, and we are the veriest slaves in existence. But would our trade be endangered? Ah, that is the question. Said a person to me not long since, “I acknowledge there would be benefits in a dissolution of the Union, but there are also disadvantages.” And what are they? we inquired. “Why, our trade would be injured.” Let it perish then! Every mother’s son of us, had better pack up and on board our numerous vessels go on a begging expedition to England or France, or we had better “tie millstones about our necks, and drown ourselves in the depths of the sea;” or, we had better lay down in the streets and perish with hunger, than to allow Slavery to continue its existence.
The moment it is granted that a dissolution of the Union would abolish Slavery quicker than any other course, then I think our point is gained, and there is no necessity of proving that we shall not lose the sale of a few hats and boots, or slave whips. It seems almost an insult to the character of the Northern people to answer such an argument as this, and yet I fear that it is the “strong reason” why this question meets with so much opposition.
If slavery is abolished, no one can deny that our trade, so important to Northern men, and for which they are ready to barter the welfare of three millions of human beings, would be materially increased; but for one I care not, whether this will be the case or not. I cannot, I will not argue this question. It is a sin against the Holy Ghost, to dream of balancing the matter in this way. Northern men, you are too much actuated by this spirit of Avarice! You must be converted from this accursed love for gold; for it will sink you into the lowest degradation of a life afar from Deity. You cannot be the friends of God, while it reigns in your hearts! You must arise, and cast it from you! You must be converted from your selfishness, and then you will have no objections to offer against a dissolution of the Union! If your eyes can only be anointed with the eye-salve of humanity, and be washed in the waters of benevolence, you will see the folly of all your objections, and will be ready to sink all your ships with their rich cargoes, into the depths of the sea, and to burn your well-filled stores, rather than to cause Slavery to continue another day! O, men of the North, can ye not be aroused to action in the slave’s behalf? Shall the purple streams of the slave’s blood, flow ceaselessly and rapidly o’er our land, gushing forth from every hill-side of the South, and coloring all the fair fields of Southern industry, on account of your sustaining power? O that I could utter some word in your ear, which would quicken your dormant sensibilities and arouse you to action in the slave’s cause! Shall I tell you of God, of heaven, and of hell? There is a God, and as he descends from his abode among the stars, and essays to find an entrance into your soul, by which he may make you “a joint heir with Christ to an inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled and which fadeth not away,” depend upon it, that he will be frustrated in his benevolent purpose, if the demon of pro-slavery, lies coiled up in your heart. Whatever may be said of religion, it is true that God can never approve of any person, in league with slaveholders; for a just God is forever opposed to all forms of robbery and oppression. If God’s favor then is of any value, flee, I beseech thee, to the arms of liberty, and be encircled by her protecting power; so that all approach to Slavery may be dreaded by thee, as an angel dreads the polluting touch of sin.
EXTRACT of an Address of Sam’l J. May, Unitarian Clergyman, in Syracuse, N. Y., delivered in Faneuil Hall.
Never will the story be forgotten in our country, or throughout the world, of the man—whom I trust you will all be permitted to see—who, that he might escape from Southern oppression, consented to a living entombment. He entered the box with the determination to be free or die: and as he heard the nails driven in, his fear was that death was to be his portion; yet, said he, let death come in preference to slavery! I happened to be in the City of Philadelphia—I have told the story to the convention already, but I will tell it again—in the midst of an excitement that was caused by the arrival of a man in a box. I measured it myself; three feet one inch long, two feet wide, and two feet six inches deep. In that box a man was entombed for twenty seven hours.
The box was placed in the express car in Richmond, Va., and subjected to all the rough treatment ordinarily given to boxes of merchandise; for, notwithstanding the admonition of “this side up with care,” the box was tumbled over, so that he was sometimes on his head; yes, at one time, for nearly two hours, as it seemed to him, on his head, and momentarily expecting that life would become extinct, from the terrible pressure of blood that poured upon his brain. Twenty-seven hours was this man subjected to this imminent peril, that he might, for one moment, at least, breathe the air of liberty. Does not such a man deserve to be free? Is there a heart here, that does not bid him welcome? Is there a heart here, that can doubt that there must be in him not merely the heart and soul of a deteriorated man—a degraded, inferior man—but the heart and soul of a noble man? Not a nobleman, sir, but a NOBLE MAN? Who can doubt it?