Slavery: letters and speeches

by Horace Mann

Still worse is it, when this cotton, so diabolically impregnated, gets beneath the rich velvet seats and embossed cushions of the pulpit;—unless, indeed, a double measure of the spirit of the Lord shall descend upon the preacher and exorcise both him and it, of the evil spirit it contains. When the soul of the clergyman is struck with this cotton magnetism, he grows delirious over his Bible, ignores the new dispensation, seeks out all the pro-slavery parts of the old, discards Jesus Christ as his example, and the precepts of Jesus Christ as the law of his ministrations, and proves himself a pagan, discoursing paganism in a Christian pulpit.

God grant that this kind of cotton may never stuff the cushions of our judges! I fear we are not wholly out of danger of so unspeakable a calamity. Give us the old English woolsack for them, within whose magic presence the chains of the slave drop from his limbs, and he is gloriously transfigured into a man.

Compare the newspapers of our cities now with what they were only one short twelvemonth ago, and see what demoralization cotton can work when it gets into editorial chairs.

As for those slave-catching commissioners who assume to exercise the functions of judges, to abolish human liberty, and to find property in the bodies and souls of men, but are no more a judge than an image “made after supper of a cheese-paring” is a man,—as for them, I say, they seem to have this virus the natural way; and if all moral diagnosis does not fail, it would be found, on an anatomical dissection of their hearts, that their right and left auricle and their right and left ventricle were only four cotton bolls.

But I believe that the reign of Cotton is to be short-lived. Improvements in the arts give confident promise that some new textile substance will soon be discovered which will supersede this slave-made and slave-making material. Even should this hope fail, every body sees what an unnatural attitude of power and strength the cotton-producing states now occupy. Extending over only a small area of territory, which you can cover on the map with your hand, they raise a staple which clothes, more or less, a great part of the world; while there are Brazil, Egypt, India, and regions of unknown vastness in Africa, to all of which, or nearly all of which, the plant is indigenous. Either then by the progress of the arts, or by an extension of cultivation, the majesty of Cotton will soon be dethroned; and then, then, how will these men appear, historically, who are now willing to trample upon human rights, and to send men, women, and children into all the horrors of southern bondage for the temporary profits which cotton can bestow?

I rejoice that this reference to the demoralizing power of interest gives me an opportunity to bestow well-deserved honor and praise upon a class of men who have nobly withstood its temptations. Not every man engaged in manufactures or in commerce has yielded to the seductions of this tempter. There are many noble exceptions. I have in my mind one of my own constituents largely interested in manufactures, who told me last summer that half his spindles were lying idle, and property that should have yielded income was incurring cost; “but,” said he, “do you see them all stop, and the mills decay and go down stream, before you vote for that compromise.” Another of my constituents told me he was largely interested in three ships, then at sea; but declared he would see them all sink to its bottom before he would disgrace the country by passing the Fugitive Slave bill. These are but specimens of that noble spirit which was expressed with such Spartan terseness and vigor by Bowen & McNamee, of New York, when the foul panders to southern slavery threatened them with a loss of custom. Said they, “Our goods, and not our principles, are in the market.”

O, how these declarations contrast with what a manufacturer in a neighboring county is reported to have said,—that if he could work his mills any cheaper with slave labor than with free, he would employ slaves! And what, also, as I am credibly informed, another has said,—“The south want slaves to raise cotton to sell; we want slaves to raise cotton to manufacture; therefore, we must unite with the south to uphold slavery.” Now, I believe these things to have been said; but it is of no consequence whether they were said or not; we know they have been acted. Every man who upholds this Fugitive Slave law acts them, whatever his language may be.

The compromise was forced through Congress partly by government interference, and partly by the delusive hope of a tariff. An appeal is now made, in behalf of the Fugitive Slave law, to the same mercenary motives. It is said, if opposition be made to this law, however legal or constitutional such opposition may be, we shall lose southern custom. Base and infamous appeal! Such men are made of the stuff of the tories of the revolution. Even if this appeal were true, it would be one that no honorable man could hear without indignation. But it is not true. The south must have their goods from somewhere, and our industrious artisans will make them, whoever the go-betweens may be. Will the south go bare-headed and bare-footed and unkilted, because they cannot have a law to catch freemen and slaves promiscuously? But it is said the south will abandon their slothful habits, become industrious, and manufacture for themselves. I wish they would. It would be most fortunate for us. They would then have the means of buying more from the north, and paying us better for what they do buy. Instead of spending only the money which their slaves earn, they would then have money to spend earned by the whites, and would become better customers for those ever new forms of commodities which our industry and inventive skill, while we keep our schoolhouses in operation, will always be able to supply.

Now, fellow-citizens, I have gone into these considerations for the purpose of ascertaining and of measuring the extent and the efficacy of the motives brought by our opponents to bear against us. You see they are mercenary, almost exclusively so. As for that bugbear of a dissolution of the Union, I say, without fear of contradiction, that no practical man has ever believed in it for a day. United States stocks at a hundred and sixteen, on the eve of a dissolution of the Union! The whole South Carolina, and Mississippi, and Texas delegations in Congress contending for every local advantage, for the establishment of new United States courts, for the increase of salaries, for appointments at home and abroad, as though the Union had been just insured for a thousand years! Show me one intelligent man in the whole country who has sold his stocks or his farm, or changed his residence, or altered his course of life in any respect, through fear that the Union was about to be dissolved. I think some persons may have left South Carolina, to get rid of the clamor about dissolving it. Why, what would the English national debt be worth under any well-founded apprehension that the British monarchy was crumbling to pieces? There would not be a pound of government securities that could not be bought for a penny. Confidence in the stability of our Union has not only pervaded this country, but other countries. The great bankers abroad who deal in our stocks have never changed their terms one mill in a million of dollars, through any such idle fear. They are the men whose barometers presage political storms. With such facts before us, to say that the Union has been in danger is as absurd as to say that a whirlwind is raging when the leaf of the aspen is pendulous, and cannot be seen to move. If the south wishes to dissolve the Union, let them do it, and at the end of thirty years there will be no slave in all their borders. The slaves will have made a new Jamaica or a new St. Domingo of it, as the masters shall behave themselves. No, this is nothing but a clumsy trick of the politicians; and if any one of them could be nominated for the presidency, we should hear nothing more from him about any deluge which threatens to submerge the Union. They profess peculiar love for the Union. Their clamorous notes bring to mind what Dr. Franklin remarked of self-righteous people. He said they always reminded him of scarcity of provisions;—those who had enough said nothing about it; it was the destitute who made all the clamor.

I say, then, the only remaining motive with which our adversaries can work is the loss of southern trade. This interests but few of our people. The farmers are not interested in it. The mechanics and artisans are not. The operatives in our mills are not. All our substantial, industrious classes are above this temptation, and would spurn it if they were not above it. The Fugitive Slave law champions, then, can make no more converts among them. Let us, then, continue to oppose this law in all constitutional modes. Let us explain its religious and moral bearings to the Christian. Let us tell the patriot of the disgrace it brings upon our country. Let us show to the working-man that those who are ready to make slaves of his fellow-beings for lucre will be equally ready to make a slave of him whenever interest shall supply the temptation.