“Oh, yes, come now, Susie, tell me. If I cannot help you, I can at least feel sorry for you.”
“Oh, sah, but you are kind to feel sorry for a poor old slave like me. Dey’re sold my two dear little children, and dey’ll take ’em away to-morrow, and I knows I’ll neber see ’em no more ’till I sees ’em up dar, sah—up dar, sah, whar none of us’ll be sold any more.”
As Aunt Susie made this reply, she turned her face heavenward, and pointed up with her finger. In her agonized countenance, wet as it was with her sorrowful tears, I read an appeal for the freedom of the slave, stronger and more touching than all the volumes and speeches that have ever been written or made upon the subject.
I could not stand it any longer, and bidding the poor old slave good-bye, I turned away without my bread, for my heart was full. I no longer wondered at the strength of the language used by Ireland’s great orator, Daniel O’Connell, when he said:
“The Americans, in their conduct towards the slaves, are traitors to the cause of human liberty, foul detractors of the democratic principles which I have cherished throughout my political life. They are blasphemers of that great and sacred name which they pretend to honor. For in their solemn league and covenant, the Declaration of Independence, they declare that all men have certain ‘inalienable rights.’ These they defined to be life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To maintain these, they pledged themselves with all the solemnity of an oath in the presence of Almighty God. The aid which they invoked from heaven was awarded to them; but they have violated their awfully solemn compact with the Deity, and set at naught every principle which they profess to hold sacred, by keeping two and a half millions of their fellow-men in bondage. In reprobation of that disgraceful conduct, my humble voice is heard across the waves of the wide Atlantic. Like the thunderstorm in its strength, it careers against the breeze armed with the lightning of Christian truth. And let them seek to repress it as they may; let them murder and assassinate in the true spirit of Lynch law; the storm will rave louder and louder around them till the claims of justice become too strong to be withstood, and the black man will stand up too big for his chains. I hope what I am about to say is not a profanation, but it seems as if the curse of the Almighty has already overtaken them. For the first time in their political history, disgraceful tumults and anarchy have been witnessed in their cities. Blood has been shed without the sanction of the law, and even Sir Robert Peel has been enabled to taunt Americans with gross inconsistency and lawless proceedings. I differ with Sir Robert Peel on many points. On one point, however, I fully agree with him. Let the proud Americans learn that all parties in this country unite in condemnation of their present conduct, and let them also learn that the worst of all aristocracies is that which prevails in America, an aristocracy which has been aptly denominated that of the human skin. The most insufferable pride is that shown by such an aristocracy. I will continue to hurl these taunts across the Atlantic. They will ascend the Mississippi, they will descend the Missouri, and be heard along the banks of the Ohio and Monongahela, till the black man leaps delightedly to express his gratitude to those who have effected his emancipation. And oh! but perhaps it is my pride that dictates this hope, that some black O’Connell may rise among his fellow-slaves, who will cry ‘agitate! agitate! agitate!’ till the two millions and a half of his fellow-sufferers learn their strength, learn that they are two millions and a half! If there is one thing more than another which can excite my hatred, it is the laws which the Americans have framed to prevent the instruction of their slaves. To teach a slave to read is made a capital offence! Shame! To be seen in the company of a slave who can write, is visited with imprisonment! Shame! And to teach the slave the principles of freedom is punishable with death! It may be asked, Are these human laws? Are they not made by the wolves of the forest? No, but they are made by a congregation of two-legged wolves, American wolves, monsters in human shape, who boast of their liberty and of their humanity, while they carry the hearts of tigers within them. With regard to the attacks that have been made upon my countrymen by such men, I rejoice at them. They prove to me that the sufferings to which they have been subjected in the land of their birth have not been lost upon them; but that their kindly affections have been nurtured into strength, and that they have ranged themselves on the side of the oppressed slave.”
Would to heaven that ministers of religion, as well as statesmen would shake off their lip-fetters, and throughout the whole nation proclaim, as with one voice, the liberty of Gospel love! As long as the heralds of salvation are time-servers and caste-courters, there will be Pharisaical hatred to God’s poor. The reader will peruse an extract here from a sermon on Christian Courage by Rev. Alexander Clark, delivered in the mid-summer of 1862, some weeks before the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation. The words are timely and truthful now as then:
“To the Christian citizen, who, in this nation, is greater than a ruler in any other, I would say a word to-day. These are times of sorrow. Our nation is terribly lacerated, and bleeding at every pore. Horrid civil war hangs her black pall over our summer skies. The clouds have hovered long, and still they gather. All the light we have are the vivid lightnings that flash across our battle-fields, though every flash reveals a flying foe, records the victory, and thrills it in electric velocity throughout our loyal land. Then an impenetrable darkness prevails. We cannot yet see the ‘cloud with the silver lining.’ We cannot hail the day of universal peace. The thick shadows obscure our vision. The groans we hear, and the tears we see, hinder our exulting. Oh, the tears of this war—what a river of them, enough, with the added tears of the suffering slaves for lo! these many years, to float the cruel ship that first brought bondmen to our shores! The graves already filled, and others filling every day, and every where, almost crush our very hopes. In the midst of this darkness and storm, this carnage and blood, we would fear for the result, were it not for the assurance that we feel to nerve us right from the God of nations. Be not afraid, only believe.
“And what shall we believe? What shall be our faith? This—no more, and no less—that this nation must first be pure, then peaceable. Amen. Lord, help thou our unbelief! Purify us from all sin! Take away from us all false trust, and all man-glorying! The Lord help us to accept universal liberty for this nation—boldly, immediately, unconditionally, that the sunlight of God’s favor may shine upon us once more and for ever! May our rulers and generals, and all Christians, accept the life-thought of freedom to all men as the talisman of triumph henceforth! And may none in authority, may none in the churches or closets, be unwilling to trust in the arm of the Lord. Oh, that the entire people might cease trembling, and believe and be bold for the right!
“The same Power that spoke life to the daughter of Jairus, is able to restore our lost prosperity—is able to return to us our national renown. And He will, if we only believe. Our Republic is young in years, as a child among the nations, but it will yet be raised to its second life, which shall be more glorious than the first. The noise of party politicians and mock mourners shall be hushed as insolence, and the professional fault-finders who ridicule the workings of Providence, shall be turned out; and independent of their viperous hisses over a dead Republic, it even already pleaseth Almighty God to awake our slumbering people to the liberty of truth. His name, and not a paltry, pitiful party’s, shall have the glory for a nation redeemed, and a weary, toil-worn race emancipated!
‘He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;