And now they welcomed me to their native land, and embraced the earliest opportunity of visiting me in my new home. And all that passed between us tended to confirm us in our common unbelief. I afterwards found that in some of the abolitionists, in nearly all, I fear, anti-christian views had led to immoral habits, which rendered their antipathy to Christianity all the more bitter. In almost all of them infidelity had produced a lawlessness of speculation on moral matters, which could hardly fail to produce in the end, if it had not already produced, great licentiousness of life.
I had no sooner got things comfortably fixed at home, than I received an invitation from the American Anti-slavery Society, to attend their Annual Meeting, which was to be held in Rochester, New York. I went, and there I met with S. S. Foster, Abby Kelly Foster, Parker Pillsbury, C. L. Remond, Henry C. Wright, Wendell Phillips, W. L. Garrison, Lucy Stone, Lucretia and Lydia Mott, and a number of other leading Abolitionists. Here too I met with Frederick Douglas, the celebrated fugitive slave, who had settled in Rochester, and was publishing his paper there. Some of the Anti-Slavery Leaders I had seen before in England, and had had the pleasure of having them as my guests, and of enjoying their conversation. Henry C. Wright, W. L. Garrison, Frederick Douglas, and C. L. Remond, were old acquaintances. The rest I knew only by report: but I had read the story of their labors and sufferings in behalf of the negro slave, and had longed for years to make their acquaintance. They were, in my estimation, among the best and bravest of their race. I had read of them a thousand times with the greatest interest, and a thousand times I had wished for the honor of co-operating with them in their generous labors. And now I was in their midst, on American soil. And all seemed glad to make my acquaintance, and eager to testify their regard for me, and to welcome me to a share in their benevolent labors. I was soon at home with them all, for they were a free and hearty people. I attended both their public and their private meetings. The anniversary lasted several days, and the time was one continued Festival. There were people from almost every part of the country, and the house of every Anti-Slavery person in the city was placed at the service of the visitors. They were as one family, and had all things in common. The public meetings were largely attended, and the audiences seemed favorably impressed. In the intervals I visited the Falls on the Genesee River. More beautiful and enchanting scenes I never beheld. In all but terrible grandeur they equal, if they do not surpass, the Falls of Niagara.
And there was an infinite abundance of strange and exciting conversation in many of the circles, not only on Slavery, but on the Bible and Religion, on the Church and the Priesthood, and on Woman's Rights, and the Bloomer Costume, and Marriage Laws, and Free-love, and Education, and Solomon's Rod, and Non-resistance, and Human Government, and Communism, and Individualism, and Unitarianism, and Theodore Parkerism, and Spiritualism, and Vegetarianism, and Teetotalism, and Deism, and Atheism, and Clairvoyance, and Andrew Jackson Davis, and the American Congress, and Quakerism, and William Henry Channing, and his journey to England, and Free-soil, and the Public Lands, and the Common Right to the Soil, and Rent, and Interest, and Capital, and Labor, and Fourierism, and Congeniality of Spirit, and Natural Affinities, and Domestic Difficulties, and—the Good time Coming. All were full of reform, and most were wild and fanatical. Some regarded marriage as unnatural, and pleaded for Free-love as the law of life. Some were for Communism, but differed as to the form which it ought to assume. One contended that all should be perfectly free,—that each should be a law unto himself, and should work, and rest, and eat, and drink, as his own free spirit should prompt him. Another said that the principle had been tried, and had failed,—that some were anxious to do all the eating, and sleeping, and loving, and left others to do all the working. Joseph Treat was there, advocating Atheism, and defending the right of men and women, married or single, to give free play to native tendencies and sexual affinities. But Treat was indifferently clad, and not well washed, and he was evidently no great favorite. * * * Most were in favor of non-resistance, and full individual freedom. To acknowledge the right of human government and of human laws, was treason to humanity. Man is a law to himself. He is his own governor. The Protestant principle of the right of private judgment and liberty of conscience strikes at the root of all the governments on earth. Each one's nature is his own sole law. The one principle of duty is, for every one to do that which is right in his own eyes. The principle of the Anti-Slavery Society means that, and neither more nor less. And the Anti-Slavery Society will, after emancipating the negro, destroy all the governments, remodel all the laws and institutions, and emancipate all the nations of the earth. Of course the laws of marriage will fall to the ground. Why not? They originated only with men,—with men who lived in darker times, and who were less developed, than we. It would be strange if children could make laws fit to govern men. And with the laws of marriage will go the laws of property in land. Land was common property at first, and what right had any one to make it private? The first man who appropriated land was a thief. And those who inherited it from him were receivers of stolen goods. And the title that was vicious at first could never be made valid by time. The continuance of a wrong can never make it right. Allow that men have a right to the land in consequence of long possession and inheritance, and you must allow that men may have a right to their slaves. The right to land, and the right to slaves, are not so different as some would suppose. What is man's right to his own body worth, if he is deprived of his right to the land? Man lives from the land, and unless he has a right to the land, he can have no right to life. A right to life implies a right to the land. Men live on the land as well as from it; and if they have not a right to the land, they can have no right to live. And man has a right to perfect freedom. Life without freedom is slavery; and slavery is the extinction of all rights, the right to life included. And woman has equal rights with man. And children have equal rights with either. The idea that human beings have no rights till they are twenty-one, is monstrous. What mighty change is it that takes place at the moment a person reaches the age of twenty-one, that he should be a slave a moment before, and a free man a moment after? No change at all takes place. The rights of a human being are the gift of Nature, and not the gift of the law. Who authorized men to make laws for one another? In making men different from each other, Nature has made it impossible for one man to legislate wisely for another. The majority have a right to rule themselves, but they have no fight to rule the minority. All rights are the rights of individuals, and the rights of individuals composing a minority, are the same as the rights of individuals composing a majority. A man may elect a representative; but he cannot be bound by a representative elected by others. Children should be educated, not by force or authority, but by attraction. The assumption of authority over a child by a parent is usurpation; the use of authority over a child is tyranny. The individuality of a child is its life, and life is sacred. To destroy individuality is murder. We have no right to take Nature's place, and make a human being something different from what she has formed him. Solomon's rod and Paul's authority are alike immoral. All should be governed by their attractions, like the orbs of heaven, and the constituents of the earth. The law of Nature is one, both for living men and dead matter. Our sympathies and affinities are our only rulers. They are ourselves,—our best selves,—and to allow either law or ruler to interfere with them, is self-destruction. We are no longer ourselves when we allow ourselves to be controlled by the will or power of another. Animals have equal rights with man. The poet was right when he said,
"Take not away the life thou canst not give,
For all things have an equal right to live."
How can man have a right to take away the life of an animal? The lower animals occupied the world before man, and man, a later comer, could not abrogate the prior rights of his predecessors. The use of animal food is unnatural. It is unhealthy. In feeding on other living creatures man degrades, corrupts, and then destroys himself. And vegetables, grains, and fruits should be taken in their natural state. The art of cooking is an unnatural innovation. The first of our race did not cook. Man is the only cooking animal, and he is the only sickly one. He is the only one that loses his teeth, or suffers from indigestion. Teetotalism is binding on all. Alcohol is an unnatural product. Man is the only being unnatural enough to drink it. Grapes are good, and so is grain; but wine, and beer, and spirits, are a trinity of devils, which destroy the bodies and torment the souls of unnatural men. "There is no God," said one. "Gods and devils are alike fantastic creatures of the erring mind of man." "But there must be a God," said another. "All nature cries aloud there is a God. Our own hearts' instincts—our highest intuitions,—assure us there is. As well deny the universe, and the primal intuitions of humanity, as the being of God. A God and a future life are necessities of human nature. And there is, without us, a supply for every want within us. As soon will you find a race of beings with appetites for food, for whom no food is provided, as a race with longings for God and desires for immortality, while no God and immortality exist to meet those longings, to satisfy those desires." "But if there be a God to answer to our longings, and a blessed immortality to satisfy our desires, why not a devil to answer to our fears, and a hell to answer to our guilty terrors? And would a God leave us without a revelation of his will." "The instincts of our nature are the revelation of God's will. To obey our instincts is to obey the law of God." "Then is the law of God as various as men's natural tendencies? Does the murderer, whose tendency is to kill, obey the law of God, as well as the victim who struggles to escape his doom? And does the eagle obey the law of God in pouncing on the dove, and the dove in seeking to evade its talons? Is every tendency the law of God? If it be the will of God that the powerful tendencies of some should neutralize the feebler tendencies of others, is not might, right? And if might be right, why murmur at anything that is? For everything that is, exists by virtue of its might: and every thing that perishes, perishes in virtue of its weakness. Are you not sanctioning the doctrine of the Optimist, and saying with Pope,
"In spite of sense, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear—whatever is, is RIGHT."
"Whatever is, is right," says another. "It is the result of eternal wisdom, of almighty power, and infinite love. God is all perfect, and He is all in all. A perfect God could have nothing short of a perfect object in all His works, a perfect motive prompting Him, a perfect rule to guide Him; and, as the author of all existence, a perfect material out of which to make the creatures of His love. All is perfect. It is men's own imperfection that makes them think otherwise." "All is perfect," you say, "yet man is imperfect; and his imperfection makes him think other things imperfect. All is perfect, yet something is imperfect; and that something is the most perfect or the least imperfect creature in existence." "Imperfection itself is a part of perfection," says the Optimist. "As discords are necessary to the highest musical compositions; so imperfection is necessary to the highest perfection."
"The most difficult point of all," says a philosophical Unitarian, "is that of necessity. Every thing must have a cause. Man's actions are the result of physical causes; yet man is consciously free." "Man is no more free than the planets," says an Atheist. "He acts freely, as the planets do,—that is, he acts in harmony with his tendencies,—in harmony with the causes of his actions,—the causes of his actions cause them by causing him to will them, by inclining him to do them; and the causes of planetary action produce that action in the same way: but the freedom and the necessity are the same in the one case as in the other. All is free, and all is bound. The chain is infinite, eternal, and almighty. The difference between man and a planet is, that man is conscious of his acts, and the planet is not." "Then duty is a dream," said a third, "and conscience a delusion; and responsibility a fiction; and virtue and vice are alike unworthy of either praise or blame, reward or punishment." "A tree is not responsible," said the Necessitarian, "yet we cut it down, if it bears no fruit; and we cut off the natural branches, and insert new scions, if its fruit is not to our liking. A musquito is irresponsible, yet we kill it when it gives us pain. A horse is irresponsible, yet we caress it when it gives us pleasure." "So man is no more than a tree, a musquito, or a horse! And selfishness is the measure of our duty! We caress or kill as we are pleased or pained." And so the conversation ran on in one party.
In another the Bible is the subject of conversation. But here all are agreed on the principal point. No one regards it as of supernatural origin, or of Divine authority. The question is, whether the Anti-Slavery Society shall acknowledge that the clergy are right in saying that the Bible sanctions Slavery. "That it does sanction Slavery is certain," says one. "Abraham was a slave-holder, a slave-trader, and a slave-breeder. Isaac inherited his slave property. Jacob had slaves, and had offspring by two of them. Moses allows the Jews to buy up the nations round about them, and to hold them as slaves, as a possession, and to transmit them as an inheritance to their children for ever. The Decalogue recognizes slaves as property. Jesus never condemns slave-holding, and Paul returns a fugitive, to his master. Take the clergy at their word. Acknowledge that their sacred book does sanction Slavery. Acknowledge that it allows a master to flog his slave to death, on the ground that the slave is his money. Acknowledge too that it allows the slave-holder to make his female slaves his concubines. Acknowledge every thing. Take the preachers' side in the matter, and you will shock the preachers, and you will shock the public, and cause them to give up the defence of Slavery." "The slave-holders are not governed by the Bible," says another. "Their appeal to it is only a pretence,—an argumentum ad hominem. They favor Slavery because it is profitable, and because they like it. Make it unprofitable, and they will soon find a different interpretation for the Bible." "Show that the Bible is no authority,—that it is merely a human book,—and you take away their argument for Slavery," said one. "Their argument is force," said another, "and you will never abolish Slavery till you take up arms and crush the tyrants." "But the Bible is the question," says a third. "Call a Convention to discuss the Bible," said I, and the Convention was accordingly called.
And thus the conversation ran in private circles, during the intervals of the public meetings.