Autobiography of a Female Slave

by Martha Griffith Browne

"Nothing could be fairer, my dear Mr. Winston. Your conviction will doubtless subject you to immense sacrifices: but these will only enhance your real worth as a man, and I am sure you will make them without hesitation, though it may be, not without reluctance. Now, it is a principle of law, well settled, that no person can in any manner convey a title, even to those things which are property, greater than that which he rightfully possesses. If, for instance, I acquire, by theft or otherwise, unlawful possession of your watch or other articles of value, which is transferred, by the operation of purchase and sale, through many hands, your right never ceases; and the process of law will enable you to obtain possession. Each individual who purchased the article, may have his remedy against him from whom he procured it, however extended the series of purchasers: but, since whatever right any one of them has was derived originally from me, and since my unlawful acquisition conferred no right at all, it follows that none was transmitted. Consequently, you were not divested, and the just spirit of law, continuing to recognize your property in the article whenever found, provides the ready means whereby you may reduce it once more to possession. This principle of law is not peculiar to a single locality; it enters into the remedial code of all civilized countries. Its benefits are accessible to the free negro in this land of the dark Southern border; and, I trust, it will not be long before those who are now held in slavery may be embraced in its beneficent operation. Whether it is recognized internationally, I am not fully prepared to say; but it ought to be, if it is not, for it is the dictate of equity and common sense. But, upon the hypothesis that it is so recognized, if the property of an inhabitant of Africa were stolen from him by a citizen of the United States, he might recover it. As for those people who, in the Southern States, are held as slaves, they or their ancestors came here originally not by their own choice, but by compulsion, from distant Africa. You will hardly deny, I presume, what is, historically, so evident—that "they were captured," as the phrase is, or, in our honest vernacular, stolen and brought by violence from their native homes. Had they been the proper subjects of property, what could prevent the application of the principle I have quoted?"

After two or three hems and haws, Mr. Winston began:

"I have never inquired particularly into the matter; but have always entertained the impression which pervades the Southern mind, that our negroes are legitimately our slaves, in pursuance of the malediction denounced by God against Ham and his descendants, of whom they are a part. And, so thinking, I believed we were entitled to the same right to them which we exercise over the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the deep. Moreover, your principle of law, which is indeed very correct, is inapplicable to their case. There is also a principle in the law of my State, incapacitating slaves to hold property. They are property themselves; and property cannot hold property. Apart from the terrible curse, which doomed them in the beginning, they were slaves in their own country to men of their own race; slaves by right of conquest. Therefore, taking the instance you have suggested, by way of illustration, were any article of value wrested from their possession, under this additional principle, the law could not give them any redress. But, inasmuch as whatever they may acquire becomes immediately the property of their master, to him the law will furnish a remedy."

"You do not deny," and here Mr. Trueman's tone was elevated and a little excited, "that the first of those who reached this country were stolen in Africa. Now, for the sake of the argument merely, I will admit that they were slaves at home. If they were slaves at home—it matters not whether by 'right or conquest,' or 'in pursuance of the curse,' they must have been the property of somebody, and those who stole them and sold them into bondage in America could give no valid title to their purchasers; for by the theft they had acquired none themselves. Hence, if ever they were slaves, they are still the property of their masters in Africa; but, if your interpretation of "the curse" is correct, those masters were also slaves, and, being such, under the principle of law which you have quoted, they could not for this reason hold property. Therefore, those oppressed and outraged, though benighted people, who were first sold into slavery, to the eternal disgrace of our land, were, in sheer justice, either free, or the property—even after the sale—of their African masters, if they had any; in neither case could they belong to those of our citizens who were unfortunate enough to buy them. They were not slaves of African masters: for, according to your argument, all of the race are slaves, and slaves cannot own slaves any more than horses can own horses; therefore, since no other people claimed dominion over them, they were, necessarily, free. You cannot escape from this dilemma, and the choice of either horn is fatal to your cause. Being free, might they not have held property like other nations? And, had any of it been stolen from them by those who are amenable to our laws, would not consistency compel us, who recognize the just principle I have quoted, to restore it to them? This is the course pursued among ourselves; and it ceases not with restoration; but on the offender it proceeds to inflict punishment, to prevent a repetition of the offence. This is the course we should pursue toward that down-trodden race whose greatest guilt is 'a skin not colored like our own.'

"As the case stands, it is not a question of property, but of that more valuable and sacred right, the right of personal liberty, of which we now boast so loudly. What, in the estimation of the world, is the worth of those multitudinous orations, apostrophies to liberty, which, on each recurring Fourth of July, in whatever quarter of the globe Americans may be assembled, penetrate the public ear? What are they worth to us, if, while reminding us of early colonial and revolutionary struggles against the galling tyranny of the British crown, they fail to inculcate the easy lesson of respect for the rights of all mankind? In keeping those poor Africans in the South still enslaved, you practically ignore this lesson, and you trample with unholy feet that divine ordinance which commands you 'to do unto others as you would have others do unto you.' By the oppression to which we were subjected under the yoke of Britain, and against which we wrestled so long, so patiently, so vigorously, in so many ways, and at last so triumphantly, I adjure you to put an end, at once and forever, to this business of holding slaves. This is oppression indeed, in comparison with which, that which drew forth our angry and bitter complaints, was very freedom. Let us, instead of perpetuating this infamous institution, be true to ourselves; let us vindicate the pretensions we set up when we characterize ours as 'the land of liberty, the asylum of the oppressed,' by proclaiming to the nations of the earth that, so soon as a slave touches the soil of America, his manacles shall fall from him: let us verify the words engraven in enduring brass on the old bell which from the tower of Independence Hall rang out our glorious Declaration, and in deed and in truth proclaim 'Liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison doors to them that are bound.' As you value truth, honor, justice, consistency, aye, humanity even, wipe out the black blot which defiles the border of our escutcheon, and the country will then be in reality what is now only in name, a free country, loving liberty disinterestedly for its own sake, and for that of all people, and nations, and tribes, and tongues.

"You may still, if you choose, dispute and philosophize about the inequality of races, and continue to insist on the boasted superiority of our Caucasian blood; but the greatest disadvantages which a comparison can indicate will not prove that one's claim to liberty is higher than another's. It may be that we of the white race, are vastly superior to our African brethren. The differences, however, are not flattering to us; for we should remember with shame and confusion of face, that our injustice and cruelty have produced them. Having first enslaved the poor Africans and subsequently withheld from them every means of improvement, it is not strange that such differences should exist as those on which we plume ourselves. But is it not intolerable that we should now quote them with such brazen self-gratulation?

"Despite the manifold disadvantages that encumber and clog the movements of the Africans, unfortunately for the validity of your argument their race exhibits many proud specimens to prove their capability of culture, and of the enjoyment of freedom. Give them but the same opportunities that we have, and they will rival us in learning, refinement, statesmanship, and general demeanor, as is incontestibly shown in the lives and characters of many now living. Such men as Fred Douglas and President Roberts, would honor any complexion; or, I ought rather to say, should make us forget and despise the distinctions of color, since they reach not below the surface of the skin, nor affect, in the least, that better part that gives to man all his dignity and worth. Nor need I point to these illustrious examples to rebut the inferences you deduce from color. Every village and hamlet in your own sunny South, can furnish an abundant refutation, in its obscure but eloquent 'colored preachers'—noble patterns of industry and wisdom, who show forth, by their exemplary bearing, all the beauty of holiness,—'allure to brighter worlds and lead the way.'"

It is impossible to furnish even the faintest description of the pleading earnestness of the speaker's tone. His full, round, rich voice, grew intense, low and silvery in its harmonious utterance. As he pronounced the last sentence, it was with difficulty I could repress a cry of applause. Oh, surely, surely, I thought, our cause, the African's cause, is not helpless, is not lost, whilst it still possesses such an advocate. My eyes overflowed with grateful tears, and I longed to kiss the hem of his garment.

"You forget," answered Mr. Winston, "or you would do well to consider, that these cases are exceptional cases, which neither preclude my inferences nor warrant your assumption."

"Exceptions, indeed, they are; but why?" inquired Mr. Trueman. "Exceptions, you know, prove the rule. Now, you infer from the sooty complexion of the Africans, a natural and necessary incapacity for the blessings of self-government and the refinements of education. I have mentioned individuals of this fatal complexion who are in the wise enjoyment of these sublime privileges: one of them has acquired an enviable celebrity as an orator, the other is the accomplished President of the infant Liberian Republic. If color incapacitated, as you seem to think, it would affect all alike; but it has not incapacitated these, therefore it does not incapacitate at all. These are exceptions not to the general capacity of the blacks, but only to their general opportunity. What they have done others may do—the opportunities being equal."