My speech hath wronged him. If it do him right,
Then he hath wronged himself; if he be free,
Why then, my taxing like a wild goose flies,
Unclaimed of any man.”
Now if there be “fools of the nineteenth century,” as I devoutly hope there be,—men possessed with the belief of a Higher Law, Inalienable Rights, Supremacy of Conscience, and such like obsolete phantoms, and passing strange judgments on the deeds of men and nations in the light thereof,—I beg to put in a similar plea for them. Give them leave to speak their minds. Now and then, it may be worth the pondering, and, heeded betimes, may peradventure save from calamity and ruin. If not, an attempt to enforce silence on fools—and is it not much the same with freemen?—is likely to produce, not silence at all, but a greater outcry. And as for our great men and wise men, when hit, let them conceal the smart, and profit by the lesson. But, for their own greatness’ sake, and the honor of their wisdom, whither hit or not, let them never fall into a passion at the freedom of men’s speech, and cry, This must be put down. For it will not down at their bidding.
But the subject refuses to be treated lightly. The vast interests at stake on both sides, and the immediate urgency of the crisis, compel the mind to sobriety and solicitude in the contemplation of it. No truly wise man will look upon the anti-slavery doctrine as mere folly, or on the promulgation of it as idle breath. It is the measureless power of that sentiment—and all its power lies in its truth—that wakens this alarm; and it is the consciousness of holding such a weapon in their hands, that makes the anti-slavery masses at the North pause, lest in attempting to use it for good, they should, unwittingly, do harm. For such a sentiment, who can fail to feel respect? Who would not despise himself if his own bosom were destitute of it? But, by as much as I respect it in others, and would cherish it in myself, by so much will I resent all playing upon it by political men for party or personal ends, and fear lest it betray me into pusillanimity and inertness where the times demand action for humanity and God. It is a serious question for all honest anti-slavery men throughout the land, in what way they can most wisely and hopefully quit them of their responsibility in relation to this thing. Their action as citizens should, unquestionably, be restricted by the just limits of their civil responsibility; as men by those of their moral responsibility. Even within those limits, they should act with a wise moderation, and in a generous spirit of candor and kindness. But one thing is abundantly certain, that by ignoring the responsibility, they do not get rid of it; by turning their backs on the obligation, they will not get it discharged. Still the terrible fact remains. Still, the tears and blood of the enslaved are daily dropping on our country’s soil. Throw over it what veil of extenuation and excuse you may, the essential crime and shame remains. Believe as kindly as you can of the treatment which the slaves receive of humane and christian masters; it is only on condition that they first surrender their every right as men. Let them dare demur to that, and their tears and blood must answer it. That is the terrible fact; and our country is the abettor, the protector, and the agent of the iniquity. Must we be indifferent? May we be indifferent? It is a question of tremendous import to every freeman in the land, who honestly believes that the rights he claims as a man are common to the race.
We used to be told, and are sometimes still, that this is a matter which belongs to our Southern brethren exclusively, and that when we of the free States interfere with it, we meddle with that which is “none of our business.” And there was a time, when this might be urged with a show of consistency. It was when slavery claimed only to be a creature of State legislation, and asked only of the national government and the free States to be let alone. Even then, it had no right of exemption from the rational scrutiny to which all human institutions are amenable, nor from the rebuke and denouncement which all men may, in Heaven’s name, utter against all iniquity done in the face of Heaven. But the special right of republican citizens to demand the correction of wrongs done by their own government, attached in the matter of slavery only to the citizens of the slave States.
But a wonderful change has been passing before our eyes. The attitude of slavery is entirely altered. It now claims to be nationalized. It demands a distinct recognition and active protection from the general government, and indirect, but most effectual support from every State in the Union, and from every citizen thereof! The government has acknowledged the validity of the claim; and our great political leaders—some on whom we have been wont to rely as stalwart champions of freedom—have turned short round in their tracks, and require us to believe that we are under constitutional obligations to help maintain the accursed thing,—yea, through all future time, to do its most menial work! Nor is the doctrine to be left in the dubious region of speculation. It is already “a fixed fact,” terribly embodied in a penal law. It enters the home of every Northern freeman, and announces in thunder-tones this ancestral obligation, which had so strangely faded from the recollections of men. It tolerates no dulness of apprehension, no hesitancy of belief. It bids us all, on pain of imprisonments and fines, to conquer our prejudices, to swallow our scruples, to be still with our nonsensical humanities, and, “as good citizens,” to start out at the whistle of a United States’ constable, to chase down miserable negroes fleeing from the hell of bondage!
Slavery, then, has become our business at last; and, as such, does it not behoove us to attend to it? I think, in the language of honest Dogberry, that “that is proved already, and will go near to be thought so shortly.” The thing lies in a nutshell. Millard Fillmore is not our master, but our servant. It is not his to prescribe duties, but ours; and his, to perform them. What he does, in his own person and by his subordinate executive officers, he does for us, and on our responsibility. What he does or they do, in other words, we do; and we must abide the reckoning. In this responsibility, the humblest citizen bears his share, and cannot shirk it if he would. When, then, I see the ministers of my country’s law consigning men with flesh and blood like my own, with homes and business, with wives and children,
As dear to them, as are the ruddy drops