I do not answer this question. But the following facts are submitted as containing the materials for an answer.
About seventy years ago, three millions of people in America thought themselves wronged by the powers ordained of God. They resolved not to endure the wrong. They published to the world a statement of grievances which justified resistance to the powers ordained of God, and deliberately revolted against the king, though explicitly commanded by God to “honor the king.” In the process of revolt, about one hundred thousand men, Europeans and Americans,—were slaughtered in battle, or slowly butchered by the sickness, imprisonments, and hardships incident to a state of war.
It was distinctly maintained in 1776, that men may rightfully fight for liberty, and resist the powers ordained of God, if those powers destroyed liberty. Christian men, ministers in their pulpits strenuously argued that it was men’s duty to fight for liberty, and to kill those who opposed them. Prayer was offered to God for success in this process of resistance and blood; and good men implored and obtained help from other nations, to complete the work of resistance to oppression, and death to the oppressors.
I do not say that these positions were right, or that the men of 1776 acted right. But I do say, that if they were right, we are necessarily led to some startling conclusions. For there are now three millions of people of America grievously wronged by the government they live under. If it was right in 1776 to resist, fight, and kill, to secure liberty,—it is right to do the same in 1852. If three millions of whites might rightfully resist the powers ordained of God, then three millions of blacks may rightfully do the same. If France was justified in aiding our band of revolutionists to fight for liberty, then a foreign nation may lawfully aid men now to vindicate their rights. If, as the men of 1776 declared, “when a long train of abuses evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government,”—then it is the duty of three millions of men in 1852, to throw off the government which reduces them to the frightful and absolute despotism of chattel slavery.
But what were the oppressions, which, in 1776, justified revolt, battle, and one hundred thousand deaths? They are stated in the “Declaration of Independence,” are familiar to all, and will therefore only be abridged here. The powers ordained of God over the men of 1776,—“restrained their trade,”—“refused assent to laws enacted by the local legislature,”—“kept soldiers to overawe them,”—“did not punish soldiers for killing a few colonists,”—“imposed taxes without their consent,”—“in some cases, did not allow them trial by jury,”—“abolished good laws,”—“made war on them, in case of disobedience.”
These were the wrongs they complained of. But nearly all their rights were untouched. They had schools and colleges, and could educate their children; they could become intelligent and learned themselves; they could acquire property, and large numbers of them had become rich; they could emigrate without hindrance to any other country, when weary of the oppressions of their own; they could elect their own town and state officers; they could keep swords, muskets, powder and ball in their own houses; they could not be lashed and sold like brutes; they were never compelled to work without wages; they could appeal to courts of justice for protection.
Let us now hear a statement of the wrongs inflicted on three millions of Americans in 1852.
We have no rights left to us.
Laws forbid us to be taught even to read, and severe penalties are inflicted on those who teach us.
The natural right of the parent over the child is wholly taken away; our children are systematically kept in profound ignorance, and are worked or sold like brutes, at the will of slave-holders.