No Compromise with Slavery / An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York

by William Lloyd Garrison

But, if they are men; if they are to run the same career of immortality with ourselves; if the same law of God is over them as over all others; if they have souls to be saved or lost; if Jesus included them among those for whom he laid down his life; if Christ is within many of them "the hope of glory;" then, when I claim for them all that we claim for ourselves, because we are created in the image of God, I am guilty of no extravagance, but am bound, by every principle of honour, by all the claims of human nature, by obedience to Almighty God, to "remember them that are in bonds as bound with them," and to demand their immediate and unconditional emancipation.

I am "ultra" and "fanatical," forsooth! In what direction, or affecting what parties? What have I urged should be done to the slaveholders? Their punishment as felons of the deepest dye? No. I have simply enunciated in their ear the divine command, "Loose the bands of wickedness, undo the heavy burdens, break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free," accompanying it with the cheering promises, "Then shall thy light rise obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon-day. And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters fail not. And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places; thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in." Yet, if I had affirmed that they ought to meet the doom of pirates, I should have been no more personal, no more merciless, than is the law of Congress, making it a piratical act to enslave a native African, under whatever pretence or circumstances; for in the eye of reason, and by the standard of eternal justice, it is as great a crime to enslave one born on our own soil, as on the coast of Africa; and as, in the latter case, neither the plea of having fairly purchased or inherited him, nor the pretence of seeking his temporal and eternal good, by bringing him to a civilized and Christian country, would be regarded as of any weight, so, none of the excuses offered for slaveholding in this country are worthy of the least consideration. The act, in both cases, is essentially the same—equally inhuman, immoral, piratical. Oppression is not a matter of latitude or longitude; here excusable, there to be execrated; here to elevate the oppressor to the highest station, there to hang him by the neck till he is dead; here compatible with Christianity, there to be branded and punished as piracy. "He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death." So reads the Mosaic code, and by it every American Slaveholder is convicted of a capital crime. By the Declaration of Independence, he is pronounced a man-stealer. As for myself, I have simply exposed his guilt, besought him to repent, and to "go and sin no more."

What extravagant claim have I made in behalf of the slaves? Will it be replied, "Their immediate liberation!" Then God, by his prophet, is guilty of extravagance! Then Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence, and all who signed that instrument, and all who joined in the Revolutionary struggle, were deceivers in asserting it to be a self-evident truth, that all men are endowed by their Creator with an inalienable right to liberty! The issue is not with me, but with them, and with God. What! is it going too far to ask, for those who have been outraged and plundered all their lives long, nothing but houseless, penniless, naked freedom! No compensation whatever for their past unrequited toil; no redress for their multitudinous wrongs; no settlement for sundered ties, bleeding backs, countless lacerations, darkened intellects, ruined souls! The truth is, complete justice has never been asked for the enslaved.

How has the slave system grown to its present enormous dimensions? Through compromise. How is it to be exterminated? Only by an uncompromising spirit. This is to be carried out in all the relations of life—social, political, religious. Put not on the list of your friends, nor allow admission to your domestic circle, the man who on principle defends Slavery, but treat him as a moral leper. "If an American addresses you," said Daniel O'Connell to his countrymen, "find out at once if he be a slaveholder. He may have business with you, and the less you do with him the better; but the moment that is over, turn from him as if he had the cholera or the plague—for there is a moral cholera and a political plague upon him. He belongs not to your country or your clime—he is not within the pale of civilization or Christianity." On another occasion he said: "An American gentleman waited upon me this morning, and I asked him with some anxiety, 'What part of America do you come from?' 'I came from Boston.' Do me the honour to shake hands; you came from a State that has never been tarnished with Slavery—a State to which our ancestors fled from the tyranny of England—and the worst of all tyrannies, the attempt to interfere between man and his God—a tyranny that I have in principle helped to put down in this country, and wish to put down in every country upon the face of the globe. It is odious and insolent to interfere between a man and his God; to fetter with law the choice which the conscience makes of its mode of adoring the eternal and adorable God. I cannot talk of toleration, because it supposes that a boon has been given to a human being, in allowing him to have his conscience free. It was in that struggle, I said, that your fathers left England; and I rejoice to see an American from Boston; but I should be sorry to be contaminated by the touch of a man from those States where Slavery is continued. 'Oh,' said he, 'you are alluding to Slavery though I am no advocate for it, yet, if you will allow me, I will discuss that question with you.' I replied, that if a man should propose to me a discussion on the propriety of picking pockets, I would turn him out of my study, for fear he should carry his theory into practice. 'And meaning you no sort of offence; I added, 'which I cannot mean to a gentleman who does me the honour of paying me a civil visit, I would as soon discuss the one question with you as the other. The one is a paltry theft.

'He that steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands'—

but he who thinks he can vindicate the possession of one human being by another—the sale of soul and body—the separation of father and mother—the taking of the mother from the infant at her breast, and selling the one to one master, and the other to another—is a man whom I will not answer with words—nor with blows, for the time for the latter has not yet come.'"

If such a spirit of manly indignation and unbending integrity pervaded the Northern breast, how long could Slavery stand before it? But where is it to be found? Alas! the man whose hands are red with blood is honoured and caressed in proportion to the number of his victims; while "he who departs from evil makes himself a prey." This is true, universally, in our land. Why should not the Slave Power make colossal strides over the continent? "There is no North." A sordid, truckling, cowardly, compromising spirit, is everywhere seen. No insult or outrage, no deed of impiety or blood, on the part of the South, can startle us into resistance, or inspire us with self-respect. We see our free coloured citizens incarcerated in Southern prisons, or sold on the auction-block, for no other crime than that of being found on Southern soil; and we dare not call for redress. Our commerce with the South is bound with the shackles of the plantation—"Free-Trade and Sailors'-Rights" are every day violated in Southern ports; and we tamely submit to it as the slave does to the lash. Our natural, God-given right of free speech, though constitutionally recognised as sacred in every part of the country, can be exercised in the slaveholding States only at the peril of our lives. Slavery cannot bear one ray of light, or the slightest criticism. "The character of Slavery," says Gov. Swain, of North Carolina, "is not to be discussed"—meaning at the South. But he goes beyond this, and adds, "We have an indubitable right to demand of the Free States to suppress such discussion, totally and promptly." Gov. Tazewell, of Virginia, makes the same declaration. Gov. Lumpkin, of Georgia, says: "The weapons of reason and argument are insufficient to put down discussion; we can therefore hear no argument upon the subject, for our opinions are unalterably fixed." And he adds, that the Slave States "will provide for their own protection, and those who speak against Slavery will do well to keep out of their bounds, or they will punish them." The Charleston Courier declares, "The gallows and the stake (i.e. burning alive and hanging) await the Abolitionists who shall dare to appear in person among us." The Colombia Telescope says: "Let us declare through the public journals of our country, that the question of Slavery is not and shall not be open to discussion; that the system is too deep-rooted among us, and must remain forever; that the very moment any private individual attempts to lecture us upon its evils and immorality, and the necessity of putting means in operation to secure us from them, in the same moment his tongue shall be cut out and cast upon the dunghill." The Missouri Argus says: "Abolition editors in slave States will not dare to avow their opinions. It would be instant death to them." Finally, the New Orleans True American says: "We can assure those, one and all, who have embarked in the nefarious scheme of abolishing Slavery at the South, that lashes will hereafter be spared the backs of their emissaries. Let them send out their men to Louisiana; they will never return to tell their suffering, but they shall expiate the crime of interfering in our domestic institutions, by being burned at the stake." And Northern men cower at this, and consent to have their lips padlocked, and to be robbed of their constitutional right, aye, and their natural right, while travelling Southward; while the lordly slaveholder traverses the length and breadth of the Free States, with open mouth and impious tongue, cursing freedom and its advocates with impunity, and choosing Plymouth Rock, and the celebration of the landing of the Pilgrims upon it, as the place and the occasion specially fitting to eulogize Slavery and the Fugitive Slave Bill!

"Now, by our fathers' ashes! where's the spirit
Of the true-hearted and th' unshackled gone?
Sons of old freemen! do we but inherit
Their names alone?

"Is the old Pilgrim spirit quenched within us,
Stoops the proud manhood of our souls so low,
That Passion's wile or Party's lure can win us
To silence now?"

Whatever may be the guilt of the South, the North is still more responsible for the existence, growth and extension of Slavery. In her hand has been the destiny of the Republic from the beginning. She could have emancipated every slave, long ere this, had she been upright in heart and free in spirit. She has given respectability, security, and the means of sustenance and attack to her deadliest foe. She has educated the whole country, and particularly the Southern portion of it, secularly, theologically religiously; and the result is, three millions and a half of slaves, increasing at the appalling rate of one hundred thousand a year, three hundred a day, and one every five minutes—the utter corruption of public sentiment, and general skepticism as to the rights of man—the inauguration of Mammon in the place of the living God—the loss of all self-respect, all manhood, all sense of shame, all regard for justice—the Book styled holy, and claimed to be divinely inspired, everywhere expounded and enforced in extenuation or defence of slaveholding, and against the Anti-Slavery movement—colour-phobia infecting the life-blood of the people—political profligacy unparalleled—the religious and the secular press generally hostile to Abolitionism as either infidel or anarchical in its spirit and purpose—the great mass of the churches with as little vitality as a grave-yard—the pulpits, with rare exceptions, filled with men as careful to consult the popular will as though there were no higher law—synods, presbyteries, general conferences, general assemblies, buttressing the slave power—the Government openly pro-slavery, and the National District the head-quarters of slave speculators—fifteen Slave States—and now, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the consecration of five hundred thousand square miles of free territory forever to the service of the Slave Power!