Speech of Hon. Henry Wilson,
At the Banks’s Ratification Meeting at Worcester, September 8th, 1857.
Mr. President, and Young Men of Massachusetts:
On the first Tuesday of November last, one hundred and eight thousand intelligent, patriotic, liberty-loving Massachusetts men, Republicans and Americans, recognizing the paramount issues growing out of the system of human slavery in America, rallied around the banner of equal, universal and impartial liberty, borne by John C. Fremont. (Loud applause.) On that day, Massachusetts placed herself, where Massachusetts has a right to be, in the van of free Commonwealths. On that day, by fifty thousand majority, Massachusetts placed herself front to front with the Slave Power of the Republic. The same standard that then waved in victory over Massachusetts, the same flag on which were written, in characters of living light, the glorious mottoes of Liberty, has now been entrusted to the hands of Nathaniel P. Banks. (Loud applause.)
Why not, then, men of Massachusetts, rally around him, as you rallied in 1856 around the same old banner in the hands of a brave, true, and gallant loader? Will you listen to the seductive voice of personal ambition? (Voices—‘No,’ ‘no.’) Will you turn your backs upon your old flag—upon its chosen leader? Will you break from the ranks of freedom, and retreat, affiliate, fraternize and associate with those who last autumn scoffed at your principles, maligned your candidate, and shouted with joy when the black flag of slavery waved victorious in the beams of that November sun? (Voices—‘No,’ ‘no.’)
We are now told, Mr. President, that the living issues which last year summoned more than one hundred thousand sons of Massachusetts to the standard of Fremont, are among the issues of the past. The living issues of 1856 among the issues of the past! Does not slavery in America now loom up a hideous and appalling spectre? Does it not stand revealed in the light of the nineteenth century to the gaze of mankind, in all its odious and revolting aspects? What an aggregation of immolated rights, nameless outrages, and ‘sumless agonies’! Millions of beings created in the image of God, sunk from the lofty level of a common humanity down to the abject submission of unreasoning beasts of burden,—manacles, chains and whips,—pens, prisons and auction-blocks, bludgeons, revolvers and blood-hounds,—scourgings, lynchings and burnings,—laws to torture the body, shrivel the mind, and debase the soul,—labor dishonored and laborers despised,—towns wasting away, and fields smitten with sterility,—non-slaveholders impoverished and degraded, and slaveholders, in defiance of the lessons of history, the deductions of philosophy, the rights of humanity, and the teachings of Christianity, proudly vaunting their shame before the nations, make up this deformed monstrosity of organized barbarism, which now stands in shameless defiance of the civilization, humanity and Christianity of America. We of the North may avert our faces from this hateful spectacle;—to the accusing voices of mankind we may reply in faltering accepts—‘We are not responsible!’ ‘This crime is not ours!’ ‘This guilt is not on our souls!’ but we, as American citizens, jealous of the renown of our country, cannot but feel the deepest mortification and shame, as we see the sneer of scorn on the lips of mankind.
By a long series of assumptions and aggressive acts, by concessions and compromises, we of Massachusetts have been associated with and made responsible for this crime of human slavery in America.—When the illustrious framers of the Constitution assembled in 1787, our history as a nation was radiant with deeds for the rights and liberties of mankind. Seventy years have just closed, and that history is blurred and blotted, stained by deeds for human slavery which bring the blush of shame to the cheeks of the patriot who loves his country, who feels the stain upon her fame as a blot of personal dishonor. Now a privileged class, bound together by two thousand millions of dollars, represented by the souls and bodies of more than four millions of bondsmen, rules with resistless power fifteen sovereign States. This aristocracy, based upon the immolated rights of humanity, now controls the executive, legislative and judicial departments of the national government. In the pride and arrogance of usurped power, this slaveholding aristocracy bids the Supreme Court utter the inhuman sentiment that four millions of men in Republican America ‘have no rights that white men are bound to respect,’ and the President of the Republic to declare that slavery exists in the national territories by the authority of the Constitution of the United States. And shall we, the men of Massachusetts, oppose only a temporary, faint and heartless resistance to these ignominious avowals, which bring dishonor and shame upon the American name?
Shall we calmly rest,
The Christian’s scorn, the Heathen’s mirth,
Content to live the lingering jest
And by-word of a mocking earth?
Or shall we not rather awake to the full realization of our responsibilities—to the full comprehension of our duties? Responsibilities rest upon us—duties press upon us. Responsibility and duty go hand in hand. Our path of duty, young men of Massachusetts, is radiant with light—as luminous as the pathway of the sun across the heavens on this bright autumnal day.
The earnest young men of Massachusetts—of the North—should cultivate a profound reverence for humanity, for its sacred and inalienable rights; hate, loathe and abhor slavery in every form; resolve that whenever, wherever and however they may be summoned to act, their voices shall be for Freedom everywhere—for Slavery nowhere; that, in their own States, every man, no matter to what race he may claim kindred—no matter what blood may course through his veins,—shall stand before the laws the equal and the peer of the most favored sons of men; that over him—poor, ignorant and friendless though he may he—shall be thrown the panoply of just, equal and humane laws. Then they should, by legal and constitutional action, take possession of the National Government, place every Department, Executive, Legislative and Judicial, in the hands of such men, and such men only, as will see to it that the nation, within its own exclusive jurisdiction, rejects ‘the wild and guilty phantasy that man may hold property in man.’
Having prostrated in the dust the slaveholding oligarchy, shivered its power over the nation to atoms, they should pronounce the doom of human slavery everywhere under the exclusive authority of the National Government:—
By prohibiting it in each and all the Territories of the United States;
By abolishing it, in the District of Columbia, abrogating all oppressive laws now in force there, and placing the whole people under the protection of just and humane legislation;
By repealing the law of 1807 and all other laws giving the sanction of the nation to the domestic slave-trade;
By repealing the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and all other acts for the reclamation of persons held to service or labor, thereby leaving to each State, under its own sense of Constitutional obligation and duty, the execution of that provision of the Constitution concerning persons held to service or labor in one State escaping into another;
By reversing the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States concerning the citizenship of persons of color;
By avowing the settled policy of the nation to be, that all Territory hereafter acquired,—on the North or on the South—free or slave—shall be forever consecrated to freedom and free institutions for all;
By proclaiming to their countrymen of the South, in mild but firm language, that, while they concede slavery in the States to be, in the words of the Supreme Court, ‘a mere municipal regulation, founded upon and limited to the verge of State law;’—while they do not claim to possess Constitutional power to abolish slavery in the States, and do not mean to usurp power—they do mean to put the National Government in open and active sympathy with Freedom everywhere—they do mean to use the legitimate influence and patronage of the nation in favor of the proscribed men of the South, who believe as Jefferson believed, that ‘the abolition of Slavery is the first object desired’—who are resolved, as was Washington, that their ‘suffrage shall not be wanting’ to abolish it by ‘Legislative authority’—they do mean, by the example and daily beauty of free institutions, and by ‘all means sanctioned by law, humanity and religion,’ to appeal to the heart, the conscience, the reason and the interest of the men of the South—slaveholders and non-slaveholders—until they shall
Bid the bondmen cast the chain
From fettered limb and soul aside,
and walk forth in the majesty of freedom, ‘redeemed,’ in the language of Curran, ‘regenerated, disenthralled by the irresistible Genius of Universal Emancipation.’
How grand, comprehensive and glorious is the work assigned to the young men of this age in America. They are summoned to rescue the Republic from the iron rule of the slaveholding aristocracy,—from the degrading thraldom of a privileged class which hates equal and impartial Liberty with inextinguishable hatred, which contemptuously scoffs at the idea of the equality and brotherhood of the race, which sneers at all efforts to emancipate the bondmen or elevate the lowly. They are summoned to secure the ultimate emancipation of millions of overawed and submissive bondmen;—to vindicate the rights and dignity of free labor and free laboring men;—to purify the nation from the stains and pollutions of slavery, and so put the national government in harmony with the sublime ideas embodied in the Declaration of Independence. They are summoned to this mighty task by that generous and expansive Patriotism, which embraces the whole country and the people of the whole country,—by that Philanthropy, which cares for the sons and daughters of toil and misfortune,—by that Religion, which teaches us that all the races of men are of one blood, the children of a common Father—and that the humblest slave that trembles and cowers under the frown or the lash of a master, or overseer, or taskmaster, in the recess of the far South, is a being whom God created, and for whom his Son mounted the cross. Seldom, in human history, has it been permitted by the Providence of God to young men of any country, or of any age, to engage in a work so vast in its conception, so comprehensive in its character, so sanctified by patriotism and humanity, so sure now to win the sympathies of mankind, the applause of the coming generations, the approval of conscience, and the blessings of Almighty God!
The anti-slavery movement in America is advancing through agitations and conflicts to assured triumph. Already it has laid its grasp upon the reason, the heart, and the conscience of the country, and millions are moved by the mighty impulse. In spite of the passionate and implacable hatred of the slaveholding class,—the barbarizing prejudices of race—the misconceptions of ignorance,—the misrepresentations of great interests,—the timidity, servility, or hostility of political organizations,—the selfishness or apostacy of public men, and the imperfections, weakness and errors of friends, who too often pause in face of the advancing hosts of slavery, to criticise, chide or rebuke comrades, or who turn aside in the hour of battle, when the foe is undermining or storming an out-post of freedom, entrenching or defending a fortress of slavery, to engage in impracticable or secondary issues,—the anti-slavery cause is moving on in the strength, pride, and majesty of conscious power, to the realization of its sublime ideas, to the consummation of its beneficent policy. Everything on earth which has the element of permanency in it, is instinct with vital powers, which impel on the great cause, against all and over all opposing forces, to the final accomplishment of its high mission,—to the complete fulfilment of its ‘manifest destiny.’ The slaveholding class may rejoice in these days of its power,—it may revel and riot over past victories, and gloat over anticipated future acquisitions in Cuba, Mexico and Central America,—it may bid its pliant tools on the Judicial bench to pervert truth, justice, history, law and the Constitution for the disfranchisement of freemen, and to allow slavery, in the passionate language of Henry A. Wise, to ‘pour itself out without restraint, and find no limit but the Southern ocean.’ But let it remember in these hours of revelry, that for these crimes the sense of justice, the love of liberty, the humane and Christian civilization of America, will bring it into judgment. Let the slaveholding class realize that these days of fancied security are days of waning power, that its hold upon the Northern mind is breaking, and will soon be broken forever. Now—
The Northern hills are blazing,
The Northern skies are bright,
And the fair young West is turning
Her forehead to the light!
Now the banners of emancipation are beneath Southern skies. Cassius M. Clay ‘calls the battle roll anew’ on ‘the dark and bloody ground’ of his native Kentucky. St. Louis pronounces for emancipation, and sends her chivalrous Blair to represent the interests of her laboring men in the national councils, and her gallant Brown to summon Missouri in her Halls of Legislation, to join the sisterhood of free Commonwealths.
The cause of equal, universal and impartial liberty in America is indissolubly blended with the cause of human liberty and human progress everywhere. Its triumph will be hailed and applauded by mankind everywhere, and through all coming time. The events of this great struggle for the overthrow of the privileged class and the ultimate emancipation of a race, will pass into the enduring history of the country. The eye will glisten and the heart throb over the bright and glowing pages of that history, which shall record the acts in the great work, which the Providence of God has assigned to the young men of this generation. Let, then, the men of the North; aye, and the few but faithful men of the South, to whom has been entrusted the radiant and glorious banner of anti-slavery in America, fully comprehend the magnitude, grandeur and dignity of the work assigned them. Let them realize that the eye of God is upon them,—that future generations will scrutinize their motives and pronounce judgment upon their acts, when the passions, prejudices and interests of this age are hushed forever. Let them realize, also, that the ultimate triumph of the great cause can be hastened or retarded—perhaps for years—by the advocacy of friends as well as by the resistance of enemies. Let them, then, while they cherish a profound reverence for humanity—an inextinguishable love for the rights of man, and ever act with unswerving fidelity to these hallowed convictions—cultivate a general and expansive patriotism that knows no lines of latitude, or of longitude, or points of the compass,—adopt a prudent, wise and practicable public policy that shall demonstrate to the American people their capacity to take care of the varied, multifarious and vast material interests of the nation, and so administer the government as to protect and defend the interests, rights and honor of the country in peace and in war. Let them so act that the historic pen which shall trace the acts in this great drama, shall record for the study and admiration of all after times, that the young men of this age, in Massachusetts, in America, were animated by lofty motives, aims and purposes, and governed by wise, comprehensive and patriotic councils,—that, living and dying, their hearts ever throbbed with an intense and vehement passion for the liberty, the renown, the unity and eternity of the republic!
Speech of Hon. N. P. Banks.
The following extracts from Mr. Banks’s speech at the Worcester Ratification Convention contains all of it that relates to the subject of slavery:—
It is not indispensable that the sentiment of our people upon the subject of slavery should be made broader or deeper. We suffer as much from overzeal as from indifference. Nor is it necessary that we should give it a more constant attention. The government under which we live will not at present allow us to forget it. * * * *
We may admit, as we all do, that slavery, in itself, is a crime—that it is at war with the precepts of Christianity—that it is the legitimate champion of barbaric usage, as against the institutions of modern civilization—the natural enemy of the diffusion of knowledge—of the freedom of the press, of speech, and even of thought, Yet it is equally the foe of all industrial progress, and of the highest material prosperity. Its supremacy demands possession of every avenue of human power, whether of thought or action. For instance, in our government, no legislative enactment—no appropriation of money—no executive vigor is given to any measure until its effect upon the institution has been carefully considered. There can be no free importation of the raw materials used in our manufactures, though not produced here at all, as in France or England, because it would enure to the benefit of Northern men, and strengthen the Free States. The rates of postage, in a business that is not necessarily monopolized by the government, cannot be regulated according to the natural laws of transmission, because lean and hungry routes of one part of the country must draw a sustenance from the fat mails that press their way through the domains of free labor. Liberal and extravagant appropriations of money are constantly made for the education, by the government of the officers of the army and navy, where the South finds a liberal and congenial source of patronage, but in the greater interest of the American fisheries, the greater development of our national industry, and the original and only practical school of the sailor, the bounty paid by the government, from its organization, is to be withdrawn, because its recipients dwell north of an undefined geographical line. If a river or harbor is to be improved, machinery to be constructed or a national capitol to be erected, it is chiefly to be done under the supervision of army officers, who are more immediately identified with the government than civil engineers or native mechanics. If the tide of events forces us to the establishment of a mail route across the western continent to the Pacific, its point of departure on the Atlantic side is not the populous cities of the free States—Boston, New York, Buffalo, Chicago, or even St. Louis—but an inferior Southern town with eighteen or twenty thousand people, and commerce corresponding to its population. And the route itself is made to circumvent the points of the compass, trailing its long line, not Westward upon the paths of the pioneer and the settler, but Southward, through Louisiana and Texas and the purchased land of the Messilla villey, and thence Northward to California and Oregon and Washington, because the political interests of the South demand it.
The South possesses, as we are often told, the avenues of industry and trade. It holds the production of the richest cotton fields on the face of the earth, and it can make its supply plenty or scarce. The cotton manufacture is advancing here, in England and in France, with all the impetus that free labor and inventive genius can impart: but the supply of the raw material does not keep pace with the increased consumption! Commercial men and manufacturers are speculating upon advances in cotton, consequent upon increased demands of free labor in manufactures, and the inadequacies of slave labor in supply, which may in another year carry the cost from sixteen, as now, to eighteen and twenty cents per pound. Under such circumstances, the manufacture must be checked, if it does not, for a time at least, cease. Ought civilization to rest its advancing labors, at this advanced stage of its progress, until the negro bondman can toddle along up to its standard? Should the civilized world say to the cotton-grower, recuperate your worn-out lands—seek new ideas and new mechanical agencies to your culture, as wo have to our manufacture—what will be the answer—not now, but soon—not from the cotton-grower, but from the Southern politician? If you seek cheaper cotton, give us more negroes and cheaper land! Was the continent of America and its rich cotton fields created as a theatre upon which the negro, in a state of bondage, was only to test his capacity for the production of the cotton plant, and there to rest? Who believes it? Did we pursue a like policy with the aboriginal inhabitants of the continent, or has the civilized world ever recognized such laggards in labor as an eternal barrier to industrial advances?
Is there not in these things—and they are but examples—a common basis of action for men who look only to the industrial and practical, and those who regard only the moral aspect of a cause? Let us but once, upon such grounds, effect a combination of such men and such material and moral interests, and we should see again what has never been seen but once—a united and triumphant North! We should then see that which has never been seen at all—a divided South! We would set up a government that should stand like adamant against every measure for the extension of slavery or the expansion of its power, and directing its vast influence to the development of the industrial interests of the continent; it would silently but surely pave the way for the extinction of slavery itself.
A united North, under a policy of this character, would bring into the arena a new ally—an ally in the spirit and form of free labor fighting to recover its own hearthstone against its unchangeable enemy, which would in the end drive involuntary servitude from the continent, though Northern men should never again speak the word slavery. There is no servitude like that which rests upon a portion of the white men of the South. The free utterance and advocacy of their opinions, as fixed as their ideas of the existence of God, would expel them from the hearthstones of their children and the tombstones of their fathers.
The union of the North upon a broad and practical basis—a basis that, while it should fully represent its moral sentiments, should also embrace and represent the industrial and conservative interests—would afford to thousands at the South the protection they have a right to demand of us; and an opportunity to settle the question, not of extension merely, but of the existence of slavery upon its own soil and by its own people. Missouri has always led the way, and other States are panting to share in the perils of the fight, and the glory of the triumph. It was to this future that I alluded when I said that the struggle of last year would never be repeated in form. The result is not doubtful, if the North does its duty. Divided, we strike them down; united, we triumph in their success. The exultation of the North at a final emancipation of the continent, would differ from the joy of the South, only as the lustre of one star differs from the glory of another.
There is another reason, Mr. President, why we should hold attention and position now, upon this great subject. This very year is to determine whether slavery is to be extended not only to territories where it does not exist, but where it had been prohibited by Southern men. The fate of Kansas is not yet sealed. Last year, the South fought for its slavery, the North for its freedom. The South triumphed, and this year determines whether it will give up what it then won. The Convention that is to frame a Constitution for Kansas is already chosen. It is entirely in the hands of pro-slavery men. They can make it a free compact, or a slave compact, as they choose. They can submit the instrument to just such a constituency as they choose.
The remarkable speech of Mr. Douglas, in the early summer, and the late extraordinary letter of President Buchanan to Prof. Silliman, indicate with great clearness what that constituency and what the result will be. If the Constitution recognizes slavery either by express provision or by a silence equally effective, and the administration does not oppose its admission into the Union, there is no power to defeat it in Congress. It thus becomes a slave State, and gives to the South the equilibrium in the Senate, for which it has been long contending, from which it can successfully defend its interests against all coming events. No future free State can be admitted but with the consent and upon conditions imposed by the South. And do you think they will yield this power? I hope they may. I hear it said, that, admitted to the Union as a slave State, the people can at once abolish slavery: but I remember, also, that the men who make the Constitution can also establish the conditions upon which it may be amended. And do you think they will surrender that power? I hope they may. How, then, is it to be said that this year we have no interest in national affairs? ****** I intend religiously to support the union of the States; the principles upon which it was organized, and the Constitution by which it is maintained. I demand for the North, and I will accede to the South, all that can be claimed under the Constitution. I regard free labor as the corner-stone of our prosperity, and the observance of the reserved rights of the States as the foundation of our success as a government. I resist an interference with slave labor in the States where it exists, but I am inflexibly opposed to its extension; to the admission of other slave States, or the acquisition of territory for the formation of slave States. I entertain no doubt of the power of Congress to prohibit slavery in the territories, or that it ought to exercise that power. I protest against the usurpation of the Courts, in assuming to decide as judicial questions propositions which are in their nature, and from the foundation of the government have always been regarded as popular and political questions. As your representative, I will demand that something of the power of the government of the States shall be directed to the development of Christian-like and civilizing industrial interests, rather than to the re-institution of barbaric customs and the propagandism of African slavery. And if we are compelled to pass upon of the further acquisition of Southern territory, even though it bring upon us dishonor and war in the process, upon the stale pretence of imperfect national defences, we will demand that the requisition of of fertile and free territory on the North, by honorable and peaceful negotiation, shall, acre by acre and province by province, keep step with the extension of our borders on the South.’
Negro Voters in Louisiana. Horrible! horrible! negroes vote in Louisiana! In one of the counties of Louisiana, a number of men tinged with negro blood have been in the habit of voting since 1838. They now vote the Democratic ticket, and when an attempt was made to exclude them from the polls, the Democratic candidate for State Treasurer and the Executive Committee of the party interfered with arms to enforce their right. Whatever goes for Slavery and Democracy, it is all right; otherwise, it is all wrong!
The Liberator.
Boston, September 18, 1857.
Call for a Northern Convention.
Whereas, it must be obvious to all, that the American Union is constantly becoming more and more divided, by Slavery, into two distinct and antagonistic nations, between whom harmony is impossible, and even ordinary intercourse is becoming dangerous;
And, whereas, Shivery has now gained entire control over the three branches of our National Government, Executive, Judiciary, and Legislative; has so interpreted the Constitution as to deny the right of Congress to establish freedom even in the territories, and by the same process has removed all legal protection from a large portion of the people of the free States, and has inflicted, at many times and places, outrages far greater than those which our fathers rose in arms to repel;
And, whereas, there seems no probability that the future will, in these respects, be different from the last, under existing State relations;
The undersigned respectfully invite their fellow-citizens of the Free States to meet in Convention, at Cleveland, (Ohio,) on Wednesday and Thursday, October 28th and 29th, 1857, to consider the practicability, probability, and expediency of a separation of the Free and Slave States, and to take such other measures as the condition of the times may require.
☞Friends of free discussion and free inquiry! have you appended your names to this Call, and forwarded them as directed? There is still an opportunity to sign it; let it be improved by all who take an interest in the subject. We understand some decline on the modest ground of not wishing to see their names in print. Their wish will be gratified. Of course, only a very small proportion of the names actually sent in can be published; but it is both desirable and important to have as many obtained as possible, as a basis of action. We again ask attention to the fact, that no one, by signing the Call, thereby necessarily subscribes to the doctrine of disunion. The Convention is to be held for consultation as to what is the duty of the North: what its final decision may be, it would be useless to conjecture. If there were no other reasons for putting our name to the Call, the denial of the right of the North to ‘calculate the value of the Union,’ by the Southern slave oligarchy, while they make it a matter of constant calculation, and threaten to cut the connection whenever they shall be successfully foiled in their nefarious purposes, would be with us an all-sufficient stimulus. If you dare to be free, and to maintain a manly independence, send in your names!
Messrs. Wilson and Banks.
In preceding columns, we have given the speeches of Hon. Henry Wilson and Hon. N. P. Banks, made at the State Ratification meeting at Worcester, on the 8th inst. We believe but a small portion of Mr. Wilson’s speech was actually delivered, for want of time; so that we cannot tell with what favor would have been received by the Convention. It reads very much like an old-fashioned anti-slavery speech, and we do not doubt expresses the real feelings and desires of Mr. Wilson, though it breathes a very different spirit, and speaks in a very different tone from some of his utterances at Washington, and his letter to the Disunion Convention at Worcester last winter. What relevancy it had to the occasion, we are unable to perceive. The Republican party has for its motto, ‘Freedom national, Slavery sectional.’ Mr. W. exclaims with us, ‘Freedom everywhere, Slavery nowhere.’ He is no longer a Republican, but an aboiltionist; and admonishes all who listen to him to apprehend the grandeur of the struggle and the solemnity of their obligations,—especially the young men of Massachusetts. But all this glowing rhetoric ends in a hearty recognition of Mr. Banks as the man for the crisis, the champion of freedom,—which is very much like ending in smoke. For Mr. Banks, instead of encouraging any agitation, or feeling that there is any necessity for it, says ‘it is not indispensable that the sentiment of our people upon the subject of slaver should be made broader or deeper,’ and declares that ‘we suffer as much from our zeal as from indifference’!
We can explain such glaring incongruities only in this way:—Votes are wanted for Mr. Banks, in all directions, to make him Governor of Massachusetts. Mr. B’s speech is designed for the public at large, and seeks to propitiate conservatism rather than to incite to philanthropy. Mr. W’s speech (or, rather, that portion of it which we lay before our readers) was evidently prepared for the more radical portion of the anti-slavery rank and file in the Commonwealth. It is not a rare thing to witness jugglery in politics, and this looks very much like it. Mr. Wilson is full of anti-slavery zeal and devotion; Mr. Banks is not only cool, but stoical, and as the ‘iron’ candidate, may be excused for being destitute of flesh. Mr. W. is for increasing the flame of abolitionism until it melt every fetter in all the land; Mr. B. is for throwing a wet blanket upon it. Mr. W. is concerned for the wretched fate of black laborers, actually chattelized; Mr. B. is interested in the case of white laborers, who have the power to make their own laws and to protect themselves. Mr. W. proposes many fine things to be done to bring slavery to an end—such as repealing the Fugitive Slave Law, rescinding the Died Scott decision, making the District of Columbia and the Territories free, abolishing the domestic slave trade, and putting the control of the General Government wholly into the hands of the North—(all moonshine); Mr. B. is silent upon all these points, and does not seem to be aware that any thing is to be done in particular excepting on his part to ‘religiously support the Union of the States,’ and to concede to the South all the slaveholding guaranties in the Constitution! Yet Mr. Banks is the standard-bearer for Mr. Wilson!
Mr. Banks is a profound politician, and an adept in the school of non-committalism and abstract generalization. To use the language of the Courier, in a very different spirit, and for a very different purpose—
‘The whole speech is one of the most cloudy, misty, hazy compositions we ever undertook to read. It is full of abstract propositions on government and politics, some of which are true, and some of which are false, but all commonplace. It is like Hamlet’s cloud, which was either a weasel or a whale, at the pleasure of the spectator’s eye. The gods in Homer, when they get into a scrape, disappear in a convenient mist: so Mr. Banks disappears from impertinent investigation in a fog of generalities. He is commended to the support of the people of Massachusetts as a self-made man: a mechanic, a farmer, a working-man. From such persons we expect plainness of speech and directness of statement. But Mr. Banks’s speech is worthy of the oldest functionary in the Circumlocution office. Had it been spoken by a graduate of a college, it might have been used as an argument to show the unpractical character of scholars, and the unfitness of learned pursuits to train men for the duties of life. Indeed, the elaborate indistinctness of many paragraphs of the speech is so unlike what might have been expected of a gentleman reared and trained in the rough school of labor and struggle, as Mr. Banks has been, that we cannot but surmise that he has had the assistance of some of the ‘eminent hands’ of his party in the preparation of it.’
Acknowledgment. We acknowledge our special indebtedness to the Bee for its prompt and generous compliance with our request to publish in its columns our reply to ‘Sigma,’ which was so unjustly excluded from the Transcript, without any reason given for its rejection. It will give us pleasure to reciprocate this kindness of the Bee, at any time.
The Transcript has not only refused to grant us a hearing in self-defence, but it will not permit the certificate of Messrs. E. F. Burnham and J. N. Buffum, in favor of Mr. Pillsbury, and in exposure of the base use which ‘Sigma’ made of their names, to appear in its columns! Editorial meanness surpassing this we have never known in our long acquaintance with the press.
Western Anti-Slavery Society.
The anniversary of the Western Anti-Slavery Society, held at Alliance, (Ohio,) on the 5th and 6th inst., appears to have been equally spirited and radical in its proceedings, and unusually well attended. The receipts of the Society, for the past year, including the balance in the treasury at the last anniversary, amounted to $2,382.49; the expenditures to $2,379.06. Among the speakers were Parker Pillsbury, Stephen S. and Abby K. Foster, Andrew T. Foss, C. L. Remond, Sarah Remond, Lucy N. Coleman, Richard Glazier, William F. Parker, Benjamin S. Jones, Marius R. Robinson, A. Pryne, and Prof. Hartshorn. The following were the series of Resolutions submitted for discussion by the business committee:—
Series No. 1.
1. Resolved, That the daring and determined aggression of the Slave Power, increasing in frequency as well as atrocity, and yet rousing no spirit of resistance on the part of the North, but rather a more willing and craven submission to and complicity in the curse and crime of slavery, adds new motive to us as Abolitionists, to continue with never tiring nor abated earnestness our onset upon it, under the only war-cry worthy the conflict, ‘No Union with Slaveholders.’
2. Resolved, That it is of the highest importance to guard against the mistake of supposing opposition to the extension of slavery, or to the Fugitive Slave Law, or the Dred Scott Decision, or any other incident of the slave institution, as necessarily opposition to the system itself; inasmuch as we often see all this connected with real devotion to slavery where it is, and most idolatrous attachment to the Union, on which alone it must depend for its existence.
3. Resolved, That it is now fully time to regard all political action under the Union and Constitution as essentially pro-slavery, however specious its professions to the contrary; and especially would we regard the Republican party, that makes its continual declarations of fidelity to slavery where it is, as a peace-offering to the slaveholders for opposing it where it is not, whether in Kansas or elsewhere, as the worst foe to be encountered by the friends of freedom and humanity.
4. Resolved, That in the declarations and doings of Senator Wilson of Massachusetts, Senator Hale of New Hampshire, and Gov. Chase of Ohio, to say nothing of N. P. Banks and other most prominent leaders in the Republican party, there is a recklessness of principle, and a bending to the unhallowed behests of slavery and despotism, to rebuke which, as it deserves, is utterly beyond the power of human language.
Series No. 2.
1. Resolved, That the recent developments in the more popular and powerful denominations of the American Church have been such as fully to justify our former severest reprehension and condemnation of it, and to demand a renewal of our testimony against it. Especially has the action of the Methodist Conferences North and the American Tract Society been such as most clearly to demonstrate, that all their pretended hostility to slavery has been a base and hypocritical pretence only, to preserve the peace without promoting the purity of these organizations, or hastening in the least possible degree the abolition of slavery.
2. Resolved, That in the New York Independent, in Rev. Dr. Cheever, in Henry Ward Beecher, and others like them, we recognize not the bold, manly, apostolic energy and power to rebuke sin, such as the times demand, but a craven, compromising succumbing spirit, which, while it utters many stern denunciations of slave-breeding and slaveholding priests and professors of religion, dares not or does not separate from them, as from more unpopular but not more guilty pirates or robbers on sea and land.
3. Resolved, That, holding such a position, they inevitably make themselves more dangerous opponents to pure and undefiled religion than those who openly and daringly defend the slave system, with all its abominations, from the Bible as well as the Constitution, and from Abraham and Paul as well as from Jefferson and Washington.
Series No. 3.
1. Resolved, That we hold the doctrine of ‘Compensation to the slaveholders for Emancipation,’ under any circumstances, as both unjust and immoral in the highest degree; but especially do we regard the Constitution of the ‘Compensation Society,’ recently organized at Cleveland, with particular abhorrence, for the following among other reasons:
1. Because it wholly ignores the sin and guilt of slavery, the only appropriate, remedy for which is deep repentance and humiliation, on the part of the guilty.
2. It makes no distinction whatever between losses sustained in surrendering a lawful and laudable calling, and abandoning the most unhallowed piracy and robbery the world has ever beheld.
3. It takes no cognizance of the fact that the North, and white labor every where, have been the principal sufferers by the perpetration of the crime; greater by far than all the ill-gotten gains of the slaveholder could ever compensate; and,
4. It proposes neither Pay nor Pity, neither Compensation nor Compassion to the poor slaves, for all their long-endured agonies and toils; but instead, turns them forth helpless, homeless and still hated, upon a community that has crushed and plundered them from generation to generation.
2. Resolved, That fidelity to the cause of freedom and justice to the slave demand that we brand such a scheme as most iniquitous and cruel, tending far more to prolong and extend than to exterminate the system, and worthy only of a conclave of oppressors and tyrants.
3. Resolved, That the time has fully come, when the friends of freedom, who believe in the necessity of a government of force, and who are now acting in the Federal Government, might render essential aid to the Anti-Slavery cause by organizing political parties outside of the present national confederacy—parties which shall pledge their candidates to ignore the Federal Government, and make their respective States free and independent sovereignties.
All the Resolutions were adopted, excepting the last, which was presented and advocated by Mr. Foster, but strongly negatived by the meeting.
The Bugle says the number present was larger than last year—good delegations having come from Western Pennsylvania, and from various parts of Ohio. The spirit of compromise seemed quite at a discount.
A Weighty List of Names.
The following are the names of the persons in New Haven, who signed the Letter to President Buchanan, respecting the alarming state of things in Kansas, and which elicited his audacious and ominous reply. It will be seen, at a glance, that they are highly respectable and influential—the President of Yale College taking the lead.
- Nathaniel W. Taylor,
- Theodore D. Woolsey,
- Henry Dutton,
- Charles L. English,
- J. H. Brockway,
- Eli W. Blake,
- Eli Ives,
- B. Silliman, Jr.,
- Noah Porter,
- Thomas A. Thatcher,
- J. A. Davenport,
- Worthington Hooker,
- Philos Blake,
- E. K. Foster,
- C. S. Lyman,
- John A. Blake,
- Wm. H. Russell,
- A. N. Skinner,
- Horace Bushnell,
- John Boyd,
- Charles Robinson,
- David Smith,
- J. Hawes,
- James F. Babcock,
- G. A. Calhoun,
- E. R. Gilbert,
- Leonard Bacon,
- H. C. Kingsley,
- B. Silliman,
- Edward C. Herrick,
- Charles Ives,
- Wm. T. Eustis, Jr.
- Alex. C. Twining,
- Josiah W. Gibbs,
- Alfred Walker,
- James Brewster,
- Stephen G. Hubbard,
- Hawley Olmstead,
- Scagrove Wm. Magill,
- Amos Townsend,
- Timothy Dwight,
- David M. Smith,
- Henry Peck.
Dishonorable Conduct
Mr. Garrison:
Sir,—Enclosed is a copy of a vote passed by the Trustees of the Second Methodist Episcopal Church in Dorchester, August 21st, 1857. Please put it on record in The Liberator.
The facts are these:—The meeting-house was built about six years ago. Abolitionists and others (besides Methodists) contributed largely for its erection, with the understanding that it would be opened occasionally for reformatory evening meetings. The house was seldom applied for by Abolitionists—only a few times in six years. It was once used for a largo political meeting by the American party. It has been used for an Old Folks’ Concert, with an admission fee at the door. Last year, application was made for the house one evening for a lecture on Anti-Slavery, to be delivered by the Editor of The Liberator. It was at once refused by the minister, on account of the religious views of the lecturer. A few weeks later, the house was fitted with gas pipes, and a tax laid upon the pews, to pay for gas fixtures and repairs. Abolitionists and their friends protested against the injustice of taxing persons for apparatus to light the house, who did not wish to attend their (Methodist) evening meetings, and who were refused the use of the house for an able and efficient anti-slavery lecturer, on account of his religious views; and they refused to pay the tax. Soon after this, the Abolitionists were informed, by the President of the Board, that the trustees had voted to let them have the house four times a year for anti-slavery meetings, and that Mr. Garrison would be admitted to the meeting-house, if we thought best to invite him. Then one of the applicants for the use of the house paid his tax on three pews. A few days after, the Secretary of the Board of Trustees sent him the following notice.
Port Norfolk, Sept. 13, 1857.H. W. B.
Sir,—At a meeting of the Trustees of the Second M. E. Church in this place, held August 21st, 1857, they voted to let you the use of the church, for the purposes named by you, with the following provision: that the house shall not be used for the promulgation of come-outer sentiments, or principles derogatory to our doctrine and discipline.
(Signed,)Thos. B. Richardson,
☞This is a remarkable instance of Methodist honor and fair dealing! In order to obtain money of the Abolitionists to enable them to build a meeting-house, the Methodists at Port Norfolk agree that their house may be used occasionally for anti-slavery and reformatory purposes. On application for it, that we might lecture therein on the subject of slavery, the minister (Rev. Mr. Wood) refuses it on account of our religious views! Subsequently, to obtain more money of the Abolitionists in that place, a vote is passed, granting us the use of the house unconditionally; but, finally, a proviso is annexed, (the author of which, we understand, is A. B. Merrill, a lawyer at No. 10 Court street, in this city, who, though he may be a Methodist, is not connected with the church,) which is an insulting reflection upon us and our anti-slavery friends in Port Norfolk, and a most dishonorable dodge. Such conduct, among mere ‘worldly’ men, would be regarded as knavish; but the Methodist brethren at Port Norfolk have a moral standard of their own, and, while acting on the jesuitical doctrine, that ‘no faith is to be kept with heretics,’ assume to be specially concerned for the cause of pure and undefiled religion! This pious double-dealing should be a warning to Abolitionists generally, of the hazard they run of being cheated and swindled whenever they agree to aid in the erection of a sectarian building, on the promise of being permitted to use it, now and then, for the furtherance of the holy cause of emancipation.
A word as to come-outerism. It is only another name for secession, withdrawal, separation, for righteousness’ sake. Every Protestant sect has acted upon the doctrine, in its own case. Christ and Moses, prophets and apostles, were come-outers. How did Methodism originate but in come-outerism? Let the Methodists at Port Norfolk go back to the Established Church, and acknowledge themselves to have been heretics, before they undertake to denounce ‘the promulgation of come-outer sentiments’ in the cause of the enslaved in our land. They know that the whole difficulty, in this case, lies in the fact, that the Methodist Episcopal Church North is a slaveholding and slave-breeding Church, in spite of its ‘doctrine and discipline’; and they are afraid to have the truth spoken, as all are who are consciously in the wrong. Before reflecting upon the good faith and fair dealing of the Abolitionists in Port Norfolk whose pockets they have picked, let them evince by their conduct that they understand what belongs to common morality, and the binding nature of a contract.
Another Case of Imposture.
Mr. Garrison:
Dear Sir,—George Thompson, the fugitive, whom you sent from Boston, Saturday morning, to meet Mr. Seward at Albany, (according to his account,) came to us that evening, You will have heard the particulars of the attempt to arrest him, and his escape, before you receive this. His friends in Springfield judged it best to send him southward, and he was accordingly brought within a few miles of this place, and directed to one of my people and myself. We were at a loss what to do, but concluded, in view of the large reward offered for him, and the consequent probability of considerable effort to track him, and a sharp lookout, especially on the main lines of travel near Springfield, that it would be safest for him to go immediately in the direction of Albany, over the country roads. It being the Sabbath, I was necessarily confined at home by my pulpit duties yesterday, and could not carry him on his way, as I should have been glad to do. He remained with us Saturday night, and started on foot early yesterday morning, being pretty well, though somewhat stiff and sore.
If no misfortune befel him, he reached Rev. ’s, West Hartland, Conn., last evening, by whom he would be cared for. Thence he was directed to go to Mr. , West Winsted, Conn., and remain there till he heard from yourself or Mr. Seward. From West Winsted, it is but a few miles to Canaan on the Housatonic railroad, if you should think it safe for him to proceed in that way.
He lost the money you gave him, through the superabundant kindness of his heart in changing a counterfeit bill for a scoundrel whom he camo across in the cars. He says the conductors were very kind to him. We supplied him with as much money as we thought he would need: between four and five dollars.
I trust he will be kept from the power of his oppressor, and to hear from you of his reaching a place of safety. May God hasten the day when we shall not be obliged to hide the fugitive, to save him from being, forced back into slavery!
Very truly, yours,
☞We know nothing whatever of the colored man, ‘George Thompson,’ referred to in the foregoing letter, and accordingly pronounce him to be an impostor—regretting that our benevolent friend has been so basely deceived. Too much of caution cannot be exercised, on the part of those whose sympathies are warmly enlisted in behalf of the colored population, bond and free, in relation to colored applicants for aid either in their own case, or ostensibly to ransom some relative from bondage. Impostors of this class are travelling in all directions, and will be likely to increase rather than diminish in numbers and boldness. Look well at the documents—require the best anti-slavery testimony—and, as a general rule for safety, give very sparingly of money.—Ed. Lib.
