All I ask of the slaveholder is to give the slave his liberty. It is freedom I ask for the slave. And that the American slave will eventually get his freedom, no one can doubt. You cannot keep the human mind forever locked up in darkness. A ray of light, a spark from freedom's altar, the idea of inherent right, each, all, will become fixed in the soul: and that moment his "limbs swell beyond the measure of his chains," that moment he is free: then it is that the slave dies to become a freeman; then it is felt that one hour of virtuous liberty is worth an eternity of bondage: then it is, in the madness and fury of his blood, that the excited soul exclaims,
"From life without freedom, oh: who would not fly;
For one day of freedom, oh! who would not die?"
The rising of the slaves in Southampton, Virginia, in 1831, has not been forgotten by the American people. Nat Turner, a slave for life,—a Baptist minister.—entertained the idea that he was another Moses, whose duty it was to lead his people out of bondage. His soul was fired with the love of liberty, and he declared to his fellow-slaves that the time had arrived, and that "They who would be free, themselves must strike the blow."—He knew that it would be "liberty or death" with his little band of patriots, numbering less than three hundred. He commenced the struggle for liberty: he knew his cause was just, and he loved liberty more than he feared death. He did not wish to take the lives of the whites; he only demanded that himself and brethren might be free. The slaveholders found that men whose souls were burning for liberty, however small their numbers, could not be put down at their pleasure: that something more than water was wanted to extinguish the flame. They trembled at the idea of meeting men in open combat, whose backs they had lacerated, whose wives and daughters they had torn from their bosoms, whose hearts were bleeding from the wounds inflicted by them.
