Showing posts with label Temperance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Temperance. Show all posts

Thursday, December 30, 2021

Diary of Sergeant David L. Day: August 20, 1864

THE CHRISTIAN AND SANITARY COMMISSIONS.

I have read a great deal in the papers of the Christian and Sanitary commissions, of the noble and humane work they were doing and the immense amount of money contributed for their support by the people throughout the north and west. I have taken a great interest in these commissions and have supposed they were a kind of auxiliary to the medical and surgical department of the army, carrying and dispensing some simple medicines, pouring in the balm of gilead and binding up gaping wounds, giving comfort and consolation to the sick, weary and distressed; but in all this, so far as my observation has gone, I find I have been laboring under a delusion. Since I have been here is the first I have ever seen of the workings of these commissions, and I have watched them with some interest and taken some pains to find out about them. Here is a branch of each, located midway the convalescent camp and sick hospital, and I find they are little else than sutler's shops, and poor ones at that. These places are said to furnish without money and without price to the inmates of this hospital and the boys in the trenches such little notions and necessities as we have been accustomed to buy of the sutlers, and in consequence of this no sutlers are allowed to locate anywhere in this vicinity. The boys are not supposed to be fooling away their money to these thieving sutlers when our folks at home are willing to supply our little needs, free gratis for nothing. So when we happen to want a lemon or a pencil, a sheet of paper or a piece of tobacco, or whatever other little notion we require, all we have to do is to apply to one or the other commission and make known our wants; after answering all the questions they are pleased to ask we are given a slice of lemon, a half sheet of paper or a chew of tobacco. These are not wholesale establishments.

Fortunately for me I have stood in very little need of anything within their gift. I seldom solicit any favors and those are granted so grudgingly I almost despise the gist. My first experience with these institutions was one day when I was out of tobacco, I called on the Christians and told them how I was situated. I got a little sympathy in my misfortunes and a short lecture on the sin of young men contracting such bad habits, when I was handed a cigar box containing a small quantity of fine cut tobacco and told to take a chew. I asked them if they couldn't let me have a small piece that would do me for a day or two. “Oh, no; that is not our way of doing business.” “Will you sell me a piece? I would as soon buy of you as of the sutler." "Oh no; it is against our orders to sell anything. All there is here is free, it costs you nothing.” He then put up a small quantity and gave me. The next day I sent down to the Point and bought some. My next call was for a pencil. I was handed a third of one.

I said if that is the best you can do perhaps you had better keep it. He then gave me a whole one. I got out of writing paper and thought I would beg some. I called for it, and was given a half sheet. I used that and went for more, and when I had finished my letter, I had been six times to the Christian's. I sent down to the Point and bought some. I sometimes think I should like a lemon, but there is poor encouragement for calling for one, as I notice that others calling for them only get a thin slice of one.

This is the first place I ever got into where I could neither buy, steal or beg. I notice the officers fare a little better; they get in fair quantity almost anything they call for. I sometimes stand around for an hour and watch the running of this machine and wonder that in this business of giving goods away where the necessity for lying comes in, and yet I notice that this is practiced to some extent. Sometimes a person calling for an article will be told they are out of it, but expect some when the team come up from the Point. In a little while after perhaps some officer will call for the same thing and get it.

This Christian commission seems to be the headquarters for visitors. They stay a few days, going as near the trenches as they dare to, and in the chapel tent in the evening will tell over their adventures and pray most fervently for the boys who hold them. We are never short of visitors, as soon as one party goes, another comes, and they all seem to be good Christian men, taking great interest in the welfare of our souls.

A CHARACTER.

Among our visitors is a tall, lean, middle-aged man whom I know must have seen right smart of trouble. His face is snarled and wrinkled up in such a way that it resembles the face of a little dog when catching wasps. Although there is no benevolent expression on his countenance, he yet has more sympathy to the square inch than any other man I ever saw. He takes a great interest in this convalescent camp and seems to have taken it under his special charge. He will be in this camp all day, calling on all hands, inquiring after their health and needs, praying with them, giving them sympathy and good advice. He will come round giving a thin slice of lemon to all who will take it, and will sometimes go through the camp with a basket of linen and cotton rags and a bottle of cologne, sprinkling a little on a rag and give it to any one who will take it and at the same time will distribute religious tracts. Some days he will come round with a bottle of brandy and some small lumps of sugar, on which he will drop three or four drops of the brandy and give it to any one who says they are troubled with bowel complaints, at the same time telling them he hopes it will do them good.

One day he came along distributing temperance tracts. looked into my tent and inquired if there were any objections to his leaving some. I replied there were no reasons known to exist why he might not leave all he wished to. I then said: “You are laboring in a very worthy cause, but you seem to be working the wrong field, or as Col. Crockett used to say, barking up the wrong tree, for we here might just as well cast our nets into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, thinking to catch speckled trout as to think of getting any liquor. Your field of labor would seem to be up in the officers' ward where you deal out your liquors.” The old gentleman sighed at such perverseness and went along. He will work this camp all day from early morning till night, giving every one something, and in all that time will not give away the value of fifty cents.

Now I don't wish to cast any reflections or create any false impressions in regard to these commissions. I have only written my experience and observations as to their workings in this convalescent camp. So far as anything that I know to the contrary, they may be doing a great and humane work in the wounded and sick hospital, and I am charitable enough to allow that they are, but if the whole system of it throughout the army is conducted as niggardly as I have seen it here then there must be some superb lying done by somebody to account for all the money that is being contributed for its support.

SOURCE: David L. Day, My Diary of Rambles with the 25th Mass. Volunteer Infantry, p. 144-7

Sunday, September 27, 2020

Dr. Seth Rogers to his Daughter, January 9, 1863

January 9, 1863.

This morning, the adjutant and I, with eight oarsmen, went down to Hilton Head in our surf boat. The distance cannot be far from twelve miles and the trip is a charming one, though the shores are wanting in those rugged qualities which help to make the difference in character between the North and the South. Our black soldiers sang as they rowed — not the songs of common sailors — but the hymns of praise mingled with those pathetic longings for a better world, so constant with these people. There are times when I could quite enjoy more earthly songs for them, even a touch of the wicked, but this generation must live and die in sadness. The sun can never shine for them as for a nation of freemen whose fathers were not slaves.

My special business in going to Hilton Head was to test the honesty of a certain medical purveyor, who does not incline to honor the requisitions of the surgeon of the 1st Reg. S. C. Vol's. He has not yet heard of the popularity of the black regiments, but Uncle Samuel will teach him that, as well as a few other things. But it will be too late for him to repent in this world when he shall have learned the lesson.

The Flora – Gen. Saxton's steamer — came down from Beaufort and we were towed back by her to our camp. I met the General on the steamer and was delighted to find him in that mood over the purveyor's second refusal, which will work out a line of retributive justice. He read to me a letter just received by him from Secretary Stanton, which authorizes me to draw direct from New York. So we shall be all right within two weeks, I hope. In addition to all my other duties, I should quite like to prescribe for some of those pro-slavery scamps who disgrace the federal shoulder-straps. This particular case was polite enough to me, for which I was sorry. When Gen. (David] Hunter gets here there will be a bowing and scraping to the anti-slavery men that may awaken wickedness in my heart. . . .

I am just now busy in trying to discover the causes of such an excess of pleurisy and pneumonia in our camp, as compared with white regiments. Thus far I can only get the reiteration of the fact that negroes are more subject to these diseases than are the whites. I should be very sorry to find that their nightly “praise meetings,” or “shouts,” acted an important role in the development of these diseases, yet, thus far, our gravest cases are the most religious. It would be a sad but curious coincidence, if while the Colonel and young captain are diligently taking notes of the songs and hymns of the soldiers, the surgeon should note a marked fatality resulting from this sweet religious expression. We shall see. It is as difficult to inculcate temperance in religion here, among these sun-burned children, as to introduce it into a Methodist camp-meeting. I hope we shall not have to shut in religious expressions by military rules.

Speaking of coincidences, reminds me that I found the steward, this morning, putting up prescriptions in bits of the “ Liberator." I don't believe Mr. Garrison's editorials ever before came so near these black soldiers. I wondered if the powders would not have some magic power conveyed to them. South Carolina is getting a simultaneous doctoring of body and soul.

SOURCE: Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Volume 43, October, 1909—June,1910: February 1910. p. 341-2


Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Diary of Captain Luman Harris Tenney: April 16, 1865

Reveille at 4 A. M. with orders to move at 6. Orders countermanded on account of no rations. Went to sutler's and got cheese, buttermilk and cakes. Beautiful day. Letter from Minnie. Papers. A report that Lincoln was killed a short time since by an assassin. God grant it may not be true, for the country's good. Am happy today, my mind peaceful. Saw F. last night and night before. Lincoln assassinated. How great the loss to the country. All boys but two took a verbal temperance pledge. Got my leave and took the cars in evening.
________________

Note — After the surrender of Lee on April 9th, 1865, the Cavalry Corps, including the 2nd Ohio, marched southward to strike the remaining Confederate army commanded by Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, which was still confronting Sherman's army in North Carolina. Shortly after we had crossed the Roanoke River and entered North Carolina word came to us that Johnston had sensibly surrendered to Sherman and we marched northward to Richmond and Petersburg, and on to Washington, in time for the Grand Review. This episode in the Regiment's records is not mentioned in the diary because Major Tenney was at that time absent on leave at home. — A. B. N., June 10, 1911.

SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman Harris Tenney, p. 160

Tuesday, January 1, 2019

Nathaniel P. Rogers to William Lloyd Garrison, November 17, 1834

PLYMoUTH, N. H., Nov. 17, 1834.

DEAR GARRIsoN — We were highly animated Thursday, the 13th, at a stage arrival in our little village, bearing the “honored freight, Messrs. THoMPsoN, GRosvenoR and PHELPs, fresh from the field of Convention at Concord.

To see George Thompson here among us, at some period of his beneficent sojourn, we had fondly hoped, from the moment you announced to us his intended embarkation from England. But to greet him so soon after his landing, and to hear him speak, within our own walls, while his locks were yet wet with the dews of New York hospitality, was a favor we had not anticipated. What a delicate and discerning taste, by the way, this despotic New York tavern-keeper must have, and this mobocracy of ours in general, to vent their fine courtesies upon a subject like him!  I Who that beheld George Thompson merely, could imagine that there existed a brutality, even in New-York, brutal enough to do him harm or show him unkindness? Burns tells of a Scottish lass, that the “very de'il” could not look in the face but he would cry out — “I canna wrang thee.” Our mobocracy might take lessons of civility and humanity of the bard’s “de'il, as I fear they have taken, of a spirit having other existence than in the imagination of profane poetry. I really wondered, as I gazed on the elegant and interesting stranger, that a tavern-keeper could be found in all the hog-traversed streets of our republican Babylon, of a civility so swinish as to turn him from his door, — even were it to humor the sovereign and awful caprice of a man-jockey from the south? His wife and little children, too, routed of a poor home that a tavern could yield them in a strange land, — the first night, I believe, of their respite from the sea! Shame on you, most magnanimous inn-holder! and shame on the public, that will countenance the impudent brutality.

But I set out to give you a slight account of our antislavery occasion, and the addresses of our noble friends to the good people of Grafton county. It was a capital occasion. A court session had drawn together the flower of the shire. Our fine, intellectual bar, that will rank in talent and honorable character with any in New England; — our jury pannels, the prime of the yeomanry of a temperance community; — these, with a considerable amount of merit and eminence ex officio, and the other following of a county assize, making up a pretty full representation of our local public, afforded grand materials for an anti-slavery auditory. Then we had some distinguished talent from out the county. Our ample court house, condescendingly opened to us in the evening, was filled at first ray of candle. A fair proportion of ladies graced the attendance, — the clergy from this and other surrounding towns, — and, to add dignity and interest to the meeting, gentlemen advanced somewhat in life, of high judicial station in better times than these, — now retired, — came several miles, in the air of a November evening, to countenance the occasion and hear the advocate of the Negro — gentlemen who, though not professedly abolitionists, and not altogether ready perhaps to allow the colored man his right, if it were thought immediately practicable, yet far above the vulgar prejudice against him that infects our ordinary great, and too sagacious to trifle with the black man's plea. The auditory was, on the whole, one of the finest that could be gathered, and numbered several hundreds. The Hon. S. P. Webster was prevailed on to incur the hazards of the chair... The meeting was opened by prayer from the Rev. Mr. Grosvenor — our own beloved minister being called for, but not not [sic] having reached the meeting. A hymn followed-appropriate words, set to music by an ingenious abolition neighbor, who led the singing. Bro. Phelps then offered the following resolution — if I can remember accurately, through the splendid discussion that followed — That Immediate and Entire Emancipation is the only righteous, efficient, safe or practicable remedy for American slavery; and that it was the solemn duty of every American citizen to address himself forthwith to its consummation, by every christian means. He sustained the resolution in a series of pertinent and forcible remarks for fifteen or twenty minutes; though evidently, to us who knew him, with restrained powers. He was succeeded by Mr. Grosvenor, who spoke about the same time; and though manifestly with intent mainly to pave the way for what was to come after, he rose to high and affecting strains of eloquence. He was especially happy in a comparison of the trifling causes which employed the zeal and talents of counsel in that Seat of Justice, with the unutterable wrongs of two millions and a half of clients, in whose behalf he pleaded. But he forebore, he said, to take the time belonging to his gifted friend, who was to follow him, for whom he hoped the candid hearing of the auditors, as he was sure he would have their hearts.

George Thompson rose before the hushed assembly. They did not cheer him — it is not their habit — and if it had been, they had no such welcome for the advocate of the despised Negro. We have wronged the colored man too long and too deeply to readily forgive him, or to regard with complacency the man who ventures to take up his cause. Had the orator risen for the Polander or the Greek, or in behalf of any honorable or classical suffering, the walls would have rung with enthusiastic acclamation; but it is otherwise towards the advocate of the poor, the despised, the injured, the scorned, and “him that had none to help him.” The multitude regarded him in deep silence. Slowly, solemnly, and with wonderful expression, he summoned them to the momentous importance of the subject on which he was entering, and challenged the mention of any that could hold comparison with it, as it bore on the interests of man or the weal of this nation. After a brief preliminary, he bore away into a stream of argument and eloquent appeal to which I had witnessed no parallel, and of which I can attempt no account. For an hour — it may be two hours — I could form no estimate of the time by its lapse — he held the surprised and reluctant assembly in breathless attention. I do not conjecture their emotions or convictions. There were no plaudits — no more than at the defence before Agrippa, or the reasonings before Felix. To some the orator may have seemed “beside himself” — “mad” with “much learning. Others may have “almost been persuaded.” I cannot detail his arguments, or give any — the faintest idea of his impression. I have a dazzling impression on my memory of a portraiture of American slavery — terribly graphic — an exposition of the Levittical Law, in its bearings on ancient servitude and on modern slavery — one which, I think, will forever deter all who heard it, from venturing thither for warrant or apology for the infamous system of American slaveholding — of a glance at Abraham and his household, marching to the slaughter of the kings — a train little enough resembling a gang of sullen, heavy-footed negroes, goaded to the rice swarm — and still less a coffle of chained men moving through Freedom's capital, at the sound of her national music, to a more dismal bondage in the far south. St. Paul's recapture and remanding of the fugitive Onesimus, was illustrated by a commentary that will effectually warn all our scripture-mongers, who go about vindicating this slavery (which they hate worse than the abolitionists) from the bible, against quoting again from the epistle to Philemon! The utter impracticability of gradual or partial emancipation, — the danger of indulging the captive with a lengthened chain, while you hold him still bound, — the folly of attempting a lingering release of him from his thraldrom, link by link, — and the dangers of immediate emancipation, he portrayed. From the two million and a half of butchers who would be let loose upon the defenceless white folks, by immediate, abolition, he begged leave to make some detachments. First, he begged to detach all the infancy. This would hardly add to the force of an insurrection. Then all the childhood, below the years tall enough to reach a throat to cut it; — then the decripit age, whose vigor had long been exhausted in slavery’s toil, and which even emancipation could not recall; — the mothers rejoicing in their children — theirs at last beyond the reach of the auctioneer and the kidnapper; — the countless band of sable youth and beauty, with modesty sacrificed and affections offered up on the altar of the white man’s shame; then the sick — a host at all times under the “tender mercies” of the system; the christians — “resisting not evil” — much less rising upon benefactors; and last and least too — the favorite slaves — the kindly treated. All these he would detach, and be thankful for; and against the revengeful gratitude of the residue, he commended the defenceless master to the strong arm of the law, to justice and to God. Oh, for the pen of a ready writer, to have caught his glorious refutation of the impious slander that the black man was inferior in native capacity to his oppressor! His burning reprehension of our demanding fruit from the tree to which we denied the fertility of the earth, the dew, the shower, and the sunshine; consigning it to darkness and sterility, and then scornfully demanding of it foliage and fruits! I doubt if the stenographer could have availed himself of his art to arrest his enchanting exclamations, “they could be felt, but could not be followed.” I cannot speak of his reading and comments on the fiftieth of Isaiah. Every christian ought to have come to the field upon it, as at the sound of a trumpet. He cried aloud, and he did not spare. He spoke of the south and the slaveholder in terms of christian affection — declared himself a brother to the slave-master — a fellow sinner — under like condemnation with him, but for the grace of God— of the country—its history, its great names, its blood-bought privileges, and its blood-cemented union; he spoke with thrilling and overpowering admiration, lamenting the stain of slavery upon our otherwise glorious renown. Much as I was captivated with his oratory and force, it was the sweet spirit of the christian that won most my admiration and affection, it was the spirit of the “beloved disciple” — and he comes into this guilty land not “to spy out its nakedness, or abundance, or to regard our boasted politics;[”] but in obedience to that solemn command, “Go ye into all nations;” and to the “Lo, I am with you,” we commit him, for protection against the violence of our multitudes and the councils of our chief priests and pharisees.

After he had closed, the resolution was put to the meeting for their adoption. It was read by the chairman with a feeling somewhat below the fervor of the speaker. Still, a very goodly number of hands were raised in its support, and only three were seen to go up in answer to the call for opposition. Three hands! — and these were of gentlemen-scholars — bred to the generous pursuits of learning ! Before the addresses, scarcely three, beside the few professed abolitionists, would have risen in favor of the doctrines of the resolution.

The assembly dispersed quietly and with the utmost decorum, after prayer by our beloved pastor.

Many abolitionists were confirmed, and many, I have no doubt, made at the meeting. The addresses were spoken of with universal admiration, the cause opposed with moderated and respectful tone. The result will be most happy for the cause. I have only to say that our brethren might come among us again. Another such hearing would assemble thousands, and thousands may assemble in Grafton county without danger of mobs. We have enough of honorable character among the opposition to hold our mobocracy in respectful check. I hope they will visit us again early. This county is an important section of the State. The temperance cause received some of its earliest and most powerful impulses here, and “good temperance ground is good abolition ground.”

In haste, my dear sir,-too much to retrench my long and crude letter, — I remain, truly and affectionately, yours,
N. P. ROGER.S.

SOURCE: Isaac Knapp, Publisher, Letters and Addresses by G. Thompson [on American Negro Slavery] During His Mission in the United States, From Oct. 1st, 1834, to Nov. 27, 1835, p. 21-6

Sunday, December 9, 2018

Samuel Gridley Howe to Senator Charles Sumner, Thursday Evening, January 10, 1852

Boston, Thursday eve., January 10th, 1852.

My Dear Sumner: — I have a welcome line from you to-day; the first for several days; thanks!

I have been dining (a wonder for me) with Mrs. Ward, when we had Mr. and Mrs. Hare, Emerson, Hillard, &c.

Mrs. Hare makes me feel young again, yet very old. Hare I did not like, mainly however because he spoke not worthily of you — talked of your land speech as a bid for the Presidency!!

Ye Gods, what are we coming to when Charles Sumner is considered by any man with brains in his head as an aspirant for office?

I hope you may cross Felton's path and be brought together in kindness and affection; you would find him changed — sadly — yet your generous catholic nature would find much to dwell upon in his character with regard and esteem.

Our Free-soilers in the State are doing nothing for the cause — nothing. I think some of us outsiders should address them a letter of inquiry as to what they mean to do. I am sure that they need a fillip from somebody.

Can you not mark out some course of policy that they should pursue to forward the great principle of our party?

They are becoming mere politicians, mere office holders. They talk, some of them, of making the Maine liquor law a Shibboleth of our party!

I cannot see my way clear to advocate the enacting of such a law, or any unnecessary sumptuary law. I know that they hold this to be necessary; it seems to me doing wrong that good may come out of it.

Faithfully ever yours,
s. G, H.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 360-1

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Charles Sumner to Gerrit Smith, August 9, 1854

Washington, 9th Aug., '54.

My Dear Friend —Your speech on temperance has made a convert in Francis Markoe, Esq., of the State Department, occupying an important bureau there, who expresses an admiration of it without stint. He wishes some twenty-five copies to circulate among friends. Will you send them to him with your frank?

I leave to-morrow for the North, regretting much not to see you again before I go — regretting more that you forbid mc to hope to see you next winter when I return to renew our struggle.

You ought not to desert!

Ever yours,
Charles Sumner.

SOURCES: Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith: A Biography, p. 224-5

Monday, April 16, 2018

Gerrit Smith: The True Office of Civil Government, April 14, 1851

[Delivered at Troy, New York, April 14, 1851.]

The legitimate action of Civil Government is very simple. Its legitimate range is very narrow. Government owes nothing to its subjects but protection. And this is a protection, not from competitions, but from crimes. It owes them no protection from the foreign farmer, or foreign manufacturer, or foreign navigator. As it owes them no other protection from each other than from the crimes of each other, so it owes them no other protection from foreigners, than from the crimes of foreigners. Nor is it from all crimes, that Government is bound to protect its subjects. It is from such only, as are committed against their persons and possessions. Ingratitude is a crime: but, as it is not of this class of crimes, Government is not to be cognizant of it.

No protection does Government owe to the morals of its subjects. Still less is it bound to study to promote their morals. To call on Government to increase the wealth of its subjects, or to help the progress of religion among them, or, in short, to promote any of their interests, is to call on it to do that, which it has no right to do, and which, it is probably safe to add, it has no power to do. Were Government to aim to secure to its subjects the free and inviolable control of their persons and property — of life and of the means of sustaining life — it would be aiming at all, that it should aim at. And its subjects, if they get this security, should feel that they need nothing more at the hands of Government to enable them to work their way well through the world. Government, in a word, is to say to its subjects: “You must do for yourselves. My only part is to defend your right to do for yourselves. You must do your own work. I will but protect you in that work.”

That, the world over, Government is depended on to instruct, improve, guide, and enrich its subjects, proves, that, the world over, there is little confidence in the democratic doctrine of the people’s ability to take care of themselves: and that the opposite doctrine, that the many must be taken care of by the aristocratic and select few, is well nigh universally entertained. The people’s lack of confidence in themselves is not only proved, but it is accounted for, by this dependence on Government. This dependence of the people on the policy, providence, and guidance of Government, as well in peace as in war, has necessarily begotten in them a distrust of their ability to take care of themselves.

One of the consequences of this self-distrust on the part of the people is, that Government is employed, for the most part, in doing what it belongs to the people to do. And one of the consequences of this illegitimate work of Government is, that Government has become too great, and the people too little — that Government has risen into undue prominence, and the people sunk into undue obscurity. This is evident, wherever we look. The British Government overshadows the British people, and is their master, instead of their servant. It is in France as in Britain. The French Government owns, instead of being owned by, the French people.

The people of every nation are annoyed, enthralled, debased by this meddling of Government with the people’s duties! And never will the liberty, dignity, and happiness of the people be what they should be, until the people shall have risen up, and driven back Government from this meddling. In other words, the people will never be in their proper place, and Government will never be in its proper place, until the work of the people is done by the people.

Whenever the work of the people is taken out of their hands by the Government — or, since the people are quite as ready to shirk their work, as Government is to usurp it — I might as well say, whenever the people devolve it on Government, it is, of course, badly done. This is true, because every work to be well done must be done by its appropriate agent. Whenever Government builds railroads and canals, it builds them injudiciously and wastefully. So too, whenever Government meddles with schools, it proves, that it is out of its place by the pernicious influence it exerts upon them. And to whatever extent churches are controlled by Government, to that extent are they corrupted by it.

That Government does the work of the people badly is not, however, my chief objection to this meddling. There are two other objections to it, on which I lay greater stress than on this. One of these is — that Government, being allowed to do the work of others, fails, for this reason, to do its own work — or, in other words, being allowed to do what it should not do, it fails to do what it should do. The other of these objections is, that the doing by Government of the work of the people has the effect to degrade and dwarf the people.

I said, that Government has naught to do, but to protect its subjects from crimes. The crimes, however, which it permits against them — and, still more, the crimes, which it authorizes, and even perpetrates against them, show how extensively it fails of its duty. We will glance at a few of these crimes.

Slavery is one of them. And who needs to be told, that slavery is a crime? ay, the highest crime against both the body and the soul. Nevertheless, Government, not only permits its subjects to be enslaved, but it actually enacts laws for their enslavement.

Land monopoly is another of these crimes. The right of every man to his needed share of the soil, is as inborn, inalienable, and absolute, as his right to life itself: and the world has suffered more wrong and wretchedness from the violations of this right than it has even from slavery. Indeed, the robbing of men of their liberty is but a consequence of robbing them of their land. The poverty and impotence of the landless masses make them an inviting and easy prey of slavery. The masses, who fall under the yoke of slavery, fall under it because they are poor. Well does the Bible say: “The destruction of the poor is their poverty.” But were the equal right to the soil practically acknowledged, there would be no masses of poverty: and, hence, there would be little or no slavery — almost certainly no slavery. Stupendous, however, and everywhere-practised robbery, as is land monopoly, Government, nevertheless, does not forbid it. Nay, it positively and expressly permits it. Still worse, it does itself practise it. Government is itself the great land monopolist.

The compelling of one generation to pay the debts of another is among these crimes. Government not only suffers its subjects to be robbed of their earnings, in order to pay the debts of former generations, but it actually compels them to submit to such robbery.

There are wrongs done to woman, which fall in this class of crimes. Such is the wrong of denying her the right to control her property. Such is the wrong of denying her the right to participate in the choice of civil rulers. But Government, so far from defending these rights, does itself rob her of them.

The violation of the right to buy and sell freely, whenever and wherever we please, is another of these crimes. Government does, by its Tariffs, annihilate this right.

Now, why is it, that Government is engaged in all this, and, also, in a still greater, variety of nefarious work? It is, because having been allowed to neglect, and go beyond, its own proper and good work, no effectual limits can be set to its improper and bad work. And our answer to the question, why Government fails to perform its appropriate work of protecting its subjects from crimes, is that its meddling with the work, which is not its own, has unfitted it to appreciate and perform the work, which is its own. Let the lawyer dabble with merchandise, and he will be like to lose both his relish and his competency for his law business. Let the doctor annex to his province that of the lawyer, and, ten to one, he will be more interested in his briefs than in his pills. And, so too, if Government shall intrude itself into the province of the people, and usurp the work of the people, one consequence of such intrusion and usurpation will be its growing indifference and infidelity to its own duties — to its own proper work. “Ne sutor ultra crepidam” is an adage quite as applicable to Civil Government, as to an individual.

I referred to two of my objections to the meddling by Government with the work of the people. One of them I have now explained; and I need say no more to show, that it is well founded, and that the misdoing and no-doing of the proper work of Government are a necessary consequence of its meddling with the work of the people. Equally well founded is the other objection. The unhappy effect on the Government is a no more certain consequence of this meddling, than is its unhappy effect on the people.. The character of the people suffers as much from it, as does the character of the Government. The people, who consent to have their proper duties meddled with, and usurped by, Government, are shrivelled in self respect and manly spirit, and are fast tending to impotence. They are the servants and hangers-on of Government. They are swallowed up by it. To a great extent this is true of every people, who crave the guiding and sustaining hand of Government in their farming and manufacturing; in their road-building and canal-building; in their schools and churches. When smarting under the effect of their own follies, they will, instead of manfully undertaking to retrieve themselves, invoke the help of Government. What right-minded person has forgotten the humiliating spectacle, which the American people presented, some fourteen years ago, when they cried out to Government to relieve them of the consequences of that haste to be rich, which had then been prevailing throughout our country? The National Executive was implored: —— a special session of Congress was called for: — and all this, because so many thousands had got swamped in corner-lot and other speculations!

There are several points, on which an explanation may, perhaps, be desired of me.

1st. Do I mean, that Government shall invariably and absolutely forbid slavery? Yes — as invariably and absolutely, as it forbids murder. God no more creates men to be enslaved than to be murdered. And that does not deserve the name of Civil Government, which permits its subjects to be enslaved. And he is a pirate, instead of a Civil Ruler, who lays his hand on men to enslave them. And that is not law, but anti-law, which is enacted to reduce men to slavery, or to hold them in slavery. Hence, they are pirates, mobocrats, and anarchists, who are for the “Fugitive Slave law;” and they are law-abiding, who trample it under foot.

Law is for the protection of rights. And they, who believe, that enactments for the destruction of rights are law, know not what are the elements of true law. The American people in their folly, and madness, and devilishness, are busied, under their Fugitive Slave Law, in trying the questions, whether this man and that man are slaves — whether this being and that being, “made in the image of God,” are chattels and commodities. As well, (and not one whit more blasphemously,) might they try the question, whether God is entitled to His throne, or whether God shall be permitted to live. The American people proudly imagine, that theirs is the highest style of Christian civilization. And, yet, where shall we look for ranker atheism, or more revolting features of barbarism?

2d. Do I mean, that men have an equal right to the soil?

Yes — as equal as to the light and the air: and Government should, without delay, prescribe the maximum quantity of land, which each family may possess. In our country, as its population is so sparse, this quantity might go as high as a couple of hundred acres. A century hence, however, and the population may have increased so far, as to make it the duty of Government to reduce this quantity to a hundred acres. Two centuries hence, and it may, for a similar reason, be necessary to bring it as low as fifty acres. The population in Ireland is already so dense, that not more than some ten or twenty acres should be allowed to each family in that island.

To the question, whether I would have the landless claim improved land, I answer — not until the stores of wild land are exhausted. The people of Ireland should be put in immediate possession of the soil of Ireland, “vested rights” to the contrary notwithstanding. In our country, such rights may be spared, for a while longer. But the day is not distant, when, if they have not been previously and peacefully disposed of by Homestead Exemption and Land Limitation laws, they will be compelled to give way before that paramount natural right to the soil, which inheres as fully in every man, as does his right to himself.

3d. Do I mean, that a People may repudiate their national debt? I do. The debt of Great Britain is an average burden on each of her families of, say, one thousand dollars. That of Holland imposes a greater burden. These debts are crushing. The masses groan, and despair, and perish under them. All obligation to pay them should be promptly disavowed. So far is the present generation from being morally bound to lie under this burden, it is morally bound not to lie under it. No generation is bound to begin its career under burdens. No generation is bound to enter upon the race of life, incumbered with the dead weights of debt, which former generations have entailed upon it. On the contrary, if it would fill its page in the world’s history with usefulness and honor, (and no less than this does God require of it,) it must insist on having a free and a fair start.

But we are told, that a national debt is incurred in carrying on patriotic wars. To this we reply, that wars, which the people, who are carrying them on, believe to be just, they are willing to pay for: and that, therefore, every generation may, reasonably, be expected, and required, to pay for its own wars. Far fewer would be wars, if they, who wage them, had to pay for them. Had President Polk sent round the hat for contributions to carry on the Mexican war, the sum total would have been insufficient to pay for one volley. His noisiest partizans and the most bloated patriots would have cast in not more than Sixpence apiece. They loved the war; but they would have others pay for it. They delighted in the entertainment; since it was to be left to others to bear the expense of it. Right glad were they of a chance to dance; if others could be compelled to pay the fiddler.

What, however, it is asked, if the national debt has been created, or increased, by expenditures on “internal improvements” — such as railroads and canals? We answer, that each generation must be left free to choose what wars it will engage in, and, also, what canals and roads it will build: — with the proviso, nevertheless, as well in the one case, as in the other, that it shall pay, as it goes — or, to say the least, that if it makes debts, it shall pay them. But, it may be said, that a single generation, could not build and pay for, an Erie Canal. Then, let one generation build it as far West as Utica ; and the next extend it to Rochester; and the next to Buffalo. But, whether it shall be built by one, or by several, generations, let Government have no part in building it — let not Government be the owner of it, or of any canal, or of any railroad. Were there no other objection to such ownership, it is sufficient, that it puts into the hands of Government a power and a patronage of corrupting influence on both the Government and the people. No small objection to such ownership is, that it occasions so much legislation, and consumes so much of the time of our public councils. (Let it not be inferred from what I have here said, that I would not have our State finish its canals. It should finish them with the least possible delay, or sell them. It has no moral right to keep them unfinished any longer than is necessary.)

Pennsylvania owes forty millions of dollars for her State works. They cannot be sold for one-third of that sum. Now, to compel the payment of the remaining two-thirds from any other generation than the one, which had the fingering of the moneys, that these works cost — than the one, whose demagogues and log-rollers contrived and carried forward these works—is downright robbery. Nevertheless, these demagogues and logrollers were regarded, in their day, as the benefactors of posterity. Pretty benefactions to posterity are those, which posterity has to pay for! and which are generally worth less than half their cost!

A conclusive objection to national debts is the vast increase of Governmental power, which they occasion. Without reflection, one might say, that Government is weak in proportion to the amount of debt, which the nation owes. But, with reflection, he will say, that Government is strong in proportion to such amount. It is true, that the nation is weak in proportion to the extent of the national debt — but it does not follow, that the Government is. The debt due from a nation is a mortgage upon all its wealth and industry. Now, the collecting of this debt is in the hands of the Government. All the persons employed in collecting it are servants of Government. All the power wielded in collecting it is power of the Government — as much so, as if the Government were the creditor, as well as the collector. If, then, the power of Government is to be kept within due limits, the nation must be kept out of debt.

4th. Do I mean to be understood condemning all Tariffs? I do. I would not have a Custom-House on the face of the earth. But, what if our nation should grow rich with a Tariff, and poor without it? Then, let it grow poor. Whatever may be the effect on its wealth, every nation is to cultivate the freest, fullest, friendliest intercourse with every other nation. The nations of the earth constitute, and should feel, that they constitute, a brotherhood. But, restrictions on trade build up frowning barriers across this brotherhood, and are fruitful sources of estrangement and war. In the words of the poet, they

“Make enemies of nations, who had else
Like kindred drops been mingled into one.”

Great, very great, is the crime of Government in imposing these restrictions. Would I send a barrel of flour to the starving family of my Canadian brother? Would he send a roll of cloth to my freezing family? The arresting, by an individual, of this mutual beneficence would be held by all to be very criminal. But the arresting of it by Government is surely no less criminal. The case here supposed is one, which fairly illustrates the inhumanity and irreligion of Tariffs.

But the profit, the profit, of Tariffs is still urged upon our regards. We deny the fact of such profit. We believe, that, even in a pecuniary point of view, truth and justice and benevolence are gain. What, however, were we convinced of such profit? We must not suffer ourselves to be influenced by it. Even to look upon it, is to expose ourselves to be seduced from our opposition to the inhumanity and sin of Tariffs. We must not go so far into the way of temptation, as even to contemplate a motive for doing wrong. The bare contemplation of the motive may bring us to yield to its power, and to do the wrong.

What can be more unjust than Tariff-taxation? Instead of taxing the rich, in proportion to their riches, it taxes the poor, in proportion to their poverty. That they are thus taxed is obvious. For the poor man is poor, in proportion to the number of children he has to bring up; and, in that proportion, is the amount of Tariff-taxed supplies, which he needs for their subsistence. It often occurs, that a poor man pays, under Tariff-taxation, a greater amount of taxes than a rich man pays under it. One-quarter of the wealth of the nation pays a greater amount of Tariff-taxes than do the other three-quarters.

In addition to what we have said, is the consideration, that Tariff-taxes are so much greater than would be the direct taxes in their stead. We now pay, even in time of peace, thirty millions a year to defray the expenses of the General Government. Let its expenses, however, be defrayed by direct taxes, and the thirty millions would be brought down to three:—and, moreover, the South would pay, far more nearly than now, her full proportion of the nation’s taxes. We have spoken of the reduction of taxes in time of peace. What would be the reduction in time of war we scarcely need estimate: for when direct taxes shall have come into the place of Tariff-taxes, and the expenses of war shall, as well as other national expenses, have to be met by direct taxes, there will, probably, be no war.

Never, never, will there be an honest or frugal Government, until it is sustained by direct taxation: — for never, never, will the people be duly watchful of the conduct of Government, until the cost of Government shall be directly felt by them.

The Government, which taxes the poor, as this Government taxes them, is a robber of the poor, instead of discharging the Governmental duty of protecting the poor.

And I would not be content with the mode of taxation, which the free-trade men propose. They ask, that the people shall be taxed according to their property. But I ask for a still further concession to justice and humanity. I ask, that they shall be taxed according to their ability. Now, his ability to pay taxes, who has ten times as much property as his poor neighbor, is not but ten fold as great. It is infinitely greater. The poor man, Who has but two hundred dollars a year, on which to subsist his family, pays his taxes from the little store, every copper of which is urgently negded for their subsistence. But, the rich man by his side, whose income is two thousand dollars a year, pays his taxes from his superfluity. Equity and fraternity do, therefore, claim, that this rich man should pay taxes both for himself and his poor neighbor.

I close my argument with regard to Tariffs by remarking, that if Government will, at all events, sustain and enrich the manufacturers against foreign competition, it should do so by giving them bounties. These bounties I would, of course, have produced by assessments on property, or rather on ability, instead of taxes on consumption.

5th. Do I meant, that Government shall have nothing to do with Schools? I do. In this country, nearly every person admits, that Government should not have aught to do with churches. Why, then, should it have aught to do with schools? Because, says the answerer, schools are the places, in which to get education, whilst churches are the places, in which to get religion. But, in the esteem of many of us, there is great danger, that the education will prove worthless, nay positively and frightfully pernicious, which does not include religion; which is not, at every step of its progress, blended with religion, and identical with religion, and designed to promote religion. Moreover, in the esteem of many of us, the school, in its legitimate use, is, quite as emphatically as even the church itself, the place to get religion. Our school-years constitute that impressible period of life, which is far more hopeful than any or all after years to the plastic hand of the religious teacher. How important, then, that the school-teacher — that every schoolteacher — be also a religious teacher! Is it said, that religion can be taught during our school-years, and yet not in school?

We admit, that it can: — but it will be with comparatively little hope of success, unless it be taught in school also. Is it said, that religion may be gotten, after our school-years are ended? But, not to say, that the heart may, by that time, be imperviously and forever closed against religion, there is but too much reason to fear, that the religion, which is gotten after our school-years are ended, will, in general, be found to be a picked-up, superficial, and easily-parted-with religion, contrasting very widely, in this respect, with the religion of childhood — with the religion, which incorporates itself with, and becomes an inseparable part of, the very being of its possessor. Certain it is, as a general truth, that the religion, which we would fasten in the heart, must be put there in childhood. Do we wonder, that the Roman Catholic is so tenacious of his religion? We will not, if we reflect, that he imbibed it in his childhood. Do we wonder, that Roman Catholics are so strenuously opposed to our common school system? We will not, if we reflect, how deeply they believe in their religion, and how determined they are to imbue everything with it, and how conscientiously opposed they are, therefore, to excluding school-hours, or any portion of school-hours, from the influence of religion. And, in all this, Roman Catholics are right. And, in compelling them to uphold a system of education, which is an infidel system, or which, to say the least, is, to whatever extent it is religious, opposed to their religion, they are cruelly wronged. We call it an infidel system: — and such it virtually is. For, at the most, it contemplates but the toleration, instead of the inculcation, of religion: — and, what is more, it will not even tolerate any other than a conventional and nominal religion. What positive and earnest religion there is among the people of a school district must, so far as the school is concerned, be held in abeyance. Were such a religion allowed to enter our district schools, it would break them up. The doctrine, that “a man’s a man,” whatever his condition, or color, is an essential, fundamental religious doctrine: — and I add, that the current religion of our country is spurious, because it lacks the practical recognition of this doctrine. Now, the honest and hearty attempt to teach this doctrine in our district schools would be resisted to the last degree. It would be held to be a gross and unendurable violation of that religious neutrality, which is a confessed part — nay, the very corner-stone — of the common school structure. The instance has occurred in my own county, where the presence of an antislavery book in the school-library produced great commotion. It was voted out. I have heard of warm indignation in an adjoining county at the discovery in a school-library of William Jay’s history of the Mexican war. The proslavery histories of that war are welcome to our school-libraries. But William Jay’s is an antislavery history. The common school compromise in regard to religion tolerates proslavery, but not antislavery. The common school neutrality in regard to religion permits the praising, but not the condemning, of our war against Mexico.

A popular argument for Government or district schools is, that they are a cheap police. I admit, that good schools are. And so are good churches. Why, then, should not Government take upon itself the care of the churches, as well as of the schools? And since good family-government is, also, a cheap police, and a thousand fold more important to this end than either schools or churches, or both put together, why should not Government take under its supervision our family affairs also? In this cheap-police plea for Government schools, there is, at least, one thing taken for granted, which should not be. It is, that without the help of Government, there would not be schools, or, at least, not so many: whereas the probability is, that, were there no interference of Government, our schools would not only be better than they now are, but quite as numerous also.
It is asked — what will the poor do to get their children educated, in case Government aid is withdrawn? We answer, let them do anything rather than hang upon Government for an education — for an education, which, because it is Governmental, is emasculated of all positive, earnest, hearty religion — for an education, in which, because it is Governmental, the substance of morality is exchanged for the show of morality — and in which what is honest and uncompromising and robust and manly in character is made to give place to pusillanimity, effeminacy, calculation, baseness.

The Government of Prussia sees to it, that the children of Prussia are educated. Nevertheless, it forbids them, when educated, to exercise their education on certain proscribed topics. But, how much worse is this than the system of education, which shuts out vital topics, and the stern demands of principle from the process of education? If my child may not, whilst in the course of his education, be freely instructed in the most radical political and moral truths, and in the duty of their most faithful application, the chances are a hundred to one, that he will not relish such instruction in after years. And, if he has not, whilst in school, been permitted and encouraged to be true to his convictions, the strong probability is, that he will be false to them in subsequent life. Not having been allowed to be a true boy, he will not prove to be a true man. Why is it, that the great mass of the people in this land are ready to make, and uphold laws for chasing down and enslaving the poor? It is because they were taught no better in their childhood. It is because they were cursed with a compromising education. New England boasts much of her common schools. But, what have her people learned in them? To spell, read, write, and cipher, is the answer. But have they learned in them to respect and uphold human rights? They have not. On the contrary, they have learned in them to use their spelling, reading, writing and ciphering, against human rights. It is but a day or two since, that an innocent man was sent publicly from the very capital of New England to the doom of perpetual slavery. This single fact is a sufficient reply to all the beasts of New England schools. The people, who can perpetrate such a crime, are badly educated, and their schools — not to say churches also — are worse than worthless. Is it said, that they consented to this most atrocious sacrifice of their fellow man out of their respect to law? This apology for their case only makes it worse. The people, who can respect as law, who can even know as law, that, which calls for the most horrible form of murder, are, beyond all doubt, educated more into folly than into wisdom, more into falsehood than into truth, more into demons than into men, more into fitness for the society of the under than the upper world. I will not believe all this of our New England brethren. Hence, I will not accept the apology for them, to which I have here referred.

I think it was the mighty John Knox of Scotland, who inscribed over his door: “Love God with all thine heart and thy neighbor as thyself.” Ah, how much better off would New England be, though without so much as one Government school, but with this inscription over her every door and upon her every heart, than she is with all her fulness of learning, and her equal fulness of moral cowardice and of treachery to God and man! But this universal inscription she will never have, so long as her schools are founded on an accommodating policy in respect to fundamental morality, and on that compromise between righteousness and wickedness, which “splits the difference ” between God and the Devil.

Do not suppose from what I have said, that I believe New England to be worse than other parts of our country. I believe her to be quite as good, as any other part of our country.

I have, now, given one answer to the question — what will the poor do to get their children educated, in case Government aid is withdrawn? I have another to give to it. It is, that if Government will protect its subjects in their natural and absolute right to personal liberty, and to the soil, and to buy and sell where they please, and to choose their civil rulers — there will be but few poor.

What, however, if these few poor should be tenfold as numerous, as I suppose they would be — nay, even as numerous as the present poor? — private benevolence would, nevertheless, make abundant educational provision for them. The voluntary principle is found to be sufficient in the case of churches. Why should it be distrusted in the case of schools? But, it has proved itself worthy of reliance in the case of schools. The free gifts made in New England and New York to aid the cause of education would not compare unfavorably in amount with what the laws extort for this object.

If there are poor to be helped, it is voluntary, and not compelled help, that they need. Compelled help is of little worth either to the helper or the helped. Such help is not the twice blessed mercy, of which the great poet speaks:—

“It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”


Whether, however, our schools, if left, as are our churches, to the voluntary principle, would be sustained or not, I, nevertheless, protest against the doctrine of compelling men to sustain them. Compulsion to this end is, as I view schools, and as ten thousand others view them, a no less invasion, and a no less offensive invasion, of the rights of conscience and of the liberty of religion, than is the compelled support of churches. In our esteem, the school is, in its true character, as fully identified with religion, as is the church: and, hence, when Government interferes with the school, it makes itself, in our esteem, as obnoxious to the charge of meddling with religion, as when it interferes with the church.

My concern respecting the compelled support of schools is not for the religious man only. It is for the infidel also. If I would not have the Roman Catholic compelled to support schools, whose religion is repugnant to his own, neither would I have the infidel compelled to support schools of any religion. The rights of the infidel are to be held as sacred, as the rights of the christian: and Government is to leave both infidels and christians at full liberty to build up such schools, as they may respectively prefer.

But, it is said, that our schools will be as diversified and sectarian, as our churches, if Government, instead of insisting on running them all into the Government-mold, and making them all after one pattern, shall allow its subjects to have whatever variety of schools they will. In the name of consistency then, why not set Government at work to purge our churches of sectarianism? Now, I admit, that sectarianism, whether in schools or in churches, is a very pernicious error. But I deny, that it is an error, which Government is either to correct, or prevent. Government has nothing at all to do with it.

I do not object to charity — though, I confess, that I do not think there would be much occasion for it, were Government to do its part toward a right construction of society. Charity does not cure the ills, which spring from our false social state. It is but a present, and a very superficial palliation of them. Our eleemosynary institutions are busy with the leaves, instead of striking at the roots, of our multiform disorders.

But, though I do not object to all charity, I am totally opposed to charity at the hands of Government. It is justice, and not charity, which the people need at the hands of Government. Let Government restore to them their land, and what other rights they have been robbed of, and they will, then, be able to pay for themselves — to pay their schoolmasters as well as their parsons. The best way to defend Government for undertaking to educate the children of the poor is on the ground, that this is a slight return for its robberies of the poor. The highwayman does, sometimes, compound with his conscience by giving back enough of the spoil to furnish his victim with a supper, or a night’s lodging. But better than all such generosity of the Government and the highwayman would be their ceasing from their robberies.

I said, it is justice, and not charity, which the people need at the hands of Government. Ay, one crumb of justice is worth more than a whole loaf of charity. I would have the people delivered from all necessity of begging. But, so long as they must beg, let them beg, not of Government, but of one another. Let them never consent to gather into groups of mendicants around the almsgiving hand of Government. It is the of Government, which bribe the people into acquiescence in the loss of their rights — of the very rights, which Government is bound to maintain, but of which it has robbed them — or suffered others to rob them. What is worse, these gifts to the people have the power to blind the people to their loss. They are robbed, without knoowing, that they are robbed.

The last thing, which I have to say on the subject of schools, is to refer to the fact, that the American people are ever and deeply deprecating the union of Church and State. I admit, that they cannot deprecate it too earnestly, or too constantly. It is among the greatest of all evils. But, let me here say, that every admitted interference of Government with the duties and business of the people, is a step toward its union with the church, since every such interference prepares the way for another. I add, that the union of Government with the common school is a step, which lacks but one more step of bringing the Government into union with the church: and I add, that this lacking step would soon be taken, if the people had a common religious faith. It is the intolerant diversity of their religious belief — or, in other words, their division into sects — which saves the people of this nation from the union of Church and State. The common impression, that there is an invincible repugnance among us to the union of Church and State — to the thing itself — is not founded in truth. The man, who is willing to have Government sustain, and take care of the schools, can easily be made willing to have it sustain and take care of the churches also; provided only, that the churches are of his faith. Were this a Catholic, or Presbyterian, or Baptist, or Methodist, or an Episcopalian nation — that is to say, were the mass of the people of one religious creed — and were the present false views of the office of Government still to obtain — the nation would speedily be cursed with a union of Church and State. Let it not be inferred, from what I have here said, that I regard sectarianism, in any case, as a good. I have before condemned it. I now add, that it is an unmixed evil. It is “only evil continually.” A crime against Christ and the christian brotherhood is it to go into any sect whatever. By Divine arrangement, the christians of a place are the church of such place. Very presumptuous and guilty therefore are they, who would supplant this with a human arrangement. All, that can be said in favor of sectarianism in the present instance is, that it is one evil counteracting another — one disease preventing another.

The truth is, that Government has got into the sanctuary of the people’s business and interests; and, that, whilst it is suffered to be there, no limits can be set to its meddling and mischief. To-day, it lays its hand upon the school. To-morrow, it lays it on the church. The only safety consists in expelling the intruder from this sanctuary, and in keeping him outside of it, where he may stand sentinel to it, and so fulfil the only office of Civil Government.

I said, that the only province of Government is to protect from crimes the persons and possessions of its subjects. Some of you may think, that this is making the province of Government too narrow to include all its duties. But, which of its duties would be left outside of these limits? Perhaps, it will be asked, if the duty of abolishing the traffic in intoxicating drinks would not be. I answer, that it would not. I ask Government to abolish this traffic, not because I would have Government enact sumptuary laws — for I would not. Nay, I go so far, as to say, that if the drinkers of intoxicating liquors would do no more than kill themselves, I would not have Government interfere with their indulgence. It is murder, not suicide, that I would have Government concern itself with. Nor do I ask Government to abolish this traffic, because I hold, that Government is charged with the care of the public morals. As I have already shown you, I hold to no such thing. Why I ask Government to abolish this traffic is because it is fraught directly, immensely, necessarily, with wide and awful peril to person and property. Neither property, nor life, is safe from the presumption, the blindness, and the fury of the drunken maniac. The drunken driver upsets the stage. The drunken engineer blows up the steamboat. It is a drunkard, who has ravished our wife, or daughter, or sister. It is a drunkard, who has burned our dwelling. It is a drunkard, who has murdered our family.

What is a crime then, if the traffic in intoxicating drinks is not one? And what crime is there, from which Government should be more prompt to shelter the persons and possessions of its subjects?

Perhaps, it will be asked, whether Government, under my definition of its province, would be at liberty to carry the mail; build asylums; improve harbors; and build light-houses? I answer, that nothing of all this is, necessarily, the work of Government. The mail can be carried, as well without, as with, the help of Government. Some of the best and most extensive asylums in our country are those with which Government has nothing to do. And the interest and humanity of individuals and communities might be relied on to improve harbors and build light-houses, as well as to keep bridges and roads in repair. I admit, that harbors and light-houses are an indispensable protection to life and property, and that the failure to supply them is a crime against mankind, and a crime, of which Government should be cognizant. But Government would, probably, never have to compel the merchants of Portland and Boston and New Bedford &c., to supply the New England coast with harbors and light-houses. It certainly would not, were it to allow them the privilege of imposing a reasonable tax for these securities on the vessels, that enjoy them. And, here, let me add, that, inasmuch as Government has undertaken their care and improvement, and supplied itself, at the people’s expense, with the means therefor, the neglected condition of the harbors upon our lakes is among the evidences, that ours is a faithless and dishonest Government.

I close with saying, that the work of Civil Government is not so much to take care of its subjects, as to leave them in circumstances, in which they may take care of themselves: — and not so much to govern its subjects, as to leave them free to govern themselves. Civil Government is to hold a shield over the heads of its subjects, beneath which they may, in safety from one another, and from all others, pursue their respective callings, and discharge their respective duties. Whilst confining itself to this employment, it is a blessing above all praise — above all price. But, when it forsakes its own work to usurp that of the people; and, especially, when, as it has been recently known to do, it arrays itself against the great and holy God, who ordained Civil Government, and blasphemously enacts laws, which are opposed to His laws, then is it a curse and a monster, which deserves to be hated with all our hatred, and resisted at every hazard.

SOURCES: Gerrit Smith, The True Office of Civil Government: A Speech in the City of Troy, p. 5-30; Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith: A Biography, p. 181-4

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes to Sophia Birchard Hayes, July 10, 1862

Flat Top Mountain, July 10, 1862.

Dear Mother: — I think you would enjoy being here. We have a fine cool breeze during the day; an extensive mountain scene, always beautiful but changing daily, almost hourly. The men are healthy, contented, and have the prettiest and largest bowers over the whole camp I ever saw. They will never look so well or behave so well in any settled country. Here the drunkards get no liquor, or so little that they regain the healthy complexion of temperate men. Every button and buckle is burnished bright, and clothes brushed or washed clean. I often think that if mothers could see their boys as they often look in this mountain wilderness, they would feel prouder of them than ever before. We have dancing in two of the larger bowers from soon after sundown until a few minutes after nine o'clock. By half-past nine all is silence and darkness. At sunrise the men are up, drilling until breakfast. Occasionally the boys who play the female partners in the dances exercise their ingenuity in dressing to look as girlish as possible. In the absence of lady duds they use leaves, and the leaf-clad beauties often look very pretty and always odd enough.

We send parties into the enemy's lines which sometimes have strange adventures. A party last Sunday, about forty miles from here, found a young Scotchman and two sisters, one eighteen and the other fourteen, their parents dead, who have been unable to escape from Rebeldom. They have property in Scotland and would give anything to get to “the States.” One officer took one girl on his horse behind him and another, another, and so escaped. They were fired on by bushwhackers, the elder lady thrown off, but not much hurt. They were the happiest girls you ever saw when they reached our camp. They are now safe on the way to Cincinnati, where they have a brother.

We are expecting one of these days to be sent to eastern Virginia, if all we hear is true.

I have just received an invitation to Rogers' wedding. If you see him or his bride tell them I regret I shall not be able to be at Columbus on the first of this month. . . . Love to all.

Affectionately, your son,
R. B. Hayes.
Mrs. Sophia Hayes,
Columbus, Ohio.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 300-1

Monday, September 26, 2016

Frederick Douglass to Rev. Samuel Hanson Cox, October 30, 1846

SALISBURY ROAD, EDINBURGH, Oct. 30, 1846.
Samuel Hanson Cox, D. D.:

SIR—I have two objects in addressing you at this time. The first is, to deny certain charges, and to correct certain injurious statements, recently made by yourself, respecting my conduct at a meeting of the “World’s Temperance Convention,” held in Covent Garden Theatre, London, in the month of August last. My second object will be to review so much of your course as relates to the Anti-Slavery question, during your recent tour through Great Britain and a part of Ireland. There are times when it would evince a ridiculous sensibility to the good or evil opinions of men, and when it would be a wasteful expenditure of thought, time, and strength, for one in my circumstances to reply to attacks made by those who hate me more bitterly than the cause of which I am an humble advocate. While all this is quite true, it is equally true, that there are times when it is quite proper to make such replies; and especially so, when to defend one’s self is to defend great and vital principles, the vindication of which is essential to the triumph of righteousness throughout the world.

Sir, I deem it neither arrogant nor presumptious to assume to represent three millions of my brethren, who are, while I am penning these words, in chains and slavery on the American soil, the boasted land of liberty and light. I have been one with them in their sorrow and suffering — one with them in their ignorance and degradation — one with them under the burning sun and the slave-driver’s bloody lash — and am at this moment freed from those horrible inflictions, only because the laws of England are commensurate with freedom, and do not permit the American man-stealer, whose Christianity you endorse, to lay his foul clutch upon me, while upon British soil. Being thus so completely identified with the slaves, I may assume that an attack upon me is an attack upon them — and especially so, when the attack is obviously made, as in the present instance, with a view to injure me in the advocacy of their cause. I am resolved that their cause shall not suffer through any misrepresentations of my conduct, which evil-minded men, in high or low places, may resort to, while I have the ability to set myself right before the public. As much as I hate American Slavery, and as much as I abominate the infernal spirit which in that land seems to pervade both Church and State, there are bright spots there which I love, and a large and greatly increasing population, whose good opinion 1 highly value, and which I am determined never to forfeit, while it can be maintained consistently with truth and justice.

Sir, in replying to you, and in singling out the conduct of one of your age, reputation, and learning, I should, in most cases, deem an apology necessary — I should approach such an one with great delicacy and guardedness of language. But, in this instance, I feel entirely relieved from all such necessity. The obligations of courtesy, which I should otherwise be forward to discharge to persons of your age and standing, I am absolved from by your obviously bitter and malignant attack. I come, therefore, without any further hesitancy, to the subject.

In a letter from London to the New York Evangelist, describing the great meeting at Covent Garden Theatre, you say:

“They all advocated the same cause, showed a glorious unity of thought and feeling, and the effect was constantly raised — the moral scene was superb and glorious — when Frederick Douglass, the colored abolition agitator and ultraist, came to the platform, and so spoke a la mode, as to ruin the influence, almost, of all that preceded! He lugged in Anti-Slavery, or Abolition, no doubt prompted to it by some of the politic ones who can use him to do what they would not themselves adventure to do in person. He is supposed to have been well paid for the abomination.

“What a perversion, an abuse, an iniquity against the law of reciprocal righteousness, to call thousands together to get them, some certain ones, to seem conspicuous and devoted for one sole and grand object, and then, all at once, with obliquity, open an avalanche on them for some imputed evil or monstrosity, for which, whatever be the wound or injury inflicted, they were both too fatigued and too hurried with surprise, and too straitened for time to be properly prepared. I say it is a trick of meanness! It is abominable!

“On this occasion Mr. Douglass allowed himself to denounce America and all its temperance societies together, as a grinding community, and the enemies of his people; said evil, with no alloy of good concerning the whole of us; was perfectly indiscriminate in his severities; talked of the American delegates, and to them, as it he had been our schoolmaster, and we his docile and devoted pupils; and launched his revengeful missiles at our country, without one palliative, as if not a Christian or a true Anti-Slavery man lived in the whole of the United States. The fact is, the man has been petted, and flattered, and used, and paid by certain Abolitionists not unknown to us, of the ne plus ultra stamp, till he forgets himself; and though he may gratify his own impulses, and those of old Adam in others, yet sure I am that all this is just the way to ruin his influence, to defeat his object, and to do mischief, not good, to the very cause he professes to love. With the single exception of one cold-hearted parricide, whose character I abhor, and who has, I fear, no true patriotism or piety within him, all the delegates from our country were together wounded and indignant. No wonder at it! I write freely. It was not done in a corner. It was inspired, I believe, from beneath, and not from above. It was adapted to re-kindle, on both sides of the Atlantic, the flames of national exasperation and war. And this is the game which Mr. Frederick Douglass and his silly patrons are playing in England and in Scotland, and wherever they can find ‘some mischief still for idle hands to do.’ I came here his sympathizing friend — I am so no more, as I more know him.

“My own opinion is increasingly that this abominable spirit must he exorcised out of England and America, before any substantial good can be effected for the cause of the slave. It is adapted only to make bad worse, and to inflame the passions of indignant millions to an incurable resentment. None but an ignoramus or a madman could think that this was the way of the inspired apostles of the Son of God. It may gratify the feelings of a self-deceived and malignant few, but it will do no good in any direction — least of all to the poor slave ! It is short-sighted, impulsive, partisan, reckless, and tending only to sanguinary ends. None of this, with men of sense and principle.

“We all wanted to reply, but it was too late; the Whole theatre seemed taken with the spirit of the Ephesian uproar; they were furious and boisterous in the extreme; and Mr. Kirk could hardly obtain a moment, though many were desirous in his behalf, to say a few words, as he did, very calmly and properly, that the cause of temperance was not at all responsible for Slavery, and had no connection with it. There were some sly agencies behind the scenes — we know!”

Now the motive for representing, in this connection, “the effect constantly raised,” the “moral scene sublime and glorious,” is very apparent. It is obviously not so much to do justice to the scene, as to magnify my assumed offence You have draw an exceedingly beautiful picture, that you might represent me as roaming and defacing its beauty, in the hope thereby to kindle against me the fury of its admirers.

“Frederick Douglass, the colored Abolitionist and ultraist, came to the platform.” Well, sir, what if I did come to the platform? How did I come to it? Did I come with or without the consent of the meeting? Had your love of truth equalled your desire to cover me with odium, you would have said, that after loud and repeated calls from the audience, and a very pressing invitation from the chairman “Frederick Douglass came to the platform.” But, sir, this would not have served your purpose — that being to make me out an intruder, one without the wedding garment, fit to be cast out among the unbidden and unprepared. This might do very well in America, where for a negro to stand upon a temperance platform, on terms of perfect equality with white persons, it would be regarded as an insolent assumption, not to be borne with; but, sir, it is scarcely necessary to say, that it will not serve your purpose in England. It is now pretty well known throughout the world that colour is no crime in England, and it is becoming almost equally known, that colour is treated as a crime in America. “ Frederick Douglass, the coloured abolition agitator and ultraist, came to the platform!” Shocking! How could democratic Americans sit calmly by, and behold such a flagrant violation of one of the most cherished American customs — this most unnatural amalgamation! Was it not an aggravating and intolerable insult, to allow a negro to stand upon a platform, on terms of perfect equality with pure white American gentlemen! Monarchical England should be taught better manners; she should know that democratic America has the sole prerogative of deciding what shall be the social and civil position of the coloured race. But, sarcasm aside, sir, you claim to be a Christian, a philanthropist, and an Abolitionist. Were you truly entitled to any one of these names, you would have been delighted at seeing one of Afric’s despised children cordially received, and warmly welcomed, to a world's temperance platform, and in every way treated as a man and a brother. But the truth probably is, that you felt both yourself and your county severely rebuked by my presence there; and, besides this, it was undoubtedly painful to you to be placed on the same platform, on a level with a negro, a fugitive slave. I do not assert this positively—it may not be quite true. But if it be true, I sincerely pity your littleness of soul.

You sneeringly call me an “abolition agitator and ultraist.” Sir, I regard this as a compliment, though you intend it as a condemnation. My only fear is, that I am unworthy of those epithets. To be an abolition agitator, is simply to be one who dares to think for himself — who goes beyond the mass of mankind in promoting the cause of righteousness — who honestly and earnestly speaks out his soul’s conviction, regardless of the smiles or frowns of men — leaving the pure flame of truth to burn up whatever hay, womb and stubble, it may find in its way. To be such an one is the deepest and sincerest wish of my heart. It is a part of my daily prayer to God, that he will raise up and send forth more to unmask a pro-slavery church, and to rebuke a man-stealing ministry — to rock the land with agitation, and give America no peace till she repent, and be thoroughly purged of this monstrous iniquity. While heaven lends me health and strength, and intellectual ability, I shall devote myself to this agitation; and I believe that by so acting, I shall secure the smiles of an approving God, and the grateful approbation of my down-trodden and long-abused fellow-countrymen. With these on my side, of course I ought not to be disturbed by your displeasure; nor am I disturbed. I speak now in vindication of my cause, caring very little for your good or ill opinion.

You say I spoke so as to ruin the influence of all that had preceded! My speech, then, must have been very powerful; for I had been preceded by yourself, and some ten or twelve others, all powerful advocates of the temperance cause, some of them the most so of any I ever heard. But I half fear my speech was not so powerful as you seem to imagine. It is barely possible that you have fallen into a mistake, quite common to persons of your turn of mind — that of confounding your own pride with the cause you may happen to plead. I think you will, upon reflection, confess that I have now hit upon a happy solution of the difficulty. As I look back to that occasion, I remember certain facts, which seem to confirm me in this view of the case. You had eulogized in no measured or qualified terms, America and American temperance societies; and in this your co-delegates were not a whit behind you. Is it not possible that the applause, following each brilliant climax of I your fulsome panegyric, made you feel the moral effect raised, and the scene superb and glorious? I am not unaware of' the effect of such demonstrations; it is very intoxicating, very inflating. Now, sir, I should be very sorry, and I would make any amends within my power, if I supposed I had really committed the “abomination” of which you accuse me. The temperance cause is dear to me. I love it for myself, and for the black man, as well as for the white man. I have labored both in England and America to promote the cause, and am ready still to labor; and I should grieve to think of any act of mine which would inflict the slightest injury upon the cause. But I am satisfied that no such injury was inflicted. No, sir, it was not the poor bloated drunkard who was “ruined” by my speech, but your own bloated pride, as I shall presently show — as 1 mean to take up your letter in the order in which it is written, and reply to each part of it.

You say I lugged in Anti-Slavery, or Abolition. Of course you meant by this to produce the impression, that I introduced the subject illegitimately. If such were your intention, it is an impression utterly at variance with the truth. 1 said nothing, on the occasion referred to, which in fairness can be construed into an outrage upon propriety, or something foreign to the temperance platform — and especially a “world's temperance platform.” The meeting at Covent Garden was not a white temperance meeting, such as are held in the United States, but a “World's Temperance meeting,” embracing the black as well as the white part of the creation — practically carrying out the scriptural declaration, that “God has made of one blood, all nations of men, to dwell on all the face of the earth.” It was a meeting for promoting temperance throughout the world. All nations had a right to be represented there; and each speaker had a right to make known to that body, the peculiar difficulties which lay in the way of the temperance reformation, in his own particular locality. In that Convention, and upon that platform, I was the recognized representative of the colored population of the United States; and to their cause I was bound to be faithful. It would have been quite easy for me to have made a speech upon the general question of temperance, carefully excluding all reference to my enslaved, neglected, and persecuted brethren in America, and thereby secured your applause; but to have pursued such a course would have been selling my birthright for a mess of portage — would have been to play the part of Judas, a part which even you profess to loathe and detest. Sir, let me explain the motive which animated me, in speaking as I did at Covent Garden Theatre. As I stood upon that platform, and surveyed the deep depression of the colored people of America, and the treatment uniformly adopted by white temperance societies towards them — the impediments and absolute barriers thrown in the way of their moral and social improvement, by American Slavery, and by an inveterate prejudice against them on account of their color — and beheld them in rags and wretchedness, in fetters and chains, left to lie devoured by intemperance and kindred vices — and Slavery, like a very demon, standing directly in the way of their reformation, as with a drawn sword, ready to smite down any who might approach for their deliverance — and found myself in a position where I could rebuke this evil spirit, where my words would be borne to the shores of America, upon the enthusiastic shouts of congregated thousands — I deemed it my duty to embrace the opportunity. In the language of John Knox, “I was in the place where I was demanded of conscience to speak the truth — and the truth I did speak — impugn it who so list.” But, in so doing, I spoke perfectly in order, and in such a manner as no one, having a sincere interest in the cause of temperance, could take offence at — as I shall show by reporting, in another part of this letter, my speech as delivered on that occasion.

“He was, no doubt, prompted to do it by, some of the politic ones, who can use him to do what they themselves would not adventure to do in person.” The right or wrong of obeying the prompting of another, depends upon the character of the thing to be done. If the thing be right, I should do it, no matter by whom prompted; if wrong, I should refrain-from it, no matter by whom commanded. In the present instance, I was prompted by no one I acted entirely upon my own responsibility. If, therefore, blame is to fall anywhere, it should fall upon me.

“He is supposed to have been well paid for the abomination.” This, sir, is a cowardly way of stating your own conjecture. I should be pleased to have you tell me, what harm there is in being well paid! Is not the labourer worthy of his hire? Do you preach without pay? Were you not paid by those who sent you to represent them in the World’s Temperance Convention? There is not the slightest doubt that you were paid — and well paid. The only difference between us, in the matter of pay, is simply this — you were paid, and I was not. I can, with a clear conscience, affirm, that, so far from having been well paid, as you suppose, I never received a single farthing for my attendance— or for any word which I uttered on the occasion referred to — while you were, in all probability, well supported, “well paid,” for all you did during your attendance. My visit to London was at my own cost. I mention this, not because I blame you for taking pay, or because I regard as specially meritorious my attending the meeting without pay; for I should probably have taken pay as readily as you did, had it been offered; but it was not offered, and therefore I got none.

You stigmatize my speech as an “abomination;” but you take good care to suppress every word of the speech itself. There can be but one motive for this, and that motive obviously is, because there was nothing in the speech which, standing alone, would inspire others with the bitter malignity against me, which unhappily rankles in your own bosom.

Now, sir, to show the public how much reliance ought to be placed on your statements, and what estimate they should form of your love of truth and Christian candor, I will give the substance of my speech at Covent Garden Theatre, and the circumstances attending and growing out of its delivery. As “the thing was not done in a corner,” I can with safety appeal to the FIVE THOUSAND that heard the speech, for the substantial correctness of my report of it. It was as follows:—

“Mr. Chairman — Ladies and Gentlemen — I am not a delegate to this Convention. Those who would have been most likely to elect me as a delegate, could not, because they are to-nigbt held in the most abject Slavery in the United States. Sir, I regret that I cannot fully unite with the American delegates, in their patriotic eulogies of America, and American temperance societies. I cannot do so, for this good reason — there are, at this moment, three millions of the American population, by Slavery and prejudice, placed entirely beyond the pale of American temperance societies. The three million slaves are completely excluded by Slavery — and four hundred thousand free coloured people are, almost as completely excluded by an inveterate prejudice against them, on account of their colour. (Cries of shame! shame!)

“I do not say these things to wound the feelings of the American delegates. I simply mention them in their presence, and before this audience, that, seeing how you regard this hatred and neglect of the coloured people, they maybe inclined, on their return home, to enlarge the field of their temperance operations, and embrace within the scope of their influence, my long neglected race — (great cheering and some confusion on the platform.) Sir, to give you some idea of the difficulties and obstacles in the way of the temperance reformation of the coloured population in the United States, allow me to state a few facts. About the year, 1840, a few intelligent, sober, and benevolent coloured gentlemen in Philadelphia, being acquainted with the appalling ravages of intemperance among a numerous class of coloured people in that city, and finding themselves neglected and excluded from white societies, organized societies among themselves — appointed committees — sent out agents — built temperance halls, and were earnestly and successfully rescuing many from the fangs of intemperance.

“The cause went nobly on till the 1st of August, 1842, the day when England gave liberty to eight hundred thousand souls in the West Indies. The coloured temperance societies selected this day to march in procession through the city, in the hope that such a demonstration would have the effect of bringing others into their ranks. They formed their procession, unfurled their teetotal banners, and proceeded to the accomplishment of their purpose. It was a delightful sight. But, sir, they had not proceeded down two streets, before they were brutally assailed by a ruthless mob — their banner was torn down and trampled in the dust — their ranks broken up, their persons beaten, and pelted with stones and brickbats. One of their churches was burned to the ground, and their best temperance hall utterly demolished.” Shame! shame! shame! from the audience — great confusion and cries of “sit down,” from the American- delegates on the platform.

In the midst of this commotion, the chairman tapped me on the shoulder, and whispering, informed me that the fifteen minutes allotted to each speaker had expired; whereupon the vast audience simultaneously shouted — “Don’t interrupt! don’t dictate ! go on! go on! Douglass! Douglass!” This continued several minutes; after which, I proceeded as follows :—

“Kind friends, I beg to assure you that the chairman has not, in the slightest degree, sought to alter any sentiment which I am anxious to express on the present occasion. He was simply reminding me, that the time allotted for me to speak had expired. I do not wish to occupy one moment more than is allotted to other speakers Thanking you for your kind indulgence, I will take my seat.”

Proceeding to do so, again there were loud cries of “go on! go on!” with which I complied, for a few moments, but without saying anything more that particularly related to the coloured people of America.

When I sat down, the Rev. Mr. Kirk, of Boston, rose, and said: “Frederick Douglass has unintentionally misrepresented the temperance societies of America. I am afraid that his remarks have produced the impression on the public mind, that the temperance societies support slavery — (“No! no! no ! no!” shouted the audience.) If that be not the impression produced, I have nothing more to say.”

Now, Dr. Cox, this is a fair, unvarnished story of what took place at Covent Garden Theatre, on the 7th of August, 1846. For the truth of it, I appeal to all the temperance papers in the land, and the “Journal of the American Union,” published at New — York, Oct. 1, 1846. With this statement, I might safely submit the Whole question to both the American and British Public; but I wish not merely to correct your misrepresentations, and expose your falsehoods, but to show, that you are animated by a fierce, bitter, and untruthful Spirit towards the whole Anti-Slavery movement.

And for this purpose, I shall now proceed to copy and comment upon extracts from your letter to the New York Evangelist. In that letter, you exclaim, respecting the foregoing speech, delivered by me, every word of which you take pains to omit: “ What a perversion, an abuse, an iniquity against the reciprocal law of righteousness, to call thousands together, and get them, some certain ones, to seem conspicuous and devoted for one-sole and grand object, and then, all at once, with obliquity, open an avalanche on them, for some imputed evil or monstrosity, for which, whatever he the wound or the injury inflicted, they were both too fatigued and too hurried with surprise, and too straitened for time, to' be properly prepared. I say it is a trick of meanness! It is abominable!”

As to the “perversion,”, “abuse,” “iniquity against the law of reciprocal righteousness,” “obliquity,” “a trick of meanness,” “abominable,” — not one word is necessary to show their inappropriateness, as applied to myself, and the speech in question, or to make more glaringly apparent the green and poisonous venom with which your mouth, if not your heart, is filled. You represent me as opening “an avalanche upon you for some imputed evil or animosity.” And is Slavery only an imputed evil? Now, suppose I had lugged in Anti-Slavery, (which I deny,) you profess to be an Abolitionist. You, therefore, ought to have been the last man in the world to have found fault with me, on that account. Your great love of liberty, and sympathy for the down-trodden slave, ought to have led you to “pardon something to the spirit of Liberty,” especially in one who had the scars of the slave-driver’s whip on his back, and who, at this moment, has four sisters and one brother in slavery. But, sir, you are not an Abolitionist, and you only assumed to be one during your recent tour in this country, that you might sham your way through this land, and the more effectually stab and blast the character of the real friends of emancipation. Who ever heard of a true Abolitionist speaking of slavery as an “imputed evil,” or complaining of being “wounded and injured” by an allusion to it — and that, too, because that allusion was in opposition to the infernal system? You took no offence when the Rev. Mr. Kirk assumed the Christian name and character for slaveholders in the World’s Temperance Convention. You were not “wounded or injured,” it was not a “perversion, an abuse, an iniquity against the reciprocal law of righteousness.” You have no indignation to pour out upon him. Oh, no! But when a fugitive slave merely alluded to slavery, as obstructing the moral and social improvement of his race, you were “wounded and injured,” and rendered indignant! This, sir, tells the whole story of your abolitionism, and stamps your pretensions to abolition as brazen hypocrisy or self-deception.

You were “too fatigued, too hurried by surprise, too straitened for time.” Why, sir, you were in “an unhappy predicament.” What would you have done, had you not been “too fatigued, too hurried by surprise, too straitened for time,” and unprepared? Would you have denied a. single statement in my address? I am persuaded you would not; and had you dared to do so, I could at once have given evidence in support of my statements, that would have put you to silence or to shame. My statements were in perfect accordance with historical facts — facts of so recent date, that they are fresh in the memory of every intelligent American. You knew I spoke truly of the strength of American prejudice against the coloured people. No man knows the truth on this subject better than yourself. I am, therefore; filled with amazement that you should seem to deny, instead of confirming; my statements.

Much more might be said on this point; but having already extended this letter to a much greater length than I had intended, I shall simply conclude by a reference to your remark respecting your professed sympathy and friendship for me, previous to the meeting at Covent Garden. If your friendship and sympathy be of so mutable a character as must be inferred from your sudden abandonment of them, I may expect that yet another change will return me the lost treasure. At all events, I do not deem it of sufficient value to purchase it at so high a price as that of the abandonment of the cause of my coloured brethren, which appears to be the condition you impose upon its continuance.

Very faithfully,
FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

SOURCE: American Anti-Slavery Society, Correspondence between the Rev. Samuel H. Cox, D. D., of Brooklyn, L. I. and Frederick Douglass, a Fugitive Slave, p. 7-16