Peterboro, October 23,1846.
Hon. Stephen C. Phillips,
of Salem, Mass.:
Dear Sir — This day's mail brings me the speech which
you delivered at the meeting recently assembled at Faneuil Hall to consider the
outrage of kidnapping a man in the streets of Boston.
I am not insensible to the ability, eloquence, beauty, of
this speech: — and yet it fails of pleasing me. The meeting, after I saw its
proceedings, was no longer an object of my pleasant contemplations. Indeed,
Massachusetts herself has ceased to be such an object. There was a time, when,
among all commonwealths, she was my beau ideal. Her wisdom, integrity,
bravery — in short, her whole history, from her bud in the Mayflower to the
blossoms and fruits with which a ripe civilization has adorned and enriched her
— made her the object of my warm and unmeasured admiration. But, a change has come
over her. Alas, how great and sad a one! She has sunk her ancient worth and
glory in her base devotion to Mammon and Party.
When, in the year 1835, one of her sons — that son to whom
she, not to say this whole nation, owes more than to any other person, was, for
his honest, just, and fearless assaults on slavery, driven by infuriate
thousands through the streets of her metropolis with a halter round his neck,
Massachusetts looked on, applauding. So far was she from disclaiming the mob
that she boasted, that her “gentlemen of property and standing” composed it.
Indeed, one of her first acts after the mob, was to choose for her governor the
man who promptly rewarded her for this choice by his official recommendation to
treat abolitionists as criminals.
Massachusetts was not, however, lost to shame. It was not in
vain that the finger of scorn was pointed at her for this mob and for other
demonstrations of her pro-slavery. For very decency's sake, she began to adjust
her dress, and put on better appearances. Indeed, anti-slavery sentiment became
the order of the day with her: and, from her chief statesman down to her lowest
demagogue, all tried their skill in uttering big words against slavery. But,
the hollowest sentiment and the merest prating constituted the whole warp and
woof of this pretended and unsubstantial opposition to slavery. Massachusetts
still remained the slave of Party and Mammon. She would still vote for
slaveholders, rather than break up the national parties to which she was
wedded. She would still make every concession to the slave power to induce it
to spare her manufactures.
A fine occasion was afforded Massachusetts, a few years ago,
to talk her anti-slavery words, and display her anti-slavery sentiment, and
right well did she improve it. I refer to the casting of the fugitive slave
George Latimer into one of her jails. Instantly did she show anti-slavery
colors. She was anti-slavery all over, and to the very core also, as a stranger
to her ways would have thought. But beneath all her manifestations of generous
regard for the oppressed, she continued to be none the less bound up in
avarice— none the less servile to the South. The first opportunity she had to
do so, she again voted for slaveholders.
Then came the project to annex Texas. The slaveholders
demanded more territory to soak with the sweat and tears and blood of the poor
African. This was another occasion for Massachusetts to make another
anti-slavery bluster. She made it: — and then voted for Clay — for the
very man who had done unspeakably more than any other man to extend and
perpetuate the dominion of American slavery. As a specimen of her
heartlessness, in this instance of her anti-slavery parade, her present Whig
Governor, who was among the foremost and loudest to condemn this scheme of
annexation, is now calling, in the name of patriotism, on his fellow-citizens
to consummate it by murdering the unoffending Mexicans.
Next came the expulsion of her commissioners from Charleston
and New Orleans. Again she blustered for a moment. She denounced slavery and
the South. She boasted of herself, as if she still were what she had been; as
if “modern degeneracy had not reached” her. But, the sequel proved her
hypocrisy and baseness. After a little time, she quietly pocketed the insult,
and was as ready as ever to vote for slaveholders.
I will refer to but one more of the many opportunities which
Massachusetts has had to prove herself worthy of her former history. It is that
which called out your present speech. This was emphatically an opportunity for
Massachusetts to show herself to be an anti-slavery State. But she had not a
heart to improve it. Her own citizens in the very streets of her own gloried-in
city, had chased down a man, and bound him, and plunged him into the pit of
perpetual slavery. The voice of such a deed, sufficient to rend her rocks, and
move her mountains, could not startle the dead soul of her people. They are the
fast bound slaves of Mammon and Party. True, a very great meeting was gathered
in Faneuil Hall. Eloquent speeches were made; and a committee of vigilance was
appointed. But nothing was done to redeem herself from her degeneracy: nothing
to recall to her loathsome carcass the great and glorious spirit which had
departed from it; nothing was done for the slave. When the year 1848 shall come
round, Massachusetts, if still impenitent, will be as ready to vote for the
slaveholders whom the South shall then bid her vote for, as she was to do so in
1844.
Your great meeting was a farce; — and will you pardon me, if
I cite your own speech to prove it? That speech, which denounces your
fellow-citizen for stealing one man, was delivered by a gentleman, who
(risum teneatis?) contends, that a person who steals hundreds of men is
fit to be President of the United States! It is ludicrous, beyond all parallel,
that he, who would crown with the highest honors the very prince of kidnappers,
should, with a grave face, hold up to the public abhorrence the poor man, who
has only just begun to try his hand at kidnapping. Then, your contemptuous
bearing towards Captain Hannum and his employers! — how affected! If you
shall not be utterly insensible to the claims of consistency, who, when you
shall have Henry Clay to dine with you, will you allow to be better entitled
than this same Captain Hannum and his employers to seats at your table? Cease,
my dear sir, from your outrages on consistency. You glory in Mr. Clay. How can
you then despise and reproach those who, with however much of the awkwardness
of beginners, are, nevertheless, doing their best to step forward in the tracks
of their “illustrious predecessor?”
It would be very absurd — would it not? — for you to
denounce the stealing of a single sheep, at the same time that you are counting
as worthy of all honor the man who steals a whole flock of sheep. But, I put it
to your candor, whether it would be a whit more absurd than is your deep
loathing and unutterable contempt of Captain Hannum and his employers for a
crime, which, though incessantly repeated and infinitely aggravated in the case
of Mr. Clay, does not disqualify him, in your esteem, to be the chief ruler of
this nation— to be, what the civil ruler is required to be — “the minister of
God.”
You intimate, that the State Prison is the proper place for
Captain Hannum and his employers. And do you not think it the proper place for
Henry Clay also? Out upon partiality, if, because he is your candidate for the
presidency, you would not have this old and practical man-thief punished, as
well as those who are but in their first lessons of his horrid piracy!
To be serious, Mr. Phillips — you are not the man to
have to do with Captain Hannum and his employers, unless it is to set them an
example of repentance. It becomes you not to look down upon them —but to take
your seat by their side, and to bow your head as low as shame and sorrow should
bow theirs. No—if Captain Hannum and his employers should steal a man every
remaining day of their lives, they could not do as much to sanction and
perpetuate the crime of man-stealing, as the honored and influential Stephen C.
Phillips has done by laboring to elect to the highest civil office the very man
stealer, who has contributed far more than any other living person to make
man-stealing reputable, and to widen the theatre of its horrors.
Alas, what a pity to lose such an occasion for good as was
afforded by this instance of kidnapping. That was the occasion for you and
other distinguished voters for slaveholders to employ the power of your own
repentance in bringing other pro-slavery voters to repentance. That was the
occasion for your eyes to stream with contrite sorrow, and your lips to exclaim:
“We have sinned: — we have sinned against God and the slave: — we have not
sought to have Civil Government look after the poor, and weak, and oppressed,
and crushed: — but we have perverted and degraded it from this high, and holy,
and heaven-intended use, to the low purposes of money-making and to the
furtherance of the selfish schemes of ambition: we have not chosen for rulers
men who, in their civil office, as Josiah in his, “judged the cause of the poor
and needy'—men who, in their civil office, could say, as did Job in his, ‘I was
a father to the poor’ — ‘I brake the jaws of the wicked and plucked the spoil
out of his teeth’ — but we have chosen our Clays and our Polks — pirates, who
rob, and buy and sell, the poor — monsters, who, with their sharks' teeth
devour the poor.” Deny, doubt, evade it, as you will — you may, nevertheless,
my dear sir, depend upon it, that it is for your repentance and the repentance
of all the voters for slaveholders, that God calls. He calls, also, for the
repentance of the American ministry, that so wickedly and basely refuses to
preach Bible politics, and to insist on the true and heaven-impressed character
of Civil Government. Depend upon it, my dear sir, that your disease and theirs
is one which can be cured by no medicine short of the medicine of repentance. I
am not unaware that this is a most offensive and humbling medicine — especially
to persons in the higher walks of life; — nevertheless, you and they must take
it or remain uncured. No clamor against Captain Hannum and his employers — no
attempt to make scape-goats of them — will avail to cure you.
Alas, what a pity that a mere farce should have taken the
place of the great and solemn measure which was due from your meeting! Had your
meeting felt, that the time for trifling on the subject of slavery is gone by;
and had it passed, honestly and heartily, the Resolution: “No voting for
slaveholders, nor for those who are in political fellowship with slaveholders,” it would have had the honor
of giving the death-blow to American slavery. This resolution, passed by such a
meeting, would have electrified the whole nation. Within all its limits every
true heart would have responded to it, and every false one been filled with
shame.
When the glorious Missionary, William Knibb, had seen the
slaveholders tear down and burn a large share of the chapels in Jamaica, he set
sail for Great Britain. Scarcely had he landed, ere he began the cry, “Slavery
is incompatible with Christianity.”
He went over his native land, uttering this cry. A mighty cry it
was. The walls of British slavery felt its power as certainly as did the walls
of Jericho the shout by which it was prostrated.
The power of the cry: “No voting for slaveholders, nor
for those who are in political fellowship with slaveholders,” would, were it to proceed
from the right lips, be as effective against the walls of American slavery,
as was the cry of William Knibb against the walls of British slavery.
You, and Charles Sumner, (I know and love him,) and Charles Francis Adams, and John
G. Palfrey, are the men to utter this cry. Go, without delay, over the whole
length and breadth of your State, pouring these talismanic words into the ears
of the thousands and tens of thousands who shall flock to hear you; and
Massachusetts will, even at the approaching election, reject all her
pro-slavery candidates. Such is the power of truth, when proceeding from
honored and welcome lips!
Be in earnest, ye Phillipses and Sumners and Adamses and
Palfreys — be entirely in earnest, in your endeavors to overthrow slavery. You
desire its overthrow, and are doing something to promote it. But you lack the
deep and indispensable earnestness; and, therefore, do you shrink from
employing the bold and revolutionary means which the case demands. No inferior
means however, will accomplish the object. As well set your babies to catch
Leviathans with pin-hooks, as attempt to overthrow American slavery by means
which fall below the stern and steadfast purpose: “Not to vote for
slaveholders, nor for those who are in political fellowship with slaveholders.” But, only press the hearts
of your fellow-men with this, the solemn and immovable purpose of your own
hearts—and fallen Massachusetts rises again — and American slavery dies—and
your names are written in everduring letters among the names of the saviors of
your country.
Very respectfully
yours,
Gerrit Smith.
SOURCES: Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith: A Biography, p.
196-200
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