Remarks of George Thompson: October 9, 1834

The following is a sketch of Mr. Thompson's remarks, delivered at the adjourned meeting of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, held in Boston, October 9, 1834.

I have always found it a peculiarly difficult task to address an assembly like the present. Strange as it may appear, I am generally tongue-tied when in the midst of friends. During my short career, I have had to deal with much opposition. I have had to contend with the foes of human freedom — the upholders and abettors of slavery: but thanks to the goodness of my cause, and the strength and number of those arguments which are always at hand to maintain it, I have seldom failed to find something to say. But I confess that now, when I find myself amongst the earliest friends and foremost champions of this righteous cause — amongst those who have been the pioneers in this glorious campaign, and are, therefore, more intimately acquainted than I can be, with the trials and the tactics of the war, I feel myself reduced to almost dwarfish dimensions, and would gladly take the lowly seat my humble merits assign me. As the representative, however, of a kindred host who have fought and conquered in another department of the same field, I consider myself warranted to address to you a few words; and, speaking of them, I shall be freed from the embarrassment I should experience, if obliged to refer exclusively to myself.

In the name of the abolitionists of Great Britain, then, let me congratulate you upon the noble, the unexampled stand you have made in the cause of freedom. Multitudes on the other side of the Atlantic have watched, with thrilling interest, your progress hitherto. A few years ago, and slavery in this Union rioted in unchecked dominion, unassailed by one bold, vigorous and uncompromising antagonist. I say not that all were then the friends of slavery. No; thousands hated it, and in secret mourned over its multiplied abominations; but there was found no one undaunted enough to proclaim aloud upon the house-top, and in the highways of this people, that it was the duty of America to open the prison doors and let the oppressed go free — in a word, to denounce slaveholding as a foul and heinous crime, and call for immediate, entire, and unconditional emancipation. In the meantime, a plan had been devised to gather up and appropriate the wide-spread sympathies of the nation. In an evil hour, the hand of prejudice opened a channel wide enough to allow the sentiments, feelings and energies of all classes to flow onwards together. This channel was the American Colonization Society, through which flowed, for many years, the mingled waters of oppression, prejudice, philanthrophy, and religion. It passed through the New England States, and many were the tributary streams which helped to swell its tide. It deepened and widened as it went, until at last it had secured the smile of the slave holder — the zealous cooperation of the prejudiced — the warmest wishes of the benevolent — the prayers of the pious — and the contributions of all; — and the high and the mighty, the senator and the clergyman, the infidel and the christian, the slave-oppressor and the slave-defender, the tradesman and the mechanic floated proudly and self-complacently upon its bosom, upborne and wafted onwards by elements as heterogeneous and delusive as any ever assembled together. What, however, appeared a sea of glory and a gale of prosperity to the white man, was viewed by the colored man as the whirlwind of oppression, and the vortex of destruction. During this reign of prejudice and oppression, there arose a man bold enough to undertake the perilous work of contending with the insidious foes and mistaken friends of the colored race. The work was gigantic, and all but hopeless; but he was not appalled. Much was to be undone, and much to be done, ere the public mind could be disabused of error, and brought to view the great question in the light of Truth. The scheme of Colonization pleased all. It gratified prejudice — soothed the conscience — left slavery uncondemned and unmolested — while it professed to promote the freedom and happiness of the free colored population, and at the same time advance the interests of Africa, by preventing the slave-trade along her coast, and diffusing the blessings of the gospel amongst her benighted tribes. On the contrary, the doctrines of immediate emancipation, without expatriation, and the admission of the colored man into the unabridged privileges of the constitution, were calculated to offend all — and raise the outcry of “ROBBERY!” “AMALGAMATION!” “THE UNION Is IN DANGER!” &c. &c. And it was so. It was soon seen that if these doctrines obtained, not only was the “craft” of the slaveholder “in danger,” but also the temple of the great goddess Diana (alias the American Colonization Society) would “be despised, and her magnificence destroyed, whom all America” and “the world worshipped.” “When they heard the sayings of this man, they were full of wrath, and cried out, saying, ‘Great is Diana of the Ephesians!’” “And the whole city was filled with confusion.” And “they rushed with one accord into the theatre.”* “Some cried one thing, and some another; for the assembly was confused: and the more part knew not wherefore they came together.” But they all agreed in shouting for “about the space of two hours, Great is Diana of the Ephesians!” Notwithstanding all this fury, the cause of Truth and Justice went foward gloriously, and we are witnesses this day of the marvellous revolution which has been effected in public opinion. The “craft” is indeed, “in danger.” the great “goddess is already “despised,” “and her magnificence destroyed.” The subject of immediate emancipation which once might not be discussed — no, not even in a whisper, is now the topic of conversation and debate from one extremity of your Union to the other. A spirit of enquiry is abroad, and vain as well as wicked are the attempts to extinguish it. It will increase and continue until the whole truth is investigated, and the investigation will infallibly lead to a conviction of the practicability, safety and necessity of Immediate Emancipation. Your present position is a splendid and encouraging proof of what may be done by one man, when he boldly asserts the principles of eternal rectitude.

The events which have transpired in this country during the last four years, have been regarded in Great Britain with the deepest interest. At first, many were dazzled and beguiled by the specious representations given of the principles and operations of the Colonization Society, but the exposures of that Society by Capt. Stuart, and Mr. Cropper, and lastly, by our devoted brother Mr. Garrison, during his visit to our country, have caused its doctrines to be almost universally repudiated. There is every disposition among British abolitionists to extend to you their sympathy, their counsel, and their contributions. My presence amongst you to-day is a proof and a pledge of their desire and determination to be associated with you, in your hallowed enterprize. In thus tendering you our help, we disclaim the remotest intention of interfering to an unwarrantable extent in the political questions of your country. Ours is a question of morals, humanity, and religion. . We are the friends of mankind universally, and have made an appeal to christians throughout all the world, to join with us in abolishing slavery and the slave-trade, wherever they exist. In doing so, we believe we have a sanction and commission from Heaven, and we long for the day, when in this country there shall no longer be heard the clank of fetters and the moan of the oppressed; but freed from the guilt of slavery and prejudice, you will be united with us in the blessed work of carrying the tidings of redemption to the ends of the earth.

Mr. Thompson proceeded to give an account of the formation in London of a “British and Foreign Society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Slave Trade throughout the world,” and read several extracts, explanatory of its principles and proposed plans of operation. “I have thus (said Mr. T.) very briefly glanced at what has been done, and is still doing, both here and in Great Britain. We stand, however, but upon the threshold of the great work of universal freedom. In this country, you have but barely commenced. Take courage, however, and go forward. The hottest part of the battle is to come. Colonizationism is not yet dead. Follow up your blows until it gives up the ghost, and its mis-shapen trunk is buried from your sight. You have yet to contend with slaveholders, their kindred, friends, agents and mercenaries; with those who supply the south; with the haters of the colored population; with a fierce and malignant press; with mistaken philanthropists; with fearful abolitionists; with thousands of christians who apologize for slavery; and with ignorance and apathy, in every direction. Let none of these things dismay you. Let your measures be bold and uncompromising, yet governed by wisdom and charity. The struggle will be hard, but victory is certain. A few short years will sweep away the frail fabrics which ignorance, prejudice, and dim-sighted expediency have reared upon this blood-bought soil; but your principles, like a foundation of adamant, will remain unsullied and unmoved, and the lapse of ages will only reveal to the world, in the light of a clearer demonstration, the divinity of their origin, and the immutability of their duration.”

_______________

* The appositeness of Mr. Thompson's quotation from Acts, 19th chapter, will be seen in reference to the published accounts of the disturbances in New York in December last, when Chatham-street Chapel (once a theatre) was attacked and broken into by the mob.

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. 6-10

Gerrit Smith to Wendell Phillips, 1855

Considerable as have been the pecuniary sacrifices of abolitionists in their cause, they fall far short of the merits of that precious cause. It is but a small proportion of them who refuse to purchase the cotton and sugar and rice that are wet with the tears and sweat and blood of the slave. And when we count up those who have sealed with their blood their consecration to the anti-slavery cause, we find their whole number to be scarcely half a dozen.

In none of the qualities of the best style of men — and that is the style of men needed to effectuate the bloodless termination of American slavery — have the abolitionists shown themselves more deficient than in magnanimity, confidence, charity. They have judged neither the slaveholders nor each other, generously. . . . The quarrels of abolitionists with each other, and their jealousy and abuse of each other would be far less had they more magnanimity, confidence, charity. Many of them delight in casting each other down, rather than in building each other up. Complain of each other they must; and when there is no occasion for complaint, their ill-natured ingenuity can manufacture an occasion out of the very smallest materials. Were even you, whose trueness to the slave is never to be doubted, to be sent to Congress, many of your abolition brethren would be on the alert to find some occasion for calling your integrity in question.

. . . It is no wonder that slaveholders despise both us and our cause. Our cowardice and vacillation, and innumerable follies have, almost necessarily, made both us and it contemptible. The way for us to bring slaveholders right on slavery is to be right on it ourselves. The way for us to command the respect, ay, and to win the love of slaveholders, is to act honestly, in regard to slavery and to all things else. Do I mean to say that slaveholders can be brought to love abolitionists? Oh yes! and I add, that abolitionists should love slaveholders. We are all brothers; and we are all sinners too; and the difference between ourselves, as sinners, is not so great, as in our prejudice on the one hand and our self-complacency on the other, we are wont to imagine it to be.

SOURCES: Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith: A Biography, p. 230-1

George Thompson: Lecture at Lowell, Massachusetts, October 5, 1834

On Sunday evening, October 5th, GeoRGE THOMPsoN, Esq. the abolitionitst, delivered a lecture on Slavery in the Town Hall, Lowell. The spacious room was filled some time before the commencement of the proceedings, and when Mr. Thompson began his lecture, there were upwards of one thousand persons present. The meeting was opened with singing and prayer.

The following is a faint sketch of Mr. Thompson's discourse, which occupied an hour and three quarters in the delivery.

He (the lecturer) felt truly grateful for the present very favorable opportunity of discussing before an American audience, the merits and bearings of a question, which, more than any other that could agitate their minds, was connected with the honor, happiness, and prosperity of the people of this land. He besought a kind, patient, and attentive hearing. He asked no favor for his doctrines, his arguments, or his opinions. Let these be subjected to the severest ordeal. Let them be tested by reason, truth and scripture, and if they squared not with the dictates and requirements of these, let them be repudiated. The West Indies had already witnessed the operation of the great measure, which the justice and humanity of the British Nation had obtained for the slave. All eyes were now turned towards the United States of America, to see if that land of Liberty, of Republicanism, of Bibles, of Missions, of Temperance Societies, and Revivals, would direct her matchless energies to the blessed work of enfranchising her slaves, and elevating her entire colored population.

As a feeble and unworthy instrument in the hand of Him, without whom there was neither wisdom, nor strength, nor goodness, he (Mr. T.) had come amongst them to tell of the conflicts and triumphs he had witnessed in his native land, and to encourage, and, if possible, aid his brethern here in the accomplishment of a similarly great and glorious object. His was no sectarian or political embassay. Higher and broader principles than those of politics or party animated and sustained him. He came not to uphold the dogmas of a faction, or to expound the charter of human rights according to the latitude, longitude, clime, or color. As a citizen of the world, he claimed brotherhood with all mankind. The medium through which he contemplated the varied tribes of this peopled earth, was one which blended all hues, and brought out only the proud and awful distinctive mark of one common nature — “the image of God.” He honored that ‘image in whomsoever he found it, and would labor lest a prize so glorious should be lost, lest a being so capable should be wretched here and forever. Such were the views he cherished, and the principles he maintained, and he hoped he should be enabled to discuss them with temper and christian charity. He knew that men were all compounded of the same common elements — all sinful, erring and guilty; and, therefore, it became not any human being to assume the tone of innocence or infallibility, but to address himself to others as their fellow sinner, and be grateful to God, if divine grace had caused him in any degree to differ from the rest. He deemed such feelings perfectly consistent with a fearless denunciation of vicious principles and oppressive practices. Towards sin in every form, no mercy should be shown. A war of extermination should be waged with the works of the devil, under all their manifold and delusive appearances, and that man was the truest and kindest friend of the sinner, who, with a bold and unsparing hand, dragged forth to light and condemnation the abomination that would have ruined his soul.

After this introduction, the lecturer took a compendious view of slavery as its exists in the Southern States. He spoke of it as reducing man to the condition of a thing — a chattel personal — a marketable brute — the property and fee simple of his fellow-man — consigning the helpless victim to bondage, wretchedness, ignorance and crime here, and ruining his soul forever and ever. The lecturer next proceeded to speak of the prevailing prejudice against the free people of color, and attributed it principally to an antichristian and guilty feeling of pride. That this prejudice did not originate in a natural repugnance to color, was evident from the fact, that while the colored person remained in a state of civil and intellectual degradation, no indisposition was shown to the nearest physical approach. It was only when the colored person attempted to rise in intellect or station to a level with the white, that the hatred and prejudice appeared. He (Mr. T.) solemnly and affectionately exhorted all who heard him to renounce their cruel and unholy antipathies. This prejudice was an offence against God. The controversy was not with him who wore the colored skin, but with the being who had formed him with it. Who was bold enough to stand before God, and vindicate the prejudice which dishonored and defaced the image and superscription of the Deity, as stamped upon his creature man?

Such was the state of things in these christian States. What was the remedy? The immediate emancipation of the whites from prejudice, and the blacks from slavery. Mercy implored it. Justice demanded it. Reason dictated it. Religion required it. Necessity urged it.

Fear cried, “No! The danger of immediate emancipation!”

Prejudice exclaimed, “You want to amalgamate the races — to break the cast to lift the blacks into our ranks. It must not be!”

A misguided Patriotism spread the alarm, “The Union is in danger!”

Interest muttered, “You will ruin our manufactures you will destroy our commerce — you will beggar the planter!”

Despotism vociferated, “Let my victims alone! Rob me not of my dominion!” and a

Mistaken philanthrophy would set on foot a piecemeal reformation, and recommend gradualism for the special benefit of the pining slave.

Whom, then, should they obey? He boldly answered, God; who required that men should “cease to do evil.” But that he might not be accused of dealing only in abstract views of this question, he would take up the various objections to immediate emancipation, and endeavor to show that in the eye of reason and selfishness too, they were groundless and absurd.

Mr. Thompson proceeded to prove the safety, practicability and advantages of immediate emancipation. It would be impossible to do justice to this part of the lecture in this brief notice.

The question was frequently asked, “Why should New England interfere in the slave-system of the South?” Because, said Mr. T., the slaves are your fellow-men — they are your neighbors, and you are commanded to love them as yourselves, and to remember them in bonds as bound with them. They are your fellow-citizens — declared to be so by your glorious Declaration of Independence. You supply the South, and therefore are connected with this trade of blood. You consume the produce of the South, and thus effectually promote the cause of oppression there. You are taxed to maintain the Slavery of the South. You are in the habit of giving up the slaves of the South who seek refuge amongst you. Your colored citizens are liable to be seized and sold, if they go to the South. You live under the same Constitution as the South, and are therefore bound to amend that constitution, if it be at present unjust in any of its parts. Your Congress has supreme control over the District of Columbia, Arkansas, and Florida, and you ought, therefore, to call for the immediate extinction of Slavery in these places. You exert a powerful influence over the South and the States generally. You are able to control the destinies of the shaves in this country. You are responsible to God for the employment of your moral energies. Come, then, to the work. First, let the question be fairly discussed amongst you. Do not be afraid to entertain it. Sooner or later, you must grapple with it. The speedier the better. Discard your prejudices. Give up your pre-conceived opinions, and bring to the consideration of this great subject, open and impartial minds, a tender regard for the interests of your fellowman, — a sincere and enlightened desire for your country's true honor and greatness, and a deep sense of your accountability to God.

Mr. Thompson next addressed the ladies present, and urged the necessity of their engaging in this work of mercy. It was not a political, but a moral and religious question. All were called upon to labor in the cause — all were able to do so. While some preached and lectured on the subject, others could distribute tracts, collect contributions, and converse with their friends. The principles of justice and truth would thus be diffused — prejudice and ignorance would give way, and an amount of influence finally created, sufficient to purge the stain of slavery forever from the land.

Mr. Thompson was listened to throughout with the most profound attention, and every appearance of deep interest. The Rev. Messrs. Rand, Twining, and Pease, were present. At the conclusion of the lecture, the last named gentleman gave out a hymn suited to the occasion, which was sung by the choir, and after a benediction had been pronounced, the audience separated.

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. 1-5

George Thompson to William Lloyd Garrison, October 22, 1835

THURSDAY AFTERNoon, OCT. 22, 1835.

MY BELovED BRothER GARRISON: The news has reached me of yesterday’s proceedings in Boston. I rejoice that you have escaped the jaws of the lion, and are yet among the living — the living to praise God. To Him let us render our humble acknowledgements. May you be sustained under your present afflictions, and survive to behold the triumph of those principles which you have for some years lived only to advocate! I sympathise with you, and every sufferer in our holy cause, and could almost envy you the honor of having been assailed by a blood-thirsty multitude. Put your trust in that Being who smiles at the wrath of men, and will cause it to advance his glory. After all, what have our enemies done? what have their tar and feathers, their demolitions, their lacerations, scourgings and hangings effected? Have they extinguished the truth? No. Have they shaken our principles? No. Have they proved wrong to be right; falsehood, truth; cruelty, kindness; or slavery, liberty? No. Have they shaken the throne of the Eternal Have they stopped the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, that the cry of the slave cannot enter? No! None of these things have occurred. Our principles live, and are triumphing in every direction. The God of the American slave sits high on his throne, counting the sighs and groans of his people, and will come down to deliver. Abolitionists live, and multiply, and daily wax stronger and stronger in the work of mercy they have laid hold upon, nor can any scourges our enemies can plait, nor any gibbets they can erect, be aught but the emblem of their own infatuation and madness.

I think I see the end of these outbreakings. The opposers of this cause have themselves a bitter lesson to learn. They will rouse a spirit which will speedily turn and rend them, when it is too late to prevent it. Let them make mob-law paramount to all other law, and those respectable instigators will at no distant day be destroyed by the recoil of their own weapons. Our cause advances rapidly, majestically, and gloriously — who can stay its course? I have not time to write more. My heart is with you. As the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, so is my soul to your soul. Your joys, sorrows, perils, persecutions, friends and foes, are mine. May God direct us in this crisis, and enable us with meekness and wisdom to do his perfect will, and cheerfully suffer every thing which awaits us.

Your unalterably attached friend and brother,

GEO. THOMPSON.

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. xii

William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, December 16, 1859

Seminary, Alexandria, La., Dec. 16,1859.

. . . I wrote you and Minnie from New Orleans as I told you I would. I did start back in the “Telegram” Monday evening, and Red River being up, we came along without delay, reaching here Wednesday morning. I had despatched by a former boat a good deal of freight, brought some in the same boat, and all the balance will be here in a day or so. I walked out from Pineville, which is the name of a small group of houses on this side of Red River, and sent the cart in for my trunk and for the drummer I had picked up in New Orleans. I wanted also a tailor and shoemaker, but failed to get them. On getting out I was much disappointed at receiving no letters, but was assured that all the mails had failed for a week; and last night being mail night I sent in my new drummer who brought out a good budget, among them your letters. . . So, as you seem to know, this is an out of the way place without telegraphs, railroads, and almost without mails.

It so happened that General Graham came out the very day of my return, not knowing that I was here, and he brought with him Mr. Smith, the professor of chemistry, who is one of the real Virginia F. F. V.'s, a very handsome young man of twenty-two, who will doubtless be good company. He is staying with General Graham, but will move here in a few days. General Graham seemed delighted with the progress I had made, and for the first time seemed well satisfied that we would in fact be ready by January 1.

I have not yet been to Alexandria, as I landed on this side the river and came out at once, but I shall go in on Monday and see all the supervisors, who are again to meet. I know the sentiments of some about abolitionism, and am prepared if they say a word about John. I am not an abolitionist, still I do not intend to let any of them reflect on John in my presence, as the newspapers are full of angry and bitter expressions against him. All I have met have been so courteous that I have no reason to fear such a thing, unless some one of those who came, applicants to the post I fill, with hundreds of letters, should endeavor to undermine me by assertions on the infernal question of slavery, which seems to blind men to all ideas of common sense

.

Your letters convey to me the first intimation I have received that the project of ——— had not long since been abandoned. . . You remember I waited as long as I decently could before answering Governor Wickliffe's letter of appointment, in hopes of receiving a word from ——— who promised Hugh to write from London.  Not hearing from him and having little faith in the scheme, I finally accepted this place as the best thing offering. Even yet I think this is my best chance unless the question of slavery and my northern birth and associations should prejudice me, and should ——— make his appearance here I should have to be very strongly assured on the subject of pay and permanency before I would even hint at leaving. Of course if I could do better, there is no impropriety in my quitting as there are many strong applicants for the post, many of whom possess qualifications equal if not superior to me. I still do not believe that ——— is to be relied on and I don't expect he has the most remote intention of coming here. . .

These southern politicians have so long cried out wolf that many believe the wolf has come and therefore they might in some moment of anger commit an act resulting in Civil War. As long as the Union is kept I will stand by it, but if we are going to split up into sections I would prefer our children should be raised in Ohio or some northern state to the alternative of a slave state, where we never can have slave property.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

I have already described this place to you — the building being of course not at all designed for families and I shall not, as long as I control, permit a woman or child to live in it. The nearest house is an open, cold house a quarter of a mile distant occupied at present by Professor Vallas, wife and five children. During my absence at New Orleans they had here bitter cold weather, the same that killed all the orange trees at New Orleans, and Mr. Vallas tells me he and his family nearly froze, for the house was designed for summer, of the “wentilating” kind.

There are other houses between this and Alexandria of the same general kind, but they are from one and one-half to two and one-half miles distant, too far off for any person connected with the Seminary to live. The plan is and has been to build, but the Seminary is utterly unable to build, nor can it hope to get the money save by a gift from the legislature. General Graham thinks they will appropriate $30,000. Governor Moore, though in favor of doing so, has his doubts and was candid enough to say so. Without that it will be impossible for me to bring you south even next winter. The legislature meets in the latter part of next January and we cannot even get our pay until they appropriate, but they must appropriate $8,100¹ because it belongs lawfully to the Seminary. . .

_______________

¹ Interest on the Seminary land fund. - Ed.

SOURCES: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 84-6

Henry L. Benning* to Howell Cobb, February 23, 1848

Columbus [ga.], 23d Feby., 1848.

Dear Howell, You ask me to write you soon and fully my views of Cass's letter and Dickinson's resolution. I have had so much to do lately that I could not attempt an answer until now, although your letter of the 3d inst., has been on hand for a fortnight. What you require of me involves, I think, my opinion as to the course which ought to be pursued by the democatic party to secure the next Presidency. On a question of such magnitude I am not prepared to speak with confidence; and yet upon your invitation . . . I will venture a suggestion or two.

First then, I do not object to Mr. Dickinson's resolutions. Still I must say that they are not precisely the thing according to my notion of what the exigency demands. The sins are chiefly sins of omission. The resolutions do not declare what principle ought to govern in the interval between the time of acquiring territory and the time at which the people thereof may choose to settle those “questions of domestic policy”, which it is left to them to settle.

Again, they very indistinctly, if at all, condemn the principle of the Wilmot proviso. If I am not mistaken in that principle, it is that Congress may prohibit slavery in acquired territory as long as it remains territory. Now, Mr. D's resolutions say no more than that Congress cannot do anything inconsistent with the right of the people of the territories to form themselves into States equally sovereign with the old states. The W. Proviso principle is not inconsistent with this right. That which it is inconsistent with is the right of the people of the territories to hold slaves therein if Congress forbids.

Once more, no general principle is announced by the resolutions upon the question of the quantity of territory we ought to require from Mexico in a treaty of peace. Perhaps these omissions are merits, but I venture to think not, and more audacious still, to send you what I deem the remedy in three resolutions, or rather two, ac companying this. The first is new, the second, one of Mr. D's unchanged, and the third is the other of his with some additions important but not in my opinion affecting the abstract principle on which the resolution rests.

Why these alterations? Let us consider for a moment the strength of the two parties in a sectional point of view. We see the Whig majorities, both certain and expected, chiefly in the free states, the Democratic in the slave. We see also already organized in some of the important free states a third party having naturally more sympathy with the Whigs than with the Democrats, and in the other free states no inconsiderable amount of the same third party in the state of raw material. If we add together the votes of the certain free Whig states, 51, and of those in which the abolitionists are supposed by the Whigs to have a casting vote, viz, N. Y. 36, Pa. 26, Ind. 12, Me. 9, N. H. 6, we shall have 51 plus 84 equals 135. Now even allowing for Wisconsin, 143 elects, so that those free states with either Ky. 12, N. C. 11, or Mo. 8, may dictate their man. We see too in New York strong symptoms of this abolition element becoming truly formidable, and in Pa. we distrust somewhat—a very little—the ability of the new soldiers under the banner of free trade to resist the temptation which the enemy will assuredly offer them in the resurrection of the Act of 1842. Further, we behold the Whigs in their conventions, legislatures and public meetings North already adopting the Wilmot Proviso, and on the other hand the Democrats generally ejecting the “perilous stuff” from their stomachs, as witness the letters and speeches of Buchanan, Dallas, Cass, etc., Dickinson's resolutions, and the general tone of the press. Seeing all this and much more of the same sort, are we not obliged to infer as a thing accomplished, 1st: That the Whigs intend to bid for Abolition bodaciously? And 2d: That they can afford to bid higher for it than can the Democrats, supposing the latter base enough to enter the lists? And are we not bound also to admit that true policy demands of the Democrats to endeavor to counteract the effect of the fusion of the two factions into one? Can this be done at all except by looking to the slave states?

If, however, we carry the slave states, we have but 117 votes. It won't do, then, to hazard the loss of much of our strength in the free states. The problem is to gain South and not lose North. It is the aim of the resolutions which I send you to solve it.

First then, I say that the Whigs reckon without their host when they count upon absorbing abolition, because they will nominate either Clay or Taylor; and the abolitionists, the honestly mad ones, will die at the stake before they will vote for the reprobate who dares say in word or deed that man may hold property in man— may traffic and trade in human flesh—particularly when his opponent will be a non-slaveholder and a patriot competent to utter any amount of innocent but "moral and religious sentiment" against the “peculiar institution.” What says 1844? Has Mr. Clay set his negroes free since? And Genl. Taylor, a sugar planter, on the poisonous banks of the Mississippi; he is in a much worse predicament, beyond the reach of any fable in Æsop, because by his avowed innocence of all knowledge of political questions and by his self-imposed inexorable taciturnity he will not be able even to tell the abolitionists so much as that he believes slavery to be a great moral and political evil.

But suppose this eccentric faction shedding from its humid hair pestilence upon the nations shall, contrary to the best founded expectations, flying from its orb, sink into the sun of Whiggery. Console yourself because you could not by any possibility prevent it, and because all will not be lost. Democracy will have over-balancing accessions from other sources. The last four years have been fruitful in the product of every good thing, including voters, both indigenous and naturalized. It is not extravagant, I think, for our party to reckon upon two thirds of the former and nine tenths of the latter. Why there are but three modes, or rather two and a half, suggested for conducting the war — to fight, to tax, and to take — which is one; to back clean out of a conquered country, telling the cutthroats that we were unrighteously, unconstitutionally, and damnably there from the first, which is two — to back partly out to an unnamed line, going we only know from ocean to ocean, across the continent where it is all desert and mountain, and there to fight to the very death, provided always that any enemy should dare come up and knock a chip off of Jonathan's head — which is half a one. Now, will any but the old fools (of all fools the worst you know) take up with the second or third of these plans? The young have no more sense than to believe that war is war—blood, chains, gold, territory, and no more “sentiment” than to smite, to rivet, to sieze, and to annex. They feel that woe to the vanquished is weal to the victor. We may call these young fellows ours. How many are there? The New York Herald says 800,000 — two thirds of that number are 530,000, half of which 260.000 would be the excess in our favor. Of them 160 or 170 thousand are in the free states. Then the naturalized vote must be quite large. Again, how Democratic the Army is becoming, even the regulars. Every letter from it will be a personal appeal to father, brother, friends, to put down those who give aid and comfort to the enemy. Above all, our annexation policy must bring recruits from all classes and quarters. All this being so, are we not able to despise the nauseous compound?

How, then, are we to “gain South”? I say by the principle contained in the last clause of the third of the resolutions, declaring that citizens of the slave states may settle with their slaves in the acquired territory until such time as the people thereof see fit to forbid it by legislation. The adoption of this will not carry a single slave into such territory, not one, but it will carry many a vote into the ballot box. Mere barren option, never to be availed of tho' it is, still the candidate who refused it could not at the South in a contest with one who conceded it stand a fire of blank cartridges. What Hotspur felt is nature:

I'd give thrice as much land to any well deserving friend.

But in the way of Bargain I'd cavil on the ninth part of a hair.

But won't its adoption do us more harm at the North than even so much good as this at the South can outweigh? It is not possible. Remember how far Dickinson's untouched resolutions go. These say “it is best” (mind you only expediency) to leave questions of domestic policy, that is whether there shall or shall not be slavery, to the people of the territory. So then it is best to let the people there make it a slave territory if they will. Going thus far will not damage us, it is agreed. Why? Because the good sense of the people North sees that such a permission is a mere vanity. Like laying duties upon cotton — or coal at Newcastle. Now how much further does my amendment go? It only affirms that it is best (expediency too) on many momentous accounts to permit the citizens of all the states to have an equal right of removal into the acquired territory and of holding there as property whatever they held as such where they came from. It does not affirm that such “citizens” have a right to do this or that Congress has not the right to forbid it. The constitutional question, so difficult, such a tool of death in the hands of madmen whether at the North or the South, is honorably and fairly got rid of, as indeed it is in Dickinson's original resolution to the extent to which it goes. For the most that can be made out of the expression “by leaving”, “by permitting” is that it is doubtful whether Congress has power on this subject “to bind and to loose” and therefore that it ought not to interfere to do either. Now, if the reasons assigned by Buchanan, Cass, etc., are sufficient to prove the harmlessness of leaving the question of slavery to the people of the territory, they are equally sufficient to prove the harmlessness of permitting all citizens to remove into the territory with their slaves and there to hold them in bondage. Those reasons amount to this, that the interest of slaveholders will prevent them from wishing to cross the Rio Bravo with their slaves, and so of course the people to pass the laws on the subject to slavery, being all non-slaveholders, will prohibit it. Why is it the interest of the slaveholder to keep away? On account of incompatibility of soil, climate, productions, danger of loss by facilities for escape, and on account of the region being now by the laws of Mexico free. Every one of these reasons will still affect the interest of the slaveholder to the same extent if my amendment should be adopted. It may be said that one of those reasons, viz: that drawn from the fact that the territory is now by law free and a slave going there would become free on touching the soil, would not apply if slave owners were “permitted” to take their slaves and hold them as such in the territory. Practically it is all the same. I submit that a prudent slaveholder will be as shy of putting himself and his slaves in the power of Mexican laws to be made, as of those already made. Very well. The good sense of Northern Democracy can as easily see this as the other. and the prospect of carrying Ky., N. C., and Md., with the principle, and of losing S. C. and all that she can influence, without it, will make the scales fall from their eyes in a trice. One thing is never to be forgotten, that committed as the party is, it cannot in its wildest dreams hope for the vote of an abolitionist, and further, that the action of the abolitionists as a party as to keeping embodied or subsiding into Whiggery will depend upon what the Whigs do and not upon anything that we can do, unless we undo all that we have done. In such a case ought we not to follow the dictates of ordinary prudence?

If the war continues we ought to proclaim some such principle as that embodied in the first resolution. If we elect our man with that as one of bur battle cries, be sure Mexico won't waste minutes before she will come with a decent proposition for peace. And I think the sooner the thing is done the better. Let it have time [to] feel its way into grace and favor and for the Whigs to commit themselves against it. However, as to “grace and favor”, there is no fear that it will need friends. True, we shall continue to hear the dog-in-the-manger growl of the Charleston Mercury. He has been so long only showing his teeth that we have come to believe that is all they were made for. All North it will out run the Cholera, as Prince John said to Jesse.¹ Bye the bye, I have just seen the N. Y. Herald's account of the Utica convention. The address is able, not so well written as that of the Albany convention. There is one good thing in it, the declaration that they don't make W. Provisoism a test, a sine qua non. This being so, it has occurred to me that our Baltimore convention could not by any possibility have evidence enough presented to it to decide which to admit, Hunkers or Barnburners, nor the heart to risk making martyrs of the innocent, to the triumph of the guilty, and that therefore it would be obliged as a matter of sheer conscience not to be at home to New York but still to do a good part by her all the same as if she were admitted inside. That is, nominate some man staunch, staunch as Chimborazo, on all the test questions, the sine qua nons, so that both divisions of the democracy may be gratified. Howell, I am death for Equity. Now, equality is equity. By presenting such a candidate the two wings will “spread” themselves in rivalry to speed the common body. What do you think of this. Bright, ain't it.

Well, this is the hand which I want to deal you at Baltimore. I am bound to say that there are some good cards in it. And anybody can play it. Genl. Cass is a good old man, Dallas is a gentleman, Buchanan is touched with the tariff, a man of vigor, tho’, very great, sufficient doubtless to bear letting that drop out of his veins. I care not so much for the player as the cards.

Yes, the grand thing for success is harmony, unanimity in the principles and measures to be sent before the country in the address and resolutions respecting the war question and the territory question, chiefly the last. You Democrats in the House have nothing to do, being a minority, except to ascertain this common ground, compare notes, yield a little, and it will be yielded unto you. Keep the slavery question out of the way of any public discussion in the convention. What the convention does ought to be done without delay, without fuss, with perfect unity and perfect unanimity. Let its work instantly spring forth complete in every part, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter. If there is a will there is a way. There are Democrats in Congress from nearly every State, and what they can all agree upon be sure they can get their several state delegations to Baltimore to agree upon. And then, out of abundance of caution, let one member of Congress, if possible, from each state go down to Baltimore as a lobby member, an organ of assimilation. You know we shall all be strangers to one another. Why can't we organize victory. I see I have written reams. It shows at least that I take interest in the cause and that I am disposed to accomplish the object of your letter, that is (ain't it?) to enable you fellows at Washington to find out which way the wind blows. Write to me again. Speak out. Condemn what I have proposed if it ought to be done, tell me what's better — above all tell me the probable “platform” as well as the man. Dix and Shunk I forgot about. Either will do well, so far as I am at present advised.

P. S. — Tell Iverson I will answer his in a day or two, and show him this. I don't care who sees it.

Send me the address and resolutions of our last convention at Baltimore, if you can do it easily.

[Resolutions enclosed with the foregoing.]

Resolved: That the United States have the intelligence and the virtue and the power to administer with safety, with justice and with equity any quantity of territory which they may honorably acquire from any foreign nation.

Resolved: That true policy requires the government of the United States to strengthen its political and commercial relations upon this continent by the annexation of such continuous territory as may conduce to that end and can be justly obtained, and that neither in such acquisition nor in the territorial organization thereof can any conditions be constitutionally Imposed or institutions be provided for or established inconsistent with the right of the people thereof to form a free sovereign state with the powers and privileges of the original members of the confederacy.

Resolved: That in organizing a territorial government for territory acquired by common blood and common treasure, and conferring in its achievement common glory, the principles of self government will be best promoted, the spirit and meaning of the Constitution best observed, the sentiments of justice of equality and of magnanimity best consulted, the self sacrificing love for the Union best maintained and strengthened, and the shining examples of mutual forbearance and compromise set us by our fathers in every dark day of our past career best emulated, by leaving all questions which concern the Domestic policy of such territory to the unrestrained Legislation of the people thereof, and until such legislation forbid, by permitting the citizens of every state to settle therein and to hold as property there whatever they may have held as property in the states from which they came.

_______________

* A lawyer of Columbus, Ga., previously a college chum of Howell Cobb's, and always a keen student of public affairs; associate-justice of the supreme court of Georgia, 18531861; brigadier-general in the Confederate army.

¹”Prince John” Van Buren, to Jesse Hoyt.

SOURCE: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Editor, The Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Volume 2: The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, p. 97-103

Joseph Henry Lumpkin* to Howell Cobb, January 21, 1848

Athens, [ga.], Jany. 21st, 1848.

My Dear Sir: On my return from Savannah this morning I found your letter of the eighth of this month waiting my arrival. I sincerely regret that any reference to the extract of my letter to you in Bennett’s Paper should have given you any concern, for I repeat what I said to you before, that I neither desired nor intended any concealment of my change of opinion towards Mr. Clay. Whether General Taylor will or will not submit himself to be used by the very men who would have defeated his election could they have done so, I cannot say. He has been faithfully warned, I know, not to do so, but to compel these leaders to surrender to him at discretion and to make no terms with them; he has been further admonished to beware of the rock on which Mr. Clay's barque has been so signally wrecked, as every Statesman should be who when his government is engaged in a foreign war will with unfilial [hand ? ] expose the nakedness of his parent country.

For the bold and decided stand taken by Mr. Buchanan and other distinguished Democrats at the North, the South owes them a deep debt of gratitude; for myself however, I never for a moment believed that the North would take the responsibility of dissolving the American Union upon a false issue, even when slavery was the subject. And I believe at this very moment that the institution stands upon a firmer basis than it ever has done since the formation of the Republic. Had the Abolitionists let us alone we should have been guilty, I verily believe, of political and social suicide by emancipating the African race, a measure fatal to them, to ourselves, and to the best interest of this Confederacy and of the whole world. The violent assaults of these fiends have compelled us in self defence to investigate this momentous subject in all of its bearings, and the result has been a firm and settled conviction that duty to the slave as well as the master forbids that the relation should be disturbed; and notwithstanding Mr. Webster's false declaration as the result of his personal observations among us, there is but one mind among the whole of our people upon this subject. And we never will submit for one moment to the smallest aggression upon our constitutional rights. Respecting this property even Judge Warner,¹ Massachusetts man as he is, declared to me a few days since that dearly as he was attached to the Union, he would not hesitate a moment to advocate its immediate dissolution should the principle of the Wilmot Proviso be engrafted upon our system. I repeat that my mind was never more at ease than at present upon this subject.

Having been at home so short a time, I know nothing of the local news. Your friends are all well. Tom and myself leave again tomorrow for Talbotton where the Supreme Court sits on Monday next; he was appointed at Savannah Assistant Reporter, and I thing it altogether likely that after this year Kelly will retire from the business. There is nothing unpleasant between Col. Franklin and himself.

_______________

* Chief-justice of the supreme court of Georgia, 1845-1867.

¹ Hiram Warner, a native of Massachusetts, was at this time an assooiate-justlce of the supreme court of Georgia.

SOURCE: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Editor, The Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Volume 2: The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, p. 94-5

Five Thousand Men And Women Wanted, October 10, 1850.

Five Thousand Men And Women Wanted

To attend the Meetings in

CANASTOTA, Wednesday, Oct. 23d, 10 A. M.

Cazenovia, Friday. Oct. 25th, 10 A. M.

Hamilton, Wednesday, Oct. 30th, 10 A. M.

Peterboro, Friday. Nov. 1st, 10 A. M.

None but real men and women are wanted. The sham men and women who can stick to the Whig and Democratic parties are not wanted. These parties made the accursed law under which oppressors and kidnappers are now chasing down the poor among us, to make slaves of them. Hence there is no hope of good from persons who can stick to these Devil-prompted parties.

We want such men and women to attend these meetings as would rather suffer imprisonment and death than tolerate the execution of this man-stealing law. We want such as would be glad to see William L. Chaplin, now lying in a Maryland prison on account of his merciful feelings to the enslaved, made Governor of the State of New York. We want, in a word, such noble men and women as used to gather under the banners of the good old Liberty Party.

Let us then, get together again, to speak the truth, and to sing the truth. Those were good times when we came together to hear warm-hearted speeches for the slave, and to hear Otis Simmons' daughters, and Rhoda Klinck, and Miss Cook, etc., etc., sing

“Come join the Abolitionists.”

“What mean ye that ye bruise and bind?”

“The Yankee Girl.”

“There's a good time coming, boys.”

October 10, 1850.

SOURCES: Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith: A Biography, p. 212

William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, Sunday, December 12, 1859

New Orleans, Sunday, Dec. 12.

. . . I am stopping at the City Hotel which is crowded and have therefore come to this my old office, now Captain Kilburn's, to do my writing. I wish I were here legitimately, but that is now past, and I must do the best in the sphere in which events have cast me. All things here look familiar, the streets, houses, levees, drays, etc., and many of the old servants are still about the office, who remember me well, and fly round at my bidding as of old.

I have watched with interest the balloting for speaker, with John as the Republican candidate. I regret he ever signed that Helper book, of which I know nothing but from the extracts bandied about in the southern papers. Had it not been for that, I think he might be elected, but as it is I do not see how he can expect any southern votes, and without them it seems that his election is impossible. His extreme position on that question will prejudice me, not among the supervisors, but in the legislature where the friends of the Seminary must look for help. Several of the papers have alluded to the impropriety of importing from the north their school teachers, and if in the progress of debate John should take extreme grounds, it will of course get out that I am his brother from Ohio, universally esteemed an abolition state, and they may attempt to catechize me, to which I shall not submit.

I will go on however in organizing the Seminary and trust to the future; but hitherto I have had such bad luck, in California and New York, that I fear I shall be overtaken here by a similar catastrophe. Of course there are many here such as Bragg, Hebert, Graham, and others that know that I am not an abolitionist. Still if the simple fact be that my nativity and relationship with Republicans should prejudice the institution, I would feel disposed to sacrifice myself to that fact, though the results would be very hard, for I know not what else to do.

If the Southern States should organize for the purpose of leaving the Union I could not go with them. If that event be brought about by the insane politicians I will ally my fate with the north, for the reason that the slave question will ever be a source of discord even in the South. As long as the abolitionists and the Republicans seem to threaten the safety of slave property so long will this excitement last, and no one can foresee its result; but all here talk as if a dissolution of the Union were not only a possibility but a probability of easy execution. If attempted we will have Civil War of the most horrible kind, and this country will become worse than Mexico.

What I apprehend is that because John has taken such strong grounds on the institution of slavery that I will first be watched and suspected, then maybe addressed officially to know my opinion, and lastly some fool in the legislature will denounce me as an abolitionist spy because there is one or more southern men applying for my place.

I am therefore very glad you are not here, and if events take this turn I will act as I think best. As long as the United States Government can be maintained in its present form I will stand by it; if it is to break up in discord, strife and Civil War, I must either return to California, Kansas or Ohio. My opinions on slavery are good enough for this country, but the fact of John being so marked a Republican may make my name so suspected that it may damage the prospects of the Seminary, or be thought to do so, which would make me very uncomfortable. . .

SOURCES: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 75-7

Gerrit Smith to Edmund Quincy, November 23, 1846

Peterboro, Nov. 23, 1846,

Edmund Quincy, Esq., of Massachusetts:

Dear Sir, — I have this evening, read your letter to me, in the last Liberator. I am so busy in making preparations to leave home for a month or two, that my reply must be brief. A reply I must make — for you might construe my silence into discourtesy and unfriendliness.

From your remark, that you have not seen my “recent writings and speeches,” I infer, that you do not deign to cast a look upon the newspapers of the Liberty Party. Your proud and disdainful state of mind toward this party accounts for some of the mistakes in your letter. For instance, were you a reader of its newspapers, you would not charge me with “irreverently” using the term “Bible politics.” You evidently suppose that I identify the federal constitution and the Liberty Party with the politics of the Bible. But, in my discourses on “Bible politics,” which, to no small extent, are made up directly from the pages of the Bible, I seek but to show what are the Heaven-intended uses of civil government, and what are the necessary qualifications of those who administer it. So far are these discourses from commending the constitution, or the Liberty Party, that they do not so much as allude either to the one or to the other. Again, were you a reader of the newspapers of this party, you would know its name. You would in that case know, that “Liberty Party” is the name, which, from the first, it has chosen for itself; and that “Third Party” is only a nickname, which low-minded persons have given to it. You well know, that there are low-minded persons, who, seeing nothing in the good man who is the object of their hatred, for that hatred to seize upon, will try to harm him by nicknaming him. It is such as these, whose malice toward the Liberty Party has, for want of argument against that truth-espousing and self-sacrificing party, vented itself in a nickname. Be assured, my dear sir, that I have no hard feelings toward you for misnaming my party. You are a gentleman; and your error is, therefore, purely unintentional. Upon your innocent ignorance — too easy and credulous in this instance, I admit — the base creatures who coined this nickname, have palmed it as the real name of the Liberty Party. You are a gentleman; and hence, as certainly as your good breeding accords to every party, however little and despised, the privilege of naming itself, so certainly, when you are awake to this deception which has been practiced upon your credulity, you will be deeply indignant at it. I see, from his late speech in Faneuil Hall, that even Mr. Webster has fallen into the mistake of taking “Third Party” to be the name of the Liberty Party. The columns of the Liberator have, most probably, led him into it. Being set right on this point yourself, you will of course, take pleasure in setting him right. He will thank you for doing so; for when he comes to know, that “Third Party” is but a nickname, and the invention of blackguards, he will shrink from the vulgarity and meanness of repeating it. Again, were you a reader of the newspapers of the Liberty Party, you would not feel yourself authorized to take it for granted, that to hold an office under the constitution is to be guilty of swearing to uphold slavery. On the contrary, you would be convinced, that nine-tenths of the abolitionists of the country — nine-tenths, too, of the wisest and worthiest of them — believe, that an oath to abide by the constitution is an oath to labor for the overthrow of slavery. Were you a reader of the newspapers of the Liberty Party, you would know, that this position of these nine-tenths of the abolitionists of the country is fortified by arguments of William Goodell and Lysander Spooner, which there has been no attempt to answer, and that, too, for the most probable reason, that they are unanswerable. I am not sure, that you have ever heard of these gentlemen. Theirs are perhaps, unmentioned names in the line of your reading and associations. Nevertheless I strongly desire that you may read their arguments. Your reading of them will, I hope, moderate the superlatively arrogant and dogmatic style in which you, in common with the abolitionists of your school, talk and write on this subject. If this or aught else, shall have the effect to relax that extreme, turkey-cock tension of pride, with which you and your fellows strut up and down the arena of this controversy, the friends of modesty and good manners will have occasion to rejoice.

I have not taken up my pen to write another argument for the constitution. Two or three years ago, I presumed to write one and the way in which it was treated, is a caution to me not to repeat the presumption. I shall not soon forget the fury with which the Mr. Wendell Phillips, whom you so highly praise in the letter before me, pounced upon it. Nothing short of declaring me to be a thief and a liar could relieve his swollen spirit, or give adequate vent to his foaming wrath. He would, probably, have come to be ashamed of himself, had not his review of me been endorsed by Mr. Garrison, and also by one, who it is said, is even greater than Mr. Garrison — “the power behind the throne.”

I do not doubt, my dear sir, that you and your associates have sincerely adopted your conclusions respecting the constitution. That you should be thoroughly convinced by your own arguments is a natural and almost necessary consequence of the self-complacency, which uniformly characterizes persons who regard themselves as ne plus ultra reformers. I wish you could find it in your hearts to reciprocate our liberality, in acknowledging your sincerity, and to admit, that we, who differ from you, are also sincere. No longer then would you suppose us, as you do in your present letter, to be guilty of “Jesuitical evasions,” or to be capable of being, to use your own capitals “PERJURED LIARS.” No longer then would you and the gentlemen of your school speak of us as a pack of office-seekers, hypocrites, and scoundrels. But you would then treat us  — your equal brethren, as honestly and ardently desirous as yourselves to advance the dear cause to which you are devoted — with decency and kindness, instead of contempt and brutality. I honor you and your associates, as true-hearted friends of the slave; and nor man, nor devil, shall ever extort from my lips or pen a word of injustice against any of you. I honor you also for the sincerity of your beliefs, that they, who dissent from your expositions of the constitution, are in the wrong. But I am deeply grieved at your superciliousness and intolerance toward those, whose desire to know and do their duty is no less strong nor pure than your own. Far am I from intimating that the blame of the internal dissensions of the Abolitionists belongs wholly to yourselves. No very small share of it should be appropriated by such of them as have indulged a bad spirit, in speaking uncandidly and unkindly of yourselves. All classes of Abolitionists have need to humble themselves before God for having retarded the cause of the slave by these guilty dissensions.

I would that I could inspire you with some distrust of your infallibility. I should, thereby, be rendering good service to yourself and to the cause of truth. Will you bear to have me point out some of the blunders in the letter to which I am now replying? And, when you shall have seen them, will you suffer your wonder to abate, that the great body of Abolitionists do not more promptly and implicitly bow to the ipse dixits of yourself and your fellow infallibles? Casting myself on your indulgence, and at the risk of ruffling your self-complacency. I proceed to point out to you some of these blunders.

Blunder No. 1. You charge me with holding, that the clause of the constitution relating to the slave-trade, provides for its abolition. What I do hold to, however, is, that the part of the constitution which entrusts Congress with the power to regulate commerce, provides for the abolition of this trade. That Congress would use the power to abolish this trade, was deemed certain by the whole convention which framed the constitution. Hence a portion of its members would not consent to grant this power, unless modified by the clause concerning the slave-trade, and unless, too, this clause were made irrepealable. When the life-time of this modification had expired, Congress, doing just what the anti-slavery spirit of the constitution and the universal expectation of the nation demanded, prohibited our participation in the African slave-trade. I readily admit, that the clause in question is, considered by itself, pro-slavery. But it is to be viewed as a part of the anti-slavery bargain for suppressing the African slave-trade — and as a part, without which, the anti-slavery bargain could not have been made. Did I not infer from your own words, that you cannot possibly bring yourself to condescend to read the “writings or speeches” of Liberty-party men, I would ask you to read what I wrote to John G. Whittier and Adin Ballou on that part of the constitution now under consideration.

Blunder No. 2. But what pro-slavery act can that part of the constitution which respects the African slave-trade, require at the hands of one who should now swear to support the constitution? None. No more than if the thing, now entirely obsolete, had never been. What a blunder then to speak of this part of the constitution, as an obstacle in the way of swearing to support those parts of it which still remain operative!

Blunder No. 3. In your letter before me, as well as in your approval of an article in the Liberator of 30th last month, you take the position, that the pro-slavery interpretations of the constitution, at the hands of courts and lawmakers, are conclusive that the instrument is pro-slavery. But you will yourself go so far as to admit, that all slavery under the national flag, and in the District of Columbia, and indeed everywhere, save in the old thirteen States, is unconstitutional. Nevertheless all such parts of unconstitutional slavery have repeatedly been approved by courts and law-makers. You say, that the constitution is what its expounders interpret it to be; and that, inasmuch as they interpret it to be pro-slavery, you are bound to reject it. But the dignified and authoritative expounders of the Bible interpret it to be pro-slavery. Why, then, according to your own rules, should you not reject the Bible, also? Talleyrand, you know, thought a blunder worse than a crime. You and I do not agree with him. But we certainly cannot fail to agree with each other, that your blunder No. 3, is a very bad blunder.

Blunder No. 4. You declare, that because the constitution is as you allege, pro-slavery, it is inconsistent and unfair to reject a slaveholder from holding office under it. Extend the application if you will, that you may see its absurdity. The constitution of my State makes a dark skin a disqualification for voting. Hence, in choosing officers under it — even revisers of the constitution itself — I am not at liberty, according to your rule, to exclude a man from the range of my selection, on the ground that he is in favor of such disqualification. Nay, more, I must regard his agreement with the constitution on this point, as an argument in favor of his claim to my vote. Again — to conform to your rule, a wicked community should, because it is wicked, choose a wicked preacher — or because it is ignorant, choose an ignorant schoolmaster. Yours is a rule that refuses to yield to the law of progress, and that shuts the door against all human improvement. You would, for the sake of their consistency, have an individual — have a people — remain as wicked as they are — and vote for drunkards and slaveholders, because they have always done so. The provision of the constitution for its own amendment, is of itself, enough to silence your doctrine, that the agreement of a man's character and views with the constitution, is necessarily an argument for, and can never be an argument against, his holding office under it. This provision opens the door for choosing to office under the constitution, those who disagree with it. This provision implies, that in the progress of things, a man's agreement with the constitution may be a conclusive objection to clothing him with official power under it.

But I will stop my enumeration of your blunders, and put you a few questions.

1. Do you not believe, that it was settled by the decision in the year 1772 of the highest court of England, that there was not any legal slavery in our American Colonies?

2. Do you not believe, that there was no legal slavery in any of the States of this nation, at the time the constitution was adopted?

3. Do you not believe, that the constitution created no slavery; and that it is not to be held as even recognizing slavery, provided there was, at the time of its adoption, no legal slavery in any of the States?

4. Do you not believe, that had the American people adhered to the letter and spirit of the constitution, chattel slavery would ere this, have ceased to exist in the nation?

You will of course, be constrained to answer all these questions in the affirmative. And I wish that, when you shall have answered them, you would also answer one more — and that is the question whether, since you are hotly eager for the overthrow of all civil government (they are not governments whose laws, if laws they may be called, are without the sanctions of force) you ought not to guard yourself most carefully from seeking unjust occasions against them, and from satisfying your hatred of them, at the expense of candor and truth? An atheist at heart is not unfrequently known to publish his grief over what he (afflicted soul!) is pained to be obliged to admit are blemishes upon the Bible. His words are, as if this blessed book were inexpressibly dear to him. Nevertheless, his inward and deep desire is, that with or without the blemishes he imputes to it, the Bible may perish. Our Non-resistants throw themselves into an agony before the public eye, on account of the pro-slavery which they allege taints the constitution. But, aside and in their confidential circles, their language is: “Be the constitution pro-slavery or anti-slavery, let it perish.” Were the constitution unexceptionable to you on the score of slavery, you would, being a Non-resistant, still hate it with unappeasable hatred. Now I put it to you, my dear sir, whether the Non-resistants, when they ask us to listen to their disinterested arguments against the anti-slavery character of the constitution, do not show themselves to be somewhat brazen-faced! I say naught against your Non-resistance. That I am not a Nonresistant myself — that I still linger around the bloody and life-taking doctrines in which I was educated — is perhaps, only because I have less humanity and piety than yourself. Often have I tried to throw off this part of my education; and that the Bible would not let me, was, perhaps, only my foolish and wicked fancy.

You ask me to join you in abandoning the constitution. My whole heart — my whole sense of duty to God and man — forbids my doing so. In my own judgment of the case, I could not do so without being guilty of the most cowardly and cruel treachery toward my enslaved countrymen. The constitution has put weapons into the hands of the American people entirely sufficient for slaying the monster within whose bloody and crushing grasp are the three millions of American slaves. I have not failed to calculate the toil and selfdenial and peril of using those weapons manfully and bravely — and yet for one, I have determined, God helping me, thus to use them — and not, self-indulgently and basely, to cast them away. If the people of the north should refuse to avail themselves of their constitutional power to effectuate the overthrow of American slavery, on them must rest the guilty responsibility, and not in that power — for it is ample. To give up the constitution is to give up the slave. His hope of a peaceful deliverance is, under God, in the application of the anti-slavery principles of the constitution.

No — I cannot join you in abandoning the constitution and overthrowing the government. I cannot join you, notwithstanding you tell me that to do so is " the only political action in which a man of honor and self-respect can engage in this country." Your telling me so is but another proof of your intolerance and insolence—but another proof of the unhappy change wrought in your temper and manners by the associations and pursuits of your latter years. Your telling me so carries no conviction to my mind of the truth of what you tell me. It is a mere assertion;—and has surely, none the more likeness to an argument by reason of the exceedingly offensive terms in which it is couched.

Since I began this letter, I have received one from a couple of colored men of the city of Alexandria. Never did I read a more eloquent, or heart-melting letter. You remember that Congress, at its last session, left it to the vote of the whites in that part of the District of Columbia south of the Potomac, whether that part of the District should be set back to Virginia, and colored people be subjected to the murderous and diabolical laws which that State has enacted against colored people, the free as well as the bond. The letter which I have received, describes the feelings of our poor colored brethren, as they saw themselves passing from under the laws of the nation into the bloody grasp of the laws of a slave State. I will give you an extract:

“I know that, could you but see the poor colored people of this city, who are the poorest of God's poor, your benevolent heart would melt at such an exhibition. Fancy, but for a moment, you could have seen them on the day of election, when the act of Congress, retroceding them to Virginia, should be rejected or confirmed. Whilst the citizens of this city and county were voting, God's humble poor were standing in rows, on either side of the Court House, and, as the votes were announced every quarter of an hour, the suppressed wailings and lamentations of the people of color were constantly ascending to God for help and succor, in this the hour of their need. And whilst their cries and lamentations were going up to the Lord of Sabaoth, the curses and shouts of the people, and the sounds of the wide-mouthed artillery, which made both the heavens and the earth shake, admonished us that on the side of the oppressor there was great power. Oh sir, there never was such a time here before! We have been permitted heretofore to meet together in God's sanctuary, which we have erected for the purpose of religious worship, but whether we shall have this privilege when the Virginia laws are extended over us, we know not. We expect that our schools will all be broken up, and our privileges, which we have enjoyed for so many years, will all be taken away. The laws of Virginia can hardly be borne by those colored people that have been brought up in a state of ignorance and the deepest subjection: but oh sir how is it with us, who have enjoyed comparative liberty? We trust that we have the sympathies of the good and the virtuous. We know that we have yours and your associates in benevolence and love. Dear friend, can you and yours extend to our poor a helping hand, in this the time of our need? Remember, as soon as the legislature of Virginia meets, which is in December, they will extend their laws over us: and in the spring forty or fifty colored families would be glad to leave for some free State, where they can educate their children, and worship God without molestation. But, dear sir, whither shall we go? Say, Christian brother, and witness heaven and earth, whither shall we go? Do we hear a voice from you saying: ‘Come here?’ Or, are we mistaken? Say, brother, say, are we not greater objects of pity than our more highly favored and fortunate brethren of the North—(Heaven bless and preserve them!”)

If such, my friend, is the woe, when but a few hundred colored persons (and part of them free) find themselves deserted by the National Power, what will it not be, when, in the bosoms of three millions of slaves, all hope of the interposition of that Power shall die? That Power I would labor to turn into the channel of deliverance to these millions. That Power you would destroy. Alas, were it this day destroyed, what a long, black night would settle down upon those millions! Vengeance might, indeed, succeed to despair; and its superhuman arm deliver the enslaved. But, such a deliverance would be through blood, reaching, in Apocalyptic language, “even to the horses’ bridles:” and to such a deliverance neither you nor I would knowingly contribute.

But I am extending my letter to double the length I intended to give it—and must stop.

With great regard, your friend,

Gerrit Smith.

SOURCES: Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith: A Biography, p. 201-8

Gerrit Smith to Stephen C. Phillips, October 13, 1846

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