Nathaniel Peabody Rogers: Reverend Ralph Randolph Gurley, December 8, 1838

[From the Herald of Freedom of Dec. 8, 1838.]

We must give the whole of this euphonic line, so harmonious to the colored ear. This silver-spoken expatriationist has appeared again, we understand, in our New England horizon, with his northern aspect on, having doffed his slaveholder phases, as he crossed his equinoctial—the Mason and Dixon line. He ranges from tropic to tropic along his crooked ecliptic—from New Orleans on the south, to — the old town hall in Concord (his northmost declination) on the north—shifting his disk, like the changing moon.

Hail to thee, in the “clear cold sky” of the North, thou star of evil promise to liberty! Welcome, caterer of slavery, to the regions of paid labor! Thou reverend advocate of a double origin of the human family, and denier that “God hath made of one blood all nations of men,” &c. Thou promoter of human banishment, and sunderer of the strong ties of native country, hail to thy dubious aspect—thy Janus facies! Come, stir, with thy magician's rod, among the hushed and abashed mobocracy of your native New England. Kindle afresh the slumbering fires of prejudice. Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of persecution! Mount the consecrated pulpit, under the ushering of the shepherds of the flock, who care for the sheep, and “pour” thence “your leprous distilment into” the common ear, till “public sentiment” shall “posset and curd” under your infusion, and the blotch and tetter of colonization shall “bark out over all” the surface of the body politic.

Thou angler for consent to exile! thou fisher for funds in the pockets of prejudice! thou recruiting sergeant for the ranks of banishment! Thou art earning the deep and indelible displeasure of thy colored brother. He must forgive thee unpardonable enmity, and “seventy times seven,” and God help him to charity unbounded—for he needs it in this emergency.

Elliot[T] Cresson, too, a satellite of the Secretary, is up here, on a winter campaign. Why does not Elliot cast the shadow of his broad brim on the snows of Canada, this winter, in the service of the Patriots, and help them become a free republic, and so break up that nest of self-emancipated niggers? For if this province of Canada were only a free, democratic state, it would not afford a refuge to those insolent fugitives, but they would have to be “given up on claim of those to whom” their souls and bodies, their time and eternity, “might be due.” Bethink thee, Friend! Elliot, thou mightest strike a capital stroke for thy master (who can enlarge his brim till it is as broad as William Penn's, to suit his turn) in the extinction of this tyrant monarchy, this refuge of runaway democrats. Thou mightest solicit the fugitives, with good prospect of colonizing them. If thou shouldest succeed in abolishing monarchy in said province, and open a way for the restoration of the lost property to be found there, thou mightest then solicit it for consent to great advantage. Thou mightest offer the candidates, either a sudden, and, as it were, a reluctant return to the patriarchs from whom they strayed, (with fetter on heel and hand-cuff on wrist,) or the glorious alternative of voluntary emigration, “with their own consent,” to the steepled paradise of Liberia. And would they not be free to go or stay? Yea, verily. Thee would say to them, "Friend, I do thee no injustice. Go to Liberia; but go freely. I abate not a tithe of thy free, thy voluntary, thy spontaneous choice. Go if thee choose. If not, stay and return south with me, whence, in an evil hour, thou came out.” Peradventure some of them would "consent," For They Have Been South. Yes, reader, they have been south.

SOURCE: Collection from the Miscellaneous Writings of Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, Second Edition, p. 54-6 which states it was published in the Herald of Freedom of December 8, 1838.

Nathaniel Peabody Rogers: Colonization, June 23, 1838

There is either a most strange delusion, or an obstinate wickedness in men, in relation to this matter of expatriating our colored people — probably both — for delusion — “strong delusion” generally attends a long course of transgression. We believe, if there is any one crime in this land, on which the Father of the human family looks down with more displeasure than on any other, it is on this deliberate and malicious wrong and insult entertained by a portion of the proud people of this country towards their humbler brethren — a deliberate, premeditated, cool-blooded plot to banish them from their native land, and to send them to the most undesirable spot on earth. God commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Christ our Lord tells us in the story of the good Samaritan, who is our neighbor, and what loving him is, in practice. We ask the reverends and honorables, who compose the official list of New Hampshire Colonization, if the good Samaritan would have joined the Colonization Society. The question need only be asked. The idea of such a man as he, entering into a conspiracy like this, is so absurd, as to be almost ludicrous on the very face of it. Colonization is hate of one's neighbor, of the very deepest and most far-reaching kind.

But the organization is getting to be matter of form merely — it can't act. It may raise contributions of some amount—but no widows' mites — and not from many hands. It is impotent malice now — and kept up, probably, as a set-off effort versus anti-slavery. We are loath to speak severely of the names who compose this benevolent enterprise, but cannot help it. If we feel justly towards the plot, we feel severely, and must speak as we feel. It is not only a wicked plot against our innocent and injured (ah, injured beyond reparation) brethren, but it is a most mean and dishonorable service, done at the bidding of the slaveholder of the South. He wants to get the free man of color away, so that he can the more securely grind down the colored bond man. Poor Mr. Observer remarks that “the colored man must have a soil of his own, before he can rise.” Pray, what does he mean by a soil of his own? soil that he owns? or a sort of black soil? Can't he own soil in this country? Truly he can, if these Observers will only get out of the way, and let us win him his liberty, and let him work for wages. Free colored people are rising now as rapidly and as palpably as water ever rose in a freshet. They rise, as fast as such philanthropists as the Observer fall. The Observer's fall is their rise, and his rise their fall. Colored men can earn money and buy and own soil, and do now buy and own it. They need not go to Africa for soil. The land they own here is their soil, and the country they are born in is their native country. A man's native country (this is said for the especial benefit of Observers and colonizationists) is the country a man is born in. He can't have but one. He can't be born in one country, and have a native land somewhere else — in some other country. The land he is born on, and no other, is his native land, and it is equally so with colored people, and those who have less or no color. No American, United States-born man can have two native lands, or can have one without the limits of America. He can no more be born here and have him a native land in Africa, than an African, born on the Gold Coast, can make him out a native land here in New England. This is really so — there is no mistake — there is no two ways about it. This is a cardinal point, and it ought to be settled and made clear to the minds of our colonization brethren. They have a strong notion of restoring colored people to their native Africa — to their own soil, as the Observer calls it — where they can rise. The soil of Africa is supposed to be theirs by a kind of nativity, though they were born here, and their fathers and grandfathers before them, and their fathers not only American-born, in some cases, but “as white,” as the African prince said of the Dane — the first creature of that complexion he ever saw — “as white as the very devil,” — not only white, but white slaveholders, owners of their own children — sellers of their own blood and bones. What soil have they in Africa then, on which they can rise? None, unless they go and buy it, which they will never do. And what does the Observer mean by rising? He means getting to be governor, councillor, general court man, deputy secretary, dancing master, clerk in a store, dandy, — any of these elevations, which whiteness of outside and total lack of inside, will give folks here.

Now colored people don't want this sort of elevation; all they want is common liberty — common humanity — a common sort of human chance for their lives. They don't care about rising very high. As to rising out of the dust and dunghill, into which this inhuman people have trodden them that they will do, as soon as colonizationists will take their feet off of their necks and breasts, where they are now planted. They stand on the very breasts of the colored people, and look down and taunt them with incapacity to rise; and wickedly say to them, I'll step off of you, if you will creep away to Africa before you rise. You may go freely — with your own consent — mind that; you are not to be forced away; but unless you do most voluntarily and freely consent, I shall stand here, with both my Anglo-Saxon hind-feet plump on your breast bone, where the night-mare plants her hoof, shod all round with palsy, and you never can rise till you rise to the judgment. It is a pity you can't rise in this country; but you see how it is. God has placed you in an inferior position; you are evidently beneath me, and I above you. I am your friend. I belong to an “American Union for your race's relief,” and also to a “Liberian association, auxiliary to said Union;” and besides, your people, when they stand up straight here, and we are not standing on them, have an unpleasant fragrance which annoys our noses exceedingly; but as you lay now, right under our noses, somehow or other we do not seem to smell you. And moreover we are in the way of evangelizing the world; we've got that work on our hands, and are in a hurry about it — and we must take in Africa, and we don't want to go there. The climate is deadly, the people black and inferior, and we are not exactly on terms with them, and we want you to do what is to be done there; in the way of evangelizing. You can do it well enough for black people, though you can't rise to human level here. We want to colonize you for the sake of Africa — the millions of Africa. Oh, how our hearts bleed (now we think on't) for poor, benighted Africa! And then, that accursed, bloody slave trade — we want that stopped. Why, our Congress declares it piracy. We wont have the market stopped. We'll keep up slavery here, in an improved state. We'll ameliorate, and have it done "kindly;" but that traffic on salt water must be stopped, and you must go to Africa and put it down there. Q. E. D.

SOURCE: Collection from the Miscellaneous Writings of Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, Second Edition, p. 48-51 which states it was published in the Herald of Freedom of June 23, 1838.

Nathaniel Peabody Rogers: The New Hampshire Courier, November 10, 1838

The New Hampshire Courier has a correspondent, “Homo,” out in defence of colonization and against anti-slavery. "Homo" is a man every inch of him, for coming out in black and white. Welcome, good Homo. And thanks to brother Courier (if niggers may be allowed the expression) for giving “Homo” place in his columns. It will take a Homo to maintain the ground — not against us, but against his own readers. But courage, good Homo! — on with your numbers. We have glanced over No. 1, and seen the face of No. 2. Courage! we say. You have no great of a task — not much of a stint—nothing more to encounter than humanity and divinity — and heaven and earth. Cheer, man, the odds are with you.

Welcome, Homo, to the tented field. Abolitionists are tired of fighting intangible enemies. They glory to see one visible and tangible take the plain, and stretch his lines. They rejoice at the unfurling of flags and the glitter of the drawn blade. We will diligently and respectfully peruse “Homo,” and if, by and by, we shall copy any thing unhomogeneous in his appeals to his countrymen, we will give it such essay as our people may. We rejoice that the great rights of humanity are at length being esteemed of sufficient dignity to be argued down.

SOURCE: Collection from the Miscellaneous Writings of Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, Second Edition, p. 47 which states it was published in the Herald of Freedom of November 10, 1838.

Nathaniel Peabody Rogers: Color-phobia, November 10, 1838

COLOR-PHOBIA.

Our people have got it. They have got it in the blue, collapse stage. Many of them have got it so bad, they can't get well. They will die of it. It will be a mercy, if the nation does not. What a dignified, philosophic malady! Dread of complexion. They don't know they have got it — or think, rather, they took it the natural way. But they were inoculated. It was injected into their veins and incided into their systems, by old Doctor Slavery, the great doctor that the famous Dr. Wayland studied with. There is a kind of varioloid type, called colonization. They generally go together, or all that have one are more apt to catch the other. Inoculate for one, (no matter which,) and they will have both, before they get over it. The remedy and the preventive, if taken early, is a kine-pock sort of matter, by the name of anti-slavery. It is a safe preventive and a certain cure. None that have it, genuine, ever catch slavery or colonization or the color-phobia. You can't inoculate either into them. It somehow changes and redeems the constitution, so that it is unsusceptible of them. An abolitionist can sleep safely all night in a close room, where there has been a colonization meeting the day before. He might sleep with It. R. Gurley and old Dr. Proudfit, three in a bed, and not catch it. The remedy was discovered by Dr. William Lloyd Jenner-Garrison.

This color-phobia is making terrible havoc among our communities. Anti-slavery drives it out, and after a while cures it. But it is a base, low, vulgar ailment. It is meaner, in fact, than the itch. It is worse to get rid of than the “seven years' itch.” It is fouler than Old Testament leprosy. It seems to set the dragon into a man, and make him treat poor, dark-skinned folks like a tiger. It goes hardest with dark-complect white people. They have it longer and harder than light-skinned people. It makes them sing out “Nigger—nigger,” sometimes in their sleep. Sometimes they make a noise like this, “Darkey—darkey— darkey.” Sometimes, “Wully—wully—wully.” They will turn up their noses, when they see colored people, especially if they are of a pretty rank, savory habit of person, themselves. They are generally apt to turn up their noses, as though there was some “bad smell” in the neighborhood, when they have it bad, and are naturally pretty odoriferous. It is a tasty disorder — a beautiful ailment; very genteel, and apt to go in “first families.” We should like to have Hogarth take a sketch of a community that had it — of ours, for instance, when the St. Vitus’ fit was on. We have read somewhere of a painter, who made so droll a picture, that he died a-laughing at the sight of it. Hogarth might not laugh at this picture. It would be a sight to cry at, rather than laugh, especially if he could see the poor objects of our frenzy, when the fit is on — which indeed is all the time, for it is an unintermittent. Our attitude would be most ridiculous and ludicrous, if it were not too mortifying and humiliating and cruel. Our Hogarth would be apt to die of something else than laughter, at sight of his sketch.

The courtly malady is the secret of all our anti-abolition, and all our mobocracy. It shuts up all the consecrated meetinghouses — and all the temples of justice, the court-houses, against the friends of negro liberty. It is all alive with fidgets about desecrating the Sabbath with anti-slavery lectures. It thinks anti-slavery pew-owners can't go into them, or use their pulpit, when it is empty, without leave of the minister whom they employ to preach in it. It will forcibly shut people out of their own houses and off their own land, — not with the respectful violence of enemies and trespassers, but the contemptuous unceremoniousness of the plantation overseer — mingled moreover with the slavish irascibility of the poor negro, when he holds down his fellow-slave for a flogging. It sneers at human rights through the free press. It handed John B. Mahin over to the alligators of Kentucky. It shot Elijah P. Lovejoy at Alton. It dragged away the free school, at Canaan. It set Pennsylvania Hall a-fire.

It broke Miss Crandall's school windows, and threw filth into her well. It stormed the female prayer meeting in Boston, with a “property and standing” forlorn hope. It passed the popish resolution at Littleton, in Grafton county. It shut up the meeting-house at Meredith Bridge, against minister and all, — and the homely court-house there, and howled like bedlam around the little, remote district school-house, and broke the windows at night. It excludes consideration and prayer in regard to the forlorn and christian-made heathenism of the American colored man, from county conferences and clerical associations. It broods over the mousings of the New York Observer, and gives keenness to the edge and point of its New Hampshire name-sake. It votes anti-slavery lectures out of the New Hampshire state house, and gives it public hearing on petitions, in a seven by nine committee room. It answers the most insulting mandate of southern governors, calling for violations of the state constitution and bill of rights, by legislative report and resolves that the paramount rights of slavery are safe enough in New Hampshire, without these violations. It sneers and scowls at woman's speaking in company, unless to simper, when she is flattered by a fool of the masculine or neuter gender. It won't sign an anti-slavery petition, for fear it will put back emancipation half a century. It votes in favor of communing with slaveholders, and throwing the pulpit wide open to men-stealers, to keep peace in the churches, and prevent disunion. It will stifle and strangle sympathy for the slave and " remembrance of those in bonds," to prevent disturbance of religious revivals. It will sell the American slave to buy Bibles, or hire negro-hating and negro-buying missionaries for foreign heathen of all quarters but christian-wasted Africa. It prefers American lecturers on slavery, to having that foreign emissary, George Thompson, come over here, to interfere with American rights and prejudices. It abhors "church action" and "meddling with politics." In short, it abhors slavery in the abstract — wishes it might be done away, but denies the right of any body or any thing to devise its overthrow, but slavery itself and slaveholders. It prays for the poor slave, that he might be elevated, while it stands both feet on his breast to keep him down. It prays God might open a way in his own time for the deliverance of the slave, while it stands, with arms akimbo, right across the way he has already opened. Time would fail us to tell of its extent and depth in this free country, or the deeds it has done. Anti-slavery must cure it, or it must die out like the incurable drunkards.

SOURCE: Collection from the Miscellaneous Writings of Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, Second Edition, p. 44-7 which states it was published in the Herald of Freedom of November 10, 1838.

Gerrit Smith: The News From England, January 3, 1862

Alas! that this news should find us still embarrassed, and still diddling with the negro question!  Alas! That we should still have one war upon our hands, while we are threatened with another?  Had we, as we should have done, disposed of this question at the beginning of the war, then would its beginning have also been its ending.  If slavery was not, as it certainly was, the sole cause of the war, it nevertheless, was that vulnerable spot in the foe at which we should have struck without a moment’s delay.  Instead of repelling the negroes, bond and free, by insults and cruel treatment we could have brought them all to our side by simply inviting them to it.  As it is, the war has grown into a very formidable one; and the threatened one whereas, had we not acted insanely on the negro question, we could have dreaded neither.  More than this, had we, as it was so easy to do, struck instant death into the first war, we should have escaped the threat of this second one.

For what is it that the English press threatens us with war? It is for compelling the English ship to give up the rebel commissioners, so it says. This is the ostensible reason. But would not England — she who is so famous for clinging to an almost entirely unqualified and unlimited right of search — have done the same thing in like circumstances? If she would not, then she would not have been herself. Had a part of her home counties revolted and sent a couple of their rebels to America for help, would she not have caught them if she could? And in whatever circumstances they might have been found? If she says she would not, there is not on all the earth one “Jew Apella” so credulous as to believe her. If she confesses she would, then is she self-convicted, not only of trampling in her boundless dishonesty on the great and never-to-be-violated principle of doing as we would be done by, but of insulting us by claiming that we ought to be tame and base enough to forbear to do that which her self-respect and high spirit would prompt her to do.

But perhaps England would not have done as we did.  Her naval captains have taken thousands of seamen from our ships — these captains constituting themselves the sole accusers, witnesses and judges in the cases. It was chiefly for such outrages that we declared war against her in 1812. The instance of the San Jacinto and Trent is not like these. In this instance there was no question, because no doubt, of personal identity. But I repeat, perhaps England would not have done as we did.  In a case so aggravated, she would, perhaps, may, probably, have taken ship and all.  By the way, it may be that we did act illegally in not seizing the ship as well as the rebels, and subjecting her to a formal trial; but if in this we fell into a mistake, could England be so mean as to make war upon us for it? — for a mistake which was prompted by a kind and generous regard for the comfort and interests of Englishmen? Surely, if England is not noble enough to refuse to punish for any mere mistake, She is, nevertheless, not monstrous enough to punish for the mistake, which grew solely out of the desire to serve her.

But wherein have we harmed England in this matter?  We have insulted her, is the answer. We have not, however, intended to insult her: and an unintended insult is really no insult.  If, in my eagerness to overtake the man who has deeply injured me, I run rudely through my neighbor’s house he will not only not accuse me of insulting him, but he will pardon so much to my very excusable eagerness as to leave but little ground of any kind of complaint against me.  Surely, if England were but to ask her own heart how she would feel toward men in her own bosom, who, without the slightest provocation, were busy in breaking up her nation, and in plundering and slaughtering her people, she would be more disposed to shed tears of pity for us that to make war upon us.

It is not possible that England will make war on us for what we did to the Trent, and for doing which she has herself furnished us innumerable precedents.  It is not possible that she will so ignore, nay, so deny and dishonor her own history. I will not believe that England, whom I have ever loved and honored almost as if she were my own country, and who, whatever prejudiced and passionate American writers have written to the contrary, has hitherto, during our great and sore trial done nothing through her government, nor through the great body of her people, to justify the attempt by a portion (happily a very small and very unworthy portion) of our press to stir up our national feeling against her — I say I will not believe that this loved and honored England will make war upon us for a deed in which we intended her no wrong; in which, so far as her own example is authority, there is no wrong; and in which, in the light of reason, and, as it will prove in the judgment of mankind, there is no wrong. She could not make such a causeless war upon us without deeply and broadly blotting her own character and he character of modern civilization. But, after, all, what better is our modern civilization than a mere blot and blotch if the nation which is preeminently its exponent, can be guilty, and without the least real cause of provocation, and upon pretests as frivolous as they are false, of seeing to destroy a sister nation? — a sister nation, too, whose present embarrassments and distresses appeal so strongly to every good heart? Moreover, how little will it argue for the cause of human rights, and popular institutions, if the nation, which claims to be the chief champion of that cause, can wage so wicked a war upon a nation claiming no humbler relation to that precious cause?

What, then, do I hold that England should do in this case?

1st. Reprimand or more severely punish the captain of the Trent for his very gross and very guilty violation of our rights in furnishing exceedingly important facilities to our enemy. This our government should have promptly insisted on, and not have suffered England to get the start of us with her absurd counter claim.  This is a case in which not we, but England, should have been made defendant.  It is her Captain who is the real offender.  Ours is, at the most, but a nominal one.  In the conduct of her Captain were in spirit and purpose, as well as the doing, of wrong.  The conduct of ours, on the contrary, was prompted by the spirit and purpose of doing right; and if, in any respect, it was erroneous, it was simply in regard to the forms of doing right.  Moreover, the guilt of her Captain can be diminished by nothing that was seemingly or really guilty in ours. The criminality of taking the rebels into the Trent was none the less, because of any mistakes which attended the getting of them out.  Nevertheless, England takes no action against him.  Her policy is to have her guilty Captain lost sight of in her bluster about our innocent one.  To screen the thief, she cries, “Stop thief!”  Her policy is to prevent us from getting the true issue before the public mind, by occupying it with her false one.

How preposterous is the claim of England to her right to make war, because we took our rebellious subjects from her ship!  The taking of them into her ship is the only thing in the case which can possibly furnish cause of war. That, unless amply apologized for, does, in the light of international law, furnish abundant cause of war.

Did every hypocrisy and impudence go farther than in England’s putting America on trial! Was there ever a more emphatic “putting the saddle on the wrong horse”? I overtake the thief who has stolen my watch, and jerk it from his pocket.  He turns to the people, not to confess his theft, but to protest against my rudeness, and to have me, instead of himself, regarded as the criminal!

An old fable tells us that a council of animals, with the lion at their head, put an ass on trial for having “broused the bigness of his tongue.” The lion (England) was constrained to confess that he had himself eaten sheep, and shepherds too.  Nevertheless, it was the offence of the ass (America) that caused the council to shudder with horror. “What! Eat another’s grass? O shame!” and so the virtuous rascals condemned him to die, and rejoiced anew in their conscious innocence.

Moreover, England, instead of turning to her own conscience with the true case, has the brazen effrontery to appeal to our conscience with her trumped-up case.  Which of the parties in this instance needs conscience-quickening, in no less certain than in the instance of the footpad and the traveler, when he had robbed of his bags of gold.  The poor traveler meekly asked for a few coins to defray his expenses homeward. “Take them from one of the bags,” said the footpad, with an air of chivalrous magnanimity; but on seeing the traveler take half a dozen instead of two or three, he exclaimed, “Why, man, have you no conscience?”  England, through her subject and servant, entered into a conspiracy against America.  America, through her subject and servant, forbore to punish the wickedness, and simply stopped it.  And yet England bids us to our conscience!

Why Should England protect her captain?  Her Queen, in her last May’s Proclamation, warned him that, for doing what he has done, he should, “in no wise obtain any protection.” He had full knowledge of the official character of the rebles, and at least inferential knowledge of their bearing dispatches with them.  But, besides that the whole spirit of it is against what he has done, her Proclamation specifies “officers” and “dispatches” in the list of what her subjects are prohibited to carry “for the use or service of either of the contending parties.

England did not protect the Captain of her mail-steamer, Teviot, who, during our war with Mexico was guilty of carrying the Mexican General Paredez.  He was suspended.  Why does she spare the Captain of the Trent?  Is it because she has more sympathy with the Southern Confederacy than she had with Mexico? — and is, therefore, more tender toward him who serves the former, than she was toward him who served the latter?  But it will, perhaps be said, that we have not demanded satisfaction in this case as we did in that.  England, nevertheless, knows that we are entitled to it; and that she is bound to satisfy us for the wrongs she did us, before she complains of the way we took to save ourselves from the deep injury with which that great and guilty wrong threatened us.  In this connexion, I add that if, upon her own principles and precedents, the Captain of the Trent deserves punishment for what he did, she is stopped from magnifying into a grave offence our undoing what we did.

2. The next thing that England should do is to give instructions, or rather repeat those in the Queen's Proclamation, that no more rebel commissioners be received into her vessels.

3. And then she should inform us whether, in the case of a vessel that shall hereafter offend in this wise, she would have us take the vessel itself, or take but the commissioners. It is true that whatever her preference, we would probably insist on taking the vessel in every case: — for it is not probable that we shall again expose ourselves in such a case to the charge of taking too little. It is, however, also true, that, should she prefer our taking the vessel, we will certainly never take less.

But such instructions and information, although they would provide for future cases, would leave the present case unprovided for; and England might still say that she could not acquiesce in our having, in this case, taken the Commissioners instead of the vessel.  What then?  She ought to be content with the expression of our regret that we did not take the mode of her choice, and the more so as that mode could not have been followed by any different result in respect to our getting possession of the Commissioners.  But this might not satisfy her: — and what then?  She should generously wait until that unnatural and horrid war is off our hands; and if the parties could not then agree, they should submit the case to an Umpire.  If, however, she should call for an Umpire now, then, although the civilized world would think badly of her for it, and our own nation be very slow to forgive her for it, I would nevertheless, in my abhorrence of all war, have our government consent to an Umpire now. Nay, in the spirit of this abhorrence, and for the sake of peace, I would go much farther.  If no other concession we could make would satisfy England, I would have our Government propose to surrender the rebels, Mason and Slidell, in case the English Government would say, distinctly and solemnly, that it would not itself disturb neutral vessels having on board rebels who had gone out from England in quest of foreign aid to overturn the English Government.  An ineffably base Government would it prove itself to be should it refuse to say this, and yet declare war on the ground of our capture of the rebels who were on their way for foreign help to overturn our government.

I spoke of my abhorrence of all war.  Our lifelong opponents of war find themselves unexpectedly in sympathy with mighty armies.  They have to confess that they never anticipated a rebellion so fast; still less did they ever anticipate that England would be guilty of coming to the help of such a satanic rebellion.

I have said that England will not go to war with us in the case of the Trent. Nevertheless I am not without fear that her government will be driven to declare war against us. The Government of no other nation (and this is honorable to England) is more influenced by the people.  By such an affair as the capture of Mason and Slidell, the patriotism of the least-informed and superficial and excitable part of her people is easily and extensively wrought upon. With this part of her people the inviolability of the British flag is more than all earth besides.  But it is not by that capture, nor by those classes to whom it appeals with such peculiar power that the Government will be moved. If an irresistible pressure comes upon the government, it will come from those portions of the people who long for the cotton and free trade of the South, and who have allowed themselves to get angry with the North by foolishly misconstruing our high tariff (which is simply a war measure) into a hostile commercial measure. The capture of Mason and Slidell will be only the pretext, not the provocation; only the occasion, not the cause of war.

If England wishes to go to war with us for any wrongs we have done her, she shall not have the chance—for we will promptly repair the wrongs, at whatever sacrifices of property or pride. But if, as I still honor and love her too much to believe, she wishes to go to war with us at any rate, and chooses this our time of trouble as her time to make us an easy prey, then will she be gratified.  It will be but fair, however, to advertise her that she must not take our fighting in the war with the rebels as a sample of what will be our fighting in the war with herself.  The former is fooling.  The latter will be fighting.  On all subjects connected with slavery, and therefore in a war about slavery, we Americans are fools.  We cannot help it.  We have worshipped the idol so long and so devoutly, that when in its all-influential presence, we cannot be men. The powers of our moral nature are, however, not destroyed; they are but perverted.  And such an outrage as the English press threatens us with will restore their legitimate use.  Our manhood is not dead; it but sleeps.  And as it was when the Philistines fell upon the bound Samson, that the Spirit of the Lord came to his help, so, when the English shall fall upon the worse-bound Americans, this sleeping manhood will awake.  And it will awake to assert itself, not merely against the English, but against the rebels also.  And It will do this mightily, because it will, and the same time, be asserting itself against its own life-long degradations, and the hateful cause of them.  Let us but know that England, to whom we have done no wrong, has resolved to come to the help of the Pro-Slavery Rebellion, and our deep indignations against her, combining with our deeper indignation against ourselves, will arm us with the spirit of the power to snap the “cords,” and “green withs,” and “new ropes,” with which slavery has bound us to dash to dust the foul idol whose worship has so demented and debased us.  Yes, let us hear this month that England has declared war against us, and this month will witness our Proclamation of Liberty to every slave in the land.  No thanks will be due her for the happy effect upon us of her Declaration of war.  No thanks will be due her that the Declaration will have the effect to save us — to save us by making us anti-slavery.  No more half-way measures, and no more nonsense on the Subject of slavery, shall we then propose.  There will be no more talk then of freeing one sort of slaves, and continuing the other in slavery; but we shall then invite every negro in the land, bond and free, to identify himself, “arm and soul,” with our cause.  And then there will be no more talk of swapping off taxes for negroes, and no more talk of colonizing and apprenticing them.  Then we shall be eager to lift up the negroes into the enjoyment of all the rights of manhood, that so we may have in them men to stand by our side, and help us make short work with the present war, and with that with which we are threatened.

Owing to the bewitching and debauching influence of slavery upon our whole nation, there are, even in the Free States, divisions among us in regard to the present war.  But should England so causelessly, cruelly and meanly force a war upon us, there will be no divisions among us in regard to that war: — nor, indeed, will there then be in regard to the other. And so deep and abiding will be our sense of her boundless injustice, that there will never be any boundless injustice, that there will never be any among us to welcome propositions of peace with England, until her war with us shall have reached the result of our subjugation, or of her expulsion from every part of the Continent of North America.  Moreover, we shall rejoice to hear of the crushing of her power every where — for we shall feel that the nation which can be guilty of such a war is fit to govern no where — in the Eastern no more than in the Western hemisphere.

SOURCES: “News from England by Geritt Smith,” The Liberator, Boston, Massachusetts, Friday, January 3, 1862, p. 4; An abstract of thes article appears in Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith: A Biography, p. 262-3

George Thompson to William Lloyd Garrison, Thursday Morning, April 23, 1835

• Continued from: George Thompson to William Lloyd Garrison, Wednesday Morning, April 22, 1835.

Thursday morning, 23d. Last evening, I delivered a second lecture in the 4th Presbyterian church. The audience rather more numerous than at the first meeting. Two days were occupied in seeking to obtain a church more eligibly situated, but in vain, Mr. Delevan and other gentlemen have used their influence to obtain a church in the upper part of the city, but so far, to no purpose. Yesterday afternoon, Mr. Phelps and myself met a committee of gentlemen, when it was resolved to hold a public meeting as early as possible, and submit the constitution of an Anti-Slavery Society. Last evening's lecture appears to have done good, and I have no doubt that, could I remain and deliver a course of lectures, we should be able to form a good society, if not carry the entire city. This afternoon, Mr Phelps and myself go to Troy. I give my second lecture this evening.

I am much pleased to find that Mr. May has got fairly to work. His labors will greatly advance the cause in Massachusetts.

I write, as you perceive, upon a Circular put forth by Mr. Israel Lewis. The colored people of this city held a meeting on Monday evening to express their opinions in reference to the contents of this document, and decided almost unanimously, that it would not be proper for the colored people to send their children to Canada for education, or encourage the emigration to that settlement of any free persons. They considered it the duty of the whole population to remain here, and combat the wicked and cruel prejudices at present operating against them; they considered the Circular based upon Colonization principles, and therefore an appeal to the prejudiced, rather than to the unprejudiced Anti-Slavery portion of the community. These conclusions are fully in accordance with my own views of the matter. I cannot but regard the Circular as an appeal to the prejudices of the whites, — and the selfishness of the colored people. I rejoice that Wilberforce offers an asylum for the absconding slave, and hope it will be sustained as a city of refuge for him; but I want the free colored man to remain here, and for a while to suffer, toil, and mourn, if it must be so, the victim of the prejudices of a pale-skinned aristocracy, that he may share the common lot of his class, and by making a bold . stand against conduct so inhuman, hasten the time, when the monster prejudice shall spread his dark wings, and wheel his flight to the nethermost hell, where he was begotten. Ever, most affectionately yours,

GEORGE 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. 64-5

Daniel Webster to Justice Joseph Story, August 6, 1822

Washington, August 6, 1822.

My Dear Sir,—This gentleman, the Rev. Mr. Gurley, comes recommended by our friends at the South, on the subject of the Colonization Society. He has with him some very interesting publications of the African Institution in London, as well as the reports of the society here, and appears to be a very agreeable and intelligent man.

I feel inclined to do whatever duty requires on this subject. You know that my opinion has not been the most favorable, and yet I would wish to pay proper deference to such excellent men as Judge Washington and Mr. Kay.

Mr. Gurley will probably be in this neighborhood till Commencement, and if you think it proper that some bread should be cast on the waters in this case, I am willing to follow the example.

While I cannot, conscientiously, very confidently recommend the cause of this society as being a great attainable good, I am still willing to confide in those good men, who have more confidence, so far as to contribute my own little mite to the object in view.

At any rate, my dear Sir, you have discharged your duty before God and man, on the subject of African slavery; and yon must not be surprised if more should be expected from him who has done so much and so admirably.

With perpetual regard, dear Sir,

Yours,

Daniel Webster.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Volume 1, p. 320-1

Nathaniel Peabody Rogers: Colonization Love and “Logic,” September 8, 1838

Abolition Logic

“Not hate of one's neighbor.” We prove it to be hate, because it wants to send off. Hatred repels, and would expel. Love attracts, draws, wishes to detain. Colonization proposes to rid the land of colored people. It therefore, cannot love them. Its love is mere pretence. — Herald of Freedom.

This argument, poor as it is, with hardly speciousness enough to deceive a sensible boy of six years old, is the same that was used by George Thompson, in our debate with him in Boston. But how will this argument work? A New Hampshire father sends off his son to make his fortune on the rich lands of the West. Therefore he hates him. A Boston merchant sends off his son to Europe or the East Indies, that he may extend his schemes of enterprise, and acquire wealth. Therefore he hales him. We send off missionaries to barbarous nations, that they may extend the blessings of Christianity, and receive in a future world the rewards of those that turn many to righteousness. Therefore we hate these missionaries. The consent of those who depart seems to make no difference in the view of this sage editor. “We prove it to be hate because it wants to send off.”

It is a little ludicrous that the editor of the Herald should actually kill his own argument, even before he reaches the bottom of his column. “It won't hurt a slave to send him to Africa. It won't, to send him any where out of the infernal regions. We had rather he might get to Canada, — but if he can't go there — or to the West Indies — or to England — or France — or Spain, or Turkey, or Algiers — or any other comparatively free country under heaven — why, rather than remain in America, among our Colonizationists, let him go to Liberia — or to the bottom of the sea — or to the sharks. No monster of the deep would devour him with the cruel tooth of our republicanism.”

He also proposes, in another article, to colonize slaves in Canada. Seriously, we think there are strong indications of insanity in the Herald.

The above is from the Rev. R. R. Gurley, Secretary and chief engineer of the American Colonization Society — that grand "American system” of machinery for clearing this country of free colored people, by a sort of suction-pump force, called “consent.” They say, however, the “Niggers” come hard; and though the pump draws upon them, like doctor's instruments upon a tooth, yet they stick to the soil like a lamprey eel to the rocks; and though the Secretary “hangs on like a dog to a root,” they “hang back, like a dog going to the gallows.” Resist sternly, colored friends! “Abide in the ship.” The land shall soon be indeed your country and your home. Lay your bones in it. Your tyrants and persecutors will go and evangelize Africa, themselves, when they really wish her evangelized.

The wily Secretary has ventured upon a little article of ours, with true Tracy philology and word-hunting. “Send off.” The magnificent “statesman” here finds a field for the scope of his continental philanthropy. The argument, he says, is the same that was used by George Thompson. All the better for that. George Thompson is an authority. He is a mm of instinctive and intuitive judgment on this question. But it is a poor argument, says the Secretary, “with hardly speciousness enough to deceive a sensible school boy of six years old.” Any argument is always poor in the eyes of the Secretary, that is clear “of speciousness and false show, and that can't deceive sensible school boys. We don't intend to use specious arguments,— “showy, plausible, superficially not solidly right,” as Walker defines them! The Secretary had better not use any more of them. “Fair play is a jewel.”

“How will this argument work?” Try it and see, Secretary.

You don't try it. You put different cases. You speak of farmers sending away sons for their benefit and fortunes. We speak of sending off — a sending off to get rid of. Farmers don't send off their sons, unless they get angry, and forget their nature, and disinherit them. Then they send them off. This sending to the West is not true in fact. The sons want to go from New Hampshire rocks to the prairied West. They have heard stories about it almost as extravagant and false as the Secretary tells about the death-haunted capes of Liberia, where bones lie bleaching as they do in the valley of the fabled Upas. The father wants them to stay with him, if he has got land for them, and if he han't, he would go with them. That is the way the father sends off his sons. Does the Secretary send off the dear colored people so?  Would he accompany them? Let him go and edit at Cape Palmas, and sing his ditty of the “African steeples” about among king Joe Harris' people. They would admire his tall presence and his fine head, as the Cossacks did Murat on his black charger. No. The Secretary loves —  “society,” that has got more “frame-work” in it. The dragon take Liberia, for all his going there! It is a grand country for “free niggers;” but the Secretary belongs to another race.

“The Boston merchant sends off his son,” &c. Whoever heard of such a sending off? Would the weeping father, as the vessel, with his dear boy on board, was clearing the harbor and standing out into the wide sea, tell the disconsolate mother and the brothers and sisters — all in tears — “I've sent off Charles?” Sent him off! for shame, Secretary! If you had instanced a Boston merchant, who had a poor, miserable, profligate, drunken, prodigal son, that had exhausted his paternal nature, and forged his name to checks — whom he did not wish to see hanged at home, for the disgrace it would bring on the family, and he had shipped him aboard a man-of-war for the Mediterranean — or a whaler for a three years' chance among the storms of the cape, and the grampuses of the arctic circle, peradventure to come back, and peradverture not, then you might talk of a father's sending his son off. But that comes too near colonizing, for the Secretary's purpose, — only he wants to ship the innocent — the blameless — the unoffending — guilty of nothing but want of the roseate hue of the beauteous, Absalom-looking Secretary.

“We send off missionaries,” &c. Only to Liberia, Secretary. We send out to every other quarter. Note this peculiarity, reader, in our American efforts to evangelize the world. We send out white, educated, college-learned, beneficiary, Andover-finished theologians to those people we have never enslaved; and to our old human hunting-ground we send off  “abated nuisances,” called “free niggers,” — sent off “with their own consent.”  (“He ’ticed him out of the field,” says the witness; “’ticed him clear out.” How did he ’tice him? said the court. “O, he 'ticed him with a pitchfork.’”) We had the curiosity to look, in this very number of the Secretary's “Statesman,” to see what he called the sending of missionaries. He has a deal to say about love to the heathen. We lit upon “Missions to Liberia,” the first thing almost. It is not the Secretary's own, but his faithful Achates, R. McDowell's. He gives us the very technical phrase for missionary sending; but there is no off to it. “The first mission, established in Liberia,” says McD., “was the Swiss mission, &c., sent out by Rev. Dr. Bleinhardt,” &c.

Don't talk of sending off sons and missionaries, any more, Mr. Secretary. It is too “specious.”

The Secretary says, we “ludicrously kill our argument before we get down our column.” What is our argument? That sending off our free colored people, to rid the country of them, is proof of hatred towards them. How do we kill it? Why, by saying it won't hurt a slave to send him away. Commend us to such killing. “What is sauce for the goose, may be for the” Secretary; but it don't follow, that what is bad for the freeman, would be bad for the slave. Would it be good for the freeman of America to be sent to Algiers? We say it would not hurt the slave to be sent there. He would rejoice to get there, and we should rejoice to have him, if we can't free him here,—even to Liberia—rather than stay within influence of such teachers of humanity as McDufie and Gurley.

The Secretary's mention of our proposal to colonize the slaves in Canada, as a serious proposal, is so roguishly “specious,” that we can't answer it. — The charge of “insanity,” abolitionists are used to. The Secretary will be glad to be so, by and by, when we get slavery down in this country. The cry from the West Indies makes him look wild. He will exclaim, by another year or two, when Congress, with old John Quincy Adams at their head, and Alvan Stewart and Wendell Phillips and Vermont Knapp to back him up, declare slavery down in the capital and the' district — he will then cry out, as Atlialiah did, when she “heard the noise of the guard, the clapping of hands, and the God save king Joash.” He will be stark crazy then, — if he does not repent — which we hope he may.

SOURCE: Collection from the Miscellaneous Writings of Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, Second Edition, p. 21-5 which states it was published in the Herald of Freedom of September 8, 1838.

Arnold Buffum to William Lloyd Garrison, March 5, 1835

PHILADELPHIA, 3d mo. 5, 1835.

MY DEAR FRIEND, — Unwilling to do anything that could by possibility fan the flames which for a time seemed to threaten with riotous destruction our civil institutions, we have, in this city, for several months past abstained from public efforts, for promoting the glorious cause of human liberty. Still we have not been unmindful of the cries and groans of two millions of our countrymen in bondage. We have marked the accelerated progress of licentiousness and pollution in the slaveholding sections of our country; we have seen the hand of despotism extending its iron grasp over two hundred new born victims in every twenty-four hours; we have heard the lamentations of the bereaved mother when her darling babe has been torn from her bosom; we have observed the widely withering influence of an unholy prejudice against beings created, like ourselves, in the image of God; we have heard the sentiment advanced, by professed ministers of Him who came to undo the heavy burdens, and let the oppressed go free, that we ‘are but a set of misguided fanatics, unworthy of the public regard.’ All this we have silently borne for weeks and months that are past. But the claims of our fellowmen, who are suffering under the cruel yoke of oppression, have during this interval, often ascended in our orisons to the Throne of Grace, and the spirit of the Lord has been at work in the hearts of many people, preparing them for the reception of truth, and for active co-operation in the cause of universal freedom; and now we have been comforted and made to rejoice together, by the labors of a messenger of love, whom I verily believe the God of the oppressed has sent among us. Our beloved coadjutor, George Thompson, arrived here, from New-York, on the 2nd instant, and on the evening of the 3rd, delivered a Lecture in the ‘Reformed Presbyterian Church,’ in Cherry Street. No public notice had been given, yet such was the anxiety to hear him, that not less than one thousand persons assembled on the occasion and all were more than gratified. The interesting nature of the subject, the perfect understanding of it in all its bearings evinced by the speaker, the truly christian spirit with which he spoke of the wrong doers, all added to his commanding eloquence, carried conviction to the understanding and bore the hearts of his auditors along with him, and unfurled in many a bosom, the standard of immediate abolitionism.

One of our most estimable citizens, who has been favorable to colonization, said at the close of the meeting, that he would willingly go thirty miles at any time to hear such a discourse. I would attempt to give an outline of it, were it possible for me to do it justice, but I can only say, to all who would understand a christian's views and feelings, and know his arguments on the subject of slavery and its remedy, you must go and hear George Thompson for yourselves. He labors in the cause of God, and in behalf of that portion of the creation of God made in his own image, who are borne down by relentless oppression, in every portion of the habitable globe. He pleads with Christians of every name, to arouse from their lethargy, and in the name of the Master whom they profess to serve, to vindicate the right of man to be free; his motto is, ‘Man is man, endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which, are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’

Yesterday morning, our dear friend returned to New-York, to fulfil prior engagements in that city. Last evening our board of Managers unanimously adopted the following Resolution, viz:

‘Resolved, That the thanks of this Board be presented to our highly esteemed coadjutor, George Thompson, for the clear and forcible exposition of Abolition principles, presented in his address to an assemblage of our fellow-citizens last evening, and that he be most respectfully invited to return to this city as soon as previous engagements will permit, to plead before other congregations the cause of the oppressed,’

Last evening, our estimable friend, Amasa Walker, from your city, made an excellent address before our Anti-Slavery Society, and coadjutors from every quarter are coming up in the name of the God of hosts, to the furtherence of his righteous cause. Our hearts are animated with the increase of light; the day begins to dawn, the manacles of oppression will ere long be melted by the genial warmth of the Sun of Righteousness, and Ethiopia will stretch forth her hand to God.

Most truly, my friend, ever thine,

ARNOLD BUFFUM.

Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Boston.

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. 45-7

An Abolitionist to William Lloyd Garrison, December 6, 1834

South READING, Dec. 6, 1834.

MR. GARRIsoN — The numerous panegyrical notices of Mr. THoMPsoN, which had for the last two months appeared in the columns of the Liberator, had put curiosity upon tiptoe in our little village to hear this disinterested, generous and eloquent MAN of TRUTH, and ADvoCATE of LIBERTY. He favored us with his presence yesterday, and last evening lectured for the space of two hours in the Baptist meeting-house, with zealous fluency and triumphant argumentation. The audience was a large one, and highly respectable, notwithstanding the purposely slight and obscure notice of the meeting which was given by our congregational minister, who is still on the side of gradualism and expatriation. A considerable number of individuals, animated by various motives, came from the surrounding towns,—even as far as Salem,—among whom were the Rev. Mr. Grosvernor and Richard P. Waters, Esq. . The meeting was opened with singing by the choir, and prayer by the Rev. Mr. Pickett of Reading; after which, Rev. Mr. Grosvenor made a few pertinent remarks, introducing Mr. Thompson to us, in which he reminded us that American liberty was won and established partly by the valor of a foreigner – Lafayette; and that the spiritual redemption of the world was effected through the instrumentality of another foreigner — the Lord Jesus Christ.

Of Mr. Thompson's lecture I shall not attempt to give you even the outlines. The topics were so various, the arguments so profound, the illustrations so rich and appropriate, the transitions from the pathetic to the severe, and from the beautiful to the sublime, were so incessant yet natural, that my pen might as well attempt to give the sound of the mountain torrent, or mark the course of the lightning, as to state them in their order, with justice either to the subject or the orator.

Mr. Thompson in his exordium, at once secured the earnest attention of his hearers by remarking, with measured and solemn enunciation, that the question which he was about to discuss was one of immense magnitude and transcendant importance, in comparison with which, all others that are now agitating the minds of the American people, appertaining to the politics or the prosperity of the nation, dwindled into insignificance; and he trusted that he might be able to go into its discussion with that candor and faithfulness which it merited, and that his auditors would listen with unbiassed, unprejudiced, and christian minds. If he should misapprehend, or misinterpret, or misstate, in any particular whatever; if he should swerve but a hair's breadth from the line of eternal rectitude, or fail in sustaining every assertion and every proposition that he might make; he called upon every one present, who should detect him in error, to rise and expose his sophistry or his ignorance. But if he should speak understandingly — truly — with a zeal according to knowledge; if he should show that slavery in the abstract and in the concrete was wrong, and that it was emphatically a national transgression—then it became each of those before him to say with repenting Saul — “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”

With regard to this finding something to do, which many think is so difficult a matter, Mr. Thompson asked — Do you know of any abolitionists, who are at a loss what to do for the emancipation of the slaves? Do they not say, that there are so many appropriate and important modes of action, that they are often puzzled which of them to select? Do they not exclaim — O, that our zeal, our talents, our means, our influence, were increased a hundred fold! O, that we could be here — there — every where, rebuking, encouraging, convincing and reforming a perverse and cruel people!

But, — but, — “We are as much opposed to slavery as we can be.” This hypocritical and impudent profession was most severely dealt with by Mr. Thompson, in a strain of burning satire. He interrogated those who made it, whether they remembered the slave in their prayers — in their intercourse with relations and friends? whether they contributed aught of their substance to the furtherance of the anti-slavery cause, or circulated any petitions for the abolition of slavery in those portions of territory which are under the jurisdiction of the national legislature? To which interrogation the reply uniformly was — “O, no! we have done none of these ; but then-we are as much opposed to slavery as we can be.”

The speaker then made a death grapple with those who run to the Bible to find a precedent and a plea for southern slavery, and tore them limb from limb. He nobly vindicated that precious volume, and its great Author, from the impious aspersions which had been cast upon them by the apologists of slavery, who contended that they gave full warrant for the murderous system. All those of his audience who were jealous for the honor and glory of God, and the holy repute of the scriptures, must have rejoiced in the masterly exhibition of truth which was made on this interesting occasion.

We were gratified to see you in the assembly, Mr. Garrison: and we could not but rejoice anew at the glorious fruits of your mission to England, as seen in the speedy and utter overthrow of the agent of the American Colonization Society in that country — in the increasing sympathy of British christians for the slaves in our land — in the efficient aid which they are giving to us in various channels — and particularly, and above all, in securing to us, even “without money and without price, the invaluable services of GEORGE THOMPSON and CHARLES STUART — philanthropists whose hearts burn with patriotic as well as christian love for our great but guilty republic — whose only desire is, to make us “that happy people whose God is the Lord” — and who duly appreciate and admire all that is truly excellent in our character as a people.

At the close of the lecture, Mr. Thompson again requested persons present, if there were any such, who had any difficulties yet remaining on their minds, or who were not entirely satisfied with his arguments, or who thought he had erred either as to matter of fact or of inference, to express their views or propound any questions without reserve. After a short pause, Rev. Mr. Grosvenor rose and said, that, as for himself, he had no objections to make to any thing that had been advanced by the speaker. He then alluded to the fact that, for his advocacy of the cause of the oppressed, he (Mr. Grosvenor) had lost his church and congregation in Salem; but expressed a holy resolve that come what might, he would at all times and in all places be a mouth-piece for the suffering and the dumb. His remarks, though few, were made with much feeling and firmness; after which, he pronounced a benediction upon the assembly.

As yet, I have heard but a single individual who was not pleased with Mr. Thompson's lecture, although there may be others — for

“Men convinced against their will,

Are of the same opinion still.”

He is a gradualist — a colonizationist — and, I believe, a member of an orthodox church; and he says that Mr. T. ought to have had another brickbat thrown at his head alluding to the affair at Lowell. What an amiable temper what a benevolently disposed man! what a meek and forgiving Christian!

We hope Mr. T. will visit us again shortly — but our brethren in Reading think it is their turn next.

Yours truly,

AN ABOLITIONIST.

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. 34-7

Nathaniel Peabody Rogers: The Discussion, July 14, 1838

The discussion goes on. It pervades, it possesses, it “agitates” the land. It must be stopped, or slavery dies, and the colored man has his liberty and his rights, and Colonization is superseded. Can it not be stopped? Cannot the doctors, the editors, the “property and standing,” the legislatures, congress, the mob, Mr. Gurley, somebody or other, some power or other, the governors, his honor the Chief Justice Lynch; cannot any body, or every body united, put down this discussion? Alas for the “peculiar institution!” it cannot be done. The club of Hercules could not strike it down; it is as impalpable to the brute blow as the stately ghost of “buried Denmark” was to the “partisan” of Marcellus. It cannot be stopped or checked. It is unrestrainable as the viewless winds, or the steeds of Apollo. You hear it every where. The atmosphere is rife with it. “Abolition,” “immediate,” “compensation,” “amalgamation,” “inferior,” “equal;” “inalienable,” “rights,” “the Bible,” “of one blood,” “West Indies,” “mobs,” “arson,” “petition,” “gag-law,” “John Quincy Adams,” “Garrison.” These are the words, and as familiar as household phrase. The air resounds to the universal agitation. Truth and conviction every where result, — the Genius of Emancipation moves triumphantly among the half-awakened people. And Slavery, aghast at the general outcry and the fatal discoveries constantly making of its diabolical enormities, gathers up its all for retreat or desperate death, as the case shall demand. The discussion can't be smothered — can't be checked — can't be abated — can't be endured by pro-slavery. The fiat has gone forth. It is registered in heaven. The colored man's humanity is ascertained and proved, and henceforth he is destined to liberty and honor. God is gathering his instrumentalities to purify this Ration. War, Slavery and Drunkenness are to be purged away from it. The drunkard, that wont reform, will be removed from the earth's surface, and his corporeal shame hidden in her friendly recesses, — his spiritual “shame,” alas, to be “everlasting” — with that unutterable “contempt” which must attend final impenitence, as saith God. Those persisting in the brute practice of what is styled military, which is nothing more or less than human tigerism — rational brutality — hatred dressed up in regimentals — malignity cockaded, — and “all uncharitableness” plumed and knapsacked, — homicide under pay, and murder per order, all who persist in this beastly and bloody mania, and refuse to join the standard of universal non-resistance peace-^will perish by the sword, or by some untimely touch of the Almighty, — for Christ hath said, “All they who take the sword shall perish with the sword;” and the period of accomplishment of his work on this little globe is at hand. Let the warrior of the land take warning. “A prudent man foreseeth,” &c. And slaveholders, pilferers of humanity! those light-fingered ones, who “take without liberty” the very glory and essence of a man, — who put out that light which dazzles the eye of the sun, and would burn on, but for this extinction, when the moon hath undergone her final waning, — those traffickers in immortality, who sell a Man “for a pair of shoes;” those hope-extinguishers, heart-crushers, home-quenchers, family-dissolvers, tie-sunderers; — oh, for a vocabulary — new, copious and original, of awful significancy and expression — that should avail us to shadow forth faintly to the apprehensions of mankind, the unutterable character of this new “ill,” that hath befallen inheriting “flesh;” an “ill” that “flesh” by nature was not “heir to;” — oh, those man, woman and child-thieves, — those unnatural, ultra and extra cannibals, who devour their own flesh; whose carniverous monstrosity is not limited to the blood and flesh of the stranger, — whose voracity invades the forbidden degrees, and eats its near relations within the matrimonial prohibitions, — son-eaters and daughter-consumers — who grow children to sell, and put into their coffers, to buy bread withal, the price of their own-begotten offspring; thus eating “themselves a third time,” as Pope says, “in their race” — “the cubless tigress in her jungle raging” is humanity and sympathy, compared to them: she “rages” when the hunter hath borne off her bruised young, and given her savage bosom the pang of maternal bereavement. She would waste her mighty nature to a shadow, and her strong frame to a skeleton, ere she would appease her hunger by profaning the flesh of her own cubs! Slaveholders! American slaveholders, republican slaveholders, liberty slaveholders, Christianity slaveholders, church-member slaveholders, minister slaveholders, doctor of divinity slaveholders, church slaveholders, missionary slaveholders, “Board of Commissioner” slaveholders, monthly concert slaveholders, Bible Society slaveholders, and Bible Withholders! What will the coming millennium say to you, or do with you? What disposition will it make of you and your system, should it burst upon you when it is in the full tide of experiment! the land smoking with it! Will not the glorious morn and opening dawn of Christ's kingdom prove flaming fire to devour you from the face of the earth? The millennial day pouring in its living light upon scenes, whose enormity shrouds the natural sun, what will become of the actors in these scenes? O for the warning voice that once affrighted Nineveh, and clad her nation in sackcloth, from the king on the throne to the beggar on the dunghill; that laid a people in ashes! But it may not be. Another fate, we fear, attends this last of republics. Warning is esteemed as mockery, and admonition as frenzy.

Shall we hold our peace amid scenes like these? Shall we argue and persuade, be courteous, convince, induce, and all that? No — we shall attempt no such thing, for the simple reason that such things are entirely uncalled for, useless, foolish, inadequate.

Argue with slavery, or argue about it; argue about a sinking ship, or a drowning man, or a burning dwelling! Convince a sleeping family, when the staircase and roof are falling in, and the atmosphere is loaded to suffocation with smoke! “Address the understanding,” and “soothe the prejudices,” when you see a man walking down the roof in his sleep, on a three-story house! Bandy compliments and arguments with the somnambulist, on “Table Rock,” when all the waters of lake Superior are thundering in the great Horse Shoe, and deafening the very war of the elements! Would you not shout to him with a clap of thunder through a speaking trumpet — if you could command it — if possible to reach his senses in his appalling extremity? Did Jonah argufy with the city of Nineveh, — “Yet forty days,” cried the vagabond prophet, “and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” That was his salutation. And did the “property and standing” turn up their noses at him, and set the mob on to him? Did the clergy discountenance him, and call him extravagant, misguided, a divider of churches, a disturber of parishes? What would have become of that city, if they had done this? Did they “approve his principles,” but dislike his “measures” and his “spirit?”

Slavery must be cried down, denounced down, ridiculed down, and pro-slavery with it, or rather before it. Slavery will go when pro-slavery starts. The sheep will follow, when the bell-wether leads. Down then with the bloody system! out of the land with it, and out of the world with it — into the Red sea with it! Men shan't be enslaved in this country any longer. Women and children shan't be flogged here any longer. If you undertake to hinder us, the worst is your own. The press is ours. Demolish it, if you please, — muzzle it, you shall never. Shoot down the Lovejoys you can; and if your skirts are not red enough with his blood, dye them deeper with other murders. You can do it with entire impunity. You can get the dead indicted and tried along with you, and the jury will find you all not guilty together; and “public sentiment” will back you up, and say you had ample provocation. To be sure, you will not escape the vengeance of Heaven; but who cares for that, in a free and christian country? You will come to an untimely end; — but that, you know, is nothing to a “judicious,” “well-regulated,” “christian spirit!” But this is all fanaticism. Wait and see.

SOURCE: Collection from the Miscellaneous Writings of Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, Second Edition, p. 5-9 which states it was published in the Herald of Freedom of July 14, 1838.

Samuel Fessenden to the Editor of the New York Evangelist, November 2, 1834

PORTLAND, ME., Nov. 2, [1834].

As you have already received and published a correct account of the formation of a State A. S. Society for Maine, an event which diffuses general joy among the friends of the cause of immediate abolition, and increases the hopes of its advocates, I do not recur to the event for any other object, than as it was the occasion of drawing into this State that distinguished friend of the cause, George Thompson, Esq.

I had the pleasure of attending most of his lectures while among us, and cannot but say, I feel thankful to God, who has inclined his heart to embark in the mighty undertaking of the emancipation of American slaves, having in conjunction with the great and good, achieved the emancipation of British slaves. Next to Him, “who holds the hearts of men in his hands, and turns them as the rivers of waters are turned,” I feel grateful to Mr. T., who has given himself liberally to the work, and to those beloved philanthropists who have furnished the means of his coming. Never, in my humble judgment, was an individual better qualified for the mighty task which he has come to aid than is Mr. T. Every word every action affords strong evidence that he enters on his labors with a heart overflowing with Christian philanthropy, and devoted to the God-like cause which he has come to sustain and enforce.

I place first among his qualifications as an advocate of abolition, the spirit of Christ with which he is, most evidently, deeply imbued, and which he breathes forth in every address, and I might add, in almost every sentence. On his tongue, is emphatically the law of kindness. This is as it should be. Next his powers of mind are evidently of a superior order. And if you add the gifts and graces of a thorough systematic education, it must necessarily follow that he must be a powerful advocate of any cause to which he might devote his attention, and upon which he should bring such a mind to bear. He has-great, complicated, delicate, and I might say overwhelming as it is—completely mastered the subject. It must have been considered by him in its infinitely important relations, both to time and eternity, with a clearness of perception which is the result of the combined agency of pure and elevated religious affections, and a powerful and discriminating intellect. That Mr. Thompson should possess a very thorough knowledge of the evils of slavery generally, and of its appropriate remedies, I was prepared to expect; but I was not prepared to see him display such a thorough and intimate acquaintance with the constitution and laws, and genius of our government, if I may use the expression, and with the constitution and laws of the slaveholding states, as he has evidently acquired. He seems to be as familiar with them all as one born and educated upon the soil polluted by this mightiest of evils — this most flagrant of sins. He seems like one who has traced this system through all its labyrinths of iniquity, to its polluted source; and to have uncovered its dark streams, and to exhibit to the moral and mental eye how it gushes from the grand reservoir of all plagues, the bottomless pit.

Such a man, on such a subject, cannot fail to be eloquent. Mr. Thompson is truly so. I think all who have heard him, both the friends and enemies of the cause, will sustain me in this. If to convince the understanding, to captivate the heart and engage the affections is eloquence, then Mr. T. is eloquent.

You will pardon me for adverting to the manner in which Mr. T. manages the question, and which bears me out in saying that he must prove a powerful agent in the accomplishment of the emancipation of the slaves and the extinction of slavery in our beloved country.

Mr. Thompson lays the foundation of his argument on the immutable law of God, and shows that slavery in all its shapes and forms, even the mildest it can assume, is opposed to the great and universal law of love — that, therefore, no one who claims to hold his fellow-man as property, can be guiltless — that the assumption of such a right is wresting from Jehovah his own peculiar prerogative, and must, therefore, be an aggravated sin—that it is the duty of all who are guilty, and that it is imperatively required, instantly to cease from this as well as from all other sins — that the only path of safety is the path of obedience — and that this is safe. That humanity, justice, the best interest of the slaveholder, as well as the slave, are in accordance with the law of God, and that we may safely rest on the promises of God that he will reward obedience in this, as well as in all other cases, by averting any evils which may be found as the result of obedience to his holy and righteous behests.

Such has been the scope of his argument. To do justice to his power in illustrating and enforcing it as well by the divine law, as promulgated in the word of God, as by the law written on the heart, and in the understanding, and enforced by an enlightened conscience, and confirmed by the whole history of mankind, and the dealings of Jehovah with individuals and nations, I would not attempt. Let him be heard, only, and any attempt I might make would be useless.

But, it will naturally be asked, what has been the effect produced upon the cause of the oppressed which he has thus been pleading! On those who have heard, I have no hesitation in saying the effect has been great and salutary. The decided have been aroused to more vigorous exertion —  the roving confirmed, and not a few, of the comparatively few, of the decided opponents, who were induced to attend, have been converted, or brought to pause in their career of opposition. But while I have the satisfaction of stating that the audiences, in point of numbers and moral worth, were respectable and in most instances large, still, a large proportion of the people, the professed friends of colonization, and most of our clergymen of the various denominations, and especially in this city, refused to hear. Some deeming the cause too secular to be considered by the religious community, and too unholy to be discussed from the pulpit.

Then in some instances it was found difficult to procure a suitable house, and in some we were met by absolute refusal. In some instances clergymen, professing to be opposed to slavery, refused even to give notice of our meetings from the pulpit. The Rev. Mr. Dwight, one of our most talented and active ministers of the congregational order in this city, refused to give the following notice:

“Mr. Thompson, from England, will lecture at 7 o'clock this evening, at the Christian chapel in Temple-street, on the subject of immediate emancipation, when he will attempt to show that such emancipation is not only required by the word of God, but is also the only just, safe or expedient remedy for American Slavery.

“All the friends of liberty, humanity, and religion, are respectfully invited to attend.”

I give this instance to show the spirit of the opposition with which we have to contend, and how far this awful sin of slavery has given a tinge to the minds of some, and I fear many, of our great and good men.

But I trust none of these things move us from our purpose, never to rest till an end is put to this crying abomination of our land.

Mr. T., I trust, will ere long visit your city, and that he may be heard, and rightly appreciated, is my earnest prayer. I am, dear sir, most affectionately,

Your friend and servant,

SAMUEL FESSENDEN.

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. 17-20