In Commemoration of the Abolition of Slavery in the
British West India Islands, on the First Anniversary of that event, by the
Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.
_______________
I shall not advert prospectively, nor retrospectively, to
the emancipation of Englishmen. We who are engaged in a struggle similar to
that of the British advocates of outraged humanity, are to take up their
example. Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Brazil, and the French, will emulate the
deed. The day of triumph is certain; — there is no human power which can
prevent it, or prescribe its limits; no impiety shall say to the bounding wave
“Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther.” The irresponsible spirit, the
sublimity and moral prowess of Columbia, are the guarantees of the great
achievement. We may be misrepresented and vilified; but be not disturbed at
this. The same epithets now bestowed upon us, were bestowed upon a Clarkson and
a Wilberforce,
when one in Parliament, and the other out of it, devoted time, and talents,
comfort, and reputation, to the noble work. All the filthy channels of the
dictionary were turned upon a Wilberforce, and they fell like water upon the
back of the swan, leaving its purity and loveliness unspotted and unruffled.
We learn by the event, which we commemorate, the folly of
striving for less than the whole: we must struggle for complete justice; we
must ask nothing, and acquiesce in nothing short of that. The planters from the
West Indies, and from the Cape of Good Hope, all respectable men, besought the
British nation to be moderate in doing right. O, we must cut off only the claws
of the monster, leaving his jaws to crush the bodies and bones of our brethren.
They said we must mitigate, mitigate, mitigate; we beseech you, be not rash,
but mitigate; and in 1822, Mr. Canning, the Lords and Commons, the King and the
Church, men and women, combined to mitigate. What was the result? The planters
of Jamaica burned, in the public square, the mitigating act, at 12 o'clock at
night. And twelve o'clock it was with the hopes of the abolitionists;
for the hour approached when the dawn streaked the dark horizon, and grew
brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. No matter how much we mitigate and
soften; no matter whether truth come as a tomahawk, or in the form of an
instrument of cupping, to a delicate lady, if the truth come at all, we are
still fanatics. Wilberforce was called, to the day of his death, a
hoary-headed fanatic by the whole pro-slavery phalanx, but when he died,
the illustrious and the lowly, thronged around his bier. I saw with these eyes,
the deep religious reverence which his memory inspired, and the heartfelt
homage which his virtues drew from a vast and splendid train. Royalty,
nobility, bishops, Parliament and people, pressed to pay the great tribute of
tears to the pure and exalted of the earth, whose spirit had returned to its
Father in heaven.
How sleep the good who sink to
rest,
With all their country’s wishes
blest!
The spring, with dewy fingers
cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed
mould.
She there shall dress a sweeter
sod,
Than Fancy’s feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is
rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung.
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
“To bless the turf that wraps
their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there.
Who does not now wish to struggle for the mantle of
Wilberforce : Who is not ambitious to be folded in its bright amplitude:
In this cause, you cannot escape calumny. Here is our
brother, who has addressed us to day, (referring to Mr. May.) Do his mild and
persuasive words, which one would think might soften the hardest heart, save
him from the tongue of slander? Is not he a mark as well as I, who am rough and
unspun, and not afraid to stir up the bile, so that men may see it, and detest
it.
I accuse the press of the United States of dishonesty. There
is Antigua, and there are the Bermudas, free as the air above, and the waters
around them, and serene and peaceful, and prosperous as free; and what press
has spoken — what daily or weekly vehicle of intelligence, has presented this
prominent fact, by which the age itself will be quoted in times to come? Is it
told in Charleston? No. Is it told in Richmond? Is it told in New York or New
Haven? No. In Boston? No. A tempest in a slop basin has been got up in Jamaica;
and a scene of desolation, and hanging slaves, has been painted for the gaze of
the good people throughout the length of the land.
My friend did not mention the Cape of Good Hope and the
Mauritius. More than twenty British colonies, subsisting in peace, and
maintaining order in the transit of an unparalleled revolution, without crime,
without violence, without turbulence or tumult! ’Tis the death knell of
American slavery. American slavery cannot last ten years longer. Let who will
sink or swim, American slavery perishes. The monster reels and will down, and
we shall tread upon his neck.
But it is said to be presumptuous and wrong in me to meddle
with this question in the United States, because I am ignorant of it; and yet
those who say this have never thought proper to show any of my errors !
It is, they say, an unconstitutional question. Ay, it is
unconstitutional to feel for human suffering; it is unconstitutional to be
generous to the abject, or indignant at crime; it is unconstitutional to
preach, to pray, to weep. Hold, weeping mother there; your tears are
unconstitutional. It is unconstitutional to print, to speak, to say that two
and two make four, in the country where the ashes of George Washington lie!
They say we shall not prove that two and two are four.
Are the friends of abolition enemies of the Union? The
fastest, firmest, fondest friends of the Union, are abolitionists. I have
thought that the constitution might stand, and slavery fall; that slavery might
die, and the constitution live-live healthy and perennial. I have thought it
might live, and the black man and the white man rejoice under its broad and
protecting banner.
But I will not dwell upon this, as our friends have gone,
for whose special benefit it was intended. [The speaker was supposed to allude
to a few persons, who had appeared rather restless, for some time, and had at
this stage simultaneously retreated below the stairs.]
Abolition was unconstitutional in the West Indies. It was an
infringement of their charter, as my friend, Mr. Child, who has shown such an
intimate acquaintance with the West India colonies, knows.
But go to the hut of a free Antigonian, live with him, see a
Bermudian toss up a free child, and say if there be aught unconstitutional in
these. Look to them of Jamaica, when the three and five years, (a paltry
chandler shop business,) have expired; and declare of those regenerated men, if
the genius of emancipation have committed anything unconstitutional there.
For the present, you must be prepared to be libelled. When
slavery shall have fallen, out of the ruins you may dig a pretty fair
reputation. You must not expect your portraits to be-excellently drawn,
especially by southern limners. You may be represented with hoofs, and horns,
and other appendages of a certain distinguished personage, who shall be
nameless. It is in vain to regret, or strive to eschew this. Your reputation is
already gone. You are in the case of poor Michael Cassio. ‘O reputation,
reputation, reputation, I’ve lost my reputation. But yesterday, rich men bowed,
and bade me good morning in State street. The periodicals were delighted with
my articles, and returned substantial proofs of approbation. Now my paragraphs
of an inch long are suspected; and I seldom see the sunshine of a smile.
But never mind, reputation will come by and by. We have as
good a reputation as the Gallileans had, or as their Master had, and who could
have a better? Take it inversely, and you will hit it about right (at least if
you have all given as little cause as I have.) We have the testimony of the
Most High for our principles. In the language of the Declaration of sentiment, man
may fail, but principles never. The mustard seed is sown, or to change the figure,
the acorn is planted; nay it is not an acorn the oak is set and shall grow, and
spread over the black and the white its strong and ample boughs, and when cut
down it shall be the bulwark of your glory, and the guarantee of your safety.
(Mr. Thompson sat down amidst great applause.)
[The reporter does not pretend to do justice to Mr. Thomson
in the above sketch: to take down the thunder and lightning in short hand, expresses his idea of the
impossibility of reporting Mr. Thompson aright.
If those who heard shall be unsatisfied, he hopes they will consider
this.]
SOURCES: 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. 84-7; “First of
August, 1835,” The Liberator, Boston, Massachusetts, Saturday,
August 8, 1835, p. 3.
