[August 27, 1859.]
For many years I have feared, and published my fears, that
slavery must go out in the blood. My speech in Congress on the Nebraska Bill
was strongly marked by such fears. These fears have grown into belief. So
debauched are the white people by slavery, that there is not virtue enough left
in them to put it down. . . . The feeling among the blacks, that they must
deliver themselves, gains strength with fearful rapidity. . . . No wonder is it
that in this state of facts which I have sketched (the failure of the Liberal
Party, the Free Soil Party, the Republican Party, to do anything for the
slaves) intelligent black men in the States and Canada should see no hope for
their race in the practice and policy of white men. No wonder they are brought
to the conclusion that no resource is left to them but in God and
insurrections. For insurrection then we may look any year, any month, any day.
A terrible remedy for a terrible wrong! But come it must unless anticipated by
repentance, and the putting away of the terrible wrong.
It will be said that these insurrections will be failures — that
they will be put down. Yes, but, nevertheless, will not slavery be put down by
them? For what portions are there of the South that will cling to slavery after
two or three considerable insurrections shall have filled the whole South with
horror? And is it entirely certain that these insurrections will be put down
promptly and before they can have spread far? Will telegraphs and railroads be
too swift for even the swiftest insurrections? Remember that telegraphs and
railroads can be rendered useless in an hour. Remember, too, that many who
would be glad to face the insurgents, would be busy in transporting their wives
and daughters to places where they would be safe from that worst fate which
husbands and fathers can imagine for their wives and daughters.
SOURCE: Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith: A
Biography, p. 240-1
