[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.
