Peterboro, Nov. 23, 1846,
Edmund Quincy,
Esq., of Massachusetts:
Dear Sir, — I have this evening, read your letter to
me, in the last Liberator. I am so busy in making preparations to leave home
for a month or two, that my reply must be brief. A reply I must make — for you
might construe my silence into discourtesy and unfriendliness.
From your remark, that you have not seen my “recent writings
and speeches,” I infer, that you do not deign to cast a look upon the
newspapers of the Liberty Party. Your proud and disdainful state of mind toward
this party accounts for some of the mistakes in your letter. For instance, were
you a reader of its newspapers, you would not charge me with “irreverently”
using the term “Bible politics.” You evidently suppose that I identify the
federal constitution and the Liberty Party with the politics of the Bible. But,
in my discourses on “Bible politics,” which, to no small extent, are made up
directly from the pages of the Bible, I seek but to show what are the
Heaven-intended uses of civil government, and what are the necessary
qualifications of those who administer it. So far are these discourses from
commending the constitution, or the Liberty Party, that they do not so much as
allude either to the one or to the other. Again, were you a reader of the
newspapers of this party, you would know its name. You would in that case know,
that “Liberty Party” is the name, which, from the first, it has chosen for
itself; and that “Third Party” is only a nickname, which low-minded persons
have given to it. You well know, that there are low-minded persons, who, seeing
nothing in the good man who is the object of their hatred, for that hatred to
seize upon, will try to harm him by nicknaming him. It is such as these, whose
malice toward the Liberty Party has, for want of argument against that
truth-espousing and self-sacrificing party, vented itself in a nickname. Be
assured, my dear sir, that I have no hard feelings toward you for misnaming my
party. You are a gentleman; and your error is, therefore, purely unintentional.
Upon your innocent ignorance — too easy and credulous in this instance, I admit
— the base creatures who coined this nickname, have palmed it as the real name
of the Liberty Party. You are a gentleman; and hence, as certainly as your good
breeding accords to every party, however little and despised, the privilege of
naming itself, so certainly, when you are awake to this deception which has
been practiced upon your credulity, you will be deeply indignant at it. I see,
from his late speech in Faneuil Hall, that even Mr. Webster has fallen into the
mistake of taking “Third Party” to be the name of the Liberty Party. The
columns of the Liberator have, most probably, led him into it. Being set right
on this point yourself, you will of course, take pleasure in setting him right.
He will thank you for doing so; for when he comes to know, that “Third Party”
is but a nickname, and the invention of blackguards, he will shrink from the
vulgarity and meanness of repeating it. Again, were you a reader of the
newspapers of the Liberty Party, you would not feel yourself authorized to take
it for granted, that to hold an office under the constitution is to be guilty
of swearing to uphold slavery. On the contrary, you would be convinced, that
nine-tenths of the abolitionists of the country — nine-tenths, too, of the wisest
and worthiest of them — believe, that an oath to abide by the constitution is
an oath to labor for the overthrow of slavery. Were you a reader of the
newspapers of the Liberty Party, you would know, that this position of these
nine-tenths of the abolitionists of the country is fortified by arguments of
William Goodell and Lysander Spooner, which there has been no attempt to
answer, and that, too, for the most probable reason, that they are
unanswerable. I am not sure, that you have ever heard of these gentlemen.
Theirs are perhaps, unmentioned names in the line of your reading and
associations. Nevertheless I strongly desire that you may read their arguments.
Your reading of them will, I hope, moderate the superlatively arrogant and
dogmatic style in which you, in common with the abolitionists of your school,
talk and write on this subject. If this or aught else, shall have the effect to
relax that extreme, turkey-cock tension of pride, with which you and your
fellows strut up and down the arena of this controversy, the friends of modesty
and good manners will have occasion to rejoice.
I have not taken up my pen to write another argument for the
constitution. Two or three years ago, I presumed to write one and the way in
which it was treated, is a caution to me not to repeat the presumption. I shall
not soon forget the fury with which the Mr. Wendell Phillips, whom you so
highly praise in the letter before me, pounced upon it. Nothing short of
declaring me to be a thief and a liar could relieve his swollen spirit, or give
adequate vent to his foaming wrath. He would, probably, have come to be ashamed
of himself, had not his review of me been endorsed by Mr. Garrison, and also by
one, who it is said, is even greater than Mr. Garrison — “the power behind the throne.”
I do not doubt, my dear sir, that you and your associates
have sincerely adopted your conclusions respecting the constitution. That you
should be thoroughly convinced by your own arguments is a natural and almost
necessary consequence of the self-complacency, which uniformly characterizes
persons who regard themselves as ne plus ultra reformers. I wish you
could find it in your hearts to reciprocate our liberality, in acknowledging
your sincerity, and to admit, that we, who differ from you, are also sincere.
No longer then would you suppose us, as you do in your present letter, to be
guilty of “Jesuitical evasions,” or to be capable of being, to use your own
capitals “PERJURED LIARS.” No longer then would you and the gentlemen of your
school speak of us as a pack of office-seekers, hypocrites, and scoundrels. But
you would then treat us — your equal
brethren, as honestly and ardently desirous as yourselves to advance the dear
cause to which you are devoted — with decency and kindness, instead of contempt
and brutality. I honor you and your associates, as true-hearted friends of the
slave; and nor man, nor devil, shall ever extort from my lips or pen a word of
injustice against any of you. I honor you also for the sincerity of your
beliefs, that they, who dissent from your expositions of the constitution, are
in the wrong. But I am deeply grieved at your superciliousness and intolerance
toward those, whose desire to know and do their duty is no less strong nor pure
than your own. Far am I from intimating that the blame of the internal
dissensions of the Abolitionists belongs wholly to yourselves. No very small
share of it should be appropriated by such of them as have indulged a bad
spirit, in speaking uncandidly and unkindly of yourselves. All classes of Abolitionists
have need to humble themselves before God for having retarded the cause of the
slave by these guilty dissensions.
I would that I could inspire you with some distrust of your
infallibility. I should, thereby, be rendering good service to yourself and to
the cause of truth. Will you bear to have me point out some of the blunders in
the letter to which I am now replying? And, when you shall have seen them, will
you suffer your wonder to abate, that the great body of Abolitionists do not
more promptly and implicitly bow to the ipse dixits of yourself and your
fellow infallibles? Casting myself on your indulgence, and at the risk of ruffling
your self-complacency. I proceed to point out to you some of these blunders.
Blunder No. 1. You charge me with holding, that the clause
of the constitution relating to the slave-trade, provides for its abolition.
What I do hold to, however, is, that the part of the constitution which
entrusts Congress with the power to regulate commerce, provides for the abolition
of this trade. That Congress would use the power to abolish this trade, was
deemed certain by the whole convention which framed the constitution. Hence a portion of
its members would not consent to grant this power, unless modified by the
clause concerning the slave-trade, and unless, too, this clause were made
irrepealable. When the life-time of this modification had expired, Congress,
doing just what the anti-slavery spirit of the constitution and the universal
expectation of the nation demanded, prohibited our participation in the African
slave-trade. I readily admit, that the clause in question is, considered by
itself, pro-slavery. But it is to be viewed as a part of the anti-slavery
bargain for suppressing the African slave-trade — and as a part, without which,
the anti-slavery bargain could not have been made. Did I not infer from your
own words, that you cannot possibly bring yourself to condescend to read the “writings
or speeches” of Liberty-party men, I would ask you to read what I wrote to John
G. Whittier and Adin Ballou on that part of the constitution now under
consideration.
Blunder No. 2. But what pro-slavery act can that part of the
constitution which respects the African slave-trade, require at the hands of
one who should now swear to support the constitution? None. No more than
if the thing, now entirely obsolete, had never been. What a blunder then to
speak of this part of the constitution, as an obstacle in the way of swearing
to support those parts of it which still remain operative!
Blunder No. 3. In your letter before me, as well as in your
approval of an article in the Liberator of 30th last month, you take the
position, that the pro-slavery interpretations of the constitution, at the
hands of courts and lawmakers, are conclusive that the instrument is
pro-slavery. But you will yourself go so far as to admit, that all slavery
under the national flag, and in the District of Columbia, and indeed
everywhere, save in the old thirteen States, is unconstitutional. Nevertheless
all such parts of unconstitutional slavery have repeatedly been approved by
courts and law-makers. You say, that the constitution is what its expounders
interpret it to be; and that, inasmuch as they interpret it to be pro-slavery,
you are bound to reject it. But the dignified and authoritative expounders of
the Bible interpret it to be pro-slavery. Why, then, according to your own
rules, should you not reject the Bible, also? Talleyrand, you know, thought a
blunder worse than a crime. You and I do not agree with him. But we certainly
cannot fail to agree with each other, that your blunder No. 3, is a very bad
blunder.
Blunder No. 4. You declare, that because the constitution is
as you allege, pro-slavery, it is inconsistent and unfair to reject a slaveholder
from holding office under it. Extend the application if you will, that you may
see its absurdity. The constitution of my State makes a dark skin a
disqualification for voting. Hence, in choosing officers under it — even
revisers of the constitution itself — I am not at liberty, according to your
rule, to exclude a man from the range of my selection, on the ground that he is
in favor of such disqualification. Nay, more, I must regard his agreement with
the constitution on this point, as an argument in favor of his claim to my
vote. Again — to conform to your rule, a wicked community should, because it is
wicked, choose a wicked preacher — or because it is ignorant, choose an
ignorant schoolmaster. Yours is a rule that refuses to yield to the law of
progress, and that shuts the door against all human improvement. You would, for
the sake of their consistency, have an individual — have a people — remain as
wicked as they are — and vote for drunkards and slaveholders, because they have
always done so. The provision of the constitution for its own amendment, is of
itself, enough to silence your doctrine, that the agreement of a man's
character and views with the constitution, is necessarily an argument for, and
can never be an argument against, his holding office under it. This provision
opens the door for choosing to office under the constitution, those who
disagree with it. This provision implies, that in the progress of things, a
man's agreement with the constitution may be a conclusive objection to clothing
him with official power under it.
But I will stop my enumeration of your blunders, and put you
a few questions.
1. Do you not believe, that it was settled by the decision
in the year 1772 of the highest court of England, that there was not any legal
slavery in our American Colonies?
2. Do you not believe, that there was no legal slavery in
any of the States of this nation, at the time the constitution was adopted?
3. Do you not believe, that the constitution created no
slavery; and that it is not to be held as even recognizing slavery,
provided there was, at the time of its adoption, no legal slavery in any of the
States?
4. Do you not believe, that had the American people adhered
to the letter and spirit of the constitution, chattel slavery would ere this,
have ceased to exist in the nation?
You will of course, be constrained to answer all these
questions in the affirmative. And I wish that, when you shall have answered
them, you would also answer one more — and that is the question whether, since
you are hotly eager for the overthrow of all civil government (they are not
governments whose laws, if laws they may be called, are without the sanctions of
force) you ought not to guard yourself most carefully from seeking unjust
occasions against them, and from satisfying your hatred of them, at the expense
of candor and truth? An atheist at heart is not unfrequently known to publish
his grief over what he (afflicted soul!) is pained to be obliged to admit are
blemishes upon the Bible. His words are, as if this blessed book were
inexpressibly dear to him. Nevertheless, his inward and deep desire is, that
with or without the blemishes he imputes to it, the Bible may perish. Our
Non-resistants throw themselves into an agony before the public eye, on account
of the pro-slavery which they allege taints the constitution. But, aside and
in their confidential circles, their language is: “Be the constitution pro-slavery
or anti-slavery, let it perish.” Were the constitution unexceptionable to you
on the score of slavery, you would, being a Non-resistant, still hate it with
unappeasable hatred. Now I put it to you, my dear sir, whether the
Non-resistants, when they ask us to listen to their disinterested arguments
against the anti-slavery character of the constitution, do not show themselves
to be somewhat brazen-faced! I say naught against your Non-resistance. That I
am not a Nonresistant myself — that I still linger around the bloody and
life-taking doctrines in which I was educated — is perhaps, only because I have
less humanity and piety than yourself. Often have I tried to throw off this
part of my education; and that the Bible would not let me, was, perhaps, only
my foolish and wicked fancy.
You ask me to join you in abandoning the constitution. My
whole heart — my whole sense of duty to God and man — forbids my doing so. In
my own judgment of the case, I could not do so without being guilty of the most
cowardly and cruel treachery toward my enslaved countrymen. The constitution
has put weapons into the hands of the American people entirely sufficient for
slaying the monster within whose bloody and crushing grasp are the three
millions of American slaves. I have not failed to calculate the toil and
selfdenial and peril of using those weapons manfully and bravely — and yet for
one, I have determined, God helping me, thus to use them — and not,
self-indulgently and basely, to cast them away. If the people of the north
should refuse to avail themselves of their constitutional power to effectuate
the overthrow of American slavery, on them must rest the guilty responsibility,
and not in that power — for it is ample. To give up the constitution is to give
up the slave. His hope of a peaceful deliverance is, under God, in the
application of the anti-slavery principles of the constitution.
No — I cannot join you in abandoning the constitution and
overthrowing the government. I cannot join you, notwithstanding you tell me
that to do so is " the only political action in which a man of honor and
self-respect can engage in this country." Your telling me so is but
another proof of your intolerance and insolence—but another proof of the
unhappy change wrought in your temper and manners by the associations and
pursuits of your latter years. Your telling me so carries no conviction to my
mind of the truth of what you tell me. It is a mere assertion;—and has surely,
none the more likeness to an argument by reason of the exceedingly offensive
terms in which it is couched.
Since I began this letter, I have received one from a couple
of colored men of the city of Alexandria. Never did I read a more eloquent, or
heart-melting letter. You remember that Congress, at its last session, left it
to the vote of the whites in that part of the District of Columbia south of the
Potomac, whether that part of the District should be set back to Virginia, and
colored people be subjected to the murderous and diabolical laws which that
State has enacted against colored people, the free as well as the bond. The letter
which I have received, describes the feelings of our poor colored brethren, as
they saw themselves passing from under the laws of the nation into the bloody
grasp of the laws of a slave State. I will give you an extract:
“I know that, could you but see the poor colored people of
this city, who are the poorest of God's poor, your benevolent heart would melt
at such an exhibition. Fancy, but for a moment, you could have seen them on the
day of election, when the act of Congress, retroceding them to Virginia, should
be rejected or confirmed. Whilst the citizens of this city and county
were voting, God's humble poor were standing in rows, on either side of the
Court House, and, as the votes were announced every quarter of an hour, the
suppressed wailings and lamentations of the people of color were constantly ascending
to God for help and succor, in this the hour of their need. And whilst their
cries and lamentations were going up to the Lord of Sabaoth, the curses and
shouts of the people, and the sounds of the wide-mouthed artillery, which made
both the heavens and the earth shake, admonished us that on the side of the
oppressor there was great power. Oh sir, there never was such a time
here before! We have been permitted heretofore to meet together in God's
sanctuary, which we have erected for the purpose of religious worship, but
whether we shall have this privilege when the Virginia laws are extended over
us, we know not. We expect that our schools will all be broken up, and our
privileges, which we have enjoyed for so many years, will all be taken away.
The laws of Virginia can hardly be borne by those colored people that have been
brought up in a state of ignorance and the deepest subjection: but oh sir how
is it with us, who have enjoyed comparative liberty? We trust that we have the
sympathies of the good and the virtuous. We know that we have yours and your
associates in benevolence and love. Dear friend, can you and yours extend to
our poor a helping hand, in this the time of our need? Remember, as soon as the
legislature of Virginia meets, which is in December, they will extend their
laws over us: and in the spring forty or fifty colored families would be glad
to leave for some free State, where they can educate their children, and
worship God without molestation. But, dear sir, whither shall we go? Say, Christian
brother, and witness heaven and earth, whither shall we go? Do we hear a voice
from you saying: ‘Come here?’ Or, are we mistaken? Say, brother, say, are we
not greater objects of pity than our more highly favored and fortunate brethren
of the North—(Heaven bless and preserve them!”)
If such, my friend, is the woe, when but a few hundred
colored persons (and part of them free) find themselves deserted by the
National Power, what will it not be, when, in the bosoms of three millions of
slaves, all hope of the interposition of that Power shall die? That Power I
would labor to turn into the channel of deliverance to these millions. That
Power you would destroy. Alas, were it this day destroyed, what a long, black
night would settle down upon those millions! Vengeance might, indeed, succeed
to despair; and its superhuman arm deliver the enslaved. But, such a
deliverance would be through blood, reaching, in Apocalyptic language, “even to
the horses’ bridles:” and to such a deliverance neither you nor I would
knowingly contribute.
But I am extending my letter to double the length I intended
to give it—and must stop.
With great regard,
your friend,
Gerrit Smith.
SOURCES: Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith:
A Biography, p. 201-8
