I have been
requested, Fellow-citizens, as Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements for
this meeting, to make a statement of the reasons for calling this meeting, and
of the objects which it is proposed to attain; and I shall do so very briefly.
A few weeks ago, there sailed from New Orleans a vessel belonging to this port,
owned and manned by New England freemen, under the flag of our Union—the flag
of the free. When she had been a week upon her voyage, and was beyond the
jurisdiction of the laws of Louisiana, far out upon a broad and illimitable
ocean, there was found secreted in her hold, a man lying naked upon the cargo,
half suffocated by the hot and stifled air, and trembling with fear. He begged
the sailors who found him not to betray him to the captain, for he had rather
die than be discovered before he got to Boston. Poor fellow! he had heard of
Boston; he had heard that there all men are free and equal;—he had seen the
word Boston written on that ship, and he had said to himself—“I, too, am a man,
and not a brute or a chattel, and if I can only once set my foot in that
blessed city, my claims to human brotherhood will be admitted, and I shall be
treated as a man and a brother,”—and he hid himself in the hold. Well, Sir, the
knowledge of his being there could not long be kept from the captain, and he
was dragged from his hot and close hiding-place, and brought upon deck. It was
then seen that he was a familiar acquaintance,—a bright intelligent mulatto
youth, who used to be sent by his master to sell milk on board; he had been a
favorite, and every man, from the captain to the cabin-boy, used to have his
jokes with “Joe.” They had treated him like a human being, could he expect they
would ever help to send him into slavery like a brute?
And now what was to
be done? Neither the captain nor any of his officers had been privy to his
coming on board; they could not be convicted of the crime of wilfully aiding a
brother man to escape from bondage; the man was to them as though he had been
dropped from the clouds, or been picked up floating on a plank at sea; he was
thrown, by the providence of God, upon their charity and humanity
But it was decided
to send him back to New Orleans; to deliver him up to his old owner; and they
looked long and eagerly for some ship that would take charge of him. None such,
however, was found, and the “Ottoman” arrived safely in our harbor. The wish of
the poor slave was gratified; his eyes were blessed with the sight of the
promised land. He had been treated well for the most part, on board, could he
doubt that the hearts of his captors had softened Can we suppose that sailors,
so proverbial for their generous nature, could have been, of their own accord,
the instruments of sending the poor fellow back I, for one, will not believe
it.
But the captain
communicated with his rich and respectable owners, men whom he was
accustomed to honor and obey, and they decided that whether a human being or
not, poor “Joe” must be sent back to bondage; they would not be a party, even
against their will, to setting free a slave. (Loud cries of “Shame,” “Shame,”
and “Let us know the name of the owner.”) The name of the firm is John H.
Pearson & Co. (Repeated cries of “Shame,” “Shame,” “Shame.”). It was a
dangerous business, this that they undertook; they did not fear to break the
laws of God—to outrage the laws of humanity; but they did fear the laws of the
Commonwealth, for those laws threatened the State's Prison to whoever should
illegally imprison another. They knew that no person, except the owner of the
runaway slave, or his agent, or a marshal of the United States, had any right
to touch him; they were neither the one nor the other; and they therefore hid
their victim upon an island in our harbor and detained him there.
But he escaped from
their clutches; he fled to our city—to the city of his hopes—he was here in our
very streets, fellow-citizens! he had gained an Asylum, he called on us for aid.
Of old, there were temples so sacred that even a murderer who had taken refuge
in them was free from pursuit; but no such temple did Boston offer to the
hunted slave; he was pursued and siezed, and those of our wondering citizens
who inquired what it all meant, were deceived by a lie about his being a thief,
and he was dragged on board ship. But the news of this got abroad; legal
warrants were at once procured; the shield of the habeas corpus was
prepared to cover the fugitive; officers of justice were urged to the pursuit;
the owner of the vessel was implored to give an order for the man's surrender,
but all in vain. A vessel was found, bound for New Orleans, which would consent
to be made a slave-ship of (Loud cries for the name of the ship.) The Niagara,
belonging to the same owners, and on board of this ship the man was sent back,
to receive the lash, and to wear the shackles, for his ill-starred attempt to
be free, and to drag out all the days of his life, a degraded, wretched, and
hopeless slave!
And now,
fellow-citizens, how does all this differ from piracy and the slave-trade? The
man was free—free at sea, free on shore; and it was only by a legal process
that he could be arrested. He was siezed in our city; bound and carried into
slavery by those who had no more right to do so than has the slave-trader to
descend upon the coast of Guinea and carry off the inhabitants. All these facts
are known and admitted; nay, they are defended by some who call themselves
followers of Him who said, “As ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even
so to them;” they are defended, too, by some of those presses, whose editors
arrogate to themselves the name of Watchmen on the towers of Liberty!
And now it will be
asked,—it has been asked, tauntingly,–How can we help ourselves? What can this
meeting do about it?
In reply, let me
first state what it is not proposed to do about it. It is not proposed
to move the public mind to any expression of indignation, much less to any acts
of violence against the parties connected with the late outrage. As to the
captain, it is probable that he was more sinned against than sinning. I am told
that he is a kind, good man, in most of the relations of life, and that he was
made a tool of Let him go and sin no more. As for the owners and their
abettors—the men who used the wealth and influence which God gave them, to
kidnap and enslave a fellow-man,—a poor, trembling, hunted wretch, who had fled
to our shores for liberty and sought refuge in our borders—let them go too,
their punishment will be dreadful enough without our adding to it. Indeed, I,
for one, can say that I would rather be in the place of the victim whom they
are at this moment sending away into bondage,_I would rather be in his place
than in theirs: Aye! through the rest of my earthly life, I would rather be a
driven slave upon a Louisiana plantation, than roll in their wealth and bear
the burden of their guilt; and as for the life to come, if the police of those
regions to which bad men go, be not as sleepy as the police of Boston, then,
may the Lord have mercy upon their souls'
But, Mr. Chairman,
again it is asked, “What shall we do?” Fellow-citizens, it is not a
retrospective but a prospective action which this meeting proposes, and there
are many ways in which good may be done, and harm prevented, some of which I
hope will be proposed by those who may follow me, and who probably will be more
accustomed to such meetings than I am. But first, let me answer some of the
objections which have been urged by some of those gentlemen who have been
invited to come up here to-night and help us, and have declined to do so. They
say, “We must not interfere with the course of the law.” Sir, they know as well
as we know, that if the law be the edge of the axe, that public opinion is the
force that gives strength and weight to the blow.
Sir, we have tried
the “let alone system" long enough ; we have a right to judge the future
by the past, and we know that the law will not prevent such outrage in
time to come, unless the officers of the law are driven by public
opinion to do their duty. What has made the African slave-trade odious? Was it
the law, or public opinion?
But, Sir, in order
to test the strength of this objection, let us suppose that instead of the poor
hunted mulatto, one of the clergymen of Boston had been carried off into
slavery. Would the pulpit have been silent? Had one of our editors been carried
away, would the press have been dumb Would there have been any want of glaring
capitals and notes of exclamation? Suppose a lawyer had been kidnapped in his
office, bound, and carried off to work on a slave plantation; would the limbs
of the law have moved so lazily as they did week before last Or suppose a
merchant had been torn from his counting-room in State street, and shipped for
the slave-market of Tunis; would there not have been an excitement all over the
city? Think you there would not have been “Indignation meetings” on “Change?”
And yet, Sir, are
any of these men more precious in the sight of God than the poor mulattoo Or
suppose a slave ship from the coast of Guinea, with her human cargo on board,
had been driven by stress of weather into our port, and one of her victims had
escaped to our shore, and been recaptured and carried off in the face of the
whole community; would there have been any want of “indignation” then ? And,
Sir, is there any difference, would it be a greater crime to carry such an one
away, except that as this man had been once a slave, he might be made a slave
again, that is, that two wrongs might make a right.
No, Mr. Chairman,
these are not the true reasons. It is, Sir, that the “peculiar institution,”
which has so long been brooding over this country like an incubus, has at last
spread abroad her murky wings, and has covered us with her benumbing shadow. It
has silenced the pulpit; it has muffled the press; its influence is everywhere.
Court street, that can find a flaw in every indictment, and can cunningly
devise ways to save the murderer from the gallows—Court street can find no way
of escape for the poor slave; State street, that drank the blood of the martyrs
of liberty, State street is deaf to the cry of the oppressed slave: the port of
Boston, that has been shut up by a tyrant king as the dangerous haunt of
freemen, the port of Boston has been opened for the slave-trader; for God's
sake, Mr. Chairman, let us keep Faneuil Hall free. Let there be words of such
potency spoken here this night as shall break the spell that is upon the
community. Let us devise such means and measures as shall secure to every man
who seeks refuge in our borders, all the liberties and all the rights which the
law allows him.
Let us resolve that
even if the slave-hunter comes to this city to seek his runaway victim, we will
not lay our hands upon him, but we will fasten our eyes upon him, and will
never take them off till he leaves our borders without his prey. Sir, there is
a potency, a magic power, in the gaze of honest indignation. I am told that one
of the parties of the late outrage—one of the owners of the “Ottoman,” came up
here to this temple of liberty the other night to hear Mr. John P. Hale talk
about slavery. He was discovered and pointed out. And, Mr. Chairman, what was
done to him? Why, Sir, he was fairly looked out of this Hall. No one
touched him ; but he could not stand the look of indignation, and he fled away.
Sir, this beats the hunters of the West; they boast that they can “grin the
varmint off the trees,” but they cannot look a slave-hunter out of countenance,
as the freemen of the East Can.
I say, Sir, if ever
the slave-hunter come among us in pursuit of his victim, let us not harm a hair
of his head—“let us touch not the hem of his garment; but let him be a
Pariah among us,” and cursed be he who gives him aid, who gives him food,
or fire, or bed, or anything save that which drove his friend and coadjutor
from Faneuil Hall the other night.
SOURCES: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and
Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 399-400; Address of the Committee
Appointed by a Public Meeting: Held at Faneuil Hall, September 24, 1846,
Appendix, p. 2-6
