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May 16, 1838
Men, brethren and fathers?mothers, daughters and sisters, what came ye out to
see? A reed shaken with the wind? Is it curiosity merely, or a deep sympathy
with the perishing slave, that has brought this large audience together? [A yell
from the mob without the building.] Those voices without ought to awaken and
call out our warmest sympathies. Deluded beings! "they know not what they
do." They know not that they are undermining their own rights and their own
happiness, temporal and eternal. Do you ask, "what has the North to do with
slavery?" Hear it?hear it. Those voices without tell us that the spirit of
slavery is here,
and has been roused to wrath by our abolition speeches and conventions: for
surely liberty would not foam and tear herself with rage, because her friends
are multiplied daily, and meetings are held in quick succession to set forth her
virtues and extend her peaceful kingdom. This opposition shows that slavery has
done its deadliest work in the hearts of our citizens. Do you ask, then,
"what has the North to do?" I answer, cast out first the spirit of
slavery from your own hearts, and then lend your aid to convert the South. Each
one present has a work to do, be his or her situation what it may, however
limited their means, or insignificant their supposed influence. The great men of
this country will not do this work; the church will never do it. A desire to
please the world, to keep the favor of all parties and of all conditions, makes
them dumb on this and every other unpopular subject. They have become
worldly-wise, and therefore God, in his wisdom, employs them not to carry on his
plans of reformation and salvation. He hath chosen the foolish things of the
world to confound the wise, and the weak to overcome the mighty.
As a Southerner I feel that it is my duty to stand up here tonight and bear
testimony against slavery. I have seen it?I have seen it. I know it has horrors
that can never be described. I was brought up under its wing: I witnessed for
many years its demoralizing influences, and its destructiveness to human
happiness. It is admitted by some that the slave is not happy under the worst
forms of slavery. But I have never seen a happy slave. I have seen him
dance in his chains, it is true; but he was not happy. There is a wide
difference between happiness and mirth. Man cannot enjoy the former while his
manhood is destroyed, and that part of the being which is necessary to the
making, and to the enjoyment of happiness, is completely blotted out. The
slaves, however, may be, and sometimes are, mirthful. When hope is extinguished,
they say, "let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." [Just then
stones were thrown at the
windows,?a great noise without, and commotion within.] What is a mob? What would
the breaking of every window be? What would the levelling of this Hall be? Any
evidence that we are wrong, or that slavery is a good and wholesome institution?
What if the mob should now burst in upon us, break up our meeting and commit
violence upon our persons?would this be anything compared with what the slaves
endure? No, no: and we do not remember them "as bound with them," if
we shrink in the time of peril, or feel unwilling to sacrifice ourselves, if
need be, for their sake. [Great Noise.] I thank the Lord that there is yet left
life enough to feel the truth, even though it rages at it?that conscience is not
so completely seared as to be unmoved by the truth of the living God.
Many persons go to the South for a season, and are hospitably entertained in
the parlor and at the table of the slaveholder. They never enter the huts of the
slaves; they know nothing of the dark side of the picture, and they return home
with praises on their lips of the generous character of those with whom they had
tarried. Or if they have witnessed the cruelties of slavery, by remaining silent
spectators they have naturally become callous?an insensibility has ensued which
prepares them to apologize even for
barbarity. Nothing but the corrupting influence of slavery on the hearts of the
Northern people can induce them to apologize for it; and much will have been
done for the destruction of Southern slavery when we have so reformed the North
that no one here will be willing to risk his reputation by advocating or even
excusing the holding of men as property. The South know it, and acknowledge that
as fast as our principles prevail, the hold of the master must be relaxed.
[Another outbreak of mobocratic spirit, and some confusion in the house.]
How wonderfully constituted is the human mind! How it resists, as long as it
can, all efforts made to reclaim from error! I feel that all this disturbance is
but an evidence that our efforts are the best that could have been adopted, or
else the friends of slavery, would not care for what we say and do. The South
know what we do. I am thankful that they are reached by our efforts. Many times
have I wept in the land of my birth over the system of slavery. I knew of none
who sympathized in my feelings?I was unaware that any efforts were made to
deliver the oppressed?no voice in the wilderness was heard calling on the people
to repent and do works meet for repentance?and my heart sickened within me. Oh,
how should I have rejoiced to know that such efforts as these were being made. I
only wonder that I had such feelings. I wonder when I reflect under what
influence I was brought up, that my heart is not harder than the nether
millstone. But in the midst of temptation, I was preserved, and my sympathy grew
warmer, and my hatred of slavery more inveterate, until at last I have exiled
myself from my native land because I could no longer endure to hear the wailing
of the slave. I fled to the land of Penn; for here, thought I, sympathy for the
slave will surely be found. But I found it not. The people were kind and
hospitable, but the slave had no place in their thoughts. Whenever questions
were put to me as to his condition, I felt that they were dictated by an idle
curiosity, rather than by that deep feeling which would lead to effort for his
rescue. I therefore shut up my grief in my own heart. I remembered that I was a
Carolinian, from a state which framed this iniquity by law. I knew that
throughout her territory was continued suffering, on the one part, and continual
brutality and sin on the other. Every Southern breeze wafted to me the
discordant tones of weeping and wailing, shrieks and groans, mingled with
prayers and blasphemous curses. I thought there was no hope; that the wicked
would go on his wickedness, until he had destroyed both himself and his country.
My heart sunk within me at the abominations in the midst of which I had been
born and educated. What will it avail, cried I in bitterness of spirit, to
expose to the gaze of strangers the horrors and pollutions of slavery, when
there is no ear to hear nor heart to feel and pray for the slave. The language
of my soul was, "Oh tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of
Askelon." But how different do I feel now! Animated with hope, nay, with an
assurance of the triumph of liberty and good will to man, I will lift up my
voice like a trumpet, and show this people their transgression, their sins of
omission towards the slave, and what they can do towards affecting Southern
mind[s], and overthrowing Southern oppression.
We may talk of occupying neutral ground, but on this subject, in its present
attitude, there is no such thing as neutral ground. He that is not for us is
against us, and he that gathereth not with us, scattereth abroad. If you are on
what you suppose to be neutral ground, the South look upon you as on the side of
the oppressor. And is there one who loves his country willing to give his
influence, even indirectly, in favor of slavery?that curse of nations? God swept
Egypt with the besom of destruction, and punished Judea also with a sore
punishment, because of slavery. And have we any reason to believe that he is
less just now??or that he will be more favorable to us than to his own
"peculiar people"? [Shoutings, stones thrown against the windows,
&c.]
There is nothing to be feared from those who would stop our mouths, but they
themselves should fear and tremble. The current is even now setting fast against
them. If the arm of the North had not caused the Bastille of slavery to totter
to its foundations, you would not hear those cries. A few years ago, and the
South felt secure, and with a contemptuous sneer asked, "Who are the
abolitionists? The abolitionists are nothing"??Ay, in one sense they were
nothing, and they are nothing still. But in this we
rejoice, that "God has chosen things that are not to bring to nought things
that are." [Mob again disturbed the meeting.]
We often hear the question asked, "What shall we do?" Here is an
opportunity for doing something now. Every man and every woman present may do
something by showing that we fear not a mob, and, in the midst of threatenings
and revilings, by opening our mouths for the dumb and pleading the cause of
those who are ready to perish.
To work as we should in this cause, we must know what Slavery is. Let me urge
you then to buy the books which have been written on this subject and read them,
and then lend them to your neighbors. Give your money no longer for things which
pander to pride and lust, but aid in scattering "the living coals of
truth" upon the naked heart of this nation,?in circulating appeals to the
sympathies of Christians in behalf of the outraged and suffering slave. But, it
is said by some, our "books and papers do not
speak the truth." Why, then, do they not contradict what we say? They
cannot. Moreover the South has entreated, nay commanded us to be silent; and
what greater evidence of the truth of our publications could be desired?
Women of Philadelphia! allow me as a Southern woman, with much attachment to
the land of my birth, to entreat you to come up to this work. Especially let me
urge you to petition. Men may settle this and other questions at the
ballot-box, but you have no such right; it is only through petitions that you
can reach the Legislature. It is therefore peculiarly your duty to
petition. Do you say, "It does no good?" The South already turns pale
at the number sent. They have read the reports of the proceedings of Congress,
and there have seen that among other petitions were very many from the women of
the North on the subject of slavery. This fact has called the attention of the
South to the subject. How could we expect to have done more as yet? Men who hold
the rod over slaves, rule in the councils of the nation: and they deny our right
to petition and to remonstrate against abuses of our sex and of our kind. We
have these rights, however, from our God. Only let us exercise them: and though
often turned away unanswered, let us remember the influence of importunity upon
the unjust judge, and act accordingly. The fact that the South look with
jealousy upon our measures shows that they are effectual. There is, therefore,
no cause for doubting or despair, but rather for rejoicing.
It was remarked in England that women did much to abolish Slavery in her
colonies. Nor are they now idle. Numerous petitions from them have recently been
presented to the Queen, to abolish the apprenticeship with its cruelties nearly
equal to those of the system whose place it supplies. One petition two miles and
a quarter long has been presented. And do you think these labors will be in
vain? Let the history of the past answer. When the women of these States send up
to Congress such a petition, our legislators
will arise as did those of England, and say, "When all the maids and
matrons of the land are knocking at our doors we must legislate." Let the
zeal and love, the faith and works of our English sisters quicken ours?that
while the slaves continue to suffer, and when they shout deliverance, we may
feel that satisfaction of having done
what we could.
Source: Library of Congress
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