Book: Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854)

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More than this, every creature, so far as other creatures are
concerned, has a right to be happy in his own way. Nero had as much
right to wish for power to cut off all the heads in Italy at one blow,
as an innocent pig to wish for capacity to eat all the corn in the
world. Mankind has no right to punish either for the desire or its
manifestation. They should only make fences to prevent the
accomplishment of the wish.

Americans have no right to punish Judge Grier for wishing to persecute
everybody who attempts to enforce State laws against murderous
assaults by _his_ officers. They should content themselves with
fencing his Honor in, or, if necessary, putting a ring in his nose. He
has as much right to be Judge Grier as George Washington had to be
George Washington, and is no more selfish in following the instincts
of his nature, than Washington was in following his.

Without any great respect,
I am your friend,

[Illustration: (signature) Jane G. Swisshelm]




On Freedom.


Once I wished I might rehearse
Freedom's paean in my verse,
That the slave who caught the strain
Should throb until he snapt his chain.
But the Spirit said, "Not so;
Speak it not, or speak it low;
Name not lightly to be said,
Gift too precious to be prayed,
Passion not to be exprest
But by heaving of the breast;
Yet,--would'st thou the mountain find
Where this deity is shrined,
Who gives the seas and sunset-skies
Their unspent beauty of surprise,
And, when it lists him, waken can
Brute and savage into man;
Or, if in thy heart he shine,
Blends the starry fates with thine,
Draws angels nigh to dwell with thee,
And makes thy thoughts archangels be;
Freedom's secret would'st thou know?--
Right thou feelest rashly do.

[Illustration: (signature) R. W. Emerson.]




Mary Smith,

AN ANTI-SLAVERY REMINISCENCE.


Some years ago a free colored woman, who was born in New England, and
had gone to the south to attend upon some family, was shipwrecked, as
she was returning northwards, on the coast of North Carolina. She,
however, as well as some of the crew of the vessel, was saved. The
half-civilized people of that region rendered some assistance to the
shipwrecked party; but Mary Smith was detained by one of the natives
as a slave.

The poor woman succeeded in getting a letter written to some person in
Boston, in which the particulars of her story were narrated. Either
this letter, or one afterwards written, contained references to people
in Boston who were acquainted with her.

It was not very easy, even with these references, to get sufficient
evidence to prove the freedom and identity of an obscure person, who
had been away from Boston for some years. A strong interest, however,
was felt in the case wherever it became known. And Rev. Samuel
Snowden, well-remembered by the name of Father Snowden, with his usual
indomitable energy and perseverance in aiding persons of his own color
in distress, succeeded in finding people in Boston who were well
acquainted with Mary Smith, and recollected her having left that place
to go to the south. Pursuing his inquiries with great diligence, he
ascertained the place of her birth, which was somewhere in New
Hampshire. I forget the name of the town.

Affidavits were now procured, which established the place of Mary
Smith's birth, her residence in Boston, and the time of her departure
for the south, and other circumstances to corroborate her story.

Edward Everett, who was at this time Governor of Massachusetts, at the
request of Mary Smith's friends, forwarded the documents they had
obtained, accompanied with an urgent letter from himself, demanding
her release from captivity, on the ground of her being a free citizen
of Massachusetts.

The Governor of North Carolina replied very courteously to Governor
Everett. He admitted the right of the woman to her freedom, and
acknowledged that no person in North Carolina could lawfully detain
her as a slave. But, at the same time he said, that as Governor, he
had no power to interfere with the person who held her in custody. The
decision on her right to freedom, depended on another department of
the government. He promised, however, to write to the man who held
her, and solicit her release.

The remonstrances of the Governor of North Carolina proved successful.
Mary Smith soon arrived in Boston. And some of her old acquaintances
who had given the evidence which led to her release, hastened to meet
her and congratulate her on her escape from bondage. At the meeting
they looked on her for some moments with astonishment, for they could
trace in her features no resemblance to their former companion. A
speedy explanation took place, from which it appeared that all the
documents sent to North Carolina related to one Mary Smith; but the
woman whose liberty they procured, was another Mary Smith.

Governor Everett had a hearty laugh when Father Snowden told him the
happy result of his letter to the Governor of North Carolina.

The moral of this story is, that a plain, common name, is sometimes
more useful to its owner, than a more brilliant one.

[Illustration: (signature) S. E. Sewall]

NOTE.--I have endeavored to give the facts of Mary Smith's
story with exact accuracy, writing from memory only, without
the aid of anything written. It is possible I may be
mistaken in some immaterial circumstance.




Freedom--Liberty.


Freedom and Liberty are synonymes. Freedom is an essence; Liberty, an
accident. Freedom is born with a man; Liberty may be conferred on him.
Freedom is progressive; Liberty is circumscribed. Freedom is the gift
of God; Liberty, the creature of society. Liberty may be taken away
from a man; but, on whatsoever soul Freedom may alight, the course of
that soul is thenceforth onward and upward; society, customs, laws,
armies, are but as wythes in its giant grasp, if they oppose,
instruments to work its will, if they assent. Human kind welcome the
birth of a free soul with reverence and shoutings, rejoicing in the
advent of a fresh off-shoot of the Divine Whole, of which this is but
a part.

[Illustration: (signature) James McCune Smith]

NEW-YORK, Nov. 22d, 1853.




An Aspiration.


You want my autograph. Permit me, then, to sign myself the friend of
every effort for human emancipation in our own country, and throughout
the world. God speed the day when all chains shall fall from the limbs
and from the soul, and universal liberty co-exist with universal
righteousness and universal peace. In this work I am

Yours truly,

[Illustration: (signature) E. H. Chapin.]

NEW YORK, Nov. 22d.


[Illustration: E. H. Chapin (Engraved by J. C. Buttre)]




The Dying Soliloquy of the Victim of the Wilkesbarre Tragedy.


He was approached from behind by Deputy Marshal Wyncoop and his
assistants, knocked down with a mace and partially shackled. The
fugitive, who had unsuspectingly waited upon them during their
breakfast at the Phenix Hotel, was a tall, noble-looking, remarkably
intelligent, and a nearly white mulatto; after a desperate effort and
severe struggle, he shook off his _five_ assailants, and with the loss
of everything but a remnant of his shirt, rushed from the house and
plunged into the water, exclaiming: "I will drown rather than be taken
alive." He was pursued and fired upon several times, the last ball
taking effect in his head, his face being instantly covered with
blood. He sprang up and shrieked in great agony, and no doubt would
have sunk at once, but for the buoyancy of the water. Seeing his
condition, the slave-catchers retreated, coolly remarking that "dead
niggers were not worth taking South."

Than be a slave,
Dread death I'll brave,
And hail the moment near,
When the soul mid pain,
Shall burst the chain
That long has bound it here.

Earth's thrilling pulse,
Man's stern repulse,
This weary heart no longer feels;
Its beating hushed
Its vain hopes crushed,
It craves that life which death reveals.

That moment great
My soul would wait,
In awe and peace sublime;
Nor bitter tears,
Nor slave-born fears,
As I pass from earth to time.

The angry past,
Like phantoms vast,
Glides by like the rushing wave;
So soon shall I,
Forgotten lie,
In the depths of my briny grave.

The time shall be,
"When no more sea"
Shall hide its treasures lone;
Then my soul shall rise,
Clothed for the skies,
To find its blissful home.

Foul deeds laid wrong
The whip and thong,
Have scored my manhood's heart,
But ne'er again
Shall fiends constrain
My body to the slave's vile mart.

The 'whelming wave,
This corpse shall lave;
Let the winds still pipe aloud,
Let the waters lash,
The white foam dash,
O'er mangled brow and bloody shroud.

Roll on, thou free,
Unfettered sea,
Thy restless moan, my dirge,
My cradle deep
In my last lone sleep,
Is the scoop of thy hollow surge.

Would I might live,
_One_ glance to give,
To those whose hearts would bless,
Each word of love,
All price above,
As mine to theirs I press.

The wish is vain;
My frenzied brain,
Is dark'ning even now;
Above, above,
Is Heaven's love,
And mercy's wide arched bow.

Glad free-born soul
With grateful hold,
Now grasp the gift from Heav'n--
Thy freedom won,
New life begun,
Forgive, thou'rt there forgiv'n.

[Illustration: (signature) H. H. Greenough]




Let all be Free.


Unbounded in thy expanse--far reaching
From shore to shore--ever beautiful
Are thy crystal waters--O sea.
Beautiful--when thy waves, the white pebbles lave,
When the weary sea-birds sleep, upon the bosom of the deep.
But when thy storm-pressed billows burst,
The grasp which man would "lay upon thy mane,"
Then do I most love thee, sea,
Thou emblem of the _Free_.

When above me beam the stars,
How beautiful in their infinitude of light,
O'er the blue heavens spread, like gems
Upon the brow of youth!
Far, far away, beyond the paths of day,
More glorious yet, as suns which never set,
In darkness never! but shining forever!
You are more loved by me--
Ye emblems of the _Free_.

All earth of the beautiful is full.
Beautiful the streams which leave the rural vales,
Fringed with scarlet berries and leafy green!
O world of colors infinite, and lines of ever-varying grace,
How by sea and shore art thou ever beautiful!
But the torrent rushing by, and the eagle in the sky,
The Alpine heights of snow where man does never go,
More lovely are to me,
For they are _Free_.

Beautiful is man, and yet more beautiful
Woman: coupled by bare circumstance
Of place or gold, still beautiful.
But this must fade!
Only the soul, grows never old:
They most agree, who most are free:
Liberty is the food of love!
The heavens, the earth, man's heart, and sea,
Forever cry, _let all be Free_!

[Illustration: (signature) C. M. Clay.]

KENTUCKY, 1853.


[Illustration: Frederick Douglass (Engraved by J. C. Buttre)]




_To the Editor of the "Autographs for Freedom."_

DEAR MADAM,--

If the enclosed paragraph from a speech of mine delivered in
May last, at the anniversary meeting of the American and
Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, shall be deemed suited to the
pages of the forthcoming annual, please accept it as my
contribution.

With great respect,

[Illustration: (signature) Frederick Douglass]

ROCHESTER, November, 1853.

Extract.


No colored man, with any nervous sensibility, can stand before an
American audience without an intense and painful sense of the
disadvantages imposed by his color. He feels little borne up by that
brotherly sympathy and generous enthusiasm, which give wings to the
eloquence, and strength to the hearts of other men, who advocate other
and more popular causes. The ground which a colored man occupies in
this country is, every inch of it, sternly disputed. Sir, were I a
white man, speaking for the right of white men, I should in this
country have a smooth sea and a fair wind. It is, perhaps, creditable
to the American people (and I am not the man to detract from their
credit) that they listen eagerly to the report of wrongs endured by
distant nations. The Hungarian, the Italian, the Irishman, the Jew and
the Gentile, all find in this goodly land a home; and when any of
them, or all of them, desire to speak, they find willing ears, warm
hearts, and open hands. For these people, the Americans have
principles of justice, maxims of mercy, sentiments of religion, and
feelings of brotherhood in abundance. But for _my_ poor people, (alas,
how poor!)--enslaved, scourged, blasted, overwhelmed, and ruined, it
would appear that America had neither justice, mercy, nor religion.
She has no scales in which to weigh our wrongs, and no standard by
which to measure our rights. Just here lies the grand difficulty of
the colored man's cause. It is found in the fact, that we may not
avail ourselves of the just force of admitted American principles. If
I do not misinterpret the feelings and philosophy of my white
fellow-countrymen generally, they wish us to understand distinctly and
fully that they have no other use for us whatever, than to coin
dollars out of our blood.

Our position here is anomalous, unequal, and extraordinary. It is a
position to which the most courageous of our race cannot look without
deep concern. Sir, we are a hopeful people, and in this we are
fortunate; but for this trait of our character, we should have, long
before this seemingly unpropitious hour, sunk down under a sense of
utter despair.

Look at it, sir. Here, upon the soil of our birth, in a country which
has known us for two centuries, among a people who did not wait for us
to seek them, but who sought us, found us, and brought us to their own
chosen land,--a people for whom we have performed the humblest
services, and whose greatest comforts and luxuries have been won from
the soil by our sable and sinewy arms,--I say, sir, among such a
people, and with such obvious recommendations to favor, we are far
less esteemed than the veriest stranger and sojourner.

Aliens are we in our native land. The fundamental principles of the
republic, to which the humblest white man, whether born here or
elsewhere, may appeal with confidence in the hope of awakening a
favorable response, are held to be inapplicable to us. The glorious
doctrines of your revolutionary fathers, and the more glorious
teachings of the Son of God, are construed and applied against us. We
are literally scourged beyond the beneficent range of both
authorities,--human and divine. We plead for our rights, in the name
of the immortal declaration of independence, and of the written
constitution of government, and we are answered with imprecations and
curses. In the sacred name of Jesus we beg for mercy, and the
slave-whip, red with blood, cracks over us in mockery. We invoke the
aid of the ministers of Him who came "to preach deliverance to the
captive," and to set at liberty them that are bound, and from the
loftiest summits of this ministry comes the inhuman and blasphemous
response, saying: if one prayer would move the Almighty arm in mercy
to break your galling chains, that prayer would be withheld. We cry
for help to humanity--a common humanity, and here too we are repulsed.
American humanity hates us, scorns us, disowns and denies, in a
thousand ways, our very personality. The outspread wing of American
Christianity, apparently broad enough to give shelter to a perishing
world, refuses to cover us. To us, its bones are brass, and its
feathers iron. In running thither for shelter and succor, we have only
fled from the hungry bloodhound to the devouring wolf,--from a corrupt
and selfish world to a hollow and hypocritical church.




Extract from an unpublished Poem on Freedom.


Oh, Freedom! when thy morning march began,
Coeval with the birth and breath of man;
Who that could view thee in that Asian clime,
God-born, soul-nursed, the infant heir of time--
Who that could see thee in that Asian court,
Flit with the sparrow, with the lion sport,
Talk with the murmur of the babbling rill
And sing thy summer song upon the hill--
Who that could know thee as thou wast inwrought
The all in all of nature's primal thought,
And see thee given by Omniscient mind,
A native boon to lord, and brute, and wind,
Could e'er have dreamed with fate's prophetic sleep,
The darker lines thy horoscope would keep,
Or trembling read, thro' tones with horror thrilled,
The damned deeds thy future name would gild?

Lo! The swart chief of Afric's vergeless plains,
Poor Heaven-wept child of nature's joys and pains,
Mounts his fleet steed with wind-directed course,
Nor checks again his free unbridled horse,
But lordless, wanders where his will inclines
From Tuats heats to Zegzeg's stunted pines!
View him, ye craven few, ye living-dead!
Wrecks of a being whence the soul has fled!
Ye Goths and Vandals of his plundered coast!
Ye _Christian_ Bondous, who of feeling boast,[7]
Who quickly kindling to historic fire
Contemn a Marius' or a Scylla's ire,[8]
Or kindly lulled to sympathetic glow,
Lament the martyrs of some far-off woe,
And tender grown, with sorrow hugely great
Weep o'er an Agis' or Jugurtha's fate![9]
View him, ye hollow heartlings as he stalks
The dauntless monarch of his native walks
Breathes the warm odor which the girgir bears,[10]
Shouts the fierce music of his savage airs,
Or madly brave in hottest chase pursues
The tawny monster of the desert dews;
Eager, erect, persistent as the storm,
Soul in his mien, God's image in his form!
Yes, view him thus, from Kaffir to Soudan,
And tell me, worldlings, is the black a man?

See, the full sun emerging from the deep,
Climbs with red eye, the light-illumined steep,
And brightly beautiful continuous smiles
A fecund blessing on those Indian Isles!
Like eastern woods which sweeten as they burn,
So, the parched earths to odorous flowrets turn,
And feathered fayes their murmurous wings expand,
Waked by the magic of his conjuror's wand,
Flash their red plumes, and vocalize each dell
Where browse the fecho and the dun-gazelle,[11]
While half forgetful of her changing sphere,
The loathful summer lingers year by year.
Here, in the light of God's supernal eye--
His realms unbounded, and his woes a sigh--
The dusky son of evening placed whilcome
Found with the Gnu an ever-vernal home,
And wiser than Athenas' wisest schools,[12]
Nor led by zealots, nor scholastic rules,
Gazed at the stars that stud yon tender blue,
And hoped, and deemed the cheat of death untrue;
Yet, supple sophist to a plastic mind,[13]
Saw gods in woods, and spirits in the wind,
Heard in the tones that stirred the waves within,
The mingled voice of Hadna and Odin,
Doomed the fleeced tenant of the wild to bleed
A guileless votive to his harmless creed,
Then gladly grateful at each rite fulfilled,
Sought the cool shadow where the spring distilled,
And lightly lab'rous thro' the torpid day,
Whiled in sweet peace the sultry eve away.

Or if perchance to nature darkly true,
He strikes the war-path thro' the midnight dew,
Steals in the covert on the sleeping foe,
And wreaks the horrors of a barbarous woe;
Yet, yet returning to the home-girt spot--
The vengeful causes and the deed forgot--[14]
Where greenest boughs o'er sloping banks impend,
And gurgling waves to bosky dells descend;
Intent the long expectant brood to sea,
He halts beneath the broad acacia tree;
And warmly pressed by wonder-gloating eyes,
Displays the vantage of each savage prize;
Stills with glad pride and plundered gems, uncouth,
The ardent longings of his daughter's youth;

Bids the dark spouse the tropic meal prepare,
Mid laughing echoes from the bird-voiced air;
Passes before him in a fond review
The merry numbers of his crisp-haired crew;[15]
Recounts the dangers of the last night's strife,
Joys with their joy, and lives their inner life;
And then when slow the lengthened day expires,
Mid twilight balms and star-enkindled fires,
With _all_ the father sees each form retire,
A ruthless heathen, but a loving sire.[16]

Innocuously thus, thro' long, long years
Untaught by learning, yet unknown to fears,
The swarthy Afric whiled the jocund hours,
A petted child of nature's rosiest bowers,
Till lured by wealth the hardy Portuguese,[17]
Seeks the green waters of his Eastern seas,
And venturous nations more excursive grown,
Scan his glad coast from radiant zone to zone,
Then Fortune's minion in a foreign clime,
Cursed by his own and damned to later time,
Of incest born and by the chances thrown
A tainted alien on a ravished throne,
Gapes the foul flatteries of a fawning train,
And fatuous mock'ries, which themselves disdain,
A fancied monarch, but the witless sport
Of adulation, and a practiced court,
Vaunts to his broad realms and Timour-like proclaims
Illusive titles of barbaric names,
Cheats his own nature, and now generous grown,[18]
Dispenses souls and empires not his own,
Draws the deep purple round his royal seat,
Lifts his low crest, affects the God complete,
By giving with light breath, oh, shame to tell!
These heirs of Heav'n unto the fate of hell.
Sped by the mandate of his recreant train,
Lo! commerce, broad winged seraph of the main!
Shook her white plumage and coqueting, won
Propitious favors from the southern sun,
Till manly hearts and keel-impelling gales,
Furled on the coast her half-reluctant sails.

Abashed, amazed, with fear-dilated eye
The marvelling tribes these new-born wonders spy;
See from the shore, bright glittering in the sun,
The moving freightage of each galleon;
Wait till the measured strokes of oars bring near
These way-lost wanderers of another sphere,
Then timorously glad, yet awe-struck still,
Lead from the sunshine to the breezy hill;
With courteous grace a resting place assign
'Neath rustling leaves and grape-empurpled vine,
And led by craft in artless pride make known
The lustrous lurements of their gorgeous zone,
As in the field some skilful ranger sets
The fraudful cordage of his specious nets,
Places some fragrant viand in the snare,
And captive takes the unsuspicious hare;
So the bold strangers with superior will
Lay their base plans with disingenuous skill,
Ope their stored treasures and with art display
Their worthless figments to the air of day,
Roll their large lids, and with grave gestures laud
Each tinsel trinket and each painted gaud;
With mystic signs of strange import apply
Some gew-gaw bauble to the gloating eye;
Touch with nice skill, yet craft-dissembled smile,
Gems from the mine and spices from the Isle,
Affect no care, yet hope a thrifty sale--
The wealth of Empires in th' opposing scale--
While he, the poor victim of their selfish creed,
Prescient of evil art foredoomed to bleed,
Pleased yet alarmed, desiring but deterred,
Flutters still nearer like a snake-charmed bird;
Alas, too often taken with a toy--
Too soon to weep a kindred fate with Troy!

Evils received, like twilight stars dilate,
The less the light, the larger grows their state;
Thus the first error in that savage air,
Spreads as a flame, and leaves a ruin there.
Too dearly generous and too warmly true,[19]
The simple black wears out the fatal clew,--
From barter flies to trade; from trade to wants;
From wants to interests and derided haunts;
Thence, rolls from off the once-sequestered shore,
The turgid tide of havoc and of war;
No warning ringing from the red adunes,
No prophets rising, and no Laocoons,
Remotest tribes the baleful influence own;
Feel to extremes, and at their centres groan.
Now laughs the stranger at their anguished throes,[20]
Feeds on their ills, and battens on their woes;
Glads his freed conscience at each pillaged mine,
And finds forgiveness at a Christian shrine;
By specious creeds and sophists darkly taught,[21]
To semble virtue and dissemble thought,
With Saviour-seeming smile, adds fuel to the flame,--
Ulysses' craft, without Ulysses' aim,--
And sadly faithful to his dark designs,
Fiction improves; heroic rage refines;
For lo! Achilles, victor of the train!
Draws Hector lifeless, round the Ilian plain;
But ah! these later Greeks more cruel strive,
And bind their victim to the load alive!

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