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

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It is a singular fact, in the history of this enactment, that Mr.
Mason, who introduced the bill, and Mr. Webster, who, in advance,
pledged to it his support "to the fullest extent," both confessed, on
the floor of Congress, that in their individual judgments, it was
UNCONSTITUTIONAL,--that is, that the constitution, as they expounded
it, imposed upon the _States_ severally, the obligation to surrender
fugitive slaves, and gave Congress no power to legislate on the
subject. The Supreme Court, however, having otherwise determined,
these gentlemen acquiesced in its decision, without being convinced by
it. It is well known how grossly Mr. Webster, in his subsequent
canvass for the Presidency, insulted all who, like himself, denied the
constitutionality of the law. Another significant fact in the same
history is, that the law was passed by a _minority_ of the House of
Representatives. Of 232 members, only 109 recorded their names in its
favor. Many, deterred either by scruples of conscience or doubts of
the popularity of the measure, declined voting, while party discipline
prevented them from offering to it an open and manly resistance. A
third fact in this history, worthy to be remembered, is, that the
advocates of the law are conscious that its revolting provisions would
not bear discussion, forced its passage under the previous question,
thus preventing any remarks on its enormities--any appeals to the
consciences of the members--against the perpetration of such
detestable wickedness.

Seldom has any public iniquity been committed to which the words of
the Psalmist have been so applicable: "Surely the wrath of man shall
praise THEE; and the remainder of wrath shalt THOU restrain."

It was happily so ordered, that several of the early seizures and
surrenders under this law were conducted with such marked barbarity,
such cruel indecent haste, such wanton disregard of justice and of
humanity, as to shock the moral sense of the community, and to render
the law intensely hateful.

Very soon after the law went into operation, one of the pseudo judges
created by it, surrendered an alleged slave, on evidence which no jury
would have deemed sufficient to establish a title to a dog. In vain
the wretched man declared his freedom--in vain he named six witnesses
whom he swore could prove his freedom--in vain he implored for a delay
of ONE HOUR. He was sent off as a slave, guarded, at the expense of
the United States treasury, to his pretended master in Maryland, who
honestly refused to receive him. The judge had made a mistake (!) and
had sent a free man instead of a slave.

This vile law, although of course receiving the sanction of the
Democrats, it being a bid for the Presidency, was a device of the Whig
party, and could not have been carried but by the co-operation of
Webster, Clay, and Fillmore. As if to enhance the value of the bid,
the Administration affected a desire to baptise it in northern blood,
by making resistance to the law, a crime to be punished with DEATH.
The hustling of an officer, and the consequent escape of an arrested
fugitive, were declared, by the Secretary of State, to be a _levying
of war against the United States_--of course an act of HIGH TREASON,
to be expiated on the gallows; and the rioters at Christiana were
prosecuted for HIGH TREASON, in pursuance of orders forwarded from
Washington. This wretched sycophancy won no favor from the
slaveholders, and the result of the abominable and absurd prosecution
only brought on the authors and advocates of the law fresh obloquy.
When men obtain some rich and splendid prize, by their wrong-doing,
many admire their boldness and dexterity, but foolish, profitless
wickedness ensures only contempt. The northern Whigs, in doing
obeisance to the slave power, sinned against their oft-repeated and
solemn professions and pledges. They sinned in the expectation of
thereby electing a President, and enjoying the patronage he would
dispense. Most bitterly were these men disappointed, first in the
candidate selected, and next in the result of the election. The party
has been beaten to death, and it died unhonored and unwept. Let the
Fugitive Slave Law be its epitaph. Truly the Whig politicians were
"snared in the work of their own hands."

Certain fashionable Divines deemed it expedient to second the efforts
of the politicians in catching slaves, by talking from their pulpits
about Hebrew slavery, and the reverence due to the "powers that be
ordained of God." Yet the injunctions of the fugitive law were so
obviously at variance with the "HIGHER LAW" of justice and mercy which
these gentlemen were required by their Divine Master to inculcate,
that "cotton divinity" fell into disrepute, nor could the plaudits of
politicians and union committees save its clerical professors from
forfeiting the esteem and confidence of multitudes of Christian
people.

But Whig politicians and cotton Divines are not the only friends of
the fugitive law to whom it has made most ungrateful returns. The
Democratic leaders, bidding against the Whigs for the Presidency, were
most vociferous in expressions of the delight they took in the human
chase. Democratic candidates for the Presidency, to the goodly number
of NINE, gave public attestations under their _signs manual_, of their
approbation of a law outraging the principles of Democracy, as well as
of common justice and humanity. Each and all of these men were
rejected, and the slaveholders selected an individual whom they were
well assured would be their obsequious tool, but who had offered no
bribe for their votes.

But did the slaveholders themselves gain more by this law than their
northern auxiliaries? They, indeed, hailed its passage as a mighty
triumph. The nation had given them a law, drafted by themselves,
laying down the rules of the hunt, as best suited their pleasure and
interest. Wealthy and influential gentlemen in our commercial cities,
out of compliment to southern electors, became amateur huntsmen, and
in New York and Boston the chase was pursued with all the zeal and
apparent delight that could have been expected in Guinea or Virginia.
Slave-catching was the test, at once, of patriotism and gentility,
while sympathy for the wretched fugitive was the mark of vulgar
fanaticism. The north was humbled in the dust, by the action of her
own recreant sons. Every "good citizen" found himself, for the first
time in the history of mankind, a slave-catcher by law. Every
official, appointed by a slave-catching judge, was invested with the
authority of a High Sheriff, being empowered to call out the _posse
comitatus_, and compel the neighbors to join in a slave chase. Well,
indeed, might the slaveholders rejoice and make merry;--well, indeed,
in the insolence of triumph, might they command the people of the
north to hold their tongues about "the peculiar institution," under
pain of their sore displeasure.

But amid this slavery jubilee, a woman's heart was swelling and
heaving with indignant sorrow at the outrages offered to God and man
by the fugitive law. Her pent up emotions struggled for utterance,
and at last, as if moved by some mighty inspiration, and in all the
fervor of Christian love, she put forth a book which arrested the
attention of the WORLD. A miracle of authorship, this book attained,
within twelve months, a circulation without a parallel in the history
of printing. In that brief space, about two millions of volumes
proclaimed, in the languages of civilization, the wrongs of the slave
and the atrocities of the AMERICAN FUGITIVE LAW. The gaze of mankind
is now turned upon the slaveholders and their northern auxiliaries,
both clerical and lay. The subjects of European despotisms console
themselves with the grateful conviction, that however harsh may be
their own governments, they make no approach to the baseness or to the
cruelty and tyranny of the "peculiar institution" of the Model
Republic.[4]

One slaveholder, together with the cotton men of the north, fretted
and vexed by their sudden and unenviable notoriety, foolishly
attempted to obviate the impressions made by the book, by denouncing
it as a lying fiction. Nay, one of the most affecting illustrations of
pure and undefiled Christianity that ever proceeded from an uninspired
pen, was gravely declared, by an organ of cotton divinity, to be an
ANTI-CHRISTIAN book.[5] Truly, indeed, the wisdom of man is
foolishness with God. "He disappointeth the devices of the crafty."

Branded with falsehood and impiety, the author was happily put on her
trial before the civilized world. She collected, arranged, and gave to
the press, a mass of unimpeachable documents, consisting of laws,
judicial decisions, trials, confessions of slaveholders,
advertisements from southern papers, and testimonies of eye-witnesses.
The proof was conclusive and overwhelming that the picture she had
drawn of American slavery was unfaithful, only because the coloring
was faint, and wanted the crimson dye of the original. A verdict of
not guilty of exaggeration has been rendered by acclamation.

It has long been the standing refuge of the slaveholders, that
northern men and Europeans, in condemning slavery, were passing
judgment against an institution of which they were ignorant. The
"peculiar institution" was represented as some great _mystery_ which
could not be understood beyond the slave region. Thanks to the
fugitive law, it has led to the construction of a "_key_," which has
unlocked our Republican bastile, thrown open to the sunlight its
hideous dungeons, and exposed the various instruments of torture for
subjecting the soul, as well as the body, to hopeless and unresisting
bondage. The iniquity of our cherished institution is no longer a
MYSTERY. All Christendom is now made familiar with it, and is sending
forth a cry of indignant remonstrance and of taunting scorn. Such is
the suppression of anti-slavery agitation given to the slaveholders by
their northern friends--such the strength imparted by the fugitive
slave law to the system of human bondage. How applicable to the
inventors and supporters of that statute are the words of David, in
regard to some politician of his own day: "Behold he travaileth with
iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood. He
made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made.
His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing
shall come down upon his own pate;" and then he adds, "I will praise
the Lord." So also let the Christian bless and magnify HIM, who by his
infinite wisdom brings good out of evil, and in the case of the
fugitive law, HATH CAUSED THE WRATH OF MAN TO PRAISE HIM.

But there is still a _remainder_ of wrath. The law is still on the
Statute Book, and hungry politicians are promising that there it
shall ever remain; and terrible threats come from the south, of the
ruin that shall overwhelm the free States, should the law be repealed
or rendered less abominable than at present. Yet, in spite of northern
promises, and professions of security, and in spite of the great
swelling words of the dealers in human flesh, the _practical_, like
the moral working of the law, has been very far from what its authors
anticipated. The law was passed the 18th September, 1850, and, in two
years and nine months, not fifty slaves have been recovered under
it--not an average of EIGHTEEN slaves a year! Poor compensation this
to the slaveholders for making themselves a bye-word, a proverb, and a
reproach to Christendom--for giving a new and mighty impulse to
abolition, and for deepening the detestation felt by the true friends
of liberty and humanity, for an institution asking and obtaining for
its protection a law so repugnant to the moral sense of mankind. But
while this artful and wicked law, with its army of ten-dollar judges,
and marshals, and constables, and office-seekers, and politicians,
with the President and his cabinet all striving to enforce it, "to the
fullest extent," has restored to their masters not _eighteen slaves_
a year; the escapes from the prison house have probably never been
more numerous, nor the aid and sympathy afforded by Christians more
abundant. Thus has THE REMAINDER OF WRATH BEEN RESTRAINED. In the
marvellous conversion of this odious law into an anti-slavery agency,
let us find a new motive for unceasing and unwearied agitation against
slavery, and a new pledge of ultimate triumph.

[Illustration: (signature) William Jay]

BEDFORD, June 1853.


FOOTNOTES:

[4] A late American traveller, in Germany, invited to an evening party
at the house of a Professor, attempted to compliment the company by
expressing his indignation at the oppression which "the dear old
German fatherland" suffered at the hands of its rulers. The American's
profferred sympathy was coldly received. "We admit," was the reply,
"that there is much wrong here, but we do not admit the right of _your
country_ to rebuke it. There is a system now with you, worse than any
thing which we know of tyranny--your SLAVERY. It is a disgrace and
blot on your free government and on a Christian State. We have nothing
in Russia or Hungary which is so degrading, and we have nothing which
so crushes the mind. And more than this, we hear you have now a LAW,
just passed by your National Assembly, which would disgrace the cruel
code of the Czar. We hear of free men and women, hunted like dogs on
your mountains, and sent back, without trial, to bondage worse than
our serfs have ever known. We have, in Europe, many excuses in ancient
evils and deep-laid prejudices, but you, the young and free people, in
this age, to be passing again, afresh, such measures of unmitigated
wrong!"--_Home life in Germany, by Charles Loving Brace_. Mr. Brace
honestly adds: "_I must say that the blood tingled to my cheek with
shame, as he spoke_."

[5] "We have read the book, and regard it as Anti-Christian, on the
same grounds that the chronicle regards it decidedly anti
ministerial."--New York Observer, September 22, 1852.--_Editorial_.
The Bishop of Rome also regards the book as Anti-Christian, and has
forbidden his subjects to read it. On the other hand, the clergy of
Great Britain differ most widely from the reverend gentlemen of the
"Observer" and the Vatican, in their estimate of the character of the
book. Said Dr. Wardlaw, who on this subject may be regarded as the
representative of the Protestant Divines of Europe: "He who can read
it without the breathings of devotion, must, if he call himself a
Christian, have a Christianity as _unique and questionable_ as his
humanity."


[Illustration: Antoinette L. Brown (Engraved by J. C. Buttre)]




The Size of Souls.


A quaint old writer describes a class of persons who have souls so
very small that "500 of them could dance at once upon the point of a
cambric needle." These wee people are often wrapped up in a lump of
the very coarsest of human clay, ponderous enough to give them the
semblance of full-grown men and women. A grain of mustard seed, buried
in the heart of a mammoth pumpkin, would be no comparison to the
little soul, sheathed in its full grown body. The contrast in size
would be insufficient to convey an adequate impression; and the tiny
soul has little of the mustard seed spiciness.

Yet if this mass of flesh is only wrapped up in a _white skin_, even
though it is not nearly thick enough to conceal the grossness and
coarseness of the veiled material, the poor "feeble folk" within will
fancy that he really belongs to the natural variety of aristocratic
humanity. He has the good taste to refuse condescension sufficient to
allow him to eat at table with a Frederick Douglass, a Samuel R. Ward,
or a Dr. Pennington. Poor light little soul! It can borrow a pair of
flea's legs, and, hopping up to the magnificent lights of public
opinion, sit looking down upon the whole colored race in sovereign
contempt.

Take off the thin veneering of a white skin, substitute in its stead
the real African ebony, and then place him side by side with one of
the above-mentioned men. Measure intellect with intellect--eloquence
with eloquence! Mental and moral infancy stand abashed in the presence
of nature's noblemen!

So, mere complexion is elevated above character. Sensible men and
women are not ashamed of the acknowledgment. The fact has a popular
endorsement. People _sneer_ at _you_ if you are not ready to
comprehend the fitness of the thing. If you cannot weigh mind in a
balance with a moiety of coloring matter, and still let the mind be
found wanting, expect, in America, to lose cast yourself for want of
approved taste.

If sin is capable of being made to look mean, narrow,
contemptible--to exhibit itself in its character of thorough,
unmitigated bitterness--it is when exhibited in the light of our
"peculiar" prejudices. Mind, Godlike, immortal mind, with its burden
of deathless thought, its comprehensive and discriminating reason, its
brilliant wit, its genial humor, its store-house of thrilling
memories--a voice of mingled power and pathos, words burning with the
unconsuming fire of genius, virtues gathering in ripened beauty upon a
brave heart, and moral integrity preeminent over all else--all this
could not make a black man the social equal of a white coxcomb, even
though his brain were as blank as white paper, and his heart as black
as darkness concentrated. May heaven alleviate our undiluted
stupidity!

ANTOINETTE L. BROWN.




Vincent Oge

[Fragments of a poem hitherto unpublished, upon a revolt of
the free persons of color, in the island of St. Domingo (now
Hayti), in the years 1790-1.]

There is, at times, an evening sky--
The twilight's gift--of sombre hue,
All checkered wild and gorgeously
With streaks of crimson, gold and blue;--
A sky that strikes the soul with awe,
And, though not brilliant as the sheen,
Which in the east at morn we saw,
Is far more glorious, I ween;--
So glorious that, when night hath come
And shrouded it in deepest gloom,
We turn aside with inward pain
And pray to see that sky again.
Such sight is like the struggle made
When freedom bids unbare the blade,
And calls from every mountain glen--
From every hill--from every plain,
Her chosen ones to stand like men,
And cleanse their souls from every stain
Which wretches, steeped in crime and blood,
Have cast upon the form of God.
Though peace like morning's golden hue,
With blooming groves and waving fields,
Is mildly pleasing to the view,
And all the blessings that it yields
Are fondly welcomed by the breast
Which finds delight in passion's rest,
That breast with joy foregoes them all,
While listening to Freedom's call.
Though red the carnage,--though the strife
Be filled with groans of parting life,--
Though battle's dark, ensanguined skies
Give echo but to agonies--
To shrieks of wild despairing,--
We willingly repress a sigh--
Nay, gaze with rapture in our eye,
Whilst "FREEDOM!" is the rally-cry
That calls to deeds of daring.

* * * * *

The waves dash brightly on thy shore,
Fair island of the southern seas!
As bright in joy as when of yore
They gladly hailed the Genoese,--
That daring soul who gave to Spain
A world--last trophy of her reign!
Basking in beauty, thou dost seem
A vision in a poet's dream!
Thou look'st as though thou claim'st not birth
With sea and sky and other earth,
That smile around thee but to show
Thy beauty in a brighter glow,--
That are unto thee as the foil
Artistic hands have featly set
Around Golconda's radiant spoil,
To grace some lofty coronet,--
A foil which serves to make the gem
The glory of that diadem!

* * * * *

If Eden claimed a favored haunt,
Most hallowed of that blessed ground,
Where tempting fiend with guileful taunt
A resting-place would ne'er have found,--
As shadowing it well might seek
The loveliest home in that fair isle,
Which in its radiance seemed to speak
As to the charmed doth Beauty's smile,
That whispers of a thousand things
For which words find no picturings.
Like to the gifted Greek who strove
To paint a crowning work of art,
And form his ideal Queen of Love,
By choosing from each grace a part,
Blending them in one beauteous whole,
To charm the eye, transfix the soul,
And hold it in enraptured fires,
Such as a dream of heaven inspires,--
So seem the glad waves to have sought
From every place its richest treasure,
And borne it to that lovely spot,
To found thereon a home of pleasure;--
A home where balmy airs might float
Through spicy bower and orange grove;
Where bright-winged birds might turn the note
Which tells of pure and constant love;
Where earthquake stay its demon force,
And hurricane its wrathful course;
Where nymph and fairy find a home,
And foot of spoiler never come.

* * * * *

And Oge stands mid this array
Of matchless beauty, but his brow
Is brightened not by pleasure's play;
He stands unmoved--nay, saddened now,
As doth the lorn and mateless bird
That constant mourns, whilst all unheard,
The breezes freighted with the strains
Of other songsters sweep the plain,--
That ne'er breathes forth a joyous note,
Though odors on the zephyrs float--
The tribute of a thousand bowers,
Rich in their store of fragrant flowers.
Yet Oge's was a mind that joyed
With nature in her every mood,
Whether in sunshine unalloyed
With darkness, or in tempest rude
And, by the dashing waterfall,
Or by the gently flowing river,
Or listening to the thunder's call,
He'd joy away his life forever.
But ah! life is a changeful thing,
And pleasures swiftly pass away,
And we may turn, with shuddering,
From what we sighed for yesterday.
The guest, at banquet-table spread
With choicest viands, shakes with dread,
Nor heeds the goblet bright and fair,
Nor tastes the dainties rich and rare,
Nor bids his eye with pleasure trace
The wreathed flowers that deck the place,
If he but knows there is a draught
Among the cordials, that, if quaffed,
Will send swift poison through his veins.
So Oge seems; nor does his eye
With pleasure view the flowery plains,
The bounding sea, the spangled sky,
As, in the short and soft twilight,
The stars peep brightly forth in heaven,
And hasten to the realms of night,
As handmaids of the Even.

* * * * *

The loud shouts from the distant town,
Joined in with nature's gladsome lay;
The lights went glancing up and down,
Riv'ling the stars--nay, seemed as they
Could stoop to claim, in their high home,
A sympathy with things of earth,
And had from their bright mansions come,
To join them in their festal mirth.
For the land of the Gaul had arose in its might,
And swept by as the wind of a wild, wintry night;
And the dreamings of greatness--the phantoms of power,
Had passed in its breath like the things of an hour.
Like the violet vapors that brilliantly play
Round the glass of the chemist, then vanish away,
The visions of grandeur which dazzlingly shone,
Had gleamed for a time, and all suddenly gone.
And the fabric of ages--the glory of kings,
Accounted most sacred mid sanctified things,
Reared up by the hero, preserved by the sage,
And drawn out in rich hues on the chronicler's page,
Had sunk in the blast, and in ruins lay spread,
While the altar of freedom was reared in its stead.
And a spark from that shrine in the free-roving breeze,
Had crossed from fair France to that isle of the seas;
And a flame was there kindled which fitfully shone
Mid the shout of the free, and the dark captive's groan;
As, mid contrary breezes, a torch-light will play,
Now streaming up brightly--now dying away.

* * * * *

The reptile slumbers in the stone,
Nor dream we of his pent abode;
The heart conceals the anguished groan,
With all the poignant griefs that goad
The brain to madness;
Within the hushed volcano's breast,
The molten fires of ruin lie;--
Thus human passions seem at rest,
And on the brow serene and high,
Appears no sadness.
But still the fires are raging there,
Of vengeance, hatred, and despair;
And when they burst, they wildly pour
Their lava flood of woe and fear,
And in one short--one little hour,
Avenge the wrongs of many a year.

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