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

V >> Various >> Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854)




Heaven help us! Divided as we are, into the hating and the hated, the
oppressors and the oppressed, we have settled it, somehow, that we are
of necessity at war with each other--that the welfare of one in some
way depends upon the wretchedness of another. How much madness and
misery would be spared if we could in any way learn that we are
brethren.

[Illustration: (signature) William Elder]




The true Spirit of Reform.


The religion of Jesus, acting as a vital principle in the individual
heart, and thus leaving the entire mass of humanity, to this alone are
we to look as of sufficient power to do away the evils that are now
rife in the world. Just so far as the true spirit of Jesus is infused
into the soul, and acts in the life of man, we know that sin, in its
various forms of sensuality, oppression, and bloodshed, must
disappear. All reforms, which are not based on this corner-stone, are
superficial; and, however goodly their proportions may appear to the
eye of man, they want that firm foundation which will secure them
against being undermined or overthrown by the force of adverse
circumstances. "Other foundation can no man lay, than that is laid,"
for the building up of all that is really excellent and heavenly.

But, while we acknowledge the omnipotence of true religion for the
ratification of all social wrongs, we are not to rest in the
inculcation of its abstract principles and outward forms alone. It is
not enough that we ourselves become, or persuade our fellow-men to
become professed disciples of Jesus; not enough that, in a general
way, we urge the precepts of the gospel. The obtuseness of the human
heart, when hardened by habit and early education, requires that we
make particular application of the precepts of Christ, and address our
efforts to the removal of specific sins: the sins of our own age and
country. It may be that our brother, sincerely intending to act in the
spirit of Jesus, is yet blinded by the force of habit, and fails to
see the sin in which he is living. If our position make us to see more
clearly than he the course he should pursue, let us endeavor gently to
remove the veil from his eyes, remembering how often our own vision is
dimmed by prejudice and outward circumstances. In the moral, as well
as in the natural world, we believe that God demands our active
cooeperation; and, as the farmer not only sows the seed, but roots out
the weeds from among the grain, so are we to endeavor to eradicate
from the broad field of the moral world those evil practices which
obstruct the growth of the harvest of pure and undefiled religion.

"The husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath
long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain." So
are we obliged often to have "long patience," until we see the
manifest blessing of God on our labors. But patient waiting becomes a
virtue, only when combined with the exercise of our best powers in
promoting the object of our desire. We must adapt our efforts to the
express object which we seek to attain. Taking those spiritual weapons
which are "mighty for the pulling down of the strongholds" of sin, let
us assault the great evils of slavery and oppression of every name and
kind, always marching under the banners of the Prince of Peace, whose
conquests are achieved not by violence, but by the subduing power of
Godlike love. Let us go forth, brethren, sisters, a feeble band though
we may seem to the eye of man, yet strong in the assurance that the
hosts of heaven are encamped round about us, and that "more are they
that are with us, than they that are" on the side of the oppressor;
and let us not falter until in God's own good time the word shall be
spoken, not as, we would hope, in the whirlwind or the earthquake,
but in the "still small voice" of the oppressor's own conviction,
saying to the slaves, "Go free!"

[Illustration: (signature) Mary Willard]




A Welcome to Mrs. H. B. Stowe, on her Return from Europe.


She comes, she comes, o'er the bounding wave,
Borne swift as an eagle's flight;
She comes, the tried friend of the slave,--
Truth's champion for the right.

Not as the blood-stained warrior comes,
With shrill-sounding fife and drums;
But peaceful by our quiet homes,
The conquering heroine comes.

Then welcome to our Pilgrim shore,
Tho' sad affliction[6] meet thee;
Three million welcomes from God's poor,
The south winds bear, to greet thee.

To thee, with chain-linked hearts we come,
Which naught but death can sever,
To thank thee for thy "Uncle Tom,"
Thy gentle-hearted "Eva."

When the crushed slave himself shall own,
Three million fetters broken,
Shall mount before thee, to the Throne;
Of thy true life, the token.

Then welcome to our northern hills;
Thy own New England dwelling;
The birds, the trees, the sparkling rills,
All, are thy welcome swelling.

[Illustration: (signature) Joseph C. Holly.]

ROCHESTER, N. Y., October 19th, 1853.


FOOTNOTES:

[6] The sickness of her daughter.




Forward.

FROM THE GERMAN OF HOFFMAN, IN FOLLERSLEBEN.


It is a time of swell and flood,
We linger on the strand,
And all that might to us bring good
Lies in the distant land.

O forward! forward! why stand still?
The flood will ne'er run dry;
Who through the wave not venture will,
That land shall never spy.

[Illustration: (signature) T. W. Higginson.]




What has Canada to do with Slavery?


The question is often asked, both in Canada and in the United States:
What have we in Canada to do with the Institution of Slavery, as it
exists in the neighboring Republic? I do not think that a better
answer is necessary, than that which is contained in the following
extracts--the former of which is taken from a speech delivered by
George Thompson, Esq., at the formation of the Anti-Slavery Society of
Canada--the latter from the valuable work of the Rev. Albert Barnes on
Slavery:

"Are we separated geographically and politically from the country
where slavery reigns? We are, for that very reason, the persons best
able to form an unbiassed and sound judgment on the question at issue.
We have as much to do with this question as with any question that
concerns the happiness of man, the glory of God, or the hopes and
destinies of the human race. We have to do with this question, for it
lies at the foundation of our own rights as a portion of the human
family. The cause of liberty is one all over the world. What have you
to do with this question? The slave is your brother, and you cannot
dissolve that Union. While he remains God's child he will remain your
brother. He is helpless, and you are free and powerful; and if you
neglect him, you are not doing as you would have others do to you,
were you in bonds. Know you not that it is God's method to save man by
man, and that man is only great, and honorable, and blest himself, as
he is the friend and defender of those who need his aid. You are
dwellers on the same continent with three millions of slaves. Their
sighs come to you with every breeze from the South. Oh, haste to help
them, that this glorious continent may be freed from its pollution and
its curse."

Extract from Barnes on slavery:

"Slavery pertains to a great wrong done to our common nature, and
affects great questions, relating to the final triumph of the
principles of justice and humanity. The race is one great brotherhood,
and every man is under obligation, as far as he has the ability, to
defend those principles which will permanently promote the welfare of
the human family. * * * * The questions of right and wrong know no
geographical limits; are bounded by no conventional lines; are
circumscribed by the windings of no river or stream, and are not
designated by climate or by the course of the sun. There are no
enclosures within which the question of right and wrong may not be
carried with the utmost freedom."

Other answers might be given, but these are quite sufficient.

[Illustration: (signature) Thomas Henning]




The Fugitive Slave Bill: a Fragment.


But ours is the saddest part of this sad business. It would be hard
enough to live surrounded by bondmen, even though we had never known
any other way of life. Still, for one who had grown up with young
slaves for playmates and for nurses, there might be much in the
relation to quiet the conscience and soothe the sensibilities. Strong
attachments, we all know, are often realized, even in a condition of
things so anomalous. Perhaps, too, a large number of those about us
would be as feeble in capacity as humble in their circumstances. One
so born might tolerate such a position. But how different,--how, in
comparison, and in every way intolerable, to be set as watchmen and
interceptors of these, the brighter and the better, who, beyond all
controversy, have outgrown the estate of bondage, and who are so
loudly called of God to be freemen, that they will brave any peril in
obedience to the call! How can we do this and still be men and
Christians? Would our brethren at the south do it for us? If we have,
in our haste, so covenanted, must we not rather pay the penalty than
fulfil the bond? I recognize obedience to civil government as the
solemn duty of all save _those who without cause are made outlaws by
the State_. Government protects our hearths and shelters those who are
dearest to us. But we can honor the law by submitting to its penalties
as well as by complying with its demands, and the penalty would be my
election when a man who had seized his manhood at the peril of his
life should claim of me shelter and the means of escape. Before I
refuse that, "may my right hand forget its cunning and my tongue
cleave to the roof of my mouth."

[Illustration: (signature) Rufus Ellis.]




The Encroachment of the Slave-Power.

EXTRACT.


Such is the unholy and gigantic power that, leaving its territorial
domain, has usurped the seat of freedom--that has established at our
capitol a central despotism, and bends to its will with iron hand the
Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches of our Federal
Government.

I have marvelled, sir, as you have, that the Spirit of Freedom in our
fair land has so long slumbered beneath such an outrage. But I imagine
her awakening. As she is about to awaken in her strength, and with the
voice of the people, like the sound of many waters, rebuking this
insolent slave-power, as Milton tells us its father and inventor was
of old rebuked, as he sought to pass the bounds of his prison-house,
and to darken with his presence the realms of light--

"And reckon'st thou thyself with spirits of Heaven,
Hell-doom'd! and breath'st defiance here and scorn,
Where I reign King, and to enrage thee more
Thy King and Lord? Back to thy punishment
False fugitive, and to thy speed add wings,
Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue
Thy lingering, or with one stroke of this dart,
Strange horrors seize thee and pangs unfelt before."

Faithfully yours,

[Illustration: (signature) John Jay, esq.]




The Dishonor of Labor.


The fundamental, essential cause of slavery and its concomitants,
ignorance, degradation and suffering on the one side, as of idleness,
prodigality and luxury-born disease on the other, is a false idea of
the nature and offices of Labor.

Labor is not truly a curse, as has too long been asserted. It only
becomes such through human perverseness, misconception and sin. It was
no curse to the first pair in Eden, and will not be to their
descendants, whenever and wherever the spirit of Eden shall pervade
them. It is only a curse because too many seek to engross the product
of others' work, yet do little or none themselves. If the secret were
but out, _that no man can really enjoy more than his own moderate
daily labor would produce_, and _none can truly enjoy this without
doing the work_, the death-knell of Slavery in general--in its
subtler as well as its grosser forms--would be rung. Until that truth
shall be thoroughly diffused, the cunning and strong will be able to
prey upon the simple and feeble, whether the latter be called slaves
or something else.

[Illustration: Horace Greeley. (Engraved by J. C. Buttre.)]

The great reform required is not a work of hours nor of days, but of
many years. It must first pervade our literature, and thence our
current ideas and conversation, before it can be infused into the
common life. Meanwhile, it would be well to remember that--

Every man who exchanges business for idleness, not because he has
become too old or infirm to work, but because he has become rich
enough to live without work;

Every man who educates his son for a profession, rather than a
mechanical or agricultural calling, not because of that son's supposed
fitness for the former rather than the latter, but because he imagines
Law, Physic or Preaching, a more respectable, genteel vocation, than
building houses or growing grain;

Every maiden who prefers in marriage a rich suitor of doubtful morals
or scanty brains to a poor one, of sound principles, blameless life,
good information and sound sense; Every mother who is pleased when
her daughter receives marked attention from a rich lawyer or merchant,
but frowns on the addresses of a young farmer or artisan of slender
property, but of well-stored mind, good character and industrious,
provident habits;

Every young man who, in choosing the sharer of his fireside and the
future mother of his children, is less solicitous as to what she is
good for, than as to how much she is worth;

Every youth who is trained to regard little work and much
recompense--short business-hours and long dinners--as the chief ends
of exertion and as assurances of a happy life;

Every teacher who thinks more of the wages than of the opportunities
for usefulness afforded by his or her vocation;

Every rich Abolitionist, who is ashamed of being caught by
distinguished visiters while digging in his garden or plowing in the
field, and wishes them to understand that he so works, not for
occupation, but for pastime; and

Every Abolition lecturer who would send a hireling two miles after a
horse, whereon to ride three miles to fulfil his next appointment
respectably; Though meaning no such thing, and perhaps shocked when
it is suggested, is a practical and powerful upholder of the continued
enslavement of our fellow-men.

In the faith of the "good time coming,"
I remain yours,

HORACE GREELEY.

NEW YORK, Nov. 7, 1853.




The Evils of Colonization


I speak the words of soberness and truth when I say, that the most
inveterate, the most formidable, the deadliest enemy of the peace,
prosperity, and happiness of the colored population of the United
States, is that system of African colonization which originated in and
is perpetuated by a worldly, Pharoah-like policy beneath the dignity
of a magnanimous and Christian people;--a system which receives much
of its vitality from _ad captandum_ appeals to popular prejudices, and
to the unholy, grovelling passions of the canaille;--a system that
interposes every possible obstacle in the way of the improvement and
elevation of the colored man in the land of his birth;--that
instigates the enactment of laws whose design and tendency are
obviously to annoy him, to make him feel, while at home, that he is a
stranger and a pilgrim--nay more,--to make him "wretched, and
miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked;"--to make him "a hissing
and a by-word," "a fugitive and a vagabond" throughout the American
Union;--a system that is so irreconcilably opposed to the purpose of
God in making "of _one_ blood all nations for to dwell on _all_ the
face of the earth," that when the dying slaveholder, under the lashes
of a guilty conscience, would give to his slaves unqualified freedom,
it wickedly interposes, and persuades him that "to do justly and love
mercy" would be to inflict an irreparable injury upon the community,
and that to do his duty to God and his fellow-creatures, under the
circumstances, he should bequeath to his surviving slaves the cruel
alternative of _either expatriation to a far-off, pestilential clime,
with the prospect of a premature death, or perpetual slavery, with its
untold horrors, in his native land_. Against this most iniquitous
system of persecution and proscription of an inoffensive people, for
no other reason than that we wear the physical exterior given us in
infinite wisdom and benevolence, I would record, nay _engrave_ with
the pen of a diamond, my most emphatic and solemn protest; more
especially would I do so, as the system, under animadversion, is most
inconsistently fostered, and shamelessly lauded, by ministers of the
gospel in the nineteenth century, as a scheme of Christian
philanthropy! "O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their
assembly, mine honor, be not thou united."

[Illustration: (signature) Wm. Watkins]

TORONTO, C. W., Oct. 31st.


[Illustration: William H. Seward. (Engraved by J. C. Buttre)]




The Basis of the American Constitution


"Happy," (said Washington, when announcing the treaty of peace to the
army,) "thrice happy shall they be pronounced hereafter, who shall
have contributed anything, who shall have performed the meanest office
in erecting this stupendous fabric of freedom and empire on the broad
basis of independency, who shall have assisted in protecting the
Rights of Human Nature, and establishing an asylum for the poor and
oppressed of all nations and religions."

You remember well that the Revolutionary Congress in the declaration
of independence placed the momentous controversy between the Colonies
and Great Britain on the absolute and inherent equality of all men. It
is not, however, so well understood that that body closed its
existence on the adoption of the Federal Constitution with this solemn
injunction, addressed to the people of the United States: "Let it be
remembered that it has ever been the pride and boast of America, that
the Rights for which she contended were the Rights of Human Nature."

No one will contend that our Fathers, after effecting the Revolution
and the independence of their country, by proclaiming this system of
beneficent political philosophy, established an entirely different one
in the constitution assigned to its government. This philosophy, then,
is the basis of the American Constitution.

It is, moreover, a true philosophy, deduced from the nature of man and
the character of the Creator. If there were no supreme law, then the
world would be a scene of universal anarchy, resulting from the
eternal conflict of peculiar institutions and antagonistic laws. There
being such a universal law, if any human constitution and laws
differing from it could have any authority, then that universal law
could not be supreme. That supreme law is necessarily based on the
equality of nations, of races, and of men. It is a simple,
self-evident basis. One nation, race, or individual, may not oppress
or injure another, because the safety and welfare of each is essential
to the common safety and welfare of all. If all are not equal and
free, then who is entitled to be free, and what evidence of his
superiority can he bring from nature or revelation? All men
necessarily have a common interest in the promulgation and maintenance
of these principles, because it is equally in the nature of men to be
content with the enjoyment of their just rights, and to be
discontented under the privation of them. Just so far as these
principles practically prevail, the stringency of government is safely
relaxed, and peace and harmony obtain. But men cannot maintain these
principles, or even comprehend them, without a very considerable
advance in knowledge and virtue. The law of nations, designed to
preserve peace among mankind, was unknown to the ancients. It has been
perfected in our own times, by means of the more general dissemination
of knowledge and practice of the virtues inculcated by Christianity.
To disseminate knowledge, and to increase virtue therefore among men,
is to establish and maintain the principles on which the recovery and
preservation of their inherent natural rights depend; and the State
that does this most faithfully, advances most effectually the common
cause of Human Nature.

For myself, I am sure that this cause is not a dream, but a reality.
Have not all men consciousness of a property in the memory of human
transactions available for the same great purposes, the security of
their individual rights, and the perfection of their individual
happiness? Have not all men a consciousness of the same equal interest
in the achievements of invention, in the instructions of philosophy,
and in the solaces of music and the arts? And do not these
achievements, instructions, and solaces, exert everywhere the same
influences, and produce the same emotions in the bosoms of all men?
Since all languages are convertible into each other, by correspondence
with the same agents, objects, actions, and emotions, have not all men
practically one common language? Since the constitutions and laws of
all societies are only so many various definitions of the rights and
duties of men as those rights and duties are learned from Nature and
Revelation, have not all men practically one code of moral duty? Since
the religions of men, in their various climes, are only so many
different forms of their devotion towards a Supreme and Almighty Power
entitled to their reverence and receiving it under the various names
of Jehovah, Jove, and Lord, have not all men practically one
religion? Since all men are seeking liberty and happiness for a
season here, and to deserve and so to secure more perfect liberty and
happiness somewhere in a future world, and, since they all
substantially agree that these temporal and spiritual objects are to
be attained only through the knowledge of truth and the practice of
virtue, have not mankind practically one common pursuit through one
common way of one common and equal hope and destiny?

If there had been no such common Humanity as I have insisted upon,
then the American people would not have enjoyed the sympathies of
mankind when establishing institutions of civil and religious liberty
here, nor would their establishment here have awakened in the nations
of Europe and of South America desires and hopes of similar
institutions there. If there had been no such common Humanity, then we
should not ever, since the American Revolution, have seen human
society throughout the world divided into two parties, the high and
the low--the one perpetually foreboding and earnestly hoping the
downfall, and the other as confidently predicting and as sincerely
desiring, the durability of Republican Institutions. If there had been
no such common Humanity, then we should not have seen this tide of
emigration from insular and continental Europe flowing into our
country through the channels of the St. Lawrence, the Hudson, and the
Mississippi,--ebbing, however, always with the occasional rise of the
hopes of freedom abroad, and always swelling again into greater volume
when those premature hopes subside. If there were no such common
Humanity, then the poor of Great Britain would not be perpetually
appealing to us against the oppression of landlords on their farms and
work-masters in their manufactories and mines; and so, on the other
hand, we should not be, as we are now, perpetually framing apologies
to mankind for the continuance of African slavery among ourselves. If
there were no such common Humanity, then the fame of Wallace would
have long ago died away in his native mountains, and the name even of
Washington would at most have been only a household word in Virginia,
and not as it is now, a watchword of Hope and Progress throughout the
world.

If there had been no such common Humanity, then when the civilization
of Greece and Rome had been consumed by the fires of human passion,
the nations of modern Europe could never have gathered from among its
ashes the philosophy, the arts, and the religion, which were
imperishable, and have reconstructed with those materials that better
civilization, which, amid the conflicts and fall of political and
ecclesiastical systems, has been constantly advancing towards
perfection in every succeeding age. If there had been no such common
Humanity, then the dark and massive Egyptian obelisk would not have
everywhere reappeared in the sepulchral architecture of our own times,
and the light and graceful orders of Greece and Italy would not as now
have been the models of our villas and our dwellings, nor would the
simple and lofty arch and the delicate tracery of Gothic design have
been as it now is, everywhere consecrated to the service of religion.

If there had been no such common humanity, then would the sense of the
obligation of the Decalogue have been confined to the despised nation
who received it from Mount Sinai, and the prophecies of Jewish seers
and the songs of Jewish bards would have perished forever with their
temple, and never afterwards could they have become as they now are,
the universal utterance of the spiritual emotions and hopes of
mankind. If there had been no such common humanity, then certainly
Europe and Africa, and even new America, would not, after the lapse of
centuries, have recognized a common Redeemer, from all the sufferings
and perils of human life, in a culprit who had been ignominiously
executed in the obscure Roman province of Judea; nor would Europe have
ever gone up in arms to Palestine, to wrest from the unbelieving Turk
the tomb where that culprit had slept for only three days and nights
after his descent from the cross,--much less would his traditionary
instructions, preserved by fishermen and publicans, have become the
chief agency in the renovation of human society, through after-coming
ages.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.