Part 4 (1/2)

But why, my dear friends, have I thus been endeavoring to lead you through the history of more than three thousand years, and to point you to that great cloud of witnesses who have gone before, ”from works to rewards?” Have I been seeking to magnify the sufferings, and exalt the character of woman, that she ”might have praise of men?” No! no! my object has been to arouse _you_, as the wives and mothers, the daughters and sisters, of the South, to a sense of your duty as _women_, and as Christian women, on that great subject, which has already shaken our country, from the St. Lawrence and the lakes, to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Mississippi to the sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic; _and will continue mightily to shake it_, until the polluted temple of slavery fall and crumble into ruin. I would say unto each one of you, ”what meanest thou, O sleeper! arise and call upon thy G.o.d, if so be that G.o.d will think upon us that we perish not.” Perceive you not that dark cloud of vengeance which hangs over our boasting Republic? Saw you not the lightnings of Heaven's wrath, in the flame which leaped from the Indian's torch to the roof of yonder dwelling, and lighted with its horrid glare the darkness of midnight? Heard you not the thunders of Divine anger, as the distant roar of the cannon came rolling onward, from the Texian country, where Protestant American Rebels are fighting with Mexican Republicans--for what? For the re-establishment of _slavery_; yes! of American slavery in the bosom of a Catholic Republic, where that system of robbery, violence, and wrong, had been legally abolished for twelve years. Yes! citizens of the United States, after plundering Mexico of her land, are now engaged in deadly conflict, for the privilege of fastening chains, and collars, and manacles--upon whom?

upon the subjects of some foreign prince? No! upon native born American Republican citizens, although the fathers of these very men declared to the whole world, while struggling to free themselves from the three penny taxes of an English king, that they believed it to be a _self-evident_ truth that _all men_ were created equal, and had an _unalienable right to liberty_.

Well may the poet exclaim in bitter sarcasm,

”The fustian flag that proudly waves In solemn mockery _o'er a land of slaves_.”

Can you not, my friends, understand the signs of the times; do you not see the sword of retributive justice hanging over the South, or are you still slumbering at your posts?--Are there no s.h.i.+phrahs, no Puahs among you, who will dare in Christian firmness and Christian meekness, to refuse to obey the _wicked laws_ which require _woman to enslave, to degrade and to brutalize woman?_ Are there no Miriams, who would rejoice to lead out the captive daughters of the Southern States to liberty and light? Are there no Huldahs there who will dare to _speak the truth_ concerning the sins of the people and those judgments, which it requires no prophet's eye to see, must follow if repentance is not speedily sought? Is there no Esther among you who will plead for the poor devoted slave? Read the history of this Persian queen, it is full of instruction; she at first refused to plead for the Jews; but, hear the words of Mordecai, ”Think not within thyself, that _thou_ shalt escape in the king's house more than all the Jews, for _if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time_, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place: but _thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed._” Listen, too, to her magnanimous reply to this powerful appeal; ”_I will go_ in unto the king, which is not according to law, and if I perish. I perish.” Yes! if there were but _one_ Esther at the South, she _might_ save her country from ruin; but let the Christian women there arise, as the Christian women of Great Britain did, in the majesty of moral power, and that salvation is certain. Let them embody themselves in societies, and send pet.i.tions up to their different legislatures, entreating their husbands, fathers, brothers and sons, to abolish the inst.i.tution of slavery; no longer to subject _woman_ to the scourge and the chain, to mental darkness and moral degradation; no longer to tear husbands from their wives, and children from their parents; no longer to make men, women, and children, work _without wages;_ no longer to make their lives bitter in hard bondage; no longer to reduce _American citizens_ to the abject condition of _slaves_, of ”chattels personal;” no longer to barter the _image of G.o.d_ in human shambles for corruptible things such as silver and gold.

The _women of the South can overthrow_ this horrible system of oppression and cruelty, licentiousness and wrong. Such appeals to your legislatures would be irresistible, for there is something in the heart of man which _will bend under moral suasion_. There is a swift witness for truth in his bosom, which _will respond to truth_ when it is uttered with calmness and dignity. If you could obtain but six signatures to such a pet.i.tion in only one state, I would say, send up that pet.i.tion, and be not in the least discouraged by the scoffs and jeers of the heartless, or the resolution of the house to lay it on the table. It will be a great thing if the subject can be introduced into your legislatures in any way, even by _women_, and _they_ will be the most likely to introduce it there in the best possible manner, as a matter of _morals_ and _religion_, not of expediency or politics. You may pet.i.tion, too, the different, ecclesiastical bodies of the slave states.

Slavery must be attacked with the whole power of truth and the sword of the spirit. You must take it up on _Christian_ ground, and fight against it with Christian weapons, whilst your feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. And _you are now_ loudly called upon by the cries of the widow and the orphan, to arise and gird yourselves for this great moral conflict, with the whole armour of righteousness upon the right hand and on the left.

There is every encouragement for you to labor and pray, my friends, because the abolition of slavery as well as its existence, has been the theme of prophecy. ”Ethiopia (says the Psalmist) shall stretch forth her hands unto G.o.d.” And is she not now doing so? Are not the Christian negroes of the south lifting their hands in prayer for deliverance, just as the Israelites did when their redemption was drawing nigh? Are they not sighing and crying by reason of the hard bondage? And think you, that He, of whom it was said, ”and G.o.d heard their groaning, and their cry came up unto him by reason of the hard bondage,” think you that his ear is heavy that he cannot _now_ hear the cries of his suffering children? Or that He who raised up a Moses, an Aaron, and a Miriam, to bring them up out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage, cannot now, with a high hand and a stretched out arm, rid the poor negroes out of the hands of their masters? Surely you believe that his arm is _not_ shortened that he cannot save. And would not such a work of mercy redound to his glory? But another string of the harp of prophecy vibrates to the song of deliverance: ”But they shall sit every man under his vine, and under his fig-tree, and _none shall make them afraid_; for the mouth of the Lord of Hosts hath spoken it.” The _slave_ never can do this as long as he is a _slave_; whilst he is a ”chattel personal” he can own _no_ property; but the time _is to come_ when _every_ man is to sit under _his own_ vine and _his own_ fig-tree, and no domineering driver, or irresponsible master, or irascible mistress, shall make him afraid of the chain or the whip. Hear, too, the sweet tones of another string: ”Many shall run to and fro, and _knowledge_ shall be increased.”

Slavery is an insurmountable barrier to the increase of knowledge in every community where it exists; _slavery, then, must be abolished before_ this prediction can be fulfiled. The last chord I shall touch, will be this, ”They shall _not_ hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain.”

_Slavery, then, must be overthrown before_ the prophecies can be accomplished, but how are they to be fulfiled? Will the wheels of the millennial car be rolled onward by miraculous power? No! G.o.d designs to confer this holy privilege upon _man_; it is through _his_ instrumentality that the great and glorious work of reforming the world is to be done. And see you not how the mighty engine of _moral power_ is dragging in its rear the Bible and peace societies, anti-slavery and temperance, sabbath schools, moral reform, and missions? or to adopt another figure, do not these seven philanthropic a.s.sociations compose the beautiful tints in that bow of promise which spans the arch of our moral heaven? Who does not believe, that if these societies were broken up, their const.i.tutions burnt, and the vast machinery with which they are laboring to regenerate mankind was stopped, that the black clouds of vengeance would soon burst over our world, and every city would witness the fate of the devoted cities of the plain? Each one of these societies is walking abroad through the earth scattering the seeds of truth over the wide field of our world, not with the hundred hands of a Briareus, but with a hundred thousand.

Another encouragement for you to labor, my friends, is, that you will have the prayers and co-operation of English and Northern philanthropists. You will never bend your knees in supplication at the throne of grace for the overthrow of slavery, without meeting there the spirits of other Christians, who will mingle their voices with yours, as the morning or evening sacrifice ascends to G.o.d. Yes, the spirit of prayer and of supplication has been poured out upon many, many hearts; there are wrestling Jacobs who will not let go of the prophetic promises of deliverance for the captive, and the opening of prison doors to them that are bound. There are Pauls who are saying, in reference to this subject, ”Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” There are Marys sitting in the house now, who are ready to arise and go forth is this work as soon as the message is brought, ”the master is come and calleth for thee.” And there are Marthas, too, who have already gone out to meet Jesus, as he bends his footsteps to their brother's grave, and weeps, _not_ over the lifeless body of Lazarus bound hand and foot in grave-clothes, but over the politically and intellectually lifeless slave, bound hand and foot in the iron chains of oppression and ignorance. Some may be ready to say, as Martha did, who seemed to expect nothing but sympathy from Jesus, ”Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he hath been dead four days.” She thought it useless to remove the stone and expose the loathsome body of her brother; she could not believe that so great a miracle could be wrought, as to raise _that putrefied body_ into life; but ”Jesus said, take _ye_ away the stone;” and when _they_ had taken away the stone where the dead was laid, and uncovered the body of Lazarus, then it was that ”Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me,” &c. ”And when he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.” Yes, some may be ready to say of the colored race, how can _they_ ever be raised politically and intellectually, they have been dead four hundred years? But _we_ have _nothing_ to do with _how_ this is to be done; _our business_ is to take away the stone which has covered up the dead body of our brother, to expose the putrid carca.s.s, to show _how_ that body has been bound with the grave-clothes of heathen ignorance, and his face with the napkin of prejudice, and having done all it was our duty to do, to stand by the negro's grave, in humble faith and holy hope, waiting to hear the life-giving command of ”Lazarus, come forth.” This is just what Anti-Slavery Societies are doing; they are taking away the stone from the mouth of the tomb of slavery, where lies the putrid carca.s.s of our brother. They want the pure light of heaven to s.h.i.+ne into that dark and gloomy cave; they want all men to see _how_ that dead body has been bound, _how_ that face has been wrapped in the _napkin of prejudice_; and shall they wait beside that grave in vain? Is not Jesus still the resurrection and the life? Did He come to proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of prison doors to them that are bound, in vain? Did He promise to give beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness unto them that mourn in Zion, and will He refuse to beautify the mind, anoint the head, and throw around the captive negro the mantle of praise for that spirit of heaviness which has so long bound him down to the ground?

Or shall we not rather say with the prophet, ”the zeal of the Lord of Hosts _will_ perform this?” Yes, his promises are sure, and amen in Christ Jesus, that he will a.s.semble her that halteth, and gather her that is driven out, and her that is afflicted.

But I will now say a few words on the subject of Abolitionism. Doubtless you have all heard Anti-Slavery Societies denounced as insurrectionary and mischievous, fanatical and dangerous. It has been said they publish the most abominable untruths, and that they are endeavoring to excite rebellions at the South. Have you believed these reports, my friends?

have _you_ also been deceived by these false a.s.sertions? Listen to me, then, whilst I endeavor to wipe from the fair character of Abolitionism such unfounded accusations. You know that _I_ am a Southerner; you know that my dearest relatives are now in a slave State. Can you for a moment believe I would prove so recreant to the feelings of a daughter and a sister, as to join a society which was seeking to overthrow slavery by falsehood, bloodshed, and murder? I appeal to you who have known and loved me in days that are pa.s.sed, can _you_ believe it? No! my friends.

As a Carolinian, I was peculiarly jealous of any movements on this subject; and before I would join an Anti-Slavery Society, I took the precaution of becoming acquainted with some of the leading Abolitionists, of reading their publications and attending their meetings, at which I heard addresses both from colored and white men; and it was not until I was fully convinced that their principles were _entirely pacific_, and their efforts _only moral_, that I gave my name as a member to the Female Anti-Slavery Society of Philadelphia. Since that time, I have regularly taken the Liberator, and read many Anti-Slavery pamphlets and papers and books, and can a.s.sure you I _never_ have seen a single insurrectionary paragraph, and never read any account of cruelty which I could not believe. Southerners may deny the truth of these accounts, but why do they not _prove_ them to be false.

Their violent expressions of horror at such accounts being believed, _may_ deceive some, but they cannot deceive _me_, for I lived too long in the midst of slavery, not to know what slavery is. When _I_ speak of this system, ”I speak that I do know,” and I am not at all afraid to a.s.sert, that Anti-Slavery publications have _not_ overdrawn the monstrous features of slavery at all. And many a Southerner _knows_ this as well as I do. A lady in North Carolina remarked to a friend of mine, about eighteen months since, ”Northerners know nothing at all about slavery; they think it is perpetual bondage only; but of the _depth of degradation_ that word involves, they have no conception; if they had, _they would never cease_ their efforts until so _horrible_ a system was overthrown.” She did not know how faithfully some Northern men and Northern women had studied this subject; how diligently they had searched out the cause of ”him who had none to help him,” and how fearlessly they had told the story of the negro's wrongs. Yes, Northerners know _every_ thing about slavery now. This monster of iniquity has been unveiled to the world, her frightful features unmasked, and soon, very soon will she be regarded with no more complacency by the American republic than is the idol of Juggernaut, rolling its b.l.o.o.d.y wheels over the crushed bodies of its prostrate Victims.

But you will probably ask, if Anti-Slavery societies are not insurrectionary, why do Northerners tell us they are? Why, I would ask you in return, did Northern senators and Northern representatives give their votes, at the last sitting of congress, to the admission of Arkansas Territory as a state? Take those men, one by one, and ask them in their parlours, do you _approve of slavery?_ ask them on _Northern_ ground, where they will speak the truth, and I doubt not _every man_ of them will tell you, _no!_ Why then, I ask, did _they_ give their votes to enlarge the mouth of that grave which has already destroyed its tens of thousands? All our enemies tell _us_ they are as much anti-slavery as we are. Yes, my friends, thousands who are helping you to bind the fetters of slavery on the negro, despise you in their hearts for doing it; they rejoice that such an inst.i.tution has not been entailed upon them. Why then, I would ask, do _they_ lend you their help? I will tell you, ”they love _the praise of men more_ than the praise of G.o.d.” The Abolition cause has not yet become so popular as to induce them to believe, that by advocating it in congress, they shall sit still more securely in their seats there, and like the _chief rulers_ in the days of our Saviour, though many believed on him, yet they did _not_ confess him, lest they should _be put out of the synagogue_; John xii, 42, 43.

Or perhaps like Pilate, thinking they could prevail nothing, and fearing a tumult, they determined to release Barabbas and surrender the just man, the poor innocent slave to be stripped of his rights and scourged.

In vain will such men try to wash their hands, and say, with the Roman governor, ”I am innocent of the blood of this just person.” Northern American statesmen are no more innocent of the crime of slavery, than Pilate was of the murder of Jesus, or Saul of that of Stephen. These are high charges, but I appeal to _their hearts_; I appeal to public opinion ten years from now. Slavery then is a national sin.

But you will say, a great many other Northerners tell us so, who can have no political motives. The interests of the North, you must know, my friends, are very closely combined with those of the South. The Northern merchants and manufacturers are making _their_ fortunes out of the _produce of slave labor_; the grocer is selling your rice and sugar; how then can these men bear a testimony against slavery without condemning themselves? But there is another reason, the North is most dreadfully afraid of Amalgamation. She is alarmed at the very idea of a thing so monstrous, as she thinks. And lest this consequence _might_ flow from emanc.i.p.ation, she is determined to resist all efforts at emanc.i.p.ation without expatriation. It is not because _she approves of slavery_, or believes it to be ”the corner stone of our republic,” for she is as much _anti-slavery_ as we are; but amalgamation is too horrible to think of.

Now I would ask _you_, is it right, is it generous, to refuse the colored people in this country the advantages of education and the privilege, or rather the _right_, to follow honest trades and callings merely because they are colored? The same prejudice exists here against our colored brethren that existed against the Gentiles in Judea. Great numbers cannot bear the idea of equality, and fearing lest, if they had the same advantages we enjoy, they would become as intelligent, as moral, as religious, and as respectable and wealthy, they are determined to keep them as low as they possibly can. Is this doing as they would be done by? Is this loving their neighbor _as themselves_? Oh! that _such_ opposers of Abolitionism would put their souls in the stead of the free colored man's and obey the apostolic injunction, to ”remember them that are in bonds _as bound with them_.” I will leave you to judge whether the fear of amalgamation ought to induce men to oppose anti-slavery efforts, when _they_ believe _slavery_ to be _sinful_. Prejudice against color, is the most powerful enemy we have to fight with at the North.

You need not be surprised, then, at all, at what is said _against_ Abolitionists by the North, for they are wielding a two-edged sword, which even here, cuts through the _cords of caste_, on the one side, and the _bonds of interest_ on the other. They are only sharing the fate of other reformers, abused and reviled whilst they are in the minority; but they are neither angry nor discouraged by the invective which has been heaped upon them by slaveholders at the South and their apologists at the North. They know that when George Fox and William Edmundson were laboring in behalf of the negroes in the West Indies in 1671 that the very _same_ slanders were propogated against them, which are _now_ circulated against Abolitionists. Although it was well known that Fox was the founder of a religious sect which repudiated _all_ war, and _all_ violence, yet _even he_ was accused of ”endeavoring to excite the slaves to insurrection and of teaching the negroes to cut their master's throats.” And these two men who had their feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace, were actually compelled to draw up a formal declaration that _they were not_ trying to raise a rebellion in Barbadoes. It is also worthy of remark that these Reformers did not at this time see the necessity of emanc.i.p.ation under seven years, and their princ.i.p.al efforts were exerted to persuade the planters of the necessity of instructing their slaves; but the slaveholder saw then, just what the slaveholder sees now, that an _enlightened_ population _never_ can be a _slave_ population, and therefore they pa.s.sed a law, that negroes should not even attend the meetings of Friends. Abolitionists know that the life of Clarkson was sought by slavetraders; and that even Wilberforce was denounced on the floor of Parliament as a fanatic and a hypocrite by the present King of England, the very man who, in 1834, set his seal to that instrument which burst the fetters of eight hundred thousand slaves in his West India colonies. They know that the first Quaker who bore a _faithful_ testimony against the sin of slavery was cut off from religious fellows.h.i.+p with that society. That Quaker was a _woman_. On her deathbed she sent for the committee who dealt with her--she told them, the near approach of death had not altered her sentiments on the subject of slavery and waving her hand towards a very fertile and beautiful portion of country which lay stretched before her window, she said with great solemnity, ”Friends, the time will come when there will not be friends enough in all this district to hold one meeting for wors.h.i.+p, and this garden will be turned into a wilderness.”

The aged friend, who with tears in his eyes, related this interesting circ.u.mstance to me, remarked, that at that time there were seven meetings of friends in that part of Virginia, but that when he was there ten years ago, not a single meeting was held, and the country was literally a desolation. Soon after her decease, John Woolman began his labors in our society, and instead of disowning a member for testifying _against_ slavery, they have for fifty-two years positively forbidden their members to hold slaves.

Abolitionists understand the slaveholding spirit too well to be surprised at any thing that has yet happened at the South or the North; they know that the greater the sin is, which is exposed, the more violent will be the efforts to blacken the character and impugn the motives of those who are engaged in bringing to light the hidden things of darkness. They understand the work of Reform too well to be driven back by the furious waves of opposition, which are only foaming out their own shame. They have stood ”the world's dread laugh,” when only twelve men formed the first Anti-Slavery Society in Boston in 1831. They have faced and refuted the calumnies of their enemies, and proved themselves to be emphatically _peace men_ by _never resisting_ the violence of mobs, even when driven by them from the temple of G.o.d, and dragged by an infuriated crowd through the streets of the emporium of New-England, or subjected by _slaveholders_ to the pain of corporal punishment. ”None of these things move them;” and, by the grace of G.o.d, they are determined to persevere in this work of faith and labor of love: they mean to pray, and preach, and write, and print, until slavery is completely overthrown, until Babylon is taken up and cast into the sea, to ”be found no more at all.” They mean to pet.i.tion Congress year after year, until the seat of our government is cleansed from the sinful traffic of ”slaves and the souls of men.” Although that august a.s.sembly may be like the unjust judge who ”feared not G.o.d neither regarded man,”

yet it must yield just as he did, from the power of importunity. Like the unjust judge, Congress _must_ redress the wrongs of the widow, lest by the continual coming up of pet.i.tions, it be wearied. This will be striking the dagger into the very heart of the monster, and once 'tis done, he must soon expire.