Volume Iii Part 5 (1/2)
The Toryism of America is also against us. I call that man a Tory, who prefers the accidents of man to the substance of manhood. I mean one who prefers the possessions and property of mankind to man himself, to reason and to justice. Of this Toryism we have much in America, much in New England, much in Boston. In this town, I cannot but think the prevailing influence is still a Tory influence. It is this which is the support of the demagogues of the State and the Church.
Toryism exists in all lands. In some, there is a good deal of excuse to be made for it. I can understand the Toryism of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, and of such men. If a man has been born to great wealth and power, derived from ancestors for many centuries held in admiration and in awe; if he has been bred to account himself a superior being, and to be treated accordingly, I can easily understand the Toryism of such a man, and find some excuse for it. I can understand the Tory literature of other nations. The Toryism of the ”London Quarterly,” of ”Blackwood,”
is easily accounted for, and forgiven. It is, besides, sometimes adorned with wit, and often set off by much learning. It is respectable Toryism.
But the Toryism of men who only know they had a grandfather by inference, not by positive testimony; who inherited nothing but their bare limbs; who began their career as tradesmen or mechanics,--mechanics in divinity or law as well as in trade,--and get their bread by any of the useful and honorable callings of life--that such men, getting rich, or lifting their heads out of the obscurity they were once in, should become Tories, in a land, too, where inst.i.tutions are founded on the idea of freedom and equity and natural justice--that is another thing.
The Toryism of American journals, with little scholars.h.i.+p, with no wit, and wisdom in h.o.m.oeopathic doses; the Toryism of a man who started from nothing, the architect of his own fortune; the Toryism of a Republican, of a Yankee, the Toryism of a Sn.o.b,--it is Toryism reduced to its lowest denomination, made vulgar and contemptible; it is the little end of the tail of Toryism. Let us loathe the unclean thing in the depth of our soul, but let us pity the poor Tory; for he, also, in common with the negro slave, is ”A man and a brother.”
Then the Spirit of Trade is often against us. Mr. Mann, in his letter, speaks of the opposition made to Wilberforce by the ”Guinea merchants”
of Liverpool, in his attempts to put an end to the slave-trade. The Corporation of Liverpool spent over ten thousand pounds in defence of a traffic, ”the worst the sun ever shone upon.” This would seem to be a reflection upon some of the merchants of Boston. It seems, from a statement in the Atlas, that Mr. Mann did not intend his remarks to apply to Boston, but to New York and Philadelphia, where ma.s.s meetings of merchants had been held, to sustain Mr. Clay's compromise resolutions. Although Mr. Mann did not apply his remarks to Boston, I fear they will apply here as well as to our sister cities. I have yet to learn that the letter of Mr. Webster's retainers was any less well adapted to continue and extend slavery, than the resolutions pa.s.sed at New York and Philadelphia. I wish the insinuations of Mr. Mann did not apply here.
One of the signers of the letter to Mr. Webster incautiously betrayed, I think, the open secret of the retainers when he said--”I don't care a d.a.m.n how many slave States they annex!” This is a secret, because not avowed; open, because generally known, or at least believed, to be the sentiment of a strong party in Ma.s.sachusetts. I am glad to have it also expressed; now the issue is joined, and we do not fight in the dark.
It has long been suspected that some inhabitants of Boston were engaged in the slave-trade. Not long since, the brig ”Lucy Anne,” of Boston, was captured on the coast of Africa, with five hundred and forty-seven slaves on board. This vessel was built at Thomaston in 1839; repaired at Boston in 1848, and now hails from this port. She was commanded by one ”Captain Otis,” and is owned by one ”Salem Charles.” This, I suppose, is a fict.i.tious name, for certainly it would not be respectable in Boston to extend slavery in this way. Even Mr. Winthrop is opposed to that, and thinks ”a million swords would leap from their scabbards to oppose it.”
But it may be that there are men in Boston who do not think it any worse to steal men who were born free, and have grown up free in Africa, and make slaves of them, than to steal such as are born free in America, before they are grown up. If we have the Old Testament decidedly sustaining slavery, and the New Testament never forbidding it; if, as we are often told, neither Jesus nor his early followers ever said a word against slavery; if scarcely a Christian minister in Boston ever preaches against this national sin; if the Representative from Boston has no religious scruples against returning a fugitive slave, or extending slavery over a ”hundred or a hundred thousand square miles” of new territory; if the great Senator from Ma.s.sachusetts refuses to vote for the Wilmot Proviso, or reaffirm an ordinance of nature, and reenact the will of G.o.d; if he calls on us to return fugitive slaves ”with alacrity,” and demands of Ma.s.sachusetts that she shall conquer her prejudices; if nine hundred and eighty-seven men in this vicinity, of lawful age,[9] are thankful to him for enlightening them as to their duty, and a professor of theology comes forward to sanction American slavery in the name of religion--why, I think Mr. ”Salem Charles,” with his ”Captain Otis,” may not be the worst man in the world, after all!
Let us pity him also, as ”A man and a brother.”
Such is the crisis in our affairs; such the special issue in the general question between freedom and slavery; such the position of parties and of great men in relation to this question; such the foes to freedom in America.
On our side, there are great and powerful allies. The American idea is with us; the spirit of the majority of men in the North, when they are not blindfolded and muzzled by the demagogues of State and Church. The religion of the land, also, is on our side; the irreligion, the idolatry, the infidelity thereof, all of that is opposed to us. Religion is love of G.o.d and love of man: surely, all of that, under any form, Catholic or Quaker, is in favor of the unalienable rights of man. We know that we are right; we are sure to prevail. But in times present and future, as in times past, we need heroism, self-denial, a continual watchfulness, and an industry which never tires.
Let us not be deceived about the real question at issue. It is not merely whether we shall return fugitive slaves without trial by jury. We will not return them with trial by jury! neither ”with alacrity,” nor ”with the solemnity of judicial proceedings!” It is not merely whether slavery shall be extended or not. By and by there will be a political party with a wider basis than the free soil party, who will declare that the nation itself must put an end to slavery in the nation; and if the Const.i.tution of the United States will not allow it, there is another Const.i.tution that will. Then the t.i.tle, Defender and expounder of the Const.i.tution of the United States, will give way to this,--”Defender and expounder of the Const.i.tution of the Universe,” and we shall reaffirm the ordinance of nature, and reenact the will of G.o.d.
You may not live to see it, Mr. President, nor I live to see it; but it is written on the iron leaf that it must come; come, too, before long.
Then the speech of Mr. Webster, and the defence thereof by Mr. Stuart, the letter of the retainers and the letters of the retained, will be a curiosity; the conduct of the whigs and democrats an amazement, and the peculiar inst.i.tution a proverb amongst all the nations of the earth. In the turmoil of party politics, and of personal controversy, let us not forget continually to move the previous question, whether Freedom or Slavery is to prevail in America. There is no attribute of G.o.d which is not on our side; because, in this matter, we are on the side of G.o.d.
Mr. President: I began by congratulating you on the favorable signs of the times. One of the most favorable is the determination of the South to use the powers of government to extend slavery. At this day, we exhibit a fact worse than Christendom has elsewhere to disclose; the fact that one sixth part of our population are mere property; not men, but things. England has a proletary population, the lowest in Europe; we have three million of proletaries lower than the ”pauper laborers” of England, which the whig protectionists hold up to us in terror. The South wishes to increase the number of slaves, to spread this blot, this blight and baneful scourge of civilization over new territory.
Hot-headed men of the South declare that, unless it is done, they will divide the Union; famous men of the North ”cave in,” and verify their own statements about ”dough-faces” and ”dough-souls.” All this is preaching anti-slavery to the thinking men of the North; to the sober men of all parties, who prefer Conscience to cotton. The present session of Congress has done much to overturn slavery. ”Whom the G.o.ds destroy they first make mad.”
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Mr. Silgestrom.
[5] Annal. Lib. XIV. cap. 42, _et seq._
[6] Executive Doc.u.ments: House of Representatives, No. 17, p. 3.
[7] Since the delivery of the above, Mr. Webster has introduced his bill, providing a trial by jury for fugitive slaves. If I understand it, Mr. Webster does not offer it as a subst.i.tute for the Judiciary Bill on the subject, does not introduce it as an amendment to that or to any thing else. Nay, he does not formally introduce it--only lays it before the Senate, with the desire that it may be printed! The effect it is designed to produce, it is very easy to see. The retainers can now say--See! Mr. Webster himself wishes to provide a trial by jury for fugitives! Some of the provisions of the bill are remarkable, but they need not be dwelt on here.
[8] While this is pa.s.sing through the press, I learn that several wealthy citizens of Boston are at this moment owners of several hundreds of slaves. I think they would lose reputation among their fellows if they should set them free.
[9] It has since appeared that several of those persons were at the time, and still are, holders of slaves. Their conduct need excite no surprise.