“Oh, go down, Moses,’Way down into Egypt’s land!Tell King PharaohTo let my people go!Stand away dere,Stand away dere,And let my people go!“Oh, Pharaoh said he would go ’cross!Let my people go!Oh, Pharaoh and his hosts were lost!Let my people go!You may hinder me here,But ye can’t up dere!Let my people go!“Oh, Moses, stretch your hand across!Let my people go!And don’t get lost in de wilderness!Let my people go!He sits in de heavensAnd answers prayers.Let my people go!”
“Oh, go down, Moses,’Way down into Egypt’s land!Tell King PharaohTo let my people go!Stand away dere,Stand away dere,And let my people go!“Oh, Pharaoh said he would go ’cross!Let my people go!Oh, Pharaoh and his hosts were lost!Let my people go!You may hinder me here,But ye can’t up dere!Let my people go!“Oh, Moses, stretch your hand across!Let my people go!And don’t get lost in de wilderness!Let my people go!He sits in de heavensAnd answers prayers.Let my people go!”
“Oh, go down, Moses,’Way down into Egypt’s land!Tell King PharaohTo let my people go!Stand away dere,Stand away dere,And let my people go!
“Oh, go down, Moses,
’Way down into Egypt’s land!
Tell King Pharaoh
To let my people go!
Stand away dere,
Stand away dere,
And let my people go!
“Oh, Pharaoh said he would go ’cross!Let my people go!Oh, Pharaoh and his hosts were lost!Let my people go!You may hinder me here,But ye can’t up dere!Let my people go!
“Oh, Pharaoh said he would go ’cross!
Let my people go!
Oh, Pharaoh and his hosts were lost!
Let my people go!
You may hinder me here,
But ye can’t up dere!
Let my people go!
“Oh, Moses, stretch your hand across!Let my people go!And don’t get lost in de wilderness!Let my people go!He sits in de heavensAnd answers prayers.Let my people go!”
“Oh, Moses, stretch your hand across!
Let my people go!
And don’t get lost in de wilderness!
Let my people go!
He sits in de heavens
And answers prayers.
Let my people go!”
As we were leaving, an aged woman cameand lifted up her hands in blessing. “Bressed be de Lord dat brought me to see dis first happy day of my life! Bressed be de Lord!” In all England is there no Amen?
We have been shocked and saddened by the question asked in an association of Congregational ministers in England, the very blood-relations of the liberty-loving Puritans,—“Why does not the North let the South go?”
What! give up the point of emancipation for these four million slaves? Turn our backs on them, and leave them to their fate? What! leave our white brothers to run a career of oppression and robbery, that, as sure as there is a God that ruleth in the armies of heaven, will bring down a day of wrath and doom?
Is it any advantage to people to be educated in man-stealing as a principle, to be taughtsystematically to rob the labourer of his wages, and to tread on the necks of weaker races? Who among you would wish your sons to become slave-planters, slave-merchants, slave-dealers? And shall we leave our brethren to this fate? Better a generation should die on the battle-field, that their children may grow up in liberty and justice. Yes, our sons must die, their sons must die. We give ours freely; they die to redeem the very brothers that slay them; they give their blood in expiation of this great sin, begun by you in England, perpetuated by us in America, and for which God in this great day of judgment is making inquisition in blood.
In a recent battle fell a Secession colonel, the last remaining son of his mother, and she a widow. That mother had sold eleven children of an old slave-mother, her servant. That servant went to her and said,—“Missis,we even now. You sold all my children. God took all yourn. Not one to bury either of us.Now, I forgive you.”
In another battle fell the only son of another widow. Young, beautiful, heroic, brought up by his mother in the sacred doctrines of human liberty, he gave his life an offering as to a holy cause. He died. No slave-woman came to tellhismother of God’s justice, for many slaves have reason to call her blessed.
Now we ask you, Would you change places with that Southern mother? Would you not think it a great misfortune for a son or daughter to be brought into such a system?—a worse one to become so perverted as to defend it? Remember, then, that wishing success to this slavery-establishing effort is only wishing to the sons and daughters of the South all the curses that God has written against oppression.Mark our words!If we succeed,the children of these very men who are now fighting us will rise up to call us blessed. Just as surely as there is a God who governs in the world, so surely all the laws of national prosperity follow in the train of equity; and if we succeed, we shall have delivered the children’s children of our misguided brethren from the wages of sin, which is always and everywhere death.
And now, Sisters of England, think it not strange, if we bring back the words of your letter, not in bitterness, but in deepest sadness, and lay them down at your door. We say to you,—Sisters, you have spoken well; we have heard you; we have heeded; we have striven in the cause, even unto death. We have sealed our devotion by desolate hearth and darkened homestead,—by the blood of sons, husbands, and brothers. In many of our dwellings the very light of our lives has goneout; and yet we accept the life-long darkness as our own part in this great and awful expiation, by which the bonds of wickedness shall be loosed, and abiding peace established on the foundation of righteousness. Sisters, what haveyoudone, and what do you mean to do?
In view of the decline of the noble anti-slavery fire in England, in view of all the facts and admissions recited from your own papers, we beg leave in solemn sadness to return to you your own words:—
“A common origin, a common faith, and we sincerely believe, a common cause, urge us, at the present moment, to address you on the subject of that fearful encouragement and support which is being afforded by England to a slaveholding Confederacy.
“We will not dwell on the ordinary topics,—on the progress of civilization, on the advance of freedom everywhere, on the rightsand requirements of the nineteenth century; but we appeal to you very seriously to reflect and to ask counsel of God how far such a state of things is in accordance with His Holy Word, the inalienable rights of immortal souls, and the pure and merciful spirit of the Christian religion.
“We appeal to you, as sisters, as wives, and as mothers, to raise your voices to your fellow-citizens, and your prayers to God, for the removal of this affliction and disgrace from the Christian world.”
In behalf of many thousands of American women,
Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Washington,November 27, 1862.
CHISWICK PRESS:—PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND WILKINS,TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.