SPEECH
Delivered, on taking the Chair, as President of the Great Mass Convention, called, without distinction of Party, in Opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law, and held at the Tremont Temple in Boston, April 8, 1851.[24]
Delivered, on taking the Chair, as President of the Great Mass Convention, called, without distinction of Party, in Opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law, and held at the Tremont Temple in Boston, April 8, 1851.[24]
Gentlemen of the Convention;
I thank you cordially for the honor of being called to this place; though I could have wished that your choice had fallen upon some one of the many more meritorious men whom I see all around me.
Gentlemen, I have come here to-day to add my feeble voice to the thunder tones of execration against the Fugitive Slave law, with which every free state in this Union, and every free community upon the earth, are now echoing and reëchoing.
I do not propose to occupy your attention long. Where so many things are to be said, and so many persons, far better qualified than I am, are present to say them, I shall consult at once your advantage and my duty, by being brief.
We have come together with especial reference to the Fugitive Slave law; but that execrable statute connects itself so directly with almost every other prominent measure of the government, and with theleading acts of our public men, during the past year, that it opens the whole subject of human liberty, and our duty, as freemen, in regard to human rights. Especially does it behoove us to inquire, by what means, by whose instrumentality, the country has been instigated to this treason against the rights of men, and when we may expect their machinations will be brought to an end.
Some of our official dignitaries are giving us law lectures on the subject of high treason against the government. I hope they will not object, if we reciprocate the favor, by giving them a lecture on the higher treason against God and humanity, of which they are guilty.
Gentlemen, it is with unspeakable humiliation and regret that I look back and see where Massachusetts stood twelve or thirteen months ago, and where so many of her citizens stand now. Up to that ever-accursed day, the 7th of March, 1850, there was not a Massachusetts man, in the councils of the state or nation;—nay, so far as I know, there was not a single Massachusetts man any where, of any standing or respectability, who did not assert and proclaim his hostility to the extension of slavery; his purpose to maintain at all times the principle of the ordinance of 1787; and his “resolute and fixed determination,” (to use Mr. Webster’s language,) “to make no further concessions to slavery and the slave power.” The public men of the state, the press of the state, the legislature of the state, avowed these sentiments; and the political conventions of the state rang with these declarations from side to side.
But on that ever-memorable day a senator of the United States, from Massachusetts, saw fit to trample under foot every thing that he had ever said in behalf of human freedom and against human bondage. He saw fit to curl his lip and to intonate his voice in scornof the principle of the ordinance of 1787, and to dishonor the memory of Nathan Dane, whom, a few years before, on the same spot, he had eulogized. He saw fit to contemn what he knew to be the honest sentiments of Massachusetts. He went far, far out of his way, to fortify and extend the institution of slavery. He offered to add new states to its power, and to take two hundred millions of dollars from the treasury of the United States, to be expended for its extra-constitutional security and defence.
I shall not dwell upon the perfidious nature of that deed, nor upon the obvious motive that prompted it. I will rather advert to the measures which have since been taken to corrupt the public sentiment of Massachusetts, and of the whole north, and to bring over the people, some to a palliation and others to a full indorsement of it.
As soon as the stunning effect of that treacherous blow upon all the moral and religious sensibilities of the state, and upon its traditional and inwrought love of liberty, had begun to subside, a systematic effort was commenced to debauch the patriotism and humanity of the people, by an appeal to their cupidity. Our manufacturing and commercial interests were suffering. A majority of the slave states were the antagonists of these interests. Political ambition and mercantile cupidity associated these two facts together, and the flagitious idea was engendered that by surrendering our liberty we might have a tariff. The poison of this idea was first openly and directly infused into the public mind by Mr. Webster, in his speech at the Revere House, April 29th, 1850, when he said, “Neither you nor I shall see the legislation of the country proceed in the old harmonious way until the discussions in Congress and out of Congress upon the subject to which you have alluded, [slavery,] shall be in some way suppressed. Take this truth home with you, and take itas truth. Until something can be done to allay the feeling now separating different men and different sections, there can beNO USEFUL AND SATISFACTORYlegislation in the two houses of Congress.”
Of this declaration there can be but one interpretation. It was perfectly understood by those to whom it was addressed. It says, without enigma or riddle, surrender the territories to the incursions of the slave states, pacify the slave power, give up blood-bought rights for this life, and Savior-bought hopes for another, and you can have your pay in a cent a yard on calico, and a cent a pound on iron. And, as a means of accomplishing this object, it says the discussion of the slavery question must be “suppressed.”
From that time until the close of the last session of Congress, in every form in which so intrinsically wicked an idea could be set forth without shocking not only all principle, but all decency, this idea was inculcated upon the public mind of the north, especially upon the cities. In unofficial speeches and letters, Mr. Webster urged this seduction more and more pointedly and earnestly, until, on the 17th of July, 1850, in the last speech which he ever made in Congress, he appealed to the senators of the north, and to the people of the north, in language as explicit as he could make it, to adopt the compromise measures, to take even the abhorred Fugitive Slave bill itself, for the sake of the money to be made out of them. Throughout that speech he held out the apple of temptation before their eyes, he jingled the thirty pieces of silver in their ears, to seduce them into the surrender of liberty for pelf.
I appeal to the common knowledge of the citizens of Boston, if, during the last summer, it was not an expression as familiar to their lips as the salutations of the day, that they had Mr. Webster’s authority for saying, that if they would surrender the great questionsinvolved in the compromise, they could have a tariff.
Now, on this state of facts, I have two observations to make,—
1st. That a proposition to barter or to jeopard the liberty of our fellow-beings for any amount of money, however great, was intrinsically inhuman and wicked.
2d. That every new concession we made to the south on the subject of slavery, for the sake of getting protection for our manufactures and other industrial interests, only impaired and postponed our chance of getting that protection.
For the correctness of the first of these propositions, I appeal to every man who has a conscience, or even any elementary ideas of right or wrong, which are not smothered by his interests or his passions. And for the second, I appeal to the case of Texas which defeated the tariff of ’42, and to the fact that, though we did consent to all the detestable provisions of the compromise,—slave territories, slave states, ten millions of dollars for Texas, Fugitive Slave bill, and all,—yet we get no tariff, and have now no rational prospect of one.
That the surrender of all our glorious patrimony of free principles should help to make some northern man President, I can readily understand. That is intelligible. Before the 7th of March speech, it was announced, from high southern sources, that they would take the northern man for the next presidential term who would do the most for slavery; and since that time, the same declaration has been reiterated. [See, among others, Mr. Toombs’s speech before the Georgia Union meeting.] But I state it as a fact within my own personal knowledge, that there was not an intelligent man in Congress who was not implicated, on the one side, in the manufacture of goods, or, on the other, in the manufacture of presidents,who did not then foresee and predict that every forward step we took towards the compromise was a step backwards from protection. And we now have this stubborn fact to show for the soundness of that opinion,—the event has ratified it. They have not obtained the tariff they were promised, though they have given for it the price of blood.
Now I wish to ask the manufacturers and commercial men of the north, whether, if they had seen,—as it was seen by every unbiased man at the seat of government,—that upholding the compromise would put down protection, they would have consented to the compromise? And a further question which I wish to put to all Massachusetts and all New England is, if, during the last year, we had had the tariff of 1842 in full operation, and if the current of prosperity had filled the deepest channels that enterprise and industry had cut for it, whether then Massachusetts citizens would have unsaid and retracted all the noble things they have been saying in favor of liberty for the last ten years; whether then the Massachusetts press, or so large a portion of it, would be found openly advocating doctrines which they have always heretofore professed to hold in utter detestation and abhorrence? No man will pretend it. If we had had the tariff of ’42 last year, the compromise measures never could have passed, and it would have been impossible for any presidential aspirant, or all of them together, to have subdued the northern mind to their acceptance.
The commercial and manufacturing interests of the north, then, have been deceived, grossly deceived and imposed upon. When their real interests were all on the side of freedom, they have been made to believe that it would promote those interests to unsay all they had ever said, and undo all they had ever done adverse to slavery. Their chance for a tariff lay in standingto their principles like men, and not in abandoning them like cowards. President-making has been the agency, and Cotton has been the instrument, of this deception. It has been said that the Press is the fourth estate in the realm; but I say Cotton is the fourth estate, for Cotton subdues the Press. The eyes and ears and nose and mouth of a portion of our people have been so filled with cotton, that they have come to consider cotton not only as their daily bread, but their bread of life.
Gentlemen, whatever convictions or doubts there may be on the subject of Animal Magnetism, I am a firm believer in Cotton Magnetism. The southern planter seems to possess some wizard art, unknown to the demonology of former times, by which he impregnates his bales of cotton with a spirit of inhumanity, with a contempt for all the dearest, tenderest, holiest ties that bind man to man and heart to heart; he fills them with this spirit as an electrician fills a Leyden jar, and then he sends them here; and if the man who comes within the circle of their influence is not himself filled with the strong, counteracting, disinfecting magnetism of duty and truth, of love to God and love to man, he is overcome and subdued by the infernal spell; he is brought into “communication” with the southern sorcerer, and into subjection to his will; and then he seems bereft of reason and conscience, he belies his Pilgrim parentage, talks gibberish about the dissolution of the Union, kneels, lies down, eats dirt, and says to his southern master, as Balaam’s beast said to him, “Am I not thine ass upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine?”
Still worse is it, when this cotton, so diabolically impregnated, gets beneath the rich velvet seats and embossed cushions of the pulpit;—unless, indeed, a double measure of the spirit of the Lord shall descend upon the preacher and exorcise both him and it, of theevil spirit it contains. When the soul of the clergyman is struck with this cotton magnetism, he grows delirious over his Bible, ignores the new dispensation, seeks out all the pro-slavery parts of the old, discards Jesus Christ as his example, and the precepts of Jesus Christ as the law of his ministrations, and proves himself a pagan, discoursing paganism in a Christian pulpit.
God grant that this kind of cotton may never stuff the cushions of our judges! I fear we are not wholly out of danger of so unspeakable a calamity. Give us the old English woolsack for them, within whose magic presence the chains of the slave drop from his limbs, and he is gloriously transfigured into a man.
Compare the newspapers of our cities now with what they were only one short twelvemonth ago, and see what demoralization cotton can work when it gets into editorial chairs.
As for those slave-catching commissioners who assume to exercise the functions of judges, to abolish human liberty, and to find property in the bodies and souls of men, but are no more a judge than an image “made after supper of a cheese-paring” is a man,—as for them, I say, they seem to have this virus the natural way; and if all moral diagnosis does not fail, it would be found, on an anatomical dissection of their hearts, that their right and left auricle and their right and left ventricle were only four cotton bolls.
But I believe that the reign of Cotton is to be short-lived. Improvements in the arts give confident promise that some new textile substance will soon be discovered which will supersede this slave-made and slave-making material. Even should this hope fail, every body sees what an unnatural attitude of power and strength the cotton-producing states now occupy. Extending over only a small area of territory, which you can cover on the map with your hand, they raisea staple which clothes, more or less, a great part of the world; while there are Brazil, Egypt, India, and regions of unknown vastness in Africa, to all of which, or nearly all of which, the plant is indigenous. Either then by the progress of the arts, or by an extension of cultivation, the majesty of Cotton will soon be dethroned; and then,then, how will these men appear, historically, who are now willing to trample upon human rights, and to send men, women, and children into all the horrors of southern bondage for the temporary profits which cotton can bestow?
I rejoice that this reference to the demoralizing power of interest gives me an opportunity to bestow well-deserved honor and praise upon a class of men who have nobly withstood its temptations. Not every man engaged in manufactures or in commerce has yielded to the seductions of this tempter. There are many noble exceptions. I have in my mind one of my own constituents largely interested in manufactures, who told me last summer that half his spindles were lying idle, and property that should have yielded income was incurring cost; “but,” said he, “do you see themallstop, and the mills decay and go down stream, before you vote for that compromise.” Another of my constituents told me he was largely interested in three ships, then at sea; but declared he would see them all sink to its bottom before he would disgrace the country by passing the Fugitive Slave bill. These are but specimens of that noble spirit which was expressed with such Spartan terseness and vigor by Bowen & McNamee, of New York, when the foul panders to southern slavery threatened them with a loss of custom. Said they, “Our goods, and not our principles, are in the market.”
O, how these declarations contrast with what a manufacturer in a neighboring county is reported to have said,—that if he could work his mills anycheaper with slave labor than with free, he would employ slaves! And what, also, as I am credibly informed, another has said,—“The south want slaves to raise cotton to sell; we want slaves to raise cotton to manufacture; therefore, we must unite with the south to uphold slavery.” Now, I believe these things to have beensaid; but it is of no consequence whether they were said or not; we know they have beenacted. Every man who upholds this Fugitive Slave lawactsthem, whatever his language may be.
The compromise was forced through Congress partly by government interference, and partly by the delusive hope of a tariff. An appeal is now made, in behalf of the Fugitive Slave law, to the same mercenary motives. It is said, if opposition be made to this law, however legal or constitutional such opposition may be, we shall lose southern custom. Base and infamous appeal! Such men are made of the stuff of the tories of the revolution. Even if this appeal were true, it would be one that no honorable man could hear without indignation. But it is not true. The south must have their goods from somewhere, and our industrious artisans will make them, whoever the go-betweens may be. Will the south go bare-headed and bare-footed and unkilted, because they cannot have a law to catch freemen and slaves promiscuously? But it is said the south will abandon their slothful habits, become industrious, and manufacture for themselves. I wish they would. It would be most fortunate for us. They would then have the means of buying more from the north, and paying us better for what they do buy. Instead of spending only the money which their slaves earn, they would then have money to spend earned by the whites, and would become better customers for those ever new forms of commodities which our industry and inventive skill, while we keep our schoolhouses in operation, will always be able to supply.
Now, fellow-citizens, I have gone into these considerations for the purpose of ascertaining and of measuring the extent and the efficacy of the motives brought by our opponents to bear against us. You see they are mercenary, almost exclusively so. As for that bugbear of a dissolution of the Union, I say, without fear of contradiction, that no practical man has ever believed in it for a day. United States stocks at a hundred and sixteen, on the eve of a dissolution of the Union! The whole South Carolina, and Mississippi, and Texas delegations in Congress contending for every local advantage, for the establishment of new United States courts, for the increase of salaries, for appointments at home and abroad, as though the Union had been just insured for a thousand years! Show me one intelligent man in the whole country who has sold his stocks or his farm, or changed his residence, or altered his course of life in any respect, through fear that the Union was about to be dissolved. I think some persons may have left South Carolina, to get rid of the clamor about dissolving it. Why, what would the English national debt be worth under any well-founded apprehension that the British monarchy was crumbling to pieces? There would not be a pound of government securities that could not be bought for a penny. Confidence in the stability of our Union has not only pervaded this country, but other countries. The great bankers abroad who deal in our stocks have never changed their terms one mill in a million of dollars, through any such idle fear. They are the men whose barometers presage political storms. With such facts before us, to say that the Union has been in danger is as absurd as to say that a whirlwind is raging when the leaf of the aspen is pendulous, and cannot be seen to move. If the south wishes to dissolve the Union, let them do it, and at the end of thirty years there will be no slave in all their borders.The slaves will have made a new Jamaica or a new St. Domingo of it, as the masters shall behave themselves. No, this is nothing but a clumsy trick of the politicians; and if any one of them could be nominated for the presidency, we should hear nothing more from him about any deluge which threatens to submerge the Union. They profess peculiar love for the Union. Their clamorous notes bring to mind what Dr. Franklin remarked of self-righteous people. He said they always reminded him of scarcity of provisions;—those who had enough said nothing about it; it was the destitute who made all the clamor.
I say, then, the only remaining motive with which our adversaries can work is the loss of southern trade. This interests but few of our people. The farmers are not interested in it. The mechanics and artisans are not. The operatives in our mills are not. All our substantial, industrious classes are above this temptation, and would spurn it if they were not above it. The Fugitive Slave law champions, then, can make no more converts among them. Let us, then, continue to oppose this law in all constitutional modes. Let us explain its religious and moral bearings to the Christian. Let us tell the patriot of the disgrace it brings upon our country. Let us show to the working-man that those who are ready to make slaves of his fellow-beings for lucre will be equally ready to make a slave of him whenever interest shall supply the temptation.
Fellow-citizens, it has been asked why we are assembled here to-day, and not in the Hall consecrated to liberty. It is because the doors of that hall have been closed to Liberty knocking for admission. But there is a melancholy propriety in this. When the court house is in chains, Faneuil Hall may well be dumb. Those chains which girt the courts of justice are but typical of the chains which tyrannous men are striving to put upon our lips. This is not the first temple that hasbeen unrighteously invaded and taken possession of by money changers and those who sold doves,—doves!doves!! No, not doves,—but men, women, and children. But I trust the time is not far distant when a better spirit shall enter their doors, and shall scourge out their invaders with cords, smaller or larger, as the exigencies of the case may require.
FOOTNOTES:[24]This meeting was held pending the trial, before Mr. Commissioner Curtis, of Thomas Sims, an alleged fugitive slave from Georgia. During the trial, the Boston court house was surrounded by a large police force, and was enclosed in chains, beneath which the judges of the supreme court of Massachusetts bowed as they entered and retired.
[24]This meeting was held pending the trial, before Mr. Commissioner Curtis, of Thomas Sims, an alleged fugitive slave from Georgia. During the trial, the Boston court house was surrounded by a large police force, and was enclosed in chains, beneath which the judges of the supreme court of Massachusetts bowed as they entered and retired.
[24]This meeting was held pending the trial, before Mr. Commissioner Curtis, of Thomas Sims, an alleged fugitive slave from Georgia. During the trial, the Boston court house was surrounded by a large police force, and was enclosed in chains, beneath which the judges of the supreme court of Massachusetts bowed as they entered and retired.