Calvin Colton

“ But in the territory of Michigan is a world of lakes, created by the hand of God, of all dimensions and shapes, just fitted for the sports of fancy, of childhood, and of youth—for the relaxations of manly toil—for the occupation of leisure;—the shores of which are overhung with beautiful and wholesome shades—and the waters deep, and so clear, that the fish cannot play in their lowest beds, without betraying their motions to the observer, floating in his bark upon the surface. ”

“ May we long smoke the pipe of friendship. Before our chiefs went to see our great father, where is built the great council-house, we did not know the great nation. And we once drew our short knives against the long knives— (long swords of the whites) we took the tomahawk and rifle—and we said: We will have every scalp of them. But they were too many for us. And when our chiefs came back, and told us what they had seen, we said: we shall never dare to lift up our short knives against the long knives again. And so, we wish to live in peace. ”

“ To insist on breaking in upon this general and conventional movement by violence, on disturbing the established order of human society, to force forward one race, one nation, one tribe, and one class, at the expense of another, and in violation of the recognized principles and actual frame of society, is treason to society, and to the general rights of mankind. The time of absolute perfectionism, either as to individual character, or as to the structure of human society, in our opinion, has not yet come. ”

“ The pride of their nation, their wives and little ones, their cabins, their hunting and fishing grounds, their territories claimed by the prescriptive right of possession, the graves and spirits of their fathers—their own lives, dear to all, and now menaced by impending war;—every fact and circumstance, that is precious in present possession, or dear to hope;—all, that belongs to life, and all that is mysterious and awful in religion—are invoked, and brought in with all the power of their wild poetry and savage rhetoric, to shake off the lethargies of peace, and kindle the passions for war. ”

“ It is to the Africans themselves, that this trade owes its origin—to their barbarism, to their everlasting trade in war, and the glutting of their own marts with the blood and sinews of their own flesh all to the sore evil of this Continent, and to the inexpiable scandal of Christian Europe, that the flood gates of African barbarism were let out upon these Western Isles and shores, to gratify the lust of gain in those monsters who carried on and profited by the traffic, and to entail a long protracted curse on the less guilty, though not innocent, tenants of this new world. ”

“ I am like you, my great Father:—I love my country; I love my people; I love the manner, in which they live; and think myself and warriors brave. Spare me, then, my Father. Let me enjoy my country, pursue the buffalo, and the beaver, and the other wild animals of our wilderness; and I will trade the skins with your people. I have grown up and lived thus long without work. I am in hopes you will suffer me to die without it. We have yet plenty of buffalo, beaver, deer, and other wild animals; we have also an abundance of horses. We have every thing we want. ”

“ Such an unconstitutional organization steals a march upon the public, and by the amazing power of its vast political machinery, assails the Constitution and laws of the country, with no rival influence to counteract it. While the rest of the people keep within the laws, this combination has transcended them, and occupies the field of its usurpation alone. There is no balance of influence any where, that can lawfully be employed, except in the strong arm of authority. The public, the Government, the world, have been taken by surprise. ”

“ What child, whose vernacular tongue is English, has not listened to Indian story with an intensity of interest, which he can never cease to cherish; and with expectation of something new and newer still, from the wildness and fierceness of savage enterprise? Where is the man, however grave with philosophy and bowed with the weight of years, however accustomed to things prodigious, whose ear will not bend to the promise of him, who announces an untold page of Indian warfare? ”

“ The most formidable difficulty of Abolitionism, therefore, and the most disorganizing principle, of all, plants itself on the very threshold of the enterprise: non-indemnification. Their only reason, so far as we understand, is, that indemnification would be a tacit and implied confession on the right of slavery. Admitting, that Abolitionists themselves think and feel so; the rest of the public do not; Abolitionists, therefore, would neither be weakened in principle, nor injured in fact, by giving up this point, except in the workings of their own imagination. ”

“ The climate and aspects of the heavens seemed changed. The clouds, such, as a clear atmosphere and its brisk currents fold together in their fleecy robes, and toss along in sublime and majestic sport;—the shores and islets successively receding in one direction, and coming into view from another;—a new and fine steamer, dashing through the waves, with all her sails set to the breeze, and crammed with a population, like bees upon the hive, in a summer’s day, all life and bustle;—the toute ensemble presented a scene, as picturesque, as could well be grouped, under a traveller’s eye. ”

“ Who will say, that it was intended to annihilate those grades of society, which the use of common rights necessarily creates, because one man is more industrious, or more virtuous, or more fortunate than another? Who will say, that it was intended to establish the Agrarian principle, that because the industry of one man has built him a good house, the lazy, idle, and worthless man has a right to claim a part of it, and a part of the wealth of its owner? ”

“ You cannot count the white men! Brothers, we do not wish to fight the white men; we wish for peace. Our chiefs told us of your big cabins, all put together in a great heap, so great, that one must walk a whole journey to get round it. They told us of your big canoes, with great wings, and how they let out the smoke and thunder from their sides. We were afraid at their story—and we wish for peace. Our chiefs told us of your warriors, how many they are, and how they all push together straight forward, and do not run and dodge like an Indian behind a tree. ”

“ But, let it be remembered, that a foreign war is infinitely less to be dreaded, than a domestic and civil one; and that it is no less certain, if the Abolition movement is not suppressed, we must have the last. The cases are parallel: as a foreign Nation could not endure such interference, neither can the slave States of the South. There is as valid and justifiable a right of interference in one case, as in the other, and an equal provocation for resort to arms, if the General Government should not interpose its authority, and arrest the movement. ”

“ He who has seen the troubled ocean after a storm, has only to imagine those heaving billows descending a mountain side, himself looking up from below on their downward course, and it is the very picture presented from the table rock of Niagara, as the spectator, turning his back on the chasm, with the cataract immediately on his left, faces the descending torrent, and lifts his eye on the mountain declivity of waters, which comes leaping, and rolling, and tumbling, as if from the clouds, or the azure heavens which peer above the tops of the waves. ”

“ The Constitution of a nation knows no rival, admits of none, within its own jurisdiction. It would be the same as to sanction sedition and treason; it would be forging the weapons of its own destruction, and turning a suicidal hand upon itself. The empire claimed, and designed to be maintained, by a Constitutional government, like that of the United States, is sole. It cannot, without peril to itself, admit a rival political and independent power on the same territory. But such is the American Anti-slavery Society. ”

“ The Indian war-whoop is a sharp, piercing falsette, as elevated as the sharpest scream of a woman in a fright, broken and trilled, or made tremulous, by the mechanical play of the finger on the lips. This whoop is repeated by all the dancers every two, or three minutes, and seems to be a kind of letting off, or 285 explosion of the highest possible degree of excitement. It is startling and frightful beyond description, breaking, as it does, unexpectedly from a multitude of voices. Even when one has heard it a thousand times in succession, and in the same dance, it always comes unexpected. ”

“ Such is the Divine superiority of Christianity: silent, but effective and irresistable in its march—irresistable, because it is never violent—because, veritas valebit, truth will prevail.
But, alas! how utterly opposed to all this are the measures and movements of the Abolitionists! They seem as if they would take heaven and earth by storm; but if they happen to raise a storm over their own heads, they demand impunity from its effects. Stirrers-up of mischief, they deny the right of its re-action on themselves. It is ridiculous, absolutely. If a man will be a fool, he must reap his folly ”

“ There stands before him a naked man, with visage painted horrible, whose every muscle demonstrates his custom to exertion and fatigue, who knows not how to smile; who never sleeps, or wakes, but that a weapon of death is girded to his side, or borne in his hand; who is a creature of passion, and inflexible in his purpose, when once resolved; who conceals his thoughts beneath his imperturbable countenance; who never betrays his emotions, however deep and strong they are;—who can be indifferent in such society? ”

“ Slavery, fairly defined, is the unequal and unjust depression of man in relation to his fellow man, as the result of an artificial state of society, which has been erected, and is maintained for the advantage of the few, and to the disadvantage of the many. The degree of depression, and the amount of oppression, are accidental. Both are greater in any other part of the world that can be named, beyond the bounds of the United States, than in the slave States of the South—if, perhaps, we except the North American British Provinces—now being invaded on Abolition principles. ”

“ The history of the American Indians is the Romance of Fact. It needs not xiii a single dash of the pencil—not a single ingredient of the sentimentality of poetry, to give it life and power over the feelings. The naked truth has in it more of poetry and a more energetic challenge on the affections, than any possible embellishment, or fictitious garniture, that could be thrown around it—more than any creations of fancy, with which it could be charged. Show that race, as they are and have been, and none of human kind can fail to be interested in them. ”

“ All the rights of our fellow [124] beings, as secured by law, are an abridgment of our liberty. The higher the degrees of civilization, which add to the multiplication of laws, so much greater is the abridgment of liberty. That is, the more perfect society is made, so much less of liberty do we have; and, as good citizens, we are not only contented with it, but we prefer it. For the advantages of society, we enter into terms of mutual concession; and every degree of concession cuts us off from liberty.
Now for the romance of “Equality”—“that all men are created equal.” ”

“ All his feelings and passions are too stout to be subdued by such inventions. He arms himself alike to endure them, and to inflict them. Such are the necessities, and such is the custom of Indian warfare. It knows no mercy. He becomes a war-stricken and blood-thirsty maniac, from the moment of his enlistment, till he falls 116 by the hand of his foe, or returns victorious to his home. He is elevated above the atmosphere, and thrown beyond the circumference of all ordinary human sympathies. For the time, he is not a man—he is more than a man. ”

“ There is nothing but the most enlarged view of a great question, that can fairly determine its merits; and it cannot be denied, that slavery is one of the great questions appertaining to the social state of mankind, and to the political state of the world. It is so great, in our opinion, that it can neither be disposed of by the logic of visionary theorists, nor by a coup du main of an ill-considered and intemperate effort, nor by any legerdemain of political quackery. Ever since human society was set up, so far as history deposes, slavery has been a component element in one form or another. ”

“ Louder still, and still more earnest, the beating rolls; and the voices of the band and all their instruments grow more clamorous and deafening; every few moments raising the war-whoop. Like as the bird, spell-bound and charmed by a serpent, flutters and circles in the air, struggling in vain to escape, and drawing nearer and nearer to the object of her dread—at last makes a sudden and desperate plunge;—so he springs upon the weapon of death, grasps it firmly in his hand, and lifts himself erect. ”

“ It was taken for granted, that religion could not find its way into the State over such Constitutional barriers erected to intercept the trespass; and yet it is there—the religion of a Sect—of a great, powerful, fanatical, religioso-political sect—which, having leaped the wall, has carried with it a great and powerful political machinery from another region, and is well at work, as if it were perfectly at home. It may be said, that the political world has never yet had such a fellow worker before, and looks at it askance as a strange companion, not knowing what to make of it. ”

“ If he fights, he must fight in his own way. In his creed, surprise is his lawful advantage, and extirpation his necessity. And under the same artificial and unnatural excitement, and with the same determination, and from the same coverts of the forest and the night, from which he pounces upon the foe of his own race, he springs also upon the unexpecting village of the white man, wraps it suddenly in flames, and if it be possible, leaves not a soul to tell the story of their calamity. ”

“ They are all crippled and rendered nugatory by the moral power and irresistible momentum of this regular system of means, under a State machinery, that is brought into the field. The Abolitionists know their power, under such an advantage, and laugh their enemies to scorn. By the influence of their organization, by its constant, systematic, and all pervading action, they expect, and not without reason, to carry all before them in the free States.
All the freedom guaranteed by the Constitution to their opponents is worth nothing in the scale against such a power ”

“ The lover of nature’s magnificence and nature’s beauties may wander there without fear of satiety—with ever growing and yet a keener appetite. He may choose his bed on the brow of the chasm, and near the fearful plunge, so that the walls of his habitation, and the couch on which he reposes, shall sympathise with the ceaseless vibrations of the earth and rocks, and himself literally be rocked to sleep by the hand and music of the mighty waters. ”

“ In the first place, the action of this Society, as a grand political organization, on the social fabric of foreign States—for the slave States are foreign in respect to it—with the intent to change it against their consent, and thus disturbing their domestic tranquility, is a violation of the law of nations. This is sedition in a higher and more important sense, than any combined assault on the social institutions of a community by its own members, inasmuch as the remedy is more difficult to be attained, and more momentous in its consequences. It can be settled only by the sword. ”

“ Anticipating well the doom, that awaits him, if he falls into the hand of his enemies, he works up all his passions to a fearlessness of death, and to a contempt of every imaginable cruelty. He turns his back, and steels his heart to all domestic endearments. He fasts—he lacerates his own flesh, and accustoms himself to the patient and unflinching endurance of pain and agony, by the inflictions of his own hand. ”

“ And will the people of this country allow a religious faction to take possession of the Government, and dictate to Sovereign States, with which we are in solemn covenant to protect and defend them in these matters, what they shall do—to enforce their principle of perfectionism on the political structure of our society, to dissolve and overthrow it?
We do not mean to say, or to intimate, that Abolitionists are all perfectionists in the religious sense of this term, and in regard to all modes of improving society. ”

“ The shelf of the cataract on the American side is to the eye and in fact higher than the point of the Horse Shoe, as it is called, where is the greatest depth and force of the river, as it leaps from the precipice. This single feature of superior elevation gives advantage to the American side, and in this particular it stands invested in a more majestic form. But the deep, and comparatively unperturbed current descending from the Horse Shoe, suggests the vastness of its volume, imparts to it the highest consideration, and chains the mind with the intensest interest. ”

“ As we have before intimated, the Abolition movement is a wandering star, an eccentric and fiery orb, that has broken loose from the Religious and Benevolent Society system, with all its armor on, and betrayed and violated the principles of that system, by plunging into the battle field of political strife, and running riot in a wild and mad encounter with the political interests of mankind. ”