“ For we are to remember, that our slave and colored population is advancing with the same gigantic rate of increase characteristic of our country. In twenty-five years, we shall have six millions of slaves; in fifty years, twelve millions; in seventy-five years, twenty-four millions. Can any one dream of the possibility of retaining twenty-four millions, or twelve millions, of human beings in slavery? Long before that number is reached, will not vast multitudes of them learn the simple lessons of liberty and right, which our books, orations, and politicians inculcate day by day? ”

“ And there are cunning politicians to stand between the two sections, and play upon the prejudices of both, and into each other’s hands, for selfish ends. But the great heart of the nation, North and South, on the whole and according to the measure of its understanding, beats true alike to freedom and the constitution,—true to that immortal sentiment which, as long as this nation endures, shall encircle its author’s name with a halo, in whose splendor some later words that have fallen from his lips will be happily lost and forgotten: “Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.” ”

“ Every moment of the ages is pregnant with the fate of humanity, but we are inclined to imagine that in which we live to have a peculiar significance. At this hour, it seems to us as if the great balance of justice swayed to and fro, in most disheartening uncertainty; but this moment, like all others, lies in the hollow of God’s hand, and his infinite love will not fail to justify to men and angels its terrible discipline. ”

“ Listwell saw, for the first time in his life, a slave-gang on their way to market. A sad sight truly. Here were one hundred and thirty human beings,—children of a common Creator—guilty of no crime—men and women, with hearts, minds, and deathless spirits, chained and fettered, and bound for the market, in a christian country,—in a country boasting of its liberty, independence, and high civilization! Humanity converted into merchandise, and linked in iron bands, with no regard to decency or humanity! ”

“ Ought not every one who has a spark of humanity, to say nothing of Christianity, in his bosom,—ought not all the sound part of every community in which slavery exists to rise up en masse, and declare that, this abomination shall exist no longer?
Who gave to any man the right to enslave his fellow man? Can any enactment of human legislators so far sanction robbery, as lawfully to make one man the property of another? ”

“ Is there any reason except that inveterate prejudice, which applies very different principles to the colored man and to the white man? If three millions of white men were in slavery in Algiers now, should we not urge them, as soon as there was hope of success, to imitate the men of 1776, rise and fight for liberty? Therefore, until we are prepared to condemn our ancestors as guilty rebels, and abhor their insurrection as a wicked resistance to the ordinance of God, can we blame any class of people for successful revolt against an oppressive government? ”

“ It was the only common sentiment between our country and him. It is America’s loftiest thought. Her beau-ideal of public virtue. I don’t mean that there was no Christianity or philanthropy in the United States when Kossuth came amongst us; but I do mean that, as a nation, we had none of them. He came on an errand of practical philanthropy; to appeal to our national heart, and cause the only cord of humanity in it that could be touched, to vibrate in unison with his own in behalf of the down-trodden nations of the world. ”

“ Such piety would do away with chattel slavery, with caste, with slavery platforms, with ungodly rulers, with Indian oppression, with divorcing Christianity from the ballot-box, with heathenism at home. Let us pray for such piety; and that hundreds of such men as Rice and Hawes may lift up their voices like a trumpet, and put forth corresponding action, until the nation shall be regenerated and become fit to enlighten, and, through the grace of God, save a dying world. ”

“ I do not believe that slave-catching is either a Christian duty, or an innocent amusement. I do not believe that he who breaks the arm of the kidnapper, or wrests the trembling captive from his grasp is ‘a traitor.’ I do not believe that Daniel Webster is the saviour of the Union, nor that the Union stands in need of such a saviour. ”

“ They live free, though they may die slaves. They fly where they list by day, and retire in freedom at night. But what is freedom to me, or I to it? I am a slave,—born a slave, an abject slave,—even before I made part of this breathing world, the scourge was platted for my back; the fetters were forged for my limbs. ”

“ Our traveller raised his head, and saw again the sorrow-smitten slave. His eye was fixed upon the ground. The strong man staggered under a heavy load. Recovering himself, he argued thus aloud: “All is uncertain here. To-morrow’s sun may not rise before I am sold, and separated from her I love. What, then, could I do for her? I should be in more hopeless [181] slavery, and she no nearer to liberty,—whereas if I were free,—my arms my own,—I might devise the means to rescue her.”
This said, Madison cast around a searching glance, as if the thought of being overheard had flashed across his mind. ”

“ If France was justified in aiding our band of revolutionists to fight for liberty, then a foreign nation may lawfully aid men now to vindicate their rights. If, as the men of 1776 declared, “when a long train of abuses evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government,”—then it is the duty of three millions of men in 1852, to throw off the government which reduces them to the frightful and absolute despotism of chattel slavery. ”

“ Listwell confesses, that this reasoning did not altogether satisfy his conscience, for, hating slavery as he did, and regarding it to be the immediate duty of every man to cry out against it, “without compromise and without concealment,” it was hard for him to admit to himself the possibility of circumstances wherein a man might, properly, hold his tongue on the subject. Having as little of the spirit of a martyr as Erasmus, he concluded, like the latter, that it was wiser to trust the mercy of God for his soul, than the humanity of slave-traders for his body. ”

“ For such a sentiment, who can fail to feel respect? Who would not despise himself if his own bosom were destitute of it? But, by as much as I respect it in others, and would cherish it in myself, by so much will I resent all playing upon it by political men for party or personal ends, and fear lest it betray me into pusillanimity and inertness where the times demand action for humanity and God. It is a serious question for all honest anti-slavery men throughout the land, in what way they can most wisely and hopefully quit them of their responsibility in relation to this thing. ”

“ Next to a great defeat, the most fatal event for slavery would be a great triumph. Doubtless, the bolts are now forging in some celestial armory destined to strike the shackles from the limbs of the bondman, and cleanse the land from the foulest and blackest iniquity ever organized and legalized in the christian world. The shout of deliverance may come when it is least expected,—nay, the very means employed to render its coming impossible, will probably secure and hasten it. ”

“ We are compelled to work without wages; the fruits of our labor are systematically extorted from us.
Many thousands of our people are annually collected by slave-traders, and sold to distant States; by which means families are broken up, and the most frightful debasement, anguish, and outrage is inflicted on us.
We have no access to courts of justice, no voice in the election of rulers, no agency in making the laws,—not even the miserable remnant of liberty, in choosing the despot who may have absolute power over us. ”

“ In some of those castle-building day-dreams, in which, like all youth of an imaginative turn, I was wont, in my early days, to indulge, a favorite image of my creation was an Africo-American for the time,—a colored man, who had known by experience the bitterness of slavery, and now by some process free, so endowed with natural powers, and a certain degree of attainments, all the more rare and effective for being acquired under great disadvantages,—as to be a sort of Moses to his oppressed and degraded tribe. ”

“ There is no such issue before the nation. We are not compelled to choose between disunion and slavery; a slavery, too, that would not only hold the black man in its remorseless gripe, but put its fetters on the conscience of the white man, and its gag into his mouth. Our Southern brethren themselves, even to save their cherished institution, would not dare, would not desire to press such an alternative. ”

“ You are loosed from your moorings, and are free; I am fast in my chains, and am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale, and I sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedom’s swift-winged angels that fly around the world ”

“ Is the gospel a remedy for slavery? We answer, unhesitatingly, not such a gospel as is preached to them; for while it does very little to enlighten either slave or master, it enjoins upon the former passive obedience, and inculcates upon the latter the right and duty of holding their fellow men in bondage. Nor have we much hesitation in avowing it as our belief, that the gospel, as generally preached in the free States, is quite inadequate to put an end to slavery. ”

“ Believe as kindly as you can of the treatment which the slaves receive of humane and christian masters; it is only on condition that they first surrender their every right as men. Let them dare demur to that, and their tears and blood must answer it. That is the terrible fact; and our country is the abettor, the protector, and the agent of the iniquity. Must we be indifferent? May we be indifferent? It is a question of tremendous import to every freeman in the land, who honestly believes that the rights he claims as a man are common to the race. ”

“ It must in all candor be confessed, that there is something in the subject of slavery which, when fairly looked at and realized, is a little trying to one’s sanity. Even such intellects as John Wesley’s and Thomas Jefferson’s, seem to stagger a little under a view of the appalling sum of iniquity [243] and wretchedness which the word represents, and vent their excitement in terms not particularly measured. What wonder, then, if men of simpler minds should now and then be thrown quite off the balance, and think and say some things that are really unwise. ”

“ Think of three millions of our countrymen in chains! Think of the large numbers held by ministers of the gospel and members of churches! Think of the countenance given to slave-holders by our ecclesiastical assemblies, by Northern preachers, by Christian lawyers, merchants, and mechanics! Think of the platforms, adopted by the two leading political parties of the country, composed partly of religious men! Think of the dumbness of those that minister at the altar, in view of the great national iniquity, and then consider the effects of such an example upon other nations, Christian and Heathen! ”

“ A constitution,—the organic-law,—in truth, all other law is, in some degree, a restraint on men. It makes an umpire of right,—of reason,—which, if not the same in degree in all of us, is the same in nature. Yet it must be, to some extent, a restraint on the desires or selfish passions of men. In fact, it is only carrying out the rule of doing to others what they should do to us, and tends not only to preserve, but advance society. ”

“ Instead of adopting it as Washington probably intended it, as a rule of temporary policy, they inculcated the notion that we were to cut ourselves clear from the family of nations, and live only for ourselves. The large patriotism of Washington they had shrunken to the merest selfishness. We may well thank God for the providence which sent Kossuth among us, to relieve his fame from the suspicion of having begot, and our country from the sin of cherishing, so weak and dishonoring a delusion. Heaven-assisted man only could have dreamed of believing a nation so securely blinded. ”

“ I started towards Madison again. The rascal now told me to stand back. ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘your life is in my hands. I could have killed you a dozen times over during this last half hour, and could kill you now. You call me a black murderer. I am not a murderer. God is my witness that Liberty, [235] not malice, is the motive for this night’s work. I have done no more to those dead men yonder, than they would have done to me in like circumstances. We have struck for our freedom, and if a true man’s heart be in you, you will honor us for the deed. ”

“ I felt, at the moment, like rushing out in the midst of them; but considering that the old man would be whipped the more for having aided a fugitive slave, and that, perhaps, in the melée he might be killed outright, I disobeyed this impulse. They tied him to a tree, and began to whip him. My own flesh crept at every blow, and I seem to hear the old man’s piteous cries even now. They laid thirty-nine lashes on his bare back, and were going to repeat that number, when one of the company besought his comrades to desist. ”