Bayard Tuckerman

“ We are now contending, not so much with the slaveholders of the South about human rights, as with the political and commercial aristocracy of the North, for the liberty of speech, of the press, and of conscience. Our politicians are selling our constitutions and laws for Southern votes. Our great capitalists are speculating, not merely in land and banks, but in the liberties of the people. We are called to contemplate a spectacle never, I believe, before witnessed—the wealthy portion of the community striving to introduce anarchy and violence on a calculation of profit ”

“ To the people of the South it is a curse by fostering and strengthening and perpetuating an iniquitous, corrupting institution. To the millions of African descent among us it is a curse by riveting the chains of the bondman and deepening the degradation of the free man. To the people of the free States it is a curse by tempting them to trample under foot the obligations of truth, justice, and humanity for the wages of iniquity with which the Federal Government has so abundantly rewarded apostates from liberty and righteousness. ”

“ But we have as good and perfect a right to exhort slaveholders to liberate their slaves as we have to exhort them to practice any virtue or avoid any vice. Nay, we have not only the right, but under certain circumstances it may be our duty to give such advice; and while we confine ourselves within the boundaries of right and duty, we may and ought to disregard the threats and denunciations by which we may be assailed.
"The question of slavery in the District of Columbia is totally distinct, as far as we are concerned, from that of slavery in the Southern States. ”

“ Duty is the only safe rule of expediency. No nation ever has suffered, and none ever will, for doing justice and loving mercy. But moral considerations apart, I have no doubt it would be wise policy in the Southern States immediately to emancipate their slaves. The period must arrive when slavery must cease on this continent. The progress of knowledge and religion, the example of St. Domingo, the abolition of slavery in Mexico and South America, the decreasing value of slave labour, and the rapidly augmenting coloured population in the South, all combine in rendering this event inevitable. ”

“ When no longer covetous of the votes and the trade of the South, they will no longer be bullied into all manner of wretchedness and all manner of insult by the idea and ever-repeated threats of dissolution. But when this happy time arrives, the Union will be converted from a curse into a blessing. Our divines, instead of vindicating cruelty and oppression, and denouncing as fanatics those who consider the will of God a higher law than an accursed act of Congress, will become preachers of righteousness. ”

“ Is it not amazing that, at a time when the rights of humanity are defined and understood with precision, in a country above all others fond of liberty, in such an age, we find men professing a religion the most humane, mild, meek, gentle, and generous adopting a principle as repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible and destructive of liberty? Every thinking, honest man rejects it in speculation, but how few in practice, from conscientious motives! ”

“ Some of our religious journals are sadly grieved and scandalized by the alleged discovery that certain opponents of slavery are infidels. For my own part, I know of no form of infidelity so hideous as that which impiously claims the authority of Almighty God for abrogating all His laws in behalf of justice and mercy in reference to our conduct towards millions of our countrymen not of the same colour as ourselves. This cutaneous Christianity, so insulting to the Deity, so disastrous to man, is fast becoming the national religion. ”

“ To a committee of free coloured men who asked Judge Jay's advice regarding the propriety of arming themselves to prevent being kidnapped under the law, he said: "Most deeply do I sympathize with you in your unhappy state. With your wives and children, you are now placed at the disposal of any villain who is ready to perjure himself for the price you will bring in the human shambles of the South. With less ceremony and trouble than a man can impound his neighbour's ox, you may be metamorphosed from a citizen of the State of New York into a beast of burden on a Southern plantation. ”

“ I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living without them. I will not, I cannot, justify it; however culpable my conduct, I will so far pay my devoirs to duty as to own the excellence and rectitude of her precepts and lament my want of conformity to them. I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil; everything we can do is to improve it, if it happens in our own day; if not, let us transmit to our own descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot and an abhorrence of slavery. ”

“ While various causes have aided in producing it, its immediate origin is to be traced to the lamentable defection, in 1850, of so many of the rich and influential from truth and justice, liberty and humanity, under the fallacious plea of saving the Union. Well may the Free Democracy of Massachusetts, with their hands and consciences undefiled by oblations on the altar of the American Moloch, now strive to avert the calamity impending over the country. May a long-suffering God bless their efforts and rescue a guilty nation from the punishment it seems anxious to inflict upon itself. ”

“ If our country is ever to be redeemed from the curse of slavery the present Congress must stand between the living and the dead and stay the plague. Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. If slavery once takes root on the other side of the Mississippi, it can never afterwards be extiminated, but will extend with the future Western Empire, poisoning the feelings of humanity, checking [29] the growth of those principles of virtue and religion which constitute alike the security and happiness of civil society. ”

“ Thus, at this crisis in the national history, there first distinctively appeared that aggressive, uncompromising party, afterwards to be known as the Slave Power—an association of men then forming a minority even in the South, but determined to carry its point at all hazards; men who were willing to sacrifice every consideration of the public good to the permanence of a system profitable to themselves, but which reduced human beings to the level of beasts. Against a party so resolute, antislavery opinion of the Patrick Henry variety could not prevail. ”

“ But the Slave Power had mustered all its forces in an aggressive campaign which aimed to make slavery a national instead of a local institution, to introduce it into territory hitherto free, and to browbeat the North into submission to every demand of the slaveholder. ”

“ I believe that God governs the world, and I believe it to be a maxim in His Court, as in ours, that those who ask for equity ought to do it. I do not think the free States guiltless of upholding slavery while, through their representatives, they tolerate it in the District of Columbia. ”

“ In justice to myself, permit me to remark that my opinions on slavery and abolition have undergone no change, and that every principle I have ever avowed as an abolitionist is still cherished by me with no other difference than possibly a stronger conviction than formerly of its truth and importance. ”

“ The committee reported on the 16th July, that in the District of Columbia, "if a free man of colour should be apprehended as a runaway, he is subjected to the payment of all fees and rewards given by law for apprehending runaways; and upon failure to make such payment, is liable to be sold as a slave." "That is," said Judge Jay, "a man acknowledged to be free and unaccused of any offence is to be sold as a slave to pay fees and rewards given by law for apprehending runaways. If Turkish despotism is disgraced by an enactment of equal atrocity, we are ignorant of the fact." ”

“ The right of petition was suspended, the freedom of debate interrupted, the sanctity of the post-office violated, public meetings dispersed, printing-presses destroyed, furious mobs excited, churches sacked, private houses gutted, and even murder perpetrated. All this violation of rights was regarded with complacency by many who had much at stake, so long as abolitionists alone were the victims. But the spirit of aggression thus raised and fostered is seeking new subjects on which to exercise its power. ”

“ The truths we advocate are unpalatable to the two extremes of society. We shock the coarse, vulgar prejudices of the rabble, while the disinterested benevolence we profess is to them an enigma to be solved only by the imputation of fanaticism. At the same time we disturb the tranquil consciences of the rich, thwart the calculations of politicans, and interrupt the harmony subsisting between our merchants and their Southern customers. Hence the upper classes look upon us as impertinent and exceedingly ungenteel, and unfit to move in the higher circles. ”

“ The fact that many good men who unite in abhorrence of slavery entertain conflicting views of the expediency and morality of various proposed reforms seems to me a sufficient reason why the Liberty party should not permit itself to be distracted by the other questions which agitate the community, and which in truth are of but little moment compared with the great evil with which we are struggling. ”

“ In pursuing their lawful course undaunted through this "reign of terror," when so large a portion of their fellow-countrymen seemed to have forgotten the obligations of citizens to established law, the abolitionists not only maintained the existence of their cause, but they preserved those rights which Americans value above all others. That free speech continued to exist in the United States was duo to their indomitable courage. Such a state of affairs could not endure long. Lawless feeling exhausted itself in fruitless violence. Antislavery societies increased in numbers and membership. ”

“ And is it indeed believed that the rights of the rich will be protected by familiarizing the populace with the practice of injustice and cruelty towards the poor? Will the sight of innocent men seized in our streets and sent in fetters to till the broad fields of great landowners increase the reverence felt for land titles? Is it wise to give the people practical lessons in the demolition of all the barriers raised by the common law for the protection of the weak against the strong? ”

“ In my opinion, in nine cases out of ten an antislavery Christian can do more good to his own soul, to the cause of Christ, and to the interests of the slave by remaining in his church and there battling for truth and justice, than by going in search of a pure church. It often happens when an abolitionist abandons an alleged pro-slavery church he finds no other that suits him. ”

“ What grievances are the slaves, under the encouragement of the society, to petition Congress to redress? Obviously those they suffer as slaves, because if Congress does not redress them, redress is to be sought in the court, by demanding if a man can be held in bondage, that is, as a slave. ”

“ Democrats, seeing the Federal patronage wielded by the opponents of slavery, will, in the rapidity and extent of their conversion to truth and justice, eclipse all the marvels of New England revivals; and men who for years have been bowed to the earth by spinal weakness will as by miracle stand erect. When all this happens, the North will continue its Union with the South ”

“ I have had great opportunities of knowing the effect produced by the countenance given to slavery and caste by the church on the faith of many kind-hearted and conscientious people, and in all sincerity I declare that our pro-slavery clergy, our negro-hating clergy, our slave-catching clergy, are the most successful apostles of infidelity in the country. ”

“ The Slave Power, warned by the opposition it had met with in Congress, that a new spirit was arising in the North, instinctively felt that its position could be maintained only by further aggression. None but slaveholders were allowed to represent the South in Congress, where every public measure was considered first in the light of its effect upon the institution of slavery. At home, such humane laws regarding the blacks as still existed were repealed, new and more cruel enactments were passed, the manumission of slaves by grateful or repentant masters was prohibited. ”

“ In my opinion, every Northern slave-catcher is a base man, and every lawyer who takes reward against the innocent is a disgrace to a noble profession. I myself shall offer no forcible resistance against the execution of this most wicked law, but I trust that, through the grace of God, I would go to the scaffold sooner than obey it. ”

“ I am not disheartened by the corruption of politicians, nor the deathlike apathy of the community, so long as we remain independent of the renegade republic. Give us time and we can arouse the community from its stupor, we can change public opinion, and politicians will bellow aloud for abolition the moment they find it popular. The danger is that before this change is effected the slaveholders will demand the annexation of Texas as the price of the presidency and that one or more of the candidates will consent to pay it. ”