Charles Fitch

“ He is a man—made in the image of God—and bears as much of God's image, remember, as though he had the complexion, and the features, and the limbs, of the white man. Where is the man with a pale face, even among slaveholders, who will stand up, before the face of heaven, and claim that he bears more of God's image than his slave? He would show the image of the devil, large as life, had he the pride, and effrontery, to do such a deed of daring impiety. The slave is made in the image of his God, and to him God gave dominion over the works of his hand, as much as to the white man. ”

“ They do not hesitate to sacrifice the lives of their slaves to hard labor, when it will increase their profits. Besides, the poor slave is often whipped until the result is death. Is not my point made clear, abundantly clear, that slavery is worse than murder? Would you not prefer to be met by a highwayman, and shot dead, rather than have your life worn out on a slave plantation, toiling to enrich the hard-hearted wretch who had stripped you of all your rights? ”

“ The slave, under the best circumstances, is the victim of robbery every day. Day by day, all his life, he is robbed of the fruits of his labor, that it may go to enrich another. He has hands indeed, but he may not use them for his own benefit. Feet he has, but they may not bear him where he would go. They must go and come at the master's bidding, and not his. He has eyes, but he may not look on the light of science, or on the clearer, purer light of God's revealed truth. Even the sun shines not for him, as it only serves to light him to his unwilling and unrequited toil. ”

“ Theft and robbery are nothing compared with the wickedness of slavery. Make them as bad as you please, and they do not deserve to be named the same week. The difference between them is too great to be described, too wide to be measured, too deep to be fathomed. The slaveholder who goes impenitent to hell, will find himself loaded down with a weight of guilt and damnation, that will sink him out of sight of the worst high-way robber that ever walked the earth. But you will say the high-way robber is often guilty of murder. ”

“ When we consider, too, that slavery seizes its victims by force, and binds and rivets chains upon them which they cannot throw off, and thus leaves their souls unprovided with any of the means of grace, to die without hope; and that strong drink leaves men abundant opportunities to escape if they will; who will not say that slavery is unspeakably more to be dreaded: that it is an evil of far greater magnitude than the other? ”

“ She takes away the Bible from them, and gives them no opportunity, to learn for themselves, the way to heaven. All the religious instruction, which the people can receive, must come orally, from the lips of the priest. Slavery does the same thing precisely, to all who come under its control. They may not read the Bible, nor possess it—and can receive no religious instruction, but what comes orally from the lips of the priest. The Roman Catholic Church depends for its perpetuity, upon the ignorance of the common people. Slavery depends for its perpetuity upon the ignorance, of the enslaved. ”

“ Let every press groan to be delivered of its obligation, to make known the Almighty's will—and let such as can pray, pray now, that God will break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free. Especially, let woman—woman, the last to linger around the cross, and the first to find the sepulchre of God's crucified Son; linger long at the altar of prayer, and be found early upon her knees, wrestling at the throne of grace; and let all who fear God or love man, resolve before high Heaven, that they will not rest, till every chain is broken, every yoke buried, every scourge and fetter burned. ”

“ But slavery wrests the Bible out of the hands of immortal men by force. In the midst of a Christian land, with the clear light of heaven shining all around them, they are shut out from this light, and left to grope their way in darkness down to hell. That I may not be suspected of declaring more than the truth on this point, I will just give a specimen of the laws of slave States touching this point. ”

“ Slavery cannot long live among them. 'Behold, the hire of the laborers, who have reaped down their fields, which is of them kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped, are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.' The Lord of armies, is the fearful signification of that term; and if they cease not from their oppression, they may well expect, that the Lord of armies will not long withhold his hand. Up, my friends, and do your duty, to deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, lest the fire of God's fury kindle ere long upon you. ”

“ The wicked, heaven-daring laws of men, confer the power of enslaving man—but the right they never gave, for it was never theirs to give. There is no such thing as property in man—there never can be. We do not ask the slaveholder to relinquish any right. We call upon him, on the authority of God, to break every yoke and let the oppressed go free. ”

“ Who will say, that this system of slavery, under which no female, who has a drop of African blood in her veins, has any defence for her virtue, against any white man, even for an hour, and no possibility of escaping from pollution, is not unspeakably worse than fornication and adultery, or even the violation of purity by force, where there are laws to apprehend and punish for such a crime? ”

“ But if this be admitted, there are still more than twice the number shut up by slavery, in a state of darkness that leads to hell, than have ever, by any man, been estimated in the ranks of intemperance. Is it not most clearly a truth, then, that slavery destroys more souls, than the making and vending of ardent spirit? ”

“ Who does not know, that oftentimes, when the poor slave can no longer endure the outrages practiced upon him, and flies, and takes to the woods, he is hunted down by dogs, and guns, and thus put to death, just for trying to escape. Every body knows, that it is a thing of frequent occurrence. Put to death—just for trying to escape from his sufferings and his wrongs. ”

“ You see, therefore, the strenuous efforts which are made by legislative enactments, to shut out all light from the mind of the slave, and surround him with a thick impenetrable darkness, in the midst of which he must live and die; and from which his eye never can open, till death frees him from the grasp of his oppressor. I am aware, that the privilege of giving oral religious instruction to slaves is, to some extent, granted, and that some slave masters do pretend to teach their slaves the truths of religion. ”

“ But who cannot see, that slavery is the common mother of all this brood of hellish ills; in whose frightfully prolific womb they are conceived, and by whom they are brought forth. Slavery itself is the thing to be reprobated? You must put the odious dam to death, or she will continue to multiply her infernal progeny, and send them abroad among us, prolific in woes. ”

“ If a man shoots you dead [Pg 19] by the way side, it is your own fault if you do not go to heaven. You have the Bible, and the gospel. You know that there is a Saviour, and if you have not repented of your sins, and believed in him for salvation, you are without excuse. If you lose your soul, the fault is your own. Though murdered—you might if you would, have been saved. But the poor slave is prevented from learning the way of salvation while he lives, and then worn out with toil, he dies and is lost forever. ”

“ I say then, there are points, in which slavery far outdoes the Romish Church in cruelty and guilt; binds heavier burdens, and more grievous to be borne, and lays them on men's shoulders, and will not touch them with a finger. Slavery also like Romanism, cries out against free discussion, and the liberty of the press, and does not hesitate to silence both, so far as she has the power; and to make every possible advance toward it where the power is not possessed. Hence the outrages committed on peaceful citizens, travelling in slaveholding States ”

“ The intemperate man may at any time, break away from his bondage, give up his cups, enjoy the means of grace, embrace the truth and live. But the victim of slavery, shut out from all true knowledge of God, deprived by law of all opportunity of learning his Maker's will, or of studying the way of salvation by Christ; what can he do, but remain in his darkness and sin, until the darkness of eternal night closes in upon his benighted soul, and he is left for eternity to suffer the consequences of unpardoned sin. ”

“ Sure I am, that Arnold's treason would never have made our land groan under such woes, and send up to heaven such cries of distress, as are wrung daily from the breasts of the helpless millions whom our nation now enslaves. I say again, therefore, that the system of slavery, is unspeakably worse than treason. ”

“ Let us now just remember, that in addition to such a regulation, no person of color can be a witness against a white man in a court of justice, and you see the exact condition of the poor female slave. There is nothing, so foul in pollution, nothing so horrid in crime, but she may be driven by the lash, to be the victim of it, and she must not lift a hand in self-defence—and then she dare not divulge her wrongs, or if she does, there is no power on earth, from whom she can gain any redress ”

“ We expect to make the slaveholder feel, that when he crushes an immortal soul down to the depths of hell, to gratify his own abominable selfishness, God will hold him accountable for that soul at the judgment day. ”

“ True, the guilt of him who dies the willing victim of intempesance, must be greater than that of the poor benighted slave, and his future punishment consequently more severe, but if slavery holds twice the number of victims exposed to hopeless reprobation, then it destroys twice the number of souls, and is therefore the greatest evil. ”

“ It was not stripping us of all our rights, and robbing us of our children, and subjecting our wives, our sisters and our daughters, to wanton and promiscuous violation, with no power to lift a hand in self defence, and depriving us of the power of giving them protection. The husband or father, if he be a slave, may look on, and see his wife or daughter polluted before his eyes, and all the laws of the land, are against his lifting a finger for their deliverance. He may toil ever so hard, during his whole life, and he cannot be worth a farthing. ”

“ But the Romish Church does not, ordinarily, strip the whole multitude of its victims, of everything that bears the name of property, and take the ownership of themselves out of their hands, and drive them by the scourge to hard labor from the beginning to the end of the year. She does not measure out to them their scanty pittance of food, nor name every rag of clothing which they are permitted to put on, nor mock at all the relations of social life—stealing the child out of the father's arms, or off the mother's breast ”

“ But I seem to hear some one ask—must we think only of the slave—must we not regard the master's rights? Rights! What rights? Right to hold his fellow man in bondage for one hour? He might as well claim a right to sit on the throne of God. He has no such right. But must he relinquish all the property he now holds in slaves? He has no such property. He has no more right to call them his property, than he has to call the angels in heaven his [Pg 34] property. God gave man dominion over the beasts of the field—but over God's own image he never gave him dominion. ”

“ In Virginia, every master is finable, who permits a slave to work for himself at wages. In North Carolina, all horses, cattle, hogs, or sheep, that shall belong to any slave, or be of any slave's mark in this State, shall be seized and sold by the county Wardens. In Mississippi, the master is forbidden under the penalty of fifty dollars, to let a slave raise cotton for himself, or to keep stock of any [Pg 17] description.' Now where is the man under heaven, who would not say, that such a system of legalized oppression, was infinitely worse than theft or robbery, when practiced toward himself? ”

“ And is not the wretch who inflicts death by such means, to enrich himself, more guilty, than he who blows out the traveller's brains and seizes his money to enrich himself? Surely, my point needs no more illustration. Slavery is worse than murder. ”

“ But in the midst of it all, even the wife of your bosom, dear as your own heart's blood, is sundered from you, and sold forever from your embrace, and you at last go off under the hammer, to the highest bidder, and are driven by the lash, to groan, and sweat, under long, long days of unrequited toil, with no relief till you die. ”

“ Our efforts are aimed, not at the life of the slaveholder, but at his conscience—his moral feelings, and with the help of God, we do expect them to prevail. But, perhaps you will say, that slaveholders have no conscience on this subject. Doubtless their conscience may be dead and buried ”

“ After years of toil, to gain something for yourself and household, you are in a moment pennyless, with your destitute, needy family upon your hands. All you can do, is again to betake yourself to hard labor, to provide for those you love.
But suppose after all this, you were doomed to see your children torn from you, one after another, and sold under the hammer, to go you know not where; to be subjected to the cruelty, and abuse, and outrage, of any monster into whose hands they might chance to fall ”

“ Lovers of your fellow men, look at the wrongs of the slave, and [Pg 36] weep and toil for him, that he may go free. Open your hearts and your hands to him, and remember that 'He that hath pity on the poor, lendeth to the Lord, and that which he hath given he will pay him again.'
Let no one think to rid himself of obligation, on this momentous subject. Every man has a tongue, and he can use it; he has influence, and he can exert it; he has moral power, and he can put it forth ”