Frederick Douglass

“ Every time the abolitionist speaks in honour of human liberty, he touches a chord in the heart of the anti-abolitionist, which responds in harmonious vibrations. Liberty-yes; that is very evidently my right, and let him beware who attempts to invade or abridge that right. Every time he speaks of love, of human brotherhood, and the reciprocal duties of man and man, the anti-abolitionist assents, says, Yes-all right-all true-we cannot have such ideas too often or too fully expressed. So he says, and so he feels, and only shows thereby that he is a man as well as an anti-abolitionist. ”

“ One other word for my subject. A grand movement on the part of mankind, in any direction, or for any purpose, moral or political, is an interesting fact, fit and proper to be studied. It is such, not only for those who eagerly participate in it, but also for those who stand aloof from it, even for those by whom it is opposed. I take the anti-slavery movement to be such an one, and a movement as sublime and glorious in its character, as it is holy and beneficent in the ends it aims to accomplish. ”

“ A celebrated divine who, four years ago, was for flinging his own mother or brother into the remorseless jaws of the monster slavery, lest he should swallow up the Union, now recognizes anti-slavery as a characteristic of future civilization. Signs and wonders follow this movement; and the fact just stated is one of them. Party ties are loosened by it, and men are compelled to take sides for or against it, whether they will or not. Come from where he may, or come for what he may, he is compelled to show his hand. ”

“ Let us trust that arm-let us confide in that intelligence, in conducting this movement; and whether it shall be ours to witness the fulfilment of our hopes—the end of American slavery--or not, we shall have the tranquil satisfaction of having faithfully adhered to eternal principles of rectitude and duty, and may lay down life in the triumphant faith that those principles will ultimately prevail. ”

“ It has revealed the arrogant and overbearing spirit of Slave States towards the Free States---despising their principles, shocking their feelings of humanity, not only by bringing before them the abominations of slavery, but by attempting to make them parties to the crime. has called into exercise among the coloured people--the hunted ones - a spirit of resistance, well calculated to surround them with a bulwark of sympathy and respect hitherto unknown; for men are always disposed to respect and defend rights when the victims of oppression stand up manfully for themselves. ”

“ They awaken the sympathies for the slave, in which anti-slavery principles take root, grow up, and flourish. In addition to authors, poets, and scholars at home, the moral sense of the civilized world is with us. England, France, and Germany, the three great lights of modern civilization are with us, and every American traveller learns to regret the existence of slavery in his country. The growth of intelligence, the influence of commerce, steam, wind, and lightning are our allies. ”

“ Many who once stood with delight in the church, apart from the world, go not up with the great congregation to worship now; and they tell us the church must make peace with the slave before it can make peace with God. She must bring back the child of her early love from the wandering exile into which she has driven it. She must return to her early testimonies, and teach the oppressor now, as at the beginning, to "break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free,” and gather around her the affections of those who esteem mercy more than sacrifice. ”

“ In the very heart of humanity are garnered up, as from everlasting to everlasting, all those elementary principles whose vital action constitutes what we now term the anti-slavery movement. They are the treasure of our common storehouse. The humblest may approach, enter, and be supplied with arms to meet the ills that flesh is heir to. A thousand moral battles have been fought with them, and they are as good as ever. . Ages of oppression and iron hearted selfishness have rolled over them, and covered them with their blinding dust ”

“ Old as the everlasting hills, immovable as the throne of God, and certain as the purposes of eternal power against all hinderances, and against all delays, and despite all the mutations of human instrumentalities, it is the faith of my soul that this anti-slavery cause will yet gloriously triumph. ”

“ No slavery for man under the whole heavens.' The slave, as a man and a brother, must be the vital and animating thought and impulse of any movement which is to effect the abolition of slavery in this country. Our anti-slavery organizations must be brought back to this doctrine, or they will be scattered, and left to wander and die in the wilderness, like God's ancient people, till another generation shall come up, more worthy to go up and possess the land. ”

“ The slaveholder is not satisfied to associate with men in the church or in the state, unless he can thereby stain them with the blood of his slaves. To be a slaveholder is to be a propagandist from necessity; for slavery can only live by keeping down the undergrowth morality which nature supplies. Every new-born white babe comes armed from the Eternal presence to make war on slavery. ”

“ There is another element of power added to the anti-slavery movement, of great importance; it is the conviction, becoming every day more general and universal, that slavery must be abolished at the South, or it will demoralize and destroy liberty at the North. It is the nature of slavery to beget a state of things all around it favourable to its own continuance. This fact, connected with the system of bondage, is beginning to be more fully realized. ”

“ In doing so I have one consolation, and that is, as I apprehend it, the anti-slavery movement is, after all, no cold abstraction, requiring a sharp and flinty intellect to analyze it. While it is a subject of surpassing dignity, and one upon which the wisest and best minds may be employed, it is, nevertheless, a subject upon which the humblest may venture to think and speak without justly being exposed to the reproach of treading upon ground which should be trodden only by men of the "superior race." ”

“ Forms and ceremonies may pass current for a time, but there is too much love among mankind for what is real, true, and genuine, to endure always what is empty, hollow, and hypocritical. It won't do for the church to weep over the heathen abroad and laugh over the heathen at home. It will not do to send Bibles and missionaries to India, with money wrung from the blood and sweat of the heathen of South Carolina and Georgia, to whom we prohibit, under pains and penalties, the privilege of learning to read the name of Almighty God! It will not do to save souls abroad and enslave souls at home. ”

“ It has grown too large-its friends are too numerous—its facilities too abundant its ramifications too extended its power too omnipotent to be snuffed out by the contingencies of infancy. A thousand strong men might be struck down and its ranks still invincible. One flash from the heart-supplied intellect of Harriet Beecher Stowe could light a million camp fires in front of the embattled hosts of slavery, which not all the waters of the Mississippi, mingled as they are with blood, could extinguish. ”

“ The moral life of human society--it cannot die while conscience, honour, and humanity remain. If but one man be filled with it, the cause lives. Its incarnation in any one individual man leaves the whole world a priesthood, occupying the highest moral eminence, even that of disinterested benevolence Whoso has ascended this height, and has the grace to stand there, has the world at his feet, and is the world's teacher, as of divine right. He may sit in judgment on the age, upon the civilization of the age, and upon the religion of the age ”

“ Strictly speaking, I say this party is the only party in the country which is an abolition party. The mission of the Garrisonians ends with the dissolution of the Union; that of the Free-soil party ends with the relief of the federal government from all responsibility for slavery; but the Liberty party, by its position and doctrines, and by its antecedents, is pledged to continue the struggle while a bondman in his chains remains to weep. Upon its platform must the great battle of freedom be fought out, if upon any short of the bloody field. ”

“ The attacks of unbelief are not so galling as the fire from the ramparts of justice and humanity. Not only has the slave been converted into an enemy of the church, and taught to look elsewhere for succour and deliverance, but the sober-thinking philanthropist has been led to raise the dangerous inquiry-Of what use to this sin-cursed world is a church whose religion and gospel are the dread of the oppressed and the delight of the oppressor? ”

“ If there be but one such man in the land, no matter what becomes of abolition societies and parties, there will be an antislavery cause and an anti-slavery movement. Fortunately for that cause, and fortunately for him by whom it is espoused, it requires no extraordinary amount of talent to preach it, or to receive it when preached. The grand secret of its power is, that each of its principles is easily rendered appreciable to the faculty of reason in man, and that the most unenlightened conscience has no difficulty in deciding on which side to register its testimony. ”

“ It is an error to speak of this venerable movement as a new thing under the sun. The causes producing it, and the particles composing it-like the great forces of the physical world, fire, steam, and lightning-have slumbered in the bosom of nature since the world began. ”

“ In a word, she must abolish slavery, or be abolished by slavery. The voice of one crying in the wilderness has the same lesson to-day as in the days of Jesus, The axe is laid at the root of the tree. Usefulness is the price of existence. Do or die, wear out or rust out, bring forth fruit or be cut down, is the law now and always. Men may go often, but they will not go always to an exhausted fountain; they will not long search for substance where they are only rewarded with shadows. ”

“ Nevertheless, I have somewhat against this society, as well as against the American Anti-slavery Society. It has almost dropped the main and most potent weapon with which slavery is to be assailed and overthrown, and that is speech. At this moment, when every nerve should be strained to prevent a reaction, that society has not a single lecturing agent in the field. ”

“ Trample under foot your own unjust pledges, break to pieces your compact with hell, by which you become the abettors of oppression. Stand alone, and let no cement of the Union bind the slave, and he will right himself. ”

“ It has given up the faith that the slave can be freed, short of the overthrow of the government; and then, as I understand that society, it leaves the slaves, as it must needs leave them, just where it leaves the slaves of Cuba or those of Brazil. The nation, as such, is given up as beyond the power of salvation by the foolishness of preaching; and hence the aim is now to save the North, so that the American Anti-slavery Society, which was inaugurated to convert the nation, after ten years' struggle, parts with its faith, and aims now to save the North. ”

“ In every human breast it has an advocate, which can be silent only when the heart is dead. It comes home to every man's understanding, and appeals directly to every man's conscience. A man that does not recognize and approve for himself the rights and privileges contended for in behalf of the American slave, has not yet been found. ”

“ Is it strange, then, that those who once loved began, now to loathe the church? Is it strange that their faith in her regard for the souls of men should wane, when they saw her shameless contempt for the bodies of men ? ”

“ The patriots of the American Revolution clearly saw, and, with all their inconsistency, they had the grace to confess the abhorrent character of slavery, and to hopefully predict its overthrow and complete extirpation. Washington and Jefferson, Patrick Henry and Luther Martin, Franklin and Adams, Madison and Monroe, and a host of the earlier statesmen, jurists, scholars, and divines of the country, were among those who looked forward to this happy consummation. ”

“ Ladies and Gentlemen, I am not superstitious; but I recognize an arm stronger than any human arm, and an intelligence higher than any human intelligence, guarding and guiding this anti-slavery cause through all the dangers and perils that beset it, and making even auxiliaries of enemies, and confounding all worldly wisdom for its advancement. ”

“ It is to snatch from the bosom of nature the latent facts of each individual man's experience, and with steady hand to hold them up, fresh and glowing, enforcing, with all his power, their acknowledgment and practical adoption. ”

“ Let the church, then, look to it; for here is the source of her weakness, attracting, as well from the sky of truth as from the clouds of error, the exterminating bolt and the devouring fire. , Her new moons, appointed feasts, Sabbath days, solemn assemblies, are no atonement for refusing to do justice. She is under the law to cease to do evil, and learn to do well. She must seek justice and relieve the oppressed. ”