Lydia Maria Child

“ By thousands and thousands, these poor people have died for freedom. They have stabbed themselves for freedom—jumped into the waves for freedom—starved for freedom—fought like very tigers for freedom! But they have been hung, and burned, and shot—and their tyrants have been their historians! When the Africans have writers of their own, we shall hear their efforts for liberty called by the true title of heroism in a glorious cause. We are told in the fable that a lion, looking at the picture of one of his own species, conquered and trampled on by man, calmly said, "We lions have no painters." ”

“ I am not vindicating insurrections and murders; the very thought makes my blood run cold. I believe revenge is always wicked; but I say, what the laws of every country acknowledge, that great provocations are a palliation of great crimes. When a man steals food because he is starving, we are more disposed to pity, than to blame him. And what can human nature do, subject to continual and oppressive wrong—hopeless of change—not only unprotected by law, but the law itself changed into an enemy—and to complete the whole, shut out from the instructions and consolations of the Gospel! ”

“ Instead of profiting by the experience of other nations, the slave-owners, as a body, have resolutely shut their eyes against the light, because they preferred darkness. Every change in the laws has riveted the chain closer and closer upon their victims; every attempt to make the voice of reason and benevolence heard has been overpowered with threatening and abuse. A cautious vigilance against improvement, a keen-eyed jealousy of all freedom of opinion, has characterized their movements. There can be no doubt that the majority wish to perpetuate slavery. ”

“ Roane likewise remarked, "I think slavery as much a correlative of liberty as cold is of heat. History, experience, observation and reason, have taught me that the torch of liberty has ever burned brighter when surrounded by the dark and filthy, yet nutritious atmosphere of slavery! I do not believe in the fanfaronade that all men are by nature equal. But these abstract speculations have nothing to do with the question, which I am willing to view as one of cold, sheer state policy, in which the safety, prosperity, and happiness of the whites alone are concerned." ”

“ The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. The parent storms; the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in a circle of smaller slaves, gives loose to the worst of passions; and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. ”

“ This is shaking hands with iniquity, and covering sin with a silver veil. Our prejudice against the blacks is founded in sheer pride; and it originates in the circumstance that people of their color only, are universally allowed to be slaves. We made slavery, and slavery makes the prejudice. No christian, who questions his own conscience, can justify himself in indulging the feeling. The removal of this prejudice is not a matter of opinion—it is a matter of duty. We have no right to palliate a feeling, sinful in itself, and highly injurious to a large number of our fellow-beings. ”

“ The strongest and best reason that can be given for our supineness on the subject of slavery, is the fear of dissolving the Union. The Constitution of the United States demands our highest reverence. Those who approve, and those who disapprove of particular portions, are equally bound to yield implicit obedience to its authority. But we must not forget that the Constitution provides for any change that may be required for the general good. The great machine is constructed with a safety valve, by which any rapidly increasing evil may be expelled whenever the people desire it. ”

“ We must go to the master and adjure him, by all the sacred rights of humanity, by all the laws of natural justice, by his dread responsibilities,—which, in the economy of Providence, are always co-extensive and commensurate with power,—to raise the slave out of his abyss of degradation, to give him a participation in the benefits of mortal existence, and to make him a member of the intellectual and moral world, from which he, and his fathers, for so many generations, have been exiled. ”

“ The British formed settlements in North America, and in the West Indies; and these were stocked with slaves. From 1680 to 1786, two million, one hundred and thirty thousand negroes were imported into the British colonies!
In almost all great evils there is some redeeming feature—some good results, even where it is not intended: pride and vanity, utterly selfish and wrong in themselves, often throw money into the hands of the poor, and thus tend to excite industry and ingenuity, while they produce comfort. But slavery is all evil—within and without—root and branch,—bud, blossom and fruit! ”

“ It seems to be forgotten that emancipation from tyranny is not an emancipation from law; the negro, after he is made free, is restrained from the commission of crimes by the same laws which restrain other citizens: if he steals, he will be imprisoned: if he commits murder, he will be hung.
It will, perhaps, be said that the free people of color in the slave portions of this country are peculiarly ignorant, idle, and vicious? It may be so: for our laws and our influence are peculiarly calculated to make them bad members of society. ”

“ Then let the slave-holder no longer apologize for himself by urging the stupidity and sensuality of negroes. It is upon the system, which thus transforms men into beasts, that the reproach rests in all its strength and bitterness. And even if the negroes were, beyond all doubt, our inferiors in intellect, this would form no excuse for oppression, or contempt. The use of law and public opinion is to protect the weak against the strong; and the government, which perverts these blessings into means of tyranny, resembles the priest, who, administered poison with the Holy Sacrament. ”

“ It is a common remark, that it is not quite safe, in most cases, for even parents to be entirely dependant on the generosity of their children; and if human nature be such, what has the slave to expect, when he becomes a mere bill of expense?
It is a common retort to say that New-Englanders who go to the South, soon learn to patronize the system they have considered so abominable, and often become proverbial for their severity. I have not the least doubt of the fact; for slavery contaminates all that comes within its influence. ”

“ In a community where all the labor is done by one class there must of course be another class who live in indolence; and we all know how much people that have nothing to do are tempted by what the world calls pleasures; the result is, that slaveholding states and colonies are proverbial for dissipation. Hence, too, the contempt for industry, which prevails in such a state of society.—Where none work but slaves, usefulness becomes degradation. ”

“ La Fayette, with all his admiration for our institutions, can never speak of the subject without regret and shame.
Now a common evil certainly implies a common right to remedy; and where is the remedy to be found, if the South in all their speeches and writings repeat that slavery must exist—if the Colonization Society re-echo, in all their Addresses and Reports, that there is no help for the evil, and it is very wicked to hint that there is—and if public opinion here brands every body as a fanatic and madman, who wishes to inquire what can be done? ”

“ Freedom made the Grecians great and glorious—tyranny has made them stupid and miserable. Yet their yoke has been light, compared with African bondage. In both cases the wrongs of the oppressed have been converted into an argument against them. We first debase the nature of man by making him a slave, and then very coolly tell him that he must always remain a slave because he does not know how to use freedom. We first crush people to the earth, and then claim the right of trampling on them for ever, because they are prostrate. ”

“ From the moment the slave is kidnapped, to the last hour he draws his miserable breath, the white man's influence directly cherishes ignorance, fraud, treachery, theft, licentiousness, revenge, hatred and murder. It cannot be denied that human nature thus operated upon, must necessarily yield, more or less, to all these evils.—And thus do we dare to treat beings, who, like ourselves, are heirs of immortality! ”

“ And how does whipping men to death agree with the injunction, "Thou shalt do no murder"? Are we not told "to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke"? It was a Jewish law that he who stole a man, or sold him, or he in whose hands the stolen man was found, should suffer death; and he in whose house a fugitive slave sought an asylum was forbidden to give him up to his master. ”

“ It is the business of wise legislation to discover what influences are most productive of good, and the least conducive to evil. If we were educated at the South, we should no doubt vindicate slavery, and inherit as a birthright all the evils it engrafts upon the character. If they lived on our rocky soil, and under our inclement skies, their shrewdness would sometimes border upon knavery, and their frugality sometimes degenerate into parsimony. We both have our virtues, and our faults, induced by the influences under which we live, and, of course, totally different in their character. ”

“ When the slave is ill, a physician must be paid by the owner; the free laborer defrays his own expenses. The children of the slave must be supported by his master; the free man maintains his own. The slave is to be taken care of in his old age, which his previous habits render peculiarly helpless; the free laborer is hired when he is wanted, and then returns to his home. The slave does not care how slowly or carelessly he works; it is the free man's interest to do his business well and quickly. The slave is indifferent how many tools he spoils; the free man has a motive to be careful. ”

“ To that vice in the organization of society, by which one half of its inhabitants are arrayed in interest and feeling against the other half—to that unfortunate state of society in which freemen regard labor as disgraceful—and slaves shrink from it as a burden tyranically imposed upon them—to that condition of things, in which half a million of your population can feel no sympathy with the society in the prosperity of which they are forbidden to participate, and no attachment to a government at whose hands they receive nothing but injustice. ”

“ Every body knows how much the Africans were amused at the sight of Mungo Park, and what an ugly misfortune they considered his pale color, prominent nose, and thin lips.
Ought we to be called Christians, if we allow a prejudice so absurd to prevent the improvement of a large portion of the human race, and interfere with what all civilized nations consider the most common rights of mankind? It cannot be that my enlightened and generous countrymen will sanction any thing so narrow-minded and so selfish. ”

“ When I think of the colonies established along the coast of Africa—of Algiers, conquered and civilized—of the increasing wealth and intelligence of Hayti—of the powerful efforts now being made all over the world to sway public opinion in favor of universal freedom—of the certain emancipation of slaves in all British Colonies—and above all, the evident union of purpose existing between the French and English cabinets,—I can most plainly see the hand of God working for the deliverance of the negroes. We may resist the blessed influence if we will; but we cannot conquer. ”

“ Let the sons and daughters of Africa both be educated, and then they will be fit for each other. They will not be forced to make war upon their white neighbors for wives: nor will they, if they have intelligent women of their own, see any thing so very desirable in the project. Shall we keep this class of people in everlasting degradation, for fear one of their descendants may marry our great-great-great-great-grandchild?
While the prejudice exists, such unions cannot take place; and when the prejudice is melted away, they will cease to be a degradation, and of course cease to be an evil. ”

“ The planters loudly threatened to dissolve the Union, if slavery were not extended beyond the Mississippi. If the Union cannot be preserved without crime, it is an eternal truth that nothing good can be preserved by crime. The immense territories of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Florida are very likely to be formed into slave States; and every new vote on this side, places the free States more and more at the mercy of the South—and gives a renewed and apparently interminable lease to the duration of slavery. ”