Rufus Wheelwright Clark

“ A battle is in progress between liberty and slavery, God's truth and the vile passions of men, that perils the existence of this republic, and touches every vital interest. And, to crown the triumphs of the slave power, we again have vessels fitting out in our ports, north and south, to bring to our shores the suffering children of Africa, and entail anew upon that continent and our own, the evils and horrors of this accursed traffic.
It may be a delicate question to inquire who, in the various States of this Union, are responsible for the growth of this evil ”

“ Make the case your own. 'Master,' said a slave at Liverpool, to the merchant that owned him, 'what if some of my countrymen were to come here, and take away mistress, and Tommy, and Billy, and carry them into our country, and make them slaves, how would you like it? 'His answer as worthy of a man 'I will never buy a slave more while live.' Let his resolution be yours. Have no more any part in this detestable business. Instantly leave it to those unfeeling wretches ' who laugh at human nature and compassion.' Be you a man; not a wolf, a devourer of the human species. ”

“ Many have taken the ground, that while they were opposed to the introduction of slavery into new territories, and to the revival of the traffic, they would not interfere with it where it was an established institution. But the arguments employed against its extension or increase, if they have any force, lie equally against the system in any locality. If it is an evil in Kansas, it is just as much an evil in Virginia. If it is wrong to capture the African on his own soil, and subject him to the horrors of the slave ship, then it is wrong to retain him in slavery. ”

“ Whatever may have been the course of England in regard to her other great national interests, we must allow, that in her hostility to slavery and the slave trade, she has been firm, consistent, and self-sacrificing; and deserves the hearty applause of the civilized world. She has grappled with this evil boldly, manfully, as under a solemn consciousness of her obligations to society, and accountability to God. Mistress of the seas, she has struck this infamous traffic from the roll of her commerce. ”

“ We appeal to the patriotism of American citizens, and we ask them whether they are willing to see this great republic, freighted with so many human hopes, blessed as it has been of heaven, sacrificed at the altar of this great iniquity? Shall we peril the brilliant prospects of the nation, provoke the wrath of God, become a hissing and a by-word throughout Christendom, by madly clinging to that which is evil, and only evil, and that continually? ”

“ For, what does a man engaged in this traffic know of humanity, justice, or the rights of a fellow man? What does he care for the sufferings of the captive, the shrieks of the agonized mother, the imploring looks and pathetic appeals of the dying slave? ”

“ He alone, of all the rational creation, they seem to think, is to be at once accountable for his actions, and yet his actions are not to be at his own disposal, but his mind, his body, and his feelings, are to be sold to perpetual bondage. To me it appears perfectly clear, that the slave trade is equally repugnant to the dictates of reason and religion, and is an offense equally against the laws of God and man. We shall not undertake the arduous task of fixing the precise amount of guilt that belongs to our nation, for the failure of the efforts to destroy this traffic. ”

“ Referring to the struggle for American independence, and the palpable inconsistency of those who achieved it, Thomas Jefferson said:
"What an incomprehensible machine is man, who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, and death itself, in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment be deaf to all those motives whose power supported him through his trial, and inflict on his fellow-men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose! ”

“ It is impossible to conceive a more foul blot upon the American name, than the revival of this traffic at a day like this. It is reversing the wheels of civilization, and voluntarily going back to barbarism. It is giving the lie to our boasts of intelligence, humanity, and freedom. It is directly bidding defiance to the Almighty, and calling down the wrath of Heaven. It is adding a chapter to the history of this trade, the darkest, the most fearful and terrible that was ever written. "Enlightened age!" ”

“ It would be a libel upon the Southern States of our confederacy to say that, as a body, they were in favor of the revival of the slave trade, or to say that the southern people were unanimous in their approval of slavery. We know, from personal acquaintance, that there are many noble men and women at the South, who see and acknowledge the evils of the system, and deeply deplore its existence. There are thousands, also, who abhor the slave trade, and deprecate the efforts that are being made for its resuscitation. ”

“ Your memorialists, believing that 'righteousness exalteth a nation,' and that slavery is not only an odious degradation, but an outrageous violation of one of the most essential rights of human nature, and utterly repugnant to the precepts of the gospel, which breathes 'peace on earth, and good will to men,' lament that a practice so inconsistent with true policy, and the inalienable rights of men, should subsist in an enlightened age, and among a people professing that all man kind are by nature equally entitled to freedom. ”

“ If the heroes of the American revolution saw the inconsistency of appealing to the God of freedom to,aid them in their struggle, and then turning round to put chains upon their fellow men, how much more glaring the inconsistency and stupendous the wickedness for us, while in the enjoyment of all the blessings of freedom, to use our power to enslave others, and deprive them of privileges that we would die rather than part with ourselves. ”

“ What does the truth compel us to say? Why, that of all the countries appealed to by Great Britain and France on this momentous subject, the United States is the only one which has returned a decided negative. We neither do anything ourselves to put down the accursed traffic, nor afford any facilities to enable others to put it down. Nay, rather, stand between the slave and his deliverer. We are a drawback, a dead weight on the cause of bleeding humanity. ”

“ We much mistake the state of public opinion in the United States, if its government will not find itself under the necessity of changing this resolution. The slave trade will, henceforth, we have little doubt, be carried on under that flag of freedom; but as in no country, after our own, have such persevering efforts for its suppression been made, by men the most distinguished for goodness, wisdom, and eloquence, as in the United States, we can not believe that their flag will long be prostituted to such vile purposes ”

“ Through the valleys, and over the plains of this widely extended country, through the streets of every village, town, and city in the Union; through the churches of America, the halls of legislature, the courts of justice, and the mansions of executive others, we would reiterate the cry, "How long?" Is the conscience of the nation absolutely dead? Is there no heart to feel, no eye to see the horrors of the traffic, no tongue to speak for the agonized sufferers in the "middle passage?" ”

“ The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest." If, then, every attribute of the Almighty is against the continuance of this system of oppression, with what feelings must he view the efforts to revive the traffic in human beings, in the face of the existing light and wide-spread knowledge of the evils of slavery! We tremble when we remember that God is just, and that his justice can not sleep for ever. ”

“ Just as the clock struck twelve, while the sun was shining in its meridian splendor, as if to witness the august act, and to sanction it by its glorious beams, the magna charta of Africa was completed." Thus the first effectual blow against the slave trade was struck, and the friends of the African believed that the unholy system had received its death-wound. But they did not rightly estimate the strength of human wickedness, and the power of those fiendish passions that were burning in the hearts of corrupt men. ”

“ May this great temple which we have just erected to liberty, always be an instruction to oppressors, an example to the oppressed, a refuge for the rights of the human race, and an object of delight to the manes of its founders. ”

“ It is a melancholy and startling fact, that the slave trade is not abolished, but continues, with all its attendant barbarities and unmitigated horrors. Cuba, Brazil, Porto Rico, and the United States, still furnish markets for men whose trade has been pronounced piracy, and whose crimes render them deserving of death. ”

“ Eternal infamy awaits the abandoned miscreants, whos e selfish souls could ever prompt them to rob unhappy Africa of her sons, and freight them hither by thousands, to poison the fair Eden of Liberty with the rank weed of individual bondage! Nor is it more to the credit of our ancestors, that they did not command these savage spoilers to bear their hateful cargo to another shore, where the shrine of freedom knew no votaries, and every purchaser would at once both a master and a slave. ”

“ Until the slave trade is opened and made legal, the South will push slavery forward, as a seasoning for every dish. This is the settled and determined policy of a party at the South. We do not pretend to belong to the ultra-southern party, but we believe it a duty which the general government owes to the South, that the slave trade should be legitimate, that her vast domain may receive cultivation. ”

“ We need in an American congress a William Wilberforce, a Charles James Fox, a William Pitt, an Edmund Burke, a Thomas Erskine, a Granville Sharp, and a Thomas Clarkson, to move the nation, as these nolble men moved the British public, and thunder into the ears of the people the crimes and cruelties of man-stealing, until they rise in their might, and decree its annihilation. ”

“ May not the miserable African ask, 'Am I not a man, and a brother?' We boast of our noble struggle against the encroachments of tyranny, but do we forget that it assumed the mildest form in which authority ever assailed the rights of its subjects, and yet that there are men among us who think it no wrong to condemn the shivering negro to perpetual slavery? ”

“ It commands us to have good will to all men; to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to do unto all men as we would they should do unto us. It declares our accountability to the Supreme God for all our actions, and holds out to us a state of future rewards and punishments, as the sanction by which our conduct is to be regulated. And yet there are men calling themselves Christians, who degrade the negro by ignorance to a level with the brutes, and deprive him of all the consolations of religion. ”

“ Every man's common sense teaches him that the power of the gospel lies in its purity, and in its hostility to every form of sin. The instant it compromises with evil, it ceases to be the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In conclusion, it is the solemn duty of every American patriot and Christian to rise up and decree that, let the consequences be what they may, another slave shall never pollute our coast, and that, God helping them, they will resist now and for ever, every attempt to revive this accursed traffic. ”

“ Would that every representative would recall to his memory the words of the gifted and eloquent Webster, as uttered in his speech on the President's protest:
"We have been taught to regard a representative of the people as a sentinel upon the watch-tower of liberty. Is he to be blind, though visible danger approaches? Is he to be deaf, though sounds of peril fill the air? Is he to be dumb, while a thousand duties impel him to raise the cry of alarm? ”

“ Have solemn contracts preserved soil consecrated to freedom from the invasion of the slave power? Has an enlightened conscience secured deference to God's government, when the laws of human government have clashed with it? Do not multitudes regard the sentiment of a "higher law" as a jest? ”

“ But wherefore should we confine the edge of censure our ancestors, or those from whom they purchased? Are not we equally guilty? They strewed around the seeds slavery, — we cherish and sustain the growth. They introduced the system, — we enlarge, invigorate, and confirm it, Yes, let it be handed down to posterity, that the people of Maryland, who could fly to arms with the promptitude of Roman citizens, when the hand of oppression was lifted against themselves; who could behold their country desolated, and their citizens slaughtered ”

“ There is an unwritten history of the superstitions and cruelties of Africa, known only to the unfortunate sufferers, and to God, " whose justice can not always sleep."
But we need not be understood as arguing that all the evils existing in Africa are caused by the slave trade. Heathenism has done its work there, as well as in other benighted nations, and slavery existed among the people long before the slave trade was opened. In some parts of the continent it is in a mild form; in others it is as severe as in some of our Southern States. ”

“ Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure, when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? ”

“ Every thinking, honest man rejects it in speculation. How few in practice, from conscientious motives!"
Indeed, to express our views of slavery and the slave trade, we could not employ more intense and truthful words than were uttered by the men who participated in the struggle for American liberty, who were members of the convention that framed the Constitution of the United States, and the leaders of public opinion in the early history of our nation. ”

“ In the memorial the system of slavery is condemned in the strongest language, and it poses with a most touching and earnest appeal to the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, "to devise means for removing this consistency from the character of the American people, and to step to the very verge of the power rested in them for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow men." ”

“ Our system of education must be corrupted to the very core; our literature must be poisoned by the sentiments of the dark ages; all traces of right and justice must be obliterated from our statute books, and our religion must become a dead form, before such a result can be anticipated. Oil and water will not mingle. Barbarism and Christianity were not made to dwell together in peace.
We should also consider the inevitable effect of this evil upon the pulpits and churches of our land. ”