William M. Mitchell

“ Nor where the voice of prayer, the songs of Zion, the clanking of the handcuffs, the rattling of the chains, the stifled groans of bereaved wives, the piercing cries of orphan children are not heard at the same time ascending the skies; the sound of one is commingled and drowned in the sound of the other. In this land, sacred to freedom, the poor Fugitive can stand erect, and claim his own liberty, and worship his God "under his own vine and fig-tree, where no one dares to molest or make him afraid." ”

“ How like a Mother! Could any white mother have done more than this woman did? Here is the strongest evidence possible of filial affection existing in the bosom of an uncultivated Slave. "Out of one blood has God created all men to dwell on the earth." Made of one common material, having one common nature, subject to one common code of laws; with equal immortal destinies, amenable to the same God, redeemed, (if redeemed at all) , by the same dying Saviour. The conclusion is, therefore, obvious, that the Negro is as capable of loving and hating to the same degree as any other race of people. ”

“ Touching that land, sacred to Freedom! her soul, like the eagle unfettered, walked abroad in its own majesty, on the flowery plains of liberty, fearless of chains. Though as white as an English lady; though legally married to a white gentleman, whose rights and privileges the Americans profess to acknowledge and protect, yet, while Americans cannot live with a legally married wife, even in a Free State, she was liable, and would have been torn from his embraces, if her pursuers could have ascertained her whereabouts. ”

“ I would much rather have them flood the cold and dreary region of Canada free, than have them continue in the sunny climes of the Slave States, in the miserable condition of non-mitigated Slavery, gradually sinking beneath the bloody lash of unfeeling tyrants into their graves, only to be remembered by their friends with sorrow, many of whom are destined to share the same mournful fate. ”

“ Late in the night, when the hum of business had gradually sunk into dead silence, the foot of the busy traveller was no longer heard, and he had retired into his domicil quietly to take rest, I arose from my bed, leaving my loved ones sound asleep; then kissing them, I threw around me an over-coat to protect me from the cold North wind, and turning my face toward this poor woman, I felt it was my duty as a father, my duty as a Christian, to save this mother and her babe from the iron grasp of Slavery, if in my power. ”

“ The Slave is poor and needy—God delivers him from the iron heel of inhuman oppression. His retributive justice will not always be shown in silence, but will eventually wake as from an ominous dream, and break upon the head of the guilty Slaveholder, like the thunderings of a cataract or the roarings of the Niagara. Sometimes Slaves that are invalids take it into their heads to escape. A woman who had a husband with only one leg, managed with the assistance of some good friends to have him removed to Canada ”

“ In no other way could the public attention have been drawn to the diabolical character of Slavery, and to the wickedness and meanness of its Northern allies and supporters. The North, in many respects, does the bidding of the South; they are Slave-hunters for their masters, the Slaveholders; they are not permitted to be anything else if they obey the Fugitive Bill, and, I am sorry to say, many do. ”

“ If you prevent the Slave, flying from his chains and handcuffs, entering Canada, where he is free, under the magna charta of the British constitution, which knows no man by the colour of his skin, I ask for the Slave, and in the name of humanity, where will you allow him to go? ”

“ The Fugitive Slave has no home this side the grave in that Republic; they will not allow him to pass peaceably through the Free States of that glorious Republic, to find a home beyond the land of his birth, in a more favoured country, where equal rights and privileges are allowed to the natural properties of human nature. The soil of America has been cultivated by Slaves for centuries, and they have performed for their masters the humblest services, and by the labour of their sable and sinewy arms the greatest comforts and luxuries of the Slaveholders have been gained from the earth. ”

“ The love of liberty is an innate principle of man's moral and physical nature, altogether beyond his controul. Anything that opposes the aspirations of the human mind, and the development of man's moral nature, he hates and opposes from the depth of his soul; Slavery does this, therefore he hates it. Some Slaves are satisfied in their condition, and would not accept their freedom. Such I have seen and known,—but it is the exception, not the rule. The cause of their contentment is found in the humanity of their claimants, to whom they are attached by their repeated kindnesses to them. ”

“ A Slave, with his wife and child, made their escape, and having spent 2 weeks in the forest, without anything to eat for 4 days, not daring to show themselves to any one, for fear of being captured, fast losing their physical strength, hunger preying upon their vitals, almost exhausted with fatigue as well, and the hope of living to reach a land of freedom having nigh fled, yet an instinctive desire to do so still lingered in their care-worn bosoms. ”

“ Sorrowfully he casts a wishful look at his dear wife, the tears standing in his manly eyes; again he looks away, his mind is occupied with past recollections and fearful anticipations. Though reduced to this degradation and misery, he was calm and collected; notwithstanding he would occasionally, with a sigh, give vent to the deep heaving of his heart, at the thought of separating, having no hope of seeing his wife again in this life. ”

“ Occasionally, when feeling a little better, she would say, "If I am spared, to reach Canada, I will work hard, and send money to pay you." This shewed a truly good and great heart, I need scarcely add, that all her children are in Canada. She died in a good cause. There is none greater and of more value to a human being than Religion, and Human Liberty. She was endeavouring to secure to her children the advantages of both, to accomplish this, she sacrificed her own life. But by this sacrifice, she obtained those advantages for her beloved ones, and died in freedom herself. ”

“ The Press is the great circulating medium through which she speaks to thouands in one breath, and sends truth over a whole Empire with lightning speed; thousands of Volumes of God's Word are cast abroad among the Nations of Earth's teeming millions; by means of which, we can converse with distant friends. Through the Press, the justice of God is vindicated—truth, love and mercy, shown in their true positions and relations—the social, civil and political rights of man are advocated. ”

“ To accomplish this result by means of the cultivation of Cotton by free labour, should be the object of the friends of the Slave, not with motives to injure the Slaveholders, but to free the Slave. I doubt not but much more Cotton would be cultivated by the Slaves in a state of freedom than is now cultivated; it is quite obvious that a man will do a greater quantity of labour, and better in quality, by the stimulus of wages than by the force of the lash. If a white man is prompted to labour by the love of gain, it is very clear to my mind a black man will do the same ”

“ They tell us, it is a fact that needs no evidence; it is a self-evident truth, founded in the very nature of man, every way congenial to the nature of things "that all men are created free." A free will, free mind, free use of his intellectual faculties, yet the Slave cannot will himself practically free; his will is subject to the will of his master. He cannot will to have a wife, unless it is the will of his master, and should the master he willing, he has no will in living with her, and their continuing together rests entirely on the will and interest of the owner. ”

“ I wish, if possible, to disabuse the minds of many who are not favorably disposed towards the Negro race, or who have only a superficial knowledge of their condition; they seem to think the Negroes are a nuisance, or, in other words, they are so numerous, that the Canadians are at a loss to know what to do with them. It is true some persons in Canada seek this method of venting their spleen upon this helpless and unfortunate race; but it is not true they have become so numerous as to baffle the skill and judgment of the inhabitants as to their well-being. ”

“ The prisoner, under the dread sentence of death, drags his chains across the dark and gloomy dungeon, hanging to his ancles, waiting his execution, humming some favourite tune to dissipate the awful realization of eternity, from his much agitated mind. None would for a moment, say he had rather be a prisoner than a free man. The same rule holds good with the Slave. If they were, it only shows, very conspicuously, the wickedness of such a system; thus, like a crucible, crushing out of man the very element that constitutes him man ”

“ They were betrayed into the hands of wicked men. Escape was out of the question. The child seemed conscious of its danger, which it manifested by screams and holding on to its mother's tattered rags. Poor woman! unable to protect herself, and no law to secure the freedom of fugitives in the United States,—the cries of the Slave-Mother's child have gone up to heaven against their oppressors. The husband placed himself at the door, but soon fell back on the floor helpless. The wife took his place, and, more successful than he, she felled three men to the ground. ”

“ Let England extricate herself from this awful dilemma. If the Cotton crops fail in the United States by any means whatever, let it be their own failure, and not England's; but now such a failure would affect England as well as America! Let Britain become self-supporting respecting Cotton, by cultivating free-labour Cotton; besides, she would free the Slaves thus engaged in the cultivation of this article. To emancipate one million would be a death-blow to the entire system. ”

“ It is calculated that 30,000 Slaves, or more, are bought and sold annually; tens of thousands of poor Slaves are torn from their husbands, wives, and children, precipitated upon the Cotton-growing States, swelling in many localities an already over-crowded population. On many a Plantation, and in many a Slave-coffle, there is heard "a voice of lamentation and weeping, and great mournng; Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not." I have no doubt but the Foreign Slave Trade is quietly in operation in the United States ”

“ A Fugitive Slave told me his brother was a member of a church with him, and that his master sold him, and, to his certain knowledge, a portion of the money was spent in buying plates which were used at the administration of the Lord's Supper. I ask, in the name of a God of justice and humanity, where is the equality of which the Americans boast so much?
A Slave, feeling he has a right to his freedom, peaceably walks off in the night, in search of a country in which he may just as peaceably live and enjoy his freedom as others do. ”

“ By one single Act of Parliament, the Slaves of the British West Indies were suddenly, as well as peaceably, changed into free men and women: their souls walked abroad on the plains of freedom, in their own majesty, fearless of lash or chains. ”

“ With the Gulf of Mexico on the South and Canada on the North, the latter is already a receptical for fugitive Slaves, waiting their more intelligent free coloured brethren to join them in breaking the galling yoke from the bleeding necks of their yet suffering bondsmen, and they may still keep within hearing of the wails of our enslaved people in the United States. From these stand-points we can watch the destiny of those we have left behind. ”

“ The threads of which your garments consist are stained with the blood of the Slave; the driver buries the bloody lash in the quivering flesh of his victims, extorting their unrequited labour to add to your comfort; in order more effectually to do this the Slaves are kept in ignorance. Give them knowledge—they will free themselves. ”

“ God has commanded us to assist the poor and needy; the helpless, the out-cast, and the down-trodden. Unlike the law of God to Israel, when she assumed an independent position among the nations of the earth, in that He made a provision for the Fugitive Slave. He commanded first of all, that Israel should not turn him back or deliver him to his heathen master from whom he had fled. She was taught her duty towards the Fugitive, evidently showing that the Slave was quite justifiable in the attempt to obtain his freedom, consequently it would be wrong for Israel to deliver him up. ”

“ What shall we do with the 1,200 coming northward every year, seeking freedom if haply they may find it? Will you be so cruel, so fiend-like, to send them back into perpetual bondage? "God forbid!" They will run away more and more, in spite of all the Fugitive Slave Laws that the American government may pass. ”

“ There are few such men as the above, who have in this way made manifest their capabilities of leading their brethren out of the prison-house of bondage, that there are such, none deny. The Slaveholders themselves are aware of the capabilities of the Slaves to free themselves, if they only knew their own power; hence come unrighteous laws, preventing instruction—"knowledge is power." Give the bondsman this power and he is no longer a vassal. Mr. H. B. left his master in Kentucky, and found a recognition of human rights in Canada, leaving a wife and one child in slavery. ”

“ Outraged humanity lifts her powerless voice, and weeps aloud! Mercy pleads in vain the fate of this helpless young woman, fixed by law, because she was a Slave, her mother being one; and the children follow the condition of the mother. ”

“ Would it be morally wrong, if in your power, to secure their freedom by stealing them and conducting them into a land where you could live an undivided family, with the privilege of educating and bringing up your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord? If morally right to steal one Slave, it is, therefore, morally right to steal an indefinite number. ”

“ We also have patriotic men, white and coloured, voluntarily going into the Slave States and bringing away their fellow men; some of these venturous men having themselves been Slaves, they are truly desirous their brethren should taste the sweets of freedom. They bring them into the Free States and deliver them to the Conductors of our Rail-way, whose duty it is to forward them to Canada. My house was for several years one of the Stations to which numbers were brought by these good men. No class of men are better prepared for this perilous and dangerous occupation than the fugitives themselves. ”