Libation

“ A few exceptional natures, consumed by energy or ambition, will sacrifice their youth; but whoever is simple-hearted, loving, inclined to reverie, to innocent and legitimate pleasures, and under the influence of that craving for affection and tranquillity which is the lawful privilege of the human race, will fly from this jail of incessant toil in which you seek to confine him, and will prefer the chances of poverty to the security of slavery. ”

“ Any one who has lived for a considerable space estranged from society and its requirements, will own to the sense of slavery impressed by a return to the habits of the world. He will feel that every ordinance is a tyranny, and the necessity of being dressed for this, or punctual for that, a downright bondage. ”

“ That I am tired of being your slave—your ‘subject’ for conjurer’s tricks of mesmerism,—that from henceforth I resist your power,—that I will not serve you—will not obey you—will not yield—no!—not an inch of my liberty—to your influence,—that I am a free man, as you are, and that I will have the full rights of both my freedom and manhood. ”

“ We have only to reflect for a moment upon the situation in which these people found themselves when liberated: consider their ignorance, their poverty, their destitution, and their absolute dependence upon the very class by which they had been held in bondage for centuries, a class whose every sentiment was averse to their freedom, and we shall be prepared to marvel that they have under the circumstances done so well. ”

“ They live free, though they may die slaves. They fly where they list by day, and retire in freedom at night. But what is freedom to me, or I to it? I am a slave,—born a slave, an abject slave,—even before I made part of this breathing world, the scourge was platted for my back; the fetters were forged for my limbs. ”

“ Is there a man that never prized
The sweets of liberty?
Then let him, let him breathe unseen, [16]
Or in a dungeon live;
Nor never, never know the sweets
That liberty can give.
Is there a heart so cold in man,
Can galling fetters crave?
Is there a wretch so truly low,
Can stoop to be a slave?
O, let him, then, in chains be bound,
In chains and bondage live;
Nor never, never know the sweets
That liberty can give.
Is there a breast so chilled in life,
Can nurse the coward’s sigh?
Is there a creature so debased,
Would not for freedom die? ”

“ They are yearning for emancipation from the galling yoke of wage-slavery, and with all the power of their minds, all the strength of their bodies and all the passion of their souls they are crusading against the ignorance of their fellow-workers and the prejudice of the people. ”

“ Now, those who are in liberation should govern those who are in bondage, and slaves are called to be released, not from the government of the free but from the yoke of brutal passions, as a consequence of which they cannot exist without masters. ”

“ If I have been at all instrumental in checking the further extension of the practice of enslaving those intelligent and inoffensive creatures, and in preparing the way for the emancipation of all, it will be the proudest reflection and the greatest solace of my declining years. ”

“ To have a will, a conscience, or an aversion to their enslavement, and to express it in word or deed, instantly subjects them to the lash or the gallows. The will of the tyrant is their only legalized and baptized rule of life. ”

“ And knowing what the People know—they who have borne so long, in grimly impotent silence, under the guise of Freedom, the fortunes of the slave—can we for one moment doubt what view their lawful, reasoning demand for redress will take and whether or no it will prevail? ”

“ It can end only with the triumph of Freedom.
Freedom, which is the breath of God, is a great leveller; but it raises where it levels. Slavery, which is the breath of Satan, is also a great leveller; but it degrades everything, carrying with it master as well as slave. ”

“ The very knowledge that you have no control over yourself, that you are subject to the will, even whim, of another; that every privilege you enjoy is yours only by concession, not right, must depress and all but madden the victim. In no situation, with no flowery disguises, can the revolting institution be made consistent with the free-agency of man, which we all believe to be the Divine gift. ”

“ But when people are taught to reverence butchers, robbers, and tyrants, under the reverend name of rulers, to adore the names and persons of men, though their actions be the actions of devils: Then here is a confirmed and accomplished servitude, the servitude of the body, secured by the servitude of the mind, oppression fortified by delusion. ”

“ And let us, in the doing of our service to the man that we be slave unto, remember what we were wont to do about the same time of day while we were at our free liberty before, and would be well likely, if we were at liberty, to do again. ”

“ The truth that any one man—whatever his place in society, whatever the colour of his skin—has as much right as any other to be treated as an end and that no man was merely a means to the enjoyment or happiness or well-being of another, was the charter for the emancipation of slaves. ”

“ If I am not much mistaken, society in the new world is wakening up, under the stimulus of the slave-question, to a sense of its want of practical freedom, owing to its too great regard to opinion. The examples of those who can and do assert and maintain their liberty in these times of fiery trial, are venerable and beautiful in the eyes of the young. ”

“ Is it now a folly or a sin to desire to realise and purify and elevate this freedom, that those who were first slaves and then savages may at length become men—not in decrees and proclamations only, but in their own souls? ”

“ You are loosed from your moorings, and free; I am fast in my chains, and am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale, and I sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedom’s swift-winged angels, that fly around the world ”

“ But with a people who have once tasted the sweets of liberty, this kind of tranquillity is short. Maddened by wrongs, real or supposed, they are soon prepared again to rush into the death-dance of revolution. ”

“ I claim, on this occasion, that liberty of action which is the co-natal prerogative of every rational being."
"Liberty of action, sir? there is no such thing as liberty of action. We are all slaves and puppets of a blind and unpathetic necessity." ”

“ We do not expect to remain stationary — far from it But we certainly feel ourselves, for the first time, in a state to enjoy either to any purpose. The burden is gone from our shoulders. We now breathe and move freely, and know not (in surveying your present state) for which to pity you most, the empty name of liberty which you endeavor to content yourselves with, in a country that is not yours, or the delusion which makes you hope for ampler privileges in that country hereafter. ”

“ But the man who sees in prospect a great number of years, or perhaps the whole of his life, to be passed in servitude and suffering before the eyes of fellow-citizens with whom he is living in freedom and friendship, the slave of those laws which had once protected him, makes a useful comparison of all these circumstances with the uncertain result of his crimes and with the shortness of the time for which he would enjoy their fruits. ”

“ Slavery emasculates all virile individualism away. This is the maxim of humanity, “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” This is the maxim of Slavery, “Submission to tyrants is obedience to God.” ”

“ Just as liberty finds itself between the two extremes of legal oppression and anarchy, so also we shall find the beautiful between two extremes, between the expression of dignity which bears witness to the domination exercised by the mind, and the voluptuous expression which reveals the domination exercised by instinct. ”

“ Almost everywhere, liberty so natural to mankind is refused, or rather enjoyed but by their tyrants; the word slave, is the appellation of every rank, who adore as a divinity, a being worse than themselves; subject to every caprice, and to every lawless rage which unrestrained power can give. Tears are shed, perpetual groans are heard, where only the accents of peace, alacrity, and gratitude should resound. ”

“ I rejoice that thou hast had independence enough to restore to liberty, and to their families, those infatuated men called Anti-Renters. Some, who live under the old dispensation, that demanded 'an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,' will doubtless censure this act of justice and mercy. ”

“ Thus, before I had attained the age of man, I entered, by anticipation, upon the great struggle which without fail forms a part of every human existence, the struggle between liberty and acceptance, between the horror of servitude and the sacrifices which are the price of permanence. ”

“ Let none serve you but by his own act and deed, by his own voluntary choice. Away with all whips, all chains, all compulsion! Be gentle toward all men, and see that you invariably do unto every one, as you would he should do unto you. ”

“ As you love your liberties exercise your virtue; they depend upon it. Remember the true but dismal picture that I have given you of slavery and arbitrary power; and if you would avoid them, be virtuous, scorn bribes, abhor the man that offers them and expose him. ”

“ I once remarked to him that he was like those people whom society put into the State-prison, because he violated social duties. Only those could enjoy freedom who did not interfere with others' rights and comforts. ”

“ Suppose that these three classes, the feeble-minded, the timid, and the men overwhelmed and crushed by their condition, are as numerous as the humane portion of the masters, are one-tenth of the whole, or 300,000. The rest are conscious of the qualities of a man. They desire their freedom, and are kept in slavery only by external force—the systematic force of public law, the irregular force of private will. ”

“ Many circumstances, I will own, may excuse what is called rebellion, but no circumstances can ever make it good for your cause, and however honourable to your feelings, it will reflect no credit on your judgments. It will bind you more closely to the block of the oppressor, and your children's children, whilst they talk of your exploits, will feel that you have done them injury, instead of benefit. ”

“ But if you have every reason to wish for our removal, — how much greater are our inducements to remove! Though we are not slaves, yet we are not free. Beyond a mere subsistence, and the impulse of religion, there is nothing to amuse us to the exercise of our faculties, or excite us to the attainment of eminence. ”

“ And men shall learn to speak of thee As one of earth's great spirits, born In servitude, and nursed in scorn, Casting aside the weary weight And fetters of its low estate, In that strong majesty of soul Which knows no color, tongue, or clime, Which still hath spurned the base control Of tyrants through all time! ”

“ And in some of those free states, the seeds of servitude, the true cause of depopulation, and of every misery, seem to be sown deep. Alas! Power encroaches daily upon liberty, with a success too evident ”

“ It had listened to an appeal to the latent instinct in every human creature, freedom from everything that could be claimed as servitude, freedom, and possession, and independence for those who would once and for all rid themselves of the shackles which the pay-roll and time-sheet imposed upon them. ”

“ The very persons whom the providence of God gave us—whom we feed, clothe, instruct, attend in sickness and in health, and who thus enjoy more comfort and happiness, than nine-tenths of the labouring class of white free persons in any part of Europe!— [31] these very persons are, in said pamphlets, taught and encouraged to look upon us as their oppressors, as the only barriers to their wealth and happiness—as having no lawful right to possess them—and that all our substance—all our property—is in fact, not ours, but theirs! ”

“ They had bartered liberty for equality, and because the pressure was equal on all, they deemed themselves free; while the privileges of class with us suggested the sense of bondage to the poor man, whose actual freedom was yet unencumbered. ”

“ Of every free soul they make a slave soul, which is to say the soul of a rebel. And it appears that this result, with its social disaster, is most certain when he who commands is least removed from the station of him who obeys. ”

“ Certainly our liberties are openly to be invaded, our wives to be ravished, our children enslaved, our families ruined, and our estates led away in triumph, by every sturdy beggar and malicious informer, as their trophies, by our pretended forfeits for conscience-sake. ”

“ I feel now that I had been led to expect a greater measure of freedom from the troubles which fall on the people, in the midst of which I find myself, than the dispensation under which I live warranted ”

“ Not seeing, then, that freedom as in countries where it is a common blessing, and as broad and general as the air, may be united with much abject misery, with all the exterior of servitude, liberty looks among them like something that is more noble and liberal. ”

“ Such a high nature implies mental liberty. Now, those who will not abuse this liberty, but keep themselves in the original and healthful order in which they were created, are capable of receiving the eternal happiness which the good Creator designed for them; but those who, abusing their liberty, pervert and disorder their moral natures, render themselves incapable of receiving it, and, on the contrary, bring themselves into a state of unhappiness. ”

“ But I fear—In short, I have been told that political strife was a necessary result of human nature."
"Human nature!" cried the old boy, impetuously; "what human nature? The human nature of paupers, of slaves, of slave-holders, or the human nature of wealthy freemen? ”