The Slaves’ Right to Revolt: An Address Delivered in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 30, 1848
THE SLAVES’ RIGHT TO REVOLT: AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, ON 30 MAY 1848
Liberator, 9 June 1848. Another text in North Star, 16 June 1848.
Weather that a correspondent to the National Anti-Slavery Standard described
as “one of the most soaking, dripping, driving rains that our New England
Calendar furnishes us with” reduced the attendance at the first day’s sessions
of the New England Anti-Slavery Society’s annual convention on 30 May
1848. In the evening, male delegates nearly filled the main floor of Faneuil
Hall, but attendance in the women’s galleries was light. The Society’s president,
Edmund Quincy, chaired the evening meeting, devoted to speeches by
Charles C. Burleigh, William H. Channing, and Douglass. The Massachusetts
Anti-Slavery Society’s Annual Report of the following year recalled
that Douglass’s “uncommonly felicitous” remarks had been well
received. The Pennsylvania Freeman commended the enthusiasm of those
present on that rainy night as proof that the “fervor and fidelity” of New
England abolitionists were “both water and fire-proof.” Improving weather
drew larger crowds to subsequent sessions of the convention, but Douglass
returned to Rochester after his address on the first evening. Lib., 2 June 1848;
PaF, 23 June 1848; NS, 9, 23 June 1848; NASS, 8 June 1848; Massachusetts
Anti-Slavery Society, Seventeenth Annual Report (Boston, 1849), 55-56.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS was warmly cheered on taking the platform. I am
glad, said Mr. Douglass, to be once more in Faneuil Hall, and to address
those whom I regard as among the enslavers of myself and my brethren.
What I have to say may not be very pleasant to those who venerate the
Constitution, but, nevertheless, I must say to you that, by the support you
give to that instrument, you are the enslavers of my southern brethren and
sisters. Now you say, through the Constitution,—“if you, slaves, dare to
rise and assert your freedom, we of the North will come down upon you like
an avalanche, and crush you to pieces.” We are frequently taunted with
cowardice for being slaves, and for enduring such indignities and suffer-
ings. The taunt comes with an ill grace from you. You stand eighteen
millions strong, united, educated, armed, ready to put us down; we are
weak, ignorant, degraded, unarmed, and three millions! Under these circumstances, what can we hope to effect? We call upon you to get out of this
relation,—to stand away from the slaveholders’ side, and give us fair play.
Say to the slaveholders—“If you will imbrue your hands in the blood of
your brethren, if you will crush and chain your fellow-men, do it at your
own risk and peril!” Would you but do this, oh, men of the North, I know
there is a spirit among the slaves which would not much longer brook their
degradation and their bondage. There are many Madison Washingtons and
Nathaniel Turners1Nat Turner (1800-31) led the famous slave revolt that occurred in Southampton County, Virginia, from 21 to 23 August 1831. Turner's band, which consisted of no more than seventy followers, mostly slaves, killed at least fifty-seven whites before being dispersed and captured by the local militia. The revolt triggered retaliatory murders of innocent blacks in the general area, undercut what sentiment there was in the slave states for emancipation, and heightened the southern dread of servile insurrections. Approximately seventeen of Turner's followers were executed; most of the remainder were transported. Turner himself remained at large for over two months, and after his capture supposedly dictated his “Confessions” to a local lawyer. Tried and sentenced to death on 5 November 1831, Turner was executed by hanging on 11 November 1831, and not in the manner described by Douglass. Herbert Aptheker, Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion (New York, 1966); Stephen B. Oates, The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion (New York, 1975); Henry I. Tragle, comp., The Southampton Slave Revolt of 1831: A Compilation of Source Material (Amherst, Mass., 1971); ACAB, 6: 187; NCAB, 13: 597; DAB, 19: 69-70. in the South, who would assert their right to liberty, if
you would take your feet from their necks, and your sympathy and aid from
their oppressors.
Mr. D[ouglass] spoke of Nathaniel Turner, a noble, brave and gen-
erous soul—patient, disinterested, and fearless of suffering. How was
he treated, for endeavoring to gain his own liberty, and that of his en-
slaved brethren, by the self-same means which the Revolutionary fathers
employed? When taken by his enemies, he was stripped naked, and com-
pelled to walk barefooted, some thirty yards, over burning coals, and,
when he reached the end, he fell, pierced by a hundred American bullets! I
say to you, exclaimed Mr. Douglass, get out of this position of body-guard
to slavery! Cease from any longer rendering aid and comfort to the tyrant-
master!
I know how you will reply to this; you will say that I, and such as I, are
not men; you look upon us as beneath you; you look upon us as naturally
and necessarily degraded. But, nevertheless, we are MEN! (Cheers.) You
may pile up statutes against us and our manhood as high as heaven, and still
we are not changed thereby. WE ARE MEN. (Immense cheering.) Yes! We
are your brothers!
Mr. Douglass reminded us of the degradation of the Anglo-Saxon race
in England, under their Norman conquerors; yes, of that very race which
boasts itself of superiority to all others, and assumes to plunder or enslave
all others. You have, too, he said, claimed superiority over France, infidel
France, as in your pride you have reproachfully called her. But “infidel”
France, when she obtains a popular government, emancipates her slaves.
(Cheers) And when recently a delegation of colored people in Paris waited
upon the Minister Cremieux,2Adolphe Cremieux. how were they treated? Rejected? Treated
with contempt? Asked to show their free papers? Nothing of the kind.
Infidel France has not yet learned the lesson from Christian (!) America.
(Much cheering.) Friends, do not think me an infidel to Christianity. I am
none. But I do go for that infidelity which takes off chains, in preference to
that religion which puts them on.
Mr. Douglass concluded his eloquent and effective speech by giving,
at some length, specimens of Southern preaching, quoting particularly
from Right Reverend Bishop Meade’s Sermons to Slaves!!3It is likely that Douglass was quoting William Meade's edited work, Sermons Addressed to Masters and Servants, though Meade also published a manual of his own entitled Sermons. Dialogues, and Narratives for Servants. . . (Richmond, Va., 1836). And he inci-
dentally spoke of the various names and designations which had been given
to slavery by such as were loth to use that plain word. It is called by some,
he said, the peculiar institution. Peculiar! yes. Others call it, our social
system! Others again denominate it, the patriarchal institution! And in
South Carolina, they speak of it (true in more senses than one) as “our
domestic relations.” But the Methodist General Conference found a name
for it, surpassing all others. They called it an impediment! Bishop Andrew4James O. Andrew.
was advised to get rid of his impediment—i.e., to get rid of his slaves.
Those who have never heard Frederick Douglass’s sarcastic tones, and
seen his expressive countenance, can have but a poor idea of the humor of
this part of his speech, or of its overwhelming effect upon the audience.