S. A. Ferguson to Frederick Douglass, May 23, 1852
Letter from S. A. Ferguson.
Friend Douglass: Dear Sir:—The meridian of the nineteenth century finds us holding nearly four millions of human beings in abject bondage; which, in the language of Jefferson, "one hour of which is fraught with more mistery than years of that which we, in the Revolution, rose in rebellion to oppose." How paradoxical is this to the positive spirit which diffused itself into the hearts of our heroic fathers. They magnanimously taught us the instructive lesson of republican virtue. We might readily have supposed that oppression and cruelty would have hidden their snaky heads in the solitude of midnight oblivion. Had the pure principles of liberty and love, which they so daringly set forth to an admiring world, been cherished, and continued in active operation, the oppressions which have been visited upon the oriental nations, would have been banished from our loved domain. But how sadly are we disappointed. Instead of our being "a reguge for the oppressed of every clime," millions of native Americans are compelled to flee their own homes and seek the Liberia of our continent, to escape the Simoon of slavery. Although legislation was ordained to guard the rights of the whole people, yet recreant are our laws to the "inborn rights" of the people of our land.
Although our nation richly rewards the heroic valor of their predecessors, while our towering monuments nobly mark the spot where freedom's bravest martyrs fell; yet strangely they cherish the fiendish monster of slavery, more implacable than the beligerent powers of Europe. Well has George
Thompson, M.P., said, upon our own soil, that we have withdrawn the protection of our laws from millions of our own people, and that "we deprive more than FIFTEEN HUNDRED THOUSAND FEMALES of every power to defend their own chastity; for whom no father, husband, brother, friend, or lover dare raise an arm to save them from brutal outrage." Why, friend Douglass, we will frankly admit that all our national pride vanishes while we reflect upon this too-humiliating scene! How deeply revolting are the hidden cruelties of our own American nation. We cannot reflet upon the direful catalogue of miseries, without casting the mind through the vista of future years to the time of retribution, which shall call for the "LONG ARREARS OF BLOOD" which we have wantonly shed upon the earth.—"Shall not my soul be avenged upon such a nation as this?"
The Fugitive-Slave Bill has probably surrendered more rights of the people to the tyrants of earth, than all previous American legislation. By it, our fertile vales and verdant plains have been made the havoc ground of the rapacious man-thief; upon which the subtle minions of slavery may prowl, without molestation, in quest of human game. By it, millions of our race are to be hunted down like rapacious beasts of prey. By it, more than THIRTY-FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND of our fellow-men
are made the chased sport of the infernal rowdyism of slavery. By it, are millions crushed by the car of American juggernaut, who are the "offspring of our God," and for whom our Jesus died. Who are the travail of his soul, and the purchase of his pain!!
One poor, panting fugitive, named Harrison, from the pandemonium of southern slavery, who had rested his weary and frost-bitten limbs upon Chautauque's soil, was discovered by the vulture—eyed-myrmidons of slavery—and he has been dragged back to that bondage, which, to him, was more intolerable than death itself.
We hope the Liberty National Convention will be fully attended. The nomination of Gerrit Smith, at the Buffalo Convention, we think bespoke the true wisdom of a people desirous for the overthrow of this great evil. His almost world-wide benevolence we trust will not soon be forgotten.—His bread, so freely cast upon the waters, we hope will be gathered after many days. May he yet realize the full fruition of his labors of liberty and love, and gather a joyous harvest in the full redemption of the poor from their poverty, and the down-trodden from their oppression.
In view of the position of our laws assume in regard to the colored people of our land, and of the exertions which are being made to transport them to the inhospitable shores of Africa, how abhorrent to reflect that these things are created not merely by people at the South, but by our own near-door neighbors; and but for the co-operation and support of such people, slavery would long ago have been numbered among those things which have met a final retribution, and been consigned to its pavilion of darkness. But there are some redeeming spirits. The liberty ranks contain those master spirits possessing the elements of true greatness and magnanimity. The names of Gerrit Smith, Wm. Goodell, J. G. Birney, and others, constitute that central attraction around which freedom's banners may yet wave in triumphant glory. And we rejoice, also, that among our colored brethren we view, and hail with gladness, the name of a Frederick Douglass, a Samuel R. Ward, a Loguen and many others, under whose generalship in the great battle yet to be fought and won by the sons of freedom, we should rejoice to display that desperate valor, and determined heroism which characterises the great drama of human emancipation, and which, in "times which tried men's souls," was so valiantly acted on our fields of martial strife.
Yours for Liberty and Love,
S. A. Ferguson.
Ellicott, May 23d, 1852.