A Nation in the Midst of a Nation: An Address Delivered in New York, New York, on 11 May 1853
A NATION IN THE MIDST OF A NATION: AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN NEW YORK, NEW YORK, ON 11 MAY 1853
Frederick Douglass' Paper, 27 May 1853. Other texts in New York Daily Times, 12 May 1853; New York Daily Tribune, 12 May 1853; New York Herald, 13 May 1853; Albany Evening Journal, 14 May 1853; New York Independent, 19 May 1853; Thirteenth Annual Report of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Presented at New York, May 11, 1853, with the Addresses and Resolutions (New York, 1853), 183-89; Speech File, reel 14, frames 74-104, reel 32, frames 380-402, FD Papers, DLC; Douglass, Bondage and Freedom, 451-56; idem, Life and Times, 327-31; Woodson, Negro Orators, 223-28; Foner, Life and Writings, 2: 243—54.
“I have recieved [sic] and have accepted an invitation from Lewis Tappan Esqr. to make a Speech at the may meeting of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in New york. I have done this, not without consideration; and having weighed every objection to it, my mind is made up,” Douglass wrote to Gerrit Smith on 6 April 1853. On 11 May he attended the thirteenth annual convention of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, held in the Broadway Tabernacle in New York City, to give the keynote address. According to the New York Herald, the Broadway Tabernacle was “completely filled, and amongst the auditory, as well as on the platform, there was a strong gathering of people of color. ” Arthur Tappan convened the meeting around 7:30 P.M. He was followed by a black clergyman, the Reverend A. N. Freeman, who read selections from the Bible. Lewis Tappan, the secretary of the organization, then read an abbreviated annual report and presented a series of resolutions for the meeting’s consideration. The Reverend Charles B. Boynton of Cincinnati, a scheduled speaker, was unable to attend the meeting and thus Douglass’s was the only formal address given.
Douglass was greeted with applause, both before and after his speech. The New York Herald also reported some laughter and cheering by the audience. When Douglass finished, the resolutions were put to a vote and adopted unanimously. Shortly thereafter the meeting adjourned. Douglass to Gerrit Smith, 6 April 1853, Gerrit Smith Papers, NSyU; NASS, 28 May 1853.
MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: The resolution upon which I propose to make a few remarks respects the present condition and the future prospects of the whole colored people of the United States.1Sixteen resolutions were before the meeting. Douglass refers to the fourth, which “Resolved that the cruelties inflicted upon the people of color, the attempts to disfranchise them, the numerous persecutions they suffer, and the untold prejudices and disabilities which surround them, are chiefly owing to the spirit of Caste, which obstructs the elevation, and controls the policy of the Colonization Society in driving them to a foreign shore, as a choice of evils; and that while we sympathize with our insulted and deeply wronged brethren, we would exhort them to remember that an impartial and just God will fulfill his promises by bringing them out of the ‘furnace of affliction,‘ and getting them ‘praise and fame in [the] land where they have been put to shame.‘ ” American and Foreign Anti- Slavery Society, Thirteenth Annual Report, 180. The subject is a great one, and opens ample scope for thought and feeling. I feel a diffidence in undertaking its consideration, for two causes: first, my own incompetence to do it justice—and the second is, the peculiar relation subsisting between me and the audience I am about to address. Sir, I am a colored man, and this is a white audience. No colored man, with any nervous sensibility, can stand before an American audience without an intense and painful sense ofthe immense disadvantage under which he labors. He feels little borne up by that brotherly sympathy and generous enthusiasm which give wings to the eloquence and strength to the hearts of abler men engaged in other and more popular causes. The ground which a colored man occupies in this country is every inch of it sternly disputed. Not by argument, or any just appeal to the understanding; but by a cold, flinty-hearted, unreasoning and unreasonable prejudice against him as a man and a member ofthe human family. Sir, were I a white man, speaking before and for white men, I should in this country have a smooth sea and a fair wind. It is, perhaps, creditable to the American people, (and, sir, I am not the man to detract from their credit), that they listen eagerly to the report of wrongs endured by distant nations. The Hungarian, the Italian, the Irishman, the Jew, and the Gentile, all find in this land a home, and when any of them, or all of them desire to speak, they find willing ears, warm hearts and open hands. For these people, the Americans, have principles of justice, maxims of mercy, sentiments of religion, and feelings of brotherhood in abundance. But for my poor people enslaved—blasted and ruined—it would
appear, that America had neither justice, mercy nor religion. She has no scales in which to weigh our wrongs—she has no standard by which to measure our rights.
Just here lies the difficulty of my cause. It is found in the fact that we may not avail ourselves of admitted American principles. If l do not misinterpret the feelings of my white countrymen generally, they wish us to understand distinctly and fully, that they wish most of all to have nothing whatever to do with us, unless it may be to coin dollars out of our blood. Our position here is anomalous, unequal, and extraordinary. It is a position to which the most courageous of us cannot look without deep concern. We are, Sir, a hopeful people, and in this we are fortunate: but for this we should have long before the present seemingly unpropitious hour, sunk down under a sense of despair. Look at it, Sir. Here, upon the soil of our birth, in a country which has known us for centuries, among a people who did not wait for us to seek them, but a people who sought us, and who brought us to their own chosen land—a people for whom we have performed the humblest services, and whose greatest comforts and luxuries have been won from the earth by the strength of our sable and sinewy arms. I say, Sir, among such a people and with such recommendations to favor, we are esteemed less than strangers and sojourners—aliens are we in our native land. The fundamental principles of the Republic to which the humblest white man, whether born here or elsewhere, may appeal with confidence in the hope of awakening a favorable response, are held to be inapplicable to us. The glorious doctrines of your revolutionary fathers, and the still more glorious teachings ofthe Son of God, are construed and applied against us. We are literally scourged beyond the beneficent range of both authorities human and divine. We plead for our rights in the name of the immortal Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution, and we are answered by our countrymen with imprecations and curses. In the sacred name of Jesus we beg for mercy, and the slave whip, red with blood, cracks over us in mockery. We invoke the aid of the ministers of Him who came to preach deliverance to the captives, and to set at liberty them that are bound; and from the loftiest summits of this ministry comes the inhuman and blasphemous response, that if one prayer would move the almighty arm in mercy to break our galling chains, that prayer would be withheld! We cry for help to humanity, a common humanity, and here too we are repulsed. American humanity hates us, scorns, disowns and denies our personality. The outspread wing of American Christianity—apparently broad enough to give shelter to a perishing world—refuses to cover us. To us its bones are
brass and its feathers iron. In running thither for shelter and succor, we have only fled from the hungry bloodhound to the devouring wolf—from a corrupt and selfish world to a hollow and hypocritical church; and may I not add, from the agonies of earth to the flames of hell!
Sir, this is strong language. For the sake of my people, I would to God it were extravagantly strong. But, Sir, I fear our fault here to-day will not be that we have pleaded the cause of the slave too vehemently, but too tamely; that we have not contemplated his wrongs with too much excitement, but with unnatural calmness and composure. For my part, I cannot speak as I feel on this subject. My language, though never so bitter, is less bitter than my experience. At best, my poor speech is, to the facts in the case, but as the shadow to the substance.
Sir, it is known to you and to many who hear me, that I am alike familiar with the whip and chain of slavery, and the lash and sting of public neglect and scorn; that my back is marked with the one, and my soul is fretted with the other. My neck is galled by both yokes—that imposed by one master, and that imposed by many masters. More than twenty years of my life were passed in Slavery, and nearly fifteen years have been passed in nominal freedom. Mine has been the experience of the colored people of America, both slave and free. I was born a slave. Even before I [was] made part of this breathing world the scourge was platted for my back, and the fetters were forged for my limbs. My earliest recollections are associated with the appalling thought that I was a slave—a slave for life. How that crushing thought wrung my young heart I shall never be able fully to tell. But of some things I can tell—some things which are incident to the free and to the slave people of this country. Give me leave, then, in my own language to speak freely all that can be uttered of the thoughts of my heart in regard to the wrongs of the people with whom I thus stand associated in the two conditions to which I have thus alluded— for when I have said all, “the half will not then have been told.”
Sir, it was once said by that greatest of modern Irish orators, Daniel O’Connell—(a man whose patriotism was equalled only by his love of universal freedom)—that the history of the Irish people might be traced like a wounded man through a crowd, by the blood. That is a most startling saying. I read it with a shudder soon after it was said, and felt [that] if this were true in relation to the Irish people it was still more true in relation to the colored people of the United States. Our wrongs and outrages are as old as our country. They date back to its earliest settlement, and extend through two hundred and thirty years—and they are as numerous and as oft-
repeated as the days of all these years. Even now while I speak and you listen the work of blood and sorrow goes on. Methinks I hear the noise of chains and the clang of the whip. There is not a day, not an hour in any day—not a minute in any hour of the day, that the blood of my people does not gush forth at the call of the scourge—that the tenderest ties of humanity are not sundered—that parents are not torn from children, and husbands are not torn from their wives for the convenience of those who gain fortune by the blood of souls.
But I do not propose to confine your attention to the details of Slavery. They are harrowing to think of and too shocking to fix the mind upon for any length of time. I rather wish to speak of the condition of the colored people of the United States generally. This people, free and slave, are rapidly filling up the number of four millions. They are becoming a nation, in the midst of a nation which disowns them, and for weal or for woe this nation is united. The distinction between the slave and the free is not great, and their destiny seems one and the same. The black man is linked to his brother by indissoluble ties. The one cannot be truly free while the other is a slave. The free colored man is reminded by the ten thousand petty annoyances with which he meets every day, of his identity with an enslaved people—and that with them he is destined to fall or flourish. We are one nation then, if not one in immediate condition at least one in prospects.
I will not argue that we are men of like passions with the rest of mankind. That is unnecessary. All know at any rate that we are capable in some sort of love and hate, friendship and enmity. But whatever character or capacity you ascribe to us, I am not ashamed to be numbered with this race. I am not ashamed to speak here as a negro. Sir, I utterly abhor and spurn with all the contempt possible that cowardly meanness, I will not call it pride, which leads any colored man to repudiate his connection with his race. I cannot say, therefore, as was said recently by a distinguished colored man at a Convention in Cincinnati, that he did not speak as a colored man,2Douglass alludes to the remarks of black Garrisonian abolitionist Charles Lenox Remond at a “Grand Anti-Slavery Convention“ in Cincinnati, Ohio. on 19 April 1853. Addressing a largely white audience, which included Garrison himself, Remond “said he would not speak as a colored man, but as a man. The Anti-Slavery movement had grown to that extent that its interests were the interests of the whole country. When the nature, claims and inevitable tendencies of human slavery were fully considered. the colored men would be lost sight of; the contemplation of the individual and of the class would be merged into the catholic contemplation of the [human] race." Lib., 6 May 1852. for, Sir, as a colored man I do speak—as a colored man I was invited here to speak—and as a colored man there are peculiar reasons for my speaking. The man struck is the man to cry out. I would place
myself—nay, I am placed—among the victims of American oppression. I view this subject from their stand-point—and scan the moral and political horizon of the country with their hopes, their fears, and their intense solicitude. Standing here, then, and judging from the events and indications of the past few years, the black man must see that a crisis has arrived in his relations with the American people. He is reminded that trials and hardships await him; that the times are portentous of storms which will try the strength of his bark.
Sir, it is evident that there is in this country a purely Slavery party—a party which exists for no other earthly purpose but to promote the interests of Slavery. The presence of this party is felt everywhere in the Republic. It is known by no particular name, and has assumed no definite shape; but its branches reach far and wide in the Church and in the State. This shapeless and nameless party is not intangible in other and more important respects. That party, Sir, has determined upon a fixed, definite, and comprehensive policy toward the whole colored population of the United States. What that policy is, it becomes us as Abolitionists, and especially does it become the colored people themselves, to consider and to understand fully. We ought to know who our enemies are, where they are, and what are their objects and measures.
Well, Sir, here is my version of it—not original with me—but mine because I hold it to be true. I understand this policy to comprehend five cardinal objects. They are these: lst. The complete suppression of all Anti-Slavery discussion. 2d. The expatriation of the entire free people of color from the United States. 3d. The unending perpetuation of Slavery in this Republic. 4th. The nationalization of Slavery to the extent of making Slavery respected in every State of the Union. 5th. The extension of Slavery over Mexico and the entire South American States. Sir, these objects are forcibly presented to us in the stern logic of passing events—in the facts which are and have been passing around us during the last three years. The country has been and is now dividing on these grand issues. In their magnitude these issues cast all others into the shade, depriving them of all life and vitality. Old party ties are broken. Like is finding its like on either side of these great issues—and the great battle is at hand.
For the present, the best representative of the Slavery party in politics is the Democratic party. Its great head for the present is President Pierce. whose boast it was—before his election—that his whole life had been consistent with the interests of Slavery, that he is above reproach, on that
score. In his inaugural address, he re-assures the South on this point.3When Franklin Pierce was a presidential candidate, his statements about slavery were few and ambiguous. His evasive stance during the 1852 campaign resulted in the publication of two identically titled pamphlets portraying Pierce respectively as a bitter opponent and a staunch defender of the peculiar institution. The Whig tract Franklin Pierce and his Abolition Allies reprinted material from the Washington (DC) National Era describing a January 1852 speech in New Boston, New Hampshire, when Pierce purportedly denounced the Fugitive Slave Law as morally repugnant and refused to aid in its enforcement. Pierce claimed that his remarks had been distorted and a pamphlet war ensued calling forth affidavits and counteraffidavits from persons who had heard the New Boston speech. The Democrats released their own version of Franklin Pierce and His Abolition Allies, containing assurances from former Mississippi governor Albert Gallatin Brown that Pierce was hostile to abolitionism and thus acceptable to the South. In his inaugural address Pierce affirmed “that involuntary servitude as it exists in the different states of this Confederacy, is recognized by the Constitution. I believe that it stands like any other admitted right, and that the states where it exists are entitled to efficient remedies to enforce the constitutional provisions. 1 hold that the laws of 1850, commonly called the ‘compromise measures,‘ are strictly constitutional and to be unhesitatingly carried into effect. . . . l fervently hope that the [slavery] question is at rest." Nichols, Franklin Pierce, 192, 210-11, 235-36; idem, Democratic Machine, 156—57. Well, the head of the slave power being in power, it is natural that the pro-slavery elements should cluster around the Administration, and this is rapidly being done. A fraternization is going on. The stringent Protectionists and the Free Traders strike hands. The supporters of Fillmore4Millard Fillmore (1800-74), thirteenth president of the United States, vied with William H. Seward for control of New York state's Whig party during the early 1850s. Like Seward, Fillmore entered politics as a protégé of Thurlow Weed, serving in the state legislature (1828-32) and in the U.S. House of Representatives (1833—35, 1837— 43), where he generally voted with the Henry Clay wing of the Whig party. Defeated in the 1844 New York govemor's race, Fillmore secured the Whig vice presidential nomination in 1848 in order to add sectional and ideological balance to the Taylor ticket. Conservative and nationalistic in outlook, Fillmore presided evenhandedly over the U.S. Senate debates on the Compromise of 1850. After assuming the Presidency upon Taylor's death in July, Fillmore vigorously advocated passage of the Compromise and signed each of the measures into law. Denied his party’s nomination in 1852, Fillmore ran for president on the American party ticket in 1856 and supported John Bell and the Constitutional Union party in 1860. NCAB, 6: 177-78; DAB, 6 : 380—82. are becoming the supporters of Pierce. The Silver Gray Whig shakes hands with the Hunker Democrat—the former only differing from the latter in name. They are of one heart, one mind, and the union is natural and perhaps inevitable. Both hate negroes, both hate progress, both hate the “Higher Law,” both hate Wm. H. Seward,5William Henry Seward (1801-72), politician, diplomat, and leading antislavery spokesman, was elected to the New York state senate as an Anti-Mason in 1830 through the influence of his friend and mentor Thurlow Weed. Having joined the Whig party by 1834, Seward served two terms as governor of New York (1839-43) and two terms as US. senator (1849—61), before becoming secretary of state under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. Identified with a variety of liberal and humanitarian causes throughout his career, Seward angered Virginia authorities during his govemorship by refusing to extradite several sailors charged in fugitive slave proceedings. In US. Senate debates over the Compromise of 1850 he first invoked the doctrine of a “higher law than the Constitution" in support of abolitionism. After the merger of New York ‘s Whig organization with the Republican party in 1855, Seward‘s antislavery utterances became increasingly forthright, culminating with his 1858 declaration that the slavery struggle was an “irrepressible conflict“ between opposing forces. Passed over for the Republican presidential nomination in 1856 and 1860. Seward effectively used the slavery issue to prevent European recognition of the Confederacy during the Civil War. ACAB. 5 : 470—73; DAB, 16:615—21. both hate the Free Democratic party, and upon this hate
ful basis they are forming a union of hatred.6Douglass ’s comments reflect the pessimism widespread in antislavery circles after the election of Franklin Pierce. Since 1850 New York state Whigs had been split between antislavery followers of William H. Seward and more conservative “Silver Grays" who had affirmed their allegiance to the Fillmore wing ofthe party by following silver-haired Francis Granger out of the Whig state convention. The “Silver Grays,“ including many of New York City‘s wealthy merchants, were overwhelmingly Unionist in outlook and strong supporters of the Compromise of 1850. When the Whigs nominated Seward’s ally Winfield Scott for president in 1852, “Silver Grays" deserted the party in droves. frequently giving their money and votes to Democratic nominee Franklin Pierce. Southern Whigs pursued a similar course, often continuing bipartisan Unionist coalitions forged during the previous year’s debate over the Compromise of 1850. Although Franklin Pierce owed his election to moderate Unionist coalitions on both sides ofthe Mason-Dixon line, his early patronage appointments seemed to ignore these groups in favor of Free Soilers and states-rights Southerners. By mid-1853, therefore. support for Pierce among both Whigs and the conservative “Hunker” Democrats had begun to erode. Nichols. Democratic Machine. 18, 198—99; Rayback, Free Soil, 61; Foner, Business and Slavery, 85—87; Nichols, Franklin Pierce, 252—55; Carman and Luthin, “The Seward-Fillmore Feud," 335-57. “Pilate and Herod are thus made friends.” Even the central organ of the Whig party is extending its beggar hand for a morsel from the table of Slavery Democracy, and when spurned from the feast by the more deserving, it pockets the insult; when kicked on one side it turns the other, and perseveres in its importunities. The fact is, that paper comprehends the demands of the times; it understands the age and its issues; it wisely sees that Slavery and Freedom are the great antagonistic forces in the country, and it goes to its own side. Silver Grays and Hunkers all understand this. They are, therefore, rapidly sinking all other questions to nothing, compared with the increasing demands of Slavery. They are collecting, arranging, and consolidating their forces for the accomplishment of their appointed work.
The key stone to the arch of this grand union of the Slavery party of the United States is the Compromise of 1850. In that Compromise, we have all the objects of our slaveholding policy specified. It is, Sir, favorable to this view of the designs of the slave power, that both the Whig and the Democratic party bent lower, sunk deeper, and strained harder, in their conventions, preparatory to the late presidential election, to meet the demands of the Slavery party, than at any previous time in their history. Never did parties come before the northern people with propositions of such undis-
guised contempt for the moral sentiment and the religious ideas of that people. They virtually asked them to unite in a war upon free speech, upon conscience, and to drive the Almighty presence from the councils of the nation. Resting their platforms upon the Fugitive Slave bill, they boldly asked the people for political power to execute the horrible and hell black provisions of that bill. The history of that election reveals, with great clearness, the extent to which Slavery has shot its leprous distillment through the lifeblood of the nation. The party most thoroughly opposed to the cause of justice and humanity triumphed, while the party suspected of a leaning towards Liberty was overwhelmingly defeated, some say annihilated.
But here is a still more important fact, illustrating the designs of the slave power. It is a fact full of meaning, that no sooner did the Democratic slavery party come into power, than a system of legislation was presented to the Legislatures of the Northem States, designed to put the States in harmony with the Fugitive Slave Law and the malignant bearing of the National Government towards the colored inhabitants of the country. This whole movement on the part of the States bears the evidence of having one origin, emanating from one head, and urged forward by one power. It was simultaneous, uniform and general, and looked to one end. It was intended to put thorns under feet already bleeding; to crush a people already bowed down; to enslave a people already but half free; in a word, it was intended to discourage, dishearten, and drive the free colored people out of the country. In looking at the recent black law of Illinois, one is struck dumb with its enormity. It would seem that the men who enacted that law, had not only banished from their minds all sense ofjustice, but all sense of shame. It coolly proposes to sell the bodies and souls of the black[s] to increase the intelligence and refinement of the whites. To rob every black stranger who ventures among them, to increase their literary fund.7During the antebellum era nearly all northern states considered legal measures to restrict or prohibit black immigration. Anti-immigration sentiment was especially strong in states of the Old Northwest contiguous to slave territory. To forestall an influx ofemancipated and fugitive slaves, these states required black immigrants to show proof of freedom and to post bonds of $500 to $1,000 as guarantees of good behavior. During the 18505, Oregon, Indiana, Iowa, and Illinois enacted or revised so-called Black Laws and sometimes incorporated anti-immigration provisions into state constitutions. Under the terms of an Illinois statute approved in February 1853, any black or mulatto immigrant remaining in the state more than ten days with the apparent intention of taking up residence was subject to an initial fine of $50, and multiples of that amount for repeated offenses. Those Negroes unable to pay the fine would be incarcerated and sold “at public auction . . . to any person or persons who will pay said fine and costs for the shortest time; and said purchaser shall have the right to compel said negro or mulatto to work for, and serve out said time, and he shall furnish said negro or mulatto with comfortable food, clothing and lodging during said servitude. "Proceeds from fines or sales were to be equally divided between the person making the initial complaint and a special county “charity fund" established “for the express purpose ofrelieving the poor. " Although seldom enforced, the Illinois law remained on the books until 1865 and was formally upheld by the state supreme court. Litwack, North of Slavery, 70—71; Farnam. Social Legislation, 219—20; Lib., 1 April 1853.
While this is going on in the States, a Pro-Slavery, Political Board of Health is established at Washington! Senators Hale, Chase and Sumner are robbed of a part of their Senatorial dignity and consequence as representing sovereign States, because they have refused to be inoculated with the Slavery virus. Among the services which a Senator is expected by his State to perform, are many that can only be done efficiently on Committee—and, in saying to these honorable Senators, you shall not serve on the Committees of this body, the Slavery party took the responsibility of robbing and insulting the States that sent them.8Douglass sarcastically refers to the action of the Democratic and Whig caucuses during the second session of the 32d Congress in excluding antislavery senators Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, and John P. Hale of New Hampshire from any of the Senate‘s standing committees. When called on to defend the action, Senator Jesse D. Bright of Indiana explained that Hale, and presumably Chase and Sumner as well, were regarded as being “outside of any healthy political organization in this country. " lndignant over the Senate 's action, many antislavery newspapers seized upon Bright's phrase in critical editorials. Hale charged that the Democratic party was itself “swollen” by “an unhealthy enlargement" of proslavery forces. and Douglass here carries the metaphor one step further by labeling the caucuses a “Pro-Slavery Political Board of Health. “ Charles Sumner (181 1—74), US. senator and outspoken advocate of pacifism, antislavery, and racial justice, attended Harvard College (1826—30) and Harvard Law School (l831—33), where he became a friend and protege of Justice Joseph Story. During the mid-1830s Sumner practiced law in Boston, engaged in legal scholarship, and taught at Harvard before embarking on an extended tour of Europe from 1838 to 1840. His oratorical talents became evident at Boston‘s 1843 Independence Day celebration when he delivered a ringing antiwar address. A vocal critic of the Mexican War, Sumner was initially aligned with Massachusetts's "Conscience Whigs" before joining the Free Soil movement in 1848. Sumner was ambivalent about social equality between whites and blacks but steadfast in opposing legal discrimination based upon race. In 1849 he served without fee as legal counsel in the Sarah Roberts case challenging the legality of racial segregation in Boston public schools. Two years later a Democratic-Free Soil coalition elected him to the U.S. Senate, where he was destined to spend the remainder of his public career. Through such polished Senate orations as his 1852 "Freedom National" speech attacking the Fugitive Slave Law, Sumner became a leading figure in the antislavery cause. In 1856 his address "The Crime Against Kansas" provoked a physical attack from South Carolina congressman Preston S. Brooks, who beat Sumner into a state of semiconsciousness on the floor of the Senate. During his three-year convalescence. Sumner was elevated to martyrdom. Instrumental in organizing the Massachusetts Republican party, he served as chairman ofthe Senate Foreign Relations Committee during the 1860s and was among the first national politicians to urge emancipation as a war measure. Sumner, who was intent on securing suffrage rights, land, and education for the freedmen, became a leading architect of radical Reconstruction and later led the drive to impeach and remove President Andrew Johnson. After breaking with President Ulysses S. Grant over the issue of U.S. acquisition of Santo Domingo, Sumner supponed Liberal Republican candidate Horace Greeley in 1872. Congressional Globe. 32d Cong., 2d sess., 39—43; Lib., 21 January 1853; David Donald, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War (New York, 1960), 180-81, 240-41; DAB, 18 : 208—14. It is an attempt at Washington
to decide for the States who shall be sent to the Senate. Sir, it strikes me that this aggression on the part of the Slave power did not meet at the hands of the proscribed Senators the rebuke which we had a right to expect would be administered. It seems to me that an opportunity was lost that the great principles of Senatorial equality were left undefended, at a time when its vindication was stemly demanded. But it is not to the purpose of my present statement to criticise the conduct of our friends. I am persuaded that much ought to be left to the discretion of Anti-Slavery men in Congress, and charges of recreancy should never be made but on the most sufficient grounds. For, of all the places in the world where an Anti-Slavery man needs the confidence and encouragement of friends, I take Washington to be that place.
Let me now call attention to the social influences which are operating and co-operating with the Slavery party of the country, designed to contribute to one or all of the grand objects aimed at by that party. We see here the black man attacked in his vital interests—prejudice and hate are excited against him—enmity is stirred up between him and other laborers. The Irish people, warm hearted, generous, and sympathizing with the oppressed everywhere when they stand upon their own green island, are instantly taught on arriving in this Christian country to hate and despise the colored people. They are taught to believe that we eat the bread which of right belongs to them. The cruel lie is told the Irish that our adversity is essential to their prosperity. Sir, the Irish American will find out his mistake one day. He will find that in assuming our avocation he also has assumed our degradation. But for the present we are sufferers. The old employments by which we have heretofore gained our livelihood are gradually, and it may be inevitably, passing into other hands. Every hour sees us elbowed out of some employment to make room perhaps for some newly arrived emigrants, whose hunger and color are thought to give them a title to especial favor. White men are becoming house servants, cooks and stewards, common laborers and flunkeys to our gentry; and, for aught I see, they adjust themselves to their stations with all becoming obsequiousness. This fact proves that if we cannot rise to the whites, the whites can fall to us.
Now, Sir, look once more. While the colored people are thus elbowed out of employment; while the enmity of emigrants is being excited against us; while State after State enacts laws against us; while we are hunted down, like wild game, and oppressed with a general feeling of insecurity; the American Colonization Society—that old offender against the best interests and slanderer of the colored people—awakens to new life, and vigorously presses its scheme upon the consideration of the people and the
Government. New papers are started—some for the North and some for the South—and each in its tone adapting itself to its latitude.9The American Colonization Society experienced a sustained resurgence during the 1850s. State organizations grew more active, agents traversed the northern and border states, and soaring annual revenues allowed the parent organization to build its own ship and transport over six thousand blacks to Liberia between I848 and 1860. The legislatures of Missouri, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia appropriated funds for African emigration, and the federal government, while refusing direct subsidies, did contract with the Colonization Society for the settlement in Liberia of Africans rescued from the international slave trade. Such prominent national figures as Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, Supreme Court Justice James M. Wayne, Stephen A. Douglas, and President Millard Fillmore endorsed the Society's efforts. Augmenting the Colonization Society's national organ, African Repository, were such regional journals as the Pennyslvania Colonization Herald (1835-68), the New York Colonization Journal (1850-63), and the Maryland Colonization Journal (1841-61). Staudenraus, African Colonization Movement. 240-51; Fredrickson, Black Image in White Mind, 6-21; Miller, Search for a Black Nationality, 93-169. Government, [both] State and National, is called upon for apprOpriations to enable the Society to send us out of the country by steam! They want steamers to carry letters and negroes to Africa. Evidently this Society looks upon our “extremity as its opportunity,” and we may expect that it will use the occasion well, that [it] does not deplore but glories in our misfortunes.
But, Sir, I must hasten. I have thus briefly given my view ofone aspect of the present condition and future prospects of the colored people of the United States. And what I have said is far from encouraging to my afflicted people. I have seen the cloud gather upon the sable brows ofsome who hear me. I confess the case looks black enough. Sir, I am not a hopeful man. I think I am apt even to undercalculate the benefits ofthe future. Yet, Sir, in this seemingly desperate case, I do not despair for my people. There is a bright side to almost every picture of this kind; and ours is no exception to the general rule. Ifthe influences against us are strong, those for us are also strong. To the inquiry, will our enemies prevail in the execution of their designs, in my God and in my soul, I believe they will not.
Let us look at the first object sought for by the Slavery party of the country, viz: the suppression of anti-slavery discussion. They desire to suppress discussion on this subject, with a view to the peace of the slaveholder and the security of slavery. Now, Sir, neither the principle nor the subordinate objects, here declared can be at all gained by the slave power, and for this reason: It involves the proposition to padlock the lips of the whites in order to secure the fetters on the limbs of the blacks. The right of speech, precious and priceless, cannot, will not, be surrendered to Slavery. Its suppression is asked for, as l have said, to give peace and security to slaveholders. Sir, that thing cannot be done. God has interposed
an insuperable obstacle to any such result. “There can be no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.”10Douglas paraphrases Isa. 48 : 22 or 57 : 21. Suppose it were possible to put down this discussion, what would it avail the guilty slaveholder, pillowed as he is upon the heaving bosoms of ruined souls? He could not have a peaceful spirit. If every anti-slavery tongue in the nation were silent—every anti-slavery organization dissolved—every anti-slavery press demolished—every anti-slavery periodical, paper, book, pamphlet or what not were searched out, gathered together, deliberately burned to ashes, and their ashes given to the four winds of heaven, still, still the slaveholder could have "no peace." In every pulsation of his heart, in every throb of his life, in every glance of his eye, in the breeze that soothes and in the thunder that startles, would be waked up an accuser, whose cause is, “Thou art, verily, guilty concerning thy brother. "11A paraphrase of Gen. 42 : 21. Oh! Sir, I can say with the poet Cowper—and I speak from observation——
"I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earned,
No: dear as freedom is, and in my heart’s
Just estimation prized above all price,
I had much rather be myself the slave,
And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him."12Douglass quotes lines 29-36 of The Time Piece by William Cowper. Bailey, Poems of William Cowper, 267.
Again: The prospect, Sir, of putting down this discussion is anything but flattering at the present moment. I am unable to detect any signs of the suppression of this discussion. I certainly do not see it in this crowded assembly—nor upon this platform—nor do I see it in any direction.
Why, Sir, look all over the North; look South—look at home—look abroad—look at the whole civilized world—and what are all this vast multitude doing at this moment? Why, Sir, they are reading “Uncle Tom’s Cabin;” and when they have read that, they will probably read “The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin"—a key not only to the Cabin, but, I believe to the slave’s darkest dungeon. A nation’s hand, with that “key, ” will unlock the slave prisons to millions. Then look at the authoress of “Uncle Tom’s
Cabin." There is nothing in her reception abroad which indicates a declension of interest in the great subject which she has done so much to unfold and illustrate. The landing of a Princess on the shores of England would not have produced the same sensation.13Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe (1811-96), author and reformer, is best remembered for her celebrated antislavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or. Life Among the Lowly, 2 vols. (Boston, 1852). initially serialized in the Washington (D.C.) National Era from June 1851 through April 1852. The third daughter of famed evangelist Lyman Beecher, she spent her early years in Litchfield, Connecticut, but moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1832 when her father became head of Lane Theological Seminary. In Cincinnati she wrote a widely used children‘s geography textbook and published her first pieces of fiction. Periodic ill health and the birth of seven children retarded Mrs. Stowe's literary career for more than a decade after her marriage to Lane theology professor Calvin Ellis Stowe. Upon her husband's appointment to the faculty of Bowdoin College in 1850, she moved to Brunswick, Maine, and was soon caught up in the controversy surrounding the recently passed Fugitive Slave Law. Mrs. Stowe began writing the first installments of what was to become Uncle Tom's Cabin in March 1851. Appearing in book form the next year, the novel quickly achieved international success. About three hundred thousand copies sold in America during the first year and English sales ultimately exceeded one and a half million. Criticism of the book's accuracy led Mrs. Stowe to compile a documentary indictment of slavery published in 1853 under the title A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Her third antislavery work Dred, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (Boston, 1856) was a fictionalized account based upon the 1831 Nat Tumer slave insurrection. The proceeds from Mrs. Stowe's antislavery writings helped finance trips to Great Britain and the Continent in 1853, 1856, and 1859. Her first and most triumphal tour was undertaken at the invitation of the Reverend Ralph Wardlaw, a famed Scottish abolitionist, and included visits to Scotland, England, Paris, Geneva, and various parts of Germany. Acclaim greeted Mrs. Stowe everywhere, but London was undoubtedly the high point of her tour. On the day of her arrival she dined with the Lord Mayor, and under the sponsorship ofthe Earl of Carlisle and the Duchess of Sutherland she made the rounds of London society. She returned to the United States in September 1853 with gifts totalling nearly $20,000, and the following year she recorded her experiences in a travelogue entitled Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, 2 vols. (Boston, 1854). During the Civil War Mrs. Stowe strongly supported emancipation but later opposed black male suffrage and favored a lenient Reconstruction policy toward the South. In 1870 she purchased a home on the St. Johns River near Jacksonville. Florida, where she spent the remainder of her life. Forrest Wilson, Crusader in Crinoline (Philadelphia, 1941); Caskey, Chariot of Fire. 3-33, 169-207. For further commentary by Douglass on Mrs. Stowe’s 1853 British tour see FDP, 6, 27 May, 3 June 1853.
I take it, then, that the Slavery party will find this item of their pro gramme the most difficult of execution, since it is the voice of all experience that opposition to agitation is the most successful method of promoting it. Men will write—men will read—men will think—men will feel—and the result of this is, men will speak; and it were as well to chain the lightning as to repress the moral convictions and humane promptings of enlightened human nature. Herein, sirs, is our hope. Slavery cannot bear discussion: it is a monster of darkness: and, as Junius said of the character of Lord Granby, "it can only pass without censure, as it passes without observation."14"Junius's" counsel to Granby's defender appears in Political Contest. 29.
The second cardinal object of this party, viz: The expatriation of the free colored people from the United States, is a very desirable one to our enemies—and we read, in the vigorous efforts making to accomplish it, an acknowledgment of our manhood, and the danger to Slavery arising out of our presence. Despite the tremendous pressure brought to bear against us, the colored people are gradually increasing in wealth, in intelligence and in respectability. Here is the secret of the Colonization scheme. It is easily seen that just in proportion to the intelligence and respectability of the free colored race at the North is their power to endanger the stability of Slavery. Hence the desire to get rid of us. But, Sir, the desire is not merely to get us out of this country, but to get us at a convenient and harmless distance from Slavery. And here, Sir, I think I can speak as if by authority for the free colored people of the United States. The people of this Republic may commit the audacious and high-handed atrocity of driving us out of the limits of their borders. They may virtually confiscate our property; they may invade our civil and personal liberty, and render our lives intolerable burdens, so that we may be induced to leave the United States; but to compel us to go to Africa is quite another thing.
Thank God, the alternative is not quite so desperate as that we must be slaves here, or go to the pestilential shores of Africa. Other and more desirable lands are open to us. We can plant ourselves at the very portals of Slavery. We can hover about the Gulf of Mexico. Nearly all the isles of the Caribbean Sea bid us welcome[; w]hile the broad and fertile valleys of British Guiana, under the sway of the emancipating Queen, invite us to their treasures, and to nationality. With the Gulf of Mexico on the South, and Canada on the North, we may still keep within hearing of the wails of our enslaved people in the United States. From the isles of the sea, and from the mountain tops of South America we can watch the meandering destiny of those we have left behind. Americans should remember that there are already on this Continent, and in the adjacent islands, all of 12,370,000 negroes, who only wait for the life-giving and organizing power of intelligence to mould them into one body and into a powerful nation. The following estimate of our numbers and localities is taken from one of the able Reports of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society,15Douglass 's statistics correspond with those presented in The Thirteenth Annual Report of the B[ritish] [and] F[oreign] A[nti-] S[lavery] S[ociety], For the abolition of Slavery and the Slave-Trade throughout the World; presented to the meeting held in Crosby Hall, Bishopsgate Street, London, on Monday, May 17th, 1852 (London, 1852), 47. carefully drawn up by its former Secretary, John Scoble, Esq.:
| United States | 3,650,000 |
| Brazil | 4,050,000 |
| Spanish Colonies | 1,470,000 |
| South American Republics | 1,130,000 |
| British Colonies | 750,000 |
| Hayti | 850,000 |
| French Colonies | 270,000 |
| Dutch Colonies | 50,000 |
| Danish Colonies | 45,000 |
| Mexico | 70,000 |
| Canada | 35,000 |
| Total | 12,370,000 |
tion, in the growing intercourse of nations, in cheap postage, in the relaxation of tariffs, in common schools, in the progress of education, the spread of knowledge, in the steam engine, and in the World’s Fair, now about to assemble in New York, and in everything that will be exhibited there.16Inspired by London 's larger and more famous “Crystal Palace Exhibition ‘ ' of 1851, the New York World's Fair (also known as the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition) opened in mid-July 1853 with 4,854 industrial, agricultural, and art exhibits from the United States and twenty-three foreign countries. A decline in attendance and revenues prompted beleaguered stockholders to name P. T. Barnum president of the Exhibition in 1854. When Barnum ‘s showmanship failed to revive the fair, the project was abandoned. Frank Monaghan, The Fairs of the Past and the Fairs of the Future (New York, 1939), 14-15; James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States From the Compromise of 1850, 7 vols. (New York, 1892-1928), 1:414-16.
About making Slavery respectable in the North: laws have been made to accomplish just that thing. The law of ’50, and the law of ’93. And those laws, instead of getting respect for Slavery, have begot disgust and abhorrence. Congress may pass slave laws every day in the year for all time, if each one should be followed by such publications as “Uncle Tom” and the “Key.” It is not in the power of human law to make men entirely forget that the slave is a man. The freemen of the North can never be brought to look with the same feelings upon a man, escaping from his claimants, as upon a horse running from his owner. The slave is a man, and no law can take his manhood from him. His right to be free is written on all the powers and faculties of his soul, and is recorded in the great heart of God, and no human law can touch it.
Now, Sir, I had more to say on the encouraging aspects of the times, but the time fails me. I will only say, in conclusion, greater is he that is for us, than they that are against us; and though labor and peril beset the Anti-Slavery movements, so sure as that a God of mercy and justice is enthroned above all created things, so sure will that cause gloriously triumph. Sir, I have fully spoken out the thoughts of my heart. I have spoken as a colored man, and not as the representative of any Anti-Slavery society. There are many societies: but there is but ONE CAUSE. That cause I desire to serve with my whole heart. I have now spoken at the meeting of the “American A[nti-] S[lavery] Society,” and at the “American and Foreign A[nti-] S[lavery] Society.” The oppressed, among whom I am numbered, should be grateful to both. I honor and respect Lewis Tappan.17Lewis Tappan (1788-1873), wealthy New York merchant and abolitionist, devoted much of his career to religious and benevolent enterprises. Before the panic of 1837 he achieved considerable financial success as partner and credit manager of his brother Arthur‘s silk company. In 1841 Tappan founded the first U.S. commercial credit rating agency, and eight years later retired to devote his time to various philanthropic projects. Strongly influenced by revivalist Charles G. Finney during the 1830s, Tappan was an early supporter of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and the American Bible Society, a founder of the New York Evangelist, a sometime patron of Oberlin College, and a chief financial backer of the Broadway Tabernacle Church. Converted to the cause of immediate emancipation by Theodore D. Weld, Tappan helped organize the New York Anti-Slavery Society and the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833. Mob attacks in l834 and 1835 only deepened his antislavery convictions. Committed to racial equality, Tappan worked unsuccessfully to end segregation in churches and to increase black involvement in the American Anti-Slavery Society's internal affairs. In 1840 he broke with William Lloyd Garrison over the issue of political action and the advisability of linking abolitionism to other reforms. Tappan was active from 1839 to 1841 in securing freedom for the African captives of the slave ship Amistad and also maintained close ties with British abolitionists, especially leaders of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society During the mid-l840s Tappan joined Frederick Douglass and other Garrisonians in attacking the Free Church of Scotland for accepting donations from American slaveholders. In 1846 he gave up efforts to convert older benevolent associations to abolitionism and helped found the American Missionary Association, an agency distinguished for its work among the freedmen during and after the Civil War. A founder and dominant figure in the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Tappan supported the Liberty party in 1844 but shunned the Free Soilers in 1848. Following passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Tappan gave lukewarm support to the newly created American Abolition Society, a radical but ephemeral successor to the defunct American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Douglass was also active in the new group but differed with Tappan over the use of violence in attacking slavery. Although Tappan voted for John C. Fremont in 1856, he did not support the Republicans enthusiastically until the election of 1864. The principal postwar accomplishment of the elderly Tappan was the completion of a biography of his brother Arthur in 1870. Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan; DAB, 18 : 303-04.
I love and revere William Lloyd Garrison; and may God have mercy on me when I refuse to strike a blow against Slavery, in connection with either of these gentlemen. I will work with either; and if the one discards me because I work with the other, the responsibility is not mine. (Great and repeated applause.)