An Appeal to Canada: An Address Delivered in Toronto, Canada West, on 3 April 1851
AN APPEAL TO CANADA: AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN TORONTO, CANADA WEST, ON 3 APRIL 1851
National Anti-Slavery Standard, 10 April 1851. Another text in North Star, 10 April 1851.
Toronto awakened to antislavery awareness when the itinerant reformers Frederick Douglass, George Thompson, and Samuel J. May visited the city in the spring of 1851. The Fugitive Slave Act had enhanced Canada’s image as a haven for blacks, and as the situation in the U.S. became more desperate, the necessity for dialogue between antislavery sympathizers on both sides of the border increased in importance. Writing to Garrison in April, G. W. Putnam stated that “the necessity of having a strong sympathy and a system of cooperation in existence between the abolitionists of America and the people of Canada becomes each hour more apparent. The fugitive must find his home here, God alone knows how long.” The three abolitionists delivered a series of lectures which promised to promote a spirit of cooperation between the two countries. The meetings were held under the auspices of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada, whose president, the Reverend Dr. Michael Willis, was Head Professor of the Knox Theological College. Douglass was the featured speaker at the gathering on 3 April. The meetings held on the two previous evenings had attracted many of Toronto’s most prominent white citizens. An assembly on Wednesday, 2 April, was called especially for Toronto’s Negroes, but Douglass noted that this meeting was less consequential than was hoped because of “imperfect notice, and some offence received at its form." Nevertheless, St. Lawrence Hall was “thronged at an early hour" with crowds to hear Douglass the following night. Willis presided, and joining him on the platform were a number of local ministers, John A. Bolton, a member of the provincial Parliament, and “several others of the most respectable and influential citizens of Toronto.” Willis introduced Douglass “with a high compliment to his ability and character.” Willis was loudly applauded when, in his introductory remarks, he said that as Canadians they “did not come as enemies” of the United States but wished only “to help rear the Standard of Universal Liberty. ” Douglass criticized this hands-off, reverential attitude in a letter to his North Star readers: “They [the Canadians] think it in good taste to let the Americans manage the question for themselves without the aid of what they term ‘the injudicious interference of foreigners.’ ” After Douglass’s speech, George Thompson, an undauntable “foreigner,” addressed the audience in “his usual happy manner.” At 10:30 P.M., following the Englishman’s lecture, the meeting adjourned. Toronto North American, 4 April 1851; Windsor (Canada West) Voice of the Fugitive, 9 April 1851; PaF, 10 April 1851; G. W. P[utnam] to Garrison, 8 April 1851, Samuel J. May to Garrison, 2, 4,10 April 1851, in Lib., 11, 18 April 1851.
Mr. Douglass was most enthusiastically received, and commenced his address by stating some facts in relation to the subject of American Slavery. “Though the free States,” said Mr. Douglass, “have the numerical strength in the government, and could if they chose carry all questions in the Congress, yet the slave States invariably carry all their favorite measures. The excuses of the people of the free States that they have nothing to do with, and are not responsible for the Slavery in the South, are false and hypocritical. Should the slaves do as the boasted Fathers of the American Republic did, rise and demand by force their liberty which God gave them and of which they have been robbed, the entire military and naval force of the United States are by the Constitution and laws of the land bound to proceed instantly at any cost of life, to put down what they call ‘insurrection.’ —And who are responsible, if not they who pay and provide this military and naval force? The North and the free States are responsible for all this wrong and outrage. They could blot it out of existence if they would, but self-interest, in various ways, prevents their doing their duty.
“In the South, the slaves are always held as property, in all things considered as property. The slave’s rights as a man are never in the least degree recognized, it is always ‘who do you belong to?’ as they might address a beast could the beast answer. The name ofthe slave is found as is the name of a favorite horse or other animal upon his master’s ledger. But the slave is a man. A man! invested with all the rights with which God has invested any man capable of comprehending God his maker, and destined to an immortal existence; and by the Christians of the South and of the Free States, and by the laws of the land he is cut off from communion with the human race, and compelled to find companionship with the lowing ox and the neighing horse. But dark as is the lot of the slave yet he knows he is not a beast, but is as truly a man as his master. Nothing can make the Slave think that he is a beast; he feels the instincts of manhood within him at all times, and consequently there is a perpetual war going on between the master and slave, and to keep the slave down the whip and fetters are absolutely necessary. It has been truly said of the South, that from morning to night, and night to morning the slave-land is one scene of contest and of boisterous passion. I hated Slavery from the first of my recollection. I knew as soon as I could reason at all that it was wrong, and that made me restive beneath oppression, and in consequence I was often the recipient of the lash, but I continued to hate it until I escaped from bondage. (Great cheering.)
“Among the evils of Slavery is the destruction of the marriage institution. Legal marriage among the slaves is not known at the South, for the slave has no legal rights. Among the slaves are found many who are in the sight of God married, those whom He has joined together, who are faithful to each other, who are as virtuous as their white brothers and sisters at the North, and these dread more than bondage itself, separation from each other, and the blood recoils at the horrors of these separations, at the inexpressible agony and suffering consequent upon the sundering of these ties. ” Mr. Douglass then related a case in point, where a wife and husband were thus separated, and the husband finding that his purchaser was another than the master of his wife, in the agony of that moment, fell dead at the feet of his new master. This story caused a shudder to pass over the audience, and they seemed to look with a new horror over the vast field of human wrong and woe. Mr. Douglass continued to speak of the evils of the cursed system. “The slave,” said Mr. Douglass, “the slave is made to work by the lash, for no other motive is placed before him. Why should he work? He gets nothing for it, and is conscious that he is robbed of his wages. If all the whips, chains, cat-o-nine tails, pistols and bludgeons and means of torture in the slave States, were to-night annihilated, Slavery would also cease to be, and the slaves would rise and demand their rights and there is no power that could keep them down an hour. But it is force alone that keeps them in submission. I had for a master one of those ‘kind hearted’ slaveholders, Col. Lloyd.1Edward Lloyd V. He had the reputation of being a kind master. Among the slaves was a man named ‘Demby.’2Douglass refers to Bill Demby (Demby) and recounts the incident in his three autobiographies. Douglass, Narrative, 47-48; idem, Bondage and Freedom, 122-24; idem, Life and Times. 75-76. One day he was insolent (as the slaveholders call it) to the overseer; he had made some reply which the tyrant considered insolent, he was ordered up to be flogged, but instead of that he ran toward a creek on the plantation and going into the water refused to come out to be flogged. The overseer then ordered him to come out, and he still refused when the villain deliberately drew a pistol and shot him dead. Col. Lloyd demanded an explanation of the overseer, and he told him that it was necessary he thought to kill Demby to set an example to the rest of the slaves. Col. Lloyd was satisfied with this, and to this hour that murderer has enjoyed an increased reputation as a good overseer. Yet the churches and ministers of both the South and North uphold Slavery from the Bible. If their Slavery is sustained by the Bible, then does the Bible also sustain the scourging, the mangling, the tearing asunder of the dearest ties
of life and murder also; for without force and cruelty Slavery could not exist.
“The churches at the South are made up of slaveholders; the officers of the church are slaveholders, and at the North, with a few exceptions they are, both priests and churches, apologists of Slavery. At the South the Church and the Slave prison stand side by side, and above the sound of the preacher’s voice and the singing of hymns of devotion, the agonizing cry of the slave is often heard. The Altar and the Auction Block are near each other, and those who minister at one purchase the flesh and blood of their Christian colored brother at the other, buy or sell the child away from its mother, the wife from the husband. Revivals of religion and revivals of the Slave Trade go hand and hand at the South.
“The clergy of the South preach to the slaves from this text: ‘Servants be obedient to your masters,’3A paraphrase of either Eph. 6 : 5, Col. 3 : 22, or Titus 2 : 9. and enjoin upon them to obey their masters because it is the will of God! ‘How wonderful are the ways of God!’ say they; ‘the white people, your masters, are not strong like you; the sun burns their fine skin; their hands are soft, and their fingers long and slim. The black man can bear the heat ofthe sun, and his hands are made large that he may work. He has not got so much brain as the white man, and can’t think so well, and wouldn’t know how to take care of himself if he were free. How kind then in the Almighty to make one race to do no work but do all the thinking, and the other to do all the work and not think at all!’ ” The Chairman4Michael Willis. here asked Mr. Douglass if he had ever known the slaveholding Priest to preach to the slaves from this text: “Masters give unto your servants that which isjust and right"?5A paraphrase of Col. 4 : 1: “Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal." Mr. Douglass replied that “he never had heard any sermons from that text being preached at the South.” (Great laughter.) “It did not suit Slavery to deal with such texts as this, but priests must torture the blessed Bible to find an argument to sustain this system of robbery and murder; and by so doing they committed the fearful crime of making God himself the overseer over three millions of slaves! They tell the slaves that they should be thankful that God had brought them and their fathers from Africa to this enlightened land, and had given them kind masters who endeavored to give to them the Christian religion!” (Great laughter.) “They say to the slave—‘It is the Lord’s doings and marvellous in our eyes’!"6A close paraphrase of either Ps. 118 :23, Matt. 21 :42, or Mark 12: 11. (Great applause and laughter.)
“Slavery exists in the South because of the influence of the two great
political parties of the United States—the Whig and Democratic parties. The leaders of these parties need to carry out their selfish schemes, the votes of the slaveholders of the South, and so strive with each other who shall bow lowest to this Moloch7Ammonite god to whom children were offered as sacrifices. Douglas et al., New Bible Dictionary, 836. of Slavery. I came here to speak for my brethren in bonds, because they cannot speak for themselves, they are dumb; no newspapers at the South chronicle their sufferings, and very few at the North. If I go to the Church, it is almost entirely on the side of oppression; if I go to the Press, it is almost entirely on the side of oppression; if I go to the great political parties, they are both on their knees to the Slave Power, begging for the votes of slaveholders! Where shall I go then, but to the people, and strive in my own country and in yours to awaken an interest in their hearts in the sad condition of the slave. I come to you to ask that influence which you can exert for freedom in your intercourse with the people of the United States. I come as the friend of the slaveholder as well as the slave, for he, taking his guilt and certain retribution into the account, is most in need of pity; for the time will come to the slave when for his stripes and wrongs God will repay him, and the slaveholder shall get the retribution which awaits him who has dared to imbrute his brother man and trample him in the dust. Give us your aid, for we can never strike down Slavery till we can add to our own power the moral power of the world around us.” (Great applause.)
Mr. Douglass then analyzed the Fugitive Slave Law, and showed its hideous wickedness, its denial of all right, its utter defiance of justice and truth. He spoke more than two hours, and throughout, his powerful address was listened to with the most profound attention, and greeted with the most enthusiastic cheering.