No Peace for the Slaveholder: An Address Delivered in New York, New York, on May 11, 1853
NO PEACE FOR THE SLAVEHOLDER: AN ADDRESS DELIVERED
IN NEW YORK, NEW YORK, ON 11 MAY 1853
National Anti-Slavery Standard, 19 May 1853. Other texts in New York Herald, 12 May
1853; New York Daily Times, 12 May 1853; Liberator, 27 May 1853; Frederick Douglass' Paper, 27 May 1853; Pennsylvania Freeman, 2 June 1853; Foner, Life and Writings,
5: 281-82.
In May 1853 the American Anti-Slavery Society held its annual anniversary
meeting in the Chinese Assembly Rooms. Douglass, who had been criticized
severely and accused of apostasy at the previous year’s meeting, remained
impenitent but attempted to be magnanimous. He told his readers in Frederick
Douglass’ Paper that “there are many societies, but there is but one cause;
and for our part, we shall try to serve it by attending both the ‘American,’ and
the ‘American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Societies' ' meetings. ” The impulse
behind Douglass’s broad-mindedness was not solely that of generosity. “The
meetings at Newyork,” he wrote to Gerritt Smith, “are well got a long with.
Just as you wished, opportunity offered and I embraced the Same, to speak at
both meetings. So the Garrisonians could not Say that I deserted them—nor
the new organization that I failed to recognize them as workers in the Slave's
cause." The meeting was convened by Garrison at 10:00 A.M. The rooms
were crowded and the New York Times reported that “when Frederick Doug-
lass appeared in the room, he was greeted with considerable applause."
Garrison, Edmund Quincy, Lucy Stone, and Wendell Phillips spoke, the
latter noting how the Fugitive Slave Law had “wrecked” the lives of “hun-
dreds of independent and respectable” northern blacks and “crushed in many
pulpits, a rising tendency to free speech.” The Reverend Henry Ward
Beecher was persuaded by entreaties from the audience to speak. After
Beecher’s remarks, the audience "cried for ‘Douglas[s]’—‘Douglass.’ ”
Douglass’s speech was brief. He was followed by Garrison and then the
session adjourned. The editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard later
noted that Douglass, along with Garrison, Quincy, Stone, and Beecher, “re-
vised the report of their respective speeches” to suit their own tastes. Doug-
lass to Gerrit Smith, 1 June 1853, Gerrit Smith Papers, NSyU; FDP, 29 April,
3 June 1853; New York Daily Tribune, 12 May 1853; New York Herald, 13
May 1853; Lib., 20 May, 10 June 1853; PaF, 26 May 1853; NASS, 28 May
1853; Garrison and Garrison, Garrison Life, 3: 382-83.
MR. CHAIRMAN AND LADIES AND GEN'I‘LEMEN: I will not detain this audi-
ence but a very few moments with any remarks at this stage of these
proceedings. I experience great pleasure indeed, in again appearing before
an audience in the city of New York, at the anniversary of the American
Anti-Slavery Society. I rejoice that this Society has again taken its place in
this city among the anniversaries of the month.1The American Anti-Slavery Society had not met in New York City since May 1850. At that time “a mob of barroom toughs,“ stirred up by anti-abolitionist editorials, disrupted the proceedings and forced an early adjournment. The next year's meeting was held in Syracuse. ‘ ‘So absolute . . . is the sway of the Slave Power in that city [New York]," explained Garrison, “and such the fear of mobocratic excesses . . . that no meeting-house or hall, in that great city can be procured, either for the love of liberty or for gold, for the accommodation of the Society." In 1852 the Society celebrated Anniversary Week in Rochester. NS, 16 May 1850; Lib., 11 April 1851; FDP, 20 May 1852; Foner, Business and Slavery, 28-29. I regard it as an earnest of
the future triumph of our cause. There has been much said as to the hopeful
and the fearful side of this great controversy with Slavery. For my own
part, I feel a little of both. I feel hopeful, and I feel fearful. It seems to me
that the slave power of this country has determined upon a fixed and
definite policy in respect to the coloured people of this country. They have
determined, in the first place, by all the powers they possess, to suppress
the freedom of speech. They have determined, in the next place, upon the
expatriation of every free coloured man and woman from the United States.
They have determined also upon the perpetuation of Slavery forever in the
Southern States. They have determined also upon making Slavery re-
spected in every State of the Union. The history of the past few years is not
altogether unfavourable to the accomplishment of some of these designs. It
seems to me that Mr. Phillips is right when he tells you that the fugitive
slave law has succeeded. He is right in so far as he pictures the ruin that has
followed in the track of that inhuman, hell-black law; for there is ruin in its
track. Hundreds and thousands of men and women, comfortably situated in
these Free States, have virtually had their property confiscated and them-
selves driven forth wanderers in the earth in consequence of the passage of
that law.2Within weeks after President Fillmore signed the Fugitive Slave Law on 18 September 1850, reports circulated that an unprecedented number of frightened fugitives and free blacks were leaving northern states for Canada. Pittsburgh hotels lost most of their waiters; one Baptist church in Buffalo counted 130 fewer members; traffic allegedly peaked on the escape routes through Vermont. Governor General James Bryce believed Canada was “likely to be flooded with blackies." By year's end abolitionists reported that at least 3,000 fugitives had already found refuge under the British flag. Estimates of the total number of American-born blacks fleeing to Canada between 1850 and 1860 range from 15,000 to 75,000, the lower figure apparently being a more reasonable one. Many fugitives reported as “passing through" northern communities “on their way to Canada" probably halted their flight somewhere short of the border. Even at the height of emigration immediately following passage of the Fugitive Slave Law only 800 blacks were in Amherstburg, the principal entry to Canada for fugitives. Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 256; Fred Landon, “The Negro Migration to Canada After the Passing of the Fugitive Slave Act," JNH, 5: 22-27 (January 1920); Winks, Blacks in Canada, 233-37; Wilbur H. Siebert, Vermont's Anti-Slavery and Underground Railroad Record (Columbus, Ohio, 1937), 101; Jason H. Silverman, “The American Fugitive Slave in Canada: Myths and Realities,” Southern Studies, 19: 215-27 (Fall 1980).
But as to having Slavery respected in this country, in the Northern
States, that thing cannot be done by law. The relation of master and slave is
so inhuman, so monstrous and so shocking, that man cannot, uninfluenced
by direct interest in that relation, look upon the slave as he looks upon other
species of property. He cannot forget that the slave is a man. No laws, no
compacts, no covenants, no enactments, of any description, can ever blot
out from the moral sense of these Northern States a consciousness of the
manhood of the slave, and no man can feel, when he sees a slave escape, as
he would do if he saw a stray horse. The slave power, however, desire[s]
and intend[s] to try to put the slaves on a footing with beasts of the field.
They intend to bring you and me and all of us to look upon the slave as a
horse or an ox; but it cannot be done.
Then in regard to the freedom of speech—that cannot be suppressed,
because it involves a proposition to padlock the lips of the whites, in order
that the fetters on the limbs of the slave may be secure. It is done to give
peace to Slavery. That cannot be done. Peace to the slaveholder! He can
have no peace. “No peace to the wicked, saith my God."3Isa. 48: 22 or 57: 21. The slave power
might silence the voice of Wendell Phillips, or the pen of William Lloyd
Garrison. They might blot out our Anti-Slavery organization in order to
give peace to the slaveholder. They might cut out my tongue, and all our
tongues. They might gather together all the Anti-Slavery literature, “Uncle
Tom’s Cabin” included, set a match to it, send its flames towards the sky
and scatter its ashes to the four winds of heaven, and yet the slaveholder
would be ill at ease (applause); for deep down in his own dark conscience
would come an accusing voice—“thou art verily guilty concerning thy
brother”4A paraphrase of Gen. 42: 21. (applause). Slavery cannot stand. Its character is like that of Lord
Granby: “it can only pass without censure as it passes without observa-
tion.”5“Junius's” counsel to Lord Granby's defender appears in Political Contest, 29. I am fearful; I am hopeful. I am distressed, and yet I have faith. I
believe Slavery will come down, and I take this great occasion as a proof of
the incoming of that day when there shall be no slave, no chain to clank in
our ears (applause).