John W. Lewis to Frederick Douglass, May 1, 1854
For Frederick Douglass' Paper.
LETTER FROM JOHN W. LEWIS.
ST. ALBANS, Vt., May 1, 1854.
FRIEND DOUGLASS:—Go-aheadativeness is
one peculiar characteristic of the Yankee;
and sometimes he finds himself getting on
in this mortal life rather faster than the
times and seasons will favor his progress.—As soon as old winter gathers up his winter
mantle from earth, and takes his departure,
poor mortals begin to anticipate much, as
they welcome spring, bounding over our
green mountains. Every juvenile looks with
delight to the first day of May, especially if
through the winter they have been pent up
in city or village. We Vermonters were re-
joicing all through April, as we saw the
earth warmed by the genial rays of the sun,
and the brow fanned by the balmy, mild
breeze. The sad, sombre appearance of old
autumn and winter, yielding to lovely spring,
presented a beautiful emblem of the resurrection of mortals into the spring life of im-
mortality. That early seraph Mozart,
whose musical genius has made many a heart
bound almost to the immortal region, must
have felt the inspiration of spring, and the
enchanting loveliness of summer, to give
that vivacity and spirit to his own soul; to
make others feel the power of the divinity
of his music. Blessing on music! How it
warms and animates the soul!
Robin-red-breast, just returned from his
Southern migration, has made April merry
among our green mountains with his music;
and we have been looking every day for that
inimitable songster, Bob-o'-Link, and whole
swarms of swallows, who have spent the win-
ter at the South. Lovely creatures! they
are the true exponents of nature. Instinct-
ively they send forth notes of music in the
barn, shed, or around the humble cottage or
cabin of the humble freeman, or peasant, or
slave, as well as in the palace of the mon-
arch, or dwelling of the rich. Thank God,
nature is free, and all under her law, wheth-
er man, beast or bird, will know no partial-
ity. But man, whose immortal mind, led on
by reason—a faculty more powerful than
instinct—instead of being bound by the
strong tie of reciprocity, is alienated
from his fellow-kind by the base spirit of
aristocracy. Nature knows no patrician or
plebeian rank. Native instinct scorns and
repudiates it. Nature's infinite law, founded
in reason, could no more justify American
civil jurisprudence, or American political
economy, or American christianity, in coun-
tenancing the existence of the rank of master and slave among human beings, than it
could the dethroning of the God of Nature,
and leave the world to chance. Everything
in nature contributes to the highest aim of
human happiness. That man must be a
cold-hearted misanthrope that is not charmed
by nature. I could sit the live-long day and
gaze enraptured at the works of art, of the
life giving Raphael, or the soul-inspiring
Michael Angelo. But in nature, I am
charmed beyond all this work of art. Everything is real life. It is free and sponta-
neous. The sound of an object that is free,
is music to my soul, though it be homely and
uncouth to the eye. The being that acts in
harmony with nature, though free from pop-
ular accomplishment, or etiquette of society,
sees the clearest all through, the vista of
time into the distant future. I love to hear
the whistle of the little plough-boy, or the
singing of the dairy-maid. It seems to me
the warm heart and animated soul sends out
the whistle, and the singing, as a sort of tally to those emotions of the soul that always
make free labor a blessing to mankind.—What a contrast to the monotony of slave
labor! True, the slave sings amidst his un-
requitted toil; but his poor bleeding heart
and burdened soul cannot send out the
strainbounding in real harmony with nature.
How can they, with the weight of oppression
resting on them? Under the sanction of
popular American christianity, they are re-
fused union in the brotherhood of man; and
despotism would willingly deprive them of
the blessing of the fatherhood of God. But
thank God, despotism, whether through the
medium of base political demagogueism, or
nominal corrupt christianity, can never si-
lence the beating of the human heart for
freedom. It binds the body, and casts a mel-
ancholy gloom over the mind; but ever and
anon, as christian philanthropy casts a ray of
holy light across their dark pathway, the
soul bounds forward to grasp it. And in
that soul the music of the angelic choir on
the hallowed plains of Judes, finds an echo.
I almost imagine, if robin-red-breast and the
chirping swallows sing as sweetly on the
plantations of the South during their mi-
gration there, as they do among our green
mountain graves, the slave must learn the
sentiments of liberty by their freedom. I
don't wonder, so many like the robins and
swallows love to bound off to the free green
hills of the North. There is a love of free-
dom in the streams and little brooks, as they
bound over rocks and pebbles, to throw the
fierce bloodhound off the track of the poor
panting fugitive. And that little incendiary
north star, blazing away there in the heav-
ens, points to the land whose humanity
England's Cowper rhymed to the world.
I believe, sir, the days of slavery are num-
bered. The day will come when all nature,
free and happy, will sing its requiem in joy
over its death. I may not live to see that
day. Your editorial chair may be filled by
another, while you rest in sepulchral still-
ness; still I am sanguine in my faith, slavery
must die. In its madness, it may struggle
hard against enlightened public opinion, and
may possibly urge itself into Nebraska, to
curse its free soil. If it goes in, it will carry
its own death warrant with it.
Yours as ever,
JOHN W. LEWIS.