Joseph Treat to Frederick Douglass, June 20, 1851
JOSEPH TREAT1Joseph Treat (1827—79), an advocate of the free love and Spiritualist movements, was a founder of the Vineland, New Jersey, and Berlin Heights, Ohio, utopian communities. Though an ardent opponent of slavery, Treat submitted several articles to Douglass’s papers in which he elaborated on his belief that slaveholders themselves should not be condemned, only their actions. Treat gained notoriety in the 1870s for his association with radical feminist Victoria Woodhull. NS, 19 June 1851; FDP, 18 February, 1 July 1852; Mary Gabriel, Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull, Uncensored (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1998), 205, 233–34, 252–53; Lois Beachy Underhill, The Woman Who Ran for President: The Many Lives of Victoria Woodhull (Bridgehampton, N.Y., 1995), 263–67. TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS
Boston, [Mass.] 20 June 1851.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS:—
Under the above heading,2The heading “NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS” appears above Treat’s letter. An editorial with the same name appeared in the 12 June 1851 issue of the North Star. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations in this letter are from that article, with minor adjustments to punctuation. there appears a short editorial in the last North Star, to which I wish to make a brief reply; especially as I have not time this week to continue the regular discussion which I have commenced in your paper; and yet more, because what I have to say will, after all, be so connected with that discussion as really to form a part of it, at least, to be still further introductory to it.
You ask, “What is the vital meaning of the words, ‘No Union with Slaveholders?’ ” and say, “It cannot be no living under the same form of government with slaveholders, for then we must leave the country; it cannot be breathing the same air—no dressing in the same fashion—no using the same products of air, earth or water—no working or resting on the same days—no walking the same roads—no navigating the same rivers—no doing anything in common with slaveholders; this, we say, cannot be the meaning of these well-known and expressive words.”
Without excepting to any of the negative specifications now, (I shall except to two of them, by and by,) what do you give us as the true, positive import of the words? “The only meaning which will save the motto from the appearance of folly and absurdity, and give it the weight of
wisdom and vitality, is plainly this, no voluntary association, agreement or co-operation with slaveholders, by which slavery is necessarily upheld and sustained.” Pardon me, my friend, but I don’t believe a word of it! Pardon me, but that word “necessarily” makes every letter and syllable of the sentence a lie! It’s a lighter thing than the dust of the balance, whether slavery be upheld and sustained “necessarily” or not! If it be so really, if slavery be upheld and sustained at all—that is the condemnation—that is the damning sin which the corroding remorse of ages can never eat out! That is the fearful crime which, whether perpetuated because men are bound to do so, or because they volunteer, must load all who commit it with the guilt and cover them with the infamy of the veriest pirates who ever cursed the earth! No! no! in the name of God no! Don’t talk any more about binding ourselves to uphold slavery! Don’t talk about “necessarily” sustaining it!
Pardon me again, but it was cowardly to put that word in—you did it as a screen for some kind of “voluntary association” with slaveholders, by which, as a matter of fact, slavery really is “upheld and sustained[”], although not “necessarily,” that is constitutionally so, for that is what you mean by the word, and you never would have used it, had you not wished to avail yourself of it afterwards in defending your present position in the American Union under cover of the allegation, that the Constitution of the United States is an anti-slavery document! Not, my dear sir, that your heart is not right—not that you meant the wrong, for which with a brother’s frankness and love I blame you—but that your position led you astray, and that is in itself a good argument against that position; for if it could so influence you, or in order to justify yourself in it to induce you—even in the haste of the moment, and perhaps almost unconsciously—to speak as if it might be an altogether indifferent matter, whether we voluntarily did something which supported and strengthened such an infernal system as American Slavery, provided only that it did not support and strengthen it “necessarily”—if your position is such as to lead to these results, then doubtless it ought to be at once and forever abandoned. And that it did produce these results is manifest from the fact, that you went on immediately to speak of the constitution, and to argue its anti-slavery character as if the single consideration that that instrument does not bind us (as you say) to sustain slavery, was conclusive of the whole question as to the kind of connection with southern man-thieves, to be regarded as compatible with the motto, “No Union with Slaveholders.” The Constitution! O when will you come to learn that it is not the great thing to be looked at? When will you come to see that it is absolutely nothing, and less than nothing, compared with the
mighty, kidnapping, pirate Union, of which you are a part? When will you come to understand that it is no matter how you interpret, nor even how you administer it—no matter whether it be anti-slavery or all over in the hellish system—so long as you will continue to countenance the slave-owners by keeping company with them, as a voluntary member of their blood-stained, blood-cemented confederacy?
But this brings me back to the remarks I was about to make, when I was called off by that unfortunate word “necessarily.” For, leaving out that word, your definition of the disunion motto was precisely right. Nobody could improve on it. It embraces all I hold on the subject. “No voluntary association, agreement or co-operation with slaveholders by which slavery is upheld and sustained.” That’s it! friend Douglass, that’s it! stick a pin there! But what sort of “voluntary association” with slaveholders does uphold slavery? Being in the same government under a pro-slavery constitution, you say. Being in the same government with them under an anti-slavery constitution, I say. Being in the same government with them at all. Joining their piratical society, or staying in it after we have joined. Uniting with them, and making them and ourselves one. In a word, being in the Union, not dissolving the Union, not being Garrisonians!
And what sort of “agreement” with slaveholders sustains slavery? Agreeing to return the fugitive slave,3The fugitive slave clause of the U.S. Constitution, article IV. you say. Agreeing to shoot down the insurgent slave. Agreeing to grant the kidnappers power in the government as a premium on their theft, by allowing them three votes for every five of their victims.4The “three-fifths compromise” in article I of the U.S. Constitution. In other words, agreeing to confederate with them, whether we help them hold the slaves or not, I say. Agreeing to be with them, even if they do all the holding. Agreeing to keep company with them, though it should be only to abolish their slavery.—Agreeing to be in political fellowship with them, till we see if we can’t convert the North to the doctrines of the Liberty Party, and make Gerrit Smith President. Agreeing to sit in Congress with them, as if they were decent men and fit to make laws, and agreeing that the laws we and they together can make, shall be our laws, and that we will obey them. Agreeing that the man whom we can elect with the help of pirates, shall be our President. And finally, agreeing that the Northern States shall be so completely bound up with the Southern, and so absolutely a part of them, that the whole nation shall be the scorn and laughing stock of the world, and all of us who bear the name of Americans, be scouted as the most infamous tyrants and basest hypocrites on the face of the earth.
And what sort of “co-operation” with these slaveholders is it sustains
slavery? Carrying out the compromises of the old pro-slavery construction of the constitution, you say.—Doing more, and worse than even those compromises require, in bestowing the patronage of the government in favor of slavery, admitting slave states, annexing Texas,5In March 1845 the United States annexed the Republic of Texas, which entered the Union as the twenty-eighth state in December of that year. Concern about the extension of slavery into such a large territory had delayed the acquisition and became a central issue in the presidential election of 1844. Paul R. Bergeron, The Presidency of James K. Polk (Lawrence, Kans., 1987), 51–60; Thomas R. Hietala, Manifest Design: Anxious Aggrandizement in Late Jacksonian America (Ithaca, N.Y., 1985), 217–20. waging the Mexican war, and passing the Fugitive Slave Bill. And particularly voting for slaveholders and pro-slavery men, as the means through which all these results are brought about.—But carrying on a government with the aid of slave-owners, I say. Carrying it on with their help—not in accordance with the compromises, but with the preamble of the Constitution. Carrying it on with their assistance, even [“]to form a more perfect Union,” (and the more perfect the Union we form with them, the more do we uphold their slavery,) “establish justice, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”6The preamble to the U.S. Constitution. Yes, striking hands with these bloody pirates, and consenting to be in the same ship with them for ten or twenty long years, even for the sake of accomplishing such good ends! In one word, attempting to administer a free government with their help!
And not only do all these kinds of “voluntary associations, agreement and co-operation with slaveholders, uphold and sustain slavery,” but they do it “necessarily” too, for we’ll have that word in again, after so long a talk about it. I did not throw it out, because it was essential to my argument to do so, but only because it ought to be thrown out. The people of the North, even the members of the Liberty Party, cannot sustain their various relations to the slave owners, without being compelled to uphold their infernal system, and just as much so as they all were years ago, when, with one consent, they all united in swearing their support to a pro-slavery Constitution. The only dif[f]erence is, that pro-slavery voters use, or swear to use, power to hold the slave, while all who are in the Union exert influence on the master; but the last is as “necessarily” done as the first, and as really upholds slavery. I think a glance will convince any one of this, but if not, I have not time for more now. I trust a sufficiency will be provided before I get through with the discussion.
Now with regard to your negative propositions again, to two of which I said I was going to take exceptions. You say that the disunion motto cannot mean, “No living under the same government with slaveholders.” True, of individuals, but not of States. Individuals can’t help being under the same government, but they can help being in it, and the motto does mean that they shall not be in it. But States need not be even under the same government, and therefore they violate the motto if they are. You say, too, that
that motto can’t mean, “no doing anything in common with slaveholders.” True, but it does mean that you can’t do some things in common with them! You can’t confederate with them all your lives—you can’t sit in Congress with them three or six months out of every twelve—you can’t wear out a century in the same political fellowship. It means all that, or it don’t mean anything!
Yours, for “No union with slaveholders,”
JOSEPH TREAT.
PLSr: FDP, 3 July 1851.