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Is the Plan of the American Union Under the Constitution, Anti-slavery or Not?: A Debate Between Frederick Douglass and Charles Lenox Remond in New York, New York, on May 20, 21, 1857

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IS THE PLAN OF THE AMERICAN UNION UNDER THE CONSTITUTION, ANTI-SLAVERY OR NOT?: A DEBATE BETWEEN FREDERICK DOUGLASS AND CHARLES LENOX REMOND IN NEW YORK, NEW YORK, ON 20, 21 MAY 1857
New York Daily Times, 21, 22 May 1857.
When, at the 14 May 1857 meeting of the American Abolition Society, Charles Lenox Remond challenged Douglass to debate the constitutionality of slavery, the latter replied: “It will give me infinite pleasure. . . . Coffee and pistols for two!” Six days later the two black abolitionists began a two-day debate on the subject at Shiloh Presbyterian Church in New York City. Henry Highland Garnet moderated, with Amos Beman and Hiram P. Crozier serving as assistants. A large audience filled the church despite “horrible weather and the ten cents charge at the door.” On the first evening, each discussant spoke twice, first for a fifteen-minute interval and then for ten minutes. On the second night, after Garnet announced that Remond was too ill to continue the debate, Douglass, at the urging of the audience, began a speech on the antislavery character of the Constitution. Remond entered during the speech and briefly dissented from Douglass‘s remarks. After a final reply by Douglass, the meeting adjourned, without a vote, to the church basement, where discussion continued over ice cream. Douglass later praised Remond for having “maintained the doctrines of the Garrisonians with much skill," but he disputed the National Anti-Slavery Standard’s contention that nearly half the audience was won over by Remond's reasoning. The Garrisonian position, according to Douglass, “was whipped" in the debate. New York Herald, 15 May 1857; FDP, 5 June 1857; NASS, 30 May 1857; New York Daily Tribune, 20 May 1857; New York Daily Times, 15 May 1857.
First Evening [20 May 1857]
The question was stated as follows: “Is the plan of the American Union under the Constitution, Anti-Slavery or not?”
It was agreed that for the first round the speakers should be limited to 15 minutes each—for the second ten each.
Mr. DOUGLASS opened with a graceful admission of his opponent’s ability and eloquence, but, said he, if you adopt his view—that the Constitution is a Pro-Slavery document, you are tied up to its dissolution before you can move to abolish Slavery. Hence the question is immediately practical and important.
The country had so far drifted away from the principles of its founders

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that he presumed, the country through, it was taken for granted that the Constitution was meant to defend Slavery. But he found no such meaning in it. It might be attempted to show its Pro-Slavery intention by referring to the action of the Legislature under the Constitution: or to infer it from some unread and unheard-of history of the intentions of the framers of the Constitution. But the Supreme Court has again and again determined that where the rights of human beings are in issue the rights must be presumed as established until the contrary is distinctly proved. And again that language must be construed strictly in favor of justice. The intention must be irresistible to warrant a Court in interpreting it contrary to the established rights of men.1Douglass refers to Chief Justice John Marshall's decision in the 1805 case of United States v. Fisher: “Where rights are infringed, where fundamental principles are overthrown, where the general system of the laws is departed from, the legislative intention must be expressed with irresistible clearness to induce a court of justice to suppose a design to effect such an object. " 2 Cranch (1806), 390. Now under these rules the Constitution plainly is an Anti-Slavery document. To find its Pro-Slavery character we are obliged to go below its apparent intentions. No reader, unacquainted with the circumstances of its adoption, would dream that it protected Slavery. And where villainy and crime are to be protected under the name of law, our opponents are bound to show that it is “nominated in the bond."2A reference to The Merchant of Venice, act 4, sc. 1, line 260. No implications. no presumptions will suffice. If, too, a law is susceptible of two interpretations, one a just purpose, the other villainous, we are bound to adhere to that interpretation which leans to justice—for law is to be presumed to be for the protection of the right and the confounding of wrong.3Douglass bases his remarks on Lysander Spooner's opinions on the Supreme Court‘s “rules” of interpretation: “One of them . . . is. that where words are susceptible of two meanings, one consistent, and the other unconsistent, with justice and natural right. that meaning, and only that meaning, which is consistent with right. shall be attributed to them— unless other parts of the instrument overrule that interpretation. Another rule, (if indeed it be not the same), is, that no language except that which is peremptory, and no implication, except one that is inevitable, shall be held to authorize or sanction anything contrary to natural right. Another rule is, that no extraneous or historical evidence shall be admitted to fix upon a statute an unjust or immoral meaning. when the words themselves of the act are susceptible of an innocent one." For his information Spooner relied principally on John Marshall's decision in United States v. Fisher and on English legal commentators. Lysander Spooner, The Unconstitutionality of Slavery (Boston, 1846), 61—63; William M. Wiecek, The Sources of Antislavery Constitutionalism in America, 1760-1848 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1977), 257-63. Now the Supreme Court of the United States is the supreme law of our land; it must be subjected then to these plain rules of all law. The objects of a law must in all cases have a controlling influence on the details of the law, and its objects must settle the intention when its details seem to be in conflict. Read, then, the preamble to the Constitution of the United States. Note

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how it starts: “We the people of the United States”—not we the horses— not we the white people, but “we the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, * * * and secure the blessings of liberty to"—not the white people, but “ourselves and our posterity, do ordain," &c. Here, said Mr. DOUGLASS, the objects of the Constitution are made apparent to every one. The Constitution knows no man by his complexion, his hair or the texture of his skin. These are modern distinctions and assurances of manhood—and this is a modern doctrine. Alas! that Abolitionists should be ready to concede so much to Slavery!—that if one tells them the Bible is Pro-Slavery. they should admit it, and reject the Bible—that without hesitation they should surrender the Constitution. because corrupt men claim it as Pro-Slavery.
I will admit nothing in behalf of Slavery, said he, that is not plainly down in the bill. (Applause) “This bond doth give thee here no drop of blood.”4A slight modification of The Merchant of Venice, act 4, sc. 1, line 307. My Shylock shall have his pound of flesh—no more, no less.5A reference to Shylock's attempt to collect a pound of flesh from Antonio in The Merchant of Venice, especially act 4, sc. 1.
The word slave, or slaveholder, is not in the Constitution. The land claimed is not named in the deed by which he holds. Constitutions floating in the brains of Pro-Slavery Doughfaces at the North may—but not the Constitution of 1789—defend this giant system of outrages, injustices, villainies. They tell us. though. that the framers of the Constitution had a subtle and occult meaning under their plain words. The people did not adopt occult, undercurrent meanings. They adopted the plain reading with its obvious intentions.
But we are pointed to the fact that there were slaves in the country at the time, and that slaveholders helped frame the Constitution, and that they, of course, would not have assented to any compact that disregarded their right in slaves as property. On the other hand, he insisted that at that time, overwhelmingly, the people were in favor of gradual emancipation, and they wished, when the giant inequity should fall, that there might be no token of it left to disgrace their documentary history.
At this point the Chairman called time, and the speaker sat down amidst general applause, with which he had been frequently interrupted during his remarks.
Mr. REMOND rose to reply. He said he very well knew that he represented the side that was weakest in numbers. But, said he, if one is to die in conflict it is a consolation to know that he dies at the hands of a world-wide-famed

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antagonist. It was of more credit to fall by his hands than to conquer some folks. If he should be sustained by the audience. they must logically conclude that the slave’s only exodus is through the dissolution of the American Union. Dissolution, however, had no possible horrors to his ears, as he knew it had for theirs. They could not assent to what he expected to prove without damaging their popularity or their business; they must confess themselves hypocrits if they assented and still boasted of their country. Your business stands in the way. It was to him of [no] account what BLACKSTONE, COKE, BROUGHAM, or WEBSTER, GERRIT SMITH or WM. GOODELL held to be law. The decisions of the Supreme Court must be our interpreter of our Constitution until the uniform practice of the people contradict it. He wished Mr. DOUGLASS could be accepted in place of the Court—with his nobler interpretation—but as he is not, he could only deem that to be its interpretation which History and Experience coincided to announce. All Legislatures have acted and all Courts decided upon the presumption that the colored man and the white stand upon different platforms. In the absence of the first instance where the colored man has received his liberty as against his master in the name of the Constitution, and while he could give him hundreds of instances of men who have lost their liberty in its name, how could he resist the conclusion that the Constitution recognized and defended Slavery, and all our history showed that the “guarantees” and “compromises” of the Constitution always meant American Slavery. He quoted KENT, DANE, WILMOT and SPOONER on the definitions of law, and as to what should interpret it.
He proceeded to show by the language of the time—the “contemporary exposition” of the Constitution—that it was all for Slavery. There were four clauses in it which none could doubt to have direct reference to Slavery, (the speaker only commented at length on the three-fifths clause.) He illustrated the quibble of his opponent in demanding the letter as well as the spirit, by quoting the notice on the Providence public squares, “$1 fine, keep off the grass,” which nobody had deemed yet to mean what it said that those who kept off the grass should be fined $1. ( Laughter.) If said he, Slavery exists in Washington—the heart of our country—where nothing but Congress directly rules, he had a right to think that the Constitution under which Congress makes all its laws recognizes Slavery. Yet it does exist there, and there are on the statute book 105 laws regulating Slavery in that single city.
Here the Chairman announced that the speaker’s time was up, and he sat down—the audience applauding loudly.

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Mr. DOUGLASS replied. His antagonist had referred, he said, feelingly to the course pursued under the Constitution, and he believed if he had his antagonist’s eloquence, he would never cease descanting upon the evil practices of rulers, under the Constitution. But the Constitution and the practices of those who hold offices in the Government were very different. And Mr. REMOND must not forget that they had not met to consider and criticize Administrations. On that, he presumed, they would not differ materially. They had met to consider the Constitution; and therefore the evil doings of rulers under it should have no place. He was willing to acknowledge—everybody knew—that those who obtained rule had encouraged Slavery. What he denied was, that they had the right to do so, under a strict rendering of the Constitution. In continuation, he quoted authorities, sustaining his position, namely: That the Constitution must not be rendered in accordance with the acts of any set of men; but in accordance with the plain meaning of the language used in its construction. His antagonist had referred to four clauses in the Constitution, but had read but one. He could have wished he had read them all, that the audience might have seen how little evidence he had to produce. He had read that portion
referring to the 2d section of the first article relating to those owing service for a number of years, and “other persons.”6That portion of the Constitution reads: “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.” And he (Mr. REMOND) had volunteered the opinion that the “other persons” meant slaves. So said the slaveholder, but so did not say the Constitution. (Applause) Even admitting that slaves were referred to, although he did not admit it, it was also true that there were others to whom that clause must have referred. There were aliens then as now. But there was but little use in seeking for Slavery there. It was not in it. And it was not for the colored man to admit Slavery was recognized in it, unless they could point to language to that effect, clearly and distinctly. Mr. MADISON7Douglass probably relies on William Goodell's Slavery and Anti-Slavery for the information regarding James Madison's claim that the term service in Article IV, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution referred to the rendition of runaway indentured servants and not of slaves. At the Virginia ratifying convention, however, Madison acknowledged that the fugitive slave clause “was expressly inserted, to enable owners of slaves to reclaim them." Goodell, Slavery and Anti-Slavery, 84; Jonathan Elliott, ed., The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, 5 vols. (Philadelphia, 1836-45), 3: 453; Thomas D. Morris, Free Men All: The Personal Liberty Laws of the North, 1780—1861 (Baltimore, 1974), 18-19. had said that the term slave was not

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in the Constitution, and that under it the fugitive slave could not be brought back. He had opposed the use of the term. because he did not wish it to recognize that there could be property in human flesh. That was MADISON’s opinion, not GERRIT SMITH’s nor BERIAH GREEN's. And there were other opinions from men who should have known something of the character of the Constitution. But they were told that Slavery existed at the time, and that a bad tree could not bring forth good fruit. Well, perhaps not. But, nevertheless, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and other States then slaveholding, had abolished Slavery, and slaveholders in Maryland had manumitted 60,000 slaves, and Virginia 40,000. In fact all the freedom that had been gained by the slave had been gained only when the slaveholder had released his grasp. But yet a bad tree could not bring forth good fruit.8A paraphrase of Matt. 7: 18. Therefore the Constitution must recognize Slavery, because there were those who desired to hold slaves—so said Justice TANEY,9Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. so said Mr. REMOND (Applause) He begged his friend’s pardon for naming him in connection with such a miserable scamp. He meant no offence. But his friend was unfortunate in so far as that his position brought him into juxtaposition with TANEY. (Applause) His friend, however, might take consolation in the fact that being found in a crow’s nest did not make a man a crow. (Great applause.) In conclusion, he appealed to the friends of Abolition not to yield any more to the Slave power than is clearly written in the Constitution. He was for Abolition, with or without the Union. But if the Constitution were not a Pro-Slavery Constitution, he thought it would be foolish in him to work for its destruction. He was about to take up another point, when time was called, and he took his seat.
Mr. REMOND ascended the pulpit and said, that all that was left of him appeared before them. In him they had an illustrated known fact that a man might have life in him long after he ceased to move. (Applause) He then informed the audience that it had been deemed advisable to continue the discussion to-night at the same place. The announcement was received with applause, and the speaker passed to a reiteration of his former declarations, that the practice that obtained at the time of the formation of the Constitution recognized Slavery; and that the practice, from that time to this, had also recognized it. It was recognized and named in acts of Congress, and its existence protected by the Supreme Court of the United States. In proof that it was recognized and its interests considered when the

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Constitution was formed, he read from the writings of ALEXANDER HAMILTON and others, to the effect that the subject was one long debated, and its recognition considered a necessity in the formation of the Union. So it had been regarded by the recognized propounders of the Constitution. Who had contradicted DANIEL WEBSTER when he declared that there were guarantees to Slavery in the Constitution? Why none, but a very few Abolitionists. Who denied it now? Why none, or at least but a very few of the Abolitionists in the country. These guarantees were recognized by Congress, by the Courts, and by the people generally.
At this point time was called, and he again resumed his seat.
Mr. DOUGLASS arose and said that, in view of the arrangement to continue the discussion to-night, he would not then enter upon the pleasurable duty of replying to his friend, as was his right. The meeting then separated, evidently much pleased with the manner in which the discussion had been conducted.
Second Evening [21 May 1857]
Mr. FREDERICK DOUGLASS accordingly came forward. He felt somewhat embarrassed, he said, at the position which he occupied. He came there in expectation of replying to his eloquent friend, RIiMOND, and he was not without hope yet that they would see him there.
Those who took upon themselves to call the American Constitution a Slaveholding document, undertook to brand the framers of that Constitution in the vilest possible manner. To say that the Constitution was intended to uphold Slavery was to assume that the framers of the Constitution were the most flagitious knaves ever known, that they were liars and poltroons, keeping the word of promise to the ear and breaking it to the heart. This should not be said without the strongest proofs, and he did not believe such proofs existed. There was not a sentence, nor a syllable in a sentence, of the Constitution, that would lead any one to suppose there was any deceptive intent about it. If that Constitution had dropped down to us from the blue, over-hanging sky, and we had read its contents, there was not a man who could reasonably suppose it was intended to sanction and support the Slave system, but, on the contrary, that everything in it was intended to support justice and equality between man and man. It had been affirmed on the previous evening, by Mr. REMOND, that the Constitution must be Pro-Slavery, for the reason that those who supported the Constitution were not only slaveholders, but continued to be so. But what was the

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fact? A majority of the old thirteen States which adopted the Constitution went home and abolished Slavery themselves.10By 1817 slavery had been abolished in seven of the original thirteen states. Litwack, North of Slavery, 3. (Applause) At the time of the adoption of the Constitution. moreover, throughout all the Slave States, there were Anti-Slavery men and women, and, in most States, Anti-Slavery Societies. There were Anti—Slavery Societies in Virginia, in Georgia, in North Carolina, in Maryland, and among the members of those societies were the Fathers of the Republic. There were enrolled the names of WASHINGTON, of JEFFERSON, of JAY, of FRANKLIN,11 John Jay joined the New York Manumission Society and Benjamin Franklin was president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, but George Washington and Thomas Jefferson shunned organized antislavery efforts. John Jay (1745—1829) graduated from King's College (Columbia) in 1764 and commenced practicing law in New York City. A delegate to the Continental Congress and later American minister to Spain, he joined John Adams and Benjamin Franklin in negotiating the Treaty of Paris (1783) and from 1784 to 1790 served as secretary of foreign affairs under the Articles of Confederation government. Together with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison he authored The Federalist Papers, which advocated adoption of the Constitution. Jay served as the first chief justice of the US. Supreme Court from 178‘) to 1794. In the latter year he went to England and negotiated a controversial treaty that attempted to resolve outstanding grievances between the two countries. Jay's last public office was as governor of New York (1795— 1801). Frank Monaghan, John Jay: Defender of Liberty (Indianapolis, 1935); Davis, Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 170— 178. men who were brains, heart and soul to the Republic. Abolition was so popular then that if a man uttered Anti-Slavery opinions, in any State, he did not subject himself to discredit.
Mr. DOUGLASS proceeded to consider the provision of the Constitution for the abolition of the Slave-trade in twenty years.12Article 1, Section 9, did not provide for abolition of the slave trade in twenty years. Instead, it prohibited the banning of the slave trade by Congress prior to 1808. and maintained, in opposition to Mr. REMOND. that that provision was really Anti-Slavery in its tendencies. He had Chancellor KENT's13James Kent (1763—1847) was chancellor of the New York Court of Chancery from 1814 until 1823. A Yale graduate, Kent practiced law in Poughkeepsie, served three terms in the New York Assembly, held a law professorship at Columbia, and sat on the New York Supreme Court for sixteen years prior to his appointment as chancellor. After retiring from the chancery, Kent briefly resumed teaching at Columbia and completed his Commentaries on American Law, a classic American legal treatise. Kent’s conservatism in politics and law was influenced by Federalism and especially Alexander Hamilton. Concerning the slave trade. Kent declared in his Commentaries: “The constitution of the United States laid the foundation of a series of provisions, to put a final stop to the progress of this moral pestilence, by admitting a power in Congress to prohibit the importation of slaves, after the expiration of the year 1807. The Constitution evidently looked forward to the year 1808 as the commencement of an epoch in the history of human improvement.“ James Kent, Commentaries on American Law, 4 vols. (New York, 1826—30), 1: 191—200, 2: 247—158; John Theodore Horton, James Kent: A Study in Conservatism, 1763—1847 (New York, 1939); ACAB, 3 : 521— 22; NCAB, 3: 55—56; DAB, 10: 344—47. authority for it, that at the time

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of the adoption of the Constitution, it was expected that the abolition of the Slave-trade would be the abolition of Slavery. Cut off the trade from America, and the sustenance of blood and pollution at home would be struck, as it were, by dry rot. All the leading Abolitionists of England had the same idea. The venerable THOMAS CLARKSON told him (the speaker) that seventy years ago he thought that the end of the Slave-trade would be the end of Slavery. GRANVILLE SHARP, however, insisted otherwise, and maintained that the Abolitionists had begun at the wrong end, and that to abolish Slavery, it was necessary to abolish the market for Slavery.14The London Abolition Committee, an early antislavery organization in which Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp both participated, decided in 1787 to limit its immediate goal to the abolition of the slave trade on the theory that the end of slavery would then follow. Sharp objected to this strategy but remained titular head of the Committee, which, in practice, attacked both slavery and, the slave trade. Davis, Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 406— 10.
At this point Mr. REMOND entered the meeting, and was received with loud applause.
Mr. DOUGLASS proceeded. His opponent argued that the subject of Slavery was discussed by the framers of the Constitution. Undoubtedly it was, and as a result of that discussion it was driven out of the Constitution of the United States. And if the language of any part of the Constitution could be tortured into a doubt whether Slavery were favored or not, we had a right to take advantage of that dubious language. and construe it on the virtuous side.
Mr. DOUGLASS made pleasant reference to the Connecticut negroes, who, when the law forbade them to go out after 9 o’clock at night, without a lantern, carried their lanterns without candles in them, and, when the phraseology of the law was altered, and candles were enforced, carried lanterns and candles, but did not light the candles. The judge that decided that, as this candle-and-lantern law was against liberty, it was to be strictly construed, and that, as nothing was said about lighting the candles, the negroes did not violate the law. only said what everybody admitted—that a law against liberty must be literally construed; whereas a document like the Constitution, in favor of liberty generally, must not be supposed because of some uncertainty of language to favor Slavery. If Christians, who believe the Bible, commit injustice, shall we charge that injustice on the Bible? If Americans, pledged to the Constitution, commit injustice, shall we charge that injustice on the Constitution? Any school-boy could riddle such an argument. Those who argued otherwise, as his opponent did, and all the Garrisonian Abolitionists, were like buzzards, those dirty birds which pass

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by everything fair and pleasant, and pounce only upon putrid flesh. These men pass by everything in the Constitution which is noble—all its beautiful, liberty-loving provisions, and say, “Oh, they are nothing, nothing!” and if there is anything that may possibly admit of two interpretations, they alight upon that, like the buzzard upon putrid flesh, and seek to extract from it only that which is foul and noisome. For his part, he would say that the American people were a law-abiding people. They loved order. They loved truth and justice, and it was an awful responsibility for any one to accuse them of abiding by a Constitution which was only framed to sanction and support wrong.
Rev. C. L. REMOND then rose to take his turn, Mr. DOUGLASS’ time having expired. He did not know that his voice or strength were equal to the task of addressing them. He did not mean to reflect personally on Mr. DOUGLASS, but he was of opinion that DOUGLASS did either himself or the speaker great injustice, in the manner and spirit in which he had discussed the question before them. He had hoped that a manly, magnanimous course would have been pursued; but he was mistaken. For his own part he could not trifle with American Slavery. If ever he felt inclined to do so, he hoped the power to do so would have deserted him. He held the present to be the most important crisis in the history of Slavery.
He saw and felt in everything around him that there was a crisis coming upon us, and he was astonished that colored men should feel so slight an interest in the subject, as to applaud a jest which proved nothing, and give the truths of history the go-by. He charged the Constitution of the United States that it had guarded the hellish institution of Slavery with a watchfulness and zeal greater than was ever done for any other institution in the world. It has guarded Slavery as the apple of its eye. It was absurd to talk of the purpose of the framers of the Constitution to abolish the slave-trade in twenty years, when the fact was that the slave-trade was not yet abolished, for who did not know that the star spangled banner was now the greatest protector of the slave-trade? When a slaver could not escape with a British or a Portuguese or Algerine bunting at its head, the stars and stripes would secure it. Why was not his opponent—he wished he could call him his friend, but he could not—why was he not manly enough to admit that there was more capital and enterprise enlisted in the prosecution of the slave trade, and in the maintenance of Slavery, than in any city of the Union? He had been likened to a dirty buzzard bird, because he would not recognize the American Constitution, or acknowledge Americans to be gentlemen, when the fact was that Americans were the greatest liars, rogues and villains that the world had ever seen.

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He asserted that Gen. WASHINGTON was the first one who attempted a practical enforcement of the fugitive slave law, by sending a constable to the town of Concord, N.H., to chase his female slave, who had escaped from his service; and only gave up his purpose, and resigned his slave, on the ground that it would create disturbance to recapture her.
If he should visit the city of Washington, he was liable under the very eaves of the capitol of his country to be arrested and imprisoned on suspicion of being a slave, and if he could not prove his title to freedom, would be sold to the rice swamp or cotton plantation to pay his jail fees. The fact that WASHINGTON emancipated his slaves on his death bed, was not necessarily an act of virtue. He knew there was one old servant who worked for him, and fought with him through the war of the Revolution who did not receive his freedom until upon his dying bed. There was not in this whole country a mountain so high, or a valley so deep that could shelter the fugitive. The case of SIMS, BURNS, and many others were cited.
The immunity of the Slavery propagandists in Kansas was in perfect keeping with all the previous history of the Government. The colored man had never exercised the right of citizenship or of manhood except by sufferance. He was indignant that Mr. DOUGLASS had attempted to associate him with Judge TANEY; and retorted that Mr. DOUGLASS had walked arm in arm with BENNETT, of the Herald, in the last Presidential campaign.
The colored man had to obtain a property qualification in order to go to the ballot—box in this State. This did not prove their equality or manhood. When the colored man was eligible to a seat in the State Assembly, and was found in the jury-box, his equality would be recognized, and not before.
Mr. DOUGLASS said the onus probendi rested upon his friend to do away with the positive statements he had cited as to the anti-slavery features of the Constitution he had named; he adhered to the literal meaning of the document. The prosecution of the Slave-Trade under the protection of the American flag had nothing to do with the question at issue. Crime of every shade and hue stalked abroad in the City of New-York, but it would be absurd on that account to say there were no laws against murder. Omnibuses were a great institution in this City. He got into one, the other day, in Broadway; the cushions were soft, the mirrors were splendid, the company excellent; but he had scarcely got seated, when the driver pulled up his horses, stuck his head down the hole, and sang out: “Hallo, there! you nigger, what are you doing in there? Get out of this omnibus!” This polite invitation was repeated until the voice of John got stifled with rage and exhaustion, when DOUGLASS bawled out, “Drive on! I want to go to Twenty-third street.” And he did drive on, though at one time matters

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looked as if there would be a set to, and DOUGLASS regretted he hadn’t on his working clothes. Rev. Mr. PENNINGTON15Douglass refers to James W. C. Pennington, former pastor of Shiloh Presbyterian Church, and his unsuccessful 1855 suit against the segregated Sixth Avenue Railroad in New York City. and other colored persons had been dragged out of the omnibuses, and they could get no redress. What then? Should they raise the cry, “No union with omnibuses16Douglass parodies the Garrisonian slogan “No Union with Slaveholders."—down with omnibuses," and go to cutting up the cushions and staving up the coaches? Certainly not; but they should change the drivers; they should turn out the miserable pack who now administered the Government, and gave the abominable decisions in the Courts, and place honest, freedom-loving people in their place. He condemned the advice to insurrection as ill advised, and as certain to result in the extermination of the colored race. The dissolution of the Union was the worst step that could be taken. Because his house was infested with rats, should he cry out “No Union with rats,” and desert his house, or should he poke 'em out? He had no idea of surrendering so easily. He used to sing, with his Methodist brethren:
“Oh, we have been wid ye,
And we still is wid ye,
And we will go wid ye to the end.”17Douglass quotes a variation of the hymn “Promise.” George Pullen Jackson, White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands (Chapel Hill, 1933), 288; McCurry, Social Harp, 73.
He meant to stick to the omnibus.
Mr. D[OUGLASS] went on in this strain, exciting great merriment in the audience, until time was called, and Mr. REMOND rose to reply.
The remarks of Mr. REMOND were a recital of the main points on which he relied to establish the Pro-Slavery intent of the Constitution, and were well and forcibly put, carrying the audience with him, and securing their applause.
Mr. DOUGLASS followed, occupying his ten minutes in recapitulating the points of his argument in disclaiming any offensive personalities, and in complimenting his opponent for his learning, eloquence, &c. Mr. REMOND waived his right to occupy any further time. The speakers had signified their willingness to leave the question without a vote, so after a few notices had been read, the audience adjourned by invitation to the basement, where, over ice-cream and confectionary, the disputants held a soirée.

Creator

Douglass, Frederick, 1818-1895

Date

1857-05-20

Publisher

Yale University Press 1985

Type

Speeches

Publication Status

Published