Geo[rge] G. Ritchie to Frederick Douglass, January 21, 1853
For Frederick Douglass’ Paper.
Home and the Slave.
DEAR DOUGLASS:—You remember the beautiful figure which Goldsmith has in the Traveller, that every step from home seemed to increase a lengthening chain. I often think of it as I am “outward bound.” I know not how it may be with others; but, it seems to me, that among the many sacrifices made by the friends of the slave, not the least is that made by the anti-slavery missionary, in leaving for weeks and months the loved ones at home, to spend his time among strangers and the enemies of his cause, advocating truths as unpopular in the United States as is a pure gospel among the most bigoted of heathen. Leaving home is to me always a time of suffering. It takes several days for my spirits to regain their lively flow; and feelings have to undergo some choking. You and others may regard this sheer weakness. Very well; do so. But for one, I envy not the man who can leave home, wife and children, with any other feelings. A statement which I saw made, not long since, in reference to Moore or Lamb. I forget which of the two it was, that absence from home was always regarded as a time of exile from which he returned with the liveliest satisfaction, however noble the company he had been in, did more to exalt him in my opinion than all of his writings. Constable, the English landscape painter, whilst absent at a noble lord’s mansion, where he had been spending some weeks engaged in his professsion, writes to his wife in London that he hopes to be able to start for home in about a week, and that if she has any company at that time, to try and dismiss them, that he may enjoy her and her children’s company alone. It was the heart of the husband and father that spoke there. And why did one of our friends vacate the “City house” in the village, preferring the quiet cottage by the grove a mile from town, but that his domestic happiness might less frequently be broken in upon. It was not that he grudged the expense upon the pocket, for his princely beneficence betokens none of the miser’s attributes; but it was the expense upon the quiet domestic associations which every heart, undebauched by luxury and proud ambition, knows to be among man’s most valued treasures. Home! Home! Sweet home!—There is no place like home. The scenery may be neither grand nor imposing; there may be no lofty Alpine mountains piercing the clouds; no majestic river may flow past the door; the silvery music of some distant cascade may be unheard; its architecture may be humble and the furniture within humbler still, and yet it is dearer and prettier far than any place else. A crust of bread and a cup of water from the old oaken bucket tastes sweeter there than the most savory viands elsewhere. One kind approving look or smile from my children’s mother out
weighs the applause of the largest audience.
There is no egotism in such language; for such is the voice of man’s heart wherever you find him, amid the snows of the North, or under the sun of the South. But if so, such also must be the feelings of the slave-husband and slave-father’s heart. How deep, then, must be the anguish of his soul as he is torn by force from those whom his heart cherishes as warmly as ever did my own, or that of any other freeman! And then to think every sun which rises witnesses the breaking up of hundreds of families-the tenderest chords of affection broken with ruthless hands. Great God, how long, oh! how long shall such things be permitted? Reader, man or woman, has my language spoken your feelings when leaving home? Has an indescribable feeling of pain passed through your heart as you were about leaving for a few weeks or months those to whom your soul was knit more closely than was Jonathan’s to David’s? Think of the slaves who to-day have been separated. Never shall that husband, an Uncle Tom perchance, behold the face of his wife again. Never shall that mother whose cheeks are wet with tears and whose shrieks pierce the heavens, take that loved boy in her arms again. Will you not pity them? will you not, God helping you, labor for the overthrow of that system, hell-born, which lacerates their hearts thus? God have mercy upon you, if you will not. But you say you are an abolitionist. Good. Yes, let me ask you, whether you are doing anything else than claiming the name.—You vote “straight.” Good again. But do you labor with your neighbors? Do you plead his cause in the social circle, in the prayer meeting, in the pulpit, and everywhere God gives you the opportunity?—Ungenteel, do you say, to introduce the slave’s cause in the social circle! Spoils the prayer meeting to pray for the slave! Unpopular and dangerous to mention the subject in the pulpit! Stop. If the house was on fire when your company had gathered, would you stand upon gentility? would you suffer etiquette to hinder you from asking your company’s help? If a neighbor was dying, would it spoil the prayer meeting to pray for him? If the Savior was in the bonds, whipt every day, driven to the field, thirsty, naked and hungry, would you shrink from remembering him in the pulpit even though men and devils should declare you would lose caste? You say, no. Remember, then, pray you the words of that Savior, “Inasmuch as ye have done it not unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it not unto me.”
Yours for freedom,
GEO. G. RITCHIE