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Fortunate, most fortunate occurrence!--fortunatefor the millions of his manacled brethren, yet panting for deliverance from their awful thraldom!--fortunate for the cause of negro emancipation, and ofuniversal liberty!--fortunate for the land of his birth,which he has already done so much to save and bless!--fortunate for a large circle of friends and acquaintances, whose sympathy and affection he has stronglysecured by the many sufferings he has endured, byhis virtuous traits of character, by his ever-abidingremembrance of those who are in bonds, as beingbound with them!--fortunate for the multitudes, invarious parts of our republic, whose minds he hasenlightened on the subject of slavery, and who havebeen melted to tears by his pathos, or roused tovirtuous indignation by his stirring eloquence againstthe enslavers of men!--fortunate for himself, asit at once brought him into the field of public usefulness, "gave the world assurance of a MAN," quickened the slumbering energies of his soul, and consecrated him to the great work of breaking the rodof the oppressor, and letting the oppressed go free!
I shall never forget his first speech at the convention--the extraordinary emotion it excited in my ownmind--the powerful impression it created upon acrowded auditory, completely taken by surprise--theapplause which followed from the beginning to theend of his felicitous remarks. I think I never hatedslavery so intensely as at that moment; certainly, myperception of the enormous outrage which is inflicted by it, on the godlike nature of its victims, wasrendered far more clear than ever. There stood one,in physical proportion and stature commanding andexact--in intellect richly endowed--in natural eloquence a prodigy--in soul manifestly "created but alittle lower than the angels"--yet a slave, ay, a fugitive slave,--trembling for his safety, hardly daring tobelieve that on the American soil, a single whiteperson could be found who would befriend him atall hazards, for the love of God and humanity! Capable of high attainments as an intellectual andmoral being--needing nothing but a comparativelysmall amount of cultivation to make him an ornament to society and a blessing to his race--by the lawof the land, by the voice of the people, by the termsof the slave code, he was only a piece of property, abeast of burden, a chattel personal, nevertheless!
A beloved friend from New Bedford prevailed onMr. DOUGLASS to address the convention: He cameforward to the platform with a hesitancy and embarrassment, necessarily the attendants of a sensitivemind in such a novel position. After apologizing forhis ignorance, and reminding the audience that slavery was a poor school for the human intellect andheart, he proceeded to narrate some of the facts inhis own history as a slave, and in the course of hisspeech gave utterance to many noble thoughts andthrilling reflections. As soon as he had taken hisseat, filled with hope and admiration, I rose, anddeclared that PATRICK HENRY, of revolutionary fame,never made a speech more eloquent in the cause ofliberty, than the one we had just listened to fromthe lips of that hunted fugitive. So I believed atthat time--such is my belief now. I reminded theaudience of the peril which surrounded this selfemancipated young man at the North,--even in Massachusetts, on the soil of the Pilgrim Fathers, amongthe descendants of revolutionary sires; and I appealed to them, whether they would ever allow himto be carried back into slavery,--law or no law, constitution or no constitution. The response was unanimous and in thunder-tones--"NO!" "Will you succorand protect him as a brother-man--a resident of theold Bay State?" "YES!" shouted the whole mass,with an energy so startling, that the ruthless tyrantssouth of Mason and Dixon's line might almost haveheard the mighty burst of feeling, and recognizedit as the pledge of an invincible determination, onthe part of those who gave it, never to betray himthat wanders, but to hide the outcast, and firmly toabide the consequences.
It was at once deeply impressed upon my mind,that, if Mr. DOUGLASS could be persuaded to consecrate his time and talents to the promotion of theanti-slavery enterprise, a powerful impetus wouldbe given to it, and a stunning blow at the same timeinflicted on northern prejudice against a coloredcomplexion. I therefore endeavored to instil hopeand courage into his mind, in order that he mightdare to engage in a vocation so anomalous and responsible for a person in his situation; and I wasseconded in this effort by warm-hearted friends, especially by the late General Agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Mr. JOHN A. COLLINS,whose judgment in this instance entirely coincidedwith my own. At first, he could give no encouragement; with unfeigned diffidence, he expressed hisconviction that he was not adequate to the performance of so great a task; the path marked out waswholly an untrodden one; he was sincerely apprehensive that he should do more harm than good.After much deliberation, however, he consented tomake a trial; and ever since that period, he has actedas a lecturing agent, under the auspices either of theAmerican or the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.In labors he has been most abundant; and his successin combating prejudice, in gaining proselytes, in agitating the public mind, has far surpassed the mostsanguine expectations that were raised at the commencement of his brilliant career. He has borne himself with gentleness and meekness, yet with truemanliness of character. As a public speaker, he excelsin pathos, wit, comparison, imitation, strength ofreasoning, and fluency of language. There is in himthat union of head and heart, which is indispensableto an enlightenment of the heads and a winning ofthe hearts of others. May his strength continue tobe equal to his day! May he continue to "grow ingrace, and in the knowledge of God," that he maybe increasingly serviceable in the cause of bleedinghumanity, whether at home or abroad!
It is certainly a very remarkable fact, that one ofthe most efficient advocates of the slave population,now before the public, is a fugitive slave, in theperson of FREDERICK DOUGLASS; and that the freecolored population of the United States are as ablyrepresented by one of their own number, in the person of CHARLES LENOX REMOND, whose eloquentappeals have extorted the highest applause of multitudes on both sides of the Atlantic. Let the calumniators of the colored race despise themselves fortheir baseness and illiberality of spirit, and henceforth cease to talk of the natural inferiority of thosewho require nothing but time and opportunity toattain to the highest point of human excellence.
It may, perhaps, be fairly questioned, whether anyother portion of the population of the earth couldhave endured the privations, sufferings and horrorsof slavery, without having become more degradedin the scale of humanity than the slaves of Africandescent. Nothing has been left undone to crippletheir intellects, darken their minds, debase theirmoral nature, obliterate all traces of their relationship to mankind; and yet how wonderfully they havesustained the mighty load of a most frightful bondage, under which they have been groaning for centuries! To illustrate the effect of slavery on the whiteman,--to show that he has no powers of endurance,in such a condition, superior to those of his blackbrother,--DANIEL O'CONNELL, the distinguishedadvocate of universal emancipation, and the mightiest champion of prostrate but not conquered Ireland,relates the following anecdote in a speech deliveredby him in the Conciliation Hall, Dublin, before theLoyal National Repeal Association, March 31, 1845."No matter," said Mr. O'CONNELL, "under whatspecious term it may disguise itself, slavery is stillhideous. ~It has a natural, an inevitable tendency tobrutalize every noble faculty of man.~ An Americansailor, who was cast away on the shore of Africa,where he was kept in slavery for three years, was, atthe expiration of that period, found to be imbrutedand stultified--he had lost all reasoning power; andhaving forgotten his native language, could only utter some savage gibberish between Arabic and English, which nobody could understand, and whicheven he himself found difficulty in pronouncing. Somuch for the humanizing influence of THE DOMESTICINSTITUTION!" Admitting this to have been an extraordinary case of mental deterioration, it proves atleast that the white slave can sink as low in thescale of humanity as the black one.
Mr. DOUGLASS has very properly chosen to writehis own Narrative, in his own style, and accordingto the best of his ability, rather than to employ someone else. It is, therefore, entirely his own production; and, considering how long and dark was the career he had to run as a slave,--how few have been hisopportunities to improve his mind since he broke hisiron fetters,--it is, in my judgment, highly creditableto his head and heart. He who can peruse it withouta tearful eye, a heaving breast, an afflicted spirit,-without being filled with an unutterable abhorrenceof slavery and all its abettors, and animated with adetermination to seek the immediate overthrow ofthat execrable system,--without trembling for thefate of this country in the hands of a righteous God,who is ever on the side of the oppressed, and whosearm is not shortened that it cannot save,--must havea flinty heart, and be qualified to act the part of atrafficker "in slaves and the souls of men." I am confident that it is essentially true in all its statements;that nothing has been set down in malice, nothingexaggerated, nothing drawn from the imagination;that it comes short of the reality, rather than overstates a single fact in regard to SLAVERY AS IT IS.The experience of FREDERICK DOUGLASS, as a slave,was not a peculiar one; his lot was not especiallya hard one; his case may be regarded as a very fairspecimen of the treatment of slaves in Maryland, inwhich State it is conceded that they are better fedand less cruelly treated than in Georgia, Alabama,or Louisiana. Many have suffered incomparablymore, while very few on the plantations have suffered less, than himself. Yet how deplorable was hissituation! what terrible chastisements were inflictedupon his person! what still more shocking outrageswere perpetrated upon his mind! with all his noblepowers and sublime aspirations, how like a brutewas he treated, even by those professing to have thesame mind in them that was in Christ Jesus! to whatdreadful liabilities was he continually subjected! howdestitute of friendly counsel and aid, even in hisgreatest extremities! how heavy was the midnight ofwoe which shrouded in blackness the last ray of hope,and filled the future with terror and gloom! whatlongings after freedom took possession of his breast,and how his misery augmented, in proportion as hegrew reflective and intelligent,--thus demonstratingthat a happy slave is an extinct man! how hethought, reasoned, felt, under the lash of the driver,with the chains upon his limbs! what perils he encountered in his endeavors to escape from his horrible doom! and how signal have been his deliveranceand preservation in the midst of a nation of pitilessenemies!
This Narrative contains many affecting incidents,many passages of great eloquence and power; but Ithink the most thrilling one of them all is the description DOUGLASS gives of his feelings, as he stoodsoliloquizing respecting his fate, and the chances ofhis one day being a freeman, on the banks of theChesapeake Bay--viewing the receding vessels as theyflew with their white wings before the breeze, andapostrophizing them as animated by the living spiritof freedom. Who can read that passage, and be insensible to its pathos and sublimity? Compressedinto it is a whole Alexandrian library of thought,feeling, and sentiment--all that can, all that need beurged, in the form of expostulation, entreaty, rebuke,against that crime of crimes,--making man the property of his fellow-man! O, how accursed is thatsystem, which entombs the godlike mind of man,defaces the divine image, reduces those who by creation were crowned with glory and honor to a levelwith four-footed beasts, and exalts the dealer in human flesh above all that is called God! Why shouldits existence be prolonged one hour? Is it not evil,only evil, and that continually? What does its presence imply but the absence of all fear of God, allregard for man, on the part of the people of theUnited States? Heaven speed its eternal overthrow!
So profoundly ignorant of the nature of slaveryare many persons, that they are stubbornly incredulous whenever they read or listen to any recital ofthe cruelties which are daily inflicted on its victims.They do not deny that the slaves are held as property; but that terrible fact seems to convey to theirminds no idea of injustice, exposure to outrage, orsavage barbarity. Tell them of cruel scourgings, ofmutilations and brandings, of scenes of pollutionand blood, of the banishment of all light and knowledge, and they affect to be greatly indignant at suchenormous exaggerations, such wholesale misstatements, such abominable libels on the character ofthe southern planters! As if all these direful outrageswere not the natural results of slavery! As if it wereless cruel to reduce a human being to the conditionof a thing, than to give him a severe flagellation,or to deprive him of necessary food and clothing!As if whips, chains, thumb-screws, paddles, bloodhounds, overseers, drivers, patrols, were not all indispensable to keep the slaves down, and to giveprotection to their ruthless oppressors! As if, whenthe marriage institution is abolished, concubinage,adultery, and incest, must not necessarily abound;when all the rights of humanity are annihilated, anybarrier remains to protect the victim from the furyof the spoiler; when absolute power is assumed overlife and liberty, it will not be wielded with destructive sway! Skeptics of this character abound in society. In some few instances, their incredulity arisesfrom a want of reflection; but, generally, it indicatesa hatred of the light, a desire to shield slavery fromthe assaults of its foes, a contempt of the coloredrace, whether bond or free. Such will try to discreditthe shocking tales of slaveholding cruelty which arerecorded in this truthful Narrative; but they willlabor in vain. Mr. DOUGLASS has frankly disclosedthe place of his birth, the names of those whoclaimed ownership in his body and soul, and thenames also of those who committed the crimes whichhe has alleged against them. His statements, therefore, may easily be disproved, if they are untrue.
In the course of his Narrative, he relates two instances of murderous cruelty,--in one of which aplanter deliberately shot a slave belonging to a neighboring plantation, who had unintentionally gottenwithin his lordly domain in quest of fish; and in theother, an overseer blew out the brains of a slave whohad fled to a stream of water to escape a bloodyscourging. Mr. DOUGLASS states that in neither ofthese instances was any thing done by way of legalarrest or judicial investigation. The Baltimore American, of March 17, 1845, relates a similar case ofatrocity, perpetrated with similar impunity--as follows:--"~Shooting a slave.~--We learn, upon the authority of a letter from Charles county, Maryland,received by a gentleman of this city, that a youngman, named Matthews, a nephew of General Matthews, and whose father, it is believed, holds an office at Washington, killed one of the slaves upon hisfather's farm by shooting him. The letter states thatyoung Matthews had been left in charge of the farm;that he gave an order to the servant, which was disobeyed, when he proceeded to the house, ~obtaineda gun, and, returning, shot the servant.~ He immediately, the letter continues, fled to his father's residence, where he still remains unmolested."--Let itnever be forgotten, that no slaveholder or overseercan be convicted of any outrage perpetrated on theperson of a slave, however diabolical it may be, onthe testimony of colored witnesses, whether bondor free. By the slave code, they are adjudged to beas incompetent to testify against a white man, asthough they were indeed a part of the brute creation.Hence, there is no legal protection in fact, whateverthere may be in form, for the slave population; andany amount of cruelty may be inflicted on themwith impunity. Is it possible for the human mindto conceive of a more horrible state of society?
The effect of a religious profession on the conductof southern masters is vividly described in the following Narrative, and shown to be any thing butsalutary. In the nature of the case, it must be inthe highest degree pernicious. The testimony of Mr.DOUGLASS, on this point, is sustained by a cloud ofwitnesses, whose veracity is unimpeachable. "A slaveholder's profession of Christianity is a palpable imposture. He is a felon of the highest grade. He is aman-stealer. It is of no importance what you put inthe other scale."
Reader! are you with the man-stealers in sympathyand purpose, or on the side of their down-troddenvictims? If with the former, then are you the foe ofGod and man. If with the latter, what are you prepared to do and dare in their behalf? Be faithful,be vigilant, be untiring in your efforts to break everyyoke, and let the oppressed go free. Come what may--cost what it may--inscribe on the banner whichyou unfurl to the breeze, as your religious and political motto--"NO COMPROMISE WITH SLAVERY! NOUNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS!"
WM. LLOYD GARRISONBOSTON, ~May~ 1, 1845.
LETTER
FROM WENDELL PHILLIPS, ESQ.
BOSTON, APRIL 22, 1845.
My Dear Friend:
You remember the old fable of "The Man andthe Lion," where the lion complained that he shouldnot be so misrepresented "when the lions wrote history."
I am glad the time has come when the "lionswrite history." We have been left long enough togather the character of slavery from the involuntaryevidence of the masters. One might, indeed, restsufficiently satisfied with what, it is evident, mustbe, in general, the results of such a relation, without seeking farther to find whether they have followed in every instance. Indeed, those who stare atthe half-peck of corn a week, and love to count thelashes on the slave's back, are seldom the "stuff" outof which reformers and abolitionists are to be made.I remember that, in 1838, many were waiting forthe results of the West India experiment, beforethey could come into our ranks. Those "results" havecome long ago; but, alas! few of that number havecome with them, as converts. A man must be disposed to judge of emancipation by other tests thanwhether it has increased the produce of sugar,--andto hate slavery for other reasons than because itstarves men and whips women,--before he is readyto lay the first stone of his anti-slavery life.
I was glad to learn, in your story, how early themost neglected of God's children waken to a senseof their rights, and of the injustice done them. Experience is a keen teacher; and long before you hadmastered your A B C, or knew where the "whitesails" of the Chesapeake were bound, you began, Isee, to gauge the wretchedness of the slave, not byhis hunger and want, not by his lashes and toil, butby the cruel and blighting death which gathers overhis soul.
In connection with this, there is one circumstancewhich makes your recollections peculiarly valuable,and renders your early insight the more remarkable.You come from that part of the country where weare told slavery appears with its fairest features. Letus hear, then, what it is at its best estate--gaze onits bright side, if it has one; and then imaginationmay task her powers to add dark lines to the picture,as she travels southward to that (for the coloredman) Valley of the Shadow of Death, where theMississippi sweeps along.
Again, we have known you long, and can put themost entire confidence in your truth, candor, andsincerity. Every one who has heard you speak hasfelt, and, I am confident, every one who reads yourbook will feel, persuaded that you give them a fairspecimen of the whole truth. No one-sided portrait,--no wholesale complaints,--but strict justice done,whenever individual kindliness has neutralized, fora moment, the deadly system with which it wasstrangely allied. You have been with us, too, someyears, and can fairly compare the twilight of rights,which your race enjoy at the North, with that "noonof night" under which they labor south of Masonand Dixon's line. Tell us whether, after all, the halffree colored man of Massachusetts is worse off thanthe pampered slave of the rice swamps!
In reading your life, no one can say that we haveunfairly picked out some rare specimens of cruelty.We know that the bitter drops, which even you havedrained from the cup, are no incidental aggravations,no individual ills, but such as must mingle alwaysand necessarily in the lot of every slave. They are theessential ingredients, not the occasional results, ofthe system.
After all, I shall read your book with tremblingfor you. Some years ago, when you were beginningto tell me your real name and birthplace, you mayremember I stopped you, and preferred to remainignorant of all. With the exception of a vague description, so I continued, till the other day, whenyou read me your memoirs. I hardly knew, at thetime, whether to thank you or not for the sight ofthem, when I reflected that it was still dangerous,in Massachusetts, for honest men to tell their names!They say the fathers, in 1776, signed the Declarationof Independence with the halter about their necks.You, too, publish your declaration of freedom withdanger compassing you around. In all the broad landswhich the Constitution of the United States overshadows, there is no single spot,--however narrow ordesolate,--where a fugitive slave can plant himselfand say, "I am safe." The whole armory of Northern Law has no shield for you. I am free to say that,in your place, I should throw the MS. into the fire.
You, perhaps, may tell your story in safety, endeared as you are to so many warm hearts by raregifts, and a still rarer devotion of them to the serviceof others. But it will be owing only to your labors,and the fearless efforts of those who, trampling thelaws and Constitution of the country under theirfeet, are determined that they will "hide the outcast," and that their hearths shall be, spite of thelaw, an asylum for the oppressed, if, some time orother, the humblest may stand in our streets, andbear witness in safety against the cruelties of whichhe has been the victim.
Yet it is sad to think, that these very throbbinghearts which welcome your story, and form your bestsafeguard in telling it, are all beating contrary to the"statute in such case made and provided." Go on,my dear friend, till you, and those who, like you,have been saved, so as by fire, from the dark prisonhouse, shall stereotype these free, illegal pulses intostatutes; and New England, cutting loose from ablood-stained Union, shall glory in being the houseof refuge for the oppressed,--till we no longer merely"~hide~ the outcast," or make a merit of standing idlyby while he is hunted in our midst; but, consecrating anew the soil of the Pilgrims as an asylum for theoppressed, proclaim our WELCOME to the slave soloudly, that the tones shall reach every hut in theCarolinas, and make the broken-hearted bondmanleap up at the thought of old Massachusetts.
God speed the day!
~Till then, and ever,~ ~Yours truly,~ ~WENDELL PHILLIPS~
FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
Frederick Douglass was born in slavery as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey near Easton inTalbot County, Maryland. He was not sure of theexact year of his birth, but he knew that it was 1817or 1818. As a young boy he was sent to Baltimore,to be a house servant, where he learned to read andwrite, with the assistance of his master's wife. In1838 he escaped from slavery and went to New YorkCity, where he married Anna Murray, a free coloredwoman whom he had met in Baltimore. Soon thereafter he changed his name to Frederick Douglass.In 1841 he addressed a convention of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Nantucket and sogreatly impressed the group that they immediatelyemployed him as an agent. He was such an impressive orator that numerous persons doubted if he hadever been a slave, so he wrote NARRATIVE OF THE LIFEOF FREDERICK DOUGLASS. During the Civil War he assisted in the recruiting of colored men for the 54thand 55th Massachusetts Regiments and consistentlyargued for the emancipation of slaves. After the warhe was active in securing and protecting the rightsof the freemen. In his later years, at different times,he was secretary of the Santo Domingo Commission,marshall and recorder of deeds of the District ofColumbia, and United States Minister to Haiti. Hisother autobiographical works are MY BONDAGE ANDMY FREEDOM and LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICKDOUGLASS, published in 1855 and 1881 respectively.He died in 1895.
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