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Page 46
There are some who come upon our platform, and give us the aid of names
and reputations less burdened than ours with popular odium,who are
perpetually urging us to exercise charity in our judgments of those
about us, and to consent to argue these questions. These men are ever
parading their wish to draw a line between themselves and us,
because they must be permitted to wait,--to trust more to reason than
feeling,--to indulge a generous charity,--to rely on the sure influence
of simple truth, uttered in love, etc., etc. I reject with scorn all
these implications that our judgments are uncharitable,--that we are
lacking in patience,--that we have any other dependence than on the
simple truth, spoken with Christian frankness, yet with Christian
love. These lectures, to which you, sir, and all of us, have so often
listened, would be impertinent, if they were not rather ridiculous for
the gross ignorance they betray of the community, of the cause, and of
the whole course of its friends.
The article in the _Leader_ to which I refer is signed "ION," and may
be found in the _Liberator_ of December 17, 1852. * * * "Ion" quotes
Mr Garrison's original declaration in the _Liberator_: "I am aware that
many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause
for severity? I _will_ be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as
justice. I am in earnest,--I will not equivocate,--I will not excuse,--I
will not retreat a single inch,--AND I WILL BE HEARD. It is pretended
that I am retarding the cause of emancipation by the coarseness of my
invective and the precipitancy of my measures. The charge is not true.
On this question, my influence, humble as it is, is felt at this
moment to a considerable extent, and shall be felt in coming years, not
perniciously, but beneficially; not as a curse, but as a blessing; and
posterity will bear testimony that I was right. I desire to thank
God that He enables me to disregard 'the fear of man which bringeth a
snare,' and to speak His truth in its simplicity and power." * * *
"Ion's" charges are the old ones, that we Abolitionists are hurting our
own cause; that, instead of waiting for the community to come up to our
views, and endeavoring to remove prejudice and enlighten ignorance by
patient explanation and fair argument, we fall at once, like children,
to abusing every thing and everybody; that we imagine zeal will supply
the place of common sense; that we have never shown any sagacity
in adapting our means to our ends; have never studied the national
character, or attempted to make use of the materials which lay all about
us to influence public opinion, but by blind, childish, obstinate fury
and indiscriminate denunciation, have become "honestly impotent, and
conscientious hinderances."
I claim, before you who know the true state of the case, I claim for
the antislavery movement with which this society is identified, that,
looking back over its whole course, and considering the men connected
with it in the mass, it has been marked by sound judgment, unerring
foresight, the most sagacious adaptation of means to ends, the strictest
self-discipline, the most thorough research, and an amount of patient
and manly argument addressed to the conscience and intellect of the
nation, such as no other cause of the kind, in England or this country,
has ever offered. I claim, also, that its course has been marked by a
cheerful surrender of all individual claims to merit or leadership,--the
most cordial welcoming of the slightest effort, of every honest attempt,
to lighten or to break the chain of the slave. I need not waste time by
repeating the superfluous confession that we are men, and therefore do
not claim to be perfect. Neither would I be understood as denying that
we use denunciation, and ridicule, and every other weapon that the human
mind knows. We must plead guilty, if there be guilt in not knowing
how to separate the sin from the sinner. With all the fondness for
abstractions attributed to us, we are not yet capable of that. We are
fighting a momentous battle at desperate odds,--one against a thousand.
Every weapon that ability or ignorance, wit, wealth, prejudice, or
fashion can command, is pointed against us. The guns are shotted to
their lips. The arrows are poisoned. Fighting against such an array, we
cannot afford to confine ourselves to any one weapon. The cause is not
ours, so that we might, rightfully, postpone or put in peril the victory
by moderating our demands, stifling our convictions, or filing down
our rebukes, to gratify any sickly taste of our own, or to spare the
delicate nerves of our neighbor. Our clients are three millions of
Christian slaves, standing dumb suppliants at the threshold of the
Christian world. They have no voice but ours to utter their complaints,
or to demand justice. The press, the pulpit, the wealth, the literature,
the prejudices, the political arrangements, the present self-interest
of the country, are all against us. God has given us no weapon but
the truth, faithfully uttered, and addressed, with the old prophets'
directness, to the conscience of the individual sinner. The elements
which control public opinion and mould the masses are against us. We can
but pick off here and there a man from the triumphant majority. We have
facts for those who think, arguments for those who reason; but he who
cannot be reasoned out of his prejudices must be laughed out of them; he
who cannot be argued out of his selfishness must be shamed out of it by
the mirror of his hateful self held up relentlessly before his eyes. We
live in a land where every man makes broad his phylactery, inscribing
thereon, "All men are created equal,"--"God hath made of one blood all
nations of men." It seems to us that in such a land there must be, on
this question of slavery, sluggards to be awakened, as well as doubters
to be convinced. Many more, we verily believe, of the first than of
the last. There are far more dead hearts to be quickened, than confused
intellects to be cleared up,--more dumb dogs to be made to speak, than
doubting consciences to be enlightened. We have use, then, sometimes,
for something beside argument.
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