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Page 47
What is the denunciation with which we are charged? It is endeavoring,
in our faltering human speech, to declare the enormity of the sin of
making merchandize of men,--of separating husband and wife,--taking the
infant from its mother and selling the daughter to prostitution,--of
a professedly Christian nation denying, by statute, the Bible to every
sixth man and woman of its population, and making it illegal for "two
or three" to meet together, except a white man be present! What is
this harsh criticism of motives with which we are charged? It is
simply holding the intelligent and deliberate actor responsible for the
character and consequences of his acts. Is there any thing inherently
wrong in such denunciation of such criticism? This we may claim,--we
have never judged a man but out of his own mouth. We have seldom, if
ever, held him to account, except for acts of which he and his own
friends were proud. All that we ask the world and thoughtful men to note
are the principles and deeds on which the American pulpit and American
public men plume themselves. We always allow our opponents to paint
their own pictures. Our humble duty is to stand by and assure the
spectators that what they would take for a knave or a hypocrite is
really, in American estimation, a Doctor of Divinity or a Secretary of
State.
The South is one great brothel, where half a million of women are
flogged to prostitution, or, worse still, are degraded to believe it
honorable. The public squares of half our great cities echo to the wail
of families torn asunder at the auction-block; no one of our fair rivers
that has not closed over the negro seeking in death a refuge from a life
too wretched to bear; thousands of fugitives skulk along our highways,
afraid to tell their names, and trembling at the sight of a human being;
free men are kidnapped in our streets, to be plunged into that hell
of slavery; and now and then one, as if by miracle, after long years
returns to make men aghast with his tale. The press says, "It is all
right"; and the pulpit cries, "Amen." They print the Bible in every
tongue in which man utters his prayers; and they get the money to do so
by agreeing never to give the book, in the language our mothers taught
us, to any negro, free or bond, south of Mason and Dixon's line. The
press says, "It is all right"; and the pulpit cries, "Amen." The slave
lifts up his imploring eyes, and sees in every face but ours the face
of an enemy. Prove to me now that harsh rebuke, indignant denunciation,
scathing sarcasm, and pitiless ridicule are wholly and always
unjustifiable; else we dare not, in so desperate a case, throw away any
weapon which ever broke up the crust of an ignorant prejudice, roused a
slumbering conscience, shamed a proud sinner, or changed in any way the
conduct of a human being. Our aim is to alter public opinion. Did we
live in a market, our talk should be of dollars and cents, and we would
seek to prove only that slavery was an unprofitable investment. Were
the nation one great, pure church, we would sit down and reason of
"righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come." Had slavery fortified
itself in a college, we would load our cannons with cold facts, and
wing our arrows with arguments. But we happen to live in the world,--the
world made up of thought and impulse, of self-conceit and self-interest,
of weak men and wicked. To conquer, we must reach all. Our object is not
to make every man a Christian or a philosopher, but to induce every one
to aid in the abolition of slavery. We expect to accomplish our object
long before the nation is made over into saints or elevated into
philosophers. To change public opinion, we use the very tools by which
it was formed. That is, all such as an honest man may touch.
All this I am not only ready to allow, but I should be ashamed to think
of the slave, or to look into the face of my fellow-man, if it
were otherwise. It is the only thing which justifies us to our own
consciences, and makes us able to say we have done, or at least tried to
do, our duty.
So far, however you distrust my philosophy, you will not doubt my
statements. That we have denounced and rebuked with unsparing fidelity
will not be denied. Have we not also addressed ourselves to that other
duty, of arguing our question thoroughly?--of using due discretion and
fair sagacity in endeavoring to promote our cause? Yes, we have. Every
statement we have made has been doubted. Every principle we have laid
down has been denied by overwhelming majorities against us. No one step
has ever been gained but by the most laborious research and the most
exhausting argument. And no question has ever, since Revolutionary days,
been so thoroughly investigated or argued here, as that of slavery. Of
that research and that argument, of the whole of it, the old-fashioned,
fanatical, crazy Garrisonian antislavery movement has been the author.
From this band of men has proceeded every important argument or idea
which has been broached on the antislavery question from 1830 to the
present time. I am well aware of the extent of the claim I make. I
recognize, as fully as any one can, the ability of the new laborers, the
eloquence and genius with which they have recommended this cause to the
nation, and flashed conviction home on the conscience of the community.
I do not mean, either, to assert that they have in every instance
borrowed from our treasury their facts and arguments. Left to
themselves, they would probably have looked up the one and originated
the other. As a matter of fact, however, they have generally made use
of the materials collected to their hands. * * * When once brought fully
into the struggle, they have found it necessary to adopt the same means,
to rely on the same arguments, to hold up the same men and the same
measures to public reprobation, with the same bold rebuke and unsparing
invective that we have used. All their conciliatory bearing, their
painstaking moderation, their constant and anxious endeavor to draw a
broad line between their camp and ours, have been thrown away. Just so
far as they have been effective laborers, they have found, as we have,
their hands against every man, and every man's hand against them. The
most experienced of them are ready to acknowledge that our plan has been
wise, our course efficient, and that our unpopularity is no fault of
ours, but flows necessarily and unavoidably from our position. "I should
suspect," says old Fuller, "that his preaching had no salt in it, if no
galled horse did wince." Our friends find, after all, that men do not
so much hate us as the truth we utter and the light we bring. They find
that the community are not the honest seekers after truth which they
fancied, but selfish politicians and sectarian bigots, who shiver, like
Alexander's butler, whenever the sun shines on them. Experience has
driven these new laborers back to our method. We have no quarrel with
them--would not steal one wreath of their laurels. All we claim is,
that, if they are to be complimented as prudent, moderate, Christian,
sagacious, statesmanlike reformers, we deserve the same praise; for they
have done nothing that we, in our measure, did not attempt before.
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