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Page 52
I do not mention these things to praise Mr. Garrison; I do not stand
here for that purpose. You will not deny--if you do, I can prove
it--that the movement of the Abolitionists converted these men. Their
constituents were converted by it. The assault upon the right of
petition, upon the right to print and speak of slavery, the denial of
the right of Congress over the District, the annexation of Texas,
the Fugitive Slave Law, were measures which the anti-slavery movement
provoked, and the discussion of which has made all the Abolitionists we
have. The antislavery cause, then, converted these men; it gave them a
constituency; it gave them an opportunity to speak, and it gave them a
public to listen. The antislavery cause gave them their votes, got them
their offices, furnished them their facts, gave them their audience.
If you tell me they cherished all these principles in their own breasts
before Mr. Garrison appeared, I can only say, if the anti-slavery
movement did not give them their ideas, it surely gave the courage to
utter them.
In such circumstances, is it not singular that the name of William Lloyd
Garrison has never been pronounced on the floor of the United States
Congress linked with any epithet but that of contempt! No one of those
men who owe their ideas, their station, their audience, to him,
have ever thought it worth their while to utter one word in grateful
recognition of the power which called them into being. When obliged, by
the course of their argument, to treat the question historically, they
can go across the water to Clarkson and Wilberforce--yes, to a safe
salt-water distance. As Daniel Webster, when he was talking to the
farmers of Western New York, and wished to contrast slave labor and free
labor, did not dare to compare New York with Virginia--sister States,
under the same government, planted by the same race, worshipping at the
same altar, speaking the same language--identical in all respects, save
that one in which he wished to seek the contrast; but no; he compared
it with Cuba--the contrast was so close! Catholic--Protestant;
Spanish--Saxon; despotism--municipal institutions; readers of Lope de
Vega and of Shakespeare; mutterers of the Mass--children of the Bible!
But Virginia is too near home! So is Garrison! One would have thought
there was something in the human breast which would sometimes break
through policy. These noble-hearted men whom I have named must surely
have found quite irksome the constant practice of what Dr. Gardiner used
to call "that despicable virtue, prudence." One would have thought, when
they heard that name spoken with contempt, their ready eloquence would
have leaped from its scabbard to avenge even a word that threatened
him with insult. But it never came--never! I do not say I blame them.
Perhaps they thought they should serve the cause better by drawing a
broad black line between themselves and him. Perhaps they thought the
Devil could be cheated: I do not!
* * * * *
Caution is not always good policy in a cause like ours. It is said that,
when Napoleon saw the day going against him, he used to throw away
all the rules of war, and trust himself to the hot impetuosity of his
soldiers. The masses are governed more by impulse than conviction, and
even were it not so, the convictions of most men are on our side,
and this will surely appear, if we can only pierce the crust of their
prejudice or indifference. I observe that our Free Soil friends never
stir their audience so deeply as when some individual leaps beyond the
platform, and strikes upon the very heart of the people. Men listen to
discussions of laws and tactics with ominous patience. It is when Mr.
Sumner, in Faneuil Hall, avows his determination to disobey the
Fugitive Slave Law, and cries out: "I was a man before I was a
Commissioner,"--when Mr. Giddings says of the fall of slavery, quoting
Adams: "Let it come. If it must come in blood, yet I say let it
come!"--that their associates on the platform are sure they are
wrecking the party,--while many a heart beneath beats its first pulse of
anti-slavery life.
These are brave words. When I compare them with the general tone of Free
Soil men in Congress, I distrust the atmosphere of Washington and of
politics. These men move about, Sauls and Goliaths among us, taller by
many a cubit. There they lose port and stature. Mr. Sumner's speech
in the Senate unsays no part of his Faneuil Hall pledge. But, though
discussing the same topic, no one would gather from any word or argument
that the speaker ever took such ground as he did in Faneuil Hall. It
is all through, the law, the manner of the surrender, not the surrender
itself, of the slave, that he objects to. As my friend Mr. Pillsbury
so forcibly says, so far as any thing in the speech shows, he puts the
slave behind the jury trial, behind the habeas corpus act, and behind
the new interpretation of the Constitution, and says to the slave
claimant: "You must get through all these before you reach him; but, if
you can get through all these, you may have him!" It was no tone like
this which made the old Hall rock! Not if he got through twelve jury
trials, and forty habeas corpus acts, and constitutions built high
as yonder monument, would he permit so much as the shadow of a little
finger of the slave claimant to touch the slave! At least so he was
understood. * * *
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