No Compromise with Slavery Part 1

No Compromise with Slavery.

by William Lloyd Garrison.

ADDRESS.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: An earnest espousal of the Anti-Slavery cause for a quarter of a century, under circ.u.mstances which have served in a special manner to identify my name and labours with it, will shield me from the charge of egotism, in a.s.suming to be its exponent--at least for myself--on this occasion. All that I can compress within the limits of a single lecture, by way of its elucidation, it shall be my aim to accomplish. I will make a clean breast of it. You shall know all that is in my heart pertaining to Slavery, its supporters, and apologists.

Of necessity, as well as of choice, I am a "Garrisonian"

Abolitionist--the most unpopular appellation that any man can have applied to him, in the present state of public sentiment; yet, I am more than confident, destined ultimately to be honourably regarded by the wise and good. For though I have never a.s.sumed to be a leader--have never sought conspicuity of position, or notoriety of name--have desired to follow, if others, better qualified, would go before, and to be lost sight of in the throng of Liberty's adherents, as a drop is merged in the ocean; yet, as the appellation alluded to is applied, not with any reference to myself invidiously, but to excite prejudice against the n.o.blest movement of the age, in order that the most frightful system of oppression ever devised by human ingenuity and wickedness may be left to grow and expand to the latest generation--I accept it as the synonym of absolute trust in G.o.d, and utter disregard of "that fear of man which bringeth a snare"--and so deem it alike honourable and praiseworthy.

Representing, then, that phase of Abolitionism which is the most contemned--to the suppression of which, the means and forces of the Church and the State are most actively directed--I am here to defend it against all its a.s.sailants as the highest expediency, the soundest philosophy, the n.o.blest patriotism, the broadest philanthropy, and the best religion extant. To denounce it as fanatical, disorganising, reckless of consequences, bitter and irreverent in spirit, infidel in heart, deaf alike to the suggestions of reason and the warnings of history, is to call good evil, and evil good; to put darkness for light, and light for darkness; to insist that Barabbas is better than Jesus; to cover with infamy the memories of patriarchs and prophets, apostles and martyrs; and to inaugurate Satan as the G.o.d of the universe. If, like the sun, it is not wholly spotless, still, like the sun, without it there is no light. If murky clouds obscure its brightness, still it shines in its strength. If, at a seems to wane to its final setting, it is only to reveal itself in the splendour of a new ascension, unquenchable, glorious, sublime.

Let me define my positions, and at the same time challenge any one to show wherein they are untenable.

I. I am a believer in that portion of the Declaration of American Independence in which it is set forth, as among self-evident truths, "that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Hence, I am an Abolitionist.

Hence, I cannot but regard oppression in every form--and most of all, that which turns a man into a thing--with indignation and abhorrence.

Not to cherish these feelings would be recreancy to principle. They who desire me to be dumb on the subject of Slavery, unless I will open my mouth in its defence, ask me to give the lie to my professions, to degrade my manhood, and to stain my soul. I will not be a liar, a poltroon, or a hypocrite, to accommodate any party, to gratify any sect, to escape any odium or peril, to save any interest, to preserve any inst.i.tution, or to promote any object. Convince me that one man may rightfully make another man his slave, and I will no longer subscribe to the Declaration of Independence. Convince me that liberty is not the inalienable birthright of every human being, of whatever complexion or clime, and I will give that instrument to the consuming fire. I do not know how to espouse freedom and slavery together. I do not know how to worship G.o.d and Mammon at the same time. If other men choose to go upon all-fours, I choose to stand erect, as G.o.d designed every man to stand. If, practically falsifying its heaven-attested principles, this nation denounces me for refusing to imitate its example, then, adhering all the more tenaciously to those principles, I will not cease to rebuke it for its guilty inconsistency.

Numerically, the contest may be an unequal one, for the time being; but the Author of liberty and the Source of justice, the adorable G.o.d, is more than mult.i.tudinous, and he will defend the right. My crime is, that I will not go with the mult.i.tude to do evil. My singularity is, that when I say that Freedom is of G.o.d, and Slavery is of the devil, I mean just what I say. My fanaticism is, that I insist on the American people abolishing Slavery, or ceasing to prate of the rights of man.

My hardihood is, in measuring them by their own standard, and convicting them out of their own mouths.

"Woe to the rebellions children, saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin.

That walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt!

Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame, and the enact in the shadow of Egypt your confusion.

Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever:

That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord.

Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things; speak unto us smooth things; prophesy deceits; get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.

Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel: Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon:

Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly, at an instant."

II. Notwithstanding the lessons taught us by Pilgrim Fathers and Revolutionary Sires, at Plymouth Rock, on Bunker Hill, at Lexington, Concord and Yorktown; notwithstanding our Fourth of July celebrations, and ostentatious displays of patriotism; in what European nation is personal liberty hold in such contempt as in our own? Where are there such unbelievers in the natural equality and freedom of mankind? Our slaves outnumber the entire population of the country at the time of our revolutionary struggle. In vain do they clank their chains, and fill the air with their shrieks, and make their supplications for mercy. In vain are their sufferings portrayed, their wrongs rehea.r.s.ed, their rights defended. As Nero fiddled while Rome was burning, so the slaveholding spirit of this nation rejoices, as one barrier of liberty after another is destroyed, and fresh victims are multiplied for the cotton-field and the auction-block. For one impeachment of the slave system, a thousand defences are made. For one rebuke of the man-stealer, a thousand denunciations of the Abolitionists are heard.

For one press that bears a faithful testimony against Slavery, a score are ready to be prost.i.tuted to its service. For one pulpit that is not "recreant to its trust," there are ten that openly defend slaveholding as compatible with Christianity, and scores that are dumb. For one church that excludes the human enslaver from its communion table, mult.i.tudes extend to him the right hand of religious fellowship. The wealth, the enterprise, the literature, the politics, the religion of the land, are all combined to give extension and perpetuity to the Slave Power. Everywhere to do homage to it, to avoid collision with it, to propitiate its favour, is deemed essential--nay, _is_ essential to political preferment and ecclesiastical advancement. Nothing is so unpopular as impartial liberty. The two great parties which absorb nearly the whole voting strength of the Republic are pledged to be deaf, dumb and blind to whatever outrages the Slave Power may attempt to perpetrate. Cotton is in their ears--blinds are over their eyes--padlocks are upon their lips. They are as clay in the hands of the potter, and already moulded into vessels of dishonour, to be used for the vilest purposes. The tremendous power of the Government is actively wielded to "crush out" the little Anti-Slavery life that remains in individual hearts, and to open new and boundless domains for the expansion of the Slave system. No man known or suspected to be hostile to "the Compromise Measures, including the Fugitive Slave Law," is allowed to hope for any office under the present Administration. The ship of State is labouring in the trough of the sea--her engine powerless, her bulwarks swept away, her masts gone, her lifeboats destroyed, her pumps choked, and the leak gaining rapidly upon her; and as wave after wave dashes over her, all that might otherwise serve to keep her afloat is swallowed by the remorseless deep. G.o.d of heaven! if the ship is destined to go down "full many a fathom deep," is every soul on board to perish? Ho! a sail! a sail! The weather-beaten, but staunch ship Abolition, commanded by the Genius of Liberty, is bearing toward the wreck, with the cheering motto, inscribed in legible capitals, "WE WILL NOT FORSAKE YOU!" Let us hope, even against hope, that rescue is not wholly impossible.

To drop what is figurative for the actual. I have expressed the belief that, so lost to all self-respect and all ideas of justice have we become by the corrupting presence of Slavery, in no European nation is personal liberty held at such discount, as a matter of principle, as in our own. See how clearly this is demonstrated. The reasons adduced among us in justification of slaveholding, and therefore against personal liberty, are mult.i.tudinous. I will enumerate only a dozen of these: 1. "The victims are black." 2. "The slaves belong to an inferior race." 3. "Many of them have been fairly purchased." 4.

"Others have been honestly inherited." 5. "Their emanc.i.p.ation would impoverish their owners." 6. "They are better off as slaves then they would be as freemen." 7. "They could not take care of themselves if set free." 8. "Their simultaneous liberation would be attended with great danger." 9. "Any interference in their behalf will excite the ill-will of the South, and thus seriously affect Northern trade and commerce." 10. "The Union can be preserved only by letting Slavery alone, and that is of paramount importance." 11. "Slavery is a lawful and const.i.tutional system, and therefore not a crime." 12. "Slavery is sanctioned by the Bible; the Bible is the word of G.o.d; therefore G.o.d sanctions Slavery, and the Abolitionists are wise above what is written."

Here, then, are twelve reasons which are popularly urged in all parts of the country, as conclusive against the right of a man to himself.

If they are valid, in any instance, what becomes of the Declaration of Independence? On what ground can the revolutionary war, can any struggle for liberty, be justified? Nay, cannot all the despotisms of the earth take shelter under them? If they are valid, then why is not the jesuitical doctrine, that the end sanctifies them, and that it is right to do evil that good may come, morally sound? If they are valid, then how does it appear that G.o.d is no respecter of persons? or how can he say, "All souls are mine"? or what is to be done with Christ's injunction, "Call no man master"? or with what justice can the same duties and the same obligations (such as are embodied in the Decalogue and the gospel of Christ) be exacted of chattels as of men? But they are not valid. They are the logic of Bedlam, the morality of the pirate ship, the diabolism of the pit. They insult the common sense and shock the moral nature of mankind. Take them to Europe, and see with what scorn they will be universally treated! Go, first, to England, and gravely propound them there; and the universal response will proudly be, in the thrilling lines of Cowper,

"Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs Inhale our air, that moment they are free!

They touch our country, and their shackles fall!"

Every Briton, indignant at the monstrous claim, will answer, in the emphatic words of Brougham: "Tell me not of rights; talk not of the property of the planter in his slaves! I deny the right--I acknowledge not the property! The principles, the feelings of our nature, rise in rebellion against it. Be the appeal made to the understanding or to the heart, the sentence is the same that rejects it." And Curran, in words of burning eloquence, shall reply: "I speak in the spirit of the British law, which makes liberty commensurate with, and inseparable from, the British soil--which proclaims, even to the stranger and the sojourner, that the ground on which he treads is holy, and consecrated by the genius of universal emanc.i.p.ation. No matter in what language his doom may have been p.r.o.nounced; no matter what complexion an Indian or an African sun may have burnt upon him; no matter in what disastrous battle his liberty may have been cloven down; no matter with what solemnities he may have been offered upon the altar of Slavery; the first moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the G.o.d sink together in the dust--his spirit walks abroad in its own majesty--his body swells beyond the measure of his chains, and he stands redeemed, regenerated and disenthralled, by the irresistible genius of universal emanc.i.p.ation."

Again--take these slaveholding pleas to Scotland and from the graves of the dead and the homes of the living, they shall be replied to in thunder-tones in the language of Burns: "A man's a man, for all that."

"Who would be a traitor knave?

Who would fill a coward's grave?

Who so base as be a slave?

Let him turn and flee!"

Pa.s.s over to Ireland, and there repeat those excuses for Slavery, and eight million voices shall reply, in the words of Thomas Moore:

"To think that man, thou just and loving G.o.d!

Should stand before thee with a tyrant's rod, O'er creatures like himself, with souls from Thee, Yet dare to boast of perfect liberty!

Away! away! I'd rather hold my neck By doubtful tenure from a Sultan's beck, In climes where liberty has scarce been nam'd, Nor any right but that of ruling claim'd, Than thus to live where boasted Freedom waves Her fustian flag in mockery over slaves!"

And the testimony of O'Connell, in behalf of all Ireland, shall pa.s.s from mouth to mouth: "I am an Abolitionist. I am for speedy, immediate Abolition. I care not what caste, creed or colour, Slavery may a.s.sume.

Whether it be personal or political, mental or corporeal, intellectual or spiritual, I am for its instant, its total Abolition. I am for justice, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living G.o.d." "Let none of the slave-owners, dealers in human flesh, dare to set a foot upon our free soil!" "We are all children of the same Creator, heirs of the same promise, purchased by the blood of the same Redeemer--and what signifies of what caste colour or creed we may be? It is our duty to proclaim that the cause of the negro is our cause, and that we will insist upon doing away, to the best of our human ability, the stain of Slavery, not only from every portion of this mighty empire, but from the whole face of the earth." "Let the American Abolitionists be honoured in proportion as the slaveholders are execrated."

Pa.s.s over to the Continent, even into Papal-ridden Italy, and there urge the popular pleas in defence of slaveholding, and, from the Vatican, Pope Gregory XVI. shall reply: "We urgently invoke, in the name of G.o.d, all Christians, of whatever condition, that none henceforth dare to subject to Slavery, unjustly persecute, or despoil of their goods, Indians, Negroes, or other cla.s.ses of men, or to be accessories to others, or furnish them aid or a.s.sistance in so doing; and on no account henceforth to exercise that inhuman traffic, by which Negroes are reduced to Slavery, as if they were not men, but automata or chattels, and are sold in defiance of all the laws of justice and humanity, and devoted to severe and intolerable labours."

Proceed to Austria, and there defend the practice of reducing men to Slavery, and the Austrian code shall proclaim: "Every man, by right of nature, sanctioned by reason, must be considered a free person. Every slave becomes free from the moment he touches the Austrian soil, or an Austrian ship."

Finally, enter the Tunisian dominions, and there urge the claim of property in man, and Musheer Ahmed Bashaw Bey shall reply: "We declare that all slaves that shall enter our kingdom, by land or by sea, shall be free; and further order, that every one born a slave in our dominions shall be considered as free from the very instant of his birth, and that he shall neither be sold nor bought."

Thus do I prove that, in regard to personal liberty--the right of every man to the ownership of his own body--even Italy, Austria and Tunis are in advance of this boasted Republic, and put it to open shame!

III. The Abolitionism which I advocate is as absolute as the law of G.o.d, and as unyielding as His throne. It admits of no compromise.

Every slave is a stolen man; every slaveholder is a man-stealer. By no precedent, no example, no law, no compact, no purchase, no bequest, no inheritance, no combination of circ.u.mstances, is slaveholding right or justifiable. While a slave remains in his fetters, the land must have no rest. Whatever sanctions his doom must be p.r.o.nounced accursed. The law that makes him a chattel is to be trampled under foot; the compact that is formed at his expense, and cemented with his blood, is null and void; the church that consents to his enslavement is horribly atheistical; the religion that receives to its communion the enslaver is the embodiment of all criminality. Such, at least, is the verdict of my own soul, on the supposition that I am to be the slave; that my wife is to be sold from me for the vilest purposes; that my children are to be torn from my arms, and disposed of to the highest bidder, like sheep in the market. And who am I but a man? What right have I to be free, that another man cannot prove himself to possess by nature? Who or what are my wife and children, that they should not be herded with four-footed beasts, as well as others thus sacredly related? If I am white, and another is black, complexionally, what follows?

"Does, then, th' immortal principle within Change with the casual colour of the skin?

Does matter govern spirit? or is mind Degraded by the form to which 'tis joined?"

What if I am rich, and another is poor--strong, and he is weak--intelligent, and he is benighted--elevated, and he is depraved?

"Have we not one Father? Hath not one G.o.d created us?"

"How rich, how poor, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful is man!

Distinguished link in being's endless chain, Midway from nothing to the Deity!

A beam ethereal, sullied and absorpt; Though sullied and dishonoured, still divine!"

Such is man, in every clime--above all compacts, greater than all inst.i.tutions, sacred against every outrage, priceless, immortal!

By this sure test, every inst.i.tution, every party, every form of government, every kind of religion, is to be tried. G.o.d never made a human being either for destruction or degradation. It is plain, therefore, that whatever cannot flourish except at the sacrifice of that being, ought not to exist. Show me the party that can obtain supremacy only by trampling upon human individuality and personal sovereignty, and you will thereby p.r.o.nounce sentence of death upon it.

Show me the government which can be maintained only by destroying the rights of a portion of the people; and you will indicate the duty of openly revolting against it. Show me the religion which sanctions the ownership of one man by another, and you will demonstrate it to be purely infernal in its origin and spirit.

No man is to be injured in his person, mind, or estate. He cannot be, with benefit to any other man, or to any state of society. Whoever would sacrifice him for any purpose is both morally and politically insane. Every man is equivalent to every other man. Destroy the equivalent, and what is left? "So G.o.d created man in his own image--male and female created he them." This is a death-blow to all claims of superiority, to all charges of inferiority, to all usurpation, to all oppressive dominion.

But all three declarations are truisms. Most certainly; and they are all that is stigmatized as "Garrisonian Abolitionism." I have not, at any time, advanced an ultra sentiment, or made an extravagant demand.

I have avoided fanaticism on the one hand, fully on the other. No man can show that I have taken one step beyond the line of justice, or forgotten the welfare of the master in my anxiety to free the slave.

Why, citizens of the Empire State, did you proclaim liberty to all in bondage on your soil, in 1827, and forevermore? Certainly, not on the ground of expediency, but of principle. Why do you make slaveholding unlawful among yourselves? Why is it not as easy to buy, breed, inherit, and make slaves in this State, compatible with benevolence, justice, and right, as it is in Carolina or Georgia? Why do you compel the unmasked refugee from Van Dieman's Land to sigh for "a plantation well stocked with healthy negroes in Alabama," and not allow him the right to own and flog slaves in your presence? If slaveholding is not wrong under all circ.u.mstances, why have you decreed it to be so, within the limits of your State jurisdiction?