The Underground Railroad
William Lloyd Garrison
Among the Abolitionists of Pennsylvania no man stands higher than Dr. Furness; and no anti-slavery minister enjoys more universal respect. For more than thirty years he bore faithful witness for the black man; in season and out of season contending for his rights. When others deserted the cause he stood firm; when associates in the ministry were silent he spoke out. They defined their position by declaring themselves “as much opposed to slavery as ever, but without sympathy for the abolitionists.” He defined his by showing himself more opposed to slavery than ever, and fraternizing with the most hated and despised anti-slavery people.
Dr. Furness came into the cause when it was in its infancy, and had few adherents. From that time till the day of its triumph he was one with it, sharing in all its trials and vicissitudes. In the operations of the Vigilance Committee he took the liveliest interest. Though not in form a member he was one of its chief co-laborers. He brought it material aid continually, and was one of its main reliances for outside support. His quick sympathies were easily touched and when touched were sure to prompt him to corresponding action. He would listen with moistened eyes to a tale of outrage, and go away saying never a word. But the story of wrong would work upon him; and through him upon others. His own feelings were communicated to his friends, and his friends would send gifts to the Committee’s treasury. A wider spread sympathy would manifest itself in the community, and the general interests of the cause be visibly promoted. It was in the latter respect, that of moral co-operation, that Dr. Furness’s services were most valuable. After hearing a harrowing recital, whether he would or not, it became the burden of his next Sunday’s sermon. Abundant proof of this may be found in his printed discourses. Take the following as an illustration. It is an extract from a sermon delivered on the 29th of May, 1854, a period when the slave oligarchy was at the height of its power and was supported at the North by the most violent demonstrations of sympathy. The text was, “Feed my Lambs:”
“And now brothers, sisters, children, give me your hearts, listen with a will to what I have to say. As heaven is my witness, I would not utter one word save for the dear love of Christ and of God, and the salvation of your own souls. Does it require any violent effort of the mind to suppose Christ to address each one of us personally the same question that He put to Peter, ‘Lovest thou me?’ * * * And at the hearing of His brief command, ‘Feed my lambs,’ so simple, so direct, so unqualified, are we prompted like the teacher of the law who, when Christ bade him love his neighbor as himself, asked, ‘And who is my neighbor?’ and in the parable of the good Samaritan, received an answer that the Samaritans whom he despised, just as we despise the African, was his neighbor, are we prompted in like manner to ask, ‘Who are the lambs of Christ?’ Who are His lambs? Behold that great multitude, more than three millions of men and feeble women and children, wandering on our soil; no not wandering, but chained down, not allowed to stir a step at their own free will, crushed and hunted with all the power of one of the mightiest nations that the world has yet seen, wielded to keep them down in the depths of the deepest degradation into which human beings can be plunged. These, then that we despise, are our neighbors, the poor, stricken lambs of Christ.
To cast one thought towards them, may well cause us to bow down our heads in the very dust with shame. No wonder that professing to love Christ and his religion, we do not like to hear them spoken of; for so far from feeding the lambs of Christ, we are exciting the whole associated power of this land, to keep them from being fed. ‘Feed my lambs,’ We might feed them with fraternal sympathy, with hope, with freedom, the imperishable bread of Heaven. We might lead them into green pastures and still waters, into the glorious liberty wherewith Christ died to make all men free, the liberty of the children of God. We might secure to them the exercise of every sacred affection and faculty, wherewith the Creator has endowed them. But we do none of those things. We suffer this great flock of the Lord Jesus to be treated as chattels, bought and sold, like beasts of burden, hunted and lacerated by dogs and wolves. I say we, we of these Free Northern communities, because it is by our allowance, signified as effectually by silence, as by active co-operation, that such things are. They could continue so, scarcely an hour, were not the whole moral, religious and physical power of the North pledged to their support. Are we not in closest league and union with those who claim and use the right to buy and sell human beings, God’s poor, the lambs of Christ, a union, which we imagine brings us in as much silver and gold as compensates for the sacrifice of our humanity and manhood? Nay, are we not under a law to do the base work of bloodhounds, hunting the panting fugitives for freedom? I utter no word of denunciation. There is no need. For facts that have occurred only within the last week, transcend all denunciation. Only a few hours ago, there was a man with his two sons, hurried back into the inhuman bondage, from which they had just escaped, and that man, the brother, and those two sons, the nephews of a colored clergyman of New York, of such eminence in the New School Presbyterian Church, that he has received the honors of a European University, and has acted as Moderator in one of the Presbyteries of the same Church, when held in the city where he resides. Almost at the very moment the poor fugitive with his children, were dragged through our city, the General Assembly of that very branch of the Presbyterian Church, now in session here, after discussing for days the validity of Roman Catholic baptism, threw out as inexpedient to be discussed, the subject of that great wrong which was flinging back into the agony of Slavery, a brother of one of their own ordained ministers, and could not so much as breathe a word of condemnation against the false and cruel deed which has just been consummated at the capitol of the nation.
When such facts are occurring in the midst of us, we cannot be guiltless concerning the lambs of Christ. It is we, we who make up the public opinion of the North, we who consent that these free States shall be the hunting-ground, where these, our poor brothers and sisters, are the game; it is we that withhold from them the bread of life, the inalienable rights of man. As we withhold these blessings, so is it in our power to bestow them. The sheep then that Christ commands us, as we love Him, to feed, are those who are famishing for the lack of the food which it is in our power to supply. And we can help to feed and relieve and liberate them, by giving our hearty sympathy to the blessed cause of their emancipation, to the abolition of the crying injustice with which they are treated, by uttering our earnest protest against the increasing and flagrant outrages of the oppressor, by withholding all aid and countenance from the work of oppression.”
To say that Dr. Furness, in his pleadings for the slave, was “instant in season and out of season,” is not to exaggerate. So palpably was this true, that even some of his sympathizing friends intimated to him, that his zeal carried him beyond proper bounds, and that his discourses were needlessly reiterative. To these friends,—who, it is needless to say, did not fully comprehend the breadth and bearing of the question,—he would reply as he did in the following extract from a sermon delivered soon after the one above quoted:
“Again and again, I have had it said to me, with apparently the most perfect simplicity, ‘Why do you keep saying so much about the slaves? Do you imagine that there is one among your hearers who does not agree with you? We all know that Slavery is very wrong. What, is the use of harping upon this subject Sunday after Sunday? We all feel about it just as you do.’ ‘Feel about it just as I do,’ Very likely, my friends. It is very possible that you all feel as much, and that many of you feel about it more than I do. God knows that my regret always has been not that I feel so much, but that I do not feel more. Would to Heaven that neither you nor I could eat or sleep for pity, pity for our poor down-trodden brothers and sisters. But the thing to which I implore your attention now, is, not what we know and feel, but the delusion which we are under, in confounding knowing with doing, in fancying that we are working to abolish Slavery because we know that it is wrong. This is what I would have you now to consider, the deception that we practise on ourselves, the dangerous error into which we fall, when we pass off the knowledge of our duty for the performance of it. These are two very distinct things. If you know what is right, happy are ye if ye do it.
Observe, my friends, what it is to which I am now entreating your consideration. It is not the wrongs nor the rights of the oppressed upon which I am now discoursing. It is our own personal exposure to a most serious mistake. It is a danger, which threatens our own souls, to which I would that our eyes should be open and on the watch.
And here, by the way, let me say that one great reason why I refer as often as I do, to that great topic of the day, which, in one shape or another, is continually shaking the land and marking the age in which we live, is not merely the righting of the wronged, but the instruction, the moral enlightenment, the religious edification of our own hearts, which this momentous topic affords. To me this subject involves infinitely more than a mere question of humanity. Its political bearing is the very least and most superficial part of it, scarcely worth noticing in comparison with its moral and religious relations. Once, deterred by its outside, political aspect, I shunned it as many do still, but the more it has pressed itself on my attention, the more I have considered it—the more and more manifest has it become to me, that it is a subject full of light and of guidance, of warning and inspiration for the individual soul. It is the most powerful means of grace and salvation appointed in the providence of Heaven, for the present day and generation, more religious than churches and Sabbaths. It is full of sermons. It is a perfect gospel, a whole Bible of mind-enlightening, heart-cleansing, soul-saving truth. How much light has it thrown for me on the page of the New Testament! What a profound significance has it disclosed in the precepts and parables of Jesus Christ! How do His words burst out with a new meaning! How does it help us to appreciate His trials and the Godlike spirit with which He bore them!”
The dark winter of 1860 broke gloomily over all abolitionists; perhaps upon none did it press more heavily, than upon the small band in Philadelphia. Situated as that city is, upon the very edge of Slavery, and socially bound as it was, by ties of blood or affinity with the slave-holders of the South, to all human foresight it would assuredly be the first theatre of bloodshed in the coming deadly struggle. As Dr. Furness said in his sermon on old John Brown: “Out of the grim cloud that hangs over the South, a bolt has darted, and blood has flowed, and the place where the lightning struck, is wild with fear.” The return stroke we all felt must soon follow, and Philadelphia, we feared, would be selected as the spot where Slavery would make its first mortal onslaught, and the abolitionists there, the first victims. Dr. Furness had taken part in the public meeting held on the day of John Brown’s execution, to offer prayers for the heroic soul that was then passing away, and had gone with two or three others, to the rail-road station, to receive the martyr’s body, when it was brought from the gallows by Mr. (afterwards General) Tyndale and Mr. McKim, and it was generally feared that he and his church would receive the brunt of Slavery’s first blow. The air was thick with vague apprehension and rumor, so much so, that some of Dr. Furness’s devoted parishioners, who followed his abolitionism but not his non-resistance, came armed to church, uncertain what an hour might bring forth, or in what shape of mob violence or assassination the blow would fall. Few of Dr. Furness’s hearers will forget his sermon of December 16, 1860, so full was it of prophetic warning, and saddened by the thought of the fate which might be in store for him and his congregation. It was printed in the “Evening Bulletin,” and made a deep impression on the public outside of his own church, and was reprinted in full, in the Boston “Atlas.”
“But the trouble cannot be escaped. It must come. But we can put it off. By annihilating free speech; by forbidding the utterance of a word in the pulpit and by the press, for the rights of man; by hurling back into the jaws of oppression, the fugitive gasping for his sacred liberty; by recognizing the right of one man to buy and sell other men; by spreading the blasting curse of despotism over the whole soil of the nation, you may allay the brutal frenzy of a handful of southern slave-masters; you may win back the cotton States to cease from threatening you with secession, and to plant their feet upon your necks, and so evade the trouble that now menaces us. Then you may live on the few years that are left you, and perhaps—it is not certain—we may be permitted to make a little more money and die in our beds. But no, friends, I am mistaken. We cannot put the trouble off. Or, we put it off in its present shape, only that it may take another and more terrible form. If, to get rid of the present alarm, we concede all that makes it worth while to live—and nothing less will avail—perhaps those who can deliberately make such a concession, will not feel the degradation, but, stripped of all honor and manhood, they may eat as heartily and sleep as soundly as ever. But the degradation is not the less, but the greater, for our unconsciousness of it. The trouble which we shall then bring upon ourselves, is a trouble in comparison with which the loss of all things but honor is a glorious gain, and a violent death for right’s sake on the scaffold, or by the hands of a mob, peace and joy and victory.
Since we are thus placed, and there is no alternative for us of the free States, but to meet the trouble that is upon us, or by base concessions and compromises to bring upon ourselves a far greater trouble, in the name of God, let us let all things go, and cleave to the right. Prepared to confront the crisis like men, let us with all possible calmness endeavor to take the measure of the calamity that we dread. God knows I have no desire to make light of it. But I affirm, that never since the world began, was there a grander cause for which to speak, to suffer and to die, than the cause of these free States, as against that of the States now rushing upon Secession. The great grievance of which they complain, is nothing more nor less than this: that we endanger the right they claim to treat human beings as beasts of burden. And they maintain this monstrous claim by measures inhuman and barbarous, listening not to the voice of reason or humanity, but treating every man who goes amongst them, suspected of not favoring their cause, or of the remotest connection with others who do not favor it, with a most savage and fiendish cruelty. It is the conflict between barbarism and civilization, between liberty and the most horrible despotism that ever cursed this earth, in which we are called to take part.
And all that is great and noble in the past, all the patriots and martyrs that have suffered in man’s behalf, all the sacred instincts and hopes of the human soul are on our side, and the welfare of untold generations of men. Oh, if God, in his infinite bounty, grants us the grace to appreciate the transcendent worth of the cause which is now at stake, there is no trouble that can befall us, no, not the loss of property, of idolized parents or children, or life itself, that we shall not count a blessed privilege. To serve this dear cause of peace and liberty and love, we have no need to grasp the sword or any instrument of violence and death. But we must be ready without flinching, to confront the utmost that men can do, and amidst all the uproar and violence of human passions, still calmly to assert and to exercise our sacred and inalienable liberties, let who will frown and forbid, assured that no just and law-of-God-abiding people, will ever do otherwise than give us their sympathy and their aid.
Death is the worst that can befall us, if so be that we are faithful to the right. It is a solemn and a fearful thing to die, and mortality shrinks from facing that last great mystery. But we must all die, my friends, and the dying hour is not far distant from the youngest of us. To most of us it is very near. To many, only a few brief years remain. And for the sake of these few and uncertain years, shall we push off this present trouble upon our children, who have to stay here a little longer? There is nothing that can so sweeten the bitter cup of mortality when we shall be called to drink it, nothing that can so cheer us in the prospect of parting from all we love, nothing that can send such a blessed light on before us into the dark valley which we must enter, as the consciousness of fidelity to man and to God. And now in these times of great trouble which have come upon us, we have a peculiar and special opportunity of testifying our fidelity, and of enjoying a full experience of its power to support us. We may gather from this trouble, a sweetness that shall take away from all suffering its bitterness. We may kindle that light in our bosoms, which shall make death come to us as a radiant angel.”
Four months after the above was uttered, on the 28th of April, 1861, after the attack on Fort Sumter, and the whole North had burst into a flame, people of all denominations flocked to Dr. Furness’s church, as to that church which had shown that it was founded on a rock, and none can ever forget the long-drawn breath with which the sermon began: “The long agony is over!” It was the “Te Deum” of a life-time.
Dr. Furness’s words and counsels were not wanting throughout the war, and his sermons were constantly printed in the daily press and in separate pamphlet form. And since its close he has continued his absorbing study of the historical accounts of Jesus.
Dr. Furncss was born in Boston, in April, 1802, and was graduated at Harvard, in 1820, and five years later became the minister of the First Congregational Unitarian Christians, in this city, and is consequently the senior clergyman, here, on the score of length of pastorate.
Happy is the man, and enviable the gospel minister, who, looking back upon his course in the great anti-slavery contest, can recall as the chief charge brought against him, that of being over-zealous! That he spoke too often and said too much in favor of the slave! There are but few men, and still fewer ministers, who have a right to take comfort from such recollections! and yet it is to this small class that the cause is most indebted under God, for its triumph, and the country for its deliverance from Slavery.
* * * * *
It was a system of which it may be truly said, that it was twice cursed. It cursed him who served, and it cursed him that owned the slave. (Hear, hear.) When we recollect the insuperable temptations which that system held out to maintain in a state of degradation and ignorance a whole race of mankind; the horrors of the internal slave-trade, more widely demoralizing, in my opinion, than the foreign slave-trade itself; the violence which was done to the sanctities of domestic life; the corrupting effect which it was having upon the very churches of Christianity, when we recollect all these things, we can fully estimate the evil from which my distinguished friend and his coadjutors have at last redeemed their country. (Cheers.) It was not only the Slave states which were concerned in the guilt of slavery; it had struck its roots deep in the free States of North America. * * *
We honor Mr. Garrison, in the first place, for the immense pluck and courage he displayed. (Cheers.) Sir, you have truly said that there is no comparison between the contests in which he had to fight and the most bitter contests of our own public life. In looking back, no doubt, to the contest which was maintained in this country some thirty-five years ago against slavery in our colonies, we may recollect that Clarkson and Wilberforce were denounced as fanatics, and had to encounter much opprobrium; but it must not be forgotten that, so far as regards the entwining of the roots of slavery into the social system, in the opinions and interests of mankind, there was no comparison whatever between the circumstances of that contest here and those which attended it in America. (Hear, hear.) The number of persons who in this country were enlisted on the side of slavery by personal interest was always comparatively few; whilst, in attacking slavery at its head-quarters in the United States, Mr. Garrison had to encounter the fiercest passions which could be roused. * * * *
Thank God, Mr. Garrison appears before us as the representative of the United States; freedom is now the policy of the government and the assured policy of the country, and we can to-day accept and welcome Mr. Garrison, not merely as the liberator of the slaves, but as the representative also of the American Government. (Cheers.) * * * *
THE ADDRESS TO WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, ESQ.
“SIR:—We heartily welcome you to England in the name of thousands of Englishmen who have watched with admiring sympathy your labors for the redemption of the negro race from slavery, and for that which is a higher object than the redemption of any single race, the vindication of the universal principles of humanity and justice; and who, having sympathized with you in the struggle, now rejoice with you in the victory.
“Forty years ago, when you commenced your efforts, slavery appeared to be rapidly advancing to complete ascendency in America. Not only was it dominant in the Southern States, but even in the Free States it had bowed the constituencies, society, and, in too many instances, even the churches to its will. Commerce, linked to it by interest, lent it her support. A great party, compactly organized and vigorously wielded, placed in its hands the power of the state. It bestowed political offices and honors, and was thereby enabled to command the apostate homage of political ambition. Other nations felt the prevalence in your national councils of its insolent and domineering spirit. There was a moment, most critical in the history of America and of the world, when it seemed as though that continent, with all its resources and all its hopes, was about to become the heritage of the slave power.
“But Providence interposes to prevent the permanent triumph of evil. It interposes, not visibly or by the thunderbolt, but by inspiring and sustaining high moral effort and heroic lives.
“You commenced your crusade against slavery in isolation, in weakness, and in obscurity. The emissaries of authority with difficulty found the office of the Liberator in a mean room, where its editor was aided only by a negro boy, and supported by a few insignificant persons (so the officers termed them) of all colors. You were denounced, persecuted, and hunted down by mobs of wealthy men alarmed for the interests of their class. You were led out by one of these mobs, and saved from their violence and the imminent peril of death, almost by a miracle. You were not turned from your path of devotion to your cause, and to the highest interests of your country, by denunciation, persecution, or the fear of death. You have lived to stand victorious and honored in the very stronghold of slavery; to see the flag of the republic, now truly free, replace the flag of slavery on Fort Sumter; and to proclaim the doctrines of the Liberator in the city, and beside the grave of Calhoun.
“Enemies of war, we most heartily wish, and doubt not that you wish as heartily as we do, that this deliverance could have been wrought out by peaceful means. But the fierce passions engendered by slavery in the slaveowner, determined it otherwise; and we feel at liberty to rejoice, since the struggle was inevitable, that its issue has been the preservation, not the extinction, of all that we hold most dear. We are, however, not more thankful for the victories of freedom in the field than for the moderation and mercy shown by the victors, which have exalted and hallowed their cause and ours in the eyes of all nations.
“We shall now watch with anxious hope the development, amidst the difficulties which still beset the regeneration of the South, of a happier order of things in the States rescued from slavery, and the growth of free communities, in which your name, with the names of your fellow-workers in the same cause, will be held in grateful and lasting remembrance.
“Once more we welcome you to a country in which you will find many sincere admirers and warm friends.”
EARL RUSSELL and JOHN STUART MILL, M.P., at the close of the address, followed with most eloquent speeches, conferring on the honored guest the highest praise for his life-long and successful labors in the cause of freedom. After these gentlemen had taken their seats, the Chairman proposed that the address should be passed unanimously.
The Chairman’s call was responded to by the whole assemblage lifting up their hands; and Mr. Garrison, presenting himself in front of the platform, was received with an enthusiastic burst of cheering, hats and handkerchiefs being waved by nearly all present.
SPEECH OF MR. GARRISON.
Mr. Garrison said:—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,—For this marked expression of your personal respect, and appreciation of my labors in the cause of human freedom, and of your esteem and friendship for the land of my nativity, I offer you, one and all, my grateful acknowledgments. But I am so profoundly impressed by the formidable array of rank, genius, intellect, scholarship, and moral and religious worth which I see before me, that I fear I shall not be able to address you, except with a fluttering pulse and a stammering tongue. For me this is, indeed, an anomalous position. Assuredly, this is treatment with which I have not been familiar. For more than thirty years, I had to look the fierce and unrelenting hostility of my countrymen in the face, with few to cheer me onward. In all the South I was an outlaw, and could not have gone there, though an American citizen guiltless of wrong, and though that flag (here the speaker pointed to the United States ensign) had been over my head, except at the peril of my life; nay, with the certainty of finding a bloody grave. (Hear, hear.) In all the North I was looked upon with hatred and contempt. The whole nation, subjugated to the awful power of slavery, rose up in mobocratic tumult against any and every effort to liberate the millions held in bondage on its soil. And yet I demanded nothing that was not perfectly just and reasonable, in exact accordance with the Declaration of American Independence and the Golden Rule. I was not the enemy of any man living. I cherish no personal enmities; I know nothing of them in my heart. Even whilst the Southern slave-holders were seeking my destruction, I never for a moment entertained any other feeling toward them than an earnest desire, under God, to deliver them from a deadly curse and an awful sin. (Hear, hear.) It was neither a sectional nor a personal matter at all. It had exclusive reference to the eternal law of justice between man and man, and the rights of human nature itself.
Sir, I always found in America that a shower of brickbats had a remarkably tonic effect, materially strengthening to the back-bone. (Laughter.) But, sir, the shower of compliments and applause, which has greeted me on this occasion would assuredly cause my heart to fail me, were it not that this generous reception is only incidentally personal to myself. (Hear, hear.) You, ladies and gentlemen, are here mainly to celebrate the triumph of humanity over its most brutal foes; to rejoice that universal emancipation has at last been proclaimed throughout the United States: and to express, as you have already done through the mouths of the eloquent speakers who have preceded me, sentiments of peace and of good-will toward the American Republic. Sure I am that these sentiments will be heartily reciprocated by my countrymen. (Cheers.)
I must here disclaim, with all sincerity of soul, any special praise for anything that I have done. I have simply tried to maintain the integrity of my soul before God, and to do my duty. (Cheers.) I have refused to go with the multitude to do evil. I have endeavored to save my country from ruin. I have sought to liberate such as were held captive in the house of bondage. But all this I ought to have done.
And now, rejoicing here with you at the marvellous change which has taken place across the Atlantic, I am unable to express the satisfaction I feel in believing that, henceforth, my country will be a mighty power for good in the world. While she held a seventh portion of her vast population in a state of chattelism, it was in vain that she boasted of her democratic principles and her free institutions; ostentatiously holding her Declaration of Independence in one hand, and brutally wielding her slave-driving lash in the other. Marvellous inconsistency and unparalleled assurance. But now, God be praised, she is free, free to advance the cause of liberty throughout the world. (Loud cheers.)
Sir, this is not the first time I have been in England. I have been here three times before on anti-slavery missions; and wherever I traveled, I was always exultantly told, “Slaves cannot breathe in England!” Now, at last, I am at liberty to say, and I came over with the purpose to say it, “Slaves cannot breathe in America!” (Cheers.) And so England and America stand side by side in the cause of negro emancipation; and side by side may they stand in all that is just and noble and good, leading the way gloriously in the world’s redemption. (Loud cheers.)
I came to this country for the first time in 1833, to undeceive Wilberforce, Clarkson, and other eminent philanthropists, in regard to the real character, tendency, and object of the American Colonization Society. I am happy to say that I quickly succeeded in doing so. Before leaving, I had the pleasure of receiving a protest against that Society as an obstruction to the cause of freedom throughout the world, and, consequently, as undeserving of British confidence and patronage, signed by William Wilberforce, Thomas Fowell Buxton, Zachary Macaulay, and other illustrious philanthropists. On arriving in London I received a polite invitation by letter from Mr. Buxton to take breakfast with him. Presenting myself at the appointed time, when my name was announced, instead of coming forward promptly to take me by the hand, he scrutinized me from head to foot, and then inquired, somewhat dubiously, “Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Garrison, of Boston, in the United States?” “Yes, sir,” I replied, “I am he; and I am here in accordance with your invitation.” Lifting up his hands he exclaimed, “Why, my dear sir, I thought you were a black man. And I have consequently invited this company of ladies and gentlemen to be present to welcome Mr. Garrison, the black advocate of emancipation from the United States of America.” (Laughter.) I have often said, sir, that that is the only compliment I have ever had paid to me that I care to remember or tell of. For Mr. Buxton had somehow or other supposed that no white American could plead for those in bondage as I had done, and therefore I must be black. (Laughter.)
It is indeed true, sir, that I have had no other rule by which to be guided than this. I never cared to know precisely how many stripes were inflicted on the slaves. I never deemed it necessary to go down into the Southern States, if I could have gone, for the purpose of taking the exact dimensions of the slave system. I made it from the start, and always, my own case, thus: Did I want to be a slave? No. Did God make me to be a slave? No. But I am only a man, only one of the human race; and if not created to be a slave, then no other human being was made for that purpose. My wife and children, dearer to me than my heart’s blood, were they made for the auction-block? Never! And so it was all very easily settled here (pointing to his breast). (Great cheering.) I could not help being an uncompromising abolitionist.
Here allow me to pay a brief tribute to the American abolitionists. Putting myself entirely out of the question, I believe that in no land, at any time, was there ever a more devoted, self-sacrificing, and uncompromising band of men and women. Nothing can be said to their credit which they do not deserve. With apostolic zeal, they counted nothing dear to them for the sake of the slave, and him dehumanized. But whatever has been achieved through them is all of God, to whom alone is the glory due. Thankful are we all that we have been permitted to live to see this day, for our country’s sake, and for the sake of mankind. Of course, we are glad that our reproach is at last taken away; for it is very desirable, if possible, to have the good opinions of our fellow-men; but if, to secure these, we must sell our manhood and sully our souls, then their bad opinions of us are to be coveted instead.
Sir, my special part in this grand struggle was in first unfurling the banner of immediate and unconditional emancipation, and attempting to make a common rally under it. This I did, not in a free State, but in the city of Baltimore, in the slave-holding State of Maryland. It was not long before I was arrested, tried, condemned by a packed jury, and incarcerated in prison for my anti-slavery sentiments. This was in 1830. In 1864 I went to Baltimore for the first time since my imprisonment. I do not think that I could have gone at an earlier period, except at the peril of my life; and then only because the American Government was there in force, holding the rebel elements in subserviency. I was naturally curious to see the old prison again, and, if possible, to get into my old cell; but when I went to the spot, behold! the prison had vanished; and so I was greatly disappointed, (Laughter.) On going to Washington, I mentioned to President Lincoln, the disappointment I had met with. With a smiling countenance and a ready wit, he replied, “So, Mr. Garrison, the difference between 1830 and 1864 appears to be this: in 1830 you could not get out, and in 1864 you could not get in!” (Great laughter.) This was not only wittily said, but it truthfully indicated the wonderful revolution that had taken place in Maryland; for she had adopted the very doctrine for which she imprisoned me, and given immediate and unconditional emancipation to her eighty thousand slaves. (Cheers.)
I commenced the publication of the “Liberator” in Boston, on the 1st of January, 1831. At that time I was very little known, without allies, without means, without subscribers; yet no sooner did that little sheet make its appearance, than the South was thrown into convulsions, as if it had suddenly been invaded by an army with banners! Notwithstanding, the whole country was on the side of the slave power—the Church, the State, all parties, all denominations, ready to do its bidding! O the potency of truth, and the inherent weakness and conscious insecurity of great wrong! Immediately a reward of five thousand dollars was offered for my apprehension, by the State of Georgia. When General Sherman was making his victorious march through that State, it occurred to me, but too late, that I ought to have accompanied him, and in person claimed the reward—(laughter)—but I remembered, that, had I done so, I should have had to take my pay in Confederate currency, and therefore it would not have paid traveling expenses. (Renewed laughter.) Where is Southern Slavery now? (Cheers.) Henceforth, through all coming time, advocates of justice and friends of reform, be not discouraged; for you will, and you must succeed, if you have a righteous cause. No matter at the outset how few may be disposed to rally round the standard you have raised—if you battle unflinchingly and without compromise—if yours be a faith that cannot be shaken, because it is linked to the Eternal Throne—it is only a question of time when victory shall come to reward your toils. Seemingly, no system of iniquity was ever more strongly intrenched, or more sure and absolute in its sway, than that of American Slavery; yet it has perished.
“In the earthquake God has spoken;
He has smitten with His thunder
The iron walls asunder,
And the gates of brass are broken.”So it has been, so it is, so it ever will be throughout the earth, in every conflict for the right. (Great cheering.) * * * * *
Ladies and gentlemen, I began my advocacy of the Anti-slavery cause at the North in the midst of brickbats and rotten eggs. I ended it on the soil of South Carolina, almost literally buried beneath the wreaths and flowers which were heaped upon me by her liberal bondmen. (Cheers.)