Chapter IV: Northern Testimony

The best evidence that can be given of the enlightened patriotism and love of liberty in the Free States, is the fact that, at the Presidential election in 1856, they polled thirteen hundred thousand votes for the Republican candidate, JOHN C. FREMONT. This fact of itself seems to preclude the necessity of strengthening our cause with the individual testimony of even their greatest men. Having, however, adduced the most cogent and conclusive anti-slavery arguments from the Washingtons, the Jeffersons, the Madisons, the Randolphs, and the Clays of the South, we shall now proceed to enrich our pages with gems of Liberty from the Franklins, the Hamiltons, the Jays, the Adamses, and the Websters of the North. Too close attention cannot be paid to the words of wisdom which we have extracted from the works of these truly eminent and philosophic Statesmen. We will first listen to

THE VOICE OF FRANKLIN.

Dr. Franklin was the first president of "The Pennsylvania Society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery;" and it is now generally conceded that this was the first regularly organized American abolition Society--it having been formed as early as 1774, while we were yet subjects of the British government. In 1790, in the name and on behalf of this Society, Dr. Franklin, who was then within a few months of the close of his life, drafted a memorial "to the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States," in which he said:--

"Your memorialists, particularly engaged in attending to the
distresses arising from slavery, believe it to be their indispensable
duty to present this subject to your notice. They have observed, with
real satisfaction, that many important and salutary powers are vested
in you, for 'promoting the welfare and securing the blessings of
liberty to the people of the United States;' and as they conceive
that these blessings ought rightfully to be administered, without
distinction of color, to all descriptions of people, so they indulge
themselves in the pleasing expectation that nothing which can be done
for the relief of the unhappy objects of their care, will be either
omitted or delayed.

"From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the portion, and
is still the birthright of all men, and influenced by the strong ties
of humanity and the principles of their institution, your
memorialists conceive themselves bound to use all justifiable
endeavors to loosen the bonds of slavery, and promote a general
enjoyment of the blessings of freedom. Under these impressions, they
earnestly entreat your attention to the subject of slavery; that you
will be pleased to countenance the restoration to liberty of those
unhappy men, who, alone, in this land of freedom, are degraded into
perpetual bondage, and who, amid the general joy of surrounding
freemen, are groaning in servile subjection; that you will devise
means for removing this inconsistency of character from the American
people; that you will promote mercy and justice towards this
distressed race; and that you will step to the very verge of the
power vested in you for discouraging every species of traffic in the
persons of our fellow-men."

On another occasion, he says:--"Slavery is an atrocious debasement of human nature."

THE VOICE OF HAMILTON.

Alexander Hamilton, the brilliant Statesman and financier, tells us that:--

"The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old
parchments or musty records. They are written as with a sunbeam, in
the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the Divinity itself,
and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."

Again, in 1774, addressing himself to an American Tory, he says:--

"The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms, and false
reasonings, is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind.
Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never
entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to
equal privileges. You would be convinced that natural liberty is the
gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole human race; and that
civil liberty is founded on that."

THE VOICE OF JAY.

John Jay, first Chief Justice of the United States under the Constitution of 1789, in a letter to the Hon. Elias Boudinot, dated Nov. 17, 1819, says:--

"Little can be added to what has been said and written on the subject
of slavery. I concur in the opinion that it ought not to be
introduced nor permitted in any of the new States, and that it ought
to be gradually diminished and finally abolished in all of them.

"To me, the constitutional authority of the Congress to prohibit the
migration and importation of slaves into any of the States does not
appear questionable.

"The first article of the Constitution specifies the legislative
powers committed to the Congress. The 9th section of that article has
these words: 'The _migration_ or _importation_ of such persons as any
of the _now-existing_ States shall think proper to admit, shall not
be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808, but a tax or
duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars
for each person.'

"I understand the sense and meaning of this clause to be, that the
power of the congress, although competent to prohibit such migration
and importation, was to be exercised with respect to the _then_
existing States, and them only, until the year 1808, but the Congress
were at liberty to make such prohibitions as to any _new_ State,
which might in the _mean_ time be established. And further, that from
and after _that_ period, they were authorized to make such
prohibitions as to _all_ the States, whether _new_ or _old_.

"It will, I presume, be admitted, that slaves were the persons
intended. The word slaves was avoided, probably on account of the
existing toleration of slavery, and its discordancy with the
principles of the Revolution, and from a consciousness of its being
repugnant to the following positions in the Declaration of
Independence: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: 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.'"

In a previous letter, written from Spain, whither he had been appointed as minister plenipotentiary, he says, speaking of the abolition of slavery:--

"Till America comes into this measure, her prayers to Heaven will be
impious. This is a strong expression, but it is just. I believe that
God governs the world, and I believe it to be a maxim in His, as in
our Courts, that those who ask for equity ought to do it."

WILLIAM JAY.

The Hon. Wm. Jay, a noble son of Chief Justice John Jay, says:--

"A crisis has arrived in which we must maintain our rights, or
surrender them for ever. I speak not to abolitionists alone, but to
all who value the liberty our fathers achieved. Do you ask what we
have to do with slavery? Let our muzzled presses answer--let the mobs
excited against us by the merchants and politicians answer--let the
gag laws threatened by our governors and legislatures answer, let the
conduct of the National Government answer."

THE VOICE OF ADAMS.

From the Diary of John Quincy Adams, "the old man eloquent," we make the following extract:--

"It is among the evils of slavery, that it taints the very sources of
moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice;
for what can be more false and more heartless than this doctrine,
which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon
the color of the skin? It perverts human reason, and induces men
endowed with logical powers to maintain that slavery is sanctioned by
the Christian religion; that slaves are happy and contented in their
condition; that between master and slave there are ties of mutual
attachment and affection; that the virtues of the master are refined
and exalted by the degradation of the slave, while at the same time
they vent execrations upon the slave-trade, curse Britain for having
given them slaves, burn at the stake negroes convicted of crimes, for
the terror of the example, and writhe in agonies of fear at the very
mention of human rights as applicable to men of color."

THE VOICE OF WEBSTER.

In a speech which he delivered at Niblo's Garden, in the city of New-York, on the 15th of March, 1847, Daniel Webster, the great Expounder of the Constitution, said:--

"On the general question of slavery, a great part of the community is
already strongly excited. The subject has not only attracted
attention as a question of politics, but it has struck a far deeper
one ahead. It has arrested the religious feeling of the country, it
has taken strong hold on the consciences of men. He is a rash man,
indeed, and little conversant with human nature, and especially has
he an erroneous estimate of the character of the people of this
country, who supposes that a feeling of this kind is to be trifled
with or despised. It will assuredly cause itself to be respected. But
to endeavor to coin it into silver, or retain its free expression, to
seek to compress and confine it, warm as it is, and more heated as
such endeavors would inevitably render it--should this be attempted,
I know nothing, even in the Constitution or Union itself, which might
not be endangered by the explosion which might follow."

When discussing the Oregon Bill in 1848, he said:--

"I have made up my mind, for one, that under no circumstances will I
consent to the further extension of the area of slavery in the United
States, or to the further increase of slave representation in the
House of Representatives."

Under date of February 15th, 1850, in a letter to the Rev. Mr. Furness, he says:--

"From my earliest youth I have regarded slavery as a great moral and
political evil. I think it unjust, repugnant to the natural equality
of mankind, founded only in superior power; a standing and permanent
conquest by the stronger over the weaker. All pretense of defending
it on the ground of different races, I have ever condemned. I have
even said that if the black race is weaker, that is a reason against,
not for, its subjection and oppression. In a religious point of view
I have ever regarded it, and even spoken of it, not as subject to any
express denunciation, either in the Old Testament or the New, but as
opposed to the whole spirit of the Gospel and to the teachings of
Jesus Christ. The religion of Jesus Christ is a religion of kindness,
justice, and brotherly love. But slavery is not kindly affectionate;
it does not seek anothers, and not its own; it does not let the
oppressed go free. It is, as I have said, but a continual act of
oppression. But then, such is the influence of a habit of thinking
among men, and such is the influence of what has been long
established, that even minds, religious and tenderly conscientious,
such as would be shocked by any single act of oppression, in any
single exercise of violence and unjust power, are not always moved by
the reflection that slavery is a continual and permanent violation of
human rights."

While delivering a speech at Buffalo, in the State of New York, in the summer of 1851, only about twelve months prior to his decease, he made use of the following emphatic words:--

"I never would consent, and never have consented, that there should
be one foot of slave territory beyond what the old thirteen States
had at the formation of the Union. Never, never."

NOAH WEBSTER.

Noah Webster, the great American vocabulist, says:--

"That freedom is the sacred right of every man, whatever be his
color, who has not forfeited it by some violation of municipal law,
is a truth established by God himself, in the very creation of human
beings. No time, no circumstance, no human power or policy can change
the nature of this truth, nor repeal the fundamental laws of society,
by which every man's right to liberty is guarantied. The act of
enslaving men is always a violation of those great primary laws of
society, by which alone, the master himself holds every particle of
his own freedom."

THE VOICE OF CLINTON.

DeWitt Clinton, the father of the great system of internal improvements in the State of New York, speaking of despotism in Europe, and of slavery in America, asks:--

"Have not prescription and precedent--patriarchal dominion--divine
right of kings and masters, been alternately called in to sanction
the slavery of nations? And would not all the despotisms of the
ancient and modern world have vanished into air, if the natural
equality of mankind had been properly understood and practiced? * * *
This declares that the same measure of justice ought to be measured
out to all men, without regard to adventitious inequalities, and the
intellectual and physical disparities which proceed from inexplicable
causes."

THE VOICE OF WARREN.

Major General Joseph Warren, one of the truest patriots of the Revolution, and the first American officer of rank that fell in our contest with Great Britain, says:--

"That personal freedom is the natural right of every man, and that
property, or an exclusive right to dispose of what he has honestly
acquired by his own labor, necessarily arises therefrom, are truths
that common sense has placed beyond the reach of contradiction. And
no man, or body of men, can, without being guilty of flagrant
injustice, claim a right to dispose of the persons or acquisitions of
any other man or body of men, unless it can be proved that such a
right has arisen from some compact between the parties, in which it
has been explicitly and freely granted."

Otis, Hancock, Ames, and others, should be heard, but for the want of space. Volumes upon volumes might be filled with extracts similar to the above, from the works of the deceased Statesmen and sages of the North, who, while living, proved themselves equal to the task of exterminating from their own States the matchless curse of human slavery. Such are the men who, though no longer with us in the flesh, "still live." A living principle--an immortal interest--have they, invested in every great and good work that distinguishes the free States. The railroads, the canals, the telegraphs, the factories, the fleets of merchant vessels, the magnificent cities, the scientific modes of agriculture, the unrivaled institutions of learning, and other striking evidences of progress and improvement at the North, are, either directly or indirectly, the offspring of their gigantic intellects. When, if ever, commerce, and manufactures, and agriculture, and great enterprises, and truth, and liberty, and justice, and magnanimity, shall have become obsolete terms, then their names may possibly be forgotten, but not tell then.

An army of brave and worthy successors--champions of Freedom now living, have the illustrious forefathers of the North, in the persons of Garrison, Greeley, Giddings, Goodell, Grow, and Gerrit Smith; in Seward, Sumner, Stowe, Raymond, Parker, and Phillips; in Beecher, Banks, Burlingame, Bryant, Hale, and Hildreth; in Emerson, Dayton, Thompson, Tappan, King and Cheever; in Whittier, Wilson, Wade, Wayland, Weed, and Burleigh. These are the men whom, in connection with their learned and eloquent compatriots, the Everetts, the Bancrofts, the Prescotts, the Chapins, the Longfellows, and the Danas, future historians, if faithful to their calling, will place on record as America's true statesmen, literati, preachers, philosophers, and philanthropists, of the present age.

In this connection, however, it may not be amiss to remark that the Homers, the Platos, the Bacons, the Newtons, the Shakspeares, the Miltons, the Blackstones, the Cuviers, the Humboldts, and the Macaulays of America, have not yet been produced; nor, in our humble judgment, will they be, until slavery shall have been overthrown and freedom established in the States of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Upon the soil of those States, when free, or on other free soil crossed by about the same degrees of latitude, and not distant from the Appalachian chain of mountains, will, we believe, be nurtured into manhood, in the course of one or two centuries, perhaps, as great men as those mentioned above--greater, possibly, than any that have ever yet lived. Whence their ancestors may come, whether from Europe, from Asia, from Africa, from Oceanica, from North or South America, or from the islands of the sea, or whatever honorable vocation they may now be engaged in, matters nothing at all. For ought we know, their great-grandfathers are now humble artisans in Maine, or moneyed merchants in Massachusetts; illiterate poor whites in Mississippi, or slave-driving lordlings in South Carolina; frugal farmers in Michigan, or millionaires in Illinois; daring hunters in the Rocky Mountains, or metal-diggers in California; peasants in France, or princes in Germany--no matter where, or what, the scope of country above-mentioned is, in our opinion, destined to be the birth-place of their illustrious offspring--the great savans of the New World, concerning whom we should console ourselves with the hope that they are not buried deeply in the matrix of the future.