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©ur Nation's Sina awh t!)c ^IjrbtiaiVs IDuhj. 
 
 FAST DAY DISCOURSE, 
 
 DANIEL FOSTER, 
 
 MINISTER IN CHARGE OF THE 
 
 CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF CONCORD, MASS., 
 
 DELIVERED 
 
 APRIL IOth, 1851 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 WHITE & POTTER, PRINTERS. 
 185 L 
 
^ A O 
 
 
 

 ^^ 
 
 DISCOURSE. 
 
 We have met to-day in compliance with the invitation of our Gov- 
 ernor, to keep the annual Fast, which was estabUshed by our fathers as 
 a stated yearly service in the very infancy of New England. In the 
 Proclamation, appointing this Fast Day, we are invited, among other 
 things, " to consider, in the spirit of Christianity^ the private and pub- 
 lic sins of this community.'''' I propose to respond by a serious and 
 earnest discussion to-day, of this subject, — our Natio7i's sins arid the 
 Christianas duly. You will find my text in the 64th chapter of Isaiah, 
 a single clause of the 5th verse : " We have sinned.'''' 
 
 The Prophet speaks for Israel, for the ivhole nation in these words : 
 And now this day, may the minister of Christ, as the representative of' 
 this whole nation, take up this language and say, we, the most highly 
 favored of all the families of this earth, have greatly abused our high 
 privileges, shamefully neglected our precious opportunities, and with 
 stubborn will, " have we sinned.'''' 
 
 I ask your attention now to a brief statement of our National his- 
 tory: 
 
 Within the memory of some who are alive to-day, this country was 
 subject to Great Britain, and numbered fewer inhabitants than are now 
 held as slaves in the Southern States. But our fathers were oppressed 
 in various ways by the government, which treated them as aliens and 
 strangers, and they resolved, at length, that they could not submit longer 
 to this oppression, without the entire loss of manhood and honor. And 
 therefore they declared themselves independent of the government 
 which oppressed them, and pledging fortune, life, and honor, in the 
 great issues which they dared, they reared aloft the standard of Liberty, 
 and gathered beneath its folds, entering upon a doubtful, protracted, and 
 severe struggle for the precious right of self-government. On that 
 glorious standard the wondering nations saw divine truth, even the very 
 doctrines of the gospel of peace and good-will which God had given to 
 
men. Wehold these truths to he self-evident, that all men are created 
 equal, and are e7idowed by their Creator with certain inalienahlc rights. 
 The right to Lije, to Liberty, to the Pursuit of Happiness, each in his 
 own chosen loay, these are inalienable rights. Our fathers declared 
 these truths to be sef-evident, i. e. so plain that no argument or illus- 
 tration can be needed to demonstrate them to ihe mind. Just as the 
 fact that light emanates from the sun is self-evident, needing no effort 
 of argument or illustration to make it obvious to our optic faculty, so 
 are these truths declared to be self-evident that all men, Greek and Jew, 
 Scythian and Roman, White and Black, without respect to place of 
 abode or condition in social life — all are created equal and endowed by 
 their Creator with certain rights which cannot justly be abridged or 
 taken from them by their fellow men, except as a punishment for hei- 
 nous crime. The right to Life, the right to personal Liberty, the right 
 to individual choice in the profession or occupation to be followed in 
 life, is each an inalienable right, which God has given to all his intelli- 
 gent children. The only limitation to these rights is one that God has 
 made in the command to do no evil, and in the sanction by which that 
 command is enforced. 
 
 Avowing these principles to the world, our fathers engaged in the 
 war of the Revolution, aided by the generous sympathy and unremitted 
 efforts of such noble men from other lands as Lafayette, Pulaski, 
 Steuben, Montgomery, and DeKalb, men who were attracted to their 
 cause by the glory of their published principles, by their own love of 
 Liberty, by their hatred of oppression, by the humanity and nobility of 
 unpervcrted hearts. In this momentous struggle our fathers were suc- 
 cessful and their national independence was, at length, acknowledged 
 by the whole Commonwealth of nations. Then follow the efforts of 
 those brave men to form a government. The same men who put forth 
 the great Declaration, were engaged in the formation of our national 
 Constitution. The objects avowed in the preamble of this Instrument 
 are worthy to be ranked with the noble principles of the old Declaration. 
 
 " We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more 
 perfect Union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide 
 for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the 
 blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and 
 establish this Constitution for the United States of America.'''' 
 
 Under the Constitution ordained and established by the people of this 
 country, for the noble ends above enumerated, the Fedei-al Government 
 commenced its existence sixty-two years ago. During these sixty-two 
 years the States of our Union have increased from thirteen to thirty- 
 one, the population from three to twenty-three millions, the resources of 
 our country — its houses, and shops, and stores — its acres of cultivated 
 soil — its internal and external commerce — its churches and its schools 
 — its towns and villages and cities, have all multiplied in this, time 
 in the same wonderful ratio, except where the institution of Slavery has 
 been maintained to retard our growth and blight our prosperity. The 
 increase of slavery, the increasing might and arrogance of the slave- 
 
power, in these years of our nation's first expansion and growth, are 
 facts of startling import, of saddest augury. There are more slaves in 
 this Republic to-day than the entire population of this country when our 
 fathers began to agitate the question of independence. More of God's 
 children, of Christ's redeemed ones, now held in hopeless bondage, by 
 degenerate sons of nobler sires, than the entire free population of the 
 old thirteen, sixty-two years ago. 
 
 I come now to the consideration of my main topic in this discourse 
 — The Nation'' s sin and the Christia7i's duty. And I ask you to look 
 at this sin first in the light of our departure from the noble principles 
 of our fathers. It is true they permitted slavery to continue in the land. 
 And when the Constitution was formed, they gave up the control of this 
 institution to the States in which it was then to be found. We mourn 
 that our fathers were so unwise and wicked as to compromise at all with 
 slavery. We would make no attempt to shield them from the censure 
 which they deserve, for suffering slavery to live a day after the adoption 
 of the glorious Declaration. Sadly do we acknowledge that slave- 
 holding was a dark stain in the character of Washington, Jefferson, 
 Henry, Madison, and other venerated and great men of that era. 
 
 Yet we are doing simple justice only by saying that they desired and 
 looked for the speedy extinction of slavery. Openly did they avow the 
 doctrine, now so widely and fiercely denounced, that slavery is wrong. 
 Wrong, both as respects God's arrangements and as respects man's 
 rights. Washington made no secret of his hope and expectation that 
 Virginia, his native State, and then the first State in influence in the 
 Union, would devise means for the removal of slavery from her midst, 
 for its entire abolition at no distant day. Washington openly declared 
 that his influence and vote should at all times be ready for the removal 
 of this wrong by legislative action in his own State. 
 
 Jefferson denounced American slavery as the worst form of oppres- 
 sion the world had ever seen. He declared one hour's endurance 
 thereof worse than the oppression which drove our fathers into the 
 Revolution. He well said that he trembled for his country, when he 
 thought that a just God ruled over the nations of the earth, to whom 
 the s&fferings and wrongs of the slave would call for vengeance. 
 The man who spoke these noble words was the author of the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, and as an honest man could do no less than de- 
 nounce and oppose American slavery, which subverts every one of 
 the self-evident truths of that sublime production. 
 
 Lafayette generously aided our fathers in their darkest hour. His 
 memory is cherished by Americans next to that of Washington. His 
 visits to this land, after our Union was formed, were like the triumphal re- 
 turn from distant and dangerous enterprises of the distinguished old 
 Roman Commanders, to the proud Mistress of the world. His words 
 therefore have weight and interest to us on this subject. Well this is what 
 Lafayette said on his last visit to this country, at a public dinner given 
 him in Salem, at which Judge Story presided. When the old French 
 Democrat was called upon to make a speech in answer to a toast pro- 
 
6 
 
 posed in honor of the great services which he had rendered, he said 
 most distinctly thai he never would have spent a doUarnor struck a blow 
 Jor American Independe7ice, had he not been icell assured, that tee hon- 
 estly meant to secure the freedom of the slave, by gaining our own. 
 
 Madison was unwilling to introduce the word slave or slavery into 
 the Constitution. Luther Martin and other Southern men of note at 
 that day denounced shivery with unsparing bitterness and in the most 
 public manner. " When the Constitution was formed, slavery was j9er- 
 mitted to exist for a little period, that it might prepare itself to die. 
 Whoever studies the sentiment of that day, will see that men no more 
 intended the perpetuation of slavery in this republic, than again to 
 place the yoke which they had broken upon their own nt!cks. Mark 
 the contrast. One of the first acts of legislation then, was to prohibit 
 slavery in all that territory which had not been formed into States. In 
 a later time, we admit States that prohibit the abolition of slavery for 
 ever. Then, all the territories belonging to the country were declared 
 to be free. Noio, we receive new regions, far wider than miglity em- 
 pires, in which we sanction human bondage. Then, slavery, as upon its 
 bended knees, pleaded for a brief delay in the execution of the sen- 
 tence of death which seemed to be issued against it, in the funda- 
 mental principles of the republic, and the living spirit of the nation. 
 In a later generation, slavery has assumed the dominion, and Liberty 
 herself has been dumb in its presence." Were Washington and Jef- 
 ferson now living at the South, they could not now speak of slavery, 
 as they were accustomed to do sixty years ago,, without endangering 
 their lives ! 
 
 How difierent now the sentiments entertained by leading men at the 
 South ! And how great, how startling the departure of our Statesmen 
 and rulers from these honest Democrats of the Revolution ! 
 
 The doctrine is now openly defended in our National Council halls, 
 that slavery is a divine institution, a perpetual ordinance of God, the 
 proper relation beticeen the laborer and his emjAoyer, the corner stone 
 of this great Federal Republic. 
 
 This dark creed is devoutly professed by the politicians of the South 
 of all parties, and is preached from almost every pulpit there, and it is 
 practically the faith on which our leading Statesmen of the North in 
 their apostacy act. By their deeds shall ye knoiv them. We judge 
 them by this rule and say of Webster and Cass, of Winthrop and 
 Dickinson, of Douglass and Fillmore, they are among the oppressors 
 of the suffering sons and daughters of Toil. 
 
 In our fathers' days the ministry preached against slavery, were 
 known as abolitionists, and their influence was potent in the speedy 
 removal of this curse from New England and from New York. 
 Jonathan Edwards, his brethren in the ministry, and their descendants 
 of the same faith and order were earnest abolitionists. They preached 
 against slavery and the slave-trade, then in full operation around them, 
 often to the periling of their support, till the public conscience was 
 aroused and slavery abolished. The noble Channing, who exerted a 
 
greater influence against the slave power than any other minister of his 
 day, was the pupil of the celebrated Dr. Hopkins, a noted leader of the 
 Orthodox Church, and only carried out in his sphere the instruction of 
 his earnest and pure-hearted teacher, who was himself a thorough and 
 powerful opponent of American slavery and the slave trade. The 
 minister on whom fell the mantle of Roger Williams could be no less 
 than a thorough abolitionist. The same is true, also, of the minister ' 
 who truly followed John Wesley, who was an uncompromising enemy 
 to American slavery. 
 
 How sad the change in the religion of this land in these dark years ! 
 Sad, at least, so far as the course of the popular ministry is a true 
 index of the sentiment of the people. The rulers of our nation and 
 all our partizans stand ready now to brand with the name of infidels 
 and traitors, the minister who imitates the example of the Apostles, 
 obeying God rather than man, and declaring the whole counsel of God 
 whether men will hear or whether they will forbear. Now Doctors of 
 Divinity, Theological Professors, and Ministers of large and wealthy 
 churches, join hands with our wicked Rulers, and in the name of God 
 bid us obey, without hesitation, a law of utter and unparalleled wick- 
 edness ! Yea, they bid us go if our country should call us, to the 
 battle-field in support of this law, and in God's name take the life of its 
 opposers ! 
 
 This counsel is given by the well-known Mr. Rogers of the Winter 
 Street Church, in a sermon inculcating obedience to this law, and pub- 
 lished in the Boston papers, as the voice of the good Father of all ! 
 
 We had a Judiciary once, that sought Justice and Truth, Judgment 
 and Mercy ; but now our Judges, Marshals, and Commissioners are 
 the pliant tools of the slave-power. Kain, Curtis, Judson, Ingraham, 
 Hallett and others, who know beyond doubt the atrocity of their con- 
 duct, for some paltry consideration are hastening to prostitute the judi- 
 cial power invested in their hands, to meet the base demands of the 
 slave-power. Our supreme court is intensely pro-slavery. This de- 
 cides all Constitutional appeals, and so the last legal resort for the at- 
 tainment of justice is in the hands of the slave power. 
 
 Our fathers passed the ordinance of '87, by which they consecrated 
 a vast empire to freedom. We know full well that they intended by 
 that decree to localize, limit and discourage slavery. Their degenerate 
 sonSj having secured a place in Congress by solemn pledges to main- 
 tain this ordinance in the organization of the new territories, violate 
 their word, barter their birth-right, for the false smile of slavery, and be- 
 tray their sacred trust. They vote down the proviso of freedom and 
 open vast empires for the extension and perpetuation of human bondage. 
 The arch-traitor who secured this disastrous result, offers in excuse, the 
 plea that to pass this proviso is re-enacting the laws of God, by which 
 without our aid, slavery is surely excluded. He knew and the loorld 
 knows to-day the utter falseness if this base plea. Slave-holding judges 
 are appointed and other territorial officers, whose policy is well known 
 to be favorable to slavery, to rule over these territories and mold their 
 
8 
 
 institutions and laws and customs. Hugh N. Smith, nominated by the 
 President as Secretary of New Mexico, has just been rejected by the 
 Senate of the United States, because he is known to be in favor of the 
 Declaration of Independence, which declares all men created with the 
 inalienable right to be free. In the meanwhile slavery is established 
 in the territories of New Mexico and Utah, as all supposed it would be, 
 when the vote of Congress, repudiating the great Proviso, was secured 
 by the South through the aid of traitors from the free States. Slavery 
 exists in these territories to-day, and soon we may be called on to admit 
 them to our Union as slave States 
 
 Our Constitution was adopted " by the people " " in order to form a 
 more perfect Union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, pro- 
 vide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure 
 the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity. " Mr. Ran- 
 toul in a recent public speech at Lynn says, " I value the Union and 
 the Constitution because of their great purpose; — so long as they 
 accomplish that purpose, so long are they the highest political bles- 
 sings. And if they ever cease in the Providence of God, to accom- 
 plish that great purpose, they heconie worthless, they may hecome even 
 a curse. " As our Constitution is now expounded and applied, and as 
 this Union is now cemented by the woes of millions of slaves, I ask 
 you, have they not " become a curse ? " Our government is administered 
 now by a terrible perversion of this Constitution, in the hands of rene- 
 gades and traitors, in order to establish injustice, to stir up sectional 
 hale, to j)romole the selfish aggrandisement of an intolerant class, the 
 merest minority of the people, at the sacrifice of the general welfare, 
 and to take from the toiling, defenceless poor and from their children 
 after them, the " blessings of Liberty.'''' I challenge the scholar to point 
 out a chapter in the history of nations, so dark in the degeneracy which 
 it portrays, as the story of this nation's action on the subject of slavery 
 for the last sixty years. 
 
 We sometimes see the same thing exemplified in the downward 
 career of an individual, who starts from a high point of light and truth 
 and noble aims, but through a sad infirmity of moral purpose, led on 
 by a wicked ambition, and lured by unholy pleasures, goes down the 
 steep path of sinful indulgence, into the infamy and woe of a self-sought 
 and hopeless ruin. There is a life yet to be written, which will illus- 
 trate with a painful interest and power the apostacy of this nation. I 
 refer to one gifted by his heavenly father with transcendent abilities, — 
 born and nurtured through all his early years among the institutions of 
 New England, who went forth into the strife of a stirring life with deep 
 religious convictions, with noble aims in view. On Plymouth Rock, on 
 Bunker Hill, on all the fields made rich and sacred by patriot blood of 
 Revolutionary sires, there poured forth — an offering to Liberty — his 
 voice has been recognized giving utterance to some of the noblest sen- 
 timents, and most sweetly spoken ever heard on earth. The Old 
 Commonwealth has lavished her honors upon him, her adopted and 
 best beloved son. But he has fallen and is now a wretched, ruined old 
 
man. He went aside from the straight path of rectitude, led on by 
 ambition, lured by impure passions, from one degree of baseness to 
 another and deeper, till, on the seventh of March, 1850, he stood up 
 in his place in the Senate of the United Stales, and publicly disowned 
 the noble principles of his early and innocent days, and offered his own 
 shameless service to the cruel slave-power. Now you may see that 
 proud intellect darkened and debased, and the beloved chatnpio7i, the 
 very Samson of New England^ the j)^nsioned agent of oppression, 
 grinding in the prison-house of the Philistines ! 
 
 So it is with our National Government. The slave-power is potent, 
 not only to debase and ruin those who are guilty of holding slaves, not 
 only blinds those criminals to the truth and right, and arrays them on 
 the side of falsehood and wrong, but it corrupts also our statesmen, our 
 law-makers, our judges, our preachers, our public men of all classes, 
 so that now on whatever side the poor dependent sons and daughters of 
 toil turn for protection from the dangers which menace them, through 
 the remorseless and oppressive slave-power, they find themselves 
 betrayed. 
 
 The mighty, the gifted, the great, the leaders among the people are 
 false to their trust. Degenerate sons of worthy sires, they are striving, 
 with parricidal hands, to overthrow the institution of Liberty, which 
 their fathers toiled and bled, and died to found and establish — a lasting 
 inheritance of good to their children. On the ruins of freedom's sacred 
 home, would these parricides now build up the temple of slavery. 
 Who can see the contrast between the principles of our fathers and of 
 their sons at this day, as we have now but feebly set it forth, and not 
 instantly shrink back in alarm from the, fearful degeneracy ichich this 
 dark contrast marks ? 
 
 And yet there is a bright aspect, to which I now most gladly turn, for 
 a brief moment. Our Statesmen are corrupt, bought up and used for 
 unholy purposes by the slave-power. But there is a remnant found 
 faithful even here. We have our trusted and our trustworthy Palfrey, 
 on whom the mantle of the departing sage of Quincy seemed to fall. 
 We have sent him to Congress and mean to keep him there to battle in 
 our legislative halls for truth and justice and right. We have our 
 own true-hearted Mann, whose inspired words, like the prophet Call, of 
 olden time, win the people back to the allegiance of their fathers. 
 And there is our beloved Sumner, whose vast stores of learning, whose 
 unequalled eloquence, whose highest hopes and efforts are all conse- 
 crated to Liberty, Peace and Brotherhood. Not always shall treachery 
 and fraud shut him out from the post to which the people call him to 
 regain the honor lost by another fallen Senator. We have our Phillips, 
 too, whom the people justly love and trust, who left his party and sac- 
 rificed his prospects on the altar of duty, when that party went to 
 Mexico, and took from the bloody fields of that land the hero of a 
 pro-slavery war as its candidate for the Presidency. 
 
 Many of our popular ministers go hand in hand with our corrupt 
 Statesmen in the unholy strife against humanity, and counsel, as God's 
 
10 
 
 will, obedience to a wicked law. Still more, perhaps, influenced by 
 a craven fear of losing support, refuse to " cry aloud and spare not," 
 in pleading for God's truth, — the cause of the suffering brotherhood, 
 which is now nailed to the cross. But there are noble men " faithful 
 among the faithless found," — true ministers of God, whose words glow 
 with the love of Jesus, and are alive with his humanity. May God 
 grant us more such true Gospel ministers as Beecher and Parker to 
 scatter the seed which shall spring up into wide spread and endless 
 blessedness. 
 
 Our lawyers are generally, I suppose, with Choate and Hallett, the 
 shameless and pliant tools of the slave-power. But not all. There is 
 Phillips, the Cicero of this day, the able jurist, the finished scholar, the 
 radical reformer ; there is Seward, the profound and philosophic 
 advocate ; there is Allen, the fearless, ethcient and beloved leader of 
 the sound old heart of the Commonwealth ; there are Rantoul and 
 Sewall and Loring, who are using finished powers of minds rarely 
 skilled in law, with a deep and noble earnestness to rescue, if possible, 
 the unfortunate captive now in the hands of the slave-catching police 
 and watch-force of Boston. These and more like unto them, talented 
 and powerful pleaders, are consecrated to freedom's cause. 
 
 Our editors of religious and secular papers, are generally on the 
 wrong side of this present vital issue, or feebly, inetficiently enlisted 
 and engaged on the side of truth and right. But here, in this all im- 
 portant post, we see some of the truest men the world ever knew, men 
 filled with the blessed spirit of Jesus. There is Garrison, who has 
 blown a blast on the trumpet of truth, which has at length aroused a 
 nation's slumbering conscience ; there isBurritt, whose sparks from the 
 anvil of truth and love have gone through the heart of the Common- 
 wealth, kindling there such a fire, that the faithless servant of that 
 District is consumed, and the slave power can find no refuge from its 
 searching potency. The Lord grant that our editors may shake off 
 party trammels and cast away selfish views, and be like these noble 
 men, independent and earnest in carrying forward the reforms which 
 truth demands, and which the suffering brotherhood needs. Then 
 should daily and weekly messengers fly over our land to each home 
 therein, bearing on their willing wings life and joy to all. 
 
 The laborers of this nation, far too generally, are blind to their own 
 interests, and elevate to posts of honor and emolument those who 
 despise and depress honest toil. But among our farmers, our artizans, 
 our mechanics, our sewers and knitters, and_ factory hands, there is a 
 deepening, a spreading anti-slavery zeal. Of all classes in the com- 
 munity, we most desire to see the laboring class informed upon this 
 subject, and enlisted in this cause. For when they understand their 
 duty, and enter upon its performance, the day of our redemption draws 
 near. 
 
 Too many of the women of this day oppose the noblest and most 
 needed of all reforms, with the successful issue of which, is intimately 
 joined her own emancipation from the injustice under which she i» 
 
11 
 
 called to suffer. But here too we find some of the ablest and purest 
 apostles of truth. There is Lucretia Mott, one of the most eloquent 
 preachers of our day, and Abby Kelley Foster, whose influence is 
 widely felt through this guilty nation, and many others, whom we might 
 mention, did time admit, who are toiling devotedly and successfully in 
 the anti-slavery reform. May God speed them on and raise up many 
 more noble, talented women, like unto them, to preach the gospel to 
 the poor, and to bring deliverance to the captives. 
 
 Our poets are nearly all on the side of freedom. True poetry, 
 indeed is divine, and ever opposed, as the Divinity itself, to oppression. 
 All the noble men and women whom God has endowed with the poetic 
 power, so long as they are true, must war against wrong. Whittier 
 and Lowell, Bryant and Emerson, \Yho tune angelic lyres, and send 
 forth heavenly harmonies, — are not only our greatest poets, but also 
 leading men in the anti-slavery reform. 
 
 Thus do we descry hope shining out in the dark night of our struggle, 
 as we see a noble band of patriotic christian men and women, who are 
 engaged in the grand effort to consummate the good work, so well 
 begun by our Pilgrim and Revolutionary fathers. And it is well for 
 us to turn from the dark picture, which the degeneracy of some and 
 the apostacy of others presents to the bright view, so full of hope, 
 which this other noble band holds out. As the sailor in a dangerous 
 sea, beholding the scattered wrecks on either side, would be appalled 
 by the difficulties which encompass him, and so unfitted for the effort 
 necessary to carry him safely through the dangerous passage, did he 
 not cast his eye on to the stately vessels securely moored in port, and 
 from their success in the journey through the hazards of his way, educe 
 a hopeful augury for his own arduous effort : So we must turn at times 
 from these drifting wrecks of the fond hopes and high promise of other 
 days, to those who have sailed securely by the rocks and whirlpools of- 
 the slave-power, or we shall lose heart and go down into the deep 
 waters of despair. 
 
 I now invite your altenlion to the hypocrisy of this nation as seen in 
 the professions and conduct of our leading raen. 
 
 The history of the world cannot show a greater discrepancy between 
 profession and practice, than is seen in our land at this time. Our 
 noble Declaration announces principles which would at once free every 
 slave, if these principles could be applied. Our Constitution contains 
 provisions which concern the highest welfare of the people, and which 
 can never be executed till slavery is abolished. Professing to be Re- 
 publicans, our Statesmen are now leagued in unholy union to suppress 
 freedom of speech, to put down, in the free states, the discussion of 
 those rights which our Declaration affirms to be inalienable, and in de- 
 fence of which our fathers staked fortune, life, and honor. Inffleen 
 of the States it is more dangerous to speak the truth than it is in any 
 other part of the heathen world. The New Orleans True American 
 says : " We can assure the Bostonians, one and all who have embarked 
 in the nefarious scheme of abolishing slavery at the South, that lashes 
 
12 
 
 will hereafter be spared the backs of their emissaries. Let them send 
 out their men to Louisiana, — they ivill never return to tell their suffer- 
 ingSf but they shall expiate the crime of interjering in our domestic in- 
 stitutions, by being burned at the stake. " 
 
 Says the Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle : " The cry of the whole 
 South should be death — instant death to the Abolitionist, wherever 
 he is caught. " 
 
 Says the Columbia (South Carolina) Telescope: "Let us declare, 
 through the public journals of our country, thai the questio?i of slavery 
 is not and shall not be open for discussion ; that the system is too deep- 
 rooted among us, and must remain forever ; that the very moment 
 any private individual attempts to lecture us upon its evils and immoral- 
 ities, and the necessity of putting means in operation to secure our- 
 selves from them, in the same moment his tongue shall be cut out 
 
 AND CAST UPON THE DUNGHILL. " 
 
 So speaks the slave-power. Its actions come up to the full atrocity 
 of its denunciations. 
 
 Hangman Foote, of Mississippi, a senator in Congress, deliberately 
 and openly declared, in the Senate Chamber, that he and his neighbors 
 would hang up by the neck, on some tall tree, a brother senator from 
 New Hampshire, if he would only afford them the pleasant opportunity 
 by coming among them, and giving utterance to his convictions of the evil 
 and crime of slavery. There is no doubt it would be done with bonfires 
 and public rejoicings, by the slave-holders of that State. Jolm P. 
 Hale would be murdered in open day, if he should visit Mississippi , 
 and talk there as he does at home. 
 
 South Carolina takes the free citizens of Massachusetts from our 
 vessels, when they arrive in her ports, and confines them in her pesti- 
 lential jails, for no crime but the color of their skin ! Our Common- 
 wealth sends one of her most venerable men to try the constitutionality 
 of the law which authorizes these outrages. The slave-power fears 
 the light of free discussion, and so Samuel Hoar is ignominiously 
 driven from the South, and the will of a sister State, as well as the 
 rights of Humanity, are trampled in the dust by the inexorable slave- 
 power ! 
 
 Barrett, a citizen of Ohio, passing through South Carolina, is arrested 
 on the bare suspicion of being an abolitionist, and of being engaged in 
 circulating a pamphlet through that State, in which is exposed the 
 unjust representative system, fixed upon the State by the slave- power. 
 
 " Within a few weeks past, — the accounts having but just now reached 
 us, — an aged and most respectable individual of the name of Harris, 
 a citizen of New Hampshire, has been tried by a mob in South 
 Carolina, and tarred and feathered, because he happened to have in his 
 trunk, a sermon which had been sent to him by one of his acquaint- 
 ances, a clergyman at the North ; though he had never showed the 
 sermon to a single individual, nor whispered a word of its contents." 
 Another man, a Dr. Coles, belonging to Boston, who had been lecturing 
 on the subject of Physiology, was, within a few days, seized and 
 
13 
 
 carried before a magistrate, in the same State, his trunks rifled, the 
 private letters sent to him by his wife and family pubHcly read, with 
 the most indecent comments, and all without any shadow of reasonable 
 suspicion against him. 
 
 Tliesc tilings were done, not by the savages of the wilderness, nor ly 
 the ignorant Pagans of the distant isles of the ocean, hut by our 
 Southern countrymen, who boast of their chivalry and honor, who pro- 
 fess to be Christians, and to love liberty and justice ! 
 
 Within the past ^e\\ months the sanctity of law and the necessity of 
 unconditional obedience to the enactments of our government have 
 furnished a constant theme of discourse to our President in his procla- 
 mations, to our Secretary of State in his countless letters to Union 
 Committees, to our Governors in their annual messages, to our judges 
 in their charges to juries, to our ambitious demagogues in their lectures, 
 and to our politic, time-serving ministers, in their discourses. One 
 would think, to hear these men talk, that they are really law-loving and 
 law-abiding citizens. But it is easy to show that this is all hypocrisy 
 of the most arrant kind. These very men who make the welkin ring 
 with their Ephesus-like cry, " great is this Union, and sacred this 
 fugitive slave bill," every mother's son of them, from the chief magis- 
 trate down to the lowest of these Union men, is openly and knowingly 
 violating laws of vital importance. 
 
 The ministers who preach that we ought to obey, or ought not to 
 disobey this infernal fugitive slave bill, because it has passed both 
 houses of Congress, and received the sanction of the President, and 
 thus become the constitutionally recognized law of the land, in so doing, 
 cast off" their allegiance to God, and for some paltry present considera- 
 tion, sell to his cruel foe, the Redeemer of this lost world. This is 
 strong language, I am aware, but the truth is stronger. Daniel dis- 
 obeyed the Persian law, was cast into the midst of the ravenous lions 
 for his disobedience, and God delivered him. That law only required 
 of him to refrain for thirty days from public prayer. This law requires 
 you to seize, and render back to the hell of American slavery, the 
 brother who seeks shelter and safety in your home. If the prophet 
 Daniel noiv lived would he obey this infamous statute I The three 
 Hebrew children refused to obey a law less atrocious than this, and 
 God sustained them in doing it. The Apostles were law-breakers, and 
 when called to account for their treason, this was their excuse — 
 " Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more 
 than unto God, judge ye." Peter and the other Apostles answered and 
 said — " We ought to obey God rather than man." " And when they 
 had called the Apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they 
 should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let theni go. And they 
 departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were 
 counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple 
 and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.'' 
 Plainer cases could not be found of open disobedience to wicked law. 
 And the history of the early Christians abounds w^ith such cases. Nov.- 
 
 Q 
 
14 
 
 remember these ministers know these things. They have the Bible in 
 their hands, and they cannot plead ignorante to justify their course. 
 I said they were doing this for some paltry consideration of present in- 
 terest. Dr. Dewey, who affirmed his readiness to surrender child or 
 mother if necessary to preserve this Union, has obtained his reward. 
 He is appointed Chaplain in the Navy, and will stand a very fine chance 
 to be chosen Chaplain of the Senate of this great Union. I distinctly 
 impeach these men of treason against Christ. And mark you this pre- 
 diction, the revelation of Eternity will sustain this fearful charge. 
 Those ministers who take the Bible in their hands and pi-each the duty 
 of obediejice to this bill of abominations are traitors before God and 
 hypocrites before men. 
 
 The capitalists who calls so loudly upon us to obey this law, and the 
 politicians, who join with them in the cry, are themselves the violators 
 of our Temperance and Usury laws. For the sake of Southern trade 
 they go in for this wicked law, and for the sake of profit or appetite, 
 they go in for a systematic violation of the just and necessary laws on 
 Temperance and Usury. They seem to act on this principle, viz : if a 
 law is just and its execution is necessary to secure the public good, 
 then we will disobey it and set its enactment at defiance. But if our 
 Government enacts injustice into law and requires us to disobey God, 
 then we will obey this law ourselves, and denounce and brand and per- 
 secute to the last extremity, the man who takes his stand on the old 
 apostolic platform, and disobeys a wicked law that he may obey God. 
 
 An honest industrious citizen of Boston was seized by the kidnapper, 
 but was rescued from the wicked hands of the myrmidons of an atro- 
 cious law, by a few of his friends. It was done suddenly, and without 
 violence, to save a brother from a fate enough to appal the stoutest 
 heart, from which there was no escape, except by this " summary pro- 
 cess." Well who can withhold honor from the noble band which accom- 
 plished the deliverance of this brother ? It was as worthy a deed as the 
 attempted rescue of Lafayette from the dungeons at Olmutz ; it was as 
 noble a deed as that which has consecrated Bunker Hill, Lexington, 
 Concord, Yorktown, the holy spots of earth. Would to God that Long 
 might have been rescued in the same icay from the merciless clutches 
 oftheJJnion Committee of NewYork. How joyfully would we rescue Sims 
 from the hands of his cruel captors and so demonstrate to the world 
 the glorious fact that no slave can be found on Massachusetts soil, that 
 in the noble State which led the way in the struggle of the Revolution, 
 freedom and right are loved more than the Union or the Constitution. 
 But this noble act calls forth a proclamation from the President, in which 
 all concerned in the rescue are sternly rebuked, and the military power 
 of the United States is pledged to insure the successful execution of 
 this tyrannical law in Boston. Does any one imagine this comes of a 
 reverence for the Constitution and an honest purpose to execute the re- 
 quirements thereof? It is hardly possible to be so deceived. Just look 
 at the well known facts. The President is bound by his oath to observe 
 in all his official conduct the provisions of the Constitution, and to en- 
 
15 
 
 force the same through the land. Doesany one suppose that Mr. Fillnnore 
 was ignorant of the fact that this fugitive slave bill is utterly repugnant 
 to the spirit and the letter of the Constitution ? He owns that he feared it 
 struck down one of the old bulwarks of personal freedom, viz : the writ 
 of habeas corpus and so he addressed Mr. Attorney General Critten- 
 den to show that this was not done. And in answer Mr. C. states that 
 this great right is not touched by the provisions of the bill. Well now 
 I undertake to say that every person in the country, of common intelli- 
 gence, on reading that bill, could but see the base falsehood of Mr. 
 Crittenden's professional opinion. The President knew that this right 
 was destroyed by that bill and we all knew it. And so now we see 
 Judge Shaw refusing this writ of personal replevin in the case of a 
 brother in Boston, seized as an alleged fugitive, but claiming to be free 
 by the law of Georgia as well as by the law of Massachusetts. Oh, it 
 is infinite baseness for the renegade Fillmore to profess to reverence the, 
 Constitution while signing this bill, which he knew to be as unconstitu- 
 tional as it is infernal. 
 
 Again the provisions of the Constitution are violated in the oppressive 
 regulations of the slave states, in numberless and aggravated instances. 
 Our citizens charged with no crime, are imprisoned and sometimes sold 
 into hopeless servitude. Our venerable men are driven away with con- 
 tumely from the prosecution of duties assigned them by the state. 
 Others are treated with a cruelty unparalleled in the atrocities of the 
 heathen world. 1 ask no apology for giving you the following lengthy 
 statement, in the words of the sufferer himself, an agent of the Baptist 
 Church, sent to labor in Kentucky, to show to the people the evil and 
 sin of slavery. Remember, lohile you listen to his story, that the Pres- 
 ident issued a proclamatioyi, tohen Shadrach was peaceably rescued 
 from the infamous men who had seized him: and then tell me, if you can, 
 why no proclamation is directed to this outrage. 
 
 tFrom tlie American Baptist, t 
 
 THE LYNCHING IN KENTUCKY. 
 
 " We pass over for the present, Nos. 7, 8 and 9 of Brother Mathews"' 
 Letters from Kentucky, that our readers may have at the earliest 
 moment, his account of the barbarous treatment inflicted upon him by 
 the lynchers. He visited the village of Richmond, Madison county, 
 with a view to lecture on the moral and religious condition of the slaves ; 
 but failed, after applying to three or four different churches, of obtain- 
 ing a house for that purpose. On Sunday evening, Feb. 16, he 
 preached by invitation to the colored congregation ; after which he 
 was assailed by a mob, and, with some personal indignities, but no 
 serious injury, driven from the town. Proceeding to the residence of 
 Cassius M. Clay, at Whitehall, he prepared for the Chronicle, a news- 
 paper published at Richmond, a statement in relation to the doings of 
 
16 
 
 the mob, with which he loft for Foxtown on the morning of the 18th, 
 as stated in the beginning of the letter below. 
 
 " Bryantsville, Feb. 20, 1851, 
 " Dear Br. Walker : — My communication to the Chronicle, of 
 Richmond, was placed in an envelope by Cassius M. Clay, together 
 with a letter written by himself to the Editor. On arriving at Foxtown, 
 I found that I was a minute too late for the stage. As it was only six 
 miles to Richmond, and as I was anxious that the communication should 
 appear in the next number, I concluded to walk to Richmond. Arrived 
 there, I called at the Chronicle office, handed to the Editor pro ie??j, 
 the communications, requested him to send his next number to the 
 American Baptist, passed down the street, and that my stay might be 
 as brief as possible, called into a store, and obtained a few apples as a 
 substitute for a dinner. I now pursued my way to the Big Hill, thinking 
 that the information I had gained previously, (that the public feeling 
 had not sustained the mob,) was correct. Reflecting on these things, 
 I concluded that my passing through the village would prove salutary 
 rather than otherwise. 
 
 " When nearly a mile from town, I was overtaken by four men 
 riding on horses, — one, the bar- tender at Webster's hotel ; another, Mr. 
 Turner, who was dressed in a drab coat ; another, a slim-built man, 
 who wore a round-topped hat, and a long coat ; the other was of my 
 own height, dressed respectably, and wore whiskers. 
 
 " They enquired of me, ' Where now } ' I replied, that, having an 
 appointment at Big Hill, I was going to fulfill it. They placed their 
 hands within their vests, and said, ' If you make the least outcry or 
 resistance, you shall die instantly. You must go with us ; we will 
 put you in the road to Lancaster.' ' Now,' said they, ' did you not 
 agree not to come back to Uich.mond ? ' I told them that I made no 
 such agreement ; if they supposed so, they must entirely have misun- 
 derstood me ; and that now I had simply passed through the village, on 
 the way to my appointment. We passed one house, but knowing it 
 was useless to attempt to run into it, I proceeded with them. We 
 turned from the main road through a gate, crossed a field, entered a 
 lane, and went down it some distance, turned to the right through 
 another gate, and finally descended into a valley through which runs a 
 very small creek, and where we were in sight of an out-house, which 
 [ understood them to say belonged to Mr. Bronston. They then hitched 
 their horses to the fence, and the bar-tender of Webster's Hotel, seizing 
 my arms, brought them behind me, and bound them with a horse 
 bridle. They arranged themselves in front of me, and enquired, ' Are 
 you an abolitionist ?" 1 stated that I did not believe that the slaves 
 ought to rise and resist their masters, but that I believed in eman- 
 cipating them, and that I was laboring to bring the moral power of the 
 church to bear against slavery. They took a handkerchief, folded it, 
 and bandaged my eyes. Supposing I was about to die, 1 began to pray 
 aloud : but this drew from them oaths and threats. They then seemed 
 
17 
 
 to be waiting for some one to bring sonrie tar and feathers ; but the 
 person they expected not coming, they consulted what should be done 
 with me. One thought he could obtain some tar and feathers by being 
 absent a little while. They asked me if I had not said, in Riclimond, 
 that it was right for slaves to run away, and that I would help them. 
 I told them 1 had not. 'Did you not,' said they, 'tell the Methodist 
 minister that slaves could not get to heaven if they did not run away 
 from slavery ?' I told them I did not. After further questions, they 
 consulted whether I should be whipped, tarred and feathered, ducked 
 or hanged. At last they decided to duck me. We had to go some 
 distance to a pond. The bandage from my eyes was taken off", but my 
 hands were still bound. Having to go over some fences, it atforded 
 them sport to see me go over them bound. In some cases they would 
 take off a rail or two, and in one case assisted me. Arrived at the 
 pond, Mr. Turner, the owner of the farm, came up. 'Here,' said they, 
 'we found this man stealing your hogs.' He seemed to understand 
 their object. I now asked that I might be allowed to take off my two 
 coats, and place my bible, watch and pocket-book in the pocket of my 
 overcoat. To this they consented. They then asked me if I could 
 swim. I told them I could, but did not know that I could with my 
 clothes on. One of them said a stone ought to be tied to me, that I 
 might sink to the bottom. They brought me to the edge of the water. 
 The bar-tender on my left, and Mr. Turner on my right, seized and 
 flung me as far as they could into the pond. Before rising to the sur- 
 face, I swallowed considerable water, and nearly lost my breath. When 
 I approached the shore, as near as where the water was waist high, I 
 paused to gain breath. They commanded me to come to the shore 
 instantly. 1 implored them to allow me to gain my breath. But they 
 reiterated,^ Come out instantly." 
 
 "As soon as I reached the shore, they took me and threw me in again 
 head first. On my regaining the shore they threw me in the third time. 
 On coming out they required me to promise never to come to Rich- 
 mond, or into Madison county any more. I declined promising, and 
 they threw me in the fourth time. I then made the promise. They 
 next required me to leave Kentucky and never return to it. I refused, 
 and they threw me in the fifth time. On coming to the shore, they 
 again required me to make the promise ; I refused, and they deter- 
 mined to whip me. They led me to a tree, and tied up my arms as 
 they tie up slaves when they flog them. They tied a bandage round 
 my eyes, so tight as to pain them exceedingly. But finally they con- 
 cluded to duck me again. They led me along, when, putting up my 
 hand, I pulled off the bandage, and found Turner leading me to the 
 pond. He blamed me for pulling off the bandage. They threw me 
 (as before) into the pond the sixth time. 1 still refused to promise. 
 Another set of hands took hold, and they threw me in the seventh time. 
 I refused to promise. They threw me in the eighth time. I refused 
 \o promise. They threw me in the ninth time. I refused to promise. 
 
18 
 
 They threw me in the tenth time, and I refused to promise. They now 
 resolved to whip me. As I approached the shore, 1 found all the powers 
 of nature giving way. I thought of my intention, in coming into Ken- 
 tucky, to leave if they would not hear me lecture. I thought also of the 
 vast amount of work yet to be done in the free States ; and that, if I 
 lived, I could tell the free States of this treatment ; and I believed that it 
 would do good to make it known. So, halting in the' pond, what of 
 life there was in me promised to leave Kentucky, and never return. 
 The bar-tender said, ' Do you swear, so help you God, you will leave 
 Kentucky, and never return ?' I replied, I solemnly affirm I will leave 
 and not return. They then assured me that I should have men to watch 
 me to the borders of the State ; that if 1 attempted to go to Cassius M. 
 Clay's or on the Richmond pike to Lexington, I should be killed, — 
 spies would be out to watch ; that I must go by Lancaster, and there 
 take the stage for Lexington, and if I ever returned to the State, they 
 would hang me wherever they could find me, or even if I told how 1 
 had been treated before leaving the State ; — that 1 must take the Lan- 
 caster stage the next morning for Lexington. I can add no more now." 
 
 Madison, Ind. Feb. 22, 185L 
 " I resume the subject of my treatment by the lynchers. After 
 exacting the promise to leave the State by way of Lancaster, they told 
 me I might change my dress. 1 made an effort to unlock my carpet-bag, 
 but shook so much with the cold that 1 was unable to do so, and one of 
 the lynchers opened it for me. They seemed to regard my articles in 
 the carpet-bag as quite as much under their control as their own prop- 
 erty, stating that they wanted my anti-slavery tracts, papers, &c. I 
 put on dry socks, drawers, flannel and cotton shirt. During this time, 
 it being in the open air, and the 18th of February, I was very cold, and 
 felt cramping pains in my legs. Having no change of pantaloons, I 
 had to put on the wet ones which I had just taken off. My vest I placed 
 in a handkerchief together with the remainder of my wet clothes. They 
 now required the anti-slavery books. I handed out a bundle of 'Politics 
 and the Pulpit,' 'Wesley's Thoughts on Slavery,' 'Lewis Tappan on 
 the Unconstitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Bill,' and the 'Liberty 
 Minstrel.' One of them opened the latter, and began to read, 
 
 ' Gone, gone, sold and gone, 
 
 To the rice-swamps, dank and lone.' 
 
 As I thought that stealing a few books could add but little to the black- 
 ness of their guilt, I told them they niight have the books — I would 
 give them to them. They thought the Liberty Minstrel, being nicely 
 bound, ought to be paid for. 1 told them I wanted nothing for it, — 
 they might keep it. Finding that they determined to pay for it, and 
 fearing it might add to my sufferings if I made the issue that I would 
 not receive the money, I received fifty cents for it, simply as the 
 safest course for myself under the circumstances. One of them called 
 it a fair trade. Ah, thought I, if it facilitates my escape from your 
 
19 
 
 hands. They enquired if it was a cold day when I was baptized, and 
 whether I ever had such a baptizing before, — and many other things in 
 ridicule of my religious faith. 
 
 " They enquired what was thought by different persons of the treat- 
 ment I received on Sunday night. 'Now,' said they, 'had you come to 
 Richmond, and pursued the same course as other ministers, you would 
 have been treated with the greatest kindness and hospitality.' I told 
 them that the manner in which I had been treated that day would add 
 no sorrow to my dying hour. I had not expressed my views in Rich- 
 mond, in regard to the right of slaves to run away. 1 had, however, 
 last year, in the State of New York, reported a speech made by Bro. 
 Glen, in which he showed that as persons could serve God better in 
 freedom than in slavery, every slave was morally bound to run away. 
 I had stated that the argument was conclusive. This was published in 
 the American Baptist, and had been seen by the Richmond Methodist 
 minister. Hence they charged me with saying to him, that slaves 
 could not get to heaven, unless they should run away. I found that 
 they had received a communication from Mayslick, saying I had been 
 threatened with lynching there. The bar-tender now took out a pair 
 of scissors and cut off a lock of my hair to send to the editor of the 
 American Baptist. We now repaired to the Lancaster road, and the 
 lynchers, on horseback, rode to Richmond, while I, on foot, carrying 
 my wet clothes and car-pet bag, started for Lancaster, — a dirt road of 
 twenty-two miles, muddy, and crossed by creeks. I now had fellow- 
 ship with the slaves in their sufferings more closely than ever before. 
 The lynchers had forbidden me to have a night's rest before reaching 
 Lancaster. 1 walked about five miles over a muddy road. I was now 
 weary, faint, hungry, and part of my clothes wet. Besides, the road 
 forked, and it was too dark for me to read the direction. To lie down 
 in the fields would probably ruin my health. To ask protection of slave- 
 holders was, from my situation, to become the object of suspicion. But 
 it was the best alternative. 1 approached a house, and asked if I could 
 obtain a supper. This was cordially granted. I then stated my case 
 and treatment. The slaveholder, Mr. M., said, 'If I thought you had 
 come to steal one of my niggers, I should immediately shoot you.' 
 
 " He then dwelt on the benefits of Colonization, while I dried my pan- 
 taloons at his fire. 1 told him my future health would depend on my hav- 
 ing the privilege of staying all night, and inquired if I might do so. 
 He consented to it. That kind act of his, in all probability, prevented 
 me from taking a cold from which I could never have recovered. A 
 fire was lighted in my bed-room, and I sat up till midnight with his son, 
 drying my clothes. The latter sympathized with me in my trial. I 
 lay down, but that night slept not a minute. The next morning I 
 started at five o'clock. I was as unsuccessful as on the previous eve- 
 ning in hiring a horse. I walked four miles, crossing a creek by moon- 
 light, on a dam which was somewhat dangerous. I breakfasted at a tavern, 
 walked two miles farther, and for ^L50, hired a horse and boy to go 
 to Lancaster. We arrived safely. I had now travelled twenty-two 
 
20 
 
 miles, and was ten miles farther from Lexington than when at Rich- 
 mond. I was still in danger, for I had told of the treatment I had 
 received before leaving the State. 1 now hired another horse, and the 
 tavern-keeper sent his slave on another, to take the horse back from 
 Bryantsville. I began now to feel somewhat secure. But the mail- 
 carriers came, inquired me out, and made it known that 1 had been 
 lynched, I was again the object of suspicion. The tavern-keeper at 
 Bryantsville was a Baptist slaveholder, and I told him I thought 1 would 
 go on toward Lexington. His son persuaded me to stay. The next 
 morning the stage came. The passengers were all duly informed. 
 The inside was filled. I took my seat on the outside, the rain falling 
 in torrents. The company cracked their jokes upon me, singing 
 hymns, swore, drank, and denounced the Emancipationist. Arrived 
 at Lexington, I found that some of my Richmond enemies were look- 
 ing out for me. I walked down to the railroad office, dried my clothes, 
 and that evening reached Frankfort. 1 found I was still watched. 
 The next day I came on to Madison, and felt how good it was to land 
 in a free State. Last Sunday, February 23, preached three times to 
 the colored Baptist church in this place. 
 
 Yours for the Slave, 
 
 EDWARD MATHEWS." 
 
 The American Baptist, in commenting at some length on this 
 revolting and cruel infliction of Lynch law, justly says : 
 
 "Br. Mathews' case is emphatically one of deliberate 'persecution 
 for righteousness sake,' — better entitled to be so called than anything 
 that has occurred, so far as we now recollect, in the experience of 
 modern missionaries in heathen lands. Judson was imprisoned at Ava, 
 not as a Christian, but as a foreigner, and a supposed enemy, — ^just as 
 an English or American Infidel would have been imprisoned in like 
 circumstances. Two missionaries were killed and eaten by cannibals 
 some years since, not as Christians, but as strangers, just as a Mahometan 
 stranger would have been killed and eaten, had he landed on the same 
 inhospitable coast. So of other similar cases. But Mathews was per- 
 secuted for his fidelity as a minister of Christ. By the testimony of his 
 persecutors themselves, ' had he pursued the same course that other 
 ministers pursue' in Kentucky, — had he, in other words, proved himself 
 a miserable, truckling time-server, closing his eyes to the gigantic and 
 overshadowing abomination of slavery, and trimming his sails to the 
 popular breeze, instead of faithfully discharging his trust as a messen- 
 ger of Him who was annointed 'to preach deliverance to the captives, 
 and the opening of the prison to them that are bound,' — he 'would hilve 
 been treated with the greatest kindness and hospitality.' But, like his 
 Master, he pursued a course which was felt by the oppressors around 
 him as a rebuke; and hence, like his Master, he was violently seized, 
 bound, and led away, stripped, blindfolded, insulted, and reviled. He 
 was not scourged, indeed ; but another species of torture scarcely less 
 severe was inflicted. Ten times in succession was he subjected to the 
 
21 
 
 x>rdeal by water, struggling forth from the strangling element only to 
 be brutally hurled back into the wintry flood. And Anally, as the only 
 alternative of a violent death, he was compelled to submit to an extra- 
 judicial sentence of banishment from the Stale. 
 
 " We invite attention to this instance of the persecution in our own 
 country of a Christian missionary, for no other cause than that, as a 
 Christian missionary, he was found faithful, — as one of startling signifi- 
 cancy. It would seem that the preaching, without reserve, of the true 
 Christian doctrine, is actually attended with more peril in the Southern 
 States of this confederacy, than in Constantinople, Ava, or Canton." 
 
 Against such high-handed atrocities as this case presents, by which 
 the Constitution lohich the President has sioorn to supjwrt, is openly 
 violated and annulled in half the States of this Union, xoe hear not a 
 word from our chief Magistrate, icho sends out on the wings of the 
 lightning a j)Toclamation of terrors against the peaceable rescuers of a 
 brother from the open jaws of the slave power. I impeach our Presi- 
 dent and his chief adviser, and charge upon them the crime of treason and 
 hypocrisy. They are traitors before God and hypocrites before the 
 world. 
 
 In considering the criminality of this Nation, ice must take note of 
 the wrongs inflicted on the slave. 
 
 I shall have time to give this topic only the briefest discussion. 
 Look at the sad, the heart-rending fact : there are more than three mil- 
 lions o^ our countrymen and countrywomen, with their children, to-day 
 held in slavery — the most cruel and hopeless, the most debasing and 
 accursed tyranny this world ever saw. There are more than half a 
 million of our fellow beings in this land crushed under the mountain 
 weight of American prejudice and pride against color. A larger num- 
 ber the victims of a horrible oppression, that ends only in the narrow 
 house of the dead, whore the weary are at rest and the wicked cease 
 from troubling, than the whole American people sixty years ago ! 
 Jefferson, who knew by observation some of the milder horrors of 
 slavery, declared that they were insufferable. So atrocious did he regard 
 the system of slavery, that he affirmed, in a supposed rising of the 
 slaves for liberty, that every attribute of the Almighty Father must 
 take sides with the slave and against his oppressor. This is important 
 testimony. But feebly however does it express the awful crime of the 
 slaveholder and his abettor. There is a fact, which declares more for- 
 cibly than any words we can use, the depth of this sin, i. e. the efforts 
 which the slave makes and the hazard which he incurs to escape from 
 his bondage. By his irrepressible longings for liberty, and by his in- 
 appeasable hatred of slavery, is he urged on to these great efforts and 
 perils. The privations of a long, lonely and toilsome journey, through 
 an unknown land teeming with a hostile population, cannot deter him 
 from the effort. Skulking in swamps and woods by day, fixing his eye 
 at night on the star of liberty, he patiently pushes his way on to the land 
 of the free, where he may regain his manhood, and where the slave- 
 hunter can no more molest his victim. He makes this great effort with 
 
22 
 
 a full knowledge of the terrible consequences which will result there* 
 from if he is recaptured. Thousands succeed, but thousands more are 
 retaken and sold to the extreme South, and life with them soon flees 
 away under the grinding rigor of their fate. Now the slave consents 
 to be fastened up in a coffin-like box, to incur the tremendous hazard 
 of such a mode of transportation to a free land, where he can be a man. 
 Again, he hides in the dark hold of a ship, and spends the weary days 
 of his voyage thus shut out from the light and joy of earth, nerved to 
 endure the horrors of such a passage by the hope of recovering his 
 liberty and his manhood when he touches a free port. Many a slave 
 has thus escaped from his bondage, and some are this day seeking a 
 free home, amid perils which we cannot understand. Oh, how power- 
 ful, how melting the appeal which these heroic efforts and fearful dar- 
 ings of the fugitive slave bring home to our hearts for sympathy and 
 aid, and for that faithful and oft-repeated testimony of our indignation 
 against the oppressor, which the Almighty and good Father commands 
 us to feel and express, in the duty enjoined upon us to do to these vic- 
 tims of cruelty, as we in their circumstances would ask to be treated ! 
 
 The slave is at the mercy of wicked men : for surely none but a 
 wicked man would reduce or hold a brother in bondage. The husband 
 cannot protect his wife ; he has no security that she will be left to bless 
 his humble home a single day. He may be snatched away from her 
 side and from his poor cabin home, or she may be torn from his arms, 
 and they who love with fondest affection are parted by cruel rapacity, 
 to meet no more in life. Could you hold your sacred rights of love in 
 your husband or wife by such a tenure } At the mercy of another } 
 Without hope of release the poor slave endures this inconceivable 
 wrong., this unutterable icoe. It would be no worse for you or for me, no 
 greater cr'me to reduce you or me to that miserable state, than it is to 
 Reduce our black brother to bondage. I will give you now a word of 
 the tesiiniony of a fugitive slave, respecting this suffering from the dis»> 
 ruption of family ties. They who suffer these tcro7igs can better de^ 
 scribe them than ?«e who know not by experience their woe. Take first 
 an extract from the thrilling story of Henry Box Brown, 
 
 ^' Henry was a slave in Virginia. He had a wife and three children 
 for whom he was paying one hundred and twenty dollars a year. One 
 morning he went to work as usual, but on returning at noon, found 
 that his wife and children had been seized and sold upon the auction- 
 block to the slave-traders, and were to be transported out of the State 
 the next day in a slave-gang, which had just been filled by the purchase 
 of his wife and children. Henry says : ' The next day I stationed 
 myself by the side of the road, over which the slaves, three hundred 
 and fifty-three, were to pass. There was a large company of us 
 waiting to take a last farewell of the dear ones of our homes. A moan 
 of sorrow could be heard on all sides as we waited for the sad pro- 
 cession. Soon five wagons came along, loaded with the children too 
 small to walk. My little girl saw me, and pointing to me with her 
 hand out of the wagon, cried out, ' There's my father ; I knew he 
 
23 
 
 would come to say good-bye.' I was choked with sorrow, and could 
 not reply a word. When the slave-gang came up, I got hold of the 
 hand of my wife, and walked weeping by her side for several miles. 
 We could not talk ; our sorrow was too great ; and we parted without 
 speaking the word, farewell.' 
 
 " Henry remarked, with the deepest pathos, that after his wife and 
 children were stolen, his heart was broken. He had learned to sing, 
 to lighten the tedium of his labor, and for the gratification of his fellow- 
 captives, but now he could not sing. His thoughts were far away in 
 the rice-swamps of Carolina. His wife was not and his children were 
 not, and he refused to be comforted. When the master, noticing his 
 despondency, told him he could get another wife (Southern morality). 
 Brown shook his head, — the wife of his affections and the children of 
 his love, or none at all." 
 
 Take another extract from the story of Rev. Thomas H. Jones, a 
 fugitive slave, who has been preaching to the Wesleyan Church in 
 Salem, for the last year. See how he describes his feelings when the 
 wife of his bosom and the mother of his children was taken from him 
 by her cruel mistress : 
 
 " About this time I began to feel very lonely. I wanted a friend to 
 whom I could tell my story of sorrows, of unsatisfied longing, of new 
 and fondly cherished plans. I wanted a companion whom I could love 
 with all my warm affections, who should love me in return with a true 
 and fervent heart, of whom I might think when toiling for a selfish, 
 unfeeling master, who should dwell fondly on my memory when we 
 were separated during the severe labors of the day, and with whom I 
 might enjoy the blessed happiness of social endearments after the work 
 of each day was over. My heart yearned to have a home, if it was only 
 the wretched home of the unprotected slave, to have a wife to love me and 
 to love. It seems to me that no one can have such fondness of love, 
 and such intensity of desire for home and home affections, as the poor 
 slave. Despised and trampled on by cruel, unfeeling men, the bond- 
 man must die in the prime of his wretched life, if he finds no refuge in 
 a dear home, where love and sympathy shall meet him from hearts 
 made sacred to him by his own irrepressible affection and tenderness 
 for them. And so I sought to love and to win a true heart in return. 
 I did this, too, with a full knowledge of the desperate agony that the 
 slave husband and father is exposed to. Had I not seen this in the 
 anguish of my own parents } Yea, I saw it in every public auction, 
 where men and women and children were brought upon the block, ex- 
 amined, and bought. I saw it on such occasions, in the hopeless agony 
 depicted in the countenance of the husband and wife, there separated 
 to meet no more in this cruel world ; and in the screams of wild 
 despair and useless entreaty which the mother, then deprived of her 
 darling child, sent forth. I heard the doom which stares every slave 
 parent in the face each waking and sleeping hour of an unhappy life. 
 And yet I sought to become a husband and a father, because I felt that I 
 could live no longer unloved and unloving. 
 
24 
 
 I was married to Lucilla Smith, the slave of Mrs. Moore. We called 
 it and we considered it a true marriage^ although we knew well that 
 marriage was not permitted to the slaves, as a sacred right of the 
 loving heart. Lucilla was seventeen years old when we were married. 
 I loved her with all my heart, and she gave me a return for my affec- 
 tion, with which I was contented. Oh, God of Love, thou knowest 
 what happy hours we have passed in each other's society in our poor 
 cabin. When we knelt in prayer, we never forgot to ask God to save 
 us from the misery of cruel separation, while life and love were our 
 portion. Oh, how we have talked of this dreaded fate, and wept in 
 mingling sorrow, as we thought of our desolation, if we should be 
 parted and doomed to live on weary years away from each other's 
 dear presence. We had three dear little babes. Our fondness for our 
 precious children increased the feeling of love for each other, which 
 filled our hearts. They were bright, precious things, those little babes ; 
 at least, so they seemed to us. Lucilla and I were never tired of 
 planning to improve their condition, as far as might be done for slaves. 
 We prayed with new fervency to our Father in heaven, to protect our 
 precious babes. Lucilla was] very proud of me, because I could read 
 and write, and she often spoke of my teaching our dear little ones, and 
 then she would say with tears, " Who knows, Thomas, but they may 
 yet he free and happy 7 " Lucilla was a valuable slave to her mistress. 
 She was a seamstress, and very expert at her needle. ] had a constant 
 dread that Mrs. Moore, her mistress, would be in want of money, and 
 sell my dear wife. We constantly dreaded a final separation. Our 
 affection for each other was very strong, and this made us always ap- 
 prehensive of a cruel parting. These fears were well-founded, as our 
 sorrowing hearts too soon learned. A few years of very pure and 
 constant happiness, for slaves, passed away, and we were parted to 
 meet but once again till we meet in Eternity. Mrs. Moore left Wil- 
 mington, and moved to Newburn. She carried with her my beloved 
 Lucilla, and my three children, Anne, four years old ; Lizzie, two 
 and a half years : and our sweet little babe, Charlie. She remained 
 there eighteen months. And Oh, how lonely and dreary and despond- 
 ing were those months to my crushed heart ! My dear wife and my 
 precious children were seventj^-four miles distant from me, carried 
 away in utter scorn of my beseeching words. I was tempted to put 
 an end to my wretched life. I 'thought of my dear family by day and 
 by night. A deep despair was in my heart, such as no one is called 
 to bear in such cruel, crushing power, as the poor slave, severed for- 
 ever from the objects of his love, by the rapacity of his brother. 
 
 But that dark time of despair passed away, and I saw once more my 
 wife and children. Mrs. Moore left Newburn for Tuscaloosa, Ala., and, 
 passing through Wilmington, on her journey, she spent one night in her 
 old home. That night I passed with my wife and children. Lucilla 
 had pined away under the agony of our separation, even more than I 
 had done. That night she wept on my bosom, and we mingled bitter tears 
 together. Our dear children were baptized in the tears of agony that 
 
' 25 
 
 were wrung from our breaking hearts. The just God remember that 
 night in the last award that we and our oppressors are to receive. 
 
 The next morning Mrs. Moore embarked on board the packet. I 
 followed my wife and children to the boat, and parted from them with- 
 out a word of farewell. Our sobs and tears were our only adieu. 
 Our hearts were too full of anguish for any other expression of our 
 hopeless woe. I have never seen that dear family since, nor have I 
 heard from them since I parted from them there. God only knows the 
 bitterness of my agony, experienced in the separation of my wife and 
 children from me. The memory of that great woe will find a fresh 
 impression on my heart while that heart shall beat. How will the 
 gifted and the great meet the charge against them at the great day, as 
 the Judge shall say to them, in stern displeasure, ' I was sick, destitute, 
 imprisoned, helpless, and ye ministered not unto me, for when ye 
 slighted and despised these wretched, pleading slaves, ye did these acts 
 of scorn against me. Depart, ye workers of iniquity.' " 
 
 The slave father and the slave inother love their dear children as 
 fondly as ive love the precious ones ivhom God has committed to our 
 care. There is no joy so great to your heart as that which res^dts from 
 the happiness and prosperity of your children. 
 
 God has invested this relation with the most sacred sanctions, prom- 
 ising to bless, in all cases, the faithful training of the child, and con- 
 necting with obedience, reverence and love to the parent, the future 
 welfare of the child. God gives the control of the child to the parents 
 as a most precious and sacred trust. But the slaveholder robs the pa- 
 rent of this right, and takes the control of the slave's children into his 
 own hands, dooms them to ignorance, degrades them, and, so far as he 
 can, obliterates from their soul the image of their Heavenly Father, 
 and reduces them to a level with the brute. 
 
 A slave mother in Kentucky, was to be taken to the distant South 
 the next day, separated from her beloved child, with no hope of ever 
 meeting the dear one of her love again. She was in jail awaiting her 
 removal. She asked the jailor to allow her to have her child with her 
 this last night of her sad sojourn in the land of her birth. Her request 
 was granted, and in the morning she and her child were found dead, 
 destroyed hy the frantic mother, as the only possible release from the 
 horrors impending in their separation. Could you endure the intoler- 
 able woe of seeing your dear children thus degraded and ruined by the 
 hand of remorseless tyranny .'' Will you bear in mind that God com- 
 mands you to do unto and for those poor, suffering slaves, husbands 
 and wives, parents and children, as you would wish to be holpen if in 
 ■their wretched condition } This duty your Judge enjoins, and you 
 neglect it at the peril of your soul. 
 
 If I had time I should be glad to dwell on other aspects of the great 
 wrongs endured by the slave — the enforced ignorance and immorality 
 which is made to rest like the pall of death on these millions of our 
 suffering brothers — the cruel extinction, by the relentless slave code, of 
 the honorable and earnest desires of the heart for betterment in the 
 
 3 
 
26 
 
 condition of life — the moral apathy which is purposely cast upon the 
 feelings of the slave — these and other topics, pregnant with great 
 truths, I would dwell upon, but I have not time now. You have seen 
 enough, however, to lead you to cry out in the language of John 
 Wesley — " American slavery is the sum of all villainies ! ! ! " You 
 have seen enough to show you that the wrongs endured by the slave in 
 these United States, are unequalled in atrocity and unparalleled in the 
 extent and infamy of their criminality in any other land of this earth. 
 I will dismiss this topic by quoting the language of one who lives in 
 the midst of slavery, the truth of whose testimony no one will be dis- 
 posed to call in question. 
 
 The Rev. R. J. Breckenridge, of Kentucky, thus speaks on this 
 point, of the family and home relations of the slave. He characterized 
 it as " the most atrocious of all human institutions, " as a system 
 " which denies to a wh6le class of human beings the sacredness of 
 marriage and of home, compelling them to live in a state of concubin- 
 age, for, in the eye of the law, no colored slave-man is the husband of 
 any wife in particular, nor any slave-woman the wife of any husband 
 in particular, and no slave-child is the child of any parent in par- 
 ticular." 
 
 But we must not pass by the Fugitive Slave Bill in the exposition of 
 the Nation's sin. 
 
 It would be difficult to find, in the legislation of the world, a case of 
 such deliberate and damning villany as the consummation of this mea- 
 sure in the thirty-first Congress of these States presents. The manner 
 in which it was driven through at the very last moment of the session 
 is thus stated by Mr. Mann, in his recent admirable speech on this bill. 
 He says : — 
 
 " When several of these measures were passed, and particularly 
 when one of the most obnoxious and criminal of them all was passed, — 
 I mean the Fugitive Slave Bill, — this House was not a deliberative body. 
 Deliberation was silenced. Those who knew they could not meet our 
 arguments, choked their utterance. The previous question, which was 
 originally devised to curb the abuse of too much debate, was perverted 
 to stop all debate. The floor was assigned to a known friend of the 
 bill, who after a brief speech in palliation of its enormities, moved 
 the previous question ; and thus we were silenced by force, instead of 
 being overcome by argument. For, sir, I aver, without fear of contra- 
 diction, that|the bill never could have become a law, had its opponents 
 been allowed to debate it, or to propose amendments to it. For the 
 honor of the country, therefore, at the present time, and for the cause 
 of truth hereafter, it is important that the hideous features of that bill, 
 which were then masked, should be now unmasked. The arguments 
 which I then desired and designed to offer against it, I mean to offer 
 now. Those arguments have lost nothing of their weight by this 
 enforced delay, and I have lost nothing of my right to present them." 
 
 I have never been disposed to stop to ask the question whether this 
 pretended law be constitutional or unconstitutional, as a question to be 
 
27 
 
 settled before I should decide whether duty bade me to obey or disobey 
 the infamous statute. It is clearly proved, however, by argument and 
 logic which cannot be answered, and which no man will ever attempt 
 to answer, that this law is entirely unconstitutional. It subverts the 
 Constitution, and severs the bond of Union, just as much as it contra- 
 venes the eternal constitution of Right which God has enacted. But I 
 am prepared to say, that I will disobey that law, by aiding the fugitive 
 slave, and by active obstructions in the way of the abominable kidnapper, 
 although the Constitution of my country should sanction the law in all 
 the length and breadth of its itmneasurable i7ifamy. I am devoutly thank- 
 ful that this law is as unconstitutional as it is bad, but we must remem- 
 ber this rule, which is binding upon men always and everywhere, a 
 rule higher in authority and more ancient than any human law or 
 Constitution, obey God rather than man,- — disobedience to a wicked law 
 is loyalty to God, — deliberate obedience to a loicked statute like this 
 bill of utter abominations is blank Atheism, and those loho counsel it 
 are sheer Atheists. And in this matter the old doctrine of the Protest- 
 ants is true, each one must examine and decide according to the con- 
 victions of his own conscience. As each one will go to the judgment 
 alone, and answer for himself and for no other, according to that which 
 he hath done, so must each one, by his oion private individual con- 
 science, decide for his own sold, and thus forever bear the result of 
 that decision, what duty demands of him. 
 
 The process which is instituted by this act for the rendition of the 
 fugitive to bondage as you all know, is to be a " summary process.'''' 
 Provision is made for the swift and sure accomplishment oj injustice. 
 Now look at one example of this summary injustice : — A colored woman 
 and her daughter, claimed as fugitive slaves, while the husband and 
 father was absent from his home, were seized near Philadelphia and 
 brought before Judge Kane for trial under the summary provision of this 
 law. David Paul Brown, Esq., the generous and steadfast friend of the 
 colored people, volunteered to act as her counsel. He asked delay for 
 a few days that he might procure important testimony from a distance, 
 which would show that this woman was free. But the trial must be 
 summary, and the petition for time to prove her right to freedom was 
 cruelly denied the poor woman. A physician then came forward and 
 testified under oath that the unhappy prisoner was on the eve of her con- 
 finement, and could not with safety be removed to the distant place 
 where her professed owner lived. This was urged upon the judge as a 
 reason for a postponement of the trial, but in vain. A final appeal was 
 then made for a short delay, that, at least, the freedom of the child 
 might be secured by its birth on the free soil of Pennsylvania. But the 
 Judge was inexorable, the summary proceedings of the court were not 
 to be stayed one hour, not even to give freedom to an immortal being 
 just entering the world. The despairing mother was hurried to the 
 land of chains, that her child, thus unborn, might be doomed to the life 
 of a slave. It is difficult to speak of such things — the infernal law, and 
 its legitimate results — with words that shall answer the burning indig- 
 
28 
 
 nation of every true heart. We have in this late the abomination of 
 utter injustice and icrong, unlighied by a spark of goodness or truth. 
 
 The trembHng fugitives have sent out an appeal to the clergy of this 
 State, which is so expressive and true, that I offer no apology for giving 
 it in this place, and then I close this topic by an extract from the noble 
 speech of Mr. Mann, on this law. 
 
 ADDRESS TO THE CLERGY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 " We, the trembling, proscribed and hunted fugitives from chattel 
 slavery, now scattered through the various towns and villages of Massa- 
 chusetts, and momentarily liable to be seized by the strong arm of gov- 
 ernment, and hurried back to stripes, tortures and a bondage, one hour 
 of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which your 
 fathers rose in rebellion to oppose — most humbly, importunately, and by 
 the mercies of Christ, implore you to lift up your voices, like a trumpet, 
 against the Fugitive Slave Bill recently adopted by Congress, and de- 
 signed for our sure and immediate re-enslavement. 
 
 You claim, in an especial sense, to be witnesses for God — the am- 
 bassadors of Him who came to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim 
 liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are 
 bound. As you would be clear of the blood of all men, it is for you to 
 give to the down-trodden and the oppressed your deepest sympathies, 
 and to hold up to reprobation those who frame mischief by a law. It is 
 for you to declare the supremacy of the eternal law of God over all 
 human enactments, whether men will hear or forbear. 
 
 After years of unrequited labor; of enforced degradation ; of incon- 
 ceivable misery — we have succeeded in making our escape from the 
 southern house of bondage, and are now attempting to lead quiet and 
 peaceable lives in this Commonwealth, and by expanding our faculties, 
 and cultivating our moral nature, to glorify God in our bodies and spirits, 
 which are his. By the recent law of Congress it is made a highly 
 criminal act to shelter us from the slave-hunter, or to refuse to partici- 
 pate in our capture, at the command of the appointed commissioners. 
 
 Now, therefore, by the solemn injunction of a Christian apostle, 
 Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them, we implore you, 
 from your pulpits to denounce that iniquitous law ! 
 
 By the command of Christ, Whatsoever ye would that men should do 
 to you do ye even so to them, denounce the law ! 
 
 " By all the horrors compressed into that system of slavery, which 
 Wesley has justly styled the sum of all villanies, denounce the law ! 
 
 By the cherished memories of Pilgrim fathers and Revolutionary 
 sires, denounce the law ! 
 
 By your warm approval of your country's Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence, denounce the law ! 
 
 By your belief in the scriptural affirmation, that by one God we are 
 
29 
 
 all created, and that he hath made of one blood all nations of men, to 
 dwell on all the face of the earth, denounce the law ! 
 
 By all the woes and warnings pronounced by the prophets against 
 those who refuse to hide the outcast, and bewray him that wandereth 
 — who decree unrighteous decrees, and write grievousness which they 
 have prescribed, to turn aside the needy from judgment — denounce 
 the law ! 
 
 Thus will you exalt the Christian religion ; oppose the mightiest 
 obstacle that stands in the way of human redemption ; exert such a 
 moral influence as shall break the rod of the oppressor ; secure for 
 yourselves the blessings of those who are ready to perish ; and hear 
 the thrilling declaration in the great day of judgment. Inasmuch as ye 
 did it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me." 
 
 ,JVIr. Mann says : " In the name of my constituents, and by the 
 memory of that ' old man eloquent,' in whose place it is my fortune 
 to stand, I demand its repeal. I demand it, — 
 
 Because it is a law which wars against the fundamental principles of 
 human liberty. 
 
 Because it is a law which conflicts with the Constitution of the 
 country, and with all the judicial interpretations of that Constitution, 
 wherever they have been applied to the white race. 
 
 Because it is a law which introduces a fatal principle into the code 
 of evidence, and into judicial practice, — a principle before which no 
 man's liberties and no man's rights of any kind can stand. 
 
 Because it is a law which is abhorent to the moral and religious 
 sentiments of a vast majority of the community that is called upon to 
 enforce it. 
 
 Because the life and character of so many of its apologists and sup- 
 porters are themselves potent arguments against it. 
 
 Because it is a law which, if executed in the free States, divests them 
 of the character of free States, and makes them voluntary participators 
 in the guilt of slave-holding. 
 
 Because it is a law which disgraces our country in the eyes of the 
 whole civilized world, and gives plausible occasion to the votaries of 
 despotic power to decry republican institutions. 
 
 Because it is a law which forbids us to do unto others as we would 
 have them do to us, and which makes it a crime to feed the hungry, to 
 clothe the naked, and to visit and succor the sick and the imprisoned. 
 
 Because it is a law which renders the precepts of the Gospel and 
 the teachings of Jesus Christ seditious ; and, were the Saviour and his 
 band of disciples now upon earth, there is but one of them who would 
 escape its penalties by pretending " to conquer his prejudices." And, 
 finally. 
 
 Because the advocates and defenders of this law have been com- 
 pelled to place its defence upon the express ground that the com- 
 mandments of men are of higher authority than the ordinances of 
 God." 
 
 And now I ask in conclusion, what is the Christian's duty ? 
 
 No one who has followed me through this discourse with attention 
 
30 
 
 and candor, can deny that the Christian has a most important duly now 
 on his hands in the removal of American Slavery. Do you not see in 
 the condition of this nation ihe pressiitg nature of this duty ? Do you 
 not hear the voice of the Almighty Father, in the words spoken in olden 
 times to the Prophet of God, noiv calling upon every minister of the truth, 
 " Cry aloud, spare not, lift uj) thy voice like a trumpet, and show my 
 people their transgressions I First of all, then, the Anti-Slavery work 
 is a religious duty. It is not by the observance of orthodox or other 
 forms and ceremonies, that the national sin is to be purged away, and 
 our nation's destiny made glorious and happy. We cannot be as strict 
 in these things as were the Jewish people, even when filling up the 
 measure of their iniquity by the crucifixion of the Heavenly Redeemer. 
 Our duty consists not in the belief or rejection of any abstract doctrine, 
 so much as it does in the daily application of the example and precepts 
 of Christ to every situation and act of life. And we must not only act 
 against the wicked Slave power, but we must earnestly, habitually and 
 constantly seek the guidance and blessing of God in our eflbrts to remove 
 Slavery from our land. The most difficult and arduous work is that 
 which the true Christian Reformer is noio seeking to advance. He 
 needs the wisdom of God, the whole panoply of truth to arm him for 
 the tremendous struggle which God's children are now waging against 
 Wrong. The praying spirit which our Lord manifested in his arduous 
 work, his spirit of heavenly meekness, of condescending humility, of 
 entire devotedness to truth, of all-pervading love, of sweet resignation 
 to the Divine will, of self-sacrifice, of unshaken faith in God, of fearless 
 faithfulness in the discharge of duty, that noble spirit which shed 
 such a light from the bloody cross, that the Centurion, upon whose 
 heart it shone, cried out, " Truly this was the Son of God," — must guide 
 and fill the Reformer in this work, or he will fail. But if he wait on 
 the Lord, he shall mount up on wings, run the race and not weary, 
 walk the path of duty on to its joyous end, and not faint by the way. 
 Brothers and Sisters of all names and parties, who are engaged in this 
 heavenly Anti-Slavery work, I entreat you, pray for Divine wisdom, 
 for brotherly harmony and union among all the friends of truth and 
 freedom, and for speedy success in this great work of God. 
 
 Another duty which now lays its irresistible claim upon every 
 Christian man, woman and child of the land, is to seek for and to 
 disseminate all possible information on this subject. There is a wide 
 spread, and most criminal ignorance about this stupendous system of 
 oppression. There are many professed abolitionists who fail to exert a 
 decided influence for good in this momentous struggle for want of that 
 definite and well digested knowledge of slavery which they might have 
 gained by hearing the lecturer — by reading anti-slavery papers and 
 documents, and by protracted and earnest reflection. And what follows 
 from this culpable negligence ? When such an unfurnished and infinished 
 abolitionist encounters the caviler, the answer of truth is not ready, 
 and falsehood triumphs. When he meets the honest seeker for truth, a 
 golden opportunity is lost for baptizing an earnest heart into the love 
 
31 
 
 and practice of the Christian spirit of reform. And, worst of all, when 
 the faithful servant of God comes before the people with the truth, and 
 declares, in all faithfulness the whole counsel of God, he is offended, 
 and not knowing what he does, cries out in harmony with a wicked 
 world, " crucify him, crucify him.'''' This thorough knowledge of the 
 evils and enormities of slavery is of the last importance, and compared 
 with its worth, can be obtained at a very trifling expense. Only a week 
 ago to-day there was made, in this place, the ablest and best exposition 
 of the evils of the Fugitive Slave Bill that has yet been given in the 
 town of Concord, by Wendell Phillips, of Boston. No one who loves 
 truth and justice could have heard that masterly expose of wrong 
 without delight and profit. And yet but a portion of the professed 
 abolition people were present ; and, no doubt, some of them deprived 
 themselves of a rich treasure of important knowledge through mere 
 prejudice of mind. Is this magnanimous or right ? Again, I ask how 
 many of the professed friends of liberty take and read an anti-slavery 
 paper .'' Not one-third of them I presume. I submit to your own candid 
 judgment that you ought to seek, by all means, to inform yourselves on 
 this great question. Every family in Concord ought to be visited by 
 a weekly paper true to the demands of humanity. Every voter in the 
 State ought to read the able and glowing speech of Horace Mann on 
 the Fugitive Slave Bill, just published by the enterprising and earnest 
 Commonwealth. Every man who takes the miserable, love-sick Olive 
 Branch, Flag of our (Jnion, " et id omne genus,^'' or the dishonest 
 political papers like the Advertiser and Post, or the pro-slavery papers, 
 falsely called religious, like the Christian Register, and the New York 
 Observer, ought to change them for the papers devoted to the good, the 
 welfare of mankind. 
 
 We ought also to inform others, our friends and our neighbors, to 
 urge upon their notice with persistent kindness, the facts fitted to arouse 
 every conscience to instant, earnest and continued action for God and 
 humanity against the slave-power. Every document, every speech, 
 and every sermon, which brings the light and power of truth with 
 honesty and ability against the dark atrocities of slavery, should be 
 freely given up to the cause, and efficient measures adopted by the 
 friends of truth to scatter these olive leaves of love over the land. 
 You may be assured, my friends, that now is the most favorable 
 moment yet seen under this government to scatter the good seeds in 
 the hearts of the people. Men will now pause from party strife, and 
 from the hurry of business, and read an able article on this important 
 subject. There are ten ready this day to read where there was one a 
 few years since. Let us not permit the golden opportunity to pass un- 
 improved, but while the fallow ground is broken in the hearts of an 
 outraged people by the plow-share of this fugitive slave bill, let us cast 
 the seeds of truth into the rich furrows, and depend upon it God will 
 give us a glorious harvest. 
 
 It is our duty again to reform ourselves wherein we are wrong. 
 There is a fearful wickedness in the prejudice of the American heart 
 
32 
 
 against the negro. How often do we hear men say of this oppressed 
 class, " Oh, but the negro is a different race from the Saxon, and 7nust, 
 by a law of our nature, ever be an inferior while he lives here with us. 
 He never can be a i7ian in this land, but let him go to Liberia, and 
 there he may rise to the dignity of manhood.'''' All I can say in reply 
 to this statement of prejudice and pride is this : If so indeed it be, then 
 Christ died in vain, and the sooner this crazy, selfish, cruel world is 
 burned up, the better for the Universe. But there is no semblance of 
 truth in this infernal American creed. It is sheer prejudice and cruel 
 pride. Douglass, Crafts, Ward, Pennington, Remond, Smith, Jones, 
 Bibb, and others too numerous to mention, members of the despised 
 African race, in spite of difficulties which we are unable to appreciate, 
 stand forth among our ablest and best men. The Christian among us, 
 who is the ablest and most interesting in our prayer meetings of all who 
 come thither, is brother Garrison, a negro. And now bear this in mind, 
 all of you, the negro has the same inherent and inalienable right to a 
 home in this land, with all the comforts and privileges thereof, that 
 you or I have. This is his native land, and he is our brother. If he 
 falls in this strife, we fall likewise. We rise in prosperity and joy, 
 or sink in ruin together. Every privilege which we claim in the 
 State, in Society, in the bosom of the church, is his right as well as 
 oiirs. If we cavil at this or deny to him these rights, then it is a just 
 retribution upon us when we are deprived of our own. I do not say 
 that you are guilty of harboring in your hearts this cruel prejudice ; but 
 I do unhesitatingly affirm that nothing is more unchristian, nothing 
 more opposed to the precepts of the Gospel, than this remorseless 
 prejudice which so many cherish in their hearts against the negro 
 race. 
 
 Again we are in duty bound to refuse all fellowship to the slaveholder 
 and to his abettor. 
 
 I could not in conscience, and I would not for my life, by any act of 
 mine, acknowledge the minister, who assumes such a wicked attitude in 
 regard to this fugitive slave bill, as Dewey and Rogers have done, to 
 be a minister of Christ. I believe that such men are undisguisedly 
 and only ministers of unrightousness. 
 
 " Depend upon it," says a correspondent of the Free Presbyterian, 
 " that when we are dead and gone, the historian of the Church will 
 mark the year 1850 as an era when blank, unvarnished infidelity was 
 taught in Christian pulpits — when the Government commanded the cit- 
 izen to trample humanity and the law of God in the dust, and the Clergy 
 stood by consenting and co-operating." 
 
 I submit to the conscience of each one who hears me, that it is your 
 duty to refuse Christian fellowship to the slave-holder and his abettor. 
 And that you are sacredly bound to vote for no man to be a ruler in the 
 land, who holds slaves or supports slavery. ' 
 
 But there is still another and most important duty which the Christian 
 is bound to perform. Union with all honest and pure men and women 
 who will come together on the great platform of humanity, for the 
 overthrow of slavery. 
 
33 
 
 The South presents an undivided front on this question. Southern 
 men cast to the winds all minor considerations when the question of 
 slavery comes up for discussion or for action. In this way for sixty 
 years have they been victorious over the divided and betrayed people 
 of the Northern States. But the forces of Liberty are divided. Their 
 disjointed and ill-directed efforts result in no permanent overthrow of 
 of the slave-power. I am told on the one hand and in this State, be- 
 ware of Garrison and his friends, for they are infidels, bad men and 
 women, disturbers of the church, and rebels against the jrovernment. 
 But what is the simple truth > Why Garrison and his friends have 
 done more to arouse this nation to an abiding sense «f the great peril 
 impending over our precious fabric of freedom, from the slave-power 
 tlmn all other classes of men. You say they denounce the church. 
 Well this is their justification for so doing. The popular church of the 
 land has stood and now stubbornly stands in the way of freedom, and 
 Christ's ministers cannot declare the whole counsel of God without a 
 stern exposition of the character of a faithless ministry and a false 
 church. I know these devoted men and women and have watched 
 their course for years, and I do know that they are not open to the 
 charge of infidelity. By the rule our Savior himself gives us, I meas- 
 ure them and find that they are Christians. " By their fruits shall ye 
 know them.'''' 
 
 Nor in saying this, do I endorse all their theological views, nor 
 agree entirely with them in regard to the measures proposed. But I 
 see them in the field, yea the pioneers there, striking stout blows for 
 freedom, and carrying confusion into the ranks of the enemy. With 
 the generous ardor of a brother in the noble cause of humanity, I 
 rush to their side, and join in their warfare. 
 
 On the other hand, and in another State I am told, beware of Gerrit 
 Smith and his chosen friends in the Anti-Slavery cause, for they are 
 radicals and fanatics, and you can never be popular if you act with 
 them. Be it so, if you please, in this present hour, but remember it is 
 far better to be right, than to be popular, and remember, too, there 
 comes a time whose dawning light may guide our footsteps, when the 
 right will be popular, and wrong will hide its hideous head from the 
 scornful gaze of the world. In this proscribed band of Reformers, I 
 see some of the noblest and truest men and women that live, and 
 principles bright with the truth and love of Christ, for which they 
 earnestly contend, and I am ever happy to strive with them for the 
 redemption of this world from all oppression, and for the establishment 
 of the one universal loving brotherhood in Jesus Christ. 
 
 In taking leave of this topic, I wish to impress upon your minds this 
 manifest truth. Unio7i among all honest and ptire men and women of 
 all denominations and shades of opinion, founded on a full renunciation 
 of the sectarian spirit, and on a cordial adoption of the spirit of Univer- 
 sal Brotherhood, is the one ever essential condition of success in the 
 great struggle to free the slave. 
 
 There is no service you can render to God so acceptable as this, to 
 
34 
 
 succor and relieve his oppressed, his suffering child. So highly does 
 God regard this service, that he records it in the Book of Life, and in 
 the great Day rewards the doer for these acts of Love and Kindness, 
 on the ground that they were rendered to Himself. But so sternly 
 does God abhor contempt of man in his suffering need, that to him who 
 has been guilty of slighting and despising the needy and the oppressed. 
 He will say at that time of final award, " Inasmuch as ye refused to 
 minister to these suffering children of oppression, ye despised and hated 
 me ; depart, ye workers of iniquity." 
 
 " Who shall avenge the slave ? I stood and cried : 
 
 The earth, the earth, the echoing sea replied. 
 
 I turned me to the ocean, but each wave 
 
 Declined to be the avenger of the slave. 
 
 Who shall avenge the slave ? My specie cried : 
 
 The winds, the tiood, the lightning of the sky. 
 
 I turned to these, from them one echo ran, 
 
 The right avenger of the slave is man. 
 
 Man was my fellow : In his sight I stood, 
 
 Wept and besought him by the voice of blood, 
 
 Sternly he looked, as proud on earth he trod. 
 
 Then said, the avenger of the slave is God. 
 
 I looked in prayer toward heaven, awhile 't Avas still, 
 
 And then, methought, God's voice replied, I will. 
 
 54 W 3 
 

 
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