Syracuse University Library
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Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

To the abolitionists of the county of Madison.

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874.

Digital Edition.

This digitization project was supported by Regional Bibliographic Databases and Interlibrary Resources Sharing Program funds, awarded by the New York State Library.

Call number: Smith 426

TO THE ABOLITIONISTS OF THE COUNTY OF MADISON:

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I am receiving many invitations to plead the cause of the slave in your respective towns. But indispensable and very laborious attention to my private concerns, prevents my rendering a service so full of honor and happiness. Were I, however, able to accept these invitations, what could I say to you that would be new and instructive? Slavery is just what it was when I used to plead with you, so earnestly and so frequently, for your help to overthrow it. The slave trade is a full of horrors now as it was formerly; and slaveholders are as base and murderous as ever, in the means which they employ to sustain slavery.

I said that slavery is unchanged. It still reduces its victims to marketable commodities. It still compels them to toil without wages. It still robs them of the Bible, and the Sabbath, and lawful marriage. It still subjects them to every demand which avarice, and lust, and bloody tyranny, may make upon them.

I said, too, that the slave trade has abated nought of its horrors. What a heart-touching proof of this there is in the following communication from the pen of a clergyman, who was recently a passenger in a Steamboat on Cape Fear River, in North Carolina:

"As I went on board the steamboat, I noticed eight colored men, handcuffed, and chained together in pairs, four women, and eight or ten children, of the apparent ages of from four to ten years, all standing together in the bow of the boat, in charge of a man standing near them. Of the men, one was sixty, one was fifty-two, three of them about thirty, two of them twenty-five, and one about twenty years of age, as I subsequently learned from them. The first two had children, the next three had wives and children, and the other three were single, but had parents living from them. Coming near them, I perceived that they were all greatly agitated; and on inquiry, I found that they were all slaves, who had been born and raised in North Carolina, and had just been sold to a speculator, who was now taking them to Charleston market.

"Upon the shore, there was a number of colored persons, men, women, and children, waiting the departure of the boat; and my attention was particularly attracted by two colored females, of uncommonly respectable appearance, neatly attired, who stood together, a little distance from the crowd, and upon whose countenance was depicted the keenest sorrow. As the last bell was tolling, I saw the tears gushing from their eyes, and they raised their neat cotton aprons, and wiped their faces under the cutting anguish of severed affections. They were the wives of two of the men in chains. There, too, were mothers and sisters, weeping at the departure of their sons and brothers; and there, too, were fathers, taking the last look of their wives and children. My whole attention was directed to those on the shore, and they seemed to stand in solemn, submissive silence, occasionally giving utterance to the intensity of their feelings, by a sigh, or a stifled groan. As the boat was loosed from her moorings, they cast a distressed, lingering look toward those on board, and turned away in silence. My eye now turned to those in the boat; although I had tried to control my feelings, amidst my sympathies for those on shore, I could conceal them no longer, and I found myself literally 'weeping with those that wept.' I stood near them, and when one of the husbands saw his wife upon the shore wave her hand for the last time, in token of her affection, his manly efforts to restrain his feelings gave way, and fixing his watery eyes, exclaimed, 'This is the most distressing thing of all! My dear wife and children farewell!' The husband of the other wife stood weeping in silence, with his manacled hands raised to his face, as he looked upon her for the last time.

"Of the poor women on board, three of them had husbands whom they left behind. One of the third had none. These husbands and fathers were among the throng upon the shore, witnessing the departure of their wives and children; and as they took their leave of them they were sitting together upon the floor of the boat sobbing in silence, but giving utterance to no complaint. But the distressing scene was not yet ended. Sailing down the Cape Fear river twenty-five miles, we touched at the village of Smithport, on the south side of the river. It was at this place that one of these slaves lived, and here was his wife and five children; and while at work on Monday last, his purchaser took him away from his family, carried him in chains to Wilmington, where he has since remained in jail. As we approached the wharf, a flood of tears gushed from his eyes, and anguish seemed to have pierced his heart. The boat stopped but a moment, and as she left, he bid farewell to some of his acquaintances whom he saw upon the shore, exclaiming, 'Boys, I wish you well: tell Molly (I mean his wife) and the children I wish them well, and hope God will bless them.' At that moment he espied his wife on a stoop of a house some rods from the shore, and with one hand, which was not in the hand-cuffs, he pulled off his old hat, and waving it toward her exclaimed, 'Farewell.' As he saw, by the waving her apron, that she recognized him, he leaned back upon the railing, and in a faltering voice repeated, 'Farewell, forever.' After a moment's silence, conflicting passions seemed to tear open his heart and he exclaimed 'What have I done that I should suffer this doom? O, my wife and children, I want to live no longer!' and then the big tear rolled down his cheek, which he wiped away with the palm of his unchained hand, looked once more at the mother of his five children, and the turning of the boat hid her face from him forever. As I looked around, I saw that mine was not the only heart that had been affected by the scene, but that the tears standing in the eyes of many of my fellow passengers, bore testimony to the influence of human sympathy; and I could, as an American citizen, standing within the limits of one of the old thirteen States, but repeat the language of Mr. Jefferson, in relation to the general subject: 'I tremble when I think that God is just.' After we left Smithport, I conversed freely with all these persons; and in intelligence and respectability of appearance, the three men who have thus been torn from their families, would compare favorably with the respectable portion of our colored men at the north. This is a specimen of what almost daily occurs in the business of the slave trade."

I have read this communication repeatedly; and, every time, with increased heart-ache. I envy not the spirit of the man who can read it, and then cast a proslavery vote.

I said, too, that slaveholders are as base and as murderous as ever, in their means for upholding slavery. For proof that I am right, read the following sentence of Judge O'Neall upon John L. Brown. It is copied from a New Orleans Newspaper:

"John L. Brown:

"It is my duty to announce to you the consequences of the conviction which you heard at Winnsboro,' and of the opinion you have just heard read refusing your two fold motion in arrest of judgement for a new trial. You are to die! Die a shameful, ignominious death, the death upon the gallows. This annunciation is to you, I know, most appealing. Little did you dream of it, when you stepped into the bar, with an air, as if you thought it was a fine frolick. But the consequences of crime are just such that you are realizing: punishment often comes when it is least expected.. Let me entreat you to take the present opportunity to commence the work of reformation. Time will be afforded to you to prepare for the great change, which may just before you.

"Of your past life I know nothing, except that which your trial furnished. It told me that great crime for which you are now to suffer was the consequence of a want of attention on your part to the duties of life. The 'strange woman' snared you: She 'flattered with her words,' and you became her victim. The consequence was, that led on by a desire to serve her, you committed the offence of aiding a slave to run away, and depart from her master's service; and you are now to die for it.

"You are a young man, and I fear have been an idle as well as a dissolute one. If so, these kindred vices have contributed a full measure to your ruin.

"Reflect upon your past life, and make the only useful devotion of the remnant of your days in preparing for death.

"'Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth,' is the language of inspired wisdom. This comes home appropriately to you, at this trying moment. You are young, quite too young to be where you are, and if you had remembered your Creator in your past days, you would not now be in the felon's place to receive a felon's judgement. Still it is not too late to remember your Creator: he calls early, and he calls late, he stretches out the arms of father's love to you, to the vilest sinner, and says 'come unto me, and be saved.'

"You can perhaps read, if you can read, the Scriptures, - read them without note, and without comment, and pray to God for his assistance, and you will be able to say, when you pass from prison to execution, as a poor slave said, under similar circumstances, 'I am glad my Friday has at last come.'

"If you cannot read the Scriptures, the ministers of our holy religion will be ready to aid you: they will read and explain to you, until you will be able to understand, and understanding, to call upon the only one who can help and save you, Jesus Christ, 'the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world.' To him I commend you: and through him may you have that opening of day-spring of mercy from on high, which shall bless you here, and crown you in an everlasting world, as a saint forever and ever.

"The sentence of the law is, that you be taken hence to the place from whence you last came, thence to the gaol of Fairfield District, and that there, you be closely and securely confined until Friday, the 26^th day of April next, on which day, between the hours of ten in the forenoon and two in the afternoon, you will be taken to the place of public execution, and there, be hanged by the neck till your body be dead; and may God have mercy on your soul."

This is one of the ways by which the South guards the institution of slavery! It murders the man, and murders him too in the name of religion, who is humane enough, who is religious enough, to help his brother man out of the

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horrid depths of slavery. Judge O'Neall affects as much piety in his judicial proceedings, as do the New-York Observer and the proslavery clergymen, when they shudder at the thought of the matchless crime of the slave who, to escape from his murderous pursuers, throws himself, without pausing upon the question of ownership, into the first boat, or upon the first horse, that comes his way. The man whose heart is right, could not read this sentence, which bloody slavery and religious hypocrisy passed upon the murdered John L. Brown, and then vote for the defenders and apologists of slavery.

Brethren, your pity and your corresponding efforts for your enslaved countrymen should have been great enough to have produced an anti-slavery victory in your County last Fall. But the triumph of humanity which you should have then achieved, you will have the opportunity to achieve at the approaching Town Meetings. No new enemies await you. The chief opposition you will have to encounter, is the chief opposition you have hitherto encountered. A proslavery religion, its ministers and disciples, still constitute your most formidable enemy. Proslavery politics, the demagogues who preach them, and the great parties they muster, stand next in the power of their hatred to your cause.

And here let me beseech you to resist steadfastly the false and murderous religion, which so impudently solicits your regard and patronage. How painfully inconsistent is the conduct of those anti-slavery Presbyterians, and Universalists, and Methodists, and Baptists, who still allow themselves to attend on the preaching of the proslavery ministers of their perspective sects, - on the preaching of ministers who have not enough of religion - not enough of mere honesty and decency - to rebuke proslavery voting - and to rebuke it, too, as one of the guiltiest sins against crushed humanity! Poor abolitionist is he who cares more for his Universalism, or Presbyterianism, than for the bleeding slave! An abolitionist should as soon consent to go into a blacksmith shop to forge fetters for the victims of slavery, as into a Church where the pulpit is occupied by an enemy of the slave. An anti-slavery Universalist complained to me, the other day, that I did not welcome the arrival of a distinguished Universalist preacher. "Is he," inquired I, "a true-hearted friend of the slave?" "I do not know," was the answer. The complaining gentleman was evidently unconscious that, in his unregulated love of Universalism, he was playing traitor to the slave. Under the power of his sectarian feelings, he seems not to have thought a proslavery Universalist preacher is as much to be loathed as a proslavery Presbyterian or Methodist preacher; and that no one of them is fit to be called a minister of the gospel.

The Democratic party still remains a mighty foe of our cause. But, thanks to its frankness, it does not seek to disguise its hideous proslavery character. It glories in its exhibition of that character. It makes open boast of its league with Southern oppressors, and of its contempt of the rights of the oppressed.

The Whig party continues its consummate hypocrisy. This two-faced fellow smiles on slavery at the South, and on anti-slavery at the North. - Whilst the Whig party holds such a proslavery language to the South, as is calculated to fill up its ranks with the most iron-hearted slaveholders, it claims at the North to be genuine, and indeed the only genuine, anti-slavery party. Among the gross deceptions practised by this party, is its asking for our votes on the ground that Henry Clay is in favor of the reception of anti-slavery petitions by Congress. It studies, however, to conceal from us the fact, that Mr. Clay's avowed reason for having our petitions received, is that there may be such a report made upon them as shall kill abolition and establish slavery. Another of the gross deceptions resorted to by this party to get our votes, is its bold assertion, that the success of the Whig party, in the approaching Presidential Election, is indispensable to keep Texas out of the Union. Who, however, if not Henry Clay himself, may be called the very father of the scheme of bringing Texas into the Union? By our treaty of February, 1819, we made a surrender, and received an admitted equivalent therefor, of all our pretensions to territory West of Louisiana. But, at the very next session of Congress, Mr. Clay, in gross violation of the provisions of this treaty, submitted the following Resolutions:

"1^st. Resolved, That the Constitution of the United States vests in Congress the power to dispose of the territory belonging to them; and that no treaty, purporting to alienate any portion thereof, is valid without the concurrence of Congress.

"2^nd. Resolved, That the equivalent proposed to be given by Spain to the United States, in the treaty between them on the 2d of February, 1819, for the part of Louisiana lying West of the Sabine (meaning Texas), is inadequate; and that it would be inexpedient to make a transfer thereof to any foreign power, or to renew the aforesaid treaty."

Here is repudiation of the most wholesale and infamous character! - and, if such repudiation is to be left uncensured, why should there be complaint of that which Mississippi, or some other State, is guilty? If Congress may violate the sacred obligations of a treaty, then a State Legislature may repudiate the debts of a State. Not only then is Mr. Clay responsible for the scheme of annexing Texas to this nation - or, in other words, of annexing to it a territory sufficient for half a dozen slave States; but the fathership of the doctrine of repudiation is a part of his infamy.

What an insatiable passion has Mr. Clay for the spread and perpetuity of slavery! At the very time he was so busy (and with lamentable success) in fastening slavery upon the new State of Missouri, he was plotting the extension of its horrid dominion over the fertile, beautiful, and vast region between the Sabine and the Rio del Norte.

Elect Mr. Clay to keep Texas out of the Union! Elect Mr. Clay to kill slavery! Pray, on what principle is it, Mr. Whigs, that his election would be followed by such effects? Is it on the principle of homeopathy? - on the principle, that "like cures like?" - that "the hair of the same dog cures the bite?" And is it your confidence in this very principle that leads you to say, that the success of the Whig Party - that the election of the notorious slaveholder and duellist, Henry Clay - is indispensable to the preservation of the public morals? But if homeopathy is true in respect to diseases of the body, it by no means follows that it is true in respect to moral and political diseases. At any rate, we abolitionists, with our present limited knowledge of the new medical science, will try to promote the cause of morality by electing moral instead of immoral men to office; and we will also try to kill slavery by means of liberty, rather than by means of slavery - by the election of an anti-slavery Birney, rather than by the election of a proslavery Clay, or proslavery Calhoun, or proslavery Van Buren.

Your Friend,

GERRIT SMITH.

PETERBORO, February 5, 1844