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Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

Hon. Stephen C. Phillips, of Salem, Mass. : Peterboro, October 23d, 1846.

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 444

PETERBORO, OCTOBER 23d, 1846

Hon. STEPHEN C. PHILLIPS, of Salem, MASS.

DEAR SIR,

This day's mail brings me the Speech, which you delivered at the Meeting recently assembled at Faneuil Hall to consider the outrage of kidnapping a man in the streets of Boston.

I am not insensible to the ability, eloquence, beauty, of this Speech: - and yet it fails of pleasing me. The Meeting, after I saw its proceedings, was no longer an object of my pleasant contemplations. Indeed, Massachusetts herself has ceased to be such an object. There was a time, when, among all Commonwealths, she was my beau ideal. Her wisdom, integrity, bravery - in short, her whole history, from her bud in the Mayflower to the blossoms and fruits, with which a ripe civilization had adorned and enriched her - made her the object of my warm and unmeasured admiration. But, a change has come over her. Alas, how great and sad a one! She has sunk her ancient worth and glory in her base devotion to Mammon and Party.

When, in the year 1835, one of her sons - that son, to whom she, not to say this whole nation, owes more than to any other person, was, for his honest, just, and fearless, assaults on slavery, driven by infuriate thousands through the streets of her metropolis, with a halter round his neck, Massachusetts looked on, applauding. So far was she from disclaiming the mob, that she boasted, that her "gentlemen of property and standing" composed it. Indeed, one of her first acts after the mob, was to choose for her Governor the mail, who promptly rewarded her for this choice by his official recommendation to treat abolitionists as criminals.

Massachusetts was not, however, lost to shame. It was not in vain, that the finger of scorn was pointed at her for this inch and for other demonstrations of her proslavery. For very decency's sake, she began to adjust her dress, and put on better appearances. Indeed, antislavery sentiment became the order of the day with her: and, from her chief statesman down to her lowest demagogue, all tried their skill in uttering big words against slavery. But, the hollowest sentiment and the merest prating constituted the whole warp and woof of this pretended and unsubstantial opposition to slavery. Massachusetts still remained the slave of Party and Mammon. She would still vote for slaveholders, rather than break up the national parties to which she was wedded. She would still make every concession to the slave power to induce it to spare her manufactures.

A fine occasion was afforded Massachusetts, a few years ago, to talk her antislavery words, and display her antislavery sentiment; and right well, did she improve it. I refer to the casting of the fugitive slave George Latimer into one of her jails. Instantly, did she show antislavery colors. She was antislavery all over, and to the very core also, as a stranger to her ways would have thought. But, beneath all her manifestations of generous regard for the oppressed, she continued to be none the less bound up in avarice - none the less servile to the South. The first opportunity she had to do so, she again voted for slaveholders.

Then came the project to annex Texas. The slaveholders demanded more territory - to soak with the sweat arid tears and blood of the poor African. This was another occasion for Massachusetts to make another antislavery bluster. She made it: - and then voted for Clay - for the very man, who had done unspeakably more than any other man to extend and perpetrate the dominion of American slavery. As a specimen of her heartlessness, in this instance of her antislavery particle, her present Whig Governor, who was among the foremost and loudest to condemn this scheme of annexation, is now calling, in the name of patriotism, on his fellow citizens to consummate it, by murdering the unoffending Mexicans.

Next came the expulsion of her Commissioners front Charleston and New Orleans. Again, she blustered, for a moment. She denounced slavery and the South. She boasted of herself, as if she still were what she had been; - as if "modern democracy had not reached" her. But, the sequel proved her hypocricy and baseness. After a little time, she quietly pocketed the insult, and was as ready, as ever, to vote for slaveholders.

I will refer to but one more of the many opportunities, which Massachusetts has had to prove herself worthy of her former history. - It is that, which called out your present speech. This was emphatically an opportunity for Massachusetts to show herself to be an antislavery State. But, she had not a heart to improve it. Her own citizens, in the very streets of her own gloried-in City, had chased down a man, and bound him, and plunged him into the pit of perpetual slavery. The voice of such a deed, sufficient to rend her rocks, and move her mountains, could not startle the dead soul of her people. They are the fast bound slaves of Mammon and Party. True, it very great Meeting was gathered in Faneuil Hall. - Eloquent speeches were made; and a committee of vigilance was appointed. But, nothing was done to redeem herself from her degeneracy: nothing to recal to her loathsome carcass the great and glorious spirit, which had departed front it; nothing was done for the slave. When the year 1848 shall come round, Massachusetts, if still impenitent, will be as ready to vote for the slaveholders, whom the South shall then bid her vote for, as she was to do so in 1844.

Your great Meeting was a farce: - and will you pardon me, if I cite your open speech to prove it? That speech, which denounces your fellow citizen for stealing one man, was delivered by a gentleman, who (risum teneatis?) contends, that a person, who steals hundreds of men, is fit to be President of the United States! It is ludicrous, beyond all parallel, that he, who would crown with the highest honors the very prince of kidnappers, should, with a grave face, hold up to the public abhorence the poor man, who has only just begun to try his hand at kidnapping. Then, your contemptuous bearing towards Capt. Hannum and his employers! - how affected! If you shall not be utterly insensible to the claims of consistency, who, when you shall have Henry Clay to dine with you, will you allow to be better entitled than this same Capt. Hannum and his employers to seats at your table? Cease, my dear Sir, from your outrages on consistency. You glory to Mr. Clay. How can you then despise and reproach those, who, with however much of the awkwardness of beginners, are, nevertheless, doing their best to step forward in the tracks of their "illustrious predecessor?"

It would be very absurd - would it not? - for you to denounce the stealing, of a single sheep, at the same time, that you are counting as worthy of all honor the man, who steals a whole flock of sheep. But, I put it to your candor, whether it would be a whit more absurd than is year deep loathing and unutterable contempt of Capt. Hannum and his employers for a crime, which, though incessantly repeated and infinitely aggravated in the case of Mr. Clay, does not disqualify him, in your esteem, to be the chief ruler of this nation - to be, what the civil ruler is required to be - "the minister of God."

You intimate, that the State Prison is the proper place for Capt. Hannum and his employers. And you not think it the proper place for Henry Clay also? Out upon your partiality, if, because he is your candidate for the Presidency, you would not have this old and practised man-thief punished, as well as those, who are but in their first lessons of his horrid piracy!

To be serious, Mr. Phillips - you are not the man to have to do with Capt. Hannum and his employers, unless it be to set them an example of repentance. It becomes you not to look down upon them - but to take your seat by their side, and to bow your head as low as shame and sorrow should bow theirs. No - if Capt. Hannum and his employers should steal a man every remaining day of their lives, they could not do as much to sanction and perpetuate the crime of man-stealing, as the honored and influential Stephen C. Phillips has done by laboring to elect to the highest civil office the very man-stealer, who has contributed far more than any other living person to make man-stealing reputable, and to widen the theatre of its horrors.

Alas, what a pity to lose such an occasion for good, as was afforded by this instance of kidnapping! That was the occasion for you and other distinguished voters for slaveholders to employ the power of your own repentance in bringing other proslavery voters to repentance. That was the occasion for your eyes to stream with contrite sorrow, and your lips to exclaim: "We have sinned: - we have sinned against God and the slave: - we have not sought to have Civil Government look after the poor; and weak, and oppressed, and crushed: - but we have perverted and degraded it from this high, and holy, and Heaven-intended use, to the low purposes of money-making and to the furtherance of the selfish schemes of ambition: - we have not chosen for rulers men, who, in their civil office, as Josiah in his, 'judged the cause of the poor and needy' - men, who, in their civil office, could say, as did Job in his, 'I was a father to the poor' - 'I brake the jaws of the wicked and plucked the spoil out of his teeth' - but we have chosen our Clays and our Polks - pirates, who rob, and buy and sell, the poor-monsters, who, with

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their sharks' teeth, devour the poor." Deny, doubt, evade, it, as you will - you may, nevertheless, my dear Sir, depend upon it, that it is for your repentance and the repentance of all the voters for slaveholders, that God calls. He calls, also, for the repentance of the American ministry, that so wickedly and basely refuses to preach Bible politics, and to insist on the true and Heaven-impressed character, of Civil Government. Depend upon it, my dear Sir, that your disease and theirs is one, which can be cured by no medicine, short of the medicine of repentance. I am not unaware, that this is a most offensive and humbling medicine - especially to persons in the higher walks of life; nevertheless, you and they must take it or remain uncured. No clamor against Capt. Hannum and his employees - no attempt to make scape-goats of them - will avail to cure you.

Alas, what a pity, that a mere farce should have taken the place of the great and solemn measure, which was due from your Meeting! Had your Meeting felt, that the time for trifling on the subject of slavery is gone by; and had it passed, honestly and heartily, the Resolution: "NO VOTING FOR SLAVEHOLDERS, NOR FOR THOSE WHO ARE IN POLITICAL FELLOWSHIP WITH SLAVEHOLDERS", it would have had the honor of giving the death-blow to American slavery. This Resolution, passed by such a Meeting, would have electrified the whole nation. Within all its limits, every true heart would have responded to it, and every false one been filled with shame.

When the glorious Missionary William Knibb, had seen the slaveholders tear down and burn a large share of the chapels in Jamaica, he set sail for Great Britain. Scarcely had he landed, ere he began the cry, "SLAVERY IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH CRISTIANITY." He went over his native land, uttering this cry. A mighty cry it was. The walls of British slavery felt its power, as certainly, as did the wall of Jericho, the shout, by which it was prostrated.

The power of the cry: "NO VOTING FOR SLAVEHOLDERS, NOR FOR THOSE, WHO ARE IN POLITICAL FELLOWSHIP WITH SLAVEHOLDERS", would, were it to proceed from the right lips, be as effective against the walls of American slavery, as was the cry of William Knibb against the walls of British slavery. You, and Charles Sumner, (I know and love him,) and Charles Francis Adams, and John G. Palfrey, are the men to utter this cry. Go, without delay, over the whole length and breadth of your State, pouring these talismanic words into the ears of the thousands and tens of thousands, who shall flock to hear you; and Massachusetts will, even at the approaching Election, reject all her proslavery candidates. Such is the power of truth, when proceeding from honored and welcome lips!

Be in earnest, ye Phillipses and Sumners and Adamses and Palfreys - be entirely in earnest, in your endeavors to overthrow slavery. You desire its overthrow, and are doing something to promote it. But, you lack the sleep and indispensable earnestness; and, therefore, do you shrink from employing the bold and revolutionary means, which the case demands. No interior means however, will accomplish the object. As well set your babies to catch Leviathans with pin-hooks, as attempt to overturn American slavery by means, which fall below the stern and steadfast purpose: - "NOT TO VOTE FOR SLAVEHOLDERS, NOR FOR THOSE, WHO ARE IN POLITICAL FELLOWSHIP WITH SLAVEHOLDERS." But, only press the hearts of your fellow men with this, the solemn and immovable purpose of your own hearts - and fallen Massachusetts rises again - and American slavery dies - and your names are written in everduring letters among the names of the saviors of your country.

Very respectfully, yours,

GERRIT SMITH.