Syracuse University Library
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Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

John C. Spencer : November 12, 1851

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 473

November 12, 1851.

JOHN C. SPENCER,

DEAR SIR,

I have read your letter to George Wood.

I much regret, that one, who, in the various professional services, which he has rendered me, has, always, shown himself to be strong and just and faithful, and from whom the public are accustomed to expect proofs of wisdom and integrity, should have written that letter. Among the positions fairly deducible from it are the following.

1st. To be "an abolitionist, little if any short of Gerrit Smith", is to be disqualified for civil office.

2d. A "cordial" enforcement of the "Fugitive slave law" is our duty.

3d. Such enforcement is "patriotic," and "the salvation of the Union depends upon it."

4th. The law is Constitutional.

I propose to examine, very briefly, the merits of these four positions.

1st. Of course, you do not mean, that every abolitionist is unfit for civil office: - for, if gravely questioned, you would be constrained to admit, that all men are abolitionists. To serve a temporary purpose, and have a little fun, you might join at your supper-table in laughing at the abolitionists. But, if, three hours after, a band of kidnappers should burst into your bedroom, and load you with manacles and fetters, and assure you, that the remainder of your life is to be spent, under the lash of the taskmaster; upon a Southern plantation, your pallid cheeks, and quaking limbs, and screams for help would leave no room to doubt, that you ate an abolitionist, and that personal liberty is as dear to you, as it is to any one. Moreover, it would avail nothing toward soothing your alarms, and reconciling you to your fate, to remind you, that your reduction to "Compromise" and upon the "Union Safety Committee" would break out from between your chattering teeth. The "Fugitive slave law", which, by your present admission, is, of all the Compromise measures, "particularly" precious and sacred in your esteem, would, then, be "particularly" your execration. You would, if you could, drive it back to the bottomless pit, from whence it came. And, as to the Constitution, humbly as you how to its authority now, you would struggle none the less against your doom, even though your oppressors should be able to read from it the justification of your doom. Constitution, or no Constitution, you would release yourself, if you could. Now, too, you can fling jokes and jibes at the "higher law doctrine." But, then, you would be no more in the mood for joking and jibing than was poor Yorick's crumbling scull. To the claims of the infinitely high and liberty - proclaiming law of your nature and of your nature's God there would then be a rushing response of your whole soul. And much as you, now, preach submission to the laws, and non-resistance to kidnappers, you would be in no mood, then, to welcome such preaching to yourself. - There lives not a man, who would, in such circumstances, have a better stomach than yourself for shooting and stabbing.

I said, that, in these testing circumstances, you would give full proof, that you are an abolitionist. The slaveholder himself is an abolitionist. There is not one slaveholder; who is not an abolitionist; and who, under such an argumentum ad hominem, as I have supposed in your case, would not betray his abolition, and come forth an abolitionist. Every dead slaveholder died an abolitionist: - and the sin upon his soul of having held his fellow men in slavery was aggravated by nothing so much, as by his own consciousness of the truth of abolition and of the preciousness of personal liberty: - by nothing, in a word, so much, as by the fact, that be was himself an abolitionist - an abolitionist by the irrepressible desires of his heart and the irrepealable laws of his being.

Wherein, then, is it, that you and the slaveholder are abolitionists "short of Gerrit Smith?" It is in the fact, that, whilst you and the slaveholder do, each of you, contend for abolition for himself, Gerrit Smith contends for it, both for himself and for others.

Your doctrine, then, as it turns out, is that the abolition, which a man may have, and yet be fit for civil office, is that, which thinks its own neck, but not the necks of others, too good for the yoke of slavery; and that the abolition, which disqualifies for civil office, is that, which acknowledges the equal rights of all men, and will, therefore, consent to the enslavement of no man. Such is your doctrine! A monstrous doctrine, Mr. Spencer! Yet a while, in this land of sham republicanism and sham Christianity, it may be tolerated - may, even, be popular: - but, how abhorrent would it be in any country, where there is no slavery to debauch and pervert the public sentiment!

I will close what I have to say under this head with the remark, that your disposition to enslave others, whilst yet you would resist, to the utmost, the enslavement of yourself, is not inexplicable. Jesus Christ has taught, but you have never learned, the self-application mode of reasoning. "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would, that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." Had you learned it, you would have known, that you must, first, be content to wear the chains of slavery yourself, ere you are at liberty to commend them to others. Had you learned it, you would not have gone into the conspiracy to plunder others of their liberty, whilst you were willing to die a thousand deaths sooner than surrender your own.

2d. And, so, you would chase down innocent men, women, and children, to plunge them into all the woes of the bottomless pit of slavery! And you would do this not reluctantly - not because compelled to do it but you would do it "cordially!" Moreover, to be consistent with your christian profession (,for in this country, even the advocates of slave-patching make a christian profession,) you take Jesus Christ for your model man, and do, therefore, believe, that, were He now among us, He would lead in this bloodhound chase. Very ignorant of Christianity is he, who supposes, that Christ would revolt at any circumstances or employments, in which it is proper for His disciples to be.

But I have not yet done with your responsibilities in this case. When you advocate this chasing down of Christ's innocent helpless poor, you advocate the chasing down of Himself. Your proslavery Divines would make you believe, that the Redeemer of men is Himself proslavery, and is in favor of that hunting for human prey, which is now going on in our land. But at the Judgment Seat you will learn theology from other lips. There you will learn, that the wrongs, which are done to "the least of these" (,and who are such, if our despised, and outraged, and bought and sold colored brethren are not?) are wrongs done to Him. The

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conventional and current christianity of this country makes Christ the patron of oppressors: - but true christianity identifies Him with the oppressed. If christianity teaches any thing, it teaches, that the crime of dragging Hamlet and Long and Boulding and Harrison from this State into slavery was the crime of dragging Jesus Christ into slavery. It does not more certainly, however, teach this than it does. that the noble men at Syracuse, who rescued Jerry from slavery, did therein rescue Jesus Christ from slavery. This, amid the in juries, which wicked men are now heaping upon them, should be their ample consolation. I add, that they, who dragged the poor naked and bleeding Jerry through the streets of Syracuse, for the purpose of replunging him into the horrors of slavery, would have dragged Jesus Christ to the Cross; and that they, who would condemn the merciful and brave rescuers of Jerry, would have been among the foremost to condemn Jesus Christ.

You well know, Mr. Spencer, that, could all the Statutes and Constitutions of earth be plead for the enslavement of your children, you would resist it. How, then, as an honest and impartial man, can you advocate the enslavement of other men's children?

Perhaps, you will say, that those, whom you would have enslaved, have been slaves before, and are, therefore, used to slavery. The old woman excused the cruelty of her frying live eels, by saying: "Poor things, they are used to it!" It is about as easy to get used to slavery, as it is to get used to being fried alive. And if it is true, that a man can get used to slavery - can, under the debasing and unmanning process, get reconciled to his chattelhood and brutehood, then have we, in this fact, the most conclusive and damning of all the arguments against slavery. The slaveholders never testify so strongly against slavery, as when they tell us, that their slaves are light-hearted and happy. Oh no - the fact, that those, whom you would enslave, have been enslaved before, is no argument, why they should be enslaved again. It is rather an argument, why their place should be taken by those, who have never been in slavery. If a couple of our fellow men were to escape from Southern slavery, you and I would show a much more brotherly heart toward them, by being willing to take turns with them and to go into it ourselves, than by thrusting them back into it.

Perhaps, you will justify the re-enslavement of the fugitives on the ground, that they are black. Desdemona could see merit, even though it was beneath a black skin. With her, the mind gave its hue to the skin, rather than the skin its hue to the mind. Nobly did she exclaim:

"I saw Othello's visage in his mind."

But the cutaneous democracy of America and the cutaneous christianity of America cannot look through a dark skin to the mind and the man. All prejudice is shrivelling to the generous and manly affections of the soul. But none is so much so, as the mean and senseless prejudice against complexion. Under the promptings of this prejudice, white Americans enslave black Americans. Under the promptings of this prejudice, white Americans seek to expel black Americans from their homes and native land. Under the promptings of this prejudice, even John C. Spencer - the strong minded and cultivated John C. Spencer - has, repeatedly, refused to sit in a Church Convention with black men.

3d. The enslaving of men is the highest possible crime against the body and the soul. You would infinitely, rather, that your children were murdered than enslaved. Nevertheless, you hold, that the enslaving of men is "patriotic", and indispensable "to the salvation of the Union." Now, if I believed with you, that the committing of this unequalled crime is an act of patriotism, I should regard patriotism, as the most malignant and diabolical spirit, that ever entered the human bosom; and if I believed with you, that the committing of this unequalled crime is essential "to the salvation of the Union", I should not hesitate to say, that the first duty of every American citizen is to labor to break up a Union, which, notwithstanding it was formed expressly "to establish justice and secure the blessings of liberty", is perverted into the foulest conspiracy against human rights, and into the most terrible engine of oppression.

I thank God, that my views of patriotism and of the Union are widely different from your own. Believing, as I do, that "righteousness exalteth a nation." he, and he only, is, is my esteem, a patriot, and a servant of his country, who does righteously himself, and seeks to have others do righteously. And believing, as I do, that the people of this Union are to find, in their love of God and in their love of each other, its only cement, I depend for its preservation, not on Fugitive slave laws, nor Compromises, nor Union Safety Committees, nor any other devices of demagogues - not on any Whig party, or Democratic party; or Church party, which has, for its accursed cohesive principle, the agreeing to let slavery alone; but on that true christianity, which lifts up the soul to God; and on that true philanthropy, which sees, in every man of whatever clime or color, a brother, nay, another self.

4th. It is, now, some sixteen years, since I was called to look at the proslavery features of the Federal Constitution. I looked for them then, and I have looked for them since: - but I could never find them. I could never see one line in that instrument in favor of slavery. I am told, that there are proofs of the proslavery character of the Constitution in the histories of the Constitution. But, this is impossible, if there is no liberty (,as I suppose there is not,) to go beyond the letter of a legal paper, when the purpose is to show, that such paper is fraught with glaring and stupendous injustice. The paper is to be held clear and innocent of this guilty character, unless it expresses the injustice literally and with irresistible certainty. I am, also, told, that some of the framers of the Constitution intended to smuggle slavery into it. But I suppose, that what they intended is well nigh as immaterial, as what the scrivener, who wrote the deed of land, intended. I suppose, that the only question, in the one case, is what did the buyer and seller intend by the deed; and, in the other, what did the people intend by the Constitution. What the people intended by the Constitution can, of course, be known only from its letter, wherever its letter is intelligible. But I am admonished to express myself modestly on all these points, not only by the fact, that I am not a lawyer, but by the further fact, that the gentleman, to whom I am writing, is a very eminent lawyer.

You believe, that the "Fugitive slave law" is Constitutional. In other words, you believe, that the provision of the Constitution, respecting persons "held to service or labor", contains a legal description of slaves. I can see, that it contains a legal description of apprentices and minor children - but, that it does of slaves likewise, I cannot see. You, also, believe, that this provision imposes obligations on the Federal Government, and is to be executed by that Government, instead of the State Governments. To me it seems, clear, that the Federal Government has nothing to do with it. But I would, again, remember how diffidently I should speak on these matters, in your presence.

I should value very highly, and so would the public, an argument from your pen to justify your interpretation of the Constitutional provision in question. What can be said to that end by so able and distinguished a lawyer will be read with avidity. Most persons, who give us their views of this provision, wander away from it into history and tradition, into conjectures and speculations. You will, of course, confine yourself to the provision, and undertake to give the meaning of it, according to the canon of strict legal interpretation.

It is but right, that you should be paid for your Opinion in this case, as well as in other cases, where you are called on for legal Opinions. Hence, when you have given it to the press, you will please draw on me for a hundred dollars, or for two hundred dollars, if you shall think that a more suitable recompense for the labor you have bestowed on it. I should not be at all surprised, if your draft is for two hundred dollars - for I think you will find the work far more difficult and vexatious than you are now aware of.

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Do not shrink from writing this Opinion, because it will contrast so strangely with your former views. A generous public will tolerate changes in you, as well as in other men.

When I recollect how nobly you once stood up for liberty, I could wish, that you might have been a young man always. You have grown old at the expense of your manliness. If you have become an abler lawyer, I wish that you had, also, become a truer man. Thirty years ago, you would not have argued that a Fugitive Slave Law is obligatory. At that time, you were a champion of liberty. Now, you are a servant of slavery. At that time, you had a clear vision. Now, the cotton is pulled over your eyes. At that time, you stood up in our Legislature, and said: "The gentleman from Delaware says that the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in our State Constitution, renders slavery in this State unconstitutional. I contend that the first act of the nation, being the solemn recognition of the liberty and equality of all men, and that the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were unalienable, it was the corner stone of our confederacy, and is ABOVE ALL CONSTITUTIONS AND ALL LAWS." At that time, you stood up in our Legislature, and confessed your mortification, that, whilst American lips are employed in declaring "all men are created equal," American hands are employed in lashing slaves.

Whether the Constitution is for, or against, slavery is important, only because we are a nation of atheists. Were we a nation of believers in God, we should scout the idea of the possible legalization of the matchless crime of slavery. Were we such, it would be vain to remind us, that our venerated fathers made a law, and this too an organic law, for slavery. For were God our law, and did we justly estimate our rights and responsibilities, we should be conscious, that, however much we might owe to our dead fathers, we owe infinitely more to our living selves and to our living God.

Slaveholding is man-stealing. Both the Old and New Testaments so define it. Now, he is an atheist, who, in the face of the Divinely ordained distinctions between right and wrong, consents to recognize the obligations, or even the possibility, of a law for sheep-stealing. More emphatically is be such, if he consents to recognize them in the case of man-stealing. "How much," says Jesus Christ, "is a man better than a sheep."

So long, as we shall continue to be a nation of atheists (,and such we shall continue to be, whilst the reign of the slave-power is over the whole nation,) it will be important to show, that the Constitution is antislavery. But, if ever we shall come to make the Bible, instead of the Constitution, our supreme law, it will then be comparatively immaterial, whether the Constitution is regarded as antislavery, or proslavery; - for we shall then "obey God rather than men." We shall, then, regard the claim of property in man, as England, in the words of her Henry Brougham, regards it - as "a wild and guilty fantasy". Like France, we shall, then, to use the words of her Victor Hugo, "repudiate slavery with horror."

Were we not a nation of atheists, we would as soon think of enacting a law to enslave God Himself, as of enacting a law to enslave the beings, whom He has made in His image; as soon think of having kidnappers chase Him through His universe, as of having them chase the beings, whose rights He holds as sacred as His own; and identifies with His own.

But you will reply to me, that law is law; and that all law must be obeyed. You are literally right. It does not, however, follow; that all, which pretends to be law, is law; and that all, which pretends to be law, must be obeyed. It is all exceedingly pernicious popular error, that the human legislature has an illimitable province, and has power to legalize falsehood, as well as truth, injustice, as well as justice. The business of the human legislature, notwithstanding that the idea is so ridiculous in the eyes of Daniel Webster, is but to declare and to apply the laws of God. Hence, an enactment for murdering men is not law, but anti-law. And you would not obey it - would you? Why, then, will you obey an enactment for enslaving men? - an enactment quite as destitute as the other of all the elements of law - and even more wrongful, cruel, and absurd. Yes - John C. Spencer had better pursue innocent men, women, and children with the murderer's dagger, than with the slaveholder's handcuffs. He had better cry "seize em" to murderers than to kidnappers.

But you will tell me, that the "Fugitive slave law" should be obeyed, until it is repealed. You would not, however, say so of an enactment for murder. Nay, you would not say so of even a sumptuary law. Let a law be enacted, prescribing what you shall wear, and eat, and drink, and you will not consent to wait, no, nor even stoop to ask, for its repeal; but you will defy it, and trample it under foot. With what face then - with what consistency then - can you ask those, who abhor the "Fugitive slave law" more than if it were a law for open murder, to obey it until it is repealed? They must treat it, as you would the sumptuary law, only with a million fold more vengeance. They must scorn to petition for its repeal. They must tread it under foot. They must fling it back floutingly in the faces of its enactors. You denounce the rescuers of Jerry at Syracuse as a mob: - whereas; in point of fact, they were the law-abiding men, and the kidnappers were the mob. The Federal Government trampled on all law, and resolved itself into a mob, when it enacted the "Fugitive slave law". To break that law is to obey law. To obey that law is to break law.

I glory in law. With the great Apostle, I count it "holy and just and good". With the Psalmist, I can say, it is "my delights." When the immortal Hooker so beautifully and sublimely says, that "law has her seat in the bosom of God, and her voice is the harmony of the world", he thrills my whole soul. I will obey law. But I will not obey the dictates of devilism, which impudently install themselves in the place of law. I will obey law, because I believe it is identified with God.

You lament the tendencies to lawlessness and anarchy. Well you may. But you will not diminish them by confounding in the minds of men sham law with real law, and by claiming their obedience for Hell, instead of Heaven. You can diminish them by inculcating the doctrine, that real law, which is the only obligatory law, is the declaration of truth, not of falsehood; of reason, not of absurdity; of sense, not of nonsense; of justice, not of injustice; and that, real law is, in a word, for the protection, and not for the destruction, of rights.

I do not forget, whilst writing these paragraphs, how odious I have made myself by my endeavors to blend religion with politics, and how probable it is, that these paragraphs will be construed into a repetition of those endeavors. I am frank to avow my conviction, that this will be a wretched world, until its politics are christianized; and that I would "be instant in season and out of season" to promote this blessed change. Says the clear-sighted Mazzini,"A fatal separation has been established between religious and political belief - between Heaven and earth. It is necessary to reunite earth to Heaven; politics to the eternal - principles, which should direct them. Nothing great or durable can be done without that."

You will, doubtless, think, that I have done wrong to write this letter. In common with the "Union Safety Committee", you deprecate all discussion of slavery. I would, however, add, that, though, like them, you are intent on quieting the antislavery agitation, you are, ever and anon, doing something to swell it. By the way, as a confessed abolitionist (, you are one a real, not a confessed, abolitionist;) I owe much, and admit that I owe much, to that Committee. It has been among the mightiest of all agencies to increase the antislavery agitation. Indeed, it is not extravagant to suppose, that ten such Committees might prove sufficient to save our American Sodom. They might so spread the antislavery flame, as to discourage all attempts to arrest it.

How amazing, that a man, so wise as yourself, should have come into the folly of trying to allay the antislavery agitation! Go, try with Curtius to still the earthquake by leaping into the fissure. Go, try with

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Canute to chain the ocean by marking limits for it on the shore. But try not to silence the antislavery agitation. The material is more easily controlled than the moral. The antislavery cause has snored the depths of the soul; and the tumult will never be stilled, until that cause has triumphed.

What, arrest the antislavery agitation in the midst of the noonday blaze of the Nineteenth Century! You must first extinguish that blaze. What, arrest the antislavery agitation in the midst of the locomotive and telegraphic progress of this age! You must, first, reverse that progress, and turn it toward the darkness and barbarism of by-gone Centuries. What, arrest the antislavery agitation in a nation expressly and unanimously founded on the principle, that "all men are created equal!" That principle must, first, be forgotten. The Declaration of Independence, which, with all a Nation's authority, proclaims it, must first, be forgotten. The Book, which, with all the authority of Heaven, proclaims it, must first, be forgotten. Nay, the human soul must first turn traitor toward all its instincts, and disown its nature.

But I must conclude my already too extended letter. Slavery cannot live long, any where. It certainly cannot, in this country. Keep up your national political and ecclesiastical parties, which honor, enceurage, and sustain the slaveholder, and American slavery will, nevertheless, die soon, though it will, then, die a violent death, and shed "blood even unto the horse bridles". Break up these parties, and it will, straightway, die a natural and bloodless death.

I said, that slavery could certainly not live long, in this country. "What," says the noble Frenchman, whom I have already quoted, "when slavery is departing from Turkey, shall it rest in America! What, drive it from the hearth of Omar, and adopt it at the hearth of Franklin! No! No!! No!!! - Slavery in such a country! Can there be an incongruity more monstrous? Barbarism installed in the very heart of a society, which is itself the affirmation of civilization! Liberty bearing a chain! Blasphemy echoing from the altar! The collar of the negro chained to the pedestal of Washington! It is a thing unheard of. I say more, it is impossible. Such a spectacle would destroy itself. The light of the Nineteenth Century is alone enough to destroy it."

Respectfully yours,

GERRIT SMITH.