Syracuse University Library
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Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

Hon. William H. Seward : Peterboro, March 13, 1855.

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 495

PETERBORO, March 13, 1855.

HON. WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

MY DEAR SIR,

For nearly a quarter of a century, I have followed you with deep interest. Your catholic and philanthropic spirit, having a remarkably vigorous and very highly cultivated intellect to serve its generous and elevated purposes, fully justified my large expectations from you. If they have not all been realized, nevertheless many of them have been; and not a few of them most abundantly and delightfully. There are passages in your life of great beauty - of great power - of true sublimity. Were I to single out the one, which most exalted you in my esteem, it would be the identification of yourself with the loathed and execrated William Freeman. Nothing short of a high-souled devotion to the cause of justice can account for that unpopular and self-denying identification.

I have read your late Speech on the Fugitive slave Act. It is emphatically an intellectual Speech. But, if I may say it, without appearing egotistical, it does not, in all respects, come up to my expectations of what would fall from you on such an occasion. The newspapers said so much in praise of it, that I hoped to find you had taken a much higher than your former ground on slavery. But it is much lower than that, which I had supposed you to occupy. I was aware, that you denied to the Federal Government all right to meddle with slavery, except where it has exclusive jurisdiction. But it turns out, that, even there, you allow it scarce the shadow of such a right. You would not have slavery abolished in the District of Columbia, unless the people of the District are willing; and unless, also, the masters are paid "fall compensation" for their slaves. A right, clogged with such conditions, is no right.

Honors and reproaches are liberally bestowed upon you for being an abolitionist. But there is, surely, very little reason in such bestowal, if the Speech in question may be relied on to prove the extent of what you would have done toward abolishing slavery. Again, the South, ever and anon, betrays her fears of you. But, very certainly, she need not fear you, if you propose no greater disturbance of her cherished "institution" than this Speech indicates. Nor, indeed, has she any thing to fear from the mass of abolitionists - for their standard of antislavery action is but little, if any, higher than yours; and, among all their favorites and heroes, there is not one, who enjoys so much of their confidence and admiration, as you do.

Why is it, my dear Sir, that you are willing to go only so short a distance, in the way of delivering the slave? Pardon me for saying, that it seems to be because

1st. Of your false views of law.
2d. Of your false views of human rights.
3d. Of your false views of the province of civil government.

The piratical rules, by which your brother is held in slavery, you dignify with the name of law, and clothe with the obligations and sacredness of law: - and, of course, so long, as you confound these rules with law, you will not consent to trample them under foot, nor to make any very stern demand for the deliverance of their victim. If, instead of regarding law as the protector, and not the destroyer, of rights, your ideal of it is so low, that even the commission of the highest possible crime against man, and the total annihilation of his rights, you can recognize to be law - it necessarily follows, that, with you, there is no glorious and withering majesty of law, before which to arraign slavery, and no mighty voice of law to call for its abrogation.

But your apprehensions of human rights are not less defective than your apprehensions of law. Instead of interpreting constitutions and statutes in the light of human rights, you interpret human rights in the light of constitutions and statutes. You exalt human decrees above human nature: and when they come in collision with each other, it is human nature, that you would have give way, and human decrees, that you would have triumph. The absoluteness of human rights seems to have no place in your conceptions of them. You fall in with the popular notion of subjecting them to conditions - and such degrading and annihilating conditions, as you would scarcely be willing to subject the rights of a dog to. Although man was made but "a little lower than the angels, and crowned with glory and honor", you, nevertheless, claim not one absolute right for him. You admit the enactment, which sweeps away all his rights, to be law - valid law. Alas, nothing is held cheaper than human rights! - nothing is more trifled with than sacred manhood! You would scout the legislation, which declares a stone to be wood, or a horse to be a hog. But the legislation, which sinks man into a chattel - immortality into a commodity - commands your respect and obedience. The simple fact, that it is legislation, outweighs, in your esteem, its infinite absurdity, its infinite insult, and its infinite blasphemy.

That you should be as wide of the truth, in respect to the province of Government, as you are, in respect to law and human rights, is but what might be expected. The only office of Government is to protect, in all the fulness of human rights, every one of its subjects. But you seem to concur with the doctrine of the Supreme Court of the U. States, that Government is competent to do whatsoever it will with its subjects - even to the making slaves of them. Not, indeed, that you would have Government do so - but, that, in its doing so, you would still recognize and obey it as Government. In the case of Strader and others against Graham, that Court says, in defence of reducing freemen to slaves, that a State "has an undoubted right to determine the status, or domestic and social condition of the persons domiciled within its territory".

The least right, of which the least of its subjects is robbed, Government should promptly and unconditionally restore. But you allow it to witness unmoved the greatest crime, and to leave unredressed the greatest wrong. You allow it to do so, in the present case, because you recognize a higher power than Government behind the Government. This higher power, to which you would have Government bow - and to which, indeed, you bow - is, strange to say, the criminal himself. You

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consent, that Government should emancipate the slaves of the District of Columbia, provided this criminal - this higher power - in other words, the people of the District - are willing. That is, you consent, that Government shall do its duty - its absolute and most commanding duty - whenever they, who are least willing it shall do it, shall give their consent. I admit, that you would promote their willingness by paying them money. But this only makes the matter worse. Government is ever to act upon its own consent - never upon that of another - least of all, upon the bribed consent of another. Let me not be misapprehended, at this point. I would myself have the nation share with the slaveholder in his loss by emancipation - for the nation has encouraged slaveholding, and sought to profit by it. Nevertheless, emancipation, being an absolute duty, is to be granted, free of all conditions. Whether the slaveholder shall receive money, is a question wholly foreign to the duty of emancipation. That duty is to be discharged, whatever may, or may not, follow it.

That you would not have slavery abolished in the States, without "compensation for damages", is not at all strange, since you attach a similar condition to its abolition in the District of Columbia. Nor, since you virtually deny to the Federal Government an unconditional right to abolish slavery, even where it has exclusive jurisdiction, is it at all strange, that you deny, that it has any legitimate concern with slavery in the States.

I need not say, that the Federal Constitution leaves the whole system of American slavery in the hands of the Federal Government. You will yourself admit, that it is not its words, but only their proslavery construction, which teach the contrary. But, whatever this instrument in this respect, it will have but one interpretation among us, by the time the Federal Government has got heart enough to abolish all slavery within its exclusive jurisdiction: - and that interpretation will accord to it ample power over all American slavery. More than this - the day is not distant, when the Governments of Christendom will agree in regarding slaveholders as hostes humani generis - as outlaws, whom they are at liberty to pursue, if need be, across both State lines and Constitutional lines, even as they now pursue pirates, into whatever sea, or lurking-place.

I wonder, my dear Sir, that your self-respect does not forbid your submission to the popular idea, that it lies within the power of Government, as Government, to enslave men. I wonder at your virtual admission, that your own most essential and holy rights, instead of being inherent and absolute, stand but in the concessions and grace of Government. How can you tolerate a doctrine, which would clothe with the name and reverence of law the enslavement of yourself, and wife, and children? I know your hatred of slavery - and that you will say, that a law to enslave men is a bad law. My answer is, that it is no law. I know, that you will say, that such a law should be repealed. My answer is, that it should be trodden under foot.

But we are all apt to deceive ourselves: - and it is possible, that you deceive yourself, when you suppose, that you really regard slavery as law - as law too, which is so sacred and obligatory, as not to be repealable, save on conditions, that are well nigh impossible. Perhaps, after all, were it proposed to make men of Saxon, instead of African, blood the victims of slavery, you would be among the very first to scout the idea of law for the outrage. I think you would be. I think, that, in such case, you would sooner countenance the idea of a law for murder - murder being a less wrong than slavery, as you yourself would decide, were you called on to choose, which should be the fate of your children.

In a former part of my letter, I attributed the superficial character of your antislavery to your erroneous views of law, and human rights, and civil government. But, perhaps, it is only in connexion with negro slavery, that you entertain these views. Perhaps, it is only because our slaves are of African blood, that you, who trust, that you are purged of the foul and accursed spirit of caste, can be so patient under their wrongs, and can consent to the interposition of well nigh insurmountable obstacles in the way of the removal of these wrongs. I must believe, that, were a portion of our white brethren to be come slaves, you would be exceeded by none, in demanding their instant and unconditional liberty. One thing I most certainly know, and so do you, that were you to propose, or to tolerate, any delay, or any conditions in that case, you would never again be re-elected to the Senate. Your popularity would be all gone - gone forever.

Alas, my deeply insulted black brother! And what is far more lamentable than your insults is, that you, my poor black brother, still hope for help from those, who mean to be, and who believe themselves to be, your friends, and whom you believe to be your friends, but who, nevertheless, make these deeply insulting distinctions against you! ay God dispel your delusion. Man cannot. I have, often, seen, and with anguish, that it is too stubborn to yield to the power of man.

The speedy and bloodless end of American slavery is the desire of your heart, as well as of my own. But to seek to accomplish this object by such slender means, as you rely on, is as vain, as to angle for leviathan with childrens' pin-hooks. The power of truth and honesty can alone suffice to overthrow such a deep-rooted, wide-spread, and mighty evil, as is that, which we contend against. ut there is no truth in the doctrine, that slavery, which is the most rampant and guilty enemy of law, is itself law. Nor is there honesty in the doctrine - for no one will admit the doctrine, when it is turned against himself, and his own neck is claimed for the yoke of slavery. But strong as is our enemy, our victory, nevertheless, would be sure and easy, would we but consent to discard our superficial and politic expedients, and to call to our aid the weapons of simple truth and simple honesty. Wielding these effective weapons, we could not fail to make a lodgment in the conscience of the slaveholder; nor fail of that inspiring self-respect, which is another powerful element of success; nor fail of what is more than all else - the Divine blessing.

But I must close. Think not, my dear Sir, that I would ignore, or underrate, your services for the slave. You have often uttered good and brave words for him: - very good and very brave, considering how trammeled you are by your connexion with a party, which, if only because it is a national party, must, necessarily, be proslavery. Then I ask you to do better things for the slave than you have done. I, notwithstanding, cheerfully and gratefully, acknowledge what you have done for him. I own, that you stand, as an antislavery man, very far above most of our statesmen. But I would have you stand still farther above them. Rejoicing, that you are on comparatively high ground, I, nevertheless, using words of the sacred Book, would say to you affectionately: "Friend, go up higher."

Respectfully and cordially yours,

GERRIT SMITH.