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The Complete Works of Whittier

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The paper was read to the Convention by Dr. Atlee, chairman of the
committee, and listened to with the profoundest interest.

Commencing with a reference to the time, fifty-seven years before, when,
in the same city of Philadelphia, our fathers announced to the world
their Declaration of Independence,--based on the self-evident truths of
human equality and rights,--and appealed to arms for its defence, it
spoke of the new enterprise as one "without which that of our fathers is
incomplete," and as transcending theirs in magnitude, solemnity, and
probable results as much "as moral truth does physical force." It spoke
of the difference of the two in the means and ends proposed, and of the
trifling grievances of our fathers compared with the wrongs and
sufferings of the slaves, which it forcibly characterized as unequalled
by any others on the face of the earth. It claimed that the nation was
bound to repent at once, to let the oppressed go free, and to admit them
to all the rights and privileges of others; because, it asserted, no man
has a right to enslave or imbrute his brother; because liberty is
inalienable; because there is no difference, in principle, between slave-
holding and man-stealing, which the law brands as piracy; and because no
length of bondage can invalidate man's claim to himself, or render slave
laws anything but "an audacious usurpation."

It maintained that no compensation should be given to planters
emancipating slaves, because that would be a surrender of fundamental
principles; "slavery is a crime, and is, therefore, not an article to be
sold;" because slave-holders are not just proprietors of what they claim;
because emancipation would destroy only nominal, not real property; and
because compensation, if given at all, should be given to the slaves.

It declared any "scheme of expatriation" to be "delusive, cruel, and
dangerous." It fully recognized the right of each state to legislate
exclusively on the subject of slavery within its limits, and conceded
that Congress, under the present national compact, had no right to
interfere; though still contending that it had the power, and should
exercise it, "to suppress the domestic slave-trade between the several
states," and "to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and in
those portions of our territory which the Constitution has placed under
its exclusive jurisdiction."

After clearly and emphatically avowing the principles underlying the
enterprise, and guarding with scrupulous care the rights of persons and
states under the Constitution, in prosecuting it, the declaration closed
with these eloquent words:--

We also maintain that there are, at the present time, the highest
obligations resting upon the people of the free states to remove slavery
by moral and political action, as prescribed in the Constitution of the
United States. They are now living under a pledge of their tremendous
physical force to fasten the galling fetters of tyranny upon the limbs of
millions in the Southern states; they are liable to be called at any
moment to suppress a general insurrection of the slaves; they authorize
the slave-owner to vote on three fifths of his slaves as property, and
thus enable him to perpetuate his oppression; they support a standing
army at the South for its protection; and they seize the slave who has
escaped into their territories, and send him back to be tortured by an
enraged master or a brutal driver. This relation to slavery is criminal
and full of danger. It must be broken up.

"These are our views and principles,--these our designs and measures.
With entire confidence in the overruling justice of God, we plant
ourselves upon the Declaration of Independence and the truths of divine
revelation as upon the everlasting rock.

"We shall organize anti-slavery societies, if possible, in every city,
town, and village in our land.

"We shall send forth agents to lift up the voice of remonstrance, of
warning, of entreaty and rebuke.

"We shall circulate unsparingly and extensively anti-slavery tracts and
periodicals.

"We shall enlist the pulpit and the press in the cause of the suffering
and the dumb.

"We shall aim at a purification of the churches from all participation in
the guilt of slavery.

"We shall encourage the labor of freemen over that of the slaves, by
giving a preference to their productions; and

"We shall spare no exertions nor means to bring the whole nation to
speedy repentance.

"Our trust for victory is solely in God. We may be personally defeated,
but our principles never. Truth, justice, reason, humanity, must and
will gloriously triumph. Already a host is coming up to the help of the
Lord against the mighty, and the prospect before us is full of
encouragement.

"Submitting this declaration to the candid examination of the people of
this country, and of the friends of liberty all over the world, we hereby
affix our signatures to it; pledging ourselves that, under the guidance
and by the help of Almighty God, we will do all that in us lies,
consistently with this declaration of our principles, to overthrow the
most execrable system of slavery that has ever been witnessed upon earth,
to deliver our land from its deadliest curse, to wipe out the foulest
stain which rests upon our national escutcheon, and to secure to the
colored population of the United States all the rights and privileges
which belong to them as men and as Americans, come what may to our
persons, our interests, or our reputations, whether we live to witness
the triumph of justice, liberty, and humanity, or perish untimely as
martyrs in this great, benevolent, and holy cause."

The reading of the paper was followed by a discussion which lasted
several hours. A member of the Society of Friends moved its immediate
adoption. "We have," he said, "all given it our assent: every heart here
responds to it. It is a doctrine of Friends that these strong and deep
impressions should be heeded." The Convention, nevertheless, deemed it
important to go over the declaration carefully, paragraph by paragraph.
During the discussion, one of the spectators asked leave to say a few
words. A beautiful and graceful woman, in the prime of life, with a face
beneath her plain cap as finely intellectual as that of Madame Roland,
offered some wise and valuable suggestions, in a clear, sweet voice, the
charm of which I have never forgotten. It was Lucretia Mott of
Philadelphia. The president courteously thanked her, and encouraged her
to take a part in the discussion. On the morning of the last day of our
session, the declaration, with its few verbal amendments, carefully
engrossed on parchment, was brought before the Convention. Samuel J. May
rose to read it for the last time. His sweet, persuasive voice faltered
with the intensity of his emotions as he repeated the solemn pledges of
the concluding paragraphs. After a season of silence, David Thurston of
Maine rose as his name was called by one of the secretaries, and affixed
his name to the document. One after another passed up to the platform,
signed, and retired in silence. All felt the deep responsibility of the
occasion the shadow and forecast of a life-long struggle rested upon
every countenance.

Our work as a Convention was now done. President Green arose to make the
concluding address. The circumstances under which it was uttered may
have lent it an impressiveness not its own; but as I now recall it, it
seems to me the most powerful and eloquent speech to which I have ever
listened. He passed in review the work that had been done, the
constitution of the new society, the declaration of sentiments, and the
union and earnestness which had marked the proceedings. His closing
words will never be forgotten by those who heard them:--

"Brethren, it has been good to be here. In this hallowed atmosphere I
have been revived and refreshed. This brief interview has more than
repaid me for all that I have ever suffered. I have here met congenial
minds; I have rejoiced in sympathies delightful to the soul. Heart has
beat responsive to heart, and the holy work of seeking to benefit the
outraged and despised has proved the most blessed employment.

"But now we must retire from these balmy influences and breathe another
atmosphere. The chill hoar-frost will be upon us. The storm and tempest
will rise, and the waves of persecution will dash against our souls. Let
us be prepared for the worst. Let us fasten ourselves to the throne of
God as with hooks of steel. If we cling not to Him, our names to that
document will be but as dust.

"Let us court no applause, indulge in no spirit of vain boasting. Let us
be assured that our only hope in grappling with the bony monster is in an
Arm that is stronger than ours. Let us fix our gaze on God, and walk in
the light of His countenance. If our cause be just--and we know it is--
His omnipotence is pledged to its triumph. Let this cause be entwined
around the very fibres of our hearts. Let our hearts grow to it, so that
nothing but death can sunder the bond."

He ceased, and then, amidst a silence broken only by the deep-drawn
breath of emotion in the assembly, lifted up his voice in a prayer to
Almighty God, full of fervor and feeling, imploring His blessing and
sanctification upon the Convention and its labors. And with the
solemnity of this supplication in our hearts we clasped hands in
farewell, and went forth each man to his place of duty, not knowing the
things that should befall us as individuals, but with a confidence, never
shaken by abuse and persecution, in the certain triumph of our cause.







KANSAS

Read at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the state of
Kansas.

BEAR CAMP HOUSE, WEST OSSIPEE, N. H.,
Eighth month, 29th, 1879.

To J. S. EMERY, R. MORROW, AND C. W. SMITH, COMMITTEE:

I HAVE received your invitation to the twenty-fifth anniversary
celebration of the first settlement of Kansas. It would give me great
pleasure to visit your state on an occasion of such peculiar interest,
and to make the acquaintance of its brave and self-denying pioneers, but
I have not health and strength for the journey. It is very fitting that
this anniversary should be duly recognized. No one of your sister states
has such a record as yours,--so full of peril and adventure, fortitude,
self-sacrifice, and heroic devotion to freedom. Its baptism of martyr
blood not only saved the state to liberty, but made the abolition of
slavery everywhere possible. Barber and Stillwell and Colpetzer and
their associates did not die in vain. All through your long, hard
struggle I watched the course of events in Kansas with absorbing
interest. I rejoiced, while I marvelled at the steady courage which no
danger could shake, at the firm endurance which outwearied the
brutalities of your slaveholding invaders, and at that fidelity to right
and duty which the seduction of immediate self-interest could not swerve,
nor the military force of a proslavery government overawe. All my
sympathies were with you in that stern trial of your loyalty to God and
humanity. And when, in the end, you had conquered peace, and the last of
the baffled border ruffians had left your territory, I felt that the doom
of the accursed institution was sealed, and that its abolition was but a
question of time. A state with such a record will, I am sure, be true to
its noble traditions, and will do all in its power to aid the victims of
prejudice and oppression who may be compelled to seek shelter within its
borders. I will not for a moment distrust the fidelity of Kansas to her
foundation principle. God bless and prosper her! Thanking you for the
kind terms of your invitation, I am, gentlemen, very truly your friend.





WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.

An Introduction to Oliver Johnson's "William Lloyd Garrison and his
Times."

[1879.]

I no not know that any word of mine can give additional interest to this
memorial of William Lloyd Garrison from the pen of one of his earliest
and most devoted friends, whose privilege it has been to share his
confidence and his labors for nearly half a century; but I cannot well
forego the opportunity afforded me to add briefly my testimony to the
tribute to the memory of the great Reformer, whose friendship I have
shared, and with whom I have been associated in a common cause from youth
to age.

My acquaintance with him commenced in boyhood. My father was a
subscriber to his first paper, the Free Press, and the humanitarian tone
of his editorials awakened a deep interest in our little household, which
was increased by a visit which he made us. When he afterwards edited the
Journal of the Times, at Bennington, Vt., I ventured to write him a
letter of encouragement and sympathy, urging him to continue his labors
against slavery, and assuring him that he could "do great things," an
unconscious prophecy which has been fulfilled beyond the dream of my
boyish enthusiasm. The friendship thus commenced has remained unbroken
through half a century, confirming my early confidence in his zeal and
devotion, and in the great intellectual and moral strength which he
brought to the cause with which his name is identified.

During the long and hard struggle in which the abolitionists were
engaged, and amidst the new and difficult questions and side-issues which
presented themselves, it could scarcely be otherwise than that
differences of opinion and action should arise among them. The leader
and his disciples could not always see alike. My friend, the author of
this book, I think, generally found himself in full accord with him,
while I often decidedly dissented. I felt it my duty to use my right of
citizenship at the ballot-box in the cause of liberty, while Garrison,
with equal sincerity, judged and counselled otherwise. Each acted under
a sense of individual duty and responsibility, and our personal relations
were undisturbed. If, at times, the great anti-slavery leader failed to
do justice to the motives of those who, while in hearty sympathy with his
hatred of slavery, did not agree with some of his opinions and methods,
it was but the pardonable and not unnatural result of his intensity of
purpose, and his self-identification with the cause he advocated; and,
while compelled to dissent, in some particulars, from his judgment of men
and measures, the great mass of the antislavcry people recognized his
moral leadership. The controversies of old and new organization,
nonresistance and political action, may now be looked upon by the parties
to them, who still survive, with the philosophic calmness which follows
the subsidence of prejudice and passion. We were but fallible men, and
doubtless often erred in feeling, speech, and action. Ours was but the
common experience of reformers in all ages.

"Never in Custom's oiled grooves
The world to a higher level moves,
But grates and grinds with friction hard
On granite bowlder and flinty shard.
Ever the Virtues blush to find
The Vices wearing their badge behind,
And Graces and Charities feel the fire
Wherein the sins of the age expire."

It is too late now to dwell on these differences. I choose rather, with
a feeling of gratitude to God, to recall the great happiness of laboring
with the noble company of whom Garrison was the central figure. I love
to think of him as he seemed to me, when in the fresh dawn of manhood he
sat with me in the old Haverhill farmhouse, revolving even then schemes
of benevolence; or, with cheery smile, welcoming me to his frugal meal of
bread and milk in the dingy Boston printing-room; or, as I found him in
the gray December morning in the small attic of a colored man, in
Philadelphia, finishing his night-long task of drafting his immortal
Declaration of Sentiments of the American Anti-Slavery Society; or, as I
saw him in the jail of Leverett Street, after his almost miraculous
escape from the mob, playfully inviting me to share the safe lodgings
which the state had provided for him; and in all the varied scenes and
situations where we acted together our parts in the great endeavor and
success of Freedom.

The verdict of posterity in his case may be safely anticipated. With the
true reformers and benefactors of his race he occupies a place inferior
to none other. The private lives of many who fought well the battles of
humanity have not been without spot or blemish. But his private
character, like his public, knew no dishonor. No shadow of suspicion
rests upon the white statue of a life, the fitting garland of which
should be the Alpine flower that symbolizes noble purity.






ANTI-SLAVERY ANNIVERSARY.

Read at the semi-centennial celebration of the American Anti-Slavery
Society at Philadelphia, on the 3d December, 1883.

OAK KNOLL, DANVERS, MASS.,
11th mo., 30, 1883.

I NEED not say how gladly I would be with you at the semi-centennial of
the American Anti-Slavery Society. I am, I regret to say, quite unable
to gratify this wish, and can only represent myself by a letter.

Looking back over the long years of half a century, I can scarcely
realize the conditions under which the convention of 1833 assembled.
Slavery was predominant. Like Apollyon in Pilgrim's Progress, it
"straddled over the whole breadth of the way." Church and state, press
and pulpit, business interests, literature, and fashion were prostrate at
its feet. Our convention, with few exceptions, was composed of men
without influence or position, poor and little known, strong only in
their convictions and faith in the justice of their cause. To onlookers
our endeavor to undo the evil work of two centuries and convert a nation
to the "great renunciation" involved in emancipation must have seemed
absurd in the last degree. Our voices in such an atmosphere found no
echo. We could look for no response but laughs of derision or the
missiles of a mob.

But we felt that we had the strength of truth on our side; we were right,
and all the world about us was wrong. We had faith, hope, and
enthusiasm, and did our work, nothing doubting, amidst a generation who
first despised and then feared and hated us. For myself I have never
ceased to be grateful to the Divine Providence for the privilege of
taking a part in that work.

And now for more than twenty years we have had a free country. No slave
treads its soil. The anticipated dangerous consequences of complete
emancipation have not been felt. The emancipated class, as a whole, have
done wisely, and well under circumstances of peculiar difficulty. The
masters have learned that cotton can be raised better by free than by
slave labor, and nobody now wishes a return to slave-holding. Sectional
prejudices are subsiding, the bitterness of the civil war is slowly
passing away. We are beginning to feel that we are one people, with no
really clashing interests, and none more truly rejoice in the growing
prosperity of the South than the old abolitionists, who hated slavery as
a curse to the master as well as to the slave.

In view of this commemorative semi-centennial occasion, many thoughts
crowd upon me; memory recalls vanished faces and voices long hushed. Of
those who acted with me in the convention fifty years ago nearly all have
passed into another state of being. We who remain must soon follow; we
have seen the fulfilment of our desire; we have outlived scorn and
persecution; the lengthening shadows invite us to rest. If, in looking
back, we feel that we sometimes erred through impatient zeal in our
contest with a great wrong, we have the satisfaction of knowing that we
were influenced by no merely selfish considerations. The low light of
our setting sun shines over a free, united people, and our last prayer
shall be for their peace, prosperity, and happiness.






RESPONSE

TO THE CELEBRATION OF MY EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY BY THE COLORED CITIZENS OF
WASHINGTON D. C.

To R. H. TERRELL AND GEORGE W. WILLIAMS, ESQUIRES.

GENTLEMEN,--Among the great number of tokens of interest and good-will
which reached me on my birthday, none have touched me more deeply than
the proceedings of the great meeting of the colored citizens of the
nation's capital, of which you are the representatives. The resolutions
of that meeting came to me as the voice of millions of my fellow-
countrymen. That voice was dumb in slavery when, more than half a
century ago, I put forth my plea for the freedom of the slave.

It could not answer me from the rice swamp and cotton field, but now, God
be praised, it speaks from your great meeting in Washington and from all
the colleges and schools where the youth of your race are taught. I
scarcely expected then that the people for whom I pleaded would ever know
of my efforts in their behalf. I cannot be too thankful to the Divine
Providence that I have lived to hear their grateful response.

I stand amazed at the rapid strides which your people have made since
emancipation, at your industry, your acquisition of property and land,
your zeal for education, your self-respecting but unresentful attitude
toward those who formerly claimed to be your masters, your pathetic but
manly appeal for just treatment and recognition. I see in all this the
promise that the time is not far distant when, in common with the white
race, you will have the free, undisputed rights of American citizenship
in all parts of the Union, and your rightful share in the honors as well
as the protection of the government.

Your letter would have been answered sooner if it had been possible. I
have been literally overwhelmed with letters and telegrams, which, owing
to illness, I have been in a great measure unable to answer or even read.

I tender to you, gentlemen, and to the people you represent my heartfelt
thanks, and the assurance that while life lasts you will find me, as I
have been heretofore, under more difficult circumstances, your faithful
friend.

OAK KNOLL, DANVERS, MASS.,
first mo., 9, 1888.





REFORM AND POLITICS

UTOPIAN SCHEMES AND POLITICAL THEORISTS.

THERE is a large class of men, not in Europe alone, but in this country
also, whose constitutional conservatism inclines them to regard any
organic change in the government of a state or the social condition of
its people with suspicion and distrust. They admit, perhaps, the evils
of the old state of things; but they hold them to be inevitable, the
alloy necessarily mingled with all which pertains to fallible humanity.
Themselves generally enjoying whatever of good belongs to the political
or social system in which their lot is cast, they are disposed to look
with philosophic indifference upon the evil which only afflicts their
neighbors. They wonder why people are not contented with their
allotments; they see no reason for change; they ask for quiet and peace
in their day; being quite well satisfied with that social condition which
an old poet has quaintly described:--

"The citizens like pounded pikes;
The lesser feed the great;
The rich for food seek stomachs,
And the poor for stomachs meat."

This class of our fellow-citizens have an especial dislike of theorists,
reformers, uneasy spirits, speculators upon the possibilities of the
world's future, constitution builders, and believers in progress. They
are satisfied; the world at least goes well enough with them; they sit as
comfortable in it as Lafontaine's rat in the cheese; and why should those
who would turn it upside down come hither also? Why not let well enough
alone? Why tinker creeds, constitutions, and laws, and disturb the good
old-fashioned order of things in church and state? The idea of making
the world better and happier is to them an absurdity. He who entertains
it is a dreamer and a visionary, destitute of common sense and practical
wisdom. His project, whatever it may be, is at once pronounced to be
impracticable folly, or, as they are pleased to term it, _Utopian._

The romance of Sir Thomas More, which has long afforded to the
conservatives of church and state a term of contempt applicable to all
reformatory schemes and innovations, is one of a series of fabulous
writings, in which the authors, living in evil times and unable to
actualize their plans for the well-being of society, have resorted to
fiction as a safe means of conveying forbidden truths to the popular
mind. Plato's "Timaeus," the first of the series, was written after the
death of Socrates and the enslavement of the author's country. In this
are described the institutions of the Island of Atlantis,--the writer's
ideal of a perfect commonwealth. Xenophon, in his "Cyropaedia," has also
depicted an imaginary political society by overlaying with fiction
historical traditions. At a later period we have the "New Atlantis" of
Lord Bacon, and that dream of the "City of the Sun" with which Campanella
solaced himself in his long imprisonment.

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