Chapter 10

_Mrs. G._ Softly, softly Frank, theatres and Slavery will be quite sufficient for this discussion, without introducing Woman's Rights. (_To Mr. Freeman_.) Would it not be more consistent, brother, for thee to disprove my argument, than to object to my method of obtaining it?

_Mr. F._ Nothing can be easier--you have asserted in round terms that no work was ever written in favor of Slavery. What an absurdity! If you have any information you must know that the southern press groans with publications upon this topic.

_Mrs. G._ Still if thee examine the matter, thee will find that every one of these books treats Slavery as a curse, and describes it not as a _good_ but an _evil_, of which each man loads the guilt upon his forefathers or his neighbors.

_Mr. F._ Granted they call it a curse, but assuredly they bring forward a defence.

_Mrs. G._ Yes, they defend the Constitution; they defend the rights of the south; they advocate Colonization, or point out the errors of Abolitionists, but what one in word or in effect advocates the principles of human Slavery? The truth is, brother, the system has the literature of the world against it; and the south ought to see in this reading age an infallible sign that the days of its cherished institutions are numbered. Does thee not perceive that every novel and every poem carries to the parlor, or, if it please thee, to the theatre, an influence which will eventually re-act on the ballot-box.

_Frank._ Do you mean, mother, to include in your remarks the discourses of Reverend Divines upon the Patriarchal Institution?

_Mrs. G._ I cannot except even these; for they acknowledge it an evil, though they contend it exists by divine ordination, just as they assert Original Sin to be the offspring of Eternal Decrees; but they no more convince the Slaveholder, that he loves his bondman as himself, than they convict him of the guilt of Adam's transgression.

_Mr. F._ What do you say to Webster's great speech on the compromise measure?

_Mrs. G._ (_Pleasantly._) Is not the moral view of a question, about as far as a woman's instinct ought to go?

_Mr. F._ Oh, no; go on, your strictures are quite amusing.

_Mrs. G._ Well, then, since _we_ have taken the position of a reviewer, _we_ must confess that the last effort of the great Daniel appears to us to be _on an Act of Congress_.

_Mr. D._ And _at_ the Presidential chair.

_Mrs. G._ (_Continuing._) It did not touch the merits of slavery at all. Webster knew the feelings of the constituents too well to attempt such a task. He therefore skilfully diverted their attention from his real issue, to the glorious Union, and its danger from agitators, and he thus carried with him the sympathies of many honest haters of oppression.

_Mr. F._ Well, sister, I do not know but you will prove that there is not an advocate for slavery on the face of the earth.

_Mrs. G._ Only such advocates as there is for robbery and war. Those who find it for their interest to practice these crimes condemn them in the abstract, or at most only apologize for them, as necessary and expedient, under peculiar circumstances.

_Frank._ (_Laughing._) Why, mother, I shall certainly subscribe for your "North American Review," particularly if you fill the literary department as ably as you have the moral and political, to test which, let me propound a question? If the reward of the good be the charm of fiction, how do you account for the pleasure derived from tragedy, where the good are overwhelmed with the evil?

_Mrs. G._ (_Smiling._) With great diffidence we reply to the query of our learned friend. The force of tragedy consists in its depicting evil so ruinous as to involve even the innocent in the catastrophe; the pleasure is derived, we think, from the _failure_ of the mischievous design, and the merited retribution which falls upon the head of the plotters. In Romeo, "a scourge is laid upon the hate of the Montagues and Capulets, by which all are punished;" Hamlet's wicked uncle is justly served, drinking the poison tempered by himself; and Iago pulls down ruin upon himself no less than upon Cassio.

_Frank._ (_Bowing playfully_.) Your review meets my entire approbation, inasmuch as it confirms my doctrine, that theatres always give their verdict in favor of virtue.

_Mr. D._ "Casting out devils through Beelzebub."

_Mrs. G._ The artistic effect of every work of the imagination is wrought upon what critics call the "sympathetic emotion of virtue," and the decisions of this faculty, so far as we understand them, always correspond with what Christians believe concerning the "final restitution of all things."

_Frank._ The theatre, then, ought to promote good morals--why does it not?

_Mr. D._

"And many worthy men Maintained it might be turned to good account, And so perhaps it might, but never was."

_Mrs. G._ The "sympathetic emotion of virtue," not having an object, never rises to passion, and therefore never produces action. Philosophers tell us that a thought of virtue passing often through the mind, without being wrought out into a fact, weakens the moral sense; thus people may read the best of books, and witness the finest exhibitions of moral beauty, and constantly retrograde in virtue. The dissolute characters of players, who continually utter the loftiest sentiments, and practice the lowest vices, are accounted for on this principle; and we ought to judge the theatre as we do slavery, by its demoralizing effect upon those engaged in it.

_Mr. F._ Do you mean to say, Rebecca, that slaveholding has the same effect upon me that stage-playing has upon the actor?

_Mrs. G._ Well, brother, I put it to thy own conscience. Does thee not, daily, in dealing with thy slaves, stifle thy emotions of piety, generosity, and love, and is it not easier to do this now than it was twenty years ago, when, with a heart full of tenderness and truth, thee left us for thy southern home?

_Mr. F._ (_Rising and pacing the room with great agitation_.) Now, sister, you are going to introduce another absurdity! Do I practice the principles learned in the nursery? No, I do not! Do I believe "honesty is the best policy" and its kindred humbugs? Of course I don't! Show me the man who does? Do I follow the precepts of the sermon on the Mount? Not I! The man who should undertake to do so would make himself a perfect laughing-stock. I should like to see one of your northern hypocrites attempt it. Ha! ha! ha! "Lay not up treasure upon earth," and "take no thought for the morrow;" why, what else do people take thought for, either North or South? It is not what they shall eat, drink, or wear to-day, that worries them, but how they shall lay up something for themselves or their children hereafter. You silly women are always talking about righteousness, as if you really thought it could enter in human plans, but we men of the world, who have to wring the precious dollar from the hard hand of labor, know better! I tell you, Rebecca, I don't believe there is a business-man in your pious Quaker city even, who would dare acquaint his wife and daughters with all his little arrangements for amassing wealth. Ha! ha! ha! How the pretty things would stare at the tricks of the trade, and simper: "Is that right?" As though anybody thought business principles were gospel principles! As though they expected a man was going to love his neighbor as himself, when he was making a bargain with him! It provokes me to see you make yourself so ridiculous! You ought to know that every man _acts_ on the principle, that "Wealth is the chief good;" and you ought to know, too, that there the slaveholders have the advantage of you entirely. They do right to work, and grind it out of the slaves on a large scale, and call Abraham and Moses to witness the patriarchal method, while your northern mercenaries scheme and speculate how they can turn a penny out of ignorance and poverty, and have not even the apology of a precedent for their meanness. Why, one of our generous southern planters is as far above one of your stingy shave-three-cents-on-a-yard-tradesmen, as Robin Hood is above a miserable tea-spoon burglar. The south sails under false colors, does it? What flag do your platform men give to the wind, I should like to know? What do they care for the Fugitive Slave Law? Half of them would help a runaway to Canada with as good a will as they'd eat their dinner. (_Coming close and sitting down, so as to look fixedly in her face_.) I'll tell you what, sister, the chivalry of the south responds to you northern Christians who prate so loud of brotherhood and charity, in the words of young Cancer to his mother--"_Libenter tuis præceptis obsequar, si te prius idem facientem videro_."

_Mrs. G._ (_very gently_.) These strictures, brother, are too keenly just. They remind me of Kossuth's assertion, that there is not yet a Christian nation on the earth, nor yet a Christian church, that dare venture entirely upon the principles of the Gospel. Still, the aberration of reformers proves no more in favor of slavery, than the vices and miseries of civilized life prove that barbarism is the natural and happy state of the human race; nay, these very aberrations prove that a centripetal power counteracts the opposing force, and holds them within the genial influence of the sun of truth.

The law of spiritual gravitation is little understood. But thousands of philosophers are closely observing the phenomena, and carefully comparing them with the data given in the Sermon on the Mount; and it is not too much to hope that this generation will give to the world a Newton, whose moral mathematics shall demonstrate that the _law_ of _love_ is the true theory of individual and national prosperity.

_Mr. F._ Well, sister, I wish you much joy of your millennial state; but before the Sermon on the Mount becomes the code of nations, I guess you will find--

_Mr. D._ (_interrupting_.) "A little more grape, Captain Bragg!"

_Frank._ I tell you, uncle, "there's a good time coming." Mother is a prophet. I have watched her words all my life, and I never knew them fall to the ground.

_Mrs. G._ Observe, my friends, that the Sermon on the Mount puts blessing before requirement. If you accept these beatitudes as the gift of your Divine Master, you will find that obedience to the precepts which follow, is not the unwilling service of a bondsman, but the free and natural action of an unfranchised spirit.

CLOVER STREET SEM., November 10th, 1853.

A Time of Justice will Come

We are conscious of the odium that rests upon us. We feel that we are wronged; but we are not impatient for the righting of our wrongs. We bide our time. The men that shall come after us, will do us justice. The present generation of America cannot "judge righteous judgment," in the case of the uncompromising friends of freedom, religion, and law. They are so debauched and blinded by slavery, and by the perverse and low ideas of freedom, religion, and law, which it engenders, that they "call evil good, and good evil; put darkness for light, and light for darkness; put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter." They have been living out the lie of slavery so long, and have been, thereby, deadening their consciences so long, as to be now well nigh incapable of perceiving the wide and everlasting distinctions between truth and falsehood.

GERRITT SMITH.

Hope and Confidence.

O! What a strange thing is the human heart! With its youth, and its joy and fear! It doats upon creatures that day-dreams impart,-- Full sorely it grieves when their beauties depart, And weeps bitter tears over their bier.

The veriest gleamings that dart into birth, Reveal to its being of light: The dimliest shadows that flit upon earth, Allure it, with promise of pleasure and mirth In a country, where never is night.

It leaves the sure things of its own real home, To pursue the mere phantoms of thought! Well knowing, that certain, there soon must come, An end to the visions, that so gladsome, It bewilder'd, has eagerly sought.

It fleeth the wholesome prose of life, With its riches all sure and told: And scorning the beauties, that calmly in strife Truth fashions, it longs for the things all rife With glitter, and color, and gold.

It buildeth its home 'neath an ever calm sky, Near streams wherein crown-jewels sleep,-- And there it reposeth: while soothingly nigh, Some loved one, perchance, doth most wooingly sigh, As the zephyrs all full-laden creep.

Thus it musingly wasteth its strength, in dreams Of bliss, that can never prove true: And ever it revels amid what seems, A paradise smiling with Hope's warm beams, And flowers all spangled with dew.

But, even as flowers are broken and fade, And yield up their perfumes--their souls,-- So vanish the colors of which dreams are made,-- So perish the structures on which Hope is staid, And the treasures to which the heart holds.

In vain does it follow the wandering forms That promise, yet always recede:-- Too briefly the sunshine is darken'd by storms: Hope minstrels it onward, yet never informs Of the dangers unseen, that impede.

The Heart trusts the outward: "Of man 'tis the whole." Thus Confidence clings to decay! It feels the sweet homage that riches control,-- And laughs in contempt at the wealth of the soul: And behold! now, friends wait for their prey.

It trusteth in glory, and beauty, and youth,-- In love-vows that ne'er are to die: But soon the Death-king, in whose heart is no ruth, Enfolds it,--and mounting aloft, of Truth Thus sings, as turns glassy the eye.

"There's nothing so lovely and bright below, As the shapes of the purified mind! Nought surer to which the weak heart can grow, On which it can rest, as it onward doth go, Than that Truth which its own tendrils bind.

"Yes! Truth opes within a pure sun-tide of bliss, And shows in its ever calm flood, A transcript of regions, where no darkness is, Where HOPE its conceptions may realize, And CONFIDENCE sleep in 'The Good.'"

A Letter that Speaks for Itself.

To T---- M----.

Disinterested benevolence, my dear sir, has nothing at all to do with abolitionism. Nay, I doubt very much if there is such a thing as disinterested benevolence; but be this as it may, there is no occasion for it in the anti-slavery ranks.

It is selfishness,--sheer selfishness, that has thus far carried on the war with slavery and wrong in all times; and selfishness must break the chains of the American slave.

Self-love has fixed the chain around the arm of every leader and every soldier in the American anti-slavery army. Where would William Lloyd Garrison have been to-day, if any combination of circumstances could have shut in his soul's deep hatred of oppression, and prevented its finding utterance in burning words? He would have been dead and rotten. It is necessary to his own existence that he should work,--work for the slave; and in his work he gratifies all the strongest instincts of his nature, more completely than even the grossest sensualist can gratify _his_, by unlimited indulgence.

Gerritt Smith, too. Suppose he was compelled to hoard his princely fortune, or spend it as most others do! O dear! what a dyspeptic we should have in six months; and all the hydropathic institutes in the country could never keep him alive five years.

John P. Hale would soon be done with his rotund person and jovial face, if he could no longer send the sharp arrows of his wit and sarcasm into the consciences of his human-whipping neighbors.

It is a necessity of all great nations to hate meanness, and nothing under God's heaven ever was so mean as American slavery. Think of it. _Men_ who swagger around with pistols and bowie-knifes to avenge their insulted honor, if any one should question it,--imagine one turning up his sleeves to horsewhip an old woman for burning his steak, or pocketing her wages, earned at the wash-tub!

No one with a soul above that of a pig-louse, could help loathing the system, the instant he saw it in its native meanness. Then, in order to keep his own self-respect,--to gratify the love of the good and true in his own soul, he _must_ express that loathing.

No disinterestedness about doing right, for nobody can be so much interested in the act as the doer of it.

Wrong-doing is the only possible self-abnegation, of which the whole range of thought admits.

All the humiliation and agony of the Saviour himself, were necessary to himself. Nothing less could have expressed the infinite love of the Divine nature; and in working out a most perfect righteousness for those he loved, he also wrought out a most perfect happiness for himself.

The eternal law of God links the happiness of all the creatures made in His image in an electric chain, united in the Divine love; and He, who has "a fellow-feeling for our infirmities," has given us a fellow-feeling with the sufferings of each other. So that no soul in which the Divine image is not totally obscured, can know of the misery of another, without a sympathetic throb of sorrow.

The true heart in Maine _cannot_ know that the slave-mother in Georgia is weeping for her children, torn from her arms by avarice, without feeling her anguish palpitating in its inmost core.

It is the pulsations of the sympathetic heart which stretches out the hand to interfere between her and her aggressor; and abolitionists are just seeking a soft pillow that they may "sleep o' nights."

It is selfishness, I tell you, all selfishness! The great whale when she gives up her own large life to protect her young one, and the little wren when she carries all the nice tit bits to her babies, are as true to themselves as the old pig when she shoulders all her little family out of the trough.

The whale enjoys death, and the wren her little fellows' supper, with a better zest than an old grunter does her corn, and Wm. Gildersten in spending money and laboring to prevent any more scenes of brutal violence in his State, by punishing the one past, gratifies his own loves and longings quite as much as Judge Grier in grunting out his wrath against all lovers of liberty.

The one would enjoy being hanged for the cause of God and Humanity, more than the other would the luxury of hanging him, even if he could have _all_ the pleasure to himself,--be not only judge and persecutor, as he prefers, but marshal, jailor, and hangman to boot.

More than this, every creature, so far as other creatures are concerned, has a right to be happy in his own way. Nero had as much right to wish for power to cut off all the heads in Italy at one blow, as an innocent pig to wish for capacity to eat all the corn in the world. Mankind has no right to punish either for the desire or its manifestation. They should only make fences to prevent the accomplishment of the wish.

Americans have no right to punish Judge Grier for wishing to persecute everybody who attempts to enforce State laws against murderous assaults by _his_ officers. They should content themselves with fencing his Honor in, or, if necessary, putting a ring in his nose. He has as much right to be Judge Grier as George Washington had to be George Washington, and is no more selfish in following the instincts of his nature, than Washington was in following his.

Without any great respect, I am your friend,

On Freedom.

Once I wished I might rehearse Freedom's pæan in my verse, That the slave who caught the strain Should throb until he snapt his chain. But the Spirit said, "Not so; Speak it not, or speak it low; Name not lightly to be said, Gift too precious to be prayed, Passion not to be exprest But by heaving of the breast; Yet,--would'st thou the mountain find Where this deity is shrined, Who gives the seas and sunset-skies Their unspent beauty of surprise, And, when it lists him, waken can Brute and savage into man; Or, if in thy heart he shine, Blends the starry fates with thine, Draws angels nigh to dwell with thee, And makes thy thoughts archangels be; Freedom's secret would'st thou know?-- Right thou feelest rashly do.

Mary Smith,

AN ANTI-SLAVERY REMINISCENCE.

Some years ago a free colored woman, who was born in New England, and had gone to the south to attend upon some family, was shipwrecked, as she was returning northwards, on the coast of North Carolina. She, however, as well as some of the crew of the vessel, was saved. The half-civilized people of that region rendered some assistance to the shipwrecked party; but Mary Smith was detained by one of the natives as a slave.

The poor woman succeeded in getting a letter written to some person in Boston, in which the particulars of her story were narrated. Either this letter, or one afterwards written, contained references to people in Boston who were acquainted with her.

It was not very easy, even with these references, to get sufficient evidence to prove the freedom and identity of an obscure person, who had been away from Boston for some years. A strong interest, however, was felt in the case wherever it became known. And Rev. Samuel Snowden, well-remembered by the name of Father Snowden, with his usual indomitable energy and perseverance in aiding persons of his own color in distress, succeeded in finding people in Boston who were well acquainted with Mary Smith, and recollected her having left that place to go to the south. Pursuing his inquiries with great diligence, he ascertained the place of her birth, which was somewhere in New Hampshire. I forget the name of the town.

Affidavits were now procured, which established the place of Mary Smith's birth, her residence in Boston, and the time of her departure for the south, and other circumstances to corroborate her story.

Edward Everett, who was at this time Governor of Massachusetts, at the request of Mary Smith's friends, forwarded the documents they had obtained, accompanied with an urgent letter from himself, demanding her release from captivity, on the ground of her being a free citizen of Massachusetts.

The Governor of North Carolina replied very courteously to Governor Everett. He admitted the right of the woman to her freedom, and acknowledged that no person in North Carolina could lawfully detain her as a slave. But, at the same time he said, that as Governor, he had no power to interfere with the person who held her in custody. The decision on her right to freedom, depended on another department of the government. He promised, however, to write to the man who held her, and solicit her release.

The remonstrances of the Governor of North Carolina proved successful. Mary Smith soon arrived in Boston. And some of her old acquaintances who had given the evidence which led to her release, hastened to meet her and congratulate her on her escape from bondage. At the meeting they looked on her for some moments with astonishment, for they could trace in her features no resemblance to their former companion. A speedy explanation took place, from which it appeared that all the documents sent to North Carolina related to one Mary Smith; but the woman whose liberty they procured, was another Mary Smith.

Governor Everett had a hearty laugh when Father Snowden told him the happy result of his letter to the Governor of North Carolina.

The moral of this story is, that a plain, common name, is sometimes more useful to its owner, than a more brilliant one.