Part 5

To sum up Mr. Breckinridge's last address, what, he would ask, had been its whole aim? Clearly, that they should consider the abolitionists as the chief promoters of all the riots that had taken place in America on this question, by making inflammatory appeals to the passions of the people. He would call upon Mr. Breckinridge again, to lay his hand on a single proof of this. He would call upon him to point out a single instance where language had been used which was in any degree calculated to call up the blood-thirsty passions of the mob as had been represented. If the planters of the South were roused into fury by the declaration of anti-slavery sentiments--if they were unable to hear the everlasting truths which it promulgated, was that a sufficient reason for those to keep silent who felt it to be their duty, at all hazards, to make known these truths. Or were they to be charged with raising mobs, because the people were enraged to hear these truths. As well might Paul of Tarsus have been charged with the mobs which rose against his life, and that of his fellow-apostles. As well might Galileo be charged with those persecutions which immured him in a dungeon. As well might the apostles of truth in every age be charged with the terrible results which ensued from the struggle of light and darkness. In conclusion, Mr. Thompson said, that on the following evening, he would take up the question of the Maryland colonization scheme.

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DR. WARDLAW announced to the meeting that the discussion closed for the evening. In doing so he complimented the audience on the very correct manner in which they had observed the rule regarding all manifestation of applause. The attention and interest of the audience were much excited throughout the whole proceedings, indeed, at few meetings have we observed so lively an interest taken in the entire business of an evening, and yet there was not a single instance in which the interference of the chairman was required. On several occasions the rising expression of applause was at once checked by the general good sense of the meeting.

SECOND NIGHT--TUESDAY, JUNE 14.

MR. THOMPSON, before proceeding with the discusssion, would make one or two preliminary observations. Last evening he had been led into an error, as regarded both number and time, in speaking of the amount of slaves in America at the adoption of the Constitution; and he was anxious that every statement made by him should be without a flaw; and if there should be an error committed he would be the first person to admit and correct it when discovered. He stated that at the adoption of the American Constitution, there were only about three hundred thousand slaves in the United States. There were not many more in 1776, when the states declared themselves independent: in 1788 when the Constitution was settled there were more; and in 1790, there were between six and seven hundred thousand slaves in the United States of America. His error consisted in his subtracting 1776 from 1790, and saying twenty-four years instead of fourteen. He mentioned this error to show that he held a regard to truth to be the ultimate end of their discussion. There was one other preliminary remark. His antagonist had repeatedly said that George Thompson had published himself a martyr. George Thompson never did publish himself a martyr. Mr. Breckinridge, in the course of his speeches last night, had said more of himself than he (Mr. T.) had ever done during all the speeches he had ever made on the question. He had only referred to himself when urgently requested to give an account of his personal experience. He never had a wish to be considered a martyr. If, when he had finished his course here; if, when this probationary scene was over, he was found to have done his duty, he would be fully satisfied. He was not pharasaical enough to imagine that he had performed any works of supererogation. Mr. Breckinridge had said this was not a national question; that slavery in America was not American Slavery; that it was not a national evil; that it was not a national sin; that is was merely a question between the State Legislatures and the slave owners. He (Mr. T.) had said last night, that slavery in America was a national sin, and he would now adduce the reasons for his statement:--First--The American people had admitted the slave states into the Union; and by consenting to admit these states into the confederacy, although there were in them hundreds of thousands in a state of slavery, they took the slaves under the government of the United States, and made the sin national. Second--For twenty years after the adoption of their Constitution, and by virtue of that very instrument, the United States permitted the horrid, unchristian, diabolical African slave-trade. Third--Than the Capital of the United States of America there was not one spot in the whole world which was more defiled by slavery; and considering the professions and privileges of the people, there was not a more anti-christian traffic on the face of the earth. Fourth--each of the states is bound by the Constitution to give up all run-away slaves; so that the poor, wretched, tortured slave might be pursued from Baltimore to Pennsylvania, from thence to New Jersey and New York, and dragged even from the confines of Canada, a fugitive and a felon, back into the slavery from which he had fled. He might be taken from the Capitol: from the very horns of the altar, to be subjected by a cruel kidnapper to the most horrid of human sufferings. It is not a national question! When the North violates the law of God--when it tramples on the Decalogue--when it defies Jehovah! what was a stronger injunction in the law of Moses than that the Israelites should protect the run-away slave? But in America every state was bound by law to give up the slave to his slave-master, to his ruthless pursuer; and yet it must not be called a national question! Fifth--The citizens of the free states were bound to go South to put down any insurrection among the slaves. They were bound and pledged to do this when required. The youth of Pennsylvania had pledged themselves to go to the Southern states to annihilate the blacks in case they asserted their rights--the rights of every human being--to be free. So also was it in New York, and in the other free states, and yet we are to be told that slavery is not a national question. The whole Union was bound to crush the slave, who, standing on the ashes of Washington said, he ought to be, and would be free. Yes, Northern bayonets would give that slave a speedy manumission from his galling yoke, by sending him in his gore, where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. Yet it is not a national question! Sixth--The North is taxed to keep up troops in the South to overawe and terrify the slave; and yet it is not a national question! Seventh--Mr. Breckinridge has shown in a letter published by him, that the Congress has the power to put an end to the international slave trade, and yet this trade goes on in America. Mr. B. well knows that at least one hundred thousand human beings--slaves--change hands annually; he must have seen the slaves driven in coffles through his own beloved state, to be sold like cattle at Washington and Alexandria; he knows that thousands of Virginia and Maryland slaves are sold at New Orleans yearly, and yet he tells us that slavery is not a national question! Eighth--How did they admit Missouri into the Union with slaves? Were they Southern votes which admitted it? No! But they were the votes of recreant New Englanders--false to the principles of freedom, who sold the honor of their country, and with it the liberty of thousands of human beings in Missouri--or at least consented to their bondage. And yet it is not a national question! He (Mr. T.) would last refer to the remarks of a constitutional lawyer, who was able, eloquent, sincere, and high minded. Mr. T. then read the following extract:--

Such thoughts (referring to the judgments to be expected) habitually crowd upon me when I contemplate those great personal and NATIONAL evils, from which the system of operations (vis., the movements of the Colonization Society) which I stand here to advocate, seems to offer us some prospect of deliverance.

From that day (1698) till the present, there have flourished in our country, men of large and just views, who have not ceased to pour over this subject a stream of clear and noble truth, and to importune their country, by every motive of duty and advantage, to wipe from her escutcheon, the stain of human tears.

It is generally known, that the original members of the American Colonization Society anticipated, that, at some future period, the General Government, and some, if not all the State Governments, would co-operate in their exertions for the removal of an evil which was obviously NATIONAL in all its aspects.

Now who was the writer from whom he had quoted?--His friend Mr. Breckinridge. This was his final reason. If Mr. Breckinridge's argument survived these reasons, it would have a life like that of a cat, which is said to have nine lives; for they were nine fatal thrusts at his position, that slavery in America was not American slavery. Mr. B. admits the existence of slavery, but lays no blame either in this quarter or in that; he does not lay it on the states, nor on the General Government. Slavery does exist in America, but--interminably; but, but--coming as these buts did from a temperance country, he wondered much that they had escaped being staved. Slavery exists in America, but it is not a national question! There are upwards of two millions and a half of slaves in the United States of America, and of these, at least one hundred thousand changed hands annually, thus sundering, without remorse, the tenderest ties of human nature; at whose door, then, lay the guilt of this sin? To whom were the people of this country to address their warnings--over whose transgressions were they to mourn--whose hearts were they to endeavor to humanize and mollify--where were the responsible and guilty parties to be found--how are we to get access to their consciences on behalf of the slave? Mr. Breckinridge says the system is one of 'clear robbery,' 'universal concubinage,'--'unmitigated wickedness'--and yet it is not to be immediately abolished! If it be clear robbery--if it be universal concubinage--if it be unmitigated wickedness--let the horrid system immediately, and totally, and eternally cease--a worse system it was impossible to have if these were the evils it entailed. Mr. B. triumphantly makes out my case for immediate and complete emancipation. The duty is plain and indispensable. Mr. Breckinridge says the abolitionists are the most despicable and odious men on the face of the earth. Those who love liberty are always odious in the eyes of tyrants. The lovers of things as they are, of corruption of despotism--men who look at every thing from beneath the aprons of their grandmothers, invariably regard as insufferably odious all who are lovers of reformation and liberty. This always has been, and always will be the case. As it was said in the service of the church of England, it might be said on this subject, 'As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be' if not 'world without end,' at least to the end of this world. On the 6th day of January, 1831, Mr. Breckinridge delivered in Frankfort, Kentucky, an able address in favor of the Colonization Society. In that address, Mr. B. stated that the Society was established on the 21st day of Dec. 1816, and was of course, at the time of his speech, fourteen years and sixteen days old. Mr. Breckinridge said the legislatures of eleven states of the Union had recommended this Society to Congress; that the ecclesiastical tribunals of all the leading sects of Christians in America had testified their approbation of its principles; and yet there were, after fourteen years and sixteen days, with all this support and high patronage in church and state only one hundred and sixty auxiliary societies existing throughout the Union. Now, as to the contemptible and odious abolitionists! as they were called by the gentleman who differed from him. The National Society for the immediate abolition of American slavery, was formed on the 6th of Dec. 1833; and on the 12th of May, 1835, when the anniversary was held--without being recommended to Congress by any of the state legislatures--without a testimony of approbation from any of the ecclesiastical tribunals--being only one year and six months old--how many auxiliary societies were connected with this abolition organization? Two hundred and twenty-four. That was the number then on the books of the Society; and the Secretary said the whole of them were not inserted from the want of proper returns. In a letter addressed to him (Mr. T.) by the Secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, dated New York, 31st March, 1836, were the following words:--

Never were societies forming in all parts of our country with greater rapidity. At this moment we have four hundred and fifty on our list, and doubtless, there are five hundred in existence. We have at this time eleven agents in the field, all good men and true, and all fast gaining converts.

And yet the abolitionists are a handful! The one society in fourteen years and sixteen days, having one hundred and sixty auxiliaries; the other in two years and three months, having, without the support of state legislatures, or of ecclesiastical tribunals, not fewer than five hundred; and yet the abolitionists are a handful. He (Mr. T.) held in his hand a list of delegates to the New England Convention which was held in the city of Boston, on the 25th of May, 1835. In that list he found two hundred and eighty-one gentlemen, who, at their own expense, had come from all parts of New England, to attend that Convention. On the 27th May, it was stated that the Massachusetts Society were in want of funds, and a committee was appointed to collect subscriptions. That committee in less than an hour obtained $1,800, and on the following day, $4,000, for the American Society. In New York, at the anniversary, there had been collected $14,500--and yet the abolitionists were a handful. The American Society at its anniversary, had collected a larger sum than was collected by all the other societies together, during the week set apart for the purpose; and in Boston, $6,000 had been collected in two days; whilst in two months, a friend of Mr. B's, viz. Mr. Gurley, had only been able to collect, in the same city, about $600 for the Colonization Society. By their fruits shall ye know them; do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? You may send to New England any foreigner you please--but he must show his cause to be sound and practicable before he can draw a dollar or a cent from a New Englander, who gets his bread by early rising, and laborious attention to business--yet $6,000 were collected in two days. But the abolitionists are a mere handful! Yes--they may be a handful, but they are most precious and multyplying seed. Mr. B. said that many of the slave-owners were doing all they could for the emancipation of the slaves; whether they were doing any thing or nothing, we find New Englanders had endeavored to retrieve the honor of their country, by a subscription for emancipation of $6,000 in two days--and yet it was said, they were an odious handful! When he saw the Colonization Society like a Juggernaut, endeavoring to crush the bodies and spirits of colored men and colored women, he would league himself with the despised and 'odious handful,' and labor with them, and for them, till, by the blessing of God, on their exertions, the slaves were elevated to the condition and dignity of intelligent and intellectual beings. Mr. T. would give another proof that the abolitionists were a handful of most odious creatures. He would refer to the New York Convention. Mr. B. knows well that the pro-slavery prints pointed forward to the New York Convention in October last, as likely to be a scene of blood. Not rendered so by the abolitionists, for they were men of peace, but by the fury of their opponents. Notwithstanding, there were six hundred delegates assembled in Utica, at 9 o'clock, on the first day; and when they were driven from that city by a mob, headed by the Hon. Mr. Beardsley, member of Congress, and by the Hon. Mr. Hayden, Judge of the county--and the greater part of them went to Peterborough, these six hundred were joined by other four hundred, making one thousand delegates, for one state--and yet they were a mere handful. He would next refer to the Rhode Island Convention, at which, though held in the smallest State in the Union--in the depth of winter--and at a time when many of the roads were impassible through a heavy fall of snow, four hundred delegates attended, and $2,000 were collected--but yet the abolitionists were a mere handful! Gerrit Smith had said that there was an accession to the anti-slavery societies, in the State of New York alone, of five hundred weekly, among whom he says, there is not known one intemperate or profane person;--five hundred weekly added to one state society--yet they are a mere handful! If they go on increasing at this rate in New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and throughout New England, they will not long be a small handful! Besides, many of those who were formerly on the side of colonization, have now come over to the ranks of the abolitionists. Where are now the Smiths, and Birneys, and Jays, and Coxs, that once were the eloquent and munificent advocates and patrons of the Colonization Society? They are now, with all their souls and energies, on the side of immediate abolition. Nor these alone. He might--he ought to name such men as President Green, and Professors Wright, Bush, Follen, Smyth, and Gregg. He ought to speak of a Leavitt in New York, a Kirk in Albany, a Beman in Troy, a Weld in Ohio, a Garrison in New England; and of a Mrs. Child, a Mrs. Chapman, a John G. Whittier, a May, a Dickinson, a Phelps, a Goodell, a Bourne, a Lundy, a Loring, a Sewall, and a host of others. All these men esteemed it their joy and honor to be amongst the most odious of the contemptible handful referred to. These were men of mind, of piety, of influence, of energy; men not to be deterred from doing their duty by the harsh music of the birds of ill omen, from the Upas Tree of Slavery, who sent forth their croakings, by night and by day, to scare the nation from its indispensable work of Justice and Truth--and yet these men are odious and contemptible! Your agent, too, is contemptible--he was the agent of the 'goodies' of Glasgow--and--his fair auditors could scarcely believe what epithets were lavishly bestowed on him and them--yet their agent, as contemptible as he was, was, perhaps, the only Englishman, who had ever been honored as he had been by the President of the United States of America. He who was so contemptible in the eyes of the Americans--who was a most impetuous, and untameable, and worthless animal--who was the representative of the 'goodies' and superannuated maids and matrons of Glasgow--was honored by a notice and a rebuke in the message to Congress of the President of the United States! This looked much like being insignificant and contemptible! He did not seek the honor which had been thus conferred upon him--it came upon him unaware--but he had not therefore refused it. It was an honor to be persecuted in the United States with the abolitionists of 1830. And when their children, and their children's children looked back upon these persecutions, they would exult and be proud to say they were the sons, the grandsons, or the great grandsons of the Coxs, the Jays, the Garrisons, the Tappans, and the Thompsons of England and America. After alluding to the treatment he had experienced from the New York Courier and Enquirer, Mr. T. said--let us bear these honors meekly--when calumniated for truth's sake, let us be humble, while we are joyful. One word more as to the odious handful. Seven-eights of the Methodist Episcopal ministers in the New Hampshire Conference, and seven-eights of the New England Conference were abolitionists. The students of the colleges and institutions, academical and theological of the country, known by the names of Lane Seminary, Oberlin Institute, Western Reserve College, Oneida Institute, Waterville College, Brunswick College, Amherst College, and the Seminaries of Andover, were many of them in some, and all of them in others, abolitionists; and yet, when all these societies, and ministers, and men of learning, and students were put together, they were, in their aggregate capacity, but an odious and most contemptible handful! He would now proceed to speak of the Maryland scheme--a scheme of obvious wickedness. When Mr. B. came to Boston to advocate that scheme, he says a placard was published, calling on the rabble to mob him. This placard he attributes to Mr. Garrison and the abolitionists, as he says it was of the same size and appearance as the type and columns of the Liberator newspaper, and that therefore Mr. Garrison was the publisher. This he (Mr. T.) most pointedly, and distinctly, and solemnly denied, and challenged Mr. B. to the proof. Did Mr. B. show the placard? No. Did he demonstrate its identity with Mr. Garrison's paper? No. He had not done so. To make Mr. Garrison the author or publisher of such a placard, was to publish him a coward and a villain; for he who could point out any man, still more a Christian minister, to the fury of a mob, was a moral monster, a coward, and a villain. He called on Mr. B. by his regard for truth and justice, and his reputation as a minister of Christ, to adduce the proofs necessary to sustain so grave an accusation, and he (Mr. T.) pledged himself to cast off the dearest friend he had, if a crime so base could be fixed on him. To return to the Maryland scheme. In the month of July or August, 1834, Boston was visited by his respected opponent, his brother, Dr. J. Breckinridge, and an agent of the Maryland Colonization Society, and a meeting was convened to enable those gentlemen to set forth and recommend the scheme of that Society, in aid of which the legislature of Maryland had made an appropriation of $200,000. He (Mr. T.) was fully prepared to show, that the object of the Society was to get rid of the free colored population, and that according to their design the state legislature had, in immediate connection with the grant of money, passed most rigorous and cruel laws. The Colonization Society was the net cast for the colored people--the laws of the state were the means devised to drive the devoted victims into its meshes. This was called helping them out of the country with their free consent. He (Mr. T.) would bring forward abundant proofs when he next addressed them--he would then read the laws which he could not now produce for want of time. Mr. Breckinridge might or might not notice these general charges against the Maryland scheme; but he (Mr. T.) would hereafter fully support them, and show, too, that the National Colonization Society was equally culpable, having at its ensuing annual meeting fully approved of the plan, and recommended it as a bright example for the imitation of other states.

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