Part 22

Rev. John Pierpont gave us his hand at an earlier day. He took upon himself “our reproach” in 1836, when we most needed help. I have already made grateful mention of his “Word from a Petitioner,” sent to me by the hand of the heroic Francis Jackson in the midst of the convention of the constituents of Hon. J. Q. Adams, called at Quincy to assure their brave, invincible representative of their deep, admiring sense of obligation to him for his persistent and almost single-handed defence of the sacred right of petition on the floor of Congress.

Mr. Pierpont’s next was a _tocsin_ in deed as well as in name. He was impelled to strike his lyre by the alarm he justly felt at the tidings from Alton of the destruction of Mr. Lovejoy’s antislavery printing-office, and the murder of the devoted proprietor. His indignation was roused yet more by the burning of “Pennsylvania Hall” in Philadelphia, and the shameful fact that at the same time, 1838, no church or decent hall could be obtained in Boston for “love or money,” in which to hold an antislavery meeting; but we were compelled to resort to an inconvenient and insufficient room over the stable of Marlborough Hotel.

His next powerful effusion was _The Gag_, a caustic and scathing satire upon the Hon. C. G. Atherton, of New Hampshire, for his base attempt in the House of Representatives at Washington to put an entire stop to any discussion of the subject of slavery.

His next piece was _The Chain_, a most touching comparison of the wrongs and sufferings of the slaves with other evils that injured men have been made to endure.

Then followed _The Fugitive Slave’s Apostrophe to the North Star_, which showed how deeply he sympathized with the many hundreds of our countrymen who, to escape from slavery, had toiled through dismal swamps, thick-set canebrakes, deep rivers, tangled forests, alone, by night, hungry, almost naked and penniless, guided only by the steady light of the polar star, which some kind friend had taught them to distinguish, and had assured them would be an unerring leader to a land of liberty. They who have heard the narratives of such as have so escaped need not be told that Mr. Pierpont must have had the tale poured through his ear into his generous heart.[M]

But of all our American poets, John G. Whittier has from first to last done most for the abolition of slavery. All my antislavery brethren, I doubt not, will unite with me to crown him our laureate. From 1832 to the close of our dreadful war in 1865 his harp of liberty was never hung up. Not an important occasion escaped him. Every significant incident drew from his heart some pertinent and often very impressive or rousing verses. His name appears in the first volume of _The Liberator_, with high commendations of his poetry and his character. As early as 1831 he was attracted to Mr. Garrison by sympathy with his avowed purpose to abolish slavery. Their acquaintance soon ripened into a heartfelt friendship, as he declared in the following lines, written in 1833:--

“Champion of those who groan beneath Oppression’s iron hand: In view of penury, hate, and death, I see thee fearless stand. Still bearing up thy lofty brow, In the steadfast strength of truth, In manhood sealing well the vow And promise of thy youth.

* * * * *

“I love thee with a brother’s love; I feel my pulses thrill, To mark thy spirit soar above The cloud of human ill. My heart hath leaped to answer thine, And echo back thy words, As leaps the warrior’s at the shine And flash of kindred swords!

* * * * *

“Go on--the dagger’s point may glare Amid thy pathway’s gloom,-- The fate which sternly threatens there Is glorious martyrdom! Then onward with a martyr’s zeal; And wait thy sure reward, When man to man no more shall kneel, And God alone be Lord!”

Mr. Whittier proved the sincerity of these professions. He joined the first antislavery society and became an active official. Notwithstanding his dislike of public speaking, he sometimes lectured at that early day, when so few were found willing to avow and advocate the right of the enslaved to immediate liberation from bondage without the condition of removal to Liberia. Mr. Whittier attended the convention at Philadelphia in December, 1833, that formed the American Antislavery Society. He was one of the secretaries of that body, and a member, with Mr. Garrison, of the committee appointed to prepare the “Declaration of our Sentiments and Purposes.” Although, as I have elsewhere stated, Mr. Garrison wrote almost every sentence of that admirable document just as it now stands, yet I well remember the intense interest with which Mr. Whittier scrutinized it, and how heartily he indorsed it.

In 1834, by his invitation I visited Haverhill, where he then resided. I was his guest, and lectured under his auspices in explanation and defence of our abolition doctrines and plans. Again the next year, after the mob spirit had broken out, I went to Haverhill by his invitation, and he shared with me in the perils which I have described on a former page.

In January, 1836, Mr. Whittier attended the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society, and boarded the while in the house where I was living. He heard Dr. Follen’s great speech on that occasion, and came home so much affected by it that, either that night or the next morning, he wrote those “Stanzas for the Times,” which are among the best of his productions:--

“Is this the land our fathers loved, The freedom which they toiled to win? Is this the soil whereon they moved? Are these the graves they slumber in? Are _we_ the sons by whom are borne The mantles which the dead have worn?

“And shall we crouch above these graves With craven soul and fettered lip? Yoke in with marked and branded slaves, And tremble at the driver’s whip? Bend to the earth our pliant knees, And speak but as our masters please?

* * * * *

“Shall tongues be mute when deeds are wrought Which well might shame extremest hell? Shall freemen lock the indignant thought? Shall Pity’s bosom cease to swell? Shall Honor bleed? Shall Truth succumb? Shall pen and press and soul be dumb?

“No;--by each spot of haunted ground, Where Freedom weeps her children’s fall,-- By Plymouth’s rock and Bunker’s mound,-- By Griswold’s stained and shattered wall,-- By Warren’s ghost,--by Langdon’s shade,-- By all the memories of our dead!

* * * * *

“By all above, around, below, Be our indignant answer,--NO!”

I can hardly refrain from giving my readers the whole of these stanzas. But I hope they all are, or will at once make themselves, familiar with them. As I read them now, they revive in my bosom not the memory only, but the glow they kindled there when I first pored over them. Then his lines entitled “Massachusetts to Virginia,” and those he wrote on the adoption of Pinckney’s Resolution, and the passage of Calhoun’s Bill, excluding antislavery newspapers and pamphlets and letters from the United States Mail,--indeed, all his antislavery poetry helped mightily to keep us alive to our high duties, and fired us with holy resolution. Let our laureate’s verses still be said and sung throughout the land, for if the portents of the day be true, our conflict with the enemies of liberty, the oppressors of humanity, is not yet ended.

PREJUDICE AGAINST COLOR.

If the enslaved millions of our countrymen had been white, the task of emancipating them would have been a light one. But as only colored persons were to be seen in that condition, and they were ignorant and degraded, and as all of that complexion, with rare exceptions, even in the free States, were poor, uneducated, and held in servile relations, or engaged in only menial employments, it had come to be taken for granted that they were fitted only for such things. It was confidently assumed that they belonged to an _inferior race_ of beings, somewhere between monkey and man; that they were made by the Creator for our service, to be hewers of wood and drawers of water; and pious ministers, and some who were reputed to be wise in the sacred Scriptures, gave their sanction to the arrogant assumption by proving (to those who were anxious to believe) that negroes were descendants from the impious son of Noah, whom that patriarch cursed, and in his wrath decreed that his posterity should be the lowest of servants.

Our opponents gave no heed to the glaring facts, that the colored people were not permitted to rise from their low estate, were _held down_ by our laws, customs, and contemptuous treatment. Not only were they prevented from engaging in any of the lucrative occupations, but they were denied the privileges of education, and hardly admitted to the houses dedicated to the worship of the impartial Father of all men.

I have given in early numbers of this series a full account of the fight we had in defence of the Canterbury School in Connecticut. More than a year before that, a number of well-qualified young men having been refused admission into Yale College and the Wesleyan Seminary at Middletown, _because of their complexion_, the Rev. Simeon S. Jocelyn, one of the best of men, generously assisted by Arthur Tappan and his brother Lewis Tappan, and others, endeavored to establish in New Haven an institution for the collegiate education of colored young men. The benevolent project was so violently opposed by “the most respectable citizens” of the place, Hon. Judge Daggett among them, that it was abandoned. A year or two afterwards the trustees of “Noyes Academy,” in Plymouth, New Hampshire, after due consideration, consented to allow colored pupils to be admitted into the academy. The respectable people of the town were so incensed, enraged by this encroachment upon the prerogative of white children, that, readily helped by the rougher but not baser sort of folks, they razed the building in which the school was kept from its foundation and carted it off into a meadow or swamp. In none of our cities, that I was acquainted with before the antislavery reform commenced, were colored children admitted into the “common schools” with white children. Hon. Horace Mann and his fellow-laborers in the cause of humanity, as well as education, put this injustice to shame in Massachusetts, if not elsewhere, and the doors of all public schools were opened to the young, without regard to complexion.

But this was not the utmost of the contempt with which colored people were treated. They were not permitted to ride in any public conveyances, stage-coaches, omnibuses, or railroad-cars, nor to take passage on any steamboats or sail-packets, excepting in the steerage or on deck. Many instances of extreme suffering, as well as great inconvenience and expense, to which worthy, excellent colored persons were subjected came to the knowledge of Abolitionists, and were pressed upon the public consideration, until the crying iniquity was abated.

And still there was a deeper depth to the wrong we did to these innocent victims of prejudice. In all our churches they were set apart from the white brethren, often in pews or pens, built high up against the ceiling in the corners back of the congregation, so that the favored ones who came to worship the “_impartial_ Father” of all men might not be offended at the sight of those to whom in his _inscrutable_ wisdom he had given a dark complexion.

There was quite an excitement caused in the Federal Street Church in 1822 or 1823, because one of the very wealthy merchants of Boston introduced into his pew in the broad aisle, one Sunday, a black gentleman. To be sure he was richly dressed, and had a handsome person, but he was black,--very black.

“That Sunday’s sermon all was lost, The very text forgot by most.”

The refined and sensitive were much disturbed, offended, felt that their sacred rights had been invaded. They upbraided their neighbor for having so egregiously violated the propriety of the sacred place, and given their feelings such a shock. “Why,” said the merchant, “what else could I do? That man, though black, is, as you must have seen, a gentleman. He is well educated, of polished manners. He comes from a foreign country a visitor to our city. He has long been a business correspondent of mine.” “Then he is very rich.” “Why, bless you, he is worth a million. How could I send such a gentleman up into the negro pew?”

In 1835, if I remember correctly, a wealthy and pious colored man bought a pew on the floor of Park Street Church. It caused great disturbance. Some of his neighbors nailed up the door of his pew; and so many of “the aggrieved brethren” threatened to leave the society, if they could not be relieved of such an offence, that the trustees were obliged to eject the colored purchaser. Another of the churches[N] of Boston, admonished by the above-mentioned occurrence, inserted in their _pew-deeds_ a clause, providing that they should “_be held by none but respectable white persons_.”

Belonging to the society to which I ministered in Connecticut was a very worthy colored family. They were condemned to sit only in the negro pew, which was as far back from the rest of the congregation as it could be placed. Being blessed with a numerous family, as the children grew up they were uncomfortably crowded in that pew. Our church occupied the old meeting-house, which was somewhat larger than we needed, so that the congregation were easily accommodated on the lower floor. Only the choir sat in the gallery, except on extraordinary occasions. I therefore invited my colored parishioners to occupy one of the large, front pews in the side-gallery. They hesitated some time, lest their doing so should give offence. But I insisted that none would have any right to be offended, and at length persuaded them to do as I requested. But one man, a political partisan of the leader of Miss Crandall’s persecutors, was or pretended to be much offended. He said with great warmth, “How came that nigger family to come down into that front pew?” “Because,” I replied, “it was unoccupied; they were uncomfortably crowded in the pew assigned them, and I requested them to remove.” “Well,” said he, “there are many in the society besides myself who will not consent to their sitting there.” “Why?” I asked. “They are always well dressed, well behaved, and good-looking withal.” “But,” said he, “they are niggers, and niggers should be kept to their place.” I argued the matter with him till I saw he could not be moved, and he repeated the declaration that they should be driven back. I then said, with great earnestness: “Mr. A. B., if you do anything or say anything to hurt the feelings of that worthy family, and induce them to return to the pew which you know is not large enough for them, so sure as your name is A. B. and my name is S. J. M., the first time you afterwards appear in the congregation, I will state the facts of the case exactly as they are, and administer to you as severe a reproof as I may be able to frame in words.” This had the desired effect. My colored friends retained their new seat.

To counteract as much as possible the effect of this cruel prejudice, of which I have given a few specimens, we Abolitionists gathered up and gave to the public the numerous evidences that were easily obtained of the intellectual and moral equality of the colored with the white races of mankind. Mrs. Child, in her admirable “Appeal,” devoted two excellent chapters to this purpose. The Hon. Alexander H. Everett also, in 1835, delivered in Boston a lecture on “African Mind,” in which he showed, on the authority of the fathers of history, that the colored races of men were the leaders in civilization. He said: “While Greece and Rome were yet barbarous, we find the ‘_light of learning and improvement_ emanating from them,’ the inhabitants of the degraded and accursed continent of Africa,--out of the very midst of this woolly-haired, flat-nosed, thick-lipped, coal-black race which some persons are tempted to station at a pretty low intermediate point between men and monkeys.” Again he said: “The high estimation in which the Africans were held for wisdom and virtue is strikingly shown by the mythological fable, current among the ancient Greeks, and repeatedly alluded to by Homer, which represented the Gods as going annually in a body to make a long visit to the Ethiopians.” Referring my readers to Mrs. Child’s chapters, and Mr. Everett’s oration on this subject, I will give a few of my own recollections of facts going to establish the natural equality of our colored brethren.

Since the admission of their children to the public schools, a fair proportion of them have shown themselves to be fully equal to white children in their aptness to learn. And surely no one who is acquainted with them will presume to speak of the inferiority of such men as Frederick Douglass, Henry H. Garnett, Samuel R. Ward, Charles L. Remond, William Wells Brown, J. W. Loguen, and many more men and women who have been our faithful and able fellow-laborers in the antislavery cause.[O]

But I have, recorded in my memory, many touching evidences of the _moral_ equality, if not superiority, of the colored race. Let me premise these recollections by stating the general fact that, notwithstanding the serious disadvantages to which our prejudices have subjected them, the colored population of our country have nowhere imposed upon the public their proportion of paupers or of criminals. In this respect they are excelled only by the Quakers and the Jews.

I shall always remember with great pleasure once meeting the Rev. Dr. Tuckerman in Tremont Street, in 1835. He hurried towards me, his countenance beaming with a delight which only such a benevolent heart as his could give to the human countenance, saying: “O Brother May, I have a precious fact for you Abolitionists. Never in all my intercourse with the poor, or indeed with any class of my fellow-beings, have I met with a brighter instance of true, self-sacrificing Christian benevolence than lately in the case of a poor _colored_ woman. Two colored women, not related, have been living for several years on the same floor in a tenement-house, each having only a common room and a small bedroom. Each of them was getting a living for herself and a young child by washing and day-labor. They had managed to subsist, earning about enough to meet current expenses. Several months ago one of them was taken very sick with inflammatory rheumatism. All was done for her relief that medical skill could do, but without avail. She grew worse rather than better, until she became utterly helpless. The overseers of the poor made the customary provision for her, and benevolent individuals helped her privately. But it came to be a case for an infirmary. The overseers and others thought best to remove her to the almshouse. When this decision was made known to her she became much distressed. The thought of going to the poorhouse--of becoming a public pauper--was dreadful to her. We tried to reconcile her to what seemed to us the best provision that could be made for her, not only by assuring her that she would be kindly cared for, but by reminding her that she had been brought to her condition, as we believed, by no fault of her own, and by such considerations as our blessed religion suggests. But she could not be comforted. We left her, trusting that private reflection would in a few days bring her to acquiesce in what seemed to be inevitable. In due time I called again to learn if she was prepared for her removal to the almshouse. I found her not in her own but in her generous-hearted neighbor’s room. Thither had been removed all her little furniture. So deep was that neighbor’s sympathy with her feeling of shame and humiliation at becoming a public pauper,--an inmate of the almshouse,--that she had determined to take upon herself the care and support of this sick, infirm, helpless woman, and had subjected herself to all the inconvenience of an over-crowded room, as well as the great additional labor and care which she had thus assumed.”

Whatever Dr. Tuckerman thought, or we may think, of the unreasonableness of the poor helpless invalid’s dread of the almshouse, or of the _imprudence_ of her poor friend in undertaking to support and nurse her, we cannot help admiring, as he did, that ardor of benevolence which impelled to such a labor of loving-kindness, and pronounce it a very rare instance of self-sacrificing charity. Let it redound as it should to the credit of that portion of the human race which our nation has so wickedly dared to despise and oppress.

I have several more precious recollections of elevated moral sentiment and principle evinced by black men and women whom I have known. Two of these I will give.

It was my privilege to see much of Edward S. Abdy, Esq., of England, during his visit to our country in 1833 and 1834. The first time I met him was at the house of Mr. James Forten, of Philadelphia, in company with two other English gentlemen, who had come to the United States commissioned by the British Parliament to examine our systems of prison and penitentiary discipline. Mr. Abdy was interested in whatsoever affected the welfare of man, but he was more particularly devoted to the investigation of slavery. He travelled extensively in our Southern States and contemplated with his own eyes the manifold abominations of our American despotism. He was too much exasperated by our tyranny to be enamored of our democratic institutions; and on his return to England he published two very sensible volumes, that were so little complimentary to our nation that our booksellers thought it not worth their while to republish them.

This warm-hearted philanthropist visited me several times at my home in Connecticut. The last afternoon that he was there we were sitting together at my study window, when our attention was arrested by a very handsome carriage driving up to the hotel opposite my house. A gentleman and lady occupied the back seat, and on the front were two children tended by a black woman, who wore the turban that was then usually worn by slave-women. We hastened over to the hotel, and soon entered into conversation with the slaveholder. He was polite, but somewhat nonchalant and defiant of our sympathy with his victim. He readily acknowledged, as slaveholders of that day generally did, that, abstractly considered, the enslavement of fellow-men was a great wrong. But then he contended that it had become a necessary evil,--necessary to the enslaved no less than to the enslavers, the former being unable to do without masters as much as the latter were unable to do without servants, and he added, in a very confident tone, “You are at liberty to persuade our servant-woman to remain here if you can.”