Give me leave to speak my mind.
As You Like It.

The clamorous demand which certain patriotic gentlemen are just now making for perfect silence on the slavery question, strikes a quiet looker-on as something very odd. It might pass for a dull sort of joke, were it not that the means taken to enforce it, by vexatious prosecutions, political and social proscriptions, and newspaper assaults on private reputation, are beginning, in certain quarters, to assume a decidedly tragic aspect, and forcing upon all anti-slavery men the alternative of peremptorily refusing compliance, or standing meanly by to see others crushed for advocating their opinions.

The question has been extensively, and I think very naturally raised, why these anti-agitation gentlemen do not keep silent themselves. For, strange as it may seem, this perilous topic is the very one which most of all appears to occupy their thoughts too, and is ever uppermost when they undertake to speak of the affairs of the country. They are in the predicament of the poor man in the Eastern fable, who, being forbidden on pain of the genie’s wrath to utter a certain cabalistic syllable, found, to his horror, that he could never after open his lips without their beginning perversely to frame the tabooed articulation. But not, as in his case, does fear chain up their organs. They speak it boldly out, proclaim it “the corner-stone” of their political creed, and do their best in every way, by speeches and articles, Union-safety pamphlets and National Convention platforms, to “keep it before the people.” And the object always is, to keep the people quiet! Surely, if the Union is not strong enough to bear agitations, the special friends of the Union have chosen a singular way to save it.

I would by no means infer, that they are altogether insecure in their professions of anxiety. The truth appears to be, however, that in so far as these professions are not a sheer pretence, got up by political men for political effect, our estimable fellow citizens have, all unwittingly, been obeying a higher law than that which they would impose on their neighbors,—a law, written in the very nature of the free soul. On this, the subject of the age, they must think, and cannot refrain from uttering their thoughts. “They believe, and therefore have they spoken.” And it is a sufficient reply to their unanswerable demand for silence on the other side. “We also believe, and therefore speak.” Pray, why not?

A certain ardent conservative friend of mine, to whom I once proposed this inquiry, made a short answer to it after this fashion:—“The abolitionists are all fools and fanatics. Whenever the idea of anti-slavery gets hold of a man, he takes leave of his common sense, and is thenceforth as one possessed. I would put a padlock on every such crazy fellow’s mouth.” My friend’s rule, it will be seen, is a very broad one; stopping the mouths of all who speak foolishly. Who will undertake to see it fairly applied? or who could feel quite free from nervousness in view of its possible operation? Under an infallible administration, I apprehend, many—some, perhaps, even of the most strenuous advocates of the law—might find themselves uncomfortably implicated, who at present hardly suspect the danger. “By’rlakin, a parlous fear! my masters, you ought to consider with yourselves!” I am constrained to confess, that in the very midst of my friend’s aforesaid patriotic diatribe against folly and fanaticism, and his plea for a summary fool-act, I could not keep out of my mind some wicked recollections of Horace’s lines:

It must in all candor be confessed, that there is something in the subject of slavery which, when fairly looked at and realized, is a little trying to one’s sanity. Even such intellects as John Wesley’s and Thomas Jefferson’s, seem to stagger a little under a view of the appalling sum of iniquity and wretchedness which the word represents, and vent their excitement in terms not particularly measured. What wonder, then, if men of simpler minds should now and then be thrown quite off the balance, and think and say some things that are really unwise. I think, indeed, it will have to be confessed, that we have had fools and fanatics on both sides of the slavery question; and it is altogether among the probabilities, that such will continue to be the case hereafter. Still, until we have some infallible criterion to distinguish actual folly from that which foolish people merely think such, I fancy we must forego the convenience of my friend’s summary process, and, giving leave to every man to speak his mind, leave it to Time—great sifter of men and opinions—to separate between the precious and the vile.

It may be the kindness bred of a fellow feeling, but I must confess to a warm side towards my brethren of the motley tribe. While on the one hand I firmly hold with Elihu—who seems to have represented young Uz among the friends of Job—that “great men are not always wise.” I rejoice on the other hand in the concession of Polonius,—chief old Fogy of the court of Denmark,—that there is “a happiness which madness often hits on, that reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of.” Folly and craziness, quotha! Did it, then, never occur to you, O Worldly Wiseman, that even your wisdom might be bettered by a dash of that which you thus contemptuously brand? Or does the apostle seem to you as one that driveleth, when he says, “If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise?”

I have often admired the sagacity of our mediaeval forefathers, in the treatment of their (so called) fools. They gave them a special license of the tongue; for they justly estimated the advantages which the truly wise know how to draw from the untrammelled utterances of any honest mind, especially of minds which, refusing to run tamely in the oiled grooves of prescriptive and fashionable orthodoxy, are the more likely, now and then, (were it only by accident,) to hit upon truths of which others miss. Hence they maintained an “Independent Order” of the motley, whose only business it was freely to think and freely speak their minds. “I must have liberty withal,” says Jaques, aspiring to this dignity.

And he adds, in a strain of admonition which certain contemporaneous events might almost lead one to consider prophetic,

Now if there be “fools of the nineteenth century,” as I devoutly hope there be,—men possessed with the belief of a Higher Law, Inalienable Rights, Supremacy of Conscience, and such like obsolete phantoms, and passing strange judgments on the deeds of men and nations in the light thereof,—I beg to put in a similar plea for them. Give them leave to speak their minds. Now and then, it may be worth the pondering, and, heeded betimes, may peradventure save from calamity and ruin. If not, an attempt to enforce silence on fools—and is it not much the same with freemen?—is likely to produce, not silence at all, but a greater outcry. And as for our great men and wise men, when hit, let them conceal the smart, and profit by the lesson. But, for their own greatness’ sake, and the honor of their wisdom, whither hit or not, let them never fall into a passion at the freedom of men’s speech, and cry, This must be put down. For it will not down at their bidding.

But the subject refuses to be treated lightly. The vast interests at stake on both sides, and the immediate urgency of the crisis, compel the mind to sobriety and solicitude in the contemplation of it. No truly wise man will look upon the anti-slavery doctrine as mere folly, or on the promulgation of it as idle breath. It is the measureless power of that sentiment—and all its power lies in its truth—that wakens this alarm; and it is the consciousness of holding such a weapon in their hands, that makes the anti-slavery masses at the North pause, lest in attempting to use it for good, they should, unwittingly, do harm. For such a sentiment, who can fail to feel respect? Who would not despise himself if his own bosom were destitute of it? But, by as much as I respect it in others, and would cherish it in myself, by so much will I resent all playing upon it by political men for party or personal ends, and fear lest it betray me into pusillanimity and inertness where the times demand action for humanity and God. It is a serious question for all honest anti-slavery men throughout the land, in what way they can most wisely and hopefully quit them of their responsibility in relation to this thing. Their action as citizens should, unquestionably, be restricted by the just limits of their civil responsibility; as men by those of their moral responsibility. Even within those limits, they should act with a wise moderation, and in a generous spirit of candor and kindness. But one thing is abundantly certain, that by ignoring the responsibility, they do not get rid of it; by turning their backs on the obligation, they will not get it discharged. Still the terrible fact remains. Still, the tears and blood of the enslaved are daily dropping on our country’s soil. Throw over it what veil of extenuation and excuse you may, the essential crime and shame remains. Believe as kindly as you can of the treatment which the slaves receive of humane and christian masters; it is only on condition that they first surrender their every right as men. Let them dare demur to that, and their tears and blood must answer it. That is the terrible fact; and our country is the abettor, the protector, and the agent of the iniquity. Must we be indifferent? May we be indifferent? It is a question of tremendous import to every freeman in the land, who honestly believes that the rights he claims as a man are common to the race.

We used to be told, and are sometimes still, that this is a matter which belongs to our Southern brethren exclusively, and that when we of the free States interfere with it, we meddle with that which is “none of our business.” And there was a time, when this might be urged with a show of consistency. It was when slavery claimed only to be a creature of State legislation, and asked only of the national government and the free States to be let alone. Even then, it had no right of exemption from the rational scrutiny to which all human institutions are amenable, nor from the rebuke and denouncement which all men may, in Heaven’s name, utter against all iniquity done in the face of Heaven. But the special right of republican citizens to demand the correction of wrongs done by their own government, attached in the matter of slavery only to the citizens of the slave States.But a wonderful change has been passing before our eyes. The attitude of slavery is entirely altered. It now claims to be nationalized. It demands a distinct recognition and active protection from the general government, and indirect, but most effectual support from every State in the Union, and from every citizen thereof! The government has acknowledged the validity of the claim; and our great political leaders—some on whom we have been wont to rely as stalwart champions of freedom—have turned short round in their tracks, and require us to believe that we are under constitutional obligations to help maintain the accursed thing,—yea, through all future time, to do its most menial work! Nor is the doctrine to be left in the dubious region of speculation. It is already “a fixed fact,” terribly embodied in a penal law. It enters the home of every Northern freeman, and announces in thunder-tones this ancestral obligation, which had so strangely faded from the recollections of men. It tolerates no dulness of apprehension, no hesitancy of belief. It bids us all, on pain of imprisonments and fines, to conquer our prejudices, to swallow our scruples, to be still with our nonsensical humanities, and, “as good citizens,” to start out at the whistle of a United States’ constable, to chase down miserable negroes fleeing from the hell of bondage!

Slavery, then, has become our business at last; and, as such, does it not behoove us to attend to it? I think, in the language of honest Dogberry, that “that is proved already, and will go near to be thought so shortly.” The thing lies in a nutshell. Millard Fillmore is not our master, but our servant. It is not his to prescribe duties, but ours; and his, to perform them. What he does, in his own person and by his subordinate executive officers, he does for us, and on our responsibility. What he does or they do, in other words, we do; and we must abide the reckoning. In this responsibility, the humblest citizen bears his share, and cannot shirk it if he would. When, then, I see the ministers of my country’s law consigning men with flesh and blood like my own, with homes and business, with wives and children,

men unaccused of crime, and eating the daily bread of honest labor—consigning them, I say, and their posterity to hopeless vassalage, and degrading chattelhood, by a process, too, which tramples under foot the most ancient and sacred guarantees of my own and my neighbors’ rights. When I see this great nation lay its terrible grasp upon the throat of a feeble, unoffending man, and thrust him back to worse than a felon’s fate for doing that which no casuistry can torture into a crime, I am compelled to feel that it is myself engaged in this atrocious business; and no one but myself can rid me of the responsibility. I can no longer be silent; I dare no longer be silent; I will no longer be silent. I will remonstrate and cry, shame! I will refuse to obey the law; I will demand to be released, and to have my country released, from its odious requirements. I will vote, and influence voters, and use every prerogative of freedom, to throw at least from off my conscience a burden that it cannot bear. And who that is worthy to be free himself, will blame me? To speak is no longer a mere right; it has become a religious duty.

Let no man tell me, that this law is a mere dead letter. The old Fugitive Law had, indeed, become so; and so would any other be likely to become, which, while grasping after the slave, should pay a decent respect to the rights of the free. But slavery cannot subsist on any such condition; and this law was framed to supply the deficiencies of the old law, and to accomplish the thing. It is based on the assumption that the government of the United States is bound to effect the rendition of fugitives, if possible at all, at whatever cost. And, if this law is insufficient, the assumption is equally good for still more stringent measures. But I repeat it, let no man tell me it is now a nullity. Have we not seen it executed in our streets, and at our very doors? I chanced to be in the city of New York at the time when, I think, its first victim, Henry Long, was torn from his family, and from a reputable and profitable business, and sent back,—limbs, and brain, and throbbing, loving heart,—the husband, father, friend, the peaceful and industrious member of society,—all, to be the property of a fellow-mortal in a hostile land. Could I look upon this crimeless man, thus in the grasp of the officers of my country’s laws, my own representatives, and hurried unresisting to that dreadful doom; and ever be able to believe the law innocuous, and myself guiltless while I acquiesced in silence? The rabble followed him along the streets, shouting in exultation at the negro’s fate. Them I must acknowledge as my fellows and brethren, but him—on him I must put my heel, with theirs, to crush him out of manhood! And the morrow’s papers, edited by professed Christians, heralded the occurrence, with not even a decent pretence of pity and regret, but as a triumph of LAW, (O sacred name profaned!) in which all good men should rejoice. That day I felt a stiffing sensation settling down upon me, of which my previous experience had afforded no precedent, and with an oppressive weight which no language can describe. I felt that I no longer breathed the air of liberty; that slavery was spreading her Upas branches athwart my sky also. The convenient apology that the sin was not mine, but another’s, no longer stood me in stead; and I have wondered ever since to hear any honest Northern man employ it. There are Northern men, from whom nothing could surprise me.

And what have we since witnessed? The inferior officers of the law prowling throughout the North for victims on whom to enforce it. Their superiors, even to the highest, laboring by speeches and proclamations and journeyings to and fro in the land (is it too much to say?) to dragoon the people into its support. The national treasury thrown wide open to meet its “extraordinary expenses.” Fanueil Hall hung in chains, to ensure its execution. Presidential candidates vieing with each other in expressions of attachment and fidelity to it. Able men, in church and State, spotted for proscription for no other sin than hating that law, and daring to declare that hatred. And to crown the whole, the wisdom of the nation, in Baltimore Conventions once and again assembled, pronouncing the new doctrines of constitutional responsibility, with the law that embodies it, not only a certainty, but (hear it, O heavens!) a finality! A new word in the political vocabulary, and verily a new thing in the earth! “Finality,” in the legislation of freemen! A finality, that forever precludes reconsideration, amendment, or repeal! When such things are said, and gravely said, by men professing to be American statesmen, I can almost imagine the fathers of my country turning painfully in their graves. And can it be possible, that in the same breath with which men assume to roll political responsibilities on freemen, they dare require perpetual silence and unconsidering submission thereto? Then, what is it to be free?

But let no one dream that these formidable pronouncements have any enduring force. It is natural, that Southern statesmen should seek, by every possible expedient, to keep out the flood of discussion from a system which can so illy bear it. And it is not strange, that Northern politicians should, for temporary purposes, assist them in the effort. This is for a day; but the great tide of human thought flows on forever, and there is no spot from which it will be shut out. I remember when the right of petition was denied by our Southern brethren, in respect to this subject; and they found compliant tools enough from the North to work with for a season. But was the right of petition sacrificed? Of course not. And is the right of free discussion, the right to make and (if we please) unmake our laws, less precious? This subject will be agitated. This law will be reconsidered; and, if it is not repealed, it will be for the same reasons that ensures the continuance of other laws, namely, because it is able to sustain severe and ever recurring scrutiny.

But what is to become of the Union meanwhile? One thing is very certain. If it deliberately place itself in competition with those “blessings of liberty,” which it was created to “secure,” it ought to fall. Shall the end be sacrificed to preserve the means, to which the end alone gives value? And what are we to think of the statesmanship of those, who, to effect that preservation, would force such an issue on a people nursed at the breasts of freedom? I would rather die than live a traitor to my country; but let me die ten thousand deaths before I prove treacherous to freedom and to God. “If this be treason, make the most of it.”

But it is worse than idle to talk so. There is no such issue before the nation. We are not compelled to choose between disunion and slavery; a slavery, too, that would not only hold the black man in its remorseless gripe, but put its fetters on the conscience of the white man, and its gag into his mouth. Our Southern brethren themselves, even to save their cherished institution, would not dare, would not desire to press such an alternative. Were it so, who would not be ready to surrender the Union as valueless to him, and to part company with Southrons as men unworthy to be free? But it is not so. There are Hotspurs, doubtless, enough of them at the South; and Jehus, too many, at the North. And there are cunning politicians to stand between the two sections, and play upon the prejudices of both, and into each other’s hands, for selfish ends. But the great heart of the nation, North and South, on the whole and according to the measure of its understanding, beats true alike to freedom and the constitution,—true to that immortal sentiment which, as long as this nation endures, shall encircle its author’s name with a halo, in whose splendor some later words that have fallen from his lips will be happily lost and forgotten: “Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.” Whatever differences there may be as to the nature, conditions, and obligations of freedom, or as to the intent and meaning of the constitution, no party among the people will refuse to submit them to the ordeal of discussion, and the arbitrament of the appointed tribunals.

While this is so, let him be deemed the traitor, who stands up before the world, and belies his country by declaring it to be otherwise. And let every man prepare to enter into those discussions which no human power can now stave off, in a spirit of intelligent candor and kindness, but, at the same time, of inflexible fidelity to God and man.