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CHAPTER VIII.

66 THE MAN WHO IS RIGHT IS A MAJORITY."

THE kidnapper's dogma, that the Constitution is pro-slavery, was carried out by both of the great parties, in June, 1852, to its logical results, namely, that hunting after fugitives ought to be kept up, and agitation against slavery ought to be put down. It was these collars, showing ownership by the South, that were clasped about the necks of both of the favorite runners in the race to the White House, Pierce and Scott. Scarcely had this been done, when Douglass said, at the celebration of the Declaration of Independence:

"Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are to-day rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, 'may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!' To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then, fellowcitizens, is 'American Slavery.' I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Stand

ing there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July. Whether we turn to the declarations of the past or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare call in question and denounce with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery, the great sin and shame of America! I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; ' I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slave-holder, shall not confess to be right and just.

"But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother Abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more and denounce less, would you persuade more and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain, there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue ? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slave-holders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it, when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventytwo crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of these same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and

responsible being. The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments, forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or write. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls in the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man.

For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are plowing, planting, and reaping; using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver, and gold; that, while we are reading, writing, and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men-digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and, above all, confessing and worshiping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave—we are called upon to prove that we are men?

"Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? That he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look to-day in the presence of Americans, dividing and subdividing a discourse to show that men have a natural right to freedom, speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively? To do so would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your

understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.

What! am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellowmen, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system, thus marked with blood and stained with pollution, is wrong? No; I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.

What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman cannot be divine. Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such argument is past.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I would to-day pour out a stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake!”

On August 11, 1852, the Free Soil convention met at Pittsburgh; and Rochester sent a colored delegate who was obliged, both in going and returning, to. take a steamboat between Buffalo and Cleveland, and each time to pass the night on deck. On his way back he tried to get breakfast in the cabin; but his chair was pulled out from under him by the captain, who had already collected the full fare for berth and meal and would refund nothing. The train for

Pittsburgh stopped for dinner at a hotel where he was not allowed to eat, on which many of the other delegates rose from the table and refused to return. On their way back not one of them entered the halldinner had been prepared for three hundred guests, but it was left on the landlord's hands.

One of the first steps taken in the convention was to make Douglass a secretary by acclamation; and no sooner did he enter the hall than he was invited to speak by so many enthusiastic voices, that the white man, who had the floor, was obliged to surrender it at once to his dusky superior. The latter was dressed like Daniel Webster-in white trowsers and a blue coat with brass buttons, "indicative," says an unfriendly reporter, "of the bronze in his face." There was a great deal more of iron in his blood than in Webster's that summer. There he stood, holding in his hand a pamphlet, by Gerrit Smith, which he was about to recommend to his audience, taken, as he said, wholly by surprise, but bringing down the house repeatedly, as he spoke thus:

"I am, of course, for circumscribing and damaging slavery in every way. But my motto is extermination." "The slave-holders not only forfeit their right to liberty, but to life itself. The earth is God's; and it ought to be covered with righteousness, not slavery."

Of the Fugitive Slave Bill he said, suiting the action to the word :

"It is too bad to be repealed, a law fit only to be trampled under foot. The only way to make the Fugitive Slave Law a dead letter is to make half a dozen or more dead kidnappers." "The man who takes the office of a bloodhound ought to be treated as a bloodhound; and I believe that the lines of