Tuesday Tract #4
The Death of Freedom – Part 2
Though the letter of the Constitution does not use the word ” slave,” yet in its representative basis, if not in its fugitive clause, there is a recognition of its existence, a bowing to its behests, Two small States, by their firmness and vehemence, brought the other eleven to their feet, made them surrender their convictions, and obey the soft voice, but nailed arm, of Belial. AlViat though Franklin and Jay organize abolition societies, and Washington and Jefferson favor emancipation, and Madison gets the word ” slavery excluded from the Constitution? What though every cliinen-t tnan of the age is hostile to the iniquity? Still they let it find entrance into their Constitution. It is there, entrenched in the national fortress; it knocks at all objections and objectors, and commences its march to universal dominion.
When the sons of God came together for their sublime deliberations, Satan came also; and though, as in the days of Job, he gained not every point, yet, more than with him, he gained the chief, and, with the gleefulness of perdition, he snatched at his success, and plotted and waited, waited and plotted, year and year, for larger prizes. He won them.
A law to execute more perfectly the Fugitive Slave clause followed within six years. A law which never could have passed the First Congress passed the Third. A law which would have been pronounced unconstitutional by the founders of the Constitution triumphed under the very eyes of those founders. And the hand of Washington signed his name as president to an edict which five years before he would have abhorred himself for approving.
New territory is sought. Louisiana is purchased. She seeks erection into States. The strife commences afresh. Again the slave power gains all it wants by asking for more; and Missouiri, Louisiana, Arkansas wheel into line under its pirate flag, while the desert lands, which will not be needed for a generation, are professedly abandoned to freedom, then, as of old, driven into the wilderness thence, also as of old, to be driven out when its enemy would make this desert his dwelling-place. In that controversy slavery triumphed. Many then saw that when those remoter regions became the seat of population, it would claim them as its own, would make them its owni. But then it could not have been done. The spirit of the fathers was not yet utterly lost. One half only of the fair acres was given up to this ravenous beast. One half alone of its pure soil was to be wet with the blood of God’s persecuted saints. One half of its air was to be filled with shrieks under the scourge, with moans over sold and stolen children, with the unutterable agony of that prison-house of humanity. The anaconda rested content with its gorged appetite, which two hundred thousand square miles had momentarily satisfied, assured that thlose who had granted him so much would bestow the balance when his appetite returned. His assurance was well grounded.
But before that hour came, the old religious and philanthropic anti-slavery sentiment, which had glowed in the souls that burned with the revolutionary fires, was kindled afresh. A little, despised sect, their name a stench in the nostrils of the country and the Church, cast out of men as evil, lifted up their voice like a trumpet, and told the house of Israel its transgressions, and the house of Judah its sins. They started from the only Christian, the only true basis – sympathy with the slave as a son of man and a son of God, an heir of heaven, a joint heir with Jesus Christ. This was new doctrine to our degenerate fears – a doctrine no Church in this land had ever fully and faithfully preached. We mocked at and reviled them. We drove them from our churches, halls, and homes. We hauled them before our judgment-seats. We issued edicts against them from State and National Congresses, and executive speeches from the chairs of governors and presidents. What the Madisons and Jeffersons, the Hancocks and Storys, would have approved was denounced and proscribed by the Van Burens and Everetts of this generation.
Still they fought for the right. It may be with lack of discretion, yet how shall you and I in our idleness dare to take up a railing accusation against them? How dare you say that William Lloyd Garrison, George Thompson, Orange Scott, and their compeers were not the wisest of their generation in action, as they certainly were in their fears, their prophecies, and their entreaties? Their errors will yet be lost in the splendor of their daring, sincerity, and zeal. If ever freedom becomes the possession, as it is the birthright, of every man in this land, he who will be honored with the loftiest monument a monument built by every hand that has been raised against him – will be that yet hated and proscribed, that somewhat error-led, but for more truth-led, man, William Lloyd Garrison.
This stone, cut out of the mountain without hands, rolled by few but tireless arms, grew, and grew, until, when the slave power set up its claim to national domain, a new voice mingled in the tumults of the hour, and made its triumphs Bunker Hill victories, that betokened an ultimate destruction.
Again the anaconda stirs. It demands Texas – Texas with a war; and it wins. It claims that the new regions acquired by war should be his, and they are given it. Maddened with lust and success, it says, ” Return to me my fugitives hiding in your own Free States; give me that nurse and playmate of your children; that industrious citizen whose family looks up to him for protection; the minister from the altar. They are mine.” And all the people hasten to give them up. No, not all. Among the faithless, faithful stood a few. Seven thousand were found who bent not the knee to this Baal of America. May they soon become seventy times seven, and deliver the land from this idolatry and the Jezreel abominations which so fiercely flourish under its dominion.
PART THREE (COMING SOON)
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Source: University of Michigan, Making of America, National Sermons, The Death of Freedom
A sermon preached at Wilbraham, Mass., May 28, 1854, on the occasion of the passage of the Nebraska Bill, by the Senate of the United States, on the midnight of Thursday, May 25, 1854
As Civil War scholarship continues to grow and gain momentum in these few short months leading up to the sesquicentennial memorials, one field of study remains largely neglected. While there is some renewed interest in the role and influence of religion and spirituality before, during, and after the Civil War; this subject remains vastly uncovered in popular discussions.
I sat in the crook of a majestic Tupelo, bewildered and betwixt. Shadows, formed by a yellow half-moon, taunted my imagination. Beyond the stinging and ringing in my head came the ratcheting click-click-click of the King Rail and the throaty yelp of the Black Crowned Heron. Rather than speaking to me, they seemed to speak about me. A mosquito buzzed relentless about my ear as if it too had something to say.
