Lyrical Liberators: The American Antislavery Movement in Verse, 1831–1865 0821422790, 9780821422793

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Lyrical Liberators The American Antislavery Movement in Verse, 1831–1865

E d ited b y M o n i c a Pelaez

Lyrical Libe rators

Lyrical Liberators The American Antislavery Movement in Verse, 1831–1865

Edited by Monica Pelaez

Ohio University Press athens

Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701 ohioswallow.com © 2018 by Ohio University Press All rights reserved To obtain permission to quote, reprint, or otherwise reproduce or distribute material from Ohio University Press publications, please contact our rights and permissions department at (740) 593-1154 or (740) 593-4536 (fax). Printed in the United States of America Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Pelaez, Monica editor. Title: Lyrical liberators : the American antislavery movement in verse, 1831-1865 / edited by Monica Pelaez. Description: Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017053683 | ISBN 9780821422793 (hc : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780821422809 (pb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780821446089 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: American poetry--19th century. | Slavery--United States--Poetry. | Antislavery movements--United States--Poetry. | Abolitionists--Poetry. Classification: LCC PS595.S65 L97 2018 | DDC 811/.30803552--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017053683

supported by a free grant from Figure Foundation for good freedoms everywhere

To agitators everywhere.

Welcome bold Herald to my reading board, Welcome, thrice welcome, to my heart, the proof, That in these fearful times there yet are some Untrammelled minds, erect beneath the storm Of passion, scorn and hate, poured out on those Who dare stand forth as champions for the truth. —M. B. G., Untitled, Herald of Freedom (June 22, 1839)

In ancient times, and days of yore, When ghosts walked on each moonlight there, When each strange object, seen at night, Became a spirit clothed in white— It sure could be no marvel then, That spectres should appear to men: For mortals lived in constant fear, And always thought hobgoblins near. But since the rays of science beam, And gas lights up the wondrous screen, Since matches in a wink ignite, And thus strike up a sudden light, The tim’rous ghosts become more shy, And fly before an infant’s cry Like lightning on the magic wire, Carrying the news with speed of fire Those that our pilgrim fathers found, When fleeing from oppression’s sound, Came boldly up before the eyes. But now they come in such disguise, That patient glasses must be made By which to see their fearful shade. Now if you will these optics try, And only look with half an eye, I’ll give a warrant you shall then See apparitions plain as men. Beneath the slope of yonder hill A person lived, and lives there still, ’Tis such a sacred place of prayer, No common ghost dares venture there. ’Twas thence a flying victim fled, And sought a shelter for his head, He, bleeding, ran from that dread land Which rules the nation with its hand; Upon his track pursuers came, With eyes as red as burning flame.

At once the gracious pastor saw That they were backed by public law. He saw himself exposed to cost, And that his living might be lost: His people all approved the plan, And none would help to hide the man. My reason will be lost, he cries A monster stands before mine eyes! He bade the flying victim rout,  And quickly seized and thrust him out; Now wields anew the moral lever, And prays, and preaches well as ever. The fearful spectre moved away, It was the ghost of slavery. Its awful visage has of late Been seen by many, small and great, Where brave men met in grave convention, To guard and keep them from dissension. It stalks our country, o’er and o’er, ’Tis seen on each commercial shore. It gives the artful lawyer rest, And makes him do his very best. O, how it makes the statesmen prate! When in the splendid halls of state— The speaker on the stump to feel, His calling for the public weal, It finds the publisher at home: It makes the real lucre come It often finds, in its wide range, The banker, ready for exchange, And helps get up a patent pill* To keep a noisy nation still. Now, if your modern ghosts can see, Please hand those glasses back to me. * The Compromise.

—Lucian H. Kent, “Modern Ghosts,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper (July 30, 1852)

Conten t s List of Illustrations

xiii

Acknowledgments

xv

Introduction

1

1. Calls for Action

18

2. The Murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy

41

3. Fugitive Slaves

47

4. The Assault on Senator Charles Sumner

108

5. John Brown and the Raid on Harpers Ferry

116

6. Slaves and Death

136

7. Slave Mothers

156

8. The South

170

9. Equality

213

10. Freedom

226

11. Atonement

252

12. Wartime

289

13. Emancipation, the Proclamation, and the Thirteenth Amendment

325

Notes

345

Works Cited

353

General Index

359

Index of Poem Titles

367

Index of Poets

371 xi

Ill ustrat i o n s Following page 212 plate 1. Destruction by Fire of Pennsylvania Hall plate 2. The murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy plate 3. Effects of the Fugitive-Slave-Law plate 4. Leap of the Fugitive Slave plate 5. Southern Chivalry—Argument Versus Club’s plate 6. John Brown on his way to the scaffold plate 7. The Modern Medea plate 8. The scarred back of a Louisiana slave plate 9. “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” plate 10. The Gallant Charge of the Fifty Fourth Massachusetts Colored Regiment plate 11. Emancipation plate 12. Watch Meeting—Dec. 31. 1862—Waiting for the Hour

xiii

Acknow ledg m e n t s Delving into the history of the antislavery movement in print proved to be so captivating that it became virtually all-consuming. What it required above all was time and I am primarily grateful to St. Cloud State University, and to my colleagues in the English department, for the sabbatical that afforded me the time I needed to concentrate on this project. I was fortunate to start off the sabbatical by participating in the National Endowment for the Humanities’ summer institute on Slavery in the American Republic, led by its formidable director Paul Benson. Between visits to key historical sites in Washington, D.C., and Charlottesville, Virginia, the very idea for this book originated in the course of a conversation with the brilliant Paul Finkelman. None of it would have been possible without his support and encouragement, not to mention his prodigious historical expertise, which he has so generously shared. I cannot overstate my gratitude to him, especially for introducing me to my terrific editor, Gillian Berchowitz at Ohio University Press. Her interest in the topic from the beginning, and her patience with regard to my submissions all along, have been integral to my work. I also thank Nancy Basmajian for her insightful and conscientious editing of the manuscript. Much of my research depended on having recourse to the collections at the University of Minnesota’s Wilson Library in Minneapolis, and most of my writing took place in the only truly quiet space I could find anywhere, at the Ridgedale Library in Minnetonka. The significant amount of time I spent in both places has been a testament to just how important these public institutions are to our cultural lives. While being immersed in this project, I have been privileged to count on Connie Perry and Mike Pesch for their invaluable friendship and generosity. Navin Thukkaram graciously made a writing retreat possible for me at his idyllic home. John Lukas offered his excellent photography skills for my author photo. Through it all, I was lucky to rely on my friends Billy Finnegan and Trista Baldwin. And I am indebted as well to my students, who are a vital source of inspiration. xv

I thank Chris Heidman for his incredible contributions to the final stages of my revisions. And, finally, I am especially grateful to my parents, Manuel and Georgina Pelaez del Casal, and my sister, Gina Pelaez Celic, for their continual and unwavering support. Thanks in large part to all of the above, and to a subject I continued to find riveting for many months on end, I was able to dedicate myself to what I consider, as many of the abolitionists themselves also did, to be more worthwhile than anything else: writing. It is my hope that this book will attest to just how worthwhile it can indeed be, as testimony of a moment when writing literally changed history.

xvi p Acknowledgments

Lyrical Libe rators

I ntroduc t i o n

T

he problematic issue of slavery would appear not to lend itself to poetry, yet in truth nothing would have seemed more natural to nineteenthcentury Americans. Poetry meant many different things at the time—it was at once art form, popular entertainment, instructional medium, and forum for sociopolitical commentary. The poems that appeared in periodicals of the era are therefore integral to our understanding of how the populace felt about any issue of consequence. Writers seized on this uniquely persuasive genre to win readers over to their cause, and perhaps most memorable among them are the abolitionists. Antislavery activists turned to poetry so as to connect both emotionally and rationally with a wide audience on a regular basis. By speaking out on behalf of those who could not speak for themselves, their poems were one of the most effective means of bearing witness to, and thus also protesting, a reprehensible institution. These pleas for justice proved effective by insisting on the right of freedom of speech at a time when it appeared to be in jeopardy. They helped recruit supporters through a program of moral suasion that often leaned heavily on religious rhetoric. This book recovers their best and most important poems, offering insight into the motivations and communications of a group that succeeded in rallying broad public support. Because the poetry section in abolitionist periodicals—as in most news and popular publications—often constituted readers’ favorite material, it is also a window into the predilections of its intended audience. This 1

body of work merits closer consideration than it has as yet received. It presents us with voices whose protest helped further the cause of emancipation through a genre that was in many respects more influential than the essays and editorials that have received the most scholarly attention. It also offers an important illustration of the intersections across American literature, history, politics, religion, and news—all of which its authors address, frequently within a single poem. This collection thus presents a quintessential overview of the various discourses that shaped the seminal epoch of American history extending from January 1, 1831, when the Liberator was first published, to January 31, 1865, when Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. Antislavery activists were frequently referred to as “agitators” in their day, and for good reason. Although in most cases the term was intended to disparage their efforts, activists themselves nonetheless embraced it as an apt description of a role that without doubt did involve agitating a public they believed was insufficiently aware of the evils of slavery and the need to put an end to the institution. Two of the movement’s more prominent figures acknowledged as much in remarkably similar language: William Lloyd Garrison wrote in the first issue of his Liberator, “I do not wish to think, or speak, or write with moderation”; and twenty years later his close collaborator, the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, told a friend, “I have found it exceedingly difficult to speak and act with the moderation and prudence which should characterise the efforts of a Christian reformer.”1 In their commitment to speaking out on behalf of the cause, abolitionists like Garrison and Whittier were both vehement and indefatigable as they endeavored to make themselves heard through every possible means: lectures, tracts, essays, newspapers, books, petitions, bazaars, songs, children’s books—and poetry.2 They did so even in the face of—arguably because of—the constant hostility they encountered from proslavery opponents who often turned violent at their public appearances. They persisted despite multiple efforts to silence their initiatives, such as President Andrew Jackson’s attempt to persuade Congress to bar antislavery publications from the US mail in 1835, and the state of Connecticut’s 1836 ban on abolitionist speakers.3 Activists were thwarted in their political efforts as well, most notably coming up against the gag rule passed by Congress in 1836 to prohibit antislavery petitions, which was not overturned until 1845. As a result, the movement’s proponents increasingly came to rely on the press as a safe resort for the right of free speech they insisted on upholding. Indeed, the movement came to be identified with this very right and succeeded in recruiting more supporters “because the violence of opposers had identified that cause with the question of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and civil liberty,” as aboli2 p Lyrical Liberators

tionist ally Catharine Beecher observed in 1837.4 In his seminal biography of Garrison, John L. Thomas argues that it was precisely by linking their cause to the issue of civil rights that abolitionists successfully “turned back the proslavery assault on free society.”5 The most effective vehicle for abolitionists thus became the periodical, where they published news items concerning the movement, editorials commenting on its progress, and poems that took into account actual episodes as well as the sentiments they aroused. In its pages they were able to openly combat their adversaries, at times by implying that their attempts to censor the abolitionists were analogous to the enslavement of black Americans. The popular author Lydia Maria Child, who faced virulent public criticism when she chose to devote herself to the cause, suggested as much when she proclaimed that she was committed to “refusing the shadow of a fetter on my free expression from any man, or any body of men,” a comment which is furthermore indicative of the specifically feminist challenges of her advocacy.6 The press offered activists like Child a safe space in which to express such opinions, organize their followers, and recruit supporters. For Garrison, who insisted that “Slavery and freedom of the press cannot exist together,” journalism was nothing short of critical to the movement because, as David Paul Nord observes, it “served the two great functions of social reform: agitation and discussion.”7 These twin goals are particularly apparent in the poetry that editors like Garrison and Child selected for publication, which served as a persuasive expression of antislavery ideology by articulating a response to all matters transpiring in the course of the struggle—events, legislation, opinions, and emotions— through a medium that was both entertaining and concise. Poetry’s evident political impact stemmed from what Ingrid Satelmajer calls its “vital life in periodicals,” which promoted poets as veritable celebrities whose compositions deserved high esteem, and which succeeded in exposing a wide audience to their work in print as well as through the oral recitation that was customary at the time.8 Faith Barrett recognizes the genre’s tremendous importance during an era when it not only pervaded the mainstream media —where readers encountered it on a weekly, if not daily, basis—but was virtually understood to be “a crucial means of engagement with political discourses.”9 In other words, poetry served a role in many ways analogous to our modern-day social media. It is important to recognize as well that its farreaching influence at the time stemmed for the most part from its appeal to the era’s prevalent sentimental sensibility. Poets were driven by the ultimate goal of moral suasion, which followed from the popular belief that reading material should provide some form of instruction. As Michael Bennett notes, Introduction p 3

“The conception that art should act directly in the world undergirded the abolitionist’s faith in its power to bring about cultural transformation.”10 Because art had the social responsibility to serve moral ends, and their poetry was intended to motivate the noble act of abolishing slavery, poets naturally relied on a didactic—and, one might even say, utilitarian—approach that helped further their aims. In this way they communicated a consistent ideological message that was intended to elicit the emotions and bolster the communal bonds that were believed to be integral to the pursuit of social justice. For nineteenth-century Americans, sentiment was indeed inextricable from politics in general. Joanne Dobson acknowledges, for instance, that sentimental writers were simultaneously political in their appeals to correct the “failure of society to care for the disconnected.”11 Because strong emotion was believed to be the necessary precursor to any such advocacy, Jane Tompkins notes that in their texts “the very possibility of social action is made dependent on the action taking place in individual hearts.”12 This was indeed Garrison’s own personal belief and primary goal; he hoped above all to reach his readers’ hearts in order to motivate them to change a flawed social structure.13 Besides public lecturing, which could reach only the limited audience in attendance, there was simply no more effective means of doing so than through the popular and ubiquitous genre of poetry. One scholar’s comment on the impact of Whittier’s poems in particular can be applied to the widespread influence of abolitionist poems in general: “Because of their topical interest, broad emotional appeal, and moral intensity, they affected thousands of common readers who were rarely touched by sermons or newspaper editorials.”14 Since poetry was integral to the cultural, political, and emotional lives of readers, it offered a remarkably effective vehicle for mobilization. At the same time, critics in the press often accused abolitionists of “ranting” and dismissively referred to them as “fanatics.”15 Admittedly, the sentiments expressed in their work—ranging from commitment to despair, motivation to indignation, and compassion to ridicule—are articulated through language that more often than not comes across as overwrought and hyperbolic. From our twenty-first-century perspective, their tone sounds melodramatic indeed. In the case of Whittier, surely the best-known antislavery poet, John B. Pickard argues, for instance, that his poems exemplify how “the tensions of the propagandist and the poet . . . caused the artistic failure of so many abolitionist poems.”16 Whittier himself looked back on his poems decades later, in 1894, and accounted for their supposed “defects” by pointing out that they

4 p Lyrical Liberators

were written with no expectation that they would survive the occasions which called them forth: they were protests, alarm signals, trumpet-calls to action, words wrung from the writer’s heart, forged at white heat, and of course lacking the finish and careful word-selection which reflection and patient brooding over them might have given.17

Whittier’s involvement in the cause was no doubt influenced by his upbringing as a Quaker, and thus a member of the first religious denomination in the Atlantic world to publicly condemn slavery. His contributions exceeded perhaps any other author’s: he not only edited the abolitionist periodical the National Era and published three topical poetry collections but was also a tireless political campaigner.18 Like other leading figures, he too was often assaulted, including being stoned in the streets of Concord, Massachusetts, in 1834. In his self-critical observation above he acknowledges being driven primarily by urgency and passion, as most other similarly minded poets evidently also were. He recognizes, as well, that the intent to protest and mobilize left many of his poems with a rather more extemporaneous than literary quality. Yet in a poem in which he contests the actual sentencing to death in 1844 of a white man in South Carolina who helped a slave woman he had married to escape, he nevertheless defends his own fervent tone as the only appropriate response to such events: But vain is irony—unmeet Its cold rebuke for deeds which start In fiery and indignant beat The pulses of the heart. Leave studied wit and guarded phrase For those who think but do not feel; Let men speak out in words which raise Where’er they fall, an answering blaze Like flints which strike the fire from steel.19

These lines illustrate Whittier’s conviction that an urgent cause called for passionate language instead of calculated rhetoric. The emphasis is clearly on sentiment, which is what would enable social change by rousing readers in a manner Whittier likens to stoking a fire. The comparison was apparently common at the time: Atlantic Monthly editor Edward Weeks noted that the issue of abolition affected authors so deeply that “even the most objective of them, men like Emerson and Lowell, wrote at white heat.”20 Yet while poems in this vein do admittedly come across as rather improvisational, it is

Introduction p 5

in this very quality that their primary interest lies—as documents of a cultural moment when American poets’ aspirations were arguably more political than literary, and when their focus on stirring the “pulses of the heart” is what enabled them to succeed in making themselves heard by a wide audience. It is also critical to keep in mind the contentious social climate of a period when speaking out against slavery could literally get you killed: in 1835 the state of Georgia enacted a death penalty for anyone who published abolitionist tracts, and in 1837 the abolitionist publisher Elijah P. Lovejoy was murdered in Illinois in the course of defending his press from a proslavery mob. By openly and unequivocally condemning slavery and its supporters, activists not only targeted an entrenched commercial industry that sustained regional economies across the nation—the 1860 census identified 393,975 slaveholders possessing 3.9 million slaves—but also critiqued political figures whose legislation supported slavery, religious leaders who defended it on the basis of supposed biblical precedent, and businessmen who profited from its products. Abolitionists repeatedly uncovered the hypocrisy of government, religion, and commerce that supported an institution that negated the nation’s founding principles in both the Declaration of Independence and Christian doctrine.21 Not surprisingly, they encountered such strong antagonism that there were more episodes of civil disorder from the late 1820s to the late 1830s than ever before in the nation’s history, prompting Garrison to refer to these circumstances as a veritable “reign of terror.”22 Furthermore, as the abolitionist movement gained strength, so did the opposition. In 1835 a mob destroyed black churches, schools, and homes in New York City, and a gallows was erected as an intimidation tactic in front of Garrison’s house in Boston.23 The orator Henry B. Stanton estimated that he encountered mobs on more than seventy occasions in his speaking tours through Ohio and Pennsylvania.24 Under such conditions, abolitionists’ language naturally reveals how embattled they felt, and Garrison had good reason to respond to his critics, “I am aware, that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity?”25 Yet whether they viewed slavery as merely unfortunate or as an egregious sin, whether they espoused the gradual or immediate emancipation of slaves, or whether they supported repatriation to Africa or constitutional representation for black Americans, abolitionists remained uncompromising and unapologetic in their views. As Garrison claimed, “For myself, I am ready to brave any danger, even unto death.”26 He certainly courted all sorts of danger through such famously extreme acts as burning a copy of the Constitution at a public meeting in 1854—in disapproval of the clause which counted

6 p Lyrical Liberators

slaves as three-fifths of a person, thus giving Southern states a third more electoral votes and allowing their interests to dominate Congress—denouncing it as “a covenant with death and an agreement with Hell.”27 Moreover, every attempt to silence them seemed only to draw more attention to the movement, and its leaders intentionally exploited the unintended publicity. Samuel J. May told Garrison that “Our opposers are doing everything to help us,” and Whittier concluded that “The cause is progressing. I want no better evidence of it than the rabid violence of our enemies.”28 Abolitionist poetry in many cases reflects the extent to which activists thrived from all the resistance. The poems included in this collection were originally published in eight periodicals specifically devoted to the antislavery cause, although in some instances they were reprinted from nonabolitionist mainstream titles, and there was a significant degree of crossover among all these publications. The eight major titles were published in either New England, New York, Ohio, or Washington, D.C. A number of them were first backed by the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), which Garrison helped found in 1833 along with Whittier and the successful merchants Arthur and Lewis Tappan, who themselves were routinely harassed by proslavery opponents in New York City. The Tappans received so many assassination threats that the mayor of Brooklyn was compelled to provide them with police protection.29 Yet despite such challenges the AASS was quite successful in its early years, particularly with its “great postal campaign” of 1835 which mailed over a million publications across the nation, chiefly targeting the South.30 The campaign certainly exacerbated tensions in the South, where it met with attempts to censor the “incendiary literature” many believed would help incite slave insurrections. In Charleston, South Carolina, a mob raided the post office and burned effigies of Garrison and the Tappans on bonfires lit from the stolen papers. By 1836, every Southern state had passed laws prohibiting the distribution of abolitionist literature and the formation of antislavery societies.31 Garrison chose to publicize the contempt many Southerners expressed by routinely publishing excerpts from the hate mail he received at the Liberator under the sarcastic heading “Polite Letters from the South,” one of which disturbingly threatens him, “You son of a bitch: If you ever send such papers here again, we will come and give you a good Lynching.”32 As Garrison’s radicalism only intensified, he eventually alienated former collaborators, including Whittier, who objected to his purely moral crusade in favor of pursuing legislative action. Some members of the AASS also disapproved of his support of female involvement in the society, and when Abby Kelley Foster was elected

Introduction p 7

to a leadership position in 1840, the Tappans led a contingent that left to form the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (AFASS), which issued a number of publications of its own. The poetry published by antislavery periodicals addressed certain events, topics, and issues more frequently than others. The thirteen chapters in this book cover the most frequently recurring concerns. That number also reflects the movement’s culmination in the Thirteenth Amendment. The poems were selected on the strength of their commentary concerning actual incidents, the persuasiveness of their contribution to the cause, and the merit of their poetics. Each chapter is preceded by an introduction that takes into account the historical context, rhetorical purpose, and literary significance of its selections. This overarching organization also helps clarify the various ways in which the movement evolved over the course of three decades. The first chapter opens with poems that urge readers to join the movement through such frankly provocative approaches as accusing them of being slaves themselves if they fail to speak out on behalf of the enslaved. These calls for action persisted through the Civil War years, when sustaining support for the cause became an even more imperative need. In chapters 2 through 5, poets address significant antebellum episodes that motivated them to voice either their opposition or their support. Among the events that received widespread national attention were the murder of abolitionist editor Elijah P. Lovejoy, the assault on Senator Charles Sumner, and John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry. All three of these figures are portrayed as martyrs for the cause whose heroism brought to light the inexcusable actions of proslavery forces, who either tried to curtail such fundamental rights as freedom of the press and political advocacy or helped precipitate the war by hanging the leader of a justifiable insurrection on behalf of the oppressed. The topic of fugitive slaves receives the most attention among these chapters, unquestionably garnering more interest than any other in the collection, above all in the aftermath of the controversial Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Addressing the many perils confronted by fugitives and their supporters, as well as the ethical conflicts precipitated by legislation requiring that runaways be returned to their owners, they are arguably among the most moving in this collection. In chapters 6 through 10, poets rely on broader themes that expose the reprehensible consequences of slavery and the need to preserve the values it compromised. The death of slaves is one of the most common among these, echoing popular sentimental literature’s preoccupation with the subject of death in every genre. By focusing on the commonality of death, which all

8 p Lyrical Liberators

human beings face, these poems offered readers moments of identification meant to emphasize the equality of all Americans, and hence their ethical obligation to support abolition. They also protest the social conditions that in many cases made death the only possible route to freedom for the enslaved, who are frequently shown yearning for their own demise. Authors thus return time and again to scenarios like suicides and burials, as well as to the fatal shipwrecks that also allowed for commentary on the slave trade itself. Slave mothers similarly captivated countless poets, only a handful of whom are included here, since this topic in particular seems to have motivated many to write in a derivative sentimental vein. These authors express their disapproval of a pitiless institution that routinely separated mothers from their children, and even at times compelled them to commit the dismaying acts of filicide that made national news. The matter of the South itself is another recurrent preoccupation for poets who often make use of satire to ridicule what they believe to be the region’s reprehensible scruples and practices, which are corroborated by evoking the perspective of black Southerners who suffered from their consequences. In more broadly conceptual poems, poets insist on the inherent equality of all human beings through an emphasis on the equal sentiments and accomplishments of both blacks and whites, and they also maintain that the right to freedom should be assured for all inhabitants of a society founded on that very principle. One of the most compelling approaches is found in chapter 11, which includes poems threatening readers that they will in time be forced to atone for their complicity in slavery unless they take action against it in the present. Poets here allude to the impending death of readers themselves, including the prospects of Judgment Day and hell, as a means of urging them to reconsider their current moral choices. In the antebellum era, this approach includes prescient anticipations of the violence and bloodshed of a war that poets believe is all but inevitable considering the untenable, volatile circumstances of social injustice. Once the actual war was indeed under way, poets overwhelmingly voiced their support for the conflict, as seen in chapter 12. In these poems they assert that the injustices of slavery are finally being redressed through a confrontation that must be endured before the nation can usher in an era of equality and freedom. They also acknowledge the contributions of black troops who fought side by side with white soldiers as a testament to their identical courage. Finally, in chapter 13, poets speak to the specific objective of emancipation, which they had been advocating for as early as 1831. After President Lincoln issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, their work pays tribute to

Introduction p 9

this validation of their cause, and testifies to the enthusiasm of slaves anticipating their liberation. Their tone becomes understandably jubilant when the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution at long last ended slavery in 1865. The largest number of poems are selected from the three most prominent publications: the Liberator, the National Anti-Slavery Standard, and the Anti-Slavery Bugle. As the only abolitionist periodical to survive thirty-four years of continuous publication, Garrison’s weekly Liberator (1831–65), published in Boston, was without doubt the primary contributor to the cause. The paper marked the culmination of Garrison’s long career in political journalism, starting from an early age in his hometown of Newburyport, Massachusetts.33 Nord argues that with it Garrison effectively inaugurated democratic journalism in America, since the paper’s independence from any single organization allowed him to present it as an open forum for discussion with a demonstrable emphasis on reader participation that is apparent in its publication of correspondence and frank exchanges of opinion. He points out that for Garrison, who famously disapproved of what he believed to be a flawed governmental system, “free discussion was a substitute for government—a kind of democracy without coercion.”34 Garrison certainly made his intentions explicit in editorials calling for the “immediate, unconditional emancipation of slaves without compensation to slave owners,” and for “NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS,” since in his view, remaining united as a nation meant everyone was complicit in the sin of slavery.35 Yet despite, or perhaps due to, his patently confrontational approach, the Liberator succeeded in reaching a wide readership, growing from fewer than 100 subscribers at its launching to over 100,000 by the outset of the Civil War.36 Garrison may have insisted on a pacifist approach, but it was clear from the outset that he nevertheless intended to provoke his audience, declaring in the inaugural issue, “I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse —I will not retreat a single inch—AND I WILL BE HEARD.”37 Many of the poets he published replicate this sort of adamant rhetoric to insist on their unwavering dedication to a message they are convinced must be heeded by the public. That they were indeed heard became apparent within a few months of circulation, when the Liberator was already stirring up considerable apprehension in the South. In Virginia, Garrison was blamed for Nat Turner’s slave insurrection in August 1831, and that same year he was indicted by the North Carolina Supreme Court for circulating “reckless and unjustifiable allusions.” The state of Georgia eventually offered a reward of $5,000 for his capture, and the Vigilance Committee in Columbia, South Carolina, posted a $1,500 reward for the capture of anyone who possessed a 10 p Lyrical Liberators

copy of the periodical.38 Even in Boston, Garrison was not safe: he was dragged through the streets by a proslavery mob that chased him away from his planned appearance before the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society in October 1835.39 Remarkably, his perseverance was only fueled by all such antagonism, which at any rate confirmed that the Liberator was without doubt making an impression across the country. A few years after the Liberator first appeared, the AASS began publishing its own weekly, the National Anti-Slavery Standard (1840–70), first in New York City and later in Philadelphia. Although this paper espoused goals identical to those of the Liberator, as the society’s official organ it sustained a more measured tone overall than Garrison’s personal project. At the same time, it published scathing attacks on organized religion, which unsurprisingly limited its readership among more devout Christians. The disapprobation of the general public was personally experienced by one of the Standard’s best-known editors over its thirty-year history, the popular writer Lydia Maria Child, a veritable household name in the 1830s and ’40s whose involvement in the cause alienated many of her former readers. Child’s notoriety as the first American to publish an abolitionist book, An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833), not to mention as the first woman to edit a newspaper concerned with public policy, had a significantly negative impact on her reputation as a well-liked literary figure.40 Indeed she even received death threats, prompting her to compare these alarming circumstances to “the times of the French Revolution when no man dared trust his neighbor.”41 Yet public disapproval seemed to be as stimulating for her as it was for Garrison, and she not only persisted in publishing her opinions, represented here by several of her poems, but furthermore succeeded in doubling the Standard’s circulation during her tenure from 1841 to 1843.42 In response to how long it took these two Garrisonian papers to reach the more western parts of the country, Quaker activist Abby Kelley Foster founded the weekly Anti-Slavery Bugle (1845–61) in Salem, Ohio. Due in large part to its sizable Quaker population, as well as to its location in a free state adjacent to the slave state of Kentucky, the city of Salem witnessed active participation in the movement, particularly as a key hub for the Underground Railroad. On a personal level, Foster’s move westward may have been motivated by her contentious involvement in the AASS, where Garrison’s support of her leadership over the objections of members who disapproved of female participation had been a major factor in the rift that led to the formation of the AFASS. Much like Garrison and Child, however, she persevered on behalf of the cause and continued to deliver her antislavery lectures despite confronting a critical Introduction p 11

audience that on several occasions pelted her with rotten eggs and garbage. Her inaugural editorial in the Bugle defiantly pledged to “sound the buglenote of Freedom” across the land to “blow a blast that will wake from their slumbers the tyrants at the South, and their more guilty abettors at the North.”43 Within only a year of its appearance, the periodical reached one thousand subscribers, extending eventually to include readers across the states of Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa. In addition to selections from these leading titles, a number of poems are excerpted from regional publications that contributed to the movement with more specialized approaches. The weekly Emancipator (1833–48) from New York, for instance, was intended primarily to mobilize support for the Liberty Party, the first political party founded specifically to oppose slavery. In contrast to Garrison, its editors—among them such renowned activists as Charles Dennison, William Goodell, and Joshua Leavitt—did hope to persuade sympathizers to make use of the political system for their ends, in much the same way as they recognized Southern slave owners were doing in pursuit of their own interests. The biweekly Herald of Freedom (1835–46), published in Concord by the New Hampshire Anti-Slavery Society, counted such major literary figures as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson among its subscribers. Thoreau in fact praised the publication and its editor, Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, as exemplars of Transcendentalist opposition to corruption in a review that appeared in the Dial in 1844. He was particularly impressed by how Rogers was “making the press a living and breathing organ to reach the hearts of men” on behalf of “the unpopular cause of freedom,” an observation that reveals a sentimental trust in literature’s ability to influence readers.44 Unaware of Thoreau’s identity, Rogers reprinted his encouraging review in the Herald, remarking on its unprecedented attention to what he calls “our poor, ‘infidel,’ ‘nigger’ sheet,” and expressing hope that it might “confound the stupider among the enemies of the paper and its cause.”45 Taken together, these comments from both Thoreau and Rogers expose the public contempt that periodicals like the Herald commonly endured, as well as their ongoing struggle to win over recalcitrant opponents. The nation’s foremost black abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, published the first issue of his weekly North Star (1847–51) in Rochester, New York, only nine years after his own escape from slavery in Maryland. Marking a definitive break from his longtime association with Garrison—with whom he had shared substantial time on the lecture circuit which often exposed Douglass to violence from local audiences—with this periodical he endorsed the political methods his former ally summarily disavowed. In contrast to Garrison’s 12 p Lyrical Liberators

so-called “no-human-government” approach, Douglass, who by 1852 was an active member of the Liberty Party, espoused the reform of both church and state, which he referred to as the “central pillars in the horrid temple of slavery.”46 His North Star reached up to four thousand subscribers,47 and subsequently merged with Gerritt Smith’s Liberty Party Paper to become Frederick Douglass’ Paper (1851–63), while Douglass also later issued Douglass’ Monthly (1859–63). The North Star was unique among abolitionist titles as a fully blackowned and black-operated publication, thus fulfilling its editor’s belief that “he who has endured the cruel pangs of Slavery is the man to advocate Liberty.”48 A few poems are selected from the weekly National Era (1847–60), which was founded in Washington, D.C., by Gamaliel Bailey and the AFASS to champion the Liberty Party’s political efforts. It is notable as the only successful antislavery periodical issued in a city where slavery was legal. A general avoidance of radicalism and the inclusion of work from major literary figures may have been key to its success, enabling the National Era to reach a wider audience than any of its peer publications, rising from 4,000 to 25,000 subscribers in its first three years of circulation.49 Among its noteworthy publications were the poems of its prolific editor, John Greenleaf Whittier, as well as the first serialization of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s influential novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1851. Finally, a number of poems originally appeared in the most important African American periodical predating Douglass’s papers, the weekly Colored American (1837–41), issued in both New York and Philadelphia. Spearheaded by black editor Philip A. Bell in collaboration with black Presbyterian minister Samuel E. Cornish, this paper devoted to the interests of the free black community was ultimately short-lived, in large part because of the low literacy rate among its target readership at the time. Beyond these topical publications, the topic of slavery pervaded the American media in the decade preceding the Civil War, when as one historian observes it “was discussed with more fervor and with more white paper and printer’s ink than any other topic before the people in those days.”50 Even a Southern paper like the Richmond Examiner admitted in 1855, “Slavery is the vital question of the Republic—more important in its bearings upon the destiny of the American People than all other questions, moral, political, and religious combined.”51 It is therefore not surprising that a wide variety of authors took on a subject that occupied the national consciousness more than any other. The diverse writers who contributed their poems to abolitionist publications ranged from critically esteemed figures like Ralph Waldo Emerson and James Russell Lowell to commercially successful ones like Lydia Maria Introduction p 13

Child and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and numerous marginal voices whose primary credentials were not necessarily literary. As the most popular poet of his era, Longfellow was an important early contributor to the movement with his collection Poems on Slavery (1842), which introduced seminal tropes that would recur throughout antislavery poetry for years to come. His poems were believed to be so persuasive that they were selected for redistribution by the New England Anti-slavery Association.52 Among the more compelling contributors to the genre are the African American authors whose publications in the rarified field of poetry not only attest to their triumph over formidable obstacles, but more importantly testify to the black perspective that was essential to furthering the cause.53 The two most significant black poets within what is an admittedly small cohort are the free-born Baltimore lecturer Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and the North Carolina slave George Moses Horton, both of whom appear repeatedly throughout various periodicals. Harper’s work is included in practically every chapter of this collection. Her contemporary recognition as both author and public speaker is impressive, considering that despite her freedom she was nevertheless affected by the Fugitive Slave Act, which forced her to flee from her native slave state of Maryland to the free states of Ohio and later Pennsylvania.54 Her Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects (1854) sold over ten thousand copies during a period when Walt Whitman sold fewer than one hundred copies of his now much better known first collection, Leaves of Grass (1855).55 Keith D. Leonard attributes her particular success in the journalistic domain, which was largely restricted to white males, to her reliance on their customary patriarchal poetic forms, which Harper subverted for her own decidedly nonpatriarchal aims. He maintains that her appeal stemmed as well from her insistence that blacks shared identical morals with whites, which helped validate the abolitionist movement’s radical redefinitions of freedom and equality.56 In this respect she is not so different from the many white poets who repeatedly allude to their own ethical convictions in order to persuade readers to support their cause, and who rely on the same sentimental conventions Harper also exploits to that end. Complementing this approach, as Carla Peterson notes, her evangelical Unitarian influences motivated Harper to adopt the persuasive voice of a “poet-preacher” prodding readers to social action.57 Yet Harper is distinctive above all as an exemplary representative of her race, which as Garrison himself makes clear in his preface to her Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects was a role white activists expected her poetry to confirm. As Meredith L. McGill points out, Harper’s work was frequently reprinted in order to “represent the possibility of uplift, to serve as 14 p Lyrical Liberators

a figure for an achievable future for the currently enslaved.”58 Her poetry thus helped further both black and white political objectives by effectively uniting the two activist communities in their collective opposition to slavery. Horton’s historic publications, the first by a Southern black author, span the period under consideration here: his first collection, The Hope of Liberty, appeared in 1829; his second, Poetical Works, in 1845; and his last, Naked Genius, in 1865 following his emancipation and move to Philadelphia that year.59 In her important survey of his career, Joan R. Sherman acknowledges his significance to the American literary tradition in various other respects as well: as the first slave to protest his bondage through poetry; as the only slave to earn a considerable income by selling his poems; and as the only poet to publish two volumes of poetry while enslaved and another after being freed. Horton’s exposure to intellectual life at the nearby university at Chapel Hill, where he spent a considerable amount of time among the students who bought his love poems for their courtships, may help explain his seemingly conventional reliance on the same influences, concerns, and styles as the white poets he would have been exposed to in that setting. Sherman observes that in this sense he is a forerunner of the many black poets who followed in the same course after the Civil War in the attempt to “justify to white society their race’s talents and capacities for citizenship by embracing poetic themes, techniques, and attitudes of their white contemporaries.”60 Yet relying on white poetic tradition was perhaps the most reasonable path for a slave writing in the antebellum South to take, and may have been integral to the widespread recognition Horton received in the contemporary media.61 Taken together, the poems by Harper and Horton offer authentic perspectives concerning matters that personally affected them and their communities. Both frequently plead for empathy based on their actual experience of oppression and discrimination, and for support in their quest for the equality and freedom they deserve based on their essential likeness to white Americans. What distinguishes the two is that Harper’s poetry by and large harbors a certain optimism about the future—a tone she may have felt pressured to maintain due to her prominence in the abolitionist movement—while Horton’s poems betray considerable skepticism regarding the insurmountable obstacles of slavery which he, unlike Harper, experienced firsthand. A significant number of poets published their work either anonymously or pseudonymously, most likely as a way to avoid the dangers involved in publicly supporting the cause. Many of these authors were women seeking to protect their identities, and although most of them may remain nameless, their body of work offers an important overview of a period when women’s voices Introduction p 15

were beginning to form a strong presence in national discourse. The issue of racial equality not surprisingly resonated with Americans who were also concerned with gender equality. Jean Fagan Yellin points out, for instance, that the well-known Southern activists Angelina and Sarah Grimké believed “the oppression of slavery is modeled on the oppression of woman,” and at a time when women were forbidden to vote and deprived of property after marriage, Angelina Grimké had every reason to assert that the “very being of a woman, like that of a slave, is absorbed in her master.”62 Women’s identification with the condition of slaves certainly contributed to the formation of numerous female antislavery societies in northeastern cities like Boston and Philadelphia as early as the 1820s. These organizations, which proved to be indispensable to the movement, provided women with one of the only outlets for political activity available to them, and indeed during the 1830s the majority of canvassers for antislavery petitions were women.63 In addition, by mobilizing through conventions and participating in the Underground Railroad network, female activists effectively initiated the women’s rights movement by shaping new social roles that would influence feminists for generations to come. As was also the case for black activists, the antislavery press offered women one of the few venues of expression where they could publicize their opinions, although in doing so both groups risked significant disapproval by challenging social norms that precluded them from participating in public life. Their poems thus offer vital testimony concerning perceptions and approaches that would prove to be critical to the burgeoning struggle for civil rights. What all of these poets published resonated with a wide spectrum of readers and affected the actual course of events during what is arguably the most consequential thirty-year span in American history. James Brewer Stewart recognizes that by the early 1860s abolitionists had significantly improved their reputation in the eyes of a public that had originally disparaged them as “wild extremists” but now hailed them as “folk heroes” worthy of respect.64 Their poems contributed to this shift in public opinion not only by encouraging readers to sign petitions to Congress but more importantly by motivating them to join the antislavery societies that were so integral to mobilizing for the cause. As one poet observes in his response to receiving the first issue of the Herald of Freedom, an excerpt from which opens this volume, such publications proved that Americans could still persevere in their pursuit of a righteous cause during trying times and notwithstanding withering resistance. What’s more, in making their case, these activists the poet refers to as “untrammelled minds” spoke to practically every important question of their time, ranging from freedom of expression to civic duty, from racial discrimi16 p Lyrical Liberators

nation to gender equality, and from democratic leadership to the abuse of human rights. Poets thus legitimized a radical cause by addressing its relevance across all pertinent discourses—historical, political, religious, philosophical, and literary. This full range is apparent in the second introductory poem, “Modern Ghosts,” which comments on how the presence of slavery makes itself felt in every circle of American society, including commerce, law, government, publishing, and banking. It also recognizes the influence literature could indeed have by asserting that poetry provides the “optics” readers need to be able to see the ubiquitous yet hidden “ghosts” of slavery. Antislavery poems thus acted much like an indispensable pair of eyeglasses that clarified the problematic repercussions of slavery that were otherwise not visible to many readers. This collection reveals how this reality was brought to light through a variety of lenses, so to speak. It also demonstrates how abolitionist rhetoric evolved over the years from the commonly accusatory approach of the antebellum era to the more exultant attitude that took over as emancipation became a tangible possibility. In the process, it elucidates the many ways Americans struggled to come to terms with the legacy of slavery over the course of three critical decades. Their influential poems helped further the abolitionist cause by participating in the consequential debate on the topic that unfolded largely through the pages of the press. As Abraham Lincoln himself recognized after signing the Emancipation Proclamation, acknowledging the efforts of activists before even those of the military, “the logic and moral power of Garrison and the Anti-Slavery people of the country and the army have done it all.”65 Because poetry was among the most persuasive means of advancing the antislavery message, this collection is crucial to our understanding of just how they did it.

Introduction p 17

1 Ca lls for Ac ti o n

P

oems that overtly state their intent to rouse support for the cause are among the most persuasive and compelling in the abolitionist corpus. They demonstrate the vehement commitment of their authors, at times to such a radical extent that it becomes clear why their opponents frequently referred to them as “fanatics.” The imperative tone that characterizes these poems conveys the strong sense of urgency and persistence their authors felt the need to express in the face of heavy opposition. Also apparent is a deep confidence in the potential influence of poetry, which, as the author of “An Appeal to Poets” asserts, can extend even further than the law in its ability to expose truth and plead for justice on behalf of those who are unable to speak for themselves. The influence that literature could have is corroborated by the sonnet “Reading ‘Uncle Tom,’” whose author composed it after reading Harriet Beecher Stowe’s seminal 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which he claims increased his empathy for slaves as well as his commitment to the cause of justice. It is precisely this sort of outcome that poets hoped to elicit in readers by persuading them to commit to what this poem calls “the task through sympathy to grow more wise,” which would then presumably compel them to support abolition. That literature could indeed be persuasive was recognized as early as 1836, when the American Anti-Slavery Society’s publishing agent, R. G. Williams, observed that “the press has probably made seveneighths of all the abolitionists in the country.”1 18

These calls for action commonly rely on the tactic of suggesting that a failure to get involved is in itself tantamount to a form of slavery. For instance, the well-known Boston minister John Pierpont accuses all Americans of being slaves and challenges them to prove they are not in “The Tocsin,” a title which in this case means “the alarm.”2 The poem sounds a virtual alarm that is intended to “Wake!” readers out of their complacency. As the editorial note preceding it makes clear, it was reprinted in the Herald of Freedom four years after its original publication as a commentary on recent attempts to suppress antislavery activities. The note acknowledges the assassination of abolitionist publisher Elijah P. Lovejoy in November 1837 (see chapter 2); the rioters whose opposition to the Second Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women scheduled to be held in Philadelphia in May 1838 led to the destruction of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society’s headquarters at Pennsylvania Hall (see plate 1); and the riot that disrupted an August 1842 convention in Nantucket following an inflammatory speech in which Stephen Symonds Foster denounced the clergy as a “brotherhood of thieves” who were colluding with businessmen and politicians to preserve slavery.3 Pierpont’s jeremiad targets this supposed brotherhood, as well as the press, for their failure to oppose slavery. He insists that while such voices may be constrained, poetic expression like his cannot be suppressed, defiantly calling on anyone who has been silenced and is therefore “at Slavery’s beck” to “Prove that ye are not Slavery’s slaves!” The popular poet James Russell Lowell, a member of the so-called Fireside Poets, makes a similar point in his “Stanzas on Freedom,” one of three poems by him included in this chapter. Lowell suggests that readers are mistaken in believing they are free while slavery continues to exist unless they are themselves contributing to the cause of universal freedom, whether it is popular or not. This message is reiterated in the provocatively titled poem “Who Is the Slave?,” which claims that the true slaves are those who fail to speak out against slavery, and motivates those who persist in doing so not to falter in their efforts. Prior to the Civil War, poets adopted a variety of approaches to capture their readers’ attention. James Stillman memorably portrays slavery as a disease, or “plague spot,” that is spreading across the body of the nation, and wonders whether anyone will rise to the task of amputating the infected limbs so as to prevent the life-threatening ailment from spreading any further. In his poem, Liberator editor William Lloyd Garrison expresses empathy for the suffering of slaves who have been deprived of the freedom that is essential to happiness. His speaker asserts that if he were in their shoes, and had to face the pain of being separated from his wife and children, he, too, would rather Calls for Action p 19

flee from such conditions. These sentiments serve as a vehicle for Garrison’s immediatist insistence on abolishing an institution that he suggests binds all Americans in slavery, regardless of their race. Several other authors assert their commitment to the cause as a means of rallying support. Lowell’s poem written at the antislavery convention held in Boston in 1844 insists that abolitionists will either “perish or be heard” in their continued attempts to speak out against oppression. The speaker of the anonymous “Song of the Agitators” relies on an insistent trochaic meter to bolster his defiant response to the plea that activists “cease to agitate,” declaring that they will stop doing so only once all men are recognized as equals. And in her poem “Onward!” the prolific black writer Frances Ellen Watkins Harper takes a somewhat different angle to urge anyone who sympathizes with the injuries inflicted on her race to pursue some concrete action, echoing Stillman’s approach by asking readers to “Come and staunch the wounds that bleed.” In his commentary on this poem Michael Bennett notes that by relying on such visceral imagery, Harper effectively “uses the body of the poem to get her reader to visualize the effect of oppression.”4 Once the Civil War was under way, abolitionists faced the daunting task of sustaining support for the cause despite mounting public discouragement. Lowell’s well-known work “The Present Crisis,” first published in 1845, reappeared in the press a few days after General John C. Frémont independently issued his own emancipation proclamation on August 30, 1861. In their note introducing the poem, the editors of the National Anti-Slavery Standard greet Frémont’s act, which decreed that any slaves belonging to insurgents in the state of Missouri would be confiscated and thereafter freed, as an encouraging harbinger of freedom that reminds them of Lowell’s earlier message. His poem offers an epic overview of the harrowing consequences of slavery that can be felt throughout the globe and across all races. It implies that Americans confronting this crisis find themselves at a unique historic juncture, analogous in importance to the crucifixion of Christ, when they must choose to pursue the path of either justice or injustice. Lowell argues they must reinhabit the role of the original Pilgrims to launch a new version of the Mayflower in their quest for liberty, thus persuasively linking abolitionist ideals to the pursuit of freedom that helped found the nation. A year later, in 1862, Caroline Atherton Mason dedicated a parable to President Lincoln intended to motivate him to abolish slavery, which she suggests is weighing the nation down like the onerous cargo in a sinking ship that the captain delays throwing overboard until it is too late. The lesson for Lincoln, the nation’s captain, is clearly that he should no longer postpone jettisoning slavery. Augusta Cooper Kimball bases 20 p Lyrical Liberators

her own appeal on gender, encouraging the North in 1864 to continue to “feed the fire” of the cause so that women will have the opportunity to contribute to the blaze with their own figurative torches, the poems “that burn with veins of fire,” which are among their few possible contributions. Her poem includes a reference to the ubiquitous image of a supplicant slave in chains that was often printed in abolitionist literature (see plate 9), which she suggests the flames of war will illuminate to be the shadow that corresponds to the white working man and thus expose their essential equality. In this singular poem, Kimball pleads for an egalitarian social structure that will enable America to rise above its limitations much like a butterfly shedding its chrysalis, an apt symbol for what all of these calls for action ultimately hoped to accomplish.

p John Pierpont, “The Tocsin” Colored American (June 23, 1838); Herald of Freedom (June 2, 1838, and August 26, 1842)1 The scorching lines below, from the peerless pen of PIERPONT, were written three or four years since—in the midst of the infamous outbreaks of “the brotherhood” which he so faithfully rebukes. At the time of their appearance they were published in the Herald, but, as the ruffianism and violence of those days is coming back upon us, as witness recent events at Philadelphia, New Bedford, Nantucket, and elsewhere, we have thought it well to give them another insertion. “If the pulpit be silent, whenever or wherever there may be a sinner, bloody with this guilt, within the hearing of its voice, the pulpit is false to its trust.”—Daniel Webster.2

Wake! children of the men who said, “All are born free!” Their spirits come Back to the places where they bled In Freedom’s holy martyrdom, And find you sleeping on their graves, And hugging there your chains,—ye slaves! 1. Introduction and notes corresponding to the parenthetical note reference numbers appear in the 1842 issue of the Herald of Freedom. 2. Senator from Massachusetts and Secretary of State under President John Tyler. From his Plymouth oration commemorating the Pilgrims’ landing of 1620, delivered in December 1820.

Calls for Action p 21

Ay,—slaves of slaves! What, sleep ye yet, And dream of Freedom while ye sleep? Ay,—dream, while Slavery’s foot is set So firmly on your necks,—while deep The chain her quivering flesh endures Gnaws, like a cancer, into yours! Hah! say ye that I’ve falsely spoken, Calling you slaves?—Then prove ye’re not; Work a free press!—ye’ll see it broken; (1) Stand to defend it!—ye’ll be shot. (2) O yes! but people should not dare Print what “the brotherhood” won’t bear! Then from your lips let words of grace, Gleaned from the Holy Bible’s pages, Fall, while ye’re pleading for a race Whose blood has flowed thro’ chains for ages;— And pray,—“Lord, let thy kingdom come!” And see if ye’re not stricken dumb. Yes, men of God! ye may not speak, As, by the word of God, ye’re bidden; By the pressed lip, the blanching cheek, Ye feel yourselves rebuked and chidden; (3) And, if ye’re not cast out, ye fear it;— And why?—“The brethren” will not bear it. Since, then, through pulpit or through press, To prove your freedom ye’re not able, Go,—like the Son of Righteousness, By wise men honored,—to a stable! Bend there to Liberty your knee! Say there that God made all men free! Even there,—ere Freedom’s vows ye’ve plighted, Ere of her form ye’ve caught a glimpse, Even there, are fires infernal lighted, And ye’re driven out by Slavery’s imps. (4) Ah, well!—“so persecuted they The prophets”3 of a former day!

3. See Matthew 5:12.

22 p Lyrical Liberators

Go, then, and build yourselves a hall, To prove ye are not slaves, but men! Write “FREEDOM ” on its towering wall! Baptize it in the name of PENN ; And give it to her holy cause, Beneath the AEegis of her laws;— Within let Freedom’s anthem swell;— And, while your hearts begin to throb, And burn within you—Hark! the yell,— The torch,—the torrent of the Mob!— They’re Slavery’s troops that round you sweep, And leave your hall a smouldering heap! (5) At Slavery’s beck, the prayers ye urge On your own servants, through the door Of your own Senate,—that the scourge May gash your brother’s back no more,— Are trampled underneath their feet, While ye stand praying in the street! At Slavery’s beck, ye send your sons (6) To hunt down Indian wives or maids, Doomed to the lash!—Yes, and their bones, Whitening ’mid swamps and everglades, Where no friend goes to give them graves, Prove that ye are not Slavery’s slaves! At Slavery’s beck, the very hands Ye lift to Heaven, to swear ye’re free, Will break a truce, to seize the lands Of Seminole or Cherokee! Yes,—tear a flag that Tartar hordes Respect, and shield it with their swords! (7) Vengeance is thine, Almighty God! To pay it hath thy justice bound thee; Even now, I see thee take thy rod,— Thy thunders, lashed and growling round thee;— Slip them not yet, in mercy!—Deign Thy wrath yet longer to restrain!—

Calls for Action p 23

Or,—let thy kingdom, Slavery, come! Let Church, let State, receive thy chain! Let pulpit, press, and hall be dumb, If so, “the brotherhood” ordain! The MUSE her own indignant spirit Shall still speak out;—and men shall hear it. Yes;—while, at Concord, there’s a stone That she can strike her fire from still; While there’s a shaft at Lexington, Or half a one on Bunker’s Hill— There shall she stand and strike her lyre, And Truth and Freedom shall stand by her. But, should she thence by mobs be driven, For purer heights she’ll plume her wing;— Spurning a land of slaves, to heaven She’ll soar, where she can safely sing. God of our fathers, speed her thither! God of the free, let me go with her! (1) Bear witness, heights of Alton! (2) Bear witness, bones of Lovejoy! (3) Bear witness, “Grounds of Complaint preferred against the Rev. John Pierpont, by a Committee of the Parish, called ‘The Proprietors of Hollis-Street Meetinghouse,’ to be submitted to a mutual Ecclesiastical Council, as Reasons for dissolving his Connexion with said Parish,” July 27th, 1840: use of which runs thus;—Because “of his too busy interference with questions of legislation on the subject of prohibiting the sale of ardent spirits;—of his too busy interference with questions of legislation on the subject of imprisonment for debt;—of his too busy interference with the popular controversy on the subject of the abolition of slavery.” And this, in the eighteen hundred and fortieth year of Him whom the Lord God sent “to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound”! (4) Bear witness, that large “upper room,” the hay-loft over the stable of the Marlborough Hotel, standing upon the ground now covered by the Marlborough Chapel; the only temple in Boston, into which the friends of human liberty, that is, of the liberty of man as man, irrespective of color or caste, could gain admittance for the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, January 25th, 1837. Bear witness, too, that smaller room in Summer Street, where a meeting was held the same day, by members of the same Society; where their only altar was an iron stove,—their only incense, the fumes of a quantity of cayenne pepper, that some one of the “imps” had sprinkled upon the hot stove-plates, to drive the friends of the freedom of all men out of that little asylum. (5) Bear witness, ye ruins of a “Pennsylvania Hall”—a heap of ruins made by a Philadelphia mob, May 17th, 1838,—and still allowed to remain a heap of ruins, as I was lately told in Philadelphia, from the fear, on the part of the city government, that, should the noble

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structure be reared again, and dedicated again to Liberty, the fiery tragedy of the 17th of May would be encored. (6) Bear witness, Florida war, from first to last, though “the end is not yet.” (7) Bear witness, ghost of the great-hearted, broken-hearted Osceola!

William Lloyd Garrison, “Liberty! Liberty!” Liberator (June 19, 1840) ‘Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them.’ Hebrews xiii.3.

Never, O God, can I too thankful be, That thou hast given me perfect liberty; That, from my birth, thine image has been seen, Acknowledged, and respected, in my mien; That, as an equal being, I may claim Affinity with men of every name; That man’s inalienable rights are mine, And spiritual life, and light divine! O! to be freer than the chainless wind, Beyond all human power to hold or bind; To go or come, rise up or seek repose, Labor or rest, just as the mind shall choose; To stand erect, with glory and honor crowned, And no superior find the world around;— ’Tis this that makes existence bright and dear, Ennobles man, and gladdens his career! But, to be yoked and fettered, bought and sold, Like a dumb brute, or grovelling swine, for gold; To have no home, no country, and no friend,— Unrecompensed to toil till life shall end; Covered with scars, and famishing for food,— Crushed, and despoiled, and robbed of every good;— O, direful thought! O, miserable doom! Thrice welcome death—a refuge in the tomb! If such a horrid fate were mine, O God! If o’er my head were held a tyrant’s rod; If my loved wife could from my fond embrace Be wrested, flogged, defiled before my face; Calls for Action p 25

If the dear children, granted me by Heaven, Could to the shambles be like cattle driven; What floods of tears would drown my weeping eyes! What anguish fill my breast! how loud would be my cries! How would my spirit yearn for liberty! How would I supplicate to be set free! By day, by night, plot how my chains to break, And with my wife and children to escape; Call upon all the friends of God and man, For our deliverance to toil and plan,— Forgetful of each other’s caste or creed, And nobly emulous our cause to plead! Therefore it is—remembering those in bonds As bound with them—my yearning soul responds To all their groans, each briny tear that starts, Each dreadful pang that rends their bleeding hearts; And therefore do I cease not to proclaim My country’s guilt, barbarity and shame; And therefore slavery do I execrate, And warn the tyrant of his awful fate. Down with the hellish system, now—forever! Break every yoke—each galling fetter sever; Come to the rescue, all your means unite, Ye friends of Justice, Liberty, and Right! And as ye triumph in this holy cause, All heaven, all earth, shall ring with loud applause; A ransomed host a choral song shall raise, And myriad voices shout Jehovah’s praise!

James Russell Lowell, “Lines Written at the Anti-Slavery Convention, Boston. May, 1844.” Herald of Freedom (August 30, 1844)

We will speak out, we will be heard, Though all earth’s systems crack; We will not bate a single word Nor take a letter back. 26 p Lyrical Liberators

We speak the truth, and what care we For hissing and for scorn, While some faint gleamings we can see Of Freedom’s coming morn? Let liars fear, let cowards shrink, Let traitors turn away; Whatever we have dared to think, That dare we also say. Whate’er we deem Oppression’s prop, Time-honored though it be, We break; nor fear the heavens will drop Because the earth is free. The only chain we dare not break Is our own plighted word To plead for our poor brother’s sake, And perish or be heard.

James Russell Lowell, “The Present Crisis” Anti-Slavery Bugle (November 27, 1846); Liberator (February 1, 1861); National Anti-Slavery Standard (October 5, 1861)4 [When Gen. Fremont5 proclaimed to the rebels of Missouri, “their slaves, if any, are free men,” millions said to each other, “This is what we have waited for. This trumpet gives no uncertain sound.” The eloquent Wm. H. Channing6 wrote joyfully to a friend: “My faith is that, as a nation, God finds us worth saving, and that we shall be saved. His glorious will be done! Let us try to do it!” His hopeful words at once brought to mind the following noble lines by James Russell Lowell:]

When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth’s aching breast Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west, And the slave, where’er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time. 4. Introduction appears in the National Anti-Slavery Standard. 5. Union General John C. Frémont independently issued an emancipation proclamation on August 30, 1861, decreeing that any slaves belonging to insurgents in the state of Missouri would be confiscated and thereafter freed. 6. Unitarian preacher William Henry Channing.

Calls for Action p 27

Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous throe, When the travail of the Ages wrings earth’s systems to and fro; At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start, Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips apart, And glad Truth’s yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the Future’s heart. So the Evil’s triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill, Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill, And the slave, where’er he cowers, feels his sympathies with God In hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up by the sod, Till a corpse crawls round unburied, delving in the nobler clod. For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along, Round the earth’s electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong; Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity’s vast frame Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or shame;— In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim. Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, God’s new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, And the choice goes by forever ’twixt that darkness and that light. Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand, Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land? Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet ’tis Truth alone is strong, And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong. Backward look across the ages and the beacon-moments see, That, like peaks of some sunk continent, jut through Oblivion’s sea; Not an ear in court or market for the low, foreboding cry Of those Crises, God’s stern winnowers, from whose feet earth’s chaff must fly; Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath passed by. Careless seems the great Avenger; history’s pages but record One death-grapple in the darkness ’twixt old systems and the Word; Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,— Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

28 p Lyrical Liberators

We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great, Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate, But the soul is still oracular; amid the market’s din, List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave7 within,— “They enslave their children’s children who make compromise with sin.” Slavery, the earth-born Cyclops,8 fellest of the giant brood, Sons of brutish Force and Darkness, who have drenched the earth with blood, Famished in his self-made desert, blinded by our purer day, Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his miserable prey;— Shall we guide his gory fingers where our helpless children play? Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just; Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified, And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied. Count me o’er earth’s chosen heroes,—they were souls that stood alone, While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone, Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine, By one man’s plain truth to manhood and to God’s supreme design. By the light of burning heretics Christ’s bleeding feet I track, Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back, And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learned One new word of that grand Credo which in prophet-hearts hath burned Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heaven upturned. For Humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the martyr stands, On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands; Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn, While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return To glean up the scattered ashes into History’s golden urn. ’Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers’ graves, Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light a crime;—

7. Dwelling of the Greek oracle at Delphos. 8. One-eyed giants in Greek mythology.

Calls for Action p 29

Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind their time? Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, that made Plymouth Rock sublime? They were men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts, Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue was the Past’s; But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that hath made us free, Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender spirits flee The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove them across the sea. They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to our sires, Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom’s new-lit altar-fires; Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall we, in our haste to slay, From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps away To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of to-day? New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth; Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea, Nor attempt the Future’s portal with the Past’s blood-rusted key.

A. W. M., “An Appeal to Poets” Emancipator (May 20, 1846)

Come, sons of mighty song! in pouring strains speak forth! Make your free mountain lyres ring from the noble North! He who the ballad sings, it hath been proudly said, More than Law’s master minds, rules from the parted dead: Then for all human weal speak ye in tireless might, Pitcher and lamp may aid when waxes warm the fight!* Blessed, to live on earth when we have pass’d away! Blessed, to be remembered, when these poor frames decay! Not as the flashing gem that gleams ’mid Fancy’s flowers, Not, as the butterflies that flit thro’ summer bowers; But as the gift of God to weaker spirits given, And as the incense-bearers for the services of Heaven! Come forth with thrilling music! strong shall be your weakness! Tell Truth in fearless tones—yet in the might of meekness! Plead for the trodden slave—for him who is your brother! Yes! and his planter-lord, forget not, is another! 30 p Lyrical Liberators

Touch in his inmost soul that hidden chord of kindness, That trembles, (oh! how oft!) where we see not thro’ blindness! Wake up the feeling heart, the generous soul that lies O’er-clouded ’neath the luxury of sunny southern skies!— Plead, that the time may come, when, War’s vast ruin o’er, Justice and Righteousness shall reign forevermore! Speak, with the voice of Peace, for Peace,—and Love,—and God! On His high mission-work, go, with His staff and rod! With words that burn from Heaven, feel for the little spring Of Truth’s bright blessed fount the earliest wakening! Say all this heart would say, do all that it would do, Could it with its one gift, think—feel—and speak like you! * See Judges VII. 16–21.

James Stillman, “The Plague Spot of Slavery” National Anti-Slavery Standard (November 9, 1848)

And must it spread—that festering spot, Until it taints the nation’s core, And all becomes one hideous blot, One vast immedicable sore? Can there no potent balm be found— No burning caustic,—keen edged knife, No fearless hand to probe the wound, And boldly dare to succour life? Limb after limb more feeble grows; The joints relax, and lose their strength; From vein to vein the virus flows, Till all will poison’d be at length; And tho’ the massy giant frame, Still seems to wear the hue of health, Alas! ’tis but the fever flame, That marks the dire destroyers [sic] stealth. How loathsome will the ruin be, How foul the lifeless carcass show; The gazer from the sight will flee, Nor linger burial to bestow, Calls for Action p 31

And shrinking friendship shun the proof, And love forswear its sacred trust, And pity shuddering stand aloof, Fill’d with unutterable disgust. Speak! shall it spread? ’twere surely best A limb or two to lop away, Than all should suffer by the pest, And every portion feel decay. Oh! for some balm to spread around To stay the sore, and save the life— Or that some fearless one was found To use the caustic or the knife.

James Russell Lowell, “Stanzas on Freedom” Anti-Slavery Bugle (February 19, 1853)

Men! whose boast it is that ye Come of fathers brave and free, If there breaths [sic] on earth a slave, Are ye truly free and brave? If ye do not fell the chain, When it works a brother’s pain, Are ye not base slaves indeed, Slaves unworthy to be freed? Women! who one day shall bear Sons to breath [sic] New England air, If ye hear, without a blush, Deeds to make the roused blood rush Like red lava through your veins, For your sisters now in chains— Answer! are ye fit to be Mothers of the brave and free? Is true Freedom but to break Fetters for our own dear sake, And, with leathen hearts forget That we owe mankind a debt: No! true freedom is to share 32 p Lyrical Liberators

All the chains our brothers wear, And with heart and hand to be Earnest to make others free! They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak; They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think; They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three.

Anonymous, “Song of the Agitators” Anti-Slavery Bugle (October 9, 1852); Liberator (October 3, 1862)

“Cease to agitate!” we will, When the slave’s whip’s sound is still; When no more on guiltless limb, Fetters print their circlet grim! When no hound athirst for blood, Scours the thorny Georgian wood; When no mother’s pleading prayer, On the sultry Southern air, Quivereth out in accents wild— “Master, give me back my child;” In the day when men shall be Brethren, equal born, and free; Day for which we work and wait, We will “cease to agitate”! When our Statute books proclaim To the world no more our shame, And a freeman’s rights shall hold Dearer than the Judas gold; When the Polar Star9 shall give Light to last the fugitive 9. The North Star, a symbol of liberty that illuminated the path to freedom in the northern states for fugitive slaves.

Calls for Action p 33

When our border Lakes10 shall rise On the last lone bondman’s eyes, And their waves for him no more Haste to clasp the Northern shore;— In the day when men shall be Brethren, equal born, and free; Day for which we work and wait, We will “cease to agitate”!

E. H. M., “Who Is the Slave?” Frederick Douglass’ Paper (October 29, 1852)

Who is the slave? The man whose chains  Hang heavy on his neck and round His manly form? He who is bound By thongs and scored until the pains Flood out the vital spark, ’till death Comes gladly, drinking up his breath? He is a slave: but not so deep As he who says he’s free yet dare Not cry against the wrong, nor bare His arm and fight for those who weep! Go o’er the world with care, and seek A man more vile—a slave indeed, Than he who bound by law or creed, Hunts his wretched starving brothers, Who every holy feeling smothers At Slavery’s nod, yet dare not speak! On! noble few, who dare to cry, “Down with the tyrant and his laws;” Up! breast the flood, and fight and die, Ne’er falter in the noble cause.

10. The Great Lakes on the border between the northern states and Canada, which was a common destination for fugitive slaves.

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A. P. C., “Reading ‘Uncle Tom’”11 National Anti-Slavery Standard (November 11, 1852)

Heart-harrowed with its scenes, I lay the book In anguish down, to dry mine aching eyes, I ponder on the Justice high, which lies If in God’s sunshine, o’er each shadowy nook, And feel no chasm dark can it o’erlook; Then to the task again my soul applies— The task through sympathy to grow more wise, With will to master that which feebly shook. What! ask I of my heart, art thou so weak Thou canst not list to what so many bear? Arouse, and nerve thyself to do and dare, And the deliverance of these millions seek! A many-threaded cable of light strands Would hold the ship of State to break these bands.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, “Onward!” Liberator (March 26, 1858); Anti-Slavery Bugle (April 20, 1861)

Onward! Oh ye sons of freedom In the great and glorious strife You’ve a high and holy mission On the battle field of life. See Oppression’s heel of iron Grinds a brother to the ground, And from bleeding heart and bosom Gapeth many a fearful wound. Sit not down with idle pity Gazing on the mighty wrong, Hurl the bloated tyrant from him, Say, my brother, be thou strong. 11. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s influential novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin was first serialized in the National Era in 1851, and published in book form in 1852.

Calls for Action p 35

See that sad despairing mother Clasp her burning brow in pain, Lay your hands upon her fetters Rend, Oh rend; her hateful chain. There’s a pale and trembling maiden Brutal arms around her thrown, Christian father, save, Oh save her, By the love you bear your own. Yearly lay a hundred thousand New born babes on Moloch’s12 shrine, Crush these gory reeking altars, Christian, let this work be thine. Where the southern roses blossom Weary lives go out in pain Dragging to death’s shadowy portals Slavery’s heavy galling chain. Men of every clime and nation, Every faith and sect and creed, Lay aside your idle jangling, Come and staunch the wounds that bleed. On my people’s blighted bosom Mountain loads of sorrow lay, Stop not then to ask the question Who shall roll the stone away. Oh be faithful, Oh be valiant, Trusting not in human might, Know that in the darkest conflict God is on the side of right.



12. Canaanite god associated with child sacrifice in the Old Testament.

36 p Lyrical Liberators

Caroline A. Mason, “A Story for the President” National Anti-Slavery Standard (September 27, 1862)

Your pardon, Mr. President! A story I’ll relate. That’s somewhat in your line, you know—or so the papers state. Once on a time a gallant ship weighed anchor and set sail; The sky was fair, the sea was smooth, and prosperous the gale. But suddenly a mighty storm arose upon the sea, And the good vessel sprung a leak, and plunged most fearfully. “Lighten the ship,” the seamen cried; “No, no,” the captain said, “Not so, my boys; we’ll ply the pumps and bail her out instead.” But all in vain!—the fearful leak gained on them; hour by hour The fatal tide came pouring in with strong, resistless power. “Lighten the ship!” again they cried, those seamen brave and bold. “No, no!” again the captain said, just coming from the hold; “I’ve been considering the case, and, on the whole, I think We’ll ply the pumps again, or else, try to fill up the chink. In short, use any other means than this; I rather doubt If I am authorized, as yet, to throw the cargo out.” Dark grew each brow on board, but still, the captain’s word was law, And so to work again they went, though every sailor saw The dire and dreadful danger near, and watched it come apace With stern despair or wild dismay dark written on each face. On rushed the vessel to the rocks; the breakers yawned ahead; A great wave struck the ship; “All hands!” the frightened captain said, “Throw out the cargo!”—but too late—or ere the word was spoke, Above the vessel and her crew the surging waters broke, And screaming winds in fitful howls their fearful requiem woke. My story, Mr. President, is done,—but do you guess The fearful moral of this tale of folly and distress?— Then help us save our gallant ship, the Union that we love! You’ve tried the pumps,—’twas well, no doubt,—but over and above All other means to save us now, we clamor for this word: “Throw out the cargo, Slavery!” Oh, once our ears have heard That mandate from your tardy lips, how gladly will we spring To lighten our good Ship of State of that unholy thing! Then, bearing on our joyful way, we’ll guide her safe to port, Repair the damages, and so, once more the breezes court;

Calls for Action p 37

Fling out the good sails to the wind, start on our course anew, Another cargo in our hold,—Freedom—for me and you! Freedom for all!—oh, blessed freight! Who carries that on board Need fear no wreck nor any ill, for with them sails the Lord!

Augusta Cooper Kimball, “Feed the Fire!” National Anti-Slavery Standard (August 6, 1864)

Northmen, feed your noble fire, Till the light flames wider, higher, Sphering earth in one grand glow Of Freedom’s pyrotechnic show! Feeble stars, that cheered the midnight Of oppression with their rays, Drown them in the glorious daylight Of your larger blaze! And the woman hand so tender Shall forget its feeble style, Finding strength to bring its faggot To your sacred pile. Woman’s soul, for civic action Made (some think) too small by Heaven— Head and hand too weak, men say, For a ballot even. Bounded thus, we give our poems, Songs that burn with veins of fire; Give the love that sacrifices, Lifting up our heroes higher; And we fan the flame and glare, With the breath of constant prayer, Till the angels must admire. Northmen, let your flames reveal, As they glow across the seas, To the working-man his shadow,— His half-shadow on its knees! Let him guess his upright stature From the crouching picture cast, Till he claims his height of nature, And demands his dues at last!

38 p Lyrical Liberators

Till the power of Caste shall tremble At the courage of her slave, At the phantom form of Freedom Walking toward her o’er the wave! Northmen, show the waiting nations Truths that will not life half hid! That the breast of a Republic Feeds no social pyramid; We can have no burdened masses, No disfranchised host to rear An aristocratic apex Into an advantage sphere. But the people form a circle, Like a soul-wreath, wide and grand; Freedom’s platform’s always level, And upon her plain we stand Nations skilled in geomancy, Frown and lower at the sign Of this geometric figure Of the People’s circle-line. Labor’s hand is all too royal Earthly throne and crown to rear; Being free, we choose God’s fashion;— High hearts only tower here. And the agent in our centre So much power shall exercise As he gathers from the meaning Glowing in the People’s eyes. By the light of Freedom’s war-fire, Northmen, let the Old World see That America, misshapen, Drops her past deformity! From her form unseemly, mongrel, There were flashes all divine: Showing how her future glory Through its chrysalis could shine. Now she brightens into splendor, As she struggles up at last From the dragon-skin that bound her,

Calls for Action p 39

Holding down her nature fast. Eyes that burned on her with watching Flash with rapture rays to see The Republic rise transfigured;— Rise to claim her just degree. Grown too great in her sublimeness For the close ravine she trod, Lo! she presses to the hill-top, And her face is turned to God!

40 p Lyrical Liberators

2 The Murde r o f El ijah P. Lo v e j oy

T

he antislavery movement claimed its first martyr on November 7, 1837, when Elijah P. Lovejoy was fatally shot in Alton, Illinois, while defending his printing press from a proslavery mob intent on silencing his periodical the Alton Observer (see plate 2). The city of Alton, located in a free state just across the Mississippi River from the slave state of Missouri, was at this time rife with tensions between runaway slaves and their pursuers. Lovejoy himself, a Presbyterian minister by training, had previously fled to Alton from St. Louis, where his printing press had already been destroyed a total of three times, the final one in response to a published critique of the city’s failure to indict anyone involved in the lynching of the free black man Francis McIntosh.1 McIntosh had been burned alive by a mob in April 1836 following his arrest for the alleged murder of a white sheriff, an event that captured national interest and was later decried in a speech by Illinois state representative Abraham Lincoln.2 Yet despite constant harassment from proslavery sympathizers, Lovejoy persisted in his efforts in the name of freedom of the press, and he not only reached a wide audience but also attempted to found an Illinois State Anti-Slavery Society in October 1837. The following month his career came to a close when an armed mob torched his warehouse and destroyed his fourth printing press, killing him at the site. No one was convicted for his assassination.

41

Len Gougeon observes that the news of Lovejoy’s death came as a shock to the movement since “the silencing of Lovejoy’s press disabled, both symbolically and literally, the very instrument upon which the persuasionists depended to accomplish their task.”3 The tragic event not only sparked memorial services across the country, but more importantly helped recruit a new generation to the antislavery cause. Lovejoy was hailed as a hero who sacrificed himself on behalf of the rights he insisted on upholding. Ralph Waldo Emerson, for instance, declared, “I sternly rejoice, that one was found to die for humanity and the rights of free speech & opinion.”4 The poems in this chapter acknowledge his martyrdom while also commenting on the lamentable suppression of freedom represented by his assassination. The author writing under the name Mack expresses contempt toward a populace that claimed to support freedom of speech while in actuality working to suppress sentiments it found disagreeable. Mack suggests that Altonians should rightfully punish those who destroyed this fundamental right for no justifiable reason. The pseudonymous poet Arion satirically exhorts readers to suppress any attempt to speak out on behalf of the oppressed, because Lovejoy’s death has proven there is no safety in either the law or the press, warning them this event proves, “To speak in Freedom’s name is but to die!” The anonymous poet behind “Decree by the Alton Mob” also relies on satire to conjure the voice of the guilty mob itself, which proclaims that because the South is the nation’s only master, then the abolitionists, or “fanatics,” ought to be silenced, and slaves should learn to embrace their chains. Both satirical poems nevertheless conclude by reverting to sincerity: the former, to recognize the true shamefulness of the murder; and the latter, to assert the need for perseverance in the continuing struggle for liberty. These poems thus testify to just how galvanizing Lovejoy’s murder proved to be for activists in the early years of the movement.

p Mack, “The Alton Riot” Liberator (December 8, 1837); Herald of Freedom (December 16, 1837)

O! who has a tongue to express the disgust, That is due to a merciless mob? Who, law, right, and honor, would trample to dust, And, fiendlike, demolish and rob?

42 p Lyrical Liberators

But how must that feeling transcend human thought, And horror each beating breast fill, When the mob, to demoniac vengeance, is wrought, And the weak and the innocent kill! When poor human nature, excited by wrong, Beyond rigid justice, assail, We, almost, excuse the excitable throng, And throw over Charity’s veil. But when not a tittle of wrong is the cause, Not even to Selfishness’ eyes, That they trample on equity, justice, and laws— Curse—curse on the wretches that rise. When the shield, that the law, to defend us, has given, Away from us rudely is thrust, ’Tis a subject of joy when the tyrant is driven, And trampled, contemptuous, to dust. But, when this bright shield is secured as our own, We rush to demolish another’s, The Devils might blush for their malice, outdone, For they would not injure their brothers. Shame—Shame to thee, Alton, and shame to each son, Who join’d the demoniac strife! If a drop of pure blood in their system had run, They would not have trifled with life. Ye boast of your freedom, in thought and in word, Secured by your laws, as ye say; And with the same breath, ye have taken the sword, To wrest it from others away. Should the king of the Frank1 take a tittle, alone, From the press, of its freedom, by law, Well—well might he tremble for empire and throne, Though centuries had wrapt them in awe: And—shame! shall Columbians, less jealous of right, Themselves be the wretches to rob? In riot and plunder and murder delight? All join’d in a merciless mob?

1. Charlemagne.

The Murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy p 43

Ye say that your victim, your feelings abused, Nor heeded the wishes ye made, And, though often commanded to silence, refused, And, like Peter2, your wish disobeyed. Pass then, if ye like the disgrace, a decree, Restricting the press and the tongue, And the man, disobeying among ye, shall be, By an infamous mob, shot or hung. Then, like old Busiris,3 ye’ll see the disgust Of a universe staining your brow, And be shunn’d by the virtuous, the peaceful and just; But not be call’d treacherous, as now: For your laws promise freedom in word and in thought, To all who, among ye, may stay, But the first word they utter, and ye like it not, Ye mob him and rob him and slay. Arouse ye, Altonians, arouse ye amain, And punish the authors of guilt; O! wipe from your star, on our banner, the stain, Yes, even though blood must be spilt. O! have ye not heard how our forefathers fought For a poor, paltry tax upon tea? Nor rested from toil, till their prowess had wrought Redemption complete for the free? And can ye sit calmly, while wretches assail The holiest boon that they won? He who would rouse him but cowardly quail, Cannot be of Freedom, a son. Then rouse thee, O! Alton, let stern justice reign, From the lawless their weapons to wrest, Then may’st thou, young city, shine brightly again, Like a beautiful star in the west.

2. The apostle Peter denied knowing Christ three times. 3. Possibly a reference to John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667), where this name refers to the Pharaoh who enslaved the ancient Israelites.

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Arion, “The Alton Riot” Liberator (December 22, 1837)

Hush! let the Patriot’s heart beat free no more! The desperate deed is done, the strife is o’er! No more be Freedom’s name in triumph sung— Oh, let the lips be hushed, and stilled the tongue; Keep silence now, nor heed th’oppressed one’s sigh— To speak in Freedom’s name is but to die! And should the heart some rising pity feel, Oh, silence keep, that pity to conceal! There is no safety in the strength of laws, Else, why did LOVEJOY die in Freedom’s cause? There is no safety for the pen or press, If deeds like this, the laws cannot repress: Oh, Alton! weep for shame, till that foul blot Be in oblivion hidden and forgot: Till then, may LOVEJOY ’s shade thee haunting tell How sad a deed it was, as murderously he fell.

Anonymous, “Decree by the Alton Mob” Herald of Freedom (January 13, 1838)

Hush, Freedom! let thy voice be still, And all thy votaries bend the knee, While we proclaim our august will, From Earth’s far hills to boundless Sea. Cease, mighty Nature, thy old course to run, Thou sun, grow dim, ye stars no longer shine, Be mute ye winds, your puny work is done, We war against Omnipotence Divine. We own no master but the South, That her proud sons may praise and call us good We summons age, and strength, and youth, To feed their vengeance with a Martyr’s blood. Hear us, fanatics! on whatever shore, You chant your songs of hateful liberty, The Murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy p 45

Bow to the dust, to rise no more, And trembling hear our high decree. We will the North shall write nor speak But by the dictates of the Free, The Eagle on the mountain’s peak Shall teach the slaves servility. The slave must learn to praise the chains That bind him to his endless toil, And Heaven must send her genial rains, And summer’s warmth to bless the soil. Unfurl our banner to the world, Which Satan fashioned with his hands; Exalt, support it, or be hurled With hated mercy to the sands. Look carelessly on Lovejoy’s fate, Nor dare to let your feelings bend, Renounce Religion, God, and State— Admire our works—our cause defend. Will Freemen fear the ruffian band Who struck the dauntless Martyr low? Will Freemen tremble when the land Is trodden by the deadly foe? No! by the Eternal Heavens! No! Let this our glorious motto be “E’en the storm may fiercer grow We live or die for liberty.” We bear the flag our fathers bore, When princes made them kneel; We swear the oath our fathers swore— Their hopes, and all their valor feel.

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3 Fugitive Slave s

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o other topic motivated as many poets as fugitive slaves, particularly in the aftermath of the passage of the controversial Fugitive Slave Act of September 18, 1850. Yet as early as the 1830s, poets were already illustrating the desperate conditions of slavery by addressing the circumstances that compelled up to a thousand slaves a year to flee, and the challenges they faced in the course of their escape.1 Their indignation further ramped up once Congress passed the act as part of the Compromise of 1850, which consisted of five separate bills resulting from a four-year dispute between free and slave states concerning the status of new territories acquired during the MexicanAmerican War. These bills included creating the New Mexico and Utah Territories without forbidding slavery within their boundaries, abolishing the public sale of slaves in the District of Columbia, and admitting the free state of California.2 The act was thus a sort of concession to slave-state politicians who objected to the imbalance created by adding another free state. It required federal law-enforcement officials in all states and territories to assist with the return of escaped slaves to their masters. Suspected fugitives could be arrested simply on the basis of a claimant’s assertion of ownership, and they had neither the ability to testify on their own behalf nor recourse to a jury trial. This meant in effect that a freedman accused of being a fugitive could not dispute the charge. In addition, the act stipulated that any citizen who harbored a runaway or interfered with his apprehension was subject to a $1,000 47

fine and imprisonment of up to six months. While there are diverging figures concerning how many fugitive cases were actually prosecuted—one source estimates there were 332 cases in the ten years following the act’s passage3— the act had enormous symbolic importance for activists who portrayed it as an attempt by the South to assert control over the North. Abolitionists argued that it proved the political “slave power” in Congress had not only brought the federal government into “the business of man-hunting,” but also “required every freeborn American to become a manhunter.”4 The act also intensified fear among free blacks in the North, many of whom fled to Canada as a result. Its many objectionable implications were therefore widely relied on by activists to mobilize support for the cause, and in particular for the operations of the Underground Railroad “stations” that sprang up at geographically advantageous locations in the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Eric Foner estimates that its “conductors” helped close to 30,000 fugitives reach freedom between 1830 and 1860.5 Poets unsurprisingly expressed their disapproval of a law that to all intents and purposes compelled Northerners to assist in maintaining slavery. Their responses to the act expose the hypocrisy of enforcing such legislation in the so-called “land of the free,” and urge readers to exercise their remaining right of free speech to call for the law’s repeal. They also protest the moral ramifications of legislation that effectively penalized Christian conduct by making it a crime to help those in need. They often quote Christ’s dictum, “Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, ye did it unto me” (Matthew 25:40), to suggest that the Golden Rule should dissuade any Christian from turning away a fugitive seeking shelter. Even in the Old Testament they find evidence to support this stance, as in the following excerpts that juxtapose a passage from the Fugitive Slave Act with a passage from the book of Deuteronomy to introduce a poetic account of harboring a fugitive that appeared in Frederick Douglass’ Paper in 1851: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another shall in consequence of any law or regulations therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but SHALL BE DELIVERED UP on claim of the party to whom such service is due.” (Constitution of the U.S., Art. II. Sec. 2.) Thou SHALL NOT DELIVER UNTO his master the servant who is escaped from his master unto thee; he shall dwell with thee, even among you in that place where he shall choose, in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best, thou shalt not oppress him. (Deut. xxiii, 15, 16.)6

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Such excerpts served as evidence that the act directly contradicted the Bible itself, and should therefore be revoked. Poets repeatedly address the ethical conflicts raised by the act, as in “The Fugitive Slave Law,” which accuses its supporters of being blacker in spirit than slaves are in skin tone, and claims it should be opposed by exercising the “sacred right of speech.” The speaker of “The Chase—A Dream” denounces the act’s inherent sinfulness by depicting Satan as one of its supporters, recounting a dream in which Satan outrageously encourages churchgoers to capture a runaway in their midst. Several of these compositions either were written by women or feature female speakers, who were perhaps uniquely sensitive to the vulnerability of persecuted fugitives. Ellen C. Dickerson defies the law’s supporters by claiming that while they may succeed in capturing runaways, they cannot succeed in hindering citizens’ freedom to choose to shelter them by following the “‘Higher Law’” of God. The speaker of “The Fugitive,” by S. S. A. D., abides by what she also calls the “‘higher law’” of her conscience to shelter a female runaway who seeks refuge with her child, and includes this woman’s recollections of losing several of her children to the slave trade as evidence of her suffering. The poet identifying herself only as Sarah frames her poem as a response to an Anti-Slavery Bugle subscriber who wished to cancel her subscription after the passage of legislation she believed would make it unlawful for her to support an antislavery publication. This speaker bases her appeal on their shared gender, which she also claims obeys a “higher law” than the one established by men, one that enables women to offer refuge to fellow mothers hoping to protect their children from persecution. Poets both before and after the passage of the act frequently turned to the trope of the demise of runaway slaves—including instances of suicide and murder—to express their outrage that death was often the sole outcome of fugitives’ pursuit of freedom. In many cases death is portrayed as indeed their only viable route to liberty. Lydia Maria Child’s poem is inspired by the account of a Southern eyewitness to the capture of a fugitive, who subsequently chose to die in his captivity by fasting as the only way he could “set his spirit free.” This poem exemplifies Child’s typically sentimental approach through its emphasis on the slave’s devastation at being sold away from his family and the understandable desire for reunion that motivated his escape. The true story of a female runaway in Washington, D.C., who escaped her pursuers by jumping to her death in the Potomac in 1842 (see plate 4) was the subject of numerous poems (see also chapters 7 and 11). The one here by Sarah J. Clarke,

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who later also wrote under the pseudonym Grace Greenwood, commemorates the slave’s suicide as her only option while also acknowledging the irony of such an incident’s transpiring in the capital of a nation founded in the name of freedom. The poem was first published in the National Anti-Slavery Standard in 1844 and was reprinted in the Liberator in 1850 in the aftermath of the Fugitive Slave Act, when its final stanza was rewritten in a less confrontational tone that replaces the former version’s patent sarcasm with a vision of the slave triumphantly raising her “unmanacled hands” in the light of heaven, perhaps in an attempt to appeal to the religious rather than the political sensibilities of readers. The speaker of the poem by G. M. K. claims to have personally witnessed the suicide of a captured fugitive who plunged, still in chains, off the deck of a steamer into the depths of Louisiana’s Lake Bistineau. The slave is portrayed as a veritable hero “whom scourges could not tame,” thus implying that by committing suicide he succeeded in releasing his own soul from bondage and the devastating signs of abuse it left on his body. In her contribution to the topic, black poet Frances Ellen Watkins Harper takes a decidedly different approach that is no doubt influenced by her own extensive personal experience with fugitives and the Underground Railroad. Her poem offers a wrenching portrayal of a fugitive who faces the prospect of dying before he has attained his freedom, yet yields gracefully in the knowledge that he has come close to liberty and will soon rest with God. By thus confirming his ultimate fate in the afterlife, Harper underscores his equality to the white protagonists of many a contemporaneous deathbed poem in this vein. Other poets chose to focus on the deaths of the owners or abolitionist supporters of fugitives as an indication of the perils involved in either the pursuit or the aid of runaways. In his remarkable poem, W. H. Burleigh takes as his subject a slave whose despair at being torn from his wife and child provokes him to violently avenge himself on his owners before fleeing the scene, an act of aggression the speaker suggests merely reflects Southern slaveholders’ own actions. In a related poem that is clearly intended as a warning to slave owners, J. S. Martin describes in vivid detail the escape of a fugitive who is being hunted down like an animal. When his pursuers finally catch up to him and he brutally beheads, stabs, or shoots them all, the speaker concludes this is their proper penalty. On the other hand, the dangers faced by those who helped fugitives escape are illustrated in the anonymous poem concerning the true-life case of Seth Concklin, a contributor to the Underground Railroad who was apparently murdered in Vincennes, Indiana, for ferrying runaway slaves by boat. This epic poem suggests instead that Concklin committed suicide by jumping into the Ohio River to avoid being subjected 50 p Lyrical Liberators

to the ignominy of the gallows. His efforts to go up against the “slave power” on behalf of despairing slaves, who are themselves praised as exemplars of bravery, are depicted as more heroic than any exploits on the battlefield. A number of poets adopted the voices of fugitives themselves, thus making their experience somewhat more relatable by enabling readers to see it from their perspective. The prominent Boston minister John Pierpont, for instance, composes a fugitive’s apostrophe to the iconic North Star whose light guided runaway slaves on their route to freedom in the Northern states. The speaker of this frequently reprinted poem addresses the star as a beacon of hope which illuminates his journey much like the star of Bethlehem once did for the wise men who followed it to a similarly redemptive destination. Conversely, the accompanying parodic poem, also by Pierpont, is written from the perspective of a slaveholder who disdains such “‘Northern notions’” and its proponents, including such leading figures as Quaker founder George Fox, Herald of Freedom editor Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, married activists Theodore Dwight Weld and Angelina Grimké Weld, politician James Gillespie Birney, and poet John Greenleaf Whittier. This speaker bribes the star to disappear so as to prevent more slaves from running away, and threatens to lynch it if it continues to shine south of the Mason-Dixon line. While the former poem sustains a consistent iambic tetrameter pattern, the latter appends an additional syllable to each line that makes it sound flawed in comparison, perhaps as a way of evoking the Southern speaker’s injudiciousness. The poem by S. H. Lloyd depicts a day in the life of a slave as a way of demonstrating that his constant grief and anxiety at all hours of the day justifies his escape along with his family at nighttime. In his respectful portrayal of a group of fugitives, the well-known abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson—who would later support John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry (see chapter 6) and lead the black regiment the First South Carolina Volunteers during the Civil War—likens them to the ancient Israelites as presentday exiles praying for safety on the way to their own “promised land.” The author of “American Union” relies on the well-known hymn “Heavenly Union,” which Frederick Douglass also famously parodies in his memoir, to evoke the suffering that slaves endure in the name of the so-called “Union.”7 This speaker accuses Northern political and religious leaders who support the Fugitive Slave Act of being responsible for the unbearable state of affairs that motivated him to flee, and claims true union will only exist “when every one is free.” The anonymous soliloquy of a recaptured fugitive reveals how the momentary hopefulness he felt upon his escape has been turned back into despair since he is once again being treated like a mere “thing.” Perhaps the Fugitive Slaves p 51

most remarkable poem here is composed in the voice of runaway Lewis Lee, writing from somewhere along the Underground Railroad in response to his owner’s published offer of a reward for his capture. Lee denounces slave owners for manipulating blacks through the unlawful robbery and rape of their bodies, and claims his right to his own self. Other approaches involve either condemning the pursuers of runaways or praising those who opposed them. James Russell Lowell protests the capture of thirty fugitives near Washington, D.C., advocating against such tyrannical attempts to “hem the hope of being free / With parallels of latitude.” Thomas Wickersham addresses his sonnet to Northern slave hunters whom he contemptuously accuses of being under the command of Southerners. Charles P. Shiras satirically applauds how the Fugitive Slave Act has expanded the territory for bloodhounds who can now hunt their “human game” across the North—including in the cities of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia— implying that the former “land of the free” is now under their terrifying domain. And in her second poem here, based on the actual case of runaway Sara Lucy Bagby, who was sent back to her owner in Virginia—the last slave to be returned to a Southern state under the terms of the law prior to the start of the war8—Harper denounces the inhabitants of Cleveland for failing to recognize the fugitive’s equal claim to justice and returning her to captivity. Faith Barrett points out that in this poem Harper relies on a dramatic apostrophe that anticipates the imminent dissolution of the Union by suggesting that “the ‘you’ of the ‘Union’ must inevitably be destroyed since the nation’s legal systems have excluded the possibility of a collective ‘we’ that would include both blacks and whites.”9 In contrast, the poem by E. D. H. more optimistically encourages fugitives to persevere, like present-day “Pilgrims,” in their flight from the reprehensible “hyena-fangs of Law.” H. G. Adams motivates members of the Underground Railroad to persist in their efforts. And the anonymous author of “The Rescue of Jerry” praises the people of Syracuse, New York, for liberating the fugitive William “Jerry” Henry from federal custody the same day he was arrested in their city, in what was the first successful biracial rescue to garner national attention in the wake of the Fugitive Slave Act.10 It is among the many poems that demonstrate how influential the act indeed was in mobilizing support for the antislavery movement.

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Mrs. Child [Lydia Maria Francis Child], “The Runaway” Emancipator (November 4, 1834) A True Story.*

Behind the hills the setting sun Has hidden now his golden light; There stood a slave, his labor done, Watching the slow approach of night. To be a slave—this thought press’d deep Upon his spirit, free and brave; And often, when alone, he’d weep To think that he was born a slave. But then his faithful Nanny’s smile, Or little Willy’s merry voice, His soul would of its grief beguile— And William’s heart would half rejoice. His children climbing on his knees, The watchful kindness of his wife, Brought to his wounded spirit ease, And helped him bear the load of life. And now you hear his fervent prayer, As before God he bends the knee, “My wife and children bid them spare. And lay their burthens all on me.” His master died; for he was old, And nature still must have her due: William, and all his slaves were sold, With other goods and cattle too. He in the market-place was sold; His wife and children—where are they? How can the dreadful tale be told!— They tore them from his arms away. They heard his agonizing groans, They heard his little children’s cries, Fugitive Slaves p 53

They heard his wife’s heart-breaking tones Piercing the hollow, silent skies. They heard them all, and turn’d away; They heeded not the negro’s pain. If God is just, there is a day When they must hear those sounds again. Like a wild beast poor William then Was chain’d, and by a whip was driven; One of a drove of slaves, of men, Whom Jesus came to lead to Heaven. Time pass’d away—as pass it will, Though cruel sorrow mark each day; Through joy and woe, through good and ill, The sands flow on, and pass away. Who at the midnight hour is he, Creeping along upon the ground, Hiding behind each bush and tree, And starting at the faintest sound? ’T is he—he’s near the river’s side, He’s safe within the boat; A friend is there, to help him hide; Poor William! he may yet be free. The morning smiles, the steamboat flies, And many a happy heart was there; In a dark hole poor William lies, And breathes to God his fervent prayer. E’en there, constrain’d in every limb, No space to move, no wholesome air, E’en this was Paradise to him, For he could hope for freedom there. And he may yet his dear wife see, His little girl, his little boy; “I yet, I yet may set them free!” And William’s heart ran o’er with joy. 54 p Lyrical Liberators

But who His purposes can scan, Who lets the tyrant work his will, And trample on his brother man?— Faith speaks, where Reason’s voice is still. Whence is that sudden shriek of pain, And whence those shouts, and wild uproar? One struggle—he’s a slave again; Poor William’s dream of bliss is o’er. And now they drag him forth to light, What does his aching vision see? His master stands before his sight, Smiling upon his agony. “Ha, ha! my boy,” he laughing cried, “This is for me a lucky day,” Now safely to the mast he’s tied; And on the steamboat speeds her way. There, clenching fast his fetter’d hands, He heaves no sigh, he lifts no prayer. He seems, as fix’d in woe he stands, An iron statue of despair. They offer’d food—he turn’d away; And then he quickly seized the knife, And ere they could his purpose stay, He tried to end his hated life. His master now, with cruel scorn, Laugh’d at his poor slave’s frantic woe; “What makes you, Bill, look so forlorn? Why did you cut your jacket so? “I bade them give you food enough, And I’ll forgive you for this trip; I see you’re made of right good stuff; I think you’ll go without the whip. “My negroes all are happy dogs, They never have too much to do: Fugitive Slaves p 55

My driver very seldom flogs; And why can’t you be happy too?” “I am not a dog; I am a man; My wife and children, where are they? Be happy! that I never can— They’ve taken all I love away.” “’T is all pretence, you silly loon; You lead a very happy life: You will feel better very soon; I’ll give you, Bill, another wife.” “Pity the creature thou hast made, Almighty God!” the negro cried, “On whom the load of life is laid, Whilst all its blessings are denied. “My wife and children—God does know They’re living in this breaking heart; And when compell’d from them to go, He saw how bitter ’t was to part. “But soon will cease these cruel pains; There’s one kind hand will set me free. Death will strike off these hateful chains Death will restore my liberty.” And now again in silent grief He look’d up at the boundless sky; And not one tear, with sad relief, Moisten’d his glazed and bloodshot eye. They reach’d the shore; and each one goes Where pleasure or where duty calls; All but the slave—his burning woes Are hidden by his dungeon walls. Hidden from men—but not from Him Whose eye of light is everywhere; That light which darkness cannot dim, That eye of mercy, it was there. 56 p Lyrical Liberators

They who could dare to take the name Of him who came from Heaven to save On them the sin! on them the shame! They made a heathen of the slave. He thought that he was free to die; He never tasted food again; He utter’d not another cry; He spoke not of his burning pain. And thus he burst his prison door; And thus he set his spirit free; The negro’s misery is o’er— Death has restored his liberty. * This story was related by a Southern gentleman, who particularly dwelt upon the scornful irony, with which the master addressed the slave.

W. H. Burleigh, “The Fugitive” National Anti-Slavery Standard (August 12, 1841)

“Ye shall torture no more with the scourge and the chain, For the fetter which bound me is broken in twain; And I leave you its links, with the blood-rust thereon, A witness of deeds that the despot hath done. “Away—and forever! I spurn the control Which hath fettered my body and bowed down my soul— With the pride of a freeman I trample in scorn The yoke which my neck hath too patiently borne! “Ye may follow my track where the herbage is red, For my feet have been bathed in the blood of your dead— Ye may follow in vengeance—but wo for the hour! For your footsteps are girt by a perilous power!” He spoke—and the triumph of vengeance was seen In the flash of his eye and the pride of his mien; And he muttered a curse on the land of the South, While a smile of derision still played round his mouth.

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One look on the spot which his hatred hath cursed, And away, like a steed of the wild, he hath burst! Exultant, he bounds over hill-top and plain, And his foot spurns the earth with the pride of disdain. No more shall the blood of the fugitive drip All warmly and red from the overseer’s whip— No longer shall thrill on the fugitive’s ear The threat of the master, the taunt, and the jeer. Away to the land of the North—for her star1 Shall beacon thy course from its blue home afar! Away like the wind—pausing not to look back, For the seeker of blood shall be quick on thy track! Where the home of the planter magnificent stood, There are mouldering ruins and foot-prints in blood; Where the tone of the viol rose soft on the air, Is the voice of the mourner—the wail of despair! Wo! wo! for the lovely, the good, and the brave, By the whirlwind of vengeance swept down to the grave! For the Spoiler passed on like a demon of wrath, And Massacre yelled in his havoc-strewn path. On the still air of midnight, a terrible cry, Like the trumpet of Doom, called the sleepers—to die! They woke—but the prayer of their anguish was vain, For the sabre is red with the blood of the slain! When the Morning looked out from the East with its sun, The work of destruction and vengeance was done— The smoke, like a pall, wrapt the desolate scene, And Ruin scowled darkly where Beauty had been. What marvel? Yet weep for the tree and the flower Swept down to the dust in a terrible hour! For the strength which hath passed from the place where it stood! For the light which was quenched in a tempest of blood! 1. The North Star, a symbol of liberty that illuminated the path to freedom in the northern states for fugitive slaves.

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Oh, this was the work of revenge and despair, When the fetter and yoke were too galling to bear— For the iron had entered the fugitive’s soul, Till he spurned in his hatred the tyrant’s control. From his wife and his child they had torn him apart, Unheeding the anguish which gnawed at his heart— And he knew that the daughter he idolized must Be doomed to a life of pollution and lust. Then the demon awoke—and he vowed in his wrath That the blood of the despot should crimson his path, That Ruin should howl o’er their desolate hearth, Who had scoffed at his woe in the madness of mirth. And dark was the hatred he nursed in his breast, Till the thirst for revenge robbed his spirit of rest— Then he swept o’er their home like a whirlwind of fire, And Destruction trod close in the path of his ire. Flow darkly, St. Ilia!2 for mixed with thy flood, There are tears in the track of the Shedder of Blood! And thy waves have a tone like a funeral wail, As they give their low voice to the answering gale! From his death-work the Slayer in triumph hath gone— Weep, land of the South! for his deed is thine own— Ay, weep, till thine eye-balls in agony swim, For the cup of thy trembling is filled to the brim!

E. D. H., “The Fugitive” Liberator (July 29, 1842); Herald of Freedom (August 19, 1842)

Wanderers! Speeding on amain, From the gory southern plain, Scarred with many a seamy gash By the cruel driver’s lash, Toiling through the tangled fern To the marshes low and dern, Guided onward by the sure

2. River in the state of Georgia.

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Undeceiving cynosure3,— God be with thee, stricken one! Till thy weary race is run. On and on, away, away! Hiding from the light of day In the caverns of the wild, Where the hissing adder coiled; And when evening comes again Peering from the murky den; Speed thee well, and forward press Through the tangled wilderness; Liberty thy toil shall bless With her loving kindnesses. Hark! the jar of distant sounds! ’Tis the man-thief, and his hounds! No, it was the sounding gale, Swelling from the wooded vale. Ha! that flashing! where the breeze Swayed the branches of the trees; ’Tis the polished rifle’s gleam! No, ’t is but the moon-lit stream. Brother! trembling and afraid, Onward! heaven shall be thy aid. Guardian angels from above, Over thee have watched in love; Scourge and fetters crimsoned dyed, Forests long, and rivers wide, Teeth of hound, and dagger’s blade, Swamp, and trackless everglade,— All the terrors of thy path Flying from the spoiler’s wrath,— They are left behind, and thou Art Jehovah’s freeman now. Rest thee, Pilgrim, for awhile, Where our hearts of plenty smile; We will guard thee from the mouth 3. Symbol of guidance, a reference to the North Star, which illuminated the path to freedom in the northern states for fugitive slaves.

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Of the rav’ning blood-hound South; Save thee from the sateless jaw, And hyena-fangs of Law; Till thy bleeding heart hath found Healing for its every wound, And the light of joy shall shine On that troubled soul of thine. Pilgrim! rest awhile, and then We will speed thee on again, Far beyond Niagara’s4 roar, Where the robber’s reign is o’er, And the Lion plucks away From the Eagle’s paw her prey5; There, ’neath England’s banner folds, Man the right of manhood holds, And the black man, long oppressed, Finds at last a home of rest.

J. R. L. [James Russell Lowell], “On Reading of the Capture of Certain Fugitive Slaves Near Washington” National Anti-Slavery Standard (July 31, 1844); Herald of Freedom (August 1, 1845); Anti-Slavery Bugle (August 22, 1845)6 Reading lately in the newspapers an account of the capture of some fugitive slaves, within a few miles of the capitol of our Republic, I confess my astonishment at finding no comment made upon what seemed to me an act of unparalleled inhumanity. Thirty unfortunate disciples of the Declaration of Independence pursued and captured by some two hundred armed minions of tyranny! It seems strange that a burst of indignation, from one end of our free country to the other, did not follow so atrocious a deed. At least it seemed a proper occasion for sympathy on the part of one of our daily papers, which, a year or two ago, endorsed Lord Morpeth’s7 sentiment, that “Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.” 4. Niagara Falls in New York on the border with Canada, which was a common destination for fugitive slaves. 5. The lion represents England, which ruled over Canada at this time, while the eagle represents America. 6. Introduction appears in the Anti-Slavery Bugle. 7. George Howard, Earl of Carlisle, British statesman who opposed slavery.

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Though such a mode of emancipation is totally abhorrent to my feelings, and though I would earnestly deprecate any attempt at insurrection on the part of our slave population, yet I confess to the weakness of being so far human in my feelings, as to sympathize deeply with these unhappy beings, who have been thwarted in their endeavor to convert themselves from chattels into men, by the peaceful method of simply changing their geographical position. Under these feelings, and believing you to be a man with sufficient confidence in the justness of your own opinions, not to fear to publish sentiments which may chance to go beyond, or even directly contravene, your own, I wrote the following.

Look on who will in apathy, and stifle they who can, The sympathies, the hopes, the words, that make man truly man; Let those whose hearts are dungeoned up with interest or with ease, Consent to hear with quiet pulse of loathsome deeds like these: I first drew in New England’s air, and from her hardy breast Sucked in the tyrant-hating milk that will not let me rest; And, if my words seem treason to the dullard and the tame, ’Tis but my Bay-State8 dialect—our fathers spake the same! Shame on the costly mockery of piling stone on stone To those who won our liberty, the heroes dead and gone, While we look coldly on, and see law-shielded ruffians slay The men who fain would win their own, the heroes of to-day! Are we pledged to craven silence? Oh, fling it to the wind, The parchment wall that bars us from the least of human kind— That makes us cringe, and temporize, and dumbly stand at rest, While Pity’s burning flood of words is red-hot in the breast! Though we break our fathers’ promise, we have nobler duties first; The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accurst; Man is more than Constitutions; better rot beneath the sod, Then [sic] be true to church and state while we are doubly false to God! We owe allegiance to the state; but deeper, truer, more, To the sympathies that God hath set within our spirit’s core. Our country claims our fealty; we grant it so, but then Before Man made us citizens, great nature made us men.

8. Massachusetts.

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He’s true to God who’s true to man; wherever wrong is done, To the humblest and the weakest, ’neath the all-beholding Sun, That wrong is also done to us, and they are slaves most base, Whose love of right is for themselves, and not for all their race. God works for all. Ye cannot hem the hope of being free With parallels of latitude, with mountain-range or sea. Put golden padlocks on Truth’s lips, be callous as ye will, From soul to soul, o’er all the world, leaps one electric thrill. Chain down your slaves with ignorance, ye cannot keep apart, With all your craft of tyranny, the human heart from heart. When first the Pilgrims landed on the Bay-State’s iron shore, The word went forth that Slavery should one day be no more. Out from the land of bondage ’tis decreed our slaves shall go, And signs to us are offered, as erst to Pharaoh. If we are blind, their exodus, like Israel’s of yore, Through a Red Sea is doomed to be, whose surges are of gore.9 ’Tis ours to save our brethren, with peace and love to win Their darkened hearts from error, ere they harden it to sin, But, if man before his duty with a listless spirit stands, Ere long the Great Avenger takes the work from out his hands.

John Pierpont, “The Fugitive Slave’s Apostrophe to the North Star” and “The Slaveholder’s Address to the North Star” Anti-Slavery Bugle (October 24, 1845)10

“The Fugitive Slave’s Apostrophe to the North Star” Star of the North! though night winds drift The fleecy drapery of the sky, Between thy lamp and me, I lift, Yea, lift with hope, my sleepless eye 9. The book of Exodus relates the ancient Israelites’ escape from slavery under Pharaoh in Egypt. 10. “The Fugitive Slave’s Apostrophe to the North Star” appears on its own in the Herald of Freedom (November 23, 1839, and March 4, 1842), the Emancipator (December 5, 1839), and the National Anti-Slavery Standard (December 11, 1858). “The Slaveholder’s Address to the North Star” appears on its own in the Emancipator (January 9, 1840) and the National Anti-Slavery Standard (December 18, 1858).

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To the blue heights wherein thou dwellest, And of a land of freedom tellest. Star of the North! while blazing day Pours round me its full tide of light, And hides thy pale but faithful ray, I, too, lie hid and long for night: For night; I dare not walk at noon, Nor dare I trust the faithless moon— Nor faithless man, whose burning lust For gold hath riveted my chain,— Nor other leader can I trust But thee of even the starry train; For all the host around thee burning, Like faithless man, keep turning, turning. I may not follow where they go— Star of the North, I look to thee While on I press; for well I know Thy light and truth shall set me free: Thy light, that no poor slave deceiveth; Thy truth, that all my soul believeth. They of the East beheld the star That over Bethlehem’s manger glowed; With joy they hailed it from afar, And followed where it marked the road, Till where its rays directly fell, They found the Hope of Israel.11 Wise were the men who followed thus The Star that sets man free from sin! Star of the North! thou art to us— Who’re slaves because we wear a skin Dark as is Night’s protecting wing— Thou art to us a holy thing. And we are wise to follow thee! I trust thy steady light alone,— Star of the North! thou seem’st to me—

11. The wise men followed the star of Bethlehem to visit the newborn Christ.

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To burn before the Almighty’s throne, To guide me through these forests dim And vast, to liberty and HIM . Thy beam is on the glossy breast Of the still spring upon whose brink I lay my weary limbs to rest, And bow my parching lips to drink. Guide of the friendless negro’s way, I bless thee for this quiet ray! In the dark top of southern pines I nestled, when the Driver’s horn Called to the field, in lengthening lines, My fellows, at the break of morn. And there I lay till thy sweet face Looked down upon my “hiding place.” The tangled cane-brake where I crept For shelter from the heat of noon, And where, while others toiled, I slept, Till wakened by the rising moon, As its stalks felt the night wind free, Gave me to catch a glimpse of thee. Star of the North! in bright array The constellation round thee sweep, Each holding on its nightly way, Rising or sinking in the deep, And as it hangs in mid heaven flaming, The homage of some nation claiming. This nation, to the Eagle* cowers; Fit ensign! she’s a bird of spoil;— Like worships like! for each devours The earnings of another’s toil. I’ve felt her talon and her beak, And now the gentler Lion seek.12 The Lion,* at the Virgin’s feet Crouches, and lays his mighty paw 12. The lion represents England as well as the constellation of Leo, primarily visible in the Northern Hemisphere, while the eagle represents America.

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Into her lap!—an emblem meet Of England’s Queen, and English law: Queen that hath made her Islands free! Law, that holds out its shield to me!13 Star of the North! upon that shield Thou shinest,—O, forever shine! The negro, from the cotton field Shall, then, beneath its orb recline, And feed the Lion, couched before it, Nor heed the Eagle, screaming o’er it! *The constellations Aquilla, Leo, and Virgo, are here meant by the Astronomical Fugitive.

“The Slaveholder’s Address to the North Star” Star of the North! Thou art not bigger Than is the diamond in my ring; Yet, every black, star-gazing nigger Looks at thee, as at some great thing! Yes, gazes at thee, till the lazy And thankless rascal is half crazy. Some Quaker14 scoundrel must have told e’m [sic], That, if they take their flight tow’rd thee, They’ll get where “massa” cannot hold e’m [sic], And therefore to the North they flee, Fools! to be led off, where they can’t earn Their living, by the lying lantern. Thou’rt a cold water star, I reckon, Altho’ I’ve never seen thee, yet, When to the bath thy sisters beckon, Get e’en thy golden sandals wet; Nor in the wave have known thee dip, In our hot nights, thy finger’s tip. If thou would’st, nightly, leave the pole To enjoy a regular ablution 13. The constellation Virgo represents Queen Victoria of England, where slavery had already been abolished in 1833. 14. Quakers were among the first opponents of slavery.

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In the North Sea, or Symmes’ hole,15 Our “Patriarchal Institution,” From which thou givest many a ransom, Would, doubtless, give thee something handsome. Altho’ thou’rt a cold water star, As I have said (I think) already, Thou’rt hailed by many a tipsy tar, Who loves thee, just because thou’rt steady, And hold’st the candle for the rover When he is more than “half seas over.” But while Ham’s seed our land to bless,16 “Increase and multiply” like rabbits, We like thee, Yankee star the less For thy bright eye and steady habits. Pray waltz with Venus, Star of Love, Or take a bout with reeling Jove!17 Thou art an abolition star, And to my wench will be of use, if her Dark eye should find thee, ere the ear Of our true old slave-catcher, Lucifer, Son of the morning, upward rolls And with its light puts out the pole’s.18 On our field-hands thou lookest, too— A sort of nightly overseer— Can’st find no other work to do? I tell thee thou’rt not wanted here; So, pray, shine only on the oceans, Thou number one of “Northern notions.” Yes, northern notions—northern lights! As George Fox hated holy-water, So hate I all that Rogers writes, 15. John Cleve Symmes Jr. proposed in 1818 that the earth was hollow and there were openings at the poles to access its habitable interior. 16. The curse of Ham was used to justify slavery by interpreting Noah’s curse upon his descendant Canaan to be dark skin, indicating the supposed sinfulness of black peoples. See Genesis 9:20–26. 17. The northern star of Venus and constellation of Jove. 18. “Lucifer” is Latin for “morning star.”

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Or Weld—that married Grimke’s daughter. So hate I all those northern curses, From Birney’s prose to Whittier’s verses.19 “Put out that light;” exclaimed the Moor, (I think they called his name Othello,) When opening his wife’s chamber door To cut her throat—the noble fellow! Noblest of all the nigger nation! File leader in Amalgamation!20 “Put out the light!”—and so say I, Could “I quench thee thou flaming minister!” No longer in the northern sky, Should burn thy beacon fire so sinister. North Star! thy light’s unwelcome—very— We’ll vote thee, “an incendiary!”21 And to the Northern States we’ll write, And tell them not to let thee shine, (Excepting of a cloudy night) Anywhere south of Dixon’s line;22 If beyond that thou shine an inch, We’ll have thee up before Judge Lynch:—23 And when thou Abolition Star, Who preachest Freedom in all weathers, Thou hast got on thy coat of tar, And, over that, a cloak of feathers,24 That thou art “fixed” none will deny, It there’s a fixed star in the sky. Pocotalico, South Carolina. 19. George Fox, a founder of the Quaker religion. Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, editor of the Herald of Freedom. Married abolitionist activists Theodore Dwight Weld and Angelina Grimké Weld. Kentucky politician and editor of the Philanthropist James Gillespie Birney. Poet and editor of the National Era John Greenleaf Whittier. 20. The protagonist of William Shakespeare’s Othello is a Moor married to a white woman. 21. Abolitionists were referred to as “incendiaries” by their opponents. 22. The Mason-Dixon line was understood to divide Northern from Southern states. 23. Satirical reference to a lynching. The term “Judge Lynch” is believed to have originated with Charles Lynch of Virginia, who handed down cruel sentences on Loyalist supporters during the Revolutionary War. 24. Tarring and feathering was a form of public humiliation.

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Sarah J. Clarke / Grace Greenwood, “‘The Long Bridge’— The Escape” / “The Leap from the Long Bridge: An Incident at Washington” National Anti-Slavery Standard (October 24, 1844); Liberator (December 13, 1850) A thrilling account of the tragical incident on which the following poem is founded, was written by Seth M. Gates, M. C. from New-York, who was an eye-witness, and published in the N. Y. Evangelist. A young female slave escaped, one evening, from the slave prison, which stands midway between the Capitol and the President’s House, and ran for the “Long Bridge,” which passes from the lower part of the city across the Potomac, to the extensive forests and wood-lands of the celebrated Arlington Plain.

Now, rest for the wretched! the long day is past, And night on yon prison descendeth at last. Now lock up the bolt! Ha! Jailor, look there! Who flies like a wild-bird escaped from the snare? A woman, a slave—up, out in pursuit, While linger some gleams of the day! Let thy call ring out!—now a rabble rout Is at thy heels—speed away! A bold race for freedom—on, fugitive, on! Heaven help but the Right, and thy freedom is won. How eager she drinks the free air of the plains; Every limb, every nerve, every fibre she strains; From Columbia’s glorious Capitol, Columbia’s daughter flees, To the sanctuary God has given— The sheltering forest-trees. Now she treads the Long Bridge—joy lighteth her eyes, Beyond her the dense wood and darkening sky,— Wild hopes thrill her heart as she neareth the shore; Oh, despair! there are men fast advancing before! Shame, shame on their manhood! they hear, they heed The cry, her flight to stay, And like demon forms, with their outstretched arms, They wait to seize their prey.

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She pauses, she turns; Ah, will she flee back? Like wolves her pursuers howl loud on her track; She lifteth to Heaven one look of despair— Her anguish breaks forth in one hurried prayer,— Hark! her Jailor’s yell! like a blood-hound’s bay, On the low night-wind it sweeps! Now death or the chain! to the stream she turns, And she leaps! Oh, God, she leaps! The dark and the cold, yet merciful wave, Receives to its bosom the form of the slave; She rises—earth’s scenes on her dim vision gleam, But she struggleth not with the strong rushing stream; And low are the death-cries her woman’s heart gives, As she floats adown the river, Faint, and more faint, grows her drowning voice, And her cries have ceased forever! Now back, Jailor, back to thy dungeon again, To swing the red lash and rivet the chain! The form thou would’st fetter—a valueless clod; The soul thou would’st barter—returned to its God; The universe holdeth no realm of night More drear than her slavery— More merciless fiends than here stayed her flight— Joy! the hunted slave is free! That bond-woman’s curse—let Potomac’s proud wave Go bear it along by our Washington’s grave, And heave it high up on that hallowed strand, To tell of the freedom he won for our land. A weak woman’s corse, by freemen chased down; Hurrah for our Country, hurrah! To freedom she leaped through drowning and death— Hurrah for our Country, hurrah! [The following stanza replaces the former in the Liberator] She lifts in His light her unmanacled hands; She flees through the darkness no more; To freedom she leaped through drowning and death, And her sorrow and bondage are o’er.

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T. [Thomas] Wickersham, “The Man Hunter” Anti-Slavery Bugle (December 12, 1845); National Anti-Slavery Standard (June 11, 1846)

Is there a being on earth more foul— More worthy of extreme contempt and scorn, Of moral sense and virtue more forlorn, Than men who will like hungry blood hounds, prowl Upon the trail of flying fugitives, When e’er a southerner the watchword gives? Worn down with travel, watchfulness, and fear, Avoiding day, and wandering by night, Shall he, the slave, when freedom’s land is near, Be intercepted in his trembling flight By Northern men who boast that they are free And speak great words for Right and Liberty? Shame that men guilty of this deed are found! SHAME that their feet pollute our Northern ground.

Ellen C. Dickerson, “Lines on the Passage of the Fugitive Bill”25 Anti-Slavery Bugle (November 23, 1850)

In vain—in vain ye seek to bind Free spirits to your will! That love which blesses human kind Will burn in Freemen still. Go forge the fetter for the slave Ye’ve crushed, and beat, and slain, Yet know that Freemen dare be free In spite of rack or pain. In vain ye seek to quench the fire, In vain to still the flood; We worship here a ‘Higher Law,’ It is the Law of God. And shall we bend the servile knee, And bow the willing head? No—we are Freemen—dare be free— We’re not by tyrants led.

25. The Fugitive Slave Act was passed on September 18, 1850.

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Go, stay the rushing cataract, And bind it with a cord; Go bid the swelling breeze be still— Will it obey your word? As heedless of your threats are we, As strong to do our will, For we are Freemen—will be free, And dare your fetters still. Then bind your iron chain anew On him ye love to wrong, And scourge, and kick, and torture too,— Ye cannot do it long. Brave hearts are swelling like the sea That bursts upon the main; For we are Freemen—must be free To break the tyrant’s chain. Your hunted slave shall yet find rest, And peace, and plenty here, And Freedom, to the human heart More than all treasures dear; Then search him ’neath a forest tree, Or in the cane-brake lone; But know that Freemen yet are free To give the slave a home.

Charles P. Shiras, Esq., “The Bloodhound’s Song” Anti-Slavery Bugle (December 14, 1850, and December 18, 1852)

Spring up! spring up, my brave bloodhounds! Spring up from the drowsy lair! Let every jaw be firmly set, Let every eye-ball glare! The leash is cut and the collar broke, The muzzle no longer binds; And the scent of the blood we love so well Comes down on the Northern winds! O, brothers, awake! for the time has come To brighten the bloodhound’s fame; 72 p Lyrical Liberators

They’ve opened a nobler field for us To follow our human game. We’ll hunt no more in the Dismal Swamp, Where the snake and the wild beast hide; But we’ll course on the highways of the North Where the fields are fair and wide. And never again will the prey escape, When we faint, and the scent grows cold; For every man in the conquered North To aid in the hunt is sold. The old, the young, the weak, the great, Are bound alike by the law, To follow the trail till the negro’s throat Is locked in the bloodhound’s jaw. In the thoroughfares of their proudest marts, We’ll hunt by night and day Sometimes be seen in Old State Street, Sometimes along Broadway; And oft in the City of Brotherly Love The worn out slave shall fall, For many a chase we’ll have around Old Independence Hall.26 In the dingy streets of the City of Smoke They’ll hear the bloodhound’s bay; From factory, foundry, mill and shop, We’ll drag our bleeding prey, And the stalwart smith shall his hammer drop, As the slave to him shall cling; For he will not dare to lift his arm When the bloodhound is his king! In the North they’ve many a battle ground, Where men for Liberty fell; But soon the bloodhound’s vengeful voice A different tale shall tell. We’ll hunt on the sacred fields where once Tyrants were forced to fly; 26. Old State Street in Boston; Broadway in New York City; and Independence Hall in Philadelphia, which is often referred to as the City of Brotherly Love.

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And the blood of slaves shall wet the graves Where the heroes’ ashes lie. And boldly shall we claim the right To hunt where’er we will, In Concord’s streets, in Lexington, Yea, upon Bunker Hill! They’ll hear the shriek of the flying slave And the crack of the driver’s scourge, Where the soldier’s bare feet pressed the snow On the road to Valley Forge.27 The freeman’s house was his castle called In the stubborn days of yore; But a knock that comes in the bloodhound’s name Shall open the strongest door; And wives and daughters shall shrink in fear, And children forget their mirth, Should the lord of the castle shelter a slave By the side of the sacred hearth. There is no spot that he will not search; There is nothing shall daunt or awe; The right and the wrong are alike with us, For we fear no higher law. We’ll follow the scent though it lead us across The graveyard’s rugged sod, Nor stop to leap o’er the Altar’s rail In the house of the living God! Then up! spring up! my brave bloodhounds! Spring up from the drowsy lair! Let every jaw be firmly set, Let every eye-ball glare! For the men of the North who once were free In the gyves of shame are bound; From the Golden Land28 to the State of Maine Their lord is the fierce bloodhound! 27. Concord, Lexington, Bunker Hill, and Valley Forge were locations of key battles in the Revolutionary War. 28. California.

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S. H. Lloyd, “The Slave—A Tableau” National Era (January 16, 1851) MORNING.

The new-born light comes floating o’er the hill, Kissing the orange leaves upon its way, And, kindly entering at my window sill, Illumes my cabin with its feeble ray. But not with joy I ope my slumbering eyes, As flowers their leaves to greet the coming morn, That, drinking in the sunshine from the skies, Feel all the pleasures of a life new born. I wake; but with the dawn, my restless heart Feels no sweet dew or sunshine lingering there, But griefs that cause each dawning hope to start, And thoughts of outrage, wrong, and wasting care. O God, when from thy gates the light appears, Should it awake such bleeding hopes and fears? NOON.

The noonday hour has come; beneath this tree I sit me down to eat my simple meal; The winds come floating by so wild and free, They whisper thoughts that through my bosom steal: The stream is free, that courses through our vales— The waves, whose music breaks upon the shore— The clouds, that spread their wings like crimson sails, And whisper thoughts that die in me no more! Why should I thus be doomed to wear a chain? To bare my back beneath the driver’s whip? To pour my sweat for him like drops of rain, And ne’er have power to ope my burning lip? Is this the boon for those who till the soil, To reap such harvests for their willing toil? EVENING.

The golden sun has sunk all silently, And dewy eve comes tripping to my side, As on I pass each fragrant bush and tree, Behind whose leaves our little cabins hide. Fugitive Slaves p 75

With weary limbs yet beating heart I go To meet my sweet and loved ones at my door, Which smiling hope has circled with her bow, And where my love has gathered all her store; And yet why o’er my soul this horror steals? Why from my pent-up heart this deathlike sigh? The thought that e’er this bursting heart conceals, Whene’er my home is pictured in my eye; The fears that hang a cloud before my sight, The clouds that shroud my soul in folds of night. NIGHT.

No sound now steals upon the breathless air, Save that of leaves that fan the sleeping flowers; Our own North Star29 ne’er seemed so bright and fair, As through the vines it seeks these hearts of ours. What hopes and fears now crowd my aching brain, As by our sleepless breasts our children lie! To make us free, does Night now pour her strain, For which the stars are beckoning in the sky? We snatched our babes, so young and fair, they seemed Like sweet-breathed blossoms clinging to our breast, While sweetly in its blue the North Star beamed, And forth we went to seek a Northern nest; O God! what cloud is rolling at our back? O! keep the bloodhounds from our tear-stained track!

T. Wentworth Higginson, “The Fugitive’s Hymn” Anti-Slavery Bugle (February 1, 1851)

The myriad stars are gleaming On heads that are bowed in prayer, And the Northern lights are streaming Through the mild and fragrant air, Like the pillar of fire that once shone clear Upon Israel’s weary way;30 29. Symbol of liberty that illuminated the path to freedom in the Northern states for fugitive slaves. 30. God guided the ancient Israelites in their flight from slavery in Egypt with a pillar of light at night. See Exodus 13:22.

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And so in a joy that knows no fear Father, thy children pray;— While we rest where no foe can find us, Our toils and grief seem o’er, With the land of slaves behind us, The land of the Free before! Far up through the shadowy pine-tree boughs The night winds roll and sigh, And prayer sinks to whispering as we think It may be thy voice on high! Hath Thy breath indeed come downward To the depths of the forest lone? Then well may our prayers go upward, To thine eternal throne; They shall rise through these solemn arches, And mingle before Thee, To shelter our weary marches Toward the country of the Free! By day and by night in our ceaseless flight We have toiled with footsteps slow, We have shrunk from each voice, we have feared each noise, As if all that lives were our foe; Yet no thought of crime was in our breast Since each but sought to save Himself and those whom he loved the best, From the life and death of a slave; So, firm and fearless, though hushed and low, Our night song swelled to thee, As we wandered on in our wretchedness Toward the country of the Free! We would breathe no curse, we would ask no ill For those whom we leave behind, But that thou wilt grant them a wiser will, A better and holier mind; Our thoughts and hopes are all before, The past is gone like a dream, When we tell to Freemen our story o’er How strange will its sorrow seem! We are safe when we reach their sunny hills, Fugitive Slaves p 77

When we stand on their waving plains; They will laugh to scorn the tyrannous voice That would call us back to chains:— We will toil with joy in that promised land, And sing our praise to thee, Who did’st lend us forth with a mighty hand To the country of the Free.

B. S. J., “American Union” Anti-Slavery Bugle (December 13, 1851); Liberator (March 19, 1852) TUNE—Heavenly Union.

Come ye who love the Union well, And hear the slave his sorrows tell, The bitter woe that him befell And made the earth a very hell, All through this glorious Union. Where Afric’s spicy breezes blow, Where Gambia’s waters gently flow, And golden sands in beauty glow, A chieftain dwelt long time ago, Before this glorious Union. One day a christian ship drew nigh, And from its mast head floating high, Was seen against the sunset sky, A flag with stripes of crimson dye And thirteen stars in Union. At dead of night this chieftain woke ’Mid stifling clouds of flame and smoke, And ere the dawn of morning broke, Himself and people wore the yoke Of this slavetrading Union. To Carolina’s distant shore, The christian thief his victims bore, And husbands from their partners tore, And doomed to slavery evermore, Beneath the flag of Union. 78 p Lyrical Liberators

My father was the chieftain brave Who vainly strove his tribe to save; He sleeps within a bondman’s grave, And left his child a fettered slave, Because so willed the Union. For years and years I prayed to see The blessed sun of liberty, And hoped that I would yet be free. In spite of all “the powers that be” Of this slaveholding Union. My daughters from my arms were torn And to the Orleans31 market born, A murdered wife I had to mourn, And I was left alone, forlorn, An offering to the Union. Then felt I as a chieftain’s son, That death or freedom should be won, Although the tyrant’s blood must run, And drench the soil he stood upon To glorify the Union. I smote the spoiler to the earth, And hurried from my bondage forth To seek within the colder north, A resting place where man was worth Far more than sinful Union. The blood-hounds follow on my track, And statesmen who in manhood lack, And pious souls dressed up in black Declare the North must send me back To save this glorious Union. And I, alas, too truly know That you have sworn it should be so, Forgetful of the negro’s woe, And curses that must ever flow From such unhallowed Union.

31. New Orleans.

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There’s not a slave within the land But has the wit to understand, It is the northern people’s hand That rivets fast oppressions’ band, And thus preserves the Union. Oh then take pity on our fate, And with the fiery bolts of hate The Union’s altars desolate,— Throw open wide glad Freedom’s gate, And sacrifice this Union. And then when every one is free, A different union there will be, A union God will love to see Of Justice, Freedom, Charity, In truth a glorious union.

S. S. A. D., “The Fugitive” Anti-Slavery Bugle (December 25, 1852)

December winds went moaning by, The storm-king’s banner hung on high, And in the west, all grand and vast, A sable shroud was gathering fast. The old oaks creaked, and waved on high Their broad arms to the angry sky; All nature groaned in deep distress, I cried “God shield the shelterless.” Darkness was gathering thick and fast, And keener blew the wintry blast, When weary with her march, and lame, A mother with her infant came. She sadly spoke: “Though dark my skin, Oh! Missus will you take me in?” My heart said yes—the law said no— My heart said come—the law said go— An instant wavering I stood, Between the evil and the good. But human rule fell like a straw, And I obeyed the “higher law.” 80 p Lyrical Liberators

We warmed, and fed, and clothed, that night The wretched mother in her flight; The babe was happy on her knee, Happy in light and warmth to be, And laughed the merriest of all At shadows dancing on the wall, We gathered round, and sought to know The history of her toil and woe. “Ye cannot know” she said “the pain, The throes that rend my soul in twain, Oh! darkly broke for me life’s morn, I would I never had been born. They sold my children one by one Till all but this, alas, was gone: Oh! how my heart yearned night and day, To see my little ones, away, I could not stay their bitter tears Nor soothe their long and weary years. I lived, as my poor children must, My very soul ground in the dust, Still toiling on, mid good and ill, Subservient to a master’s will. My babe was my sole earthly bliss, But the slave trader came for this: Oh God, it cannot, shall not be, I cried, in my fierce agony. And one dark night when tempests raved, I started, and its horrors braved. The hope of freedom for my child Upheld me in my wanderings wild.” That mother worn with grief and toil, Is safe at last on British soil.32 Now, spite of law, and force, and crime, Can clasp her babe, and say “it’s mine.” Then welcome bloodhounds of the law! Around my rights your fetters draw; Though in a dungeon’s gloom confined, Ye cannot take my peace of mind. But had I turned her from my door, It had been with me nevermore. 32. Canada, which was under British rule and had therefore already abolished slavery, was a frequent destination for fugitive slaves.

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Now rather tremble in your homes, And wait the hour when vengeance comes, The north will not much longer bow: Rebellion, is the watchword now; Men of this age will not sustain Laws worthy of a Nero’s reign;33 Oppression’s darkness soon will flee When northern men shall dare be free.

C. A. D., “The Fugitive Slave Law” Liberator (January 14, 1853)

Another stab in Freedom’s side! Another link in Slavery’s chain! Another wave to swell the tide Of human wretchedness and pain! Oh, are the woes too light that bind The fettered millions down to earth, That Law must rise once more to grind A fresh heel o’er their trodden birth? Out on this coward act that draws Its sword across a human claim!— This Nero34 among cruel laws!— This climax of a Nation’s shame! Thank God, the sacred right of speech Has yet no levied tax to pay! Thank God, that stands above their reach, A claim they dare not pluck away! Then send it swelling through the land,— The voice that clamors for Repeal; Shall such a law unchallenged stand, Crushing warm hearts beneath its heel? Oh, People cursed!—Oh, hunted Race!— God gave to you a darker skin;

33. Legendarily corrupt Roman emperor. 34. Legendarily corrupt Roman emperor.

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Your crime is but a dusky face, Ours is a spirit black with sin! Just Heaven! in thine avenging sight Our swarthy brother stands more fair, More glorious with intrinsic light, Than these, their whited tyrants, are. Oh, shall the outward always be The measure of a human claim, And man’s great spirit ne’er be free, Beating in Black and White the same? Heaven help us! for the night is long, And faith and patience well-nigh fail; Right struggles in the arms of Wrong,— God send that yet it may prevail!

Sarah, “Lines, Respectfully dedicated to the woman who sent the following to the Bugle” Anti-Slavery Bugle (March 26, 1853)

“I am a friend, and always was To the abolition cause, But I can never disobey Our glorious nation’s laws. Therefore please to discontinue immediately.” It may be that a woman’s hand Might trace such words as those, But ne’er from a true woman’s heart Such craven thoughts arose. When men command us to outrage The laws of God, on Nature’s page, Whate’er the rules or chains they draw, The true heart heeds the higher law. Ah woman! Hath no child of thine E’er laid its little head to rest, In peace and innocence divine, In placid sleep upon thy breast? Fugitive Slaves p 83

And could’st thou seize the flying slave, And send him to his living grave? Turn the slave mother from thy gate, And give her to her wretched fate? And would’st thou try the poet’s art, And clothe thy thoughts in magic rhyme? Dost know that from the inmost heart True poetry wells up divine, The light that makes this earth a heaven? And had to thee been ever given “One spark of that pure burning flame,” Thou would’st not put thy soul to shame. I am a woman too, and shrink At thought of danger—to my fears a slave; And should war come with its tumultuous din, I’d take my babe, and hie me to the caves, But strong in love, and never from our hearth Hallowed by scenes of dear domestic mirth, Shall a recaptured fugitive go hence, While I’ve an arm to raise in his defence. I love my country; and I would not see Her children turn to blood-hounds, and outvie Europe’s despots in their tyranny, Where Freedom fled, and struggled but to die; But I would have them rise like olden braves, And trample on the laws that make them slaves, And battle till the night of wrong is past, Nor crouch, too weak, to bear Truth’s Bugle blast!

84 p Lyrical Liberators

G. M. K., “The Fugitive Slave” North Star and Frederick Douglass’ Paper (May 6, 1853) The event here commemorated occurred under the writer’s own observation in Louisiana, on the lake mentioned. It is not a singular case; many similar instances have been recorded in the history of man.

A stalwart man of iron frame Stood on a steamer’s deck— A man whom scourges could not tame, No yoke could bend his neck. His limbs were made of ebony, Were knotted hard and brown; The knotted teeth of slavery Had brought this giant down. Embossing muscles, huge and strong, Did swell in his despair, As waves at sea heave deep and long When storms brew in the air; And many deep-graved scars he bore, Glazed o’er by healing time, With fresh wounds dripping clotted gore Mixed with the bull-dog’s slime. And thick with burrs, and weeds and mire, Hung down his matted hair, His blood shot eyes in lurid fire With red-hot fury glare. In cypress swamp, so damp and drear, He fiercely made his lair, Companion boon for many a year Of wild cat and the bear. Now bound by heavy clanking chains And manacled his hands, He heeded not his scalding pains Nor cank’ring iron bands. His soul unconquered still was free, While loud upon his ear Came noisy shouts of drunken glee, His victor’s jest and jeer. Fugitive Slaves p 85

The panther leaping from the tree— The brooding pelican— With these he longed again to be, But not with tyrant man. The taste of Freedom well he knew, The swamp’s vale stagnant breath Was sweet as mountain air and dew, And now he wished for death. His hands upon his fetters close Up from their bolts did tear; He shouted, “I am free!” and rose High leaping in the air. Then sank a hero, though a slave, Now o’er him blackening sweeps Lake Bisteneau’s35 [sic] hot inky wave, He there untroubled sleeps. His whit’ning bones the gar fish eye, While glittering to and fro, In rusty chains there still they lie And fearlessly they glow. A day of reckoning sure shall come, That slave shall rise again, And in the ears of Christendom Shall clank his iron chain.

C. L. M., “The Chase—A Dream” Anti-Slavery Bugle (July 9, 1853); National Anti-Slavery Standard (July 16, 1853)

As lone I sat one wintry night, and listened to the rain That, with a dull, continuous sound, pattered upon the pane, Gazing upon the cheerful fire that glowed with ruddy beam, I fell into a musing mood, and then into a dream. Methought it was a Sabbath morn, and in a Temple fair I stood and watched the gathering throng, who met for praise and prayer;

35. Lake Bistineau in the state of Louisiana.

86 p Lyrical Liberators

Up the broad aisles they gaily swept, in silks and satins drest, In broadcloths fine, with jewels rare (for each one wore his best). But as I gazed, there came a man, with slow and weary pace, Bearing upon his brow the stain of Afric’s injured race; As seeking for the “Negro pew,” he meekly onward passed, I sighed to see each glance in scorn upon him coldly cast. Just then a carriage, gaily grand, drew up before the door, With trappings brilliant as the sun and sable coursers four, And from it stepped a gentleman with such a courtly air, And such a blaze of jewlery [sic], it made the people stare. O, then there was a generous strife who should most cordial be, The ladies’ kind admiring looks you would have smiled to see; As up the aisle the stranger passed, the doors of every pew Wide open at his near approach, as if by magic, flew. The preacher was a worthy man, his whiskers were in trim, The ring upon his snowy hand was neither poor nor dim; He wore the finest broadcloth coat, with linen fine and fair; How brilliantly his gold watch shone, how glossy was his hair. And then how fervently he prayed for those who never heard Salvation’s free and joyful news, and then he thanked the Lord For living in this Christian land of Gospel light; and when The reverend preacher ended, all the people cried, Amen. Then opened he the sacred book, and read of him who died, The meek, the just, the holy One, for sinners crucified; Who wandered homeless and forlorn on Galilee’s far shore, The comforter of those who mourn, the brother of the poor. ’Twas thus he read in solemn tones, when suddenly a shout Mingled with the bayings of a hound and curses from without; And rushing in, with eager haste and eyes that glowed like flame, Three fierce, rude men, and close behind, the blood-hound allies came. Out spoke their leader, “Worthy priest, we must your pardon crave For coming in such earnest haste to seek a missing slave; We know it is a Sabbath day, but ’tis a righteous cause, And every good and pious man will help sustain the laws.” Fugitive Slaves p 87

“The Constitution,” quoth the priest, “dear friend, must be defended, Else, as great Daniel36 hath foretold, the Union will be ended; You’ve been to church until you all your duty surely know, Beloved flock, obey the laws, back let the chattel go.” But while he spoke, the fugitive from out the window sprang, And on the pavement quick below his bounding footsteps rang; Swift as the stag before the hounds, away, away he ran, While in pursuit of that poor wretch upstarted every man. ’Twas then upon mine ear a sound of fiendish laughter fell; And turning where the stranger sat, behold the King of Hell! With cloven foot (no more concealed), and fearful talons too, Clad in a sable suit of mail, with shield of fiery hue. “You’re right,” he cried in jeering tones, “you have my approbation, Most pious priest, and people of this free and Christian nation; Your honoured leader I will be; but ere you join the chase, I’ll give you forms that shall befit so glorious a race.” Then, with a grin, he seized his wand, and slowly waved it, when Lo! four-legged hounds that bay’d for blood in place of well-dressed men! Then out they sprang, and over hill and dale they swiftly sped Upon the flying bondman’s track, Apollyon37 at their head. But as, with shouts that chilled my blood, they neared their panting prize, Methought I saw an angel band descending from the skies; To seize the hunted wanderer I saw them lowly bend, Then bear him swiftly from the reach of blood-hounds and foul fiend. But not to those imbruted eyes was that blest vision given; They might not see that ransomed soul ascending into Heaven; With never-ceasing yells, right onward still they flew, Condemned by fate forevermore a phantom to pursue. But as I gazed, in wonder lost, I heard the clock’s loud stroke, Tolling the “magic mid-night hour,” and suddenly I woke; The dying flames upon the hearth a fitful radiance shed, And, pondering on this vision strange, I sought my silent bed. 36. Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster supported the Compromise of 1850 in the belief that it would help impede civil war and thus preserve the Union. 37. Spiritual destroyer in Christian apocalyptic theology. See Revelation 9:11.

88 p Lyrical Liberators

Anonymous, “The Fugitive’s Soliloquy and Prayer after His Rendition to Slavery” / “The Returned Fugitive’s Soliloquy” Frederick Douglass’ Paper (August 18, 1854); Anti-Slavery Bugle (November 4, 1854)38

Farewell, freedom, farewell, pleasure! I must back to slavery go; Toil to swell a master’s treasure, Through a life of pain and woe. Palsied be the power which gave Back the man to be the slave! Farewell, hope’s inspiring feeling! Hope exists not for me now; Only sad endurance, sealing Dullness on my soul and brow. Farewell, manhood’s high employ, Manhood’s aims, and manhood’s joy! Farewell, life! this is no living, Crushed by slavery’s cursed chain; Welcome, death! thy summons giving Life and liberty again. Those who reach the ice-bound shore, Shall be rendered back no more. Farewell, free, immortal spirit! Bought with priceless, dying love; “Things” like me should not inherit Treasures in the realms above. Soul, farewell! oh! never crave Union with this chattle [sic] slave. Farewell, kindness! tender, loving; Reign, O hatred, in my breast! Every powerful motive moving To do vengeance’s dire behest. Let me scorn now and betray These, my masters, as I may.

38. Introduction appears in the Anti-Slavery Bugle.

Fugitive Slaves p 89

Yet, methinks, a voice is saying, “Sufferer! leave thy cause with me; Cease thy wild, thy vain essaying, To avenge thy misery. Vengeance unto me belongs, I will recompense thy wrongs.” With thine eye, which never slumbers, Lord! behold and mark the whole; Wrongs, no computation numbers, To the body, to the soul. Oh! avenge these cruel wrongs; Vengeance unto God belongs. Griefs are pressing me like mountains; Stay these floods, my weeping eyes! Back, ye tear-drops! to your fountains; Bursting heart! surpress thy sighs, Impotent these sighs to show Half my scathing, withering woe.

Anonymous, “Seth Concklin” Anti-Slavery Bugle (June 26, 1858) In attempting to free a family of negroes, was taken and while on the Ohio, heavily ironed, threw himself out of the window into the river. When one Emerson, of Vincennes, Ind., was inquired of by Conckling’s [sic] friends, he replied: “He’s gone to——with his manacles on, so you’ll know him when he comes up in the resurrection.”

The sun was sinking to his rest Beyond the western hills; And gently swayed the leafy crests Like billows in their swell. The royal keel already dipped Hard by the drifting strand, And, rocking on the crimson surf Which laves that dreamy land, A moment anchors by the shore, As if to spread the sails no more, And signals on across the blue 90 p Lyrical Liberators

The star-fleet, drifting into view. The signals thicken, till like flames Of Camp fires kindling on the plain, Where angels watch with banners furl’d, And sentinel a slumbering world. Calm as the night, Ohio’s flood Swept noiselessly by field and wood; And scarce a tiny ripple lifts To win the fickle night wind’s kiss; And save the plaintive whipporwill [sic], The scene is peaceful, hush, and still. Yet sorrows choose such hours as this To pall and blight our purest bliss. That morn, a little band of souls Had reached, to them, a blessed goal, And first in life their glad feet trod On Freedom’s consecrated sod; Their dark frames wildly thrilling— Their weary hearts with new hopes filling— As ’tween them and the land of slaves, Ohio spreads its trackless waves; The baffled bloodhounds giving o’er, And baying on the other shore. More fatal than the blood-hounds’ gift, And surer far, though not as swift, The unleash’d human hounds have sped, And closely tracked them as they fled. There’s money in those sable forms, And onward through the night and storm, The beating hoofs knell out the doom Of hopes just bursting into bloom. God’s angels wept! their anthems hushed For souls again in bondage crushed. All silently the hot tears rained Upon the strongly fastened chains. Alas! that darkness such as this Should fall into the morning’s bliss. An hour of freedom! the band of slaves Again are on the Ohio’s waves. Fugitive Slaves p 91

To them no kindly word is spoken— They sit despairing, crushed and broken— Sleepless, while agonies most keen Are pulsing through each swollen vein. And he, the noblest type of men, Who braved the master in his den, And even by the blood-hound’s lair Cheered the bondsman’s deep despair— Whose footfall told them when to flee, Who staked his life to make them free; And ’midst an angered, watchful band, Grasped firm the captive’s trembling hand, And boldly led him through the night By the north star’s39 dusky light. There’s glory on the battle-field, Where fame is won by smoking steel, The squadro’n [sic] shock, the sleety boom Make rank the laurel’s crimson bloom, And dazzled by the meteor glare, The world applauds the heroes there. But laurels greener oft have been Gathered, where brave acts unseen Have pulsed up from heroic hearts, And ’gainst the wrong hath taken part, And silently the battle fought, While by the noisy world forgot. Caring not for odds, they calmly try And cast their lives upon the die, Go down, perhaps, beneath a cloud Of odium, like a funeral shroud, Palling their fame, till after days Shall roll the heavy gloom away And find all bright, the darkning stain Forever wiped—a HERO’S name. Far braver feet than ever stood Upon the slippery field of blood, Have threaded oft the cane-break’s gloom, 39. Symbol of liberty that illuminated the path to freedom in the Northern states for fugitive slaves.

92 p Lyrical Liberators

Or leaped the treacherous lagoon, Or left in footprints on the plain The beacon-marks of deathless fame. Far braver hearts than ever beat Against the battle’s hurtling sleet, Have calmly pulsed while bitter wrongs Have seamed their flesh with dripping thongs, And yet, when through the silent night, The blood-hound’s bay broke on the flight, And bolder eyes have watched his spring, And braved the eye-balls’ fiery glare, And felt the bared fang’s burning sting With silent and resigned despair, And gentle hands that hour have clasped Their babes in agony. The pressure o’er, And then the welcome steel have grasped— The babes are slaves no more!* Their deed of freedom written o’er With their own darkly-jetting gore, They rest now on the smoking sod, Unfettered, free, their souls with God; The babes, with kisses on their tawny brows Instead of fetters on their limbs, And doomed to wasting toil and sin. –––– The mirthful revel now begun, Far in the night-time still goes on— The fearful curse, the hollow laugh, Burst clear above the maddening glass. The lost are found! and bound in chains, Are drifting back to thrall again. The hunters won. That human flesh Is worth so much per pound in cash. And what of him, that fearless one Who failed, the noble task begun? And failing, neither fled nor wept But sullen, dogged their hastening steps, Hoping in the last dark hour To wrench them from the hunters’ power. ’Twas joy to grapple one like him; And tightly now on every limb Fugitive Slaves p 93

The manacles are welded fast, And he into the darkness cast. There’s gloom upon that fearless soul While, showering sobbingly and cold, The waters from the groaning wheel Are falling where they bound him; As chill within the shadows steal And dark as those around him, Still heavy where are high hopes wasted, For him the bitter ashes tasted; While slowly through the future gloom, The gallows and the hangman loom. For death Seth Concklin never cared— A thousand such he’d often dared Upon the field, and where the hounds Had trailed him o’er the treach’rous ground. But thus to die! It should not be— The very thought was agony. He lifted up his palid [sic] face— His lips were moved in prayer, He prayed for pardon and for grace And strength the deed to dare. He’d bear his heavy chains to God, And trust him rather than a mob. One thought of home and her who bore him; And one for those he failed to win From bondage and its fearful sin; Then tenderly his bosom swelled And scalding tear-drops thickly fell Upon the heavy bands, like rain, For those he may not see again. The irons clank—one fearful leap, And Concklin through the window breaks, And plunging downward with a shiver, Sinks beneath the silent river. The bubbles but a moment tell Where lone, and chained, a Hero fell, Then burst and sink into the wave Which wraps him in a nameless grave;— His shroud, the manacles that bound him; His tomb, the waters gathering round him; 94 p Lyrical Liberators

The stars his mourners, and the flood Which sobbed to chill his noble blood. The cold, and stiff, and ghastly head Was dragged up from the river’s bed. The rusty iron’s dismal clank, As they laid him out upon the bank, The cause for coarse and brutal jeering From ruffians who no longer feared him. And in his chains and dripping hair, Without a coffin, shroud, or prayer, They burried [sic] him. And not a stone Now marks the spot—a Heroe’s [sic] tomb! “When spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck the hallowed mold, She there shall weave a sweeter sod Than fancy’s feet have ever trod.”41 In spite of years and wasting rust, The chains still bind that hallowed dust; But Concklin’s soul, unfettered, moves With Him of Justice, Truth, and Love. The grave has but the empty bands, For Fame and Heaven claim the Man. And when they asked where Concklin fell: The ruffian cursed: “Quick, sir, begone! He’s dead and buried—gone to hell— Buried with his irons on, So that you cannot fail to greet him, When at the Judgment bar you meet him!” That ruffian horde shall pass away And mingle with ignoble clay; While Concklin’s lives, a deathless name Upon the scripture-roll of Fame— The man who, single-handed, dared The slave power in its den to beard. * The slave mother who was taken in Ohio, as the prospect of liberty became hopeless, killed her children that they might not again return to slavery.40 40. Margaret Garner killed her own daughter when she was arrested as a fugitive in January 1856. 41. From William Collins’s “Written at the Beginning of the Year 1746.”

Fugitive Slaves p 95

J. S. Martin, “The Fugitive and His Pursuers” Anti-Slavery Bugle (July 3, 1858)

List to the Winding of the horn, Its accents wake the sleepy morn, Who shakes his dewy brow! Three hunters, and a dozen hounds Seem merry, as with graceful bounds The horses neigh and bow. What! will they seek the timid fawn, Thus early at the break of dawn? Or will they seek the boar, Or stag, whose head with bony brush, The hounds and hunters both may crush, And stain the field with gore? No! ’tis a slave they go to hunt; The deer’s track, or the wild boar’s grunt, No music them afford; The yelping hounds, the snorting horse, Proclaim in accents, loud and coarse, Creation hunts its lord. And hark! they now are on his track, The whooping hunters with their pack Affright the silent woods. And now the slave, with nimble foot Seeks out the dog-deluding root,* And casts away his goods. His bundle throws away, and then His coat and hat, that they may lend Speed to his fleeing limbs, And now his sythe-blade [sic] firm he grasps, His belt he tighter round him clasps, And through the air he swims. But still the hunters nigher come, And make the herds forsake their home To greet the busy road. 96 p Lyrical Liberators

The horses swift as wind do fly, And still the hunters madly cry, “Hunt, hunt him, catch him, Brood!” He prays to God to lend him breath, To save him from a horrid death, To reach a deep defile. His prayer forgotten, now he begs Still nearer helpers—feet and legs— Five minutes count a mile. His prayer is answered—there he stands, His scythe-blade gleaming in his hands, And murder in his eye. He waits their coming; “Brood” comes first, And human scent but whets his thirst, Poor dog! He’s doomed to die: For now the first descending stroke Cuts off his head, and ere he spoke, Another dog’s head fell. ’Twas by a creek, and as they died, He rudely flung them in the tide, That none the tale might tell. The hunters lighting, one by one, Sought out their dogs, whose cry was done, And now dismounts the third; The rushing stream, their whistling tone, The lengthened winding of the horn, Was all that could be heard. See now that narrow pass they tread; And soon are numbered with the dead, By this determined slave; The first two by the scythe blade fall, The last by fright and rifle ball, Is hurried to his grave. Thus were these souls to Hades driven, Who dared defy the laws of Heaven. Thus may it ever be: Fugitive Slaves p 97

The man that sheds his brother’s blood, Or by the lash, or by his “Brood,” Should pay the penalty. * Sassafras root.

H. G. Adams, “Pass Him On. A Lay of the Underground Railroad” Anti-Slavery Bugle (March 12, 1859); Liberator (March 25, 1859)42

Pass him on! Pass him on! Another soul from slavery won; Another man erect to stand, Fearless of the scourge and brand; Another face now lifted up— Lips that drink not sorrow’s cup, Eyes no longer dimmed with tears, Breast no longer filled with fears; Limbs that have no galling chain Their free motions to restrain; Back no longer bowed and scored, But with birthright now restored; He that late the burden bore Felt the lash and pangs untold, To be chatelized no more, Bartered, given, bought or sold— Pass him on! Pass him on! Pass him on! Every man who hath a son, Every woman who hath borne Child, and hath a heart to mourn O’er the woes by others felt; Every maiden who hath knelt Down in prayer for brother dear, Or a loved one yet more near; Every youth who hath a friend, With his thoughts and hopes to blend, And desireth aye to be Both in speech and action free;

42. Editorial note appears in the Liberator.

98 p Lyrical Liberators

Every one who hates the wrong, And would vindicate the right, Help the weak against the strong, Aid this brother in his flight— Pass him on! Pass him on! Pass him on! Ye whose sires the sword have drawn, And with blood your freedom bought; Ye by whom the truth is taught, That the God who dwells on high, Sees one human family, In the races of mankind, And would all together bind In one unity of love, Blissful as the life above; Ye who speak and wield the pen, Eloquent for rights of men, And would proudly spurn the thought That if you had skins less fair, You might then be sold and bought, And the galling fetters wear— Pass him on! Pass him on! Pass him on! Though his foes be legion, Though the bloodhounds on his track Yelling strive to bring him back, Though man hunters from the South Threat you with the pistol’s mouth, And the federative law Would your spirits overawe: Heed them not! Imprisonment! Take it, and be well content: Heed them not; endure the fine, Grow, through sacrifice, divine; Do as you’d be done unto, Careless of the consequence, Keep the higher law in view Heed not ruffian violence— Pass him on!

Fugitive Slaves p 99

Pass him on! Pass him on! Let him lie your couch upon; Give him raiment, give him food, Give him kindly words and good; Watch and guard his hours of rest, Hide him from the searcher’s quest, Through the city wrapped in sleep, O’er the river broad and deep; By the farmstead, through the vale Lighted by the moonbeams pale; O’er the prairie wild and wide, Where the red men still abide Hunters these, but not of slaves Far more merciful than they; Storms and tempests, winds and waves, Nought the fugitives must stay— Pass him on! Pass him on! Pass him on! Crime hath he committed none; Would you have him grovelling lie In the bonds of slavery? Nobler far to rend in twain And throw off the yoke and chain; Nobler far through darkness grim, Dangers thick besetting him, Freedom thus to seek in flight, ’Scaping from the gloom of night Unto freedom’s glorious morn; From the darkness to the dawn Leapeth he o’er chasms wide Help him all who help him can, God the north star43 for his guide Giveth; every fellow man— Pass him on! [Massachusetts is about to say, in the form of law, ‘LET THE FUGITIVE REMAIN ,’ instead of ‘PASS HIM ON !’ She means to make her soil at least as free as that of Canada.]—Ed. Lib.

43. Symbol of liberty that illuminated the path to freedom in the Northern states for fugitive slaves.

100 p Lyrical Liberators

Frances Ellen Watkins, “The Dying Fugitive” National Anti-Slavery Standard (February 18, 1860)

Slowly o’er his darkened features Stole the warning shades of death, And we knew the shadowy angel Waited for his parting breath. He had started for his freedom, And his heart beat firm and high, But before he won the guerdon, Came the word that he must die. He must die, when just before him Lay the longed-for precious prize, And the hopes that lit him onward Faded out before his eyes. For awhile a fearful madness Rested on his weary brain, And he thought the hateful tyrant Had rebound his galling chain. Then he cried in bitter anguish, “Take me where that good man dwells”; For a name to freedom precious Lingered ’mid life’s shattered cells. But, as sunshine gently breaking On a storm-cloud’s gloomy track, Through the tempests of his bosom Came the light of reason back; And without a sigh or murmur For the home he’d left behind, Calmly yielded he his spirit To the Father of mankind; Thankful that so near to freedom, He with eager steps had trod, E’er his ransomed spirit rested On the bosom of his God. Fugitive Slaves p 101

Lewis Lee, “Reply. Lewis Lee, To N. B. Watkins.” Anti-Slavery Bugle (February 18, 1860); Liberator (February 24, 1860)44

$1000 REWARD

Ran away from the subscriber at Fairfax County House, Virginia, Tuesday, December 27th, 1859, a Mulatto man calling himself Lewis Lee, 28 or 30 years of age, about five feet high, spare, but well built, active, quick in motion and speech, and very polite in his manners. Very light mulatto, straight, sandy hair, and light grey eyes. I will give the above reward for his apprehension and return, or if lodged in Jail so that I can get him again. N. B. WATKINS .



January 8, 1860.

Ye have stolen all else from the African man, But the color God gave him to wear, The South now is stealing that fast as it can, Infusing light color and hair. If your grandsire stole mine on the African coast, And stole him to make him his slave, The right that gives you, sir, to me, is at most, But the right of the robber and knave. Or, if my father was your grandfather’s son, And your father enslaved his half brother, Am I made your slave by the violence done To the chastity of my grandmother? Can one-fourth of my blood a slave make of me? One your Courts bind you not to respect, Still, three fourths of my blood declares I am free, And your claims to my service reject. For as oft as one pound of my flesh you can claim, My right to three pounds is far better, Just as good as your right to your body or name, A God giv’n right to the letter.

44. Text of reward appears in the Anti-Slavery Bugle.

102 p Lyrical Liberators

Now Shylock, if you your one pound can get Without a drop of my blood, nor give pain,45 Your slave code would allow you to take it, and yet, My own right to myself I maintain. You advertised me, let me advertise you, That “JEHOVAH no attribute hath,” “Can side with oppressors,” His justice is due, And man-stealers inherit his wrath. Underground R. R., Jan. 22, 1860.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, “To the Cleveland Union-Savers” Anti-Slavery Bugle (February 23, 1861); National Anti-Slavery Standard (March 23, 1861) an appeal from one of the fugitive’s own race.

Men of Cleveland, had a vulture Clutched a timid dove for prey; Would ye not with human pity, Drive the gory bird away? Had you seen a feeble lambkin, Shrinking from a wolf so bold, Would ye not to shield the trembler, In your arms, have made its fold? But when she, a hunted sister, Stretched her hands that ye might save, Colder far than Zembla’s regions,46 Was the answer that ye gave. On your Union’s bloody altar, Was your helpless victim laid; Mercy, truth, and justice shuddered, But your hands would give no aid. 45. In William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Shylock is a moneylender who demands a pound of flesh from borrower Antonio as the terms for defaulting on his loan. 46. Arctic area on the border between Europe and Asia.

Fugitive Slaves p 103

And ye sent her back to torture, Stripped of freedom, robbed of right, Thrust the wretched, captive stranger, Back to Slavery’s gloomy night. Sent her back where men may trample On her honors and her fame, And upon her lips so dusky, Press the cup of woe and shame. There is blood upon your city, Dark and dismal is the stain; And your hands would fail to cleanse it, Though you should Lake Erie47 drain. There’s a curse upon your Union, Fearful sounds are in the air; As if thunderbolts were forging, Answers to the bondman’s prayer. Ye may bind your trembling victims, Like the heathen priests of old; And may barter manly honor For the Union and for gold, But ye cannot stay the whirlwind, When the storm begins to break; And our God doth rise in judgment, For the poor and needy’s sake. And your guilty, sin-cursed Union, Shall be shaken to its base, Till ye learn that simple Justice Is the right of every race.



47. One of the five Great Lakes in North America.

104 p Lyrical Liberators

Anonymous, “The Rescue of Jerry” National Anti-Slavery Standard (December 6, 1862)

[“Jerry,” arrested under the Fugitive Slave law, October 1st, 1852,48— on which day the County Agricultural Fair, and also an Anti-Slavery Convention were held at Syracuse, was on the same day rescued, and set at liberty by the people. It was an event not merely of local but of national importance, and will forever redound to the honor of our city and County. The following, from one who sometimes courts the favor of the Muses, is in commemoration of it.] Beneath a bright October sun, Had come, from far and wide, The free and hardy sons of toil, Old Onondaga’s49 pride. The ploughman from the field was there, The thresher from his floor; Ceased for a time the hammer’s stroke, Closed was the smithy door. From farm and factory, forge and field, From valley and from hill, Where speeds the plow, or plies the loom, Or clacks the busy mill; From where upon her many hills She gives her rocky store, Or where from sunken shaft beneath Her briny treasures pour; From busy mart, where thriving trade Its generous profits yield, And from her rural hearths and homes, Whence labor drives afield, Come up to-day, in peaceful show, Strong for the True and Right, The People in their majesty, The People in their might. Free labor holds her festival, Where he is honored most Who honors her in heart and hand, Of all this mighty host.

48. “Jerry” was arrested on October 1, 1851; the editors mistakenly identify the year as 1852. 49. The city of Syracuse is part of Onondaga County in the state of New York.

Fugitive Slaves p 105

Free labor holds her festival, Her gala day has come, And thanks from grateful hearts go up, With songs of harvest home. Abundance crowns a year of toil, And Plenty, from her horn, Has scattered wide her generous fruits, Her wine, and oil, and corn. But hark! what sound is that which breaks Discordant on the ear? Why peals the tocsin bell to-day, This day of all the year? Can here, within this Northern land, This land which freedom gave, Be found a dastard wretch so mean, That he would hunt a slave? Take on his soul the damning curse, Unleash the yelping pack Of blood-hounds snuffing human prey To follow on the track? Too true, alas! for see, in chains A trembling captive stands, The fetters on his swollen limbs, The cords upon his hands! Upon his face, in deepened lines, Is written wan despair, While heartfelt groans his heaving breast Sends out upon the air. The fear of Federal power prevails, The shameful bribe has won, The threat of Webster is fulfilled,50 The cruel deed is done! No! not yet done, not yet fulfilled, Not yet the exultant yell Peals through the vaulted arch of Heaven, “The banner cry of Hell.” No hunting-ground for slaves is this, And murmurs deep and loud Denote the coming storm, which swells, As swells the gathering crowd,

50. Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster was a key supporter of the Fugitive Slave Act.

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And as defiance marks each tone, Stout hearts and hands unite To help a brother in his need, ’Gainst Wrong to shield the Right. The blood red hand of Power has lost The terror it inspired, The People—Liberty have crowned! With freedom they are fired! Till like the angry sea, whose waves Break madly on the shore, They dash against his prison walls, Break down his prison door, Strike off the fetters from his limbs, The cords which bind his hands, A MAN again—no more a slave— The rescued Jerry stands. Injustice for a while may flaunt, Wrong seem to hold its sway, But Right shall follow in their path, As follows night the day. God speed the Right! O haste the day When everywhere shall run The precepts of thy Truth and Love The Gospel of thy Son; When every man in every man A brother he shall see, And all shall in the Royal Law Dwell as one family. Then the bright Sun, upon a world Which Jesus died to save, “Shall rise upon no bondman, And shall set upon no slave.”

Fugitive Slaves p 107

4 The Assa ult o n S enator Char l e s S u m n e r

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he divisive Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska under a policy of popular sovereignty that allowed settlers to independently decide whether to permit slavery in these regions, was viewed by many as a concession to Southern interests and thus as an encroachment on Northern freedom. Its passage provoked a series of violent confrontations between pro- and antislavery settlers in the territories—the former, insisting on their right to bring slaves onto their land; the latter, maintaining that this arrangement would give slaveholding settlers an unfair advantage over non-slaveholders. By the end of 1856, two hundred people had been killed and two million dollars in property had been damaged in the course of a conflict that came to be known as “Bleeding Kansas.”1 In May of that year, Charles Sumner, the Republican senator from Massachusetts, delivered a speech in which he denounced the act and its supporters, among them its coauthor Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina. In retaliation, Democratic representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina, an advocate of slavery and a close relative of Butler’s who perceived the speech as an attack on his honor, brutally beat Sumner with his walking cane in the Senate Chamber on May 22 (see plate 5). The episode received extensive media coverage across the country, consisting mostly of condemnation from Northerners and approval from Southerners, who famously congratulated Brooks by mailing him goldheaded canes to replace the one used in the attack. The 108

Northern press portrayed the assault as a sort of turning point in relations between the North and the South that should serve as motivation to retaliate. The New-York Tribune, for instance, contended that a failure to do so would mean that Northerners had “lost the noblest attributes of freemen, and are virtually slaves,” while the Boston Daily Atlas called it an injury “which must lend fire to language.”2 The confrontation did indeed give rise to a series of fiery poems that portray the respective participants as symbolic representatives of freedom versus slavery, speech versus censorship, and heroism versus cowardice. The speaker of the satirical poem ostensibly written by the chairman of a Southern congratulatory committee shortly after the attack presents Brooks with a commemorative cup and cane to honor his cowardly triumph over Sumner, who was alone with no one to defend him. Several years later, in contrast, black poet Frances Ellen Watkins Harper earnestly commends Sumner for having spoken out with words that “fell as battle axes” to help break the chains of slavery, words she hopes will motivate others to act toward the same end. Her poem was published in the Liberator among various articles commemorating the first speech Sumner delivered upon returning to Congress three years after the assault, entitled “The Barbarism of Slavery.” Harper’s composition is unique in the sense that, as Faith Barrett notes, she herself was a noted orator, and would therefore have been familiar with “the power of the orator to effect social and political change, thereby allying Sumner’s audiences with her own.”3 By thus extending her poem’s reach to white as well as black audiences, and to political as well as literary readers, Meredith McGill argues, Harper was “exhorting readers to ‘high and holy deeds’ that would translate into action the metaphorical effects claimed by the poet for Sumner’s historic speech.”4 Sumner’s legacy continued to inform poets for a number of years and through the Civil War. In February 1861, William Hick applauded the secession of slaveholding states that had occurred the previous month in the belief that it would finally compel the North to assert its true heroism. His poem bemoans the lamentable success of Southern attempts to stifle such leading abolitionists as Sumner, Joshua Reed Giddings, Benjamin Wade, and Salmon P. Chase. At the same time it anticipates that the looming conflict will in due course enable other activists to succeed, including William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Gerritt Smith. Finally, Katt Carlisle’s poem from 1865 was published in the aftermath of the Emancipation Proclamation, “when chains are broken.” It acknowledges Sumner’s legacy by relating an anecdote concerning a freedman in Washington, D.C., who sought him out in the The Assault on Senator Charles Sumner p 109

Senate Chamber to express his gratitude to Sumner as the virtual “deliverer” of his formerly enslaved people. The poem thus corroborates, in retrospect, the senator’s enormous significance to the abolitionist cause.

p Quattlebum, General, and Chairman of the Committee of Presentation, “Address Of the Committee appointed to present a Cup and Cane to Preston S. Brooks, as a memorial of a late ‘Collision’” Liberator (September 12, 1856) ‘Inter popula canamus.’1

We come, fresh from the sunny South, Our willing gifts to bring, In honor of the gallant youth Who did a noble thing. The laurel crown we do not weave To bind the brave one’s hair, But a cup to keep his spirits up, And a cane for him to bear. Take these, bold Brooks! and when again A Northern man shall dare To say outright, black is not white, Why! knock him from his chair! First, see he has no comrade near, And then this goblet drain Of whiskey, and you need not fear To use this honored cane. What though the braggarts of the North Should call it base and low, Why, send a challenge to them all— They cannot fight, you know. ’Tis very safe, and you can gain The name of being brave, 1. The literal translation of this Latin phrase, “To sing among the people,” presumably indicates the poem was intended to be sung by the imaginary committee.

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Thou Quixote2 of the Southern States! Bumbailiff of the slave! South Carolina greets thee From all her sunny plains; From the rice swamp and the corn-field Come forth the joyful strains. The champion of the State art thou! Her standard thou shalt bear; Where honor can be safely won, There thou shalt safely dare. South Carolina greets thee, Thou hero of the cane! Your fame the chivalry shall sing In many a joyous strain. Your children’s children oft shall tell, With many a throb of pride, How nice your sense of honor was, And how ’twas ‘satisfied.’ From where Saluda’s waters Rise in Potato Hill, From mountains where the great Pedee Starts as a little rill, To where through broad plantations, Where toils the weary slave, The waters of the Congaree Sweep towards th’ Atlantic’s wave:3 The white men all shall praise thee, And write thee in their books, The niggers all shall tremble, When they hear the name of Brooks! And e’en the Pickininnies Shall cry—Long live the brave! He who struck Sumner in his chair, Would dare to strike a slave. 2. Don Quixote is a self-proclaimed knight with delusions of grandeur in Miguel de Cervantes’s eponymous novel. 3. Saluda River, Potato Hill, Pee Dee River, and Congaree River are located in the states of North and South Carolina.

The Assault on Senator Charles Sumner p 111

Some heroes win the meed4 of fame By fighting manfully, In open fields, with equal arms, The battles of the free. Such foolish nonsense you despise, Such risk you will not run; From foemen fettered hand and foot, Your laurel wreaths are won.

Frances Ellen Watkins, “To Charles Sumner” National Anti-Slavery Standard (July 7, 1860); Anti-Slavery Bugle (July 7, 1860); Liberator (July 20, 1860)5

Thank God that thou hast spoken, Words earnest, true and brave, The lightning of thy lips has smote The fetters of the slave. I thought the shadows darkened Round the pathway of the slave, As one by one his faithful friends Were dropping in the grave. When other hands grew feeble, And loosed their hold on life, Thy voice rang like a clarion In freedom’s noble strife. Thy words wore not soft echoes, Thy tones no syren song, They fell as battle axes Upon our giant wrong. God grant thy words of power May fall as precious seeds, That yet may leaf and blossom In high and holy deeds.

4. A deserved share or reward. 5. First published in the Weekly Anglo-African (June 30, 1860).

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William Hick, “The Goldheaded Cane” Anti-Slavery Bugle (February 16, 1861)

How fallen my country! thy banner how torn! Thy statesmen and heroes no longer bare sway! The Stars and the Stripes are a byeword of scorn; And the “Model Republic” has faded away. No wonder thy greatness the nation discard, When the vicious alone are exalted to reign; When the blackguard and bully obtains for reward; Instead of a halter—a Goldheaded Cane. Oh! where are thy Patriots for leaders—all fled? Thy sons of true genius—of virtue the life? Are the stern and the staunch with the pale-sheeted dead, Or lost in the tempest of faction and strife? Yes, the vultures of slavery spread the broad wing, And flap the dark poison on all that remain; For its votaries alone of their honors may sing, And wear the reward of—a Goldheaded Cane. All goodness is lost in the Despot’s loud yell! Are the furies let loose from the realms of the damn’d? There’s a fate ever threatening—cruel as hell— Unless you’re a serf to the manstealing band. “Obey!”—is the word of such—“Powers that Be.” “Be hearty good-fellows our cause to maintain!” Put down Abolition’s demand to be free! And bear off the laurel—a Goldheaded Cane.” “Strike home on the heads of the Sumners remaining! Shoot Giddings and Wade, let the Chases but fall—6 Cut away with your knives and keep on with your caneing, And the slave-roll on Bunker, the South shall yet call!7 Up, up with Flag of the Fugitive Slave Law! Let it wave o’er the North until freedom shall wane! And the South shall reward the abettors of Knave Law, With medals and many—a Goldheaded Cane!” 6. Representative Joshua Reed Giddings and Senators Benjamin F. Wade and Salmon P. Chase, all from Ohio. 7. Bunker Hill was the site of a key battle in the Revolutionary War.

The Assault on Senator Charles Sumner p 113

Hold! the world shall yet see it—there’s mettle for moulding! The dead and the sleepy shall boldly arise! For the brave Flag of Freedom is newly unfolding, And shall wave in the breeze of our sunshiny skies. The falchion of Garrison flashes around him, And such logic as Phillip’s [sic] the battle will gain; While the big soul of Smith with the hosts that surround him,8 Shall scatter those knights of—the Goldheaded Cane! Then success to the Slaveholding States for secession! O God! may their blindness and madness increase! Till the great “Hill of thieves” in its rankest oppression, Shall burn and consume of its leprose disease. Let the North take its hand from the throat of the slave man— Nor act as a shield for his master again, And the world shall soon know that the Black is the brave man; And not those whose deeds win—the Goldheaded Cane. Till then, O my Country! thy banner how torn! Thy daughters must weep at the manstealers’ sway! While the stars and the stripes are a byeword of scorn, And the “Model Republic”—has faded away! For no wonder thy greatness the nations discard! When the vicious alone are exalted to reign! When the blackguard and bully obtain for reward, Instead of a halter—a Goldheaded Cane.

Katt Carlisle, “The Freedmen of Washington to Charles Sumner” Liberator (January 27, 1865) On reading the anecdote of a black man who begged admittance to the Senate Chamber with “Boss, could you let a poor nig see Massa Sum’er?”

The white brow ’neath the dark hair’s careless grace, The soulful eyes and chiseled lips, the stature Like an archangel’s—and that form was bowed ’Neath ruffian hands—that brow, all bathed in blood, Bent even to the base earth, for me and mine! And, lit by Freedom’s fire on his heart’s altar,

8. Leading abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Gerrit Smith.

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Those eyes,—that kindled like his own North star,9 Or shot indignant flashes at the sight Of our wrongs, till our tyrants quailed before them,— Had well nigh closed in death’s eclipse, while bright With their meridian lustre, for the sake Of those who might not dare to speak his name, Writ in their hearts!—But now, when chains are broken— When, with such hands as his reached down to us, We may e’en rise to win a place beside him— And, looking through the vistas of the years, We see that in the future, we may look— Aye, stand here as erect as our God made us, Where none may dare to spurn us from these halls Our brethren’s swords, on hundred fields, have sav’d From treason’s torch and plundering hand—and gaze, With all our rapt souls beaming from their windows, On our deliverer’s face! Yon hoary father, So bowed with unrewarded toil, his face Furrowed by plowshares of deep woes and wrongs, Looks on the hero;—looks with his dim eyes Glittering with tears, his trembling hands outstretched, Fraught with the benison of the poor; his lips Moving in broken, whispered words of blessing; And all for “Mass’r Sum’er,” who sits there Pondering in his great heart on some new plan For the land’s freedom!—O thou slandered North, Is this thy son? How does he look beside Our braggart Southern lords, brave—when they carry Their loaded canes; and gallant—when they whip Our wives and mothers; generous when they heap— The hospitable board, and measure out His peck of corn to the tiller of their soil! But this man, with his lips of eloquence, His Christ-like manners, and his sterling soul That Premierships or Judgeships cannot buy— O far-off barren coast, that Southrons scorn, If more such eagles dwell among thy rocks, Methinks that I could bear to feel thy frost Chilling my heart’s blood, but to breathe a breath Of thy free air! 9. Symbol of liberty that illuminated the path to freedom in the Northern states for fugitive slaves.

The Assault on Senator Charles Sumner p 115

5 J ohn B rown a n d t h e R a id on Harpers Fe r ry

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ohn Brown earned a name for himself as an abolitionist crusader as early as 1855, when he proved his zealous commitment to the cause by going so far as to kill proslavery agitators during the border conflicts in the Kansas territory where he had settled with his sons (see chapter 4). Although he crossed paths with William Lloyd Garrison and his supporters on several occasions, he was notably overheard to complain at the New England AntiSlavery Convention in 1859 that “these men are all talk; what is needed is action—action!”1 Matching his deeds to his words, on October 16, 1859, he led a raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in the hopes of inciting a slave uprising that would be armed with weapons seized from the town’s arsenal.2 Although his group succeeded in seizing several buildings and hostages, no slaves ultimately rallied to their cause, and the raiders were captured the following day by federal troops under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee. Brown was subsequently tried for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, convicted, and hung. In the final speech he delivered during his trial he exonerated himself by arguing that his intention to free the slaves was in accordance with the New Testament, “that teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me, further, to remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them.”3 Although public opinion initially judged Brown’s actions as misguided, views shifted during the course of his trial and he increasingly came to be 116

depicted as a martyr for the cause. Paul Finkelman has shown that Brown’s martyrdom “was shaped by the apparent unfairness of his trial, his letters from jail, his stoic behavior at the gallows, and the efforts of antislavery activists to exploit his execution for the greater cause.”4 Brown himself recognized how valuable his death would be to the movement in a letter confessing to his brother, “I am worth inconceivably more to hang than for any other purpose,” while Garrison also acknowledged that “John Brown executed will do more for our good cause, incomparably, than John Brown pardoned.”5 Indeed, on the day of his execution numerous meetings were held across the North to proclaim his martyrdom and condemn slavery through speeches and resolutions. The American Anti-Slavery Society notably dedicated its annual report of 1859 to “the memory of the noble hero-martyr.”6 He was cast in this role as well by leading authors of the time like Ralph Waldo Emerson, who referred to Brown as a “new saint” who “will make the gallows glorious like the Cross,” a sentiment that was echoed by others ranging from Herman Melville to Henry David Thoreau.7 The black activist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper had already anticipated the significance of his sacrifice when she wrote to Brown in prison, “if Universal Freedom is ever to be the dominant power of the land, your bodies may be only her first stepping stones to dominion.”8 Kevin Pelletier argues that Brown became the paramount symbol of what he refers to as “apocalyptic sentimentalism” in late-nineteenth-century American literature—which proposed that “threats of violent retribution precede and are meant to produce love”—due to his “deliberate self-martyring on behalf of America’s slaves for the sake of racial equality.”9 Abolitionist poets certainly cast him in this role by depicting his heroism as emblematic of the movement at large. One example is the poem by Lydia Maria Child, who was personally involved in the case through her correspondence with both Brown and Governor Henry Wise of Virginia, who ultimately signed Brown’s death warrant despite her entreaties on his behalf.10 Child’s characteristically sentimental poem, inspired by what was more than likely an apocryphal anecdote claiming that Brown stopped to kiss a black girl as he made his way through the crowd to the gallows (see plate 6), anticipates the “bright reward” that awaits him in the afterlife for such actions. Finkelman notes that the popular myth behind this poem, which had such wide appeal that Currier & Ives produced a colored lithograph of the scene for sale, helped establish Brown’s martyrdom by appealing to the era’s sentimental sensibilities, “particularly as it helped soften Brown’s apocalyptic violent side with which many abolitionists were uncomfortable.”11 John Brown and the Raid on Harpers Ferry p 117

Numerous poets were nonetheless comfortable with more ominous predictions that the nation would come to regret Brown’s hanging, as Edmund Clarence Stedman anticipates in a poem that reappeared a year after its original publication on the front page of a commemorative issue of the Anti-Slavery Bugle following Brown’s execution. It consists of an epic overview of Brown’s career that finds justifiable motives for his actions in the loss of his house and two sons during the Kansas border wars, when he gained national attention by successfully defending the town of Osawatomie from proslavery opponents in 1856. The poem concludes by warning the state of Virginia that it will eventually be forced to atone for Brown’s hanging. The poets A. D. A. B. and Justitia also anticipate this prospect, condemning his executioners and calling attention to Brown’s martyrdom, in the latter case with copious support from New Testament sources. Although Gibbs A. Campbell conveys the same message, he does so by satirically voicing his support for Brown’s execution since it eliminated the challenges Brown posed to the Virginian status quo. F. M. Adlington also shames Virginia for killing a figure he likens to Patrick Henry as an equally heroic champion of liberty. It is worth noting that Patrick Henry’s celebrated proclamation of independence, quoted in the poem, recurs frequently throughout abolitionist writings, helping legitimize the cause by linking it to the venerated struggle for national independence. Such antebellum predictions that Virginia would come to suffer in time were corroborated in poems published during the course of the Civil War, which furthermore assert that the conflict is fulfilling Brown’s objectives. As Finkelman notes, Brown helped prepare the movement for a “shift from an age of Christian love and peace to one of Christian visions of an apocalypse and Old Testament notions of a vengeful God.”12 More specifically, his martyrdom prepared Americans for their own potential martyrdom in the war, and also helped motivate them to fight, which became clear as they marched off to battle to the tune of the popular lyrics, “John Brown’s body lies a-moulderin’ in the grave, but his soul goes marching on.” His influence is apparent in the evocative poem titled “The Spectre at Sumter,” which is related from the perspective of a participant in the Battle of Fort Sumter that initiated hostilities. Its speaker recalls witnessing Brown’s ghost, which he refers to as the “genius of retribution,” in the midst of the battle urging Southern fighters to persist in their assault on a fort that had raised its flag of truce, in the hopes that this cowardly attack will finally rouse the nation to take part in the fight for freedom he had wished to instigate. William E. Pabor bases his poem on a Union regiment’s occupation in 1861 of the Charlestown courthouse where

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he implies Brown had been unjustly convicted. Yet he suggests that as a result of the war the nation is already witnessing the positive outcome of Brown’s legacy, because “out of the nation’s peril springs / Emancipation with spreading wings.” Following the official end of the conflict in May 1865, the poem by D. Plumb, published in June, confirms that the war has evidently avenged Brown because both North and South have paid a significant price for his murder through their respective losses. Nonetheless, this speaker also concludes that the conflict has been worthwhile since it accomplished Brown’s desires through the liberation of slaves. These poems thus illustrate what Frederick Douglass had already predicted in 1859 when he responded to the question “How shall American slavery be abolished?” by answering, “The John Brown way.”13

p Anonymous [Edmund Clarence Stedman], “How Old Brown Took Harper’s Ferry, a Ballad of the Times” Liberator (November 25, 1859); Anti-Slavery Bugle (November 26, 1859, and October 20, 1860) IN MEMORY OF JOHN BROWN,

Who was executed, December 2nd, 1859, upon a Virginia gallows, for striving to establish upon Virginia soil, the inherent right of all men to liberty as enunciated by a Virginia statesman1 in the Declaration of American Independence. HARPER’S FERRY, OCTOBER 16th

A place and time which heroic deeds have made ever memorable. Brave deeds can never die Saith true philosophy; Deep in the soul they lie— God knows how dear.2 1. Thomas Jefferson. 2. This introduction to the poem appears in the October 20, 1860, issue of the Anti-Slavery Bugle.

John Brown and the Raid on Harpers Ferry p 119

“How Old Brown Took Harper’s Ferry. A Ballad of the Times.” (Containing ye True History of ye Great Virginian Fright.)

John Brown in Kansas settled, like a steadfast Yankee farmer, Brave and godly, with four sons—all stalwart men of might; There he spoke aloud for Freedom, and the Border-strife grew warmer, Till the Rangers fired his dwelling, in his absence—in the night— And Old Brown, Osawatomie3 Brown, Came homeward in the morning—to find his house burned down. Then he grasped his trusty rifle and boldly fought for Freedom; Smote from border unto border the fierce, invading band; And he and his brave boys vowed—so might heaven help and speed ’em!— They would save those grand old prairies from the curse that blights the land; And Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Said, “Boys, the Lord will aid us!” and he shoved his ramrod down. And the Lord did aid these men, and they labored day and even, Saving Kansas from its peril—and their very lives seemed charmed; Till the Ruffians killed one son, in the blessed light of Heaven— In cold blood the fellows slew him, as he journeyed all unarmed; Then Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Shed not a tear, but shut his teeth, and frowned a terrible frown! Then they seized another brave boy—not amid the heat of battle, But in peace, behind his plow-share—and they loaded him with chains, And with pikes, before their horses, even as they goad their cattle, Drove him, cruelly, for their sport, and at last blew out his brains; Then Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Raised his right hand up to Heaven, calling Heaven’s vengeance down. And he swore a fearful oath, by the name of the Almighty, He would hunt this ravening evil that had scathed and torn him so— He would seize it by the vitals; he would crush it day and night; he Would so pursue its footsteps—so return it blow for blow— That Old Brown,

3. City in the state of Kansas.

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Osawatomie Brown, Should be a name to swear by, in backwoods or in town! Then his beard became more grizzled, and his wild blue eyes grew wilder, And more sharply curved his hawk’s-nose, snuffing battle from afar; And he and the two boys left, though the Kansas strife waxed milder, Grew more sullen, till was over the bloody Border War; And Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Had gone crazy, as they reckoned by his fearful glare and frown. So he left the plains of Kansas and their bitter woes behind him— Slipt off into Virginia, where the statesmen all are born— Hired a farm by Harper’s Ferry, and no one knew where to find him, Or whether he’d turned parson, or was jacketed and shorn; For Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Mad as he was, knew texts enough to wear a parson’s gown. He bought no plows and barrows, spades and shovels, or such trifles; But quietly to his rancho there came, by every train, Boxes full of pikes and pistols, and his well-beloved Sharpe’s rifles; And eighteen other madmen joined their leader there again. Says Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, “Boys, we have got an army large enough to whip the town! “Whip the town, and seize the muskets, free the negroes and then arm them— Carry the County and the State; aye, and all the potent South; On their own heads be the slaughter, if their victims rise to harm them— These Virginians! who believed not, nor would heed the warning mouth.” Says Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, “The world shall see a Republic, or my name is not John Brown!” ’Twas the sixteenth of October, on the evening of a Sunday— “This good work,” declared the captain, “shall be on a holy night!” It was on a Sunday evening, and, before the noon of Monday, With two sons, and Captain Stephens,4 fifteen privates—black and white— Captain Brown,

4. John Brown supporter Aaron Dwight Stevens.

John Brown and the Raid on Harpers Ferry p 121

Osawatomie Brown, Marched across the bridged Potomac, and knocked the sentinel down; Took the guarded armory building, and the muskets and the cannon; Captured all the county majors and the colonels, one by one; Scared to death each gallant scion of Virginia they ran on, And before the noon of Monday, I say, the deed was done. Mad Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, With his eighteen other crazy men went in and took the town. Very little noise and bluster, little smell of powder, made he; It was all done in the midnight, like the Emperor’s coup’d etat [sic]: “Cut the wires: stop the rail-cars: hold the streets and bridges!” said he— Then declared the new Republic, with himself for guiding star— This Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown! And the bold two thousand citizens ran off and left the town, Then was riding and railroading, and expressing here and thither! And the Martinsburg Sharpshooters and the Charle-town Volunteers [sic], And the Shepherdstown and Winchester Militia, hastened whither Old Brown was said to muster his ten thousand grenadiears [sic]! General Brown! Osawatomie Brown! Behind whose rampant banner all the North was pouring down. But at last, ’tis said, some prisoners escaped from Old Brown’s durance, And the effervescent valor of Ye Chivalry broke forth, When they learned that nineteen madmen had the marvelous assurance— Only nineteen—thus to seize the place and drive them frightened forth; And Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Found an army come to take him, encamped around the town. But to storm with all the forces we have mentioned was too risky; So they hurried off to Richmond for the Government Marines— Tore them from their weeping matrons—fired their souls with Bourbon whisky— Till they battered down Brown’s castle with their ladders and machines; And Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, Recieved [sic] three bayonet stabs, and a cut on his brave old crown. 122 p Lyrical Liberators

Tallyho! the old Virginia gentry gather to the baying? In they rush and kill the game, shooting lustily away;* And whene’er they slay a rebel, those who come too late for slaying, Not to loose [sic] a share of glory, fire their bullets in his clay; And Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown Saw his sons fall dead beside him, and between them laid him down. How the conquerors wore their laurels—how they hastened on the trial— How Old Brown was placed, half-dying, on the Charlestown Court-House floor— How he spoke his grand oration, in the scorn of all denial— What the brave old madman told them—these are known the country o’er. “Hang Old Brown, “Osawatomie Brown,” Said the Judge, “and all such rebels!” with his most judicial frown. But, Virginians, don’t do it! for I tell you that the flagon, Filled with blood of Old Brown’s offspring, was first poured by Southern hands; And each drop from Old Brown’s life-veins, like the red gore of the dragon, May spring up a vengeful Fury hissing through your slave-worn lands; And Old Brown, Osawatomie Brown, May trouble you more than ever, when you’ve nailed his coffin down! * “The hunt was up—woe to the game inclosed within that fiery circle. The town was occupied by a thousand or fifteen hundred men, including volunteer companies from Shepardstown [sic], Charlestown, Winchester, and elsewhere, but the armed and unorganized multitude largely predominated, giving the affair more the character of a great hunting scene than that of a battle. The savage game was holed beyond all possibility of escape.” —Virginia Correspondent of Harper’s Weekly.

A. D. A. B., “The Execution of John Brown” Liberator (December 9, 1859)

Ho! ye who lead him forth to die, A mockery to law and right, That brave old man, beneath whose eye Ye quailed in all your boasted might— Whose trembling steps your hosts combine To guard with pomp of pagan show, John Brown and the Raid on Harpers Ferry p 123

A sacrifice at Moloch’s5 shrine, T’ appease the cursed god of wo. Beware! for when he bows his head, And earnestly to Heaven cries, Your temple walls shall shake with dread, Tremble and fall, no more to rise! A power no human hand can stay Shall crush the ruthless law of Might, And clothe your victim’s worthless clay With all a martyr’s halo bright! And through the future untold years The weak and blasted life ye take Shall rise a Samson6 to your fears, And make each proud oppressor quake. And History’s faithful pen shall trace A line of light around his name, Who, by his death, hath gained a place For Truth his life could never claim.

Gibbs A. Campbell, “‘Old John Brown’” Liberator (December 9, 1859)

Swing up the traitor! let him die! Truth, honor and sincerity Are treason to Virginia’s laws, Are fatal to Virginia’s cause, And he who doth true courage show Strikes an unpardonable blow. Swing up the traitor! for the deed’s Demanded by Virginia’s needs; And all her broad dominion lies In deepest peril till he dies! The truest man ye ever saw Hang by Virginia’s glorious law!

5. Canaanite god associated with child sacrifice in the Old Testament. 6. Israelite judge who was legendarily strong. See Judges 13–16.

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Swing up the traitor! Who shall dare Henceforth to taint Virginia’s air With freedom’s word or honor’s breath? Behold for such, a traitor’s death! As symbol of her sovereignty, Virginia hoists the gallows tree. Swing up the traitor! though he be Captive, yet conqueror is he! The blow he struck destroyed your power, And prophesied the coming hour When Heaven’s avenging wrath shall fall, And wrap your land in ruin’s pall. That prophecy ye heard aright! Your lips with terror become white; For every North wind’s breath ye feel; Now seems your certain doom to seal, And every midnight sound ye hear, Your souls shall paralyze with fear! Oh! glorious traitor! out to thee Gushes my full heart’s sympathy! Heroic martyr! from thy tomb Shall speak the awful voice of doom; For thou hast, through all coming time, Made treason holy and sublime!

Justitia, “The Virginia Martyrs” Liberator (March 30, 1860) Suggested by the Execution, at Charlestown, Va., on March 16th, 1860, of Stevens and Hazlett,7 the last of the Harpers Ferry Insurgents who have been captured by the State.

The last bloody act in the drama is o’er, The martyrs have gone to their rest, To be where the wicked shall trouble no more, Where the faithful forever are blest.

7. Aaron Dwight Stevens and Albert Hazlett, participants in the raid on Harpers Ferry.

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They for others have lived, and for others have died, The poor and despised of our race; The tyrants of earth they have boldly defied— In heaven they now have a place. Virginia! ere long thou wilt see them again,* Though their bodies repose with the dead, Where they shall be free from all sorrow and pain, And their presence shall fill thee with dread.† Thou’lt remember the scene at the Arsenal, when Thou didst kill and imprison the just; The scene in the Court, where, surrounded by men, John Brown at oppression did thrust.‡ Thou’lt remember the scaffold—the modernized cross— Where died thy first victim alone: Thou wilt know ’twas not he who then suffered a loss, And wish for his death to atone. Thou wilt likewise remember those noble young men, Who, like him, all thy threatenings defied, And how, like their Savior, they yielded life when, Like him, by their foes crucified. Ere long there will be a much grander assize;§ There thou with a world must appear; Its decisions more just, and its counsels more Wise, Than those which these martyrs met here. Virginia! Virginia! get ready, I pray, Repent in the dust of thy sins; Get ready thy victims to meet on that day— Make haste—even now it begins!

* Romans, xiv.10. † I. Cor. vi. 2. ‡ John Brown’s speech to the Virginia Court, when about to receive the sentence of death. § The six young men who have been executed since John Brown.

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L. [Lydia] Maria Child, “The Hero’s Heart” Liberator (February 3, 1860); Anti-Slavery Bugle (December 8, 1860)8 ‘When he went from the jail to the gallows, he stooped to kiss a colored child that stood near.’

A winter sunshine, still and bright, The Blue Hills bathed with golden light, And earth seemed smiling to the sky, When calmly he went forth to die. Infernal passions festered there, Where peaceful nature looked so fair; And fiercely in the morning sun, Flashed glittering bayonet and gun. The old man met no friendly eye, When last he looked on earth and sky; But one small child, with timid air, Was gazing on his silver hair. As that dark brow to his upturned, The tender heart within him yearned; And, fondly stooping o’er her face, He kissed her for her injured race. The little one, she knew not why That kind old man went forth to die; Nor why, mid all that pomp and stir, He stooped to give a kiss to her. But Jesus smiled that sight to see, And said, “He did it unto me”!9 The golden harps then sweetly rung, And this the song the angels sung: “Who loves the poor doth love the Lord! Earth cannot dim thy bright reward; We hover o’er yon gallows high, And wait to bear thee to the sky.”

8. Opening quotation appears in the Liberator. 9. See Matthew 25:40.

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F. M. Adlington, “Thoughts, Suggested by the Sacrifice of John Brown” Liberator (March 29, 1861)

’Tis done, the savage deed is done; Oh, base Virginia! shame to thee! Shame to thy foolish, braggart son! Shame to thy boasted chivalry! The brave old man whose daring hands Were raised to set the bondman free, To break Oppression’s galling bands, And strike a blow for liberty:— A victim to Virginia’s fear, In Freedom’s cause the hero dies! A glory circles round his bier, While in the dust thine honor lies. Thou should’st have claimed him for thine own, With Patrick Henry’s10 wreathed his name: It had a halo round thee thrown, Rekindling Freedom’s altar-flame. E’en had his weapon failed to spare, ’Twas base the brave old man to slay, The man who laid your folly bare, And showed you where your weakness lay. By cruel wrongs to frenzy driven, John Brown, the fearless, good and brave, Believed himself th’ elect of Heaven To break the yoke, and free the slave. Go, now, of gallant Henry boast; Brown was his brother—Freedom’s child; Undaunted, each defied a host, And both by cowards were reviled.

10. Revolutionary War hero who famously proclaimed, “Give me liberty, or give me death!”

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Successful, one is known to fame, A patriot—one a rebel dies; Alike their object—cause the same— Their struggle for an equal prize. Henry, for self and country’s weal, Resolved on “Liberty or Death”; Brown, with a high and holy zeal, For the poor slave resigned his breath. Dishonored droops Virginia’s star, Her ’scutcheon bears the murderer’s seal; On Freedom’s breast she leaves a scar, That time can never, never heal.

Anonymous, “The Spectre at Sumter” National Anti-Slavery Standard (June 22, 1861)

I stood on the walls of Sumter As the solemn night came down On the lone, beleaguered fortress, On the traitor camp and town; While through the lurid heavens Sped the red-hot shot and shell, As if by mad fiends driven From the open mouths of hell; While the flag of a sovereign nation, On the palpitating air, Still waved from its lofty station Amid the fiery glare. And I saw where fiercest, direst, Raged the terrible battle-storm— Where the bursting shells fell hottest, There towered a spectral form: I knew by its proud erectness, By its calm, determined mien, By the strong arms sternly folded, By the deep, clear eye serene, ’Twas that old man, lion-hearted, John Brown and the Raid on Harpers Ferry p 129

Of the dark and terrible frown, The genius of retribution— Old Osawatomie11 Brown. “Tis well!” he murmured, softly, “O traitorous, coward band! Ply your engines fiercer, faster, ’Gainst the flag of your native land! Rain your deathful hail more hotly On the heads of that faithful few, Stifled and faint and famished, With their flag of truce in view! “Roar louder, ye murderous cannon! With every echoing boom O’er the hills of the sturdy Northland Sweeps the story of Sumter’s doom; And I hear above your thunder The shout of a warrior band, Waked suddenly from slumber, To strike for their native land. “As the lion of the desert Leaps fiercely from his lair, And gazes down the distance With fixed and fiery glare— As the bolt along the storm-cloud Quivers in fierce unrest, Ere it burst in triple vengeance On earth’s rent and quivering breast— E’en so the sons of Freedom For one dreadful moment stand, Till your murderous hand uplifted Is struck at your native land. “Strike fiercer, faster, murderers! Steeped to the core in sin, See, the flag of your country drooping— Aim at it once again! All Sumter’s guns are voiceless, And the flames are hot within,

11. City in the state of Kansas.

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And faint are her brave defenders— Aim at her once again! Ha! dastards, cravens, cowards, Ye are brave and knightly men! Your foes disabled, silenced— Fire on them once again! “Ah! mine is the unsealed vision, And mine is the prophet ear; Ye may laugh in your mad derision, But the day of doom is near! New England’s hills will echo With the warrior’s battle-cry, And New York’s Excelsior banner12 ’Mid shoutings kiss the sky: From the free North’s lakes and rivers, O’er the distant prairie’s breast, From true-souled Pennsylvania, And the bold, unfettered West— Like the roar of the mountain torrent, Like the shriek of the tempest comes, ‘God and our country ever! Our banner and our homes!’ “Oh! this is the day I prayed for, When against the wintry sky, With the rope around my throttle Ye hung me up to die— The day when my free-born brothers In their lofty faith will rise, And wipe from their fair escutcheon The stain that on it lies— When manhood, crushed and blighted, Trampled and bruised and torn; And womanhood, lashed, polluted, The victim of lust and scorn, From their fainting spirits lifted The burden and the blight, May wake from their loathsome serfdom To revel in freedom’s light.

12. The New York state seal features the motto “Excelsior.”

John Brown and the Raid on Harpers Ferry p 131

“My country! O my country! I have called on you oft before, Would God that my strong appealing Might enter your souls once more! As you value the boon of freedom, So fearlessly won for you, Strike home for your firesides bravely, And a whole free country too! Let your proud flag kiss the heavens With never a blot or stain; O’er bleeding human chattels Never to float again!”

William E. Pabor, “The Chaplain’s Prayer in the Judge’s Chair” National Anti-Slavery Standard (August 10, 1861) When Gen. Patterson’s13 column had entered Charlestown, Va., and taken possession of the Court House, and raised our flag to the great indignation of the rebel citizens, the Rev. Mr. Fulton, Chaplain of the First (Scott Legion) Regiment, went into the building and immediately walked up to the bench, and sat down in the chair from which John Brown received his death sentence, and there offered up a prayer for our President, our army, counsellors, and country, while also beseeching God to crush the rebellion, its leaders and its cause.—Cor. Tribune14

The Chaplain sat in the Judge’s chair! Read on, and the verse will tell you where. He sat in the Court of Charlestown town, Where the Judge sat when he tried John Brown. The man who had dared to set men free Was himself shut out from liberty. Nay, more: in the name of Justice, they Had sentenced to death John Brown that day.

13. Union general Francis Engle Patterson. 14. A Washington, D.C., publication.

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“Hang him as Haman15 once did hang,” Was the cry that through the Court-room rang; “So the world shall witness then and there How a Slave-Deliverer hangs in air.” And they hung him up, so Death should crown The life of the Martyr, Old John Brown. But the hero’s fate, as the days went past, Was over the nation sent broadcast; And the legend grew again to life Of the men who sprung up armed for strife. And the hot breath of their vengeance swept To where the slave in his kennel crept. And the slave heard and rejoiced to know That Freedom came with their master’s foe. The Judge from his chair fled, swift of heel, Forgetful quite of the people’s weal. The Chaplain came and sat in the chair, Where the Judge had sat, and prayed a prayer For the nation’s weal and the nation’s cause, For the nation’s life and the nation’s laws, In the room where they sentenced Old John Brown To a felon’s death in Charlestown town. Light most sublime that the years could bring; For the seed thus sown is blossoming, And out of the nation’s peril springs Emancipation with spreading wings. 15. A vizier in the Persian empire who was hanged by Queen Esther for instigating a plot to kill the Jews. See Esther 7:6–10.

John Brown and the Raid on Harpers Ferry p 133

D. Plumb, “John Brown Avenged” National Anti-Slavery Standard (June 10, 1865)

Thou hero-martyr for the bleeding slave, Proud Southrons hung thee on the gibbet high; But God has now avenged thy death, O Brave! And to that deed, in wrath, has made reply. Virginia thought she triumphed when thy Braves Marched, Heaven summoned, on her “sacred soil”; Bearing the boon of freedom to her slaves, Long crushed beneath their unrequited toil. But now the vaunting South that drank thy blood,— More guilty than the “Cities of the Plain;”16— Lies crushed beneath the avenging hand of God, And sire and matron mourn their children slain. Thy score of men were Freedom’s chosen band, That first advanced against the nation’s foe: Brought on the war that late so scourged the land, And filled its dwellings with the voice of woe. Thy conquered cities and thy wasted fields, Thy homes made vacant and thy pride cast down; These are the price, O South, thy weakness yields, For thy foul murder of the great John Brown. Thy wealth, by bondmen piled, becomes but trash, Naught now remains of the unrighteous hoard; And every drop of blood drawn by the lash, Is now repaid with one drawn by the sword.* And thou, O North, partaker of the crime, Whose Press and Senate justified the deed; Hast not escaped the avenging hand of time, Following thy guilt as with the lightning’s speed.

16. The sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. See Genesis 13–19.

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Ten thousand lives, for each of that brave band That fell in fight or on the Gallows died; Stern retribution called for at thy hand, And, lo, thy sons the sacrifice supplied. Thy peaceful homes have heard the wail of woe, And fathers, mothers, wives, and sisters dear Have seen their loved ones in the fight laid low, And mourned their dead with many a bitter tear. But while, at length, Peace ends the deadly strife, And Victory’s bells ring out from sea to sea; God may in pity spare the nation’s life, But He will surely set the Bondmen free. * See President Lincoln’s last Inaugural.

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6 Slaves an d De at h

A

common way to capture the attention of nineteenth-century readers— and, more important, their empathy and support—was to allude to the awareness of death shared by all Americans, regardless of race. Many poets therefore protested slavery by concentrating on the affective implications of the death of slaves. These poems feature protagonists who are either dead or longing for death in scenarios that would move the audience to sympathize with, and ideally contribute to, an urgent political cause. To this end authors drew on sentimental conventions that would motivate readers to recognize their ethical responsibility to liberate slaves whose mortality is no different from their own. As Karen Sánchez-Eppler argues, this approach effectively established “moments of identification” for the white audience, while Augusta Rohrbach similarly proposes that focusing on the relatable experience of dying “uses the body and its suffering to engender moral action in readers.”1 Additionally, a clear political statement is inherent in suggesting that in many cases slavery could only be escaped by dying, which was therefore ironically the only possible route to freedom for residents of a nation founded on that very principle. Poets thus furthered their cause by critiquing social conditions that allowed for no other form of liberation. The focus on death is all the more compelling when it is expressed by black poets like George Moses Horton, a slave from North Carolina whose poems in this chapter originally appeared in three different periodicals. The 136

editorial commentaries that precede them suggest they were published with the intent to purchase his freedom and transport him to Liberia with the proceeds (see chapter 13).2 Editors apparently also felt compelled to note that his poems proved blacks could be raised above their limitations through education.3 Notably, the predominant theme in all three selections is the prospect of his own death. The first, from the Liberator, conveys his impatience with those who judge him on the basis of his complexion and evokes a restless mood by modifying standard hymn meter and adopting an unusual rhyme scheme. Its speaker betrays his anger by calling supporters of slavery “dull and slack,” an unmistakable insult that grants him a superiority that was inaccessible to him in reality, and thus places him above those whose intellect and behavior he perceives as inferior to his own. Yet because he knows that they possess the power he lacks, and that the freedom he desires is unattainable, death becomes preferable to life under such conditions. Rhyming the words “grave” and “slave”—a common choice in abolitionist poetry—he suggests that to be a slave is already in any case to experience a sort of death in life.4 In the second selection, from the Emancipator, the speaker also expresses a desire to die in order to be released from hopeless servitude. And in the final selection, from the Anti-Slavery Bugle, being confronted with the brevity of life is what leads him to write as a way of coming to terms with the certainty of his death, a common motive for authors of any race. Numerous other poets also address the desirability of death. For instance, although Sarah Louise Forten sentimentally laments that the slave is for the most part not commemorated after his passing, she nevertheless portrays death as his veritable friend. This message is underscored by the poem’s anapestic meter, which maintains a dynamic optimistic rhythm that arguably contributed to its popularity: “The Grave of the Slave” was so well-liked that it was set to music by the African American composer Francis Johnson. The relatively prominent New York poet Lucy Hooper addresses the true story of a slave who died after his brother was sold away by their owner. She concedes that while death is unfortunate for most, it is a blessing for the slave, since it will “cast off the galling chain” that imprisons him in life. The most popular poet of his day, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, also depicts a slave whose death releases him from an existence that turned his body into a constraining “fetter” subjected to such pervasive abuse that it was virtually “worn-out.” And in a more frankly political approach, the well-known poem “Bury Me in a Free Land” by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper proclaims its speaker’s desire to be buried in a place where slavery does not exist because her soul could not otherwise truly find rest. Slaves and Death p 137

A particularly memorable approach to the topic of death centered on the scenario of shipwrecks, which also offered poets the opportunity to comment on the horrors of the Middle Passage. In “The Wreck of a Slave Ship,” her second poem in this chapter, Lucy Hooper interprets the disaster as a manifestation of God’s wrath that punishes the traders on board and releases the slaves from their bondage. John Greenleaf Whittier bases his poem “The Slave Ships” on the news of a slave ship whose passengers were afflicted by a disease that caused blindness, which led the traders to toss affected slaves overboard as damaged goods in order to collect insurance.5 Much like Hooper, Whittier interprets the disease and the ensuing shipwreck as curses from God. His scathing commentary on the slave trade exposes the torture slaves endured aboard these ships, their treatment as less than human at the hands of traders, and their devastating decisions to commit suicide by jumping overboard.6 All of these issues are also alluded to in Longfellow’s “The Witnesses,” his second poem in this chapter, which relies on the universal image of the skeleton all races possess to comment on the shackled corpses of slaves buried beneath the sea. By underscoring the indignity of these burials, the poem elicits empathy for the misfortune of fellow human beings. It also conveys a clear political purpose through the phrase these corpses cry out, “We are the Witnesses!,” to acknowledge the cruelty and abuse that led to their drowning. Longfellow’s selections verify his important contributions to the antislavery cause as the most popular poet of his day, who as early as the 1840s took on a contentious topic others were reluctant to confront. Along with many of the authors in this chapter, he made it somewhat less controversial, and more accessible, by approaching it through the customary sentimental focus on death.

p George Moses Horton, “Slavery” Liberator (March 29, 1834) The following lines, from the Lancaster Gazette, were written by a Carolinean slave, named George Horton, whose education was attained in hours stolen from sleep. The talents of the degraded race of black people appear better of late as they have been exhibited by the revolution at Hayti,1 than we have been accustomed to consider them; and from the power with which a few individuals have sprung up amid darkness and misfortunes, it seems probable that good opportunities for education would, in a few generations, give them a high stand among the nations of the earth. Look to it, statesmen! 1. The Haitian Revolution, which concluded in 1804, was a significant victory for the antislavery cause.

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When first my bosom glowed with hope, I gazed as from a mountaintop On some delightful plain; But oh! How transient was the scene— It fled as though it had not been, And all my hopes were vain. How oft this tantalizing blaze Has led me through deception’s maze; My friends became my foe— Then like a plaintive dove I mourned; To bitter all my sweets were turned, And tears began to flow. Why was the dawning of my birth Upon this vile, accursed earth, Which is but pain to me? Oh! That my soul had winged its flight, When I first saw the morning light, To worlds of liberty. Come, melting Pity, from afar, And break this vast, enormous bar Between a wretch and thee; Purchase a few short days of time And bid a vassal rise sublime On wings of liberty. Is it because my skin is black, That thou shoulds’t be so dull and slack, And scorn to set me free? Then let me hasten to the grave, The only refuge for the slave, Who mourns for liberty. The wicked cease from trouble there; No more I’d languish or despair— The weary there can rest. Oppression’s voice is heard no more, Drudg’ry and pain, and toil are o’er. Yes! there I shall be blest.

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Ada [Sarah Louisa Forten], “The Grave of the Slave” Liberator (January 22, 1831)

The cold storms of winter shall chill him no more, His woes and his sorrows, his pains are all o’er; The sod of the valley now covers his form, He is safe in his last home, he feels not the storm. The poor slave is laid all unheeded and lone, Where the rich and the poor find a permanent home; Not his master can rouse him with voice of command; He knows not, he hears not, his cruel demand. Not a tear, not a sigh to embalm his cold tomb, No friend to lament him, no child to bemoan; Not a stone marks the place, where he peacefully lies, The earth for his pillow, his curtain the skies. Poor slave! shall we sorrow that death was thy friend,
 The last, and the kindest, that heaven could send?
 The grave to the weary is welcomed and blest;
 And death, to the captive, is freedom and rest.

Anonymous [Lucy Hooper], “The Dying Slave” Liberator (December 10, 1831) Editor’s note: The following beautiful and pathetic effusion is from the pen of a young lady in Newburyport, who cherishes the most intense sympathy for the bleeding, famished, degraded slaves. Will she bestow upon us often the gems of her opulent mind? Author’s note: The following lines were written, after hearing of a melancholy fact which occurred in one of the Southern States. Among the slaves, on one of the plantations, were two brothers, who were so devotedly attached to each other that the planter dared not separate them. Avarice at last overcame his scruples; he sold one of them, and soon after the remaining brother pined and died.

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To save him from the bondage of the proud, And give his spirit freedom. Gaze thou now Upon this couch, and marvel for the cause That bowed his form robust, that dimmed his eye, Sickened his heart and made it turn from life. Ay, marvel thou what fearful cloud hath cast Its darkening shadow o’er him, and hath made His sun to set, long, long before the noon. Gaze thou, and learn how sorrow can lay waste The heart of man; how grief can dry the spring Of human life; how, when the unsealed fount Of warm affection must flow back again To its own source, and there conceal itself, Deep bitterness is with its waters blent: How pines the lone in loneliness. Poor slave! The record of such grief is writ on thee; Sad hath thy being been to thee for years, In blessings poor compared with other lots; Yet one star shone for thee. The orphan slave Had still one voice of love to cheer him on— One gem was his—but Avarice plucked away That sole possession—left him desolate.— Gaze on this dying face, and through thy tears Smile with a bitter triumph at the poor, The feeble impotence of grasping man: How gladly would he stay this parting breath! Father in Heaven! thou dost o’errule his wish; All are thy children, but thine eye of love Bends down still more benignantly, when grief Hath bowed the spirit; when the captive pines In lone imprisonment; when the oppressed Are laid in dust before the proud of Earth, Then doth their plaintive moan ascend to Thee— Then dost Thou succor them. And the appeal Of the enslaved hath now come up before Thee; Thou, Thou wilt free him. Soon thy messenger Will disenthral his spirit. Death is sad When he would take the beautiful who rise Around our path to bless us, and who make Slaves and Death p 141

Our life a dream of light. The gifted ones, Whose visionary eyes behold each cloud Decked gloriously; who on the future look, The changeful future, with a heart of hope; Who, in their buoyancy of spirit, seem To bear about a talisman of power, Before whose touch the sorrows and the cares That might dim other pathways would disperse— Oh! when the hand of Death is laid on these, ’T is cold and chilling. To the will of God, Our hearts bow not; our eyes, that should look up With cheerful confidence to Heaven, are bent Down to the earth, & dimmed with unchecked tears. But when Death comes to the poor injured slave, He wears an angel’s form; his touch is blessed. For doth it not cast off the galling chain, Beneath whose heavy pressure the enthralled Even in soul was bowed? Oh, is not death A glorious visitant beside this couch? Is not an hour of brightness drawing near? Flee, spirit, flee, from this dark world away, Where man hath bowed down his immortal mind To treat of earthly things; where man hath dimmed His spiritual eye with the thick mists Of Avarice. There’s light for thee in heaven; Soon, soon thou’lt know a joy unspeakable— Thy pulse is quivering! Where, O, tell me where Is now thy brother? Far away from thee, He will not close thy wearied eyes in death; He will not see thee more. E’en now perchance The sun is streaming hotly on his head, While toiling at his daily task for one Who cannot walk abroad in his own fields With light and easy heart; who will not lift The eye of gratitude to heaven, and thank His God for the rich harvest. Let me gaze Upon thy wasted form, to know how full, How deep the curse of gold unjustly gained, With blood polluted. Life is passing fast— Thou art upon its verge,—thou hast leaped o’er!— 142 p Lyrical Liberators

The wearied hath lain down his heavy load— The chain hath grown a mockery to the slave— The bond is broken—Spirit! thou art free!

L. H. [Lucy Hooper], “The Wreck of a Slave Ship” Liberator (February 25, 1832) From the pen of a young lady whose poetical genius promises great fruitfulness, and to whom we are indebted for other meritorious pieces —particularly the graphic sketch of ‘The Dying Slave,’ inserted in the 50th number of our first volume.2

Darkly the night is gathering round, Hoarsely and loud comes the distant sound Of the dashing wave, like a spirit-moan Breathed o’er a wreck that hath just gone down Or a passing dirge, for the beautiful Whose eyes in death have this night grown dull. Yon ship! yon ship! with her motion proud; I can read her doom in each thunder-cloud! And I hear a voice, in each breaking wave, Calling for her! Is there none to save? Like a thing of light she hath bounded on— But the hour of her doom and her fear hath come. Is there who scoffs at the sleepless Eye? Thinks the wrath of GOD but a mockery? Feeling no fear, nor breathing a prayer? Let him know that the hour of fierce despair Will surely come, when his wrath delayed Will break o’er the head, leave the heart dismayed. Oh! who, as he gazed on a cloudless sky, E’er dreamed that the hour of storm was nigh? Or thought as he looked on the heavens fair, That silent fires were gathering there? Yet who that hath marked the lightning’s flame Hath not quailed, as that thought o’er his bosom came?

2. “The Dying Slave” is also included in this chapter; see page 140.

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Such fate hath hung o’er yon hapless bark; There are aching hearts in her confines dark; There are men who have thrown the burning brand Where rose the homes of that captive band, And the lofty palm waved its proud defence, Vain, vain, o’er the dwellings of innocence! Men of dark mind, and of fearful mood, Whose hands are red with their brother’s blood; Who tore the babe, as it sleeping lay In its mother’s arms, from her grasp away; Who bound with chains the indignant sire, And wove round his dwelling a wreath of fire. I may not speak of the captives’ lot, Each bitter grief and each pining thought, Till the burning heart intensely glowed, And scorched on the cheek was the tear that flowed; I may not tell how that bitter cup Was silently every day filled up. They have drunk the draught,—they have met their doom,— But life with its cares will be over soon; The wearied will rest on a peaceful shore— ’Tis music! that sound of the wild waves’ roar. The bark, like a wreck, is driving——See! Dark men! how altered and quelled are ye! Gaze! for one captive hath burst his chain! Who bindeth its broken link again? Gaze! for another is breathing now The free, free air,—it hath cooled his brow! Gaze deeply, you fierce men have bowed them down To the living GOD , in this hour of doom! Now sweeps the ship before the gale, And louder, wilder swells their wail: Yon wave! its wreath of whitening foam— Yon lightning gleam!—all, all are gone! But never again shall her flag be seen To wave o’er the lone sea——Its hour hath been!

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[John Greenleaf] Whittier, “The Slave Ships” Emancipator (January 24, 1839) “————That fatal, that perfidious bark, Built i’ the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark.” Milton’s Lycidas3

The French ship Le Rodeur, with a crew of twenty-two men, and with one hundred and sixty negro slaves, sailed from Bonny in Africa, April, 1819. On approaching the line, a terrible malady broke out—an obstinate disease of the eyes—contagious, and altogether beyond the resources of medicine. It was aggravated by the scarcity of water among the slaves, (only half a wine-glass per day being allowed to an individual), and by the extreme impurity of the air in which they breathed. By the advice of the physician, they were brought upon deck occasionally; but some of the poor wretches, locking themselves in each other’s arms, leaped overboard, in the hope, which so universally prevails among them, of being swiftly transported to their own homes in Africa. To check this, the captain ordered several, who were stopped in the attempt, to be shot, or hanged, before their companions. The disease extended to the crew; and one after another were smitten with it, until only one remained unaffected. Yet even this dreadful condition did not preclude calculation: to save the expense of supporting slaves rendered unsaleable, and to obtain grounds for a claim against the underwriters, thirtysix of the negroes, having become blind, were thrown into the sea and drowned! In the midst of their dreadful fears lest the solitary individual, whose sight remained unaffected, should also be seized with the malady, a sail was discovered. It was the Spanish slaver, Leon. The same disease had been there; and, horrible to tell, all the crew had become blind! Unable to assist each other, the vessels parted. The Spanish ship has never since been heard of. The Rodeur reached Guadaloupe on the 21st June; the only man who had escaped the disease, and had thus been enabled to steer the slaver into port, caught it in three days after its arrival.—Speech of M. Benjamin Constant,4 in the French Chamber of Deputies, June 17, 1820.

“All ready!” cried the captain; “Ay, ay!” the seamen said; “Heave up the worthless lubbers— The dying and the dead.” Up from the slave-ship’s prison Fierce, bearded heads were thrust—

3. From John Milton’s “Lycidas” (1673). 4. French political activist Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque.

Slaves and Death p 145

“Now let the sharks look to it— Toss up the dead ones first!” Corpse after corpse came up,— Death had been busy there; Where every blow is mercy, Why should the Spoiler spare? Corpse after corpse they cast Sullenly from the ship, Yet bloody with the traces Of fetter-link and whip. Gloomily stood the captain, With his arms upon his breast, With his cold brow sternly knotted, And his iron lip compress’d. “Are all the dead dogs over?” Growled through that matted lip— “The blind ones are no better, Let’s lighten the good ship.” Hark! from the ship’s dark bosom, The very sounds of Hell! The ringing clank of iron— The maniac’s short, sharp yell!— The hoarse, low curse, throat-stifled— The starving infant’s moan— The horror of a breaking heart Poured through a mother’s groan! Up from that loathsome prison The stricken blind ones came: Below, had all been darkness— Above, was still the same. Yet the holy breath of Heaven Was sweetly breathing there, And the heated brow of fever Cooled in the soft sea air. “Overboard with them, ship-mates!” Cutlass and dirk were plied; Fetter’d and blind, one after one, 146 p Lyrical Liberators

Plunged down the vessel’s side. The sabre smote above— Beneath, the lean shark lay, Waiting with wide and bloody jaw His quick and human prey. God of the Earth! what cries Rang upward unto Thee? Voices of agony and blood, From ship-deck and from sea. The last dull plunge was heard— The last wave caught its stain— And the unsated shark look’d up For human hearts in vain.

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Red glow’d the Western waters— The setting sun was there, Scattering alike on wave and cloud His fiery mesh of hair. Amidst a group in blindness, A solitary eye Gazed, from the burden’d slaver’s deck, Into that burning sky. “A storm,” spoke out the gazer, “Is gathering and at hand— Curse on’t—I’d give my other eye For one firm rood of land.” And then he laugh’d—but only His echo’d laugh replied— For the blinded and the suffering Alone were at his side. Night settled on the waters, And on a stormy heaven, While fiercely on that lone ship’s track The thunder-gust was driven. “A sail!—thank God, a sail!” Slaves and Death p 147

And as the helmsman spoke, Up through the stormy murmur, A shout of gladness broke. Down came the stranger vessel Unheeding on her way, So near, that on the slaver’s deck Fell off her driven spray. “Ho! for the love of mercy— We’re perishing and blind!” A wail of utter agony Came back upon the wind: “Help us! for we are stricken With blindness every one; Ten days we’ve floated fearfully, Unnoting star or sun. Our ship’s the slaver Leon— We’ve but a score on board— Our slaves are all gone over— Help—for the love of God!” On livid brows of agony The broad red lightning shone— But the roar of wind and thunder Stifled the answering groan. Wail’d from the broken waters A last despairing cry, As, kindling in the stormy light, The stranger ship went by.

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In the sunny Guadaloupe A dark hull’d vessel lay— With a crew who noted never The nightfall or the day. The blossom of the orange Was white by every stream, And tropic leaf, and flower, and bird Were in the warm sun-beam.

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And the sky was bright as ever And the moonlight slept as well, On the palm-trees by the hill-side, And the streamlet of the dell; And the glances of the Creole Were still as archly deep, And her smiles as full as ever Of passion and of sleep. But vain were bird and blossom, The green earth and the sky, And the smile of human faces, To the ever darken’d eye; For, amidst a world of beauty, The slaver went abroad, With his ghastly visage written By the awful curse of God!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Witnesses” Liberator (December 30, 1842)

In Ocean’s wide domains, Half buried in the sands, Lie skeletons in chains, With shackled feet and hands. Beyond the fall of dews, Deeper than plummet lies, Float ships, with all their crews, No more to sink nor rise. There the black slave-ship swims, Freighted with human forms, Whose fettered, fleshless limbs Are not the sport of storms. These are the bones of Slaves; They gleam from the abyss; They cry, from yawning waves, ‘We are the Witnesses!’

Slaves and Death p 149

Within Earth’s wide domains Are markets for men’s lives; Their necks are galled with chains, Their wrists are cramped with gyves. Dead bodies, that the kite In deserts makes its prey; Murders, that with affright Scare school-boys from their play! All evil thoughts and deeds; Anger, and lust, and pride; The foulest, rankest weeds, That choke Life’s groaning tide! These are the woes of slaves; They glare from the abyss; They cry, from unknown graves, ‘We are the Witnesses!’

H. W. [Henry Wadsworth] Longfellow, “The Slave’s Dream” Emancipator (February 2, 1843)

Beside the ungathered rice he lay, His sickle in his hand; His breast was bare, his matted hair Was buried in the sand. Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep, He saw his native land. Wide through the landscape of his dreams The lordly Niger5 flowed; Beneath the palm trees on the plain Once more a king he strode; And heard the tinkling caravans Descend the mountain road. He saw once more his dark-eyed queen Among her children stand;

5. The Niger River in Africa.

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They clasped his neck, they kissed his cheeks, They held him by the hand!— A tear burst from the sleeper’s lids And fell into the sand. And then at furious speed he rode Along the Niger’s bank; His bridle-reins were golden chains, And, with a martial clank, At each leap he could feel his scabbard of steel Smiting his stallion’s flank. Before him, like a blood-red flag, The bright flamingoes flew; From morn till night he followed their flight, O’er plains where the tamarind grew, Till he saw the roofs of the Caffre6 huts, And the ocean rose to view. At night he heard the lion roar, And the hyena scream, And the river-horse, as he crushed the reeds Beside some hidden stream; And it passed, like a glorious roll of drums, Through the triumph of his dream. The forests, with their myriad tongues, Shouted of liberty; And the blast of the desert cried aloud, With a voice so wild and free, That he started in his sleep and smiled At their tempestuous glee. He did not feel the driver’s whip, Nor the burning heat of day; For Death had illumined the land of sleep, And his lifeless body lay A worn-out fetter, that the soul Had broken and thrown away.



6. African.

Slaves and Death p 151

George Moses Horton, “The Slave Poet” Emancipator (July 1, 1846) The following poem was written by a negro slave, and is taken from a collection of his poems, first published in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1829, by Gales & Son, and afterwards republished in Philadelphia, in 1837. In a preface to the first edition it is stated that these poems were composed by a slave by the name of George, the property of a Mr. James Horton, of Chatham county, North Carolina; that many of them had appeared in the Raleigh Register, and that some had found their way into the Boston papers. It further states that the little book was published for the purpose of collecting money enough from it to emancipate George, upon the condition that he should go to Liberia, that these were the only terms upon which his friends made this effort in his behalf; it also says he desired to go. The account states that George could read and was learning to write; that all his pieces were written down by others, that he read at night, and at the usual intervals from labor allowed to slaves, that he was most fond of poetry, that (in the words of the writer) “he had ever been a faithful, honest, and industrious slave;” that his heart had felt deeply and sensitively, in this lowest possible condition of human nature, would easily be believed, and was impressively confirmed by one of his stanzas:

“Come melting Pity, from afar, And break this vast enormous bar Between a wretch and thee; Purchase a few short days of time, And bid a vassal soar sublime, On wings of Liberty.” In the preface to the second edition we learn that poor George is still a slave, of the same master, that they did not succeed in getting money enough to purchase him and banish him to Liberia. Although he was “good, and faithful, and industrious,” although it was acknowledged his situation was the “lowest possible condition of human nature, and that his heart felt it deeply and sensitively,” yet still he was kept a slave; he was at the first publication of his little book, thirty-two years old; he is now fortyeight, if he is living. What must his tender poetic heart have endured through these long weary years of bondage. Who can bear to think of his sufferings? Many hearts not long since, on the first of August, sent up a song of thanksgiving to the God of mercy for the freedom of the English

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West India slaves,7 and uttered most fervent prayers that the day may yet come when a shout of joy may go forth and sound through all our land at the liberation of the American slaves—when, without uttering a falsehood, we may say, “Go and tell the world America is free!” Children as well as grown people should think of these things.

“The Slave’s Complaint.” By an American slave. Am I sadly cast aside On misfortune’s rugged tide? Will the world my pains deride Forever? Worst of all, must hope grow dim, And withhold her cheering beam? Rather let me sleep and dream Forever? Something still my heart surveys Groping through this dreary maze; Is it hope? then burn and blaze Forever? Leave me not a wretch confined, Altogether lame and blind, Unto gross despair consigned Forever? Heaven! in whom can I confide? Canst thou not for all provide? Condescend to be my guide Forever? And when this transient life shall end, Oh may some kind eternal friend Bid me from servitude ascend Forever.

7. Slavery was abolished in the British colonies of the West Indies in 1833.

Slaves and Death p 153

George M. [Moses] Horton, (A Slave), “Reflections” Anti-Slavery Bugle (April 17, 1858)

So teach me to regard my days— How small a point my life appears; One gleam to death the whole betrays, A momentary flash of years. One moment’s smile, the scene is past— Life’s gaudy bloom at once we shed, And sink beneath affliction’s blast, Or drop as soon among the dead. Short is the chain wound up at morn, Which oft runs down and stops at noon; Thus in a moment man is born, And lo! the creature dies as soon. Life’s little torch, how soon forgot, Dim burning on its dreary shore; Just like that star which downwards shot,— It glimmers and is seen no more. Teach me to draw this transient breath, With conscious awe my end to prove, Early to make my peace with death, As thus in haste from time we move. O Heaven! through this murky vale, Direct me, with a burning pen: Thus shall I on a tuneful gale Fleet out my threescore years and ten.

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Frances Ellen Watkins, “Bury Me in a Free Land” Anti-Slavery Bugle (November 20, 1858); National Anti-Slavery Standard (December 4, 1858)

You may make my grave wherever you will, In a lowly vale or a lofty hill; You may make it among earth’s humblest graves, But not in a land where men are slaves. I could not sleep if around my grave I heard the steps of a trembling slave; His shadow above my silent tomb Would make it a place of fearful gloom. I could not rest if I heard the tread Of a coffle-gang to the shambles led, And the mother’s shriek of wild despair Rise like a curse on the trembling air. I could not rest if I heard the lash Drinking her blood at each fearful gash, And I saw her babes torn from her breast Like trembling doves from their parent nest. I’d shudder and start if I heard the bay Of bloodhounds seizing their human prey; And I heard the captive plead in vain As they tightened afresh his galling chain. If I saw young girls from their mothers’ arms Bartered and sold for their youthful charms My eye would flash with a mournful flame, My death-paled cheek grow red with shame. I would sleep, dear friends, where bloated might Can rob no man of his dearest right; My rest shall be calm in any grave Where none can call his brother a slave. I ask no monument proud and high, To arrest the gaze of the passers by; All that my yearning spirit craves, Is—bury me not in a land of slaves.— Slaves and Death p 155

7 Slave Mo t h e r s

S

lave mothers are without doubt the most frequent protagonists in abolitionist poetry, especially in the antebellum years when all the titles in this chapter were published. Countless poems dwell in particular on the painful separations these women endured when their children were sold away from them. Poets relied on common sentimental conventions to draw attention to the repercussions of these sundered familial ties, which would have been familiar to the many readers who experienced similar losses in an era of high infant mortality. The frankly overwhelming attention this theme received is understandable, since it served as the ideal sentimental catalyst for an audience, much of it female, that could not but empathize with such horrific circumstances. Furthermore, as Michael Bennett notes, by addressing this topic poets insisted on “recognizing the public display of private griefs inflicted upon black women,”1 an aspect of the slave trade that would have offended contemporary sensibilities concerning women’s supposedly intrinsic yearning for privacy. Poets also protest the inability of many slave mothers to properly care for their own children, who often died as a result of involuntary neglect. In addition, they address the appalling cases of filicide committed by mothers who would rather kill their children than return them to a life of slavery, and who in some instances also committed suicide. The selection included here contains some of the most emotionally wrenching poems in this collection. 156

For example, Hannah F. Gould writes in the voice of a mother who implores God to kill her infant son before he grows up to experience a life of slavery. The poem’s placement in the Liberator, where it appeared in the “Ladies’ Department” beneath the widely reproduced image of a kneeling slave woman in chains accompanied by the legend “Am I not a Woman and a Sister?,”2 acknowledges how resonant this poem would have been for female readers. Lucy Hooper’s poem depicts a mother watching over her dying infant in a scenario many white mothers would also have experienced. Unlike them, however, the slave mother finds comfort in knowing that her child’s death will soon release him from slavery. Hooper ensures that the poem is as relatable as any mainstream composition unconnected to abolitionist themes by relying on such conventions of maternal consolation poems as envisioning the child’s soul blossoming like a flower in heaven. Martha Hempstead and Charlotte Elizabeth both demonstrate how slavery could hinder mothers from suitably caring for their children. Hempstead illustrates how the onus of field work impedes a mother from tending to her vulnerable infant, while Elizabeth presents a slave’s devastating plea to her master to allow her to tend to her sick child or at the very least to bury its body when it finally dies from neglect. Commenting on an episode that actually occurred, E. Jessup Eames laments a state of affairs that would oblige a mother to surreptitiously bury her own child without having recourse to a coffin, a helping hand, or any ceremonial rites. Yet his speaker is nevertheless consoled by anticipating that both mother and child will finally be freed in the afterlife. The anonymous author of “Liberty or Death,” which was possibly inspired by the true story of a female runaway in Washington, D.C., who escaped her pursuers by jumping to her death in the Potomac in 1842, suggests that by committing suicide this woman who was separated from all of her children will finally obtain the freedom that was unavailable to her in life (see also chapters 3 and 11). Alonzo Lewis bases his poem with the exceedingly common title “The Slave Mother” on the actual case of a mother in Kentucky who drowned all three of her children in 1831. Considering what she must have endured to elicit such a heinous act, Lewis pleads for his audience not to condemn her drastic decision. The infamous case of Margaret Garner, another Kentucky slave who killed her own child, is addressed in the anonymous poem published soon after she and her family were arrested in January 1856 following their escape across the Ohio River to the free city of Cincinnati. When they were apprehended, the pregnant Garner killed her two-year-old daughter by slitting her throat, and was then apparently impeded from killing herself as well as her three other children, several of whom may have been fathered by her owner (see plate 7).3 Slave Mothers p 157

Garner’s trial attracted national attention as a referendum on the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which had justified her capture (see chapter 3), raising the issue of whether she should be tried as a person under Ohio state law or as property under federal law. The case notably reversed customary regional thinking, with Southern proslavery advocates who usually supported states’ rights claiming the precedence of federal authority and Northern antislavery advocates who normally espoused the opposing view arguing instead for state sovereignty. The act was ultimately upheld, and Garner was not tried for murder but rather returned to her owner, who subsequently sold her to a plantation in Mississippi. Although the poet is evidently horrified by her deed, Garner is nevertheless forgiven for her desire to save her child from slavery. The poem invokes the theme of retribution from the story of Cain and Abel to suggest that the blood of the innocent child will acquire a voice of its own, as Abel’s blood does in Genesis, to speak out against the supporters of slavery who are ultimately responsible for such tragedies.4 This allusion knowingly reverses the prevailing biblical justification for slavery—which its defenders found in their interpretation of the mark of Cain as a sign of blackness condemning his supposedly sinful descendants to persecution5—by relying on scripture to find blame in the persecutors rather than in their victims. Poets thus turned to the slave mother as perhaps the most evocative representation of how much unjustifiable suffering was propagated by the institution of slavery.

p A. [Alonzo] Lewis, “The Slave Mother” Liberator (January 21, 1832); Herald of Freedom (August 14, 1840)1 It may be sufficient preface to the following ballad to state, that it is the plain narration of an incident, which happened in Kentucky, in 1831. —“May none these marks efface, For they appeal from tyranny to God.” Byron 2

The day had not begun to dawn, The sun behind the hills Had far to journey, ere his rays Should gild the mountain rills.

1. Introduction appears in the Liberator. Byron epigraph appears in the Herald of Freedom. 2. From Lord Byron’s The Prisoner of Chillon (1816).

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A woman, with three little ones, Came from a lowly shed, And out upon a lonely path, Three little ones she led. She led her darling babes along, And not a word she said, They seemed, as they were passing on, Like shadows of the dead! The eldest was a little boy, Some six warm summers old, And doubtless to a mother’s sight, Was lovely to behold. The others were two little girls; Just old enough were they, Led by their mother’s helping hand, To walk along the way. “Where are we going, mother, now?” The little brother spoke; “Oh, I was dreaming a sweet dream, Just as we all awoke.” “We’re going but a little way; Come, children, come along: You cannot think a mother’s hand Would lead her loved ones wrong! “When I was old as you, my son, I can remember well, How I was brought across the sea, With cruel men to dwell. “They tore me from my mother’s arms, And brought me here to toil; And every day my tears and blood, Have dewed this hated soil. “Last evening I was beat again, Though faint as I could be,— Slave Mothers p 159

No, children, such a wretched fate, You shall not live to see!” They stopped beside a crystal spring, That in a meadow flowed, Just as the first red gleams of dawn, Along the valley glowed. The morning showed those little ones Were like the sable night; But well the wretched mother thought Their little souls were white. She took her little darling babes, And plunged them in the spring!— It would have grieved a human heart, To see so sad a thing! She held her helpless children there, Until they all were dead! But though her soul was wrenched outright, Yet not a tear she shed. Let none who know not suffering, That mother cruel call; It was that she had felt so much, She did not feel at all. She took her little darling babes, And laid them side by side; ’Twas there beside the meadow spring, Where those dear children died. The wretched mother turned away, With none her griefs to heed; Then down the valley she returned, Again to toil and bleed.

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Hannah F. Gould, “The Slave Mother’s Prayer” Liberator (February 11, 1832); Herald of Freedom (August 6, 1836)

O Thou, who hear’st the feeblest prayer, The humblest heart dost see, Upon the chilly midnight air I pour my soul to thee! I bend a form with ceaseless toil Consuming all the day; And raise an eye that wets the soil, As wears my life away. I lift a hand that’s only freed Until to-morrow’s task; But how, O God, does nature bleed Upon the boon I ask! How wretched must that mother be, (And I’m the hapless one,) Who begs an early grave of thee, To shield her only son! I would not that my boy were spared To curse his natal hour; To drag the chains his birth prepared Beneath unfeeling power. Then, ere the nursling at my breast Shall feel the tyrant’s rod, O lay his little form at rest Beneath the quiet sod! And when before thine awful throne My master shall appear, A naked spirit, to atone For all his dealings here; If pardoning grace can be bestowed, And Heaven has pity then, For him, who here no pity showed Towards his fellow-men, Slave Mothers p 161

Thou’lt spare him, in thy mercy, Lord, The sinner’s fearful doom— The wages, for his just reward, Of death beyond the tomb.

L. H. [Lucy Hooper], “Lines. The Death of an Infant Slave” Liberator (March 31, 1832)

Night drew her darkening curtain round the faintly glowing west, And gave to every weary slave the precious boon of rest; But the mother sat by her infant’s couch, and the spell of sleep was vain, While her thrilling heart bore strongly up her worn and feeble frame. She sat a mother’s watch to keep beside her dying boy, With thought too highly raised for grief, too darkly sad for joy; She sat to see the flame of life in early morn go down, Ere years might dim its brilliancy, or cloud the light that shone. She sat to see the spirit pass away unstained and free, Ere it had learnt how bowed by wrong its loftiness might be; To mark the closing lid seal up in death’s undreaming trance, The eye that never yet had quailed beneath oppression’s glance. She wept not that the feeble plant, which might in evil hour Be crushed on earth, in fairer climes would blossom to a flower; Nor yet that he whose fate would be to bend beneath the rod, Should from the proud oppressor’s power be sheltered by his God. It was not well that she should weep beside that couch of pain— What gift had years to offer him but slavery’s galling chain? Oh! blest to soar so soon away, and blest this hour of strife— How beautiful the touch of death when it awakes to life! Yet when from human hearts are rent away their music strings, And all their sweetest, purest founts are turned to bitter springs; When poisoned all their waters are, and broken all the chords, Then swells up in the secret soul a grief too deep for words. And oh! how bitter is the fate that seals the mother’s eye To tears, when she must calmly stand and see the loved one die!

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How fervently the heart will cling to life’s sole single link! How strongly nature’s voice will plead e’en on th’ eternal brink! And closely now the mother’s arms are folded round his form, As she would keep her dying child from the Eternal One; But other thoughts crowd over her, his doom she would not stay— Let his spirit leave its chains below and joyous soar away! The fearful hour is drawing on; her watching eye can see Death’s solemn seal upon his brow of fearful mystery; That signet seal, that awful calm, which tells us that the dead Have opened to a burning scroll no living eye can read. ’T is over! on the sea of life his bark shall ride no more; He has soared from earthly mists away to a bright celestial shore. But, mother, it would calm thy wild and bitter sorrowing, To see him before the holy throne, as he waves a seraph’s wing.

Martha Hempstead, “The Slave Mother” Herald of Freedom (March 17, 1843)

The horn, the shrill re-echoing horn, Has sounded wide and far; Though yet the first bright ray of morn, Dims not her morning star. A mother at the startling peal Springs from her earthy bed— Haste—Haste—thou hast no time to kneel, Thy prayers must be unsaid. Perplexed, insulted and afraid; Scarce had she sunk to rest, And scarcely had her infant babe Grown quiet on her breast. But now the morning’s earliest light, Must see her on the plain; To labor, till the fall of night Brings sad relief again.

Slave Mothers p 163

One moment on her little one She gazes, in his sleep, And can she leave him there alone, Unsoothed, to wake and weep. And if she bear him to the field, And lay his unclad form, In some lone spot—there’s nought to shield Such helpless thing, from harm; She may not watch him even then, She may not guard him there, From reptiles of the marsh, and fen, And creatures of the air. She turns, to leave him where he lies, With hurrying step—and wild; But hark! the unconscious infant cries, And can she leave her child. The sun-rise sees her on the ground Amidst a toiling band— Her infant on her shoulders bound— Her cane-hoe in her hand. And there with strong and hardy men She labors, side by side; Or if she falter—now and then— The reeking lash is plied. Till desperate vigor from the charm Of dread and dreaded pain, Nerves up the o’er-wearied heart and arm To throb and toil again. Poor captive mother, with thy child, For surely he is thine, Howe’er unhallowed hands have toil’d To wrest that claim divine. Poor captive! half thy cruel wrongs, In words—must ne’er be named; 164 p Lyrical Liberators

But suffering hath its thousand tongues, When heart and lip are chained. And are they christian eyes that gaze So long unmoved on thee? And is it christian love which says, We will not make you free?

Charlotte Elizabeth, “The Slave Mother and Her Babe” Liberator (June 28, 1844); National Anti-Slavery Standard (August 15, 1844)3 ‘Can a woman forget her sucking child?’4

Oh, massa, let me stay, to catch My baby’s sobbing breath: His little glassy eye to watch, And smoothe his limbs in death, And cover him with grass and leaf, Beneath the plantain tree! It is not sullenness, but grief— O, massa, pity me! God gave my babe—a precious boon; To cheer my lonely heart; But massa called to work too soon, And I must needs depart. The morn was chill—I spoke no word, But fear’d my babe might die, And heard all day, or thought I heard, My little baby cry. At noon—O, how I ran! and took My baby to my breast! I linger’d—and the long lash broke My sleeping infant’s rest. I worked till night—till darkest night, In torture and disgrace;

3. Introductory quotation appears in the Liberator. 4. See Isaiah 49:15.

Slave Mothers p 165

Went home and watch’d till morning light; To see my baby’s face. The fulness from its cheek was gone, The sparkle from its eye; Now hot like fire, now cold like stone, I knew my babe must die. I work’d upon plantation ground, Though faint with wo and dread, Then ran, or flew, and here I found— See massa, almost dead. Then give me but one little hour— O! do not lash me so! One little hour—one little hour— And gratefully I’ll go. Ah me! the whip has cut my boy, I heard his feeble scream; No more—farewell my only joy, My life’s first gladsome dream! I lay thee on the lonely sod, The heaven is bright above; These Christians boast they have a God; And say his name is Love: O gentle, loving God, look down! My dying baby see; The mercy that from earth is flown, Perhaps may dwell with Thee.

Anonymous, “Liberty or Death” Emancipator (December 16, 1846)

Beside Potomac’s swollen stream, a negro mother stood, Her eyes were fixed as if in scorn upon the angry flood; Her hands were folded on her breast, as if in dumb despair, And like a statue of the night, she stayed unmoving there.

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The light’ning glanced in golden veins—the sharp bolt shook the ground— But still she seemed undaunted by earthly sight or sound; A darker storm was in her soul, a wild, convulsive wo, Which God, her Savior, only, and the angel guards could know. All, all were gone, like Autumn leaves, her precious little band! Not scattered by the winds of heaven, but by a tyrant’s hand; And now her heart throbbed wildly, to be among the free, Who rest within their lowly graves, so calm and silently. Into the darkness once she looked with an imploring eye, But heavy gusts and driving rains went whirling swiftly by; Then, to the gloomy river, she turned herself, once more, And listened long and sternly to the uncertain roar. She plunged beneath the waters! they swept above her head; Alone, amid their coldness, her broken spirit fled, Where no oppressor lifteth the scourge, or chain, or brand, For those can never enter the silent spirit land. Earth had no Liberty for her within its vast domains, No place she could inherit without her master’s chains; The strong could trust the Polar Star5, and some the ocean brave, But the only freedom she could find, was the freedom of the grave.

E. Jessup Eames, “The Slave Mother” National Era (September 20, 1855) “When the sexton went to open the grave-yard for a funeral one morning, he found there a slave mother, digging a grave for her infant, which lay by her side, shroudless and coffinless! The mistress of that mother had sent her thus to bury her child, refusing to buy grave-clothes and a coffin!”

Oh! weeping woman of the dark-browed race, Is it in very truth thy child—thine own! Can that cold, stark, unyielding form and face Be flesh of thine own flesh, bone of thy bone? 5. The North Star, a symbol of liberty that illuminated the path to freedom in the Northern states for fugitive slaves.

Slave Mothers p 167

No shroud or coffin for the tender thing— And thou, a woman, scooping out its grave! The heart of mercy bleeds to see thee fling The broken earth o’er one thou’dst die to save: Yet not thine own! no mother could be here, Interring her own dead—alas! thou lookest drear! Ah, yes! that ice-cold baby oft hath lain, Nestling and warm, O desolate, on thy bosom— Thine ever-veering lot of toil and pain Hath oft been lighted by that perished blossom: Perchance thou stolest the time to watch beside The little sufferer in its dying hour— Struggling thy tears of agony to hide, From cruel eyes, which had eternal power To wound with heartless sneer, and scorn, and jest The sacred sorrows of thy sore-bereaved breast! And oh! no priestly hand God’s Book displays, In this sick hour of dying hope, to cheer thee, No human eye the burial rite surveys, Save that the hireling sexton chanceth near thee; And while thou summon’st strength from thy despair, To aid thee in this last most solemn task, Thy mistress doth in awful mockery wear Her Maker’s image as a screening mask— She sent thee, groaning ’neath maternal woe; She knew that thou wert made in God’s own likeness too. Yet still the passionate pulses of thy heart, O mourning mother! there is no joy for thee: Thy buried babe hath now nor lot nor part In thy sad bondage. Lo! thy child is free! Free as the white-winged messengers of Heaven, In whose glad company it soareth now; A precious ransom for its soul is given, Above all human price! Then droop not thou, Though doomed for years the Christian’s slave to be— Yet in yon righteous Heaven is forged no chain for thee!

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Anonymous, “Lines, Suggested by Reading the Late Slave Tragedy in Cincinnati” Liberator (February 29, 1856)

Hark! On my ear there falls a horrid shriek! My chill’d blood curdles in my veins to hear A mother’s arm is raised to slay her child! Can it be so, or do I wildly dream? Has the warm heart of mother turned to stone, And all the tenderness with which she gazed Upon her child, to gall and wormwood changed? Ah, no! the very love she bears her child Has nerved her arm to deal the fatal blow. She is a slave, and so are those she loves Better than life; her children, they are slaves! She has taken all, and fled, in the vain hope To free them. Aye, to find a refuge where They all might live secure from whips and chains; A blessed home, where they, the gift of God, Her children, she might call her own, and where, On her soft bosom, she might lull to rest, As night in quietness and peace came down. But vain, alas! her efforts; on her track The mad pursuer hastes, and finds her shelter. Oh! may God forgive, and hold him [sic] guiltless, Who, to save her child from the accursed lot, Has raised her hand, and dealt the kindly blow, That, all unsummoned, sent him to his God! But, from the ground the blood of innocence Shall cry for VENGEANCE , till the mark of Cain6 Is set on Slavery’s forehead, and the fiend That long has fattened on the nation’s blood, Shall be cast out, to be devoured by dogs. 6. The mark of Cain was used to justify slavery by those who interpreted it as the curse of dark skin, indicating the supposed sinfulness of black peoples. See Genesis 4:8–15.

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8 T he So u t h

A

ntislavery poets are possibly at their most ingenious when they consider their ideological opponents in the South. These depictions of Southern beliefs and practices address the irreconcilable contrasts which they suggest characterized a way of life that prided itself on refinement yet nevertheless sanctioned such cruel practices as whippings and auctions. While Southerners did indeed rely on what John L. Thomas calls a theory of “reactionary paternalism that utterly repudiated civil liberties,” he recognizes that for the most part it was the abolitionists who were responsible for manufacturing their image as what William Lloyd Garrison called “brutal, demented, God-defying oppressors.”1 This tactic of attacking the defenders of slavery on the basis of moral rather than political grounds ultimately proved more effective for their purposes.2 By also including the voices of black Southerners themselves, the poets represented in this chapter corroborate the suffering that slaves endured at their hands. It is worth noting as well that the Southern way of life gave rise to more instances of satire, written by more anonymous authors, than appear in any other chapter in this collection. In these cases white Southerners are depicted as laughable cowards, liars, or idlers who are primarily motivated by greed and otherwise lacking in scruples. Moreover, their justifications for maintaining slavery are portrayed as specious and irrational. This approach illustrates how, as Ronald G. Walters notes, abolitionists “measured the North’s superiority by contrast with the South’s blighted moral and economic condi170

tion.” He argues that their goal in doing so was to demonstrate that the abolitionist utopia was “relatively egalitarian,” unlike the proslavery utopia, which was defined by its “social, racial, and sexual hierarchy.”3 In short, the Southern perspective is given its due only in order to be summarily refuted. Various poets object to the customary racial discrimination that posed such significant challenges for black Southerners. The author writing under the name Pocahontas, a suitable pseudonym linking her to the Native American who legendarily pleaded on behalf of another’s freedom, asserts that while the bodies of slaves may be dominated by their owners, slaves can nevertheless defy them within their own hearts and minds. The anonymous poem “The Negro on the Fence,” depicting an episode that appears to transpire in a Southern setting in the midst of the Civil War in 1862, offers a brief moral on the dubious value of racism. It portrays a wagoner who refuses a black man’s offer to help when his vehicle gets stuck on his way to the mill, “because the negro wasn’t white,” a decision so irrational it causes him severe repercussions. The reverend George Lansing Taylor comments on the infamous 1863 photograph of the scarred back of a Louisiana slave who was brutally whipped (see plate 8). That such wounds were indeed common was verified during the war by a surgeon who examined recruits for the 3rd US Colored Heavy Artillery, who famously reported that over half of them had evidence of scars that attested to the mistreatment of slaves depicted by Harriet Beecher Stowe in her important 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin: “I have occasion to see the backs of these men and anyone inspired to read might there read corroborative evidence of all that Mrs. Stowe ever wrote of the cruelty of slavery.”4 Taylor responds to the photograph’s disturbing proof of abuse by asserting the dignity of its subject, portraying him as a veritable martyr whose suffering is analogous to Christ’s at the hands of the Romans. The poem’s emotional appeal rests on the agony of a human body that is equal to the speaker’s own. It proposes that the institution of slavery at large, and not the individual perpetrators of these deeds, is to blame for such intolerable acts of cruelty. The startling dichotomies Northerners encountered on their visits to the South are addressed in William Allen Butler’s account of a stroll through the city of Richmond, Virginia, in 1859 shortly before it would become the capital of the Confederacy. His speaker recalls looking down from a hilltop at Thomas Crawford’s monument in Capitol Square commemorating famed Virginians who fought for the cause of liberty, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Patrick Henry. When he descends to the city streets and comes across a slave auction, he compares himself to Christ’s disciples returning from Mount Tabor after the miracle of his transfiguration to The South p 171

reencounter the reality of human guilt and shame. This firsthand experience of the stark contrast between nominal freedom and actual slavery compels him to denounce an institution he formerly supported, and to urge the state of Virginia to either abolish slavery or renounce its own heroes. Several other poets also rely on auctions as indisputable evidence of the agonies caused by slavery. The untitled poem by C. W. is framed as a response to a reader who questioned the injustice of slavery and the necessity of abolition, exposing the cruelty of a practice that ruthlessly tore families apart and confirming the value of a movement that hoped to reunite them. Toward the end of the Civil War, Elmer Ruan Coates urges politicians to continue supporting the conflict since it will in due course put an end to these auctions. Inspired by an actual auction block that was brought to Philadelphia from Alexandria by the surgeon of a Pennsylvania infantry, Coates describes the many families that would have been hopelessly separated by the fall of the hammer. The sentimental appeal of black poet Frances Ellen Watkins Harper alludes to the universal pain of burying a loved one—which would have been familiar to many of her white readers in an era of high mortality—only to assert that it pales in comparison to the agony of the separations occasioned by auctions. Wendy Dasler Johnson comments on how Harper thus establishes a persuasive “bond of pathos” between the subjects of the poem and white readers in order to challenge how “unchecked power . . . warps human relations, extinguishes human sympathy, and shatters family.”5 The voices of slaves who experienced Southern oppression firsthand are expressed in the anonymous poems “The Virginia Negro’s Song” and “Tony James’s Song.” The first poem, originally published at the early date of 1812, replicates the lament a visitor to a Southern mansion overheard a slave singing in the fields before he was interrupted by a whipping. The second poem, written under the pseudonym Simon Pure, which helps establish its author’s virtue, is composed in the vernacular of a freedman who has recently been allowed to purchase his own farm. It first appeared in the Free South, a rarity among antislavery periodicals, given its Southern place of publication in Beaufort, South Carolina. The region had a significant population of former slaves who were abandoned by their owners upon the arrival of Union forces in 1861 (see also chapter 12). This poem comments in particular on the redistribution of land in the occupied Sea Islands in early 1864, when freedmen were encouraged to buy land as part of an initiative to prove the economic feasibility of free labor. Since the poem’s speaker mentions paying fifty dollars for his land, which sold for $1.25 per acre, he would have purchased the standard forty acres that came to form part of the well-known phrase “forty acres and a mule.” His language is 172 p Lyrical Liberators

informed by a circular issued in January 1864 by Union army general Rufus Saxton, quoted in the opening epigraph, which advised potential purchasers that “cotton is the great staple here. I advise you to plant all you can of it. So profitable was its culture in the old days of slavery that your former masters said ‘Cotton is King.’ It is expected that you will show in a Free South that cotton is more of a king than ever.” The former slave echoes Saxton’s words to declare that he is now as much of a “king” as cotton ever was. His newfound power as a landowner has afforded him a “resurrection” of sorts by at long last giving him control over his own labor and land, body and soul. Several poets draw attention to the absurdity of certain arguments Southerners relied on to defend slavery. At the early date of 1831, Liberator editor William Lloyd Garrison satirizes his adversaries by adopting the voice of a slave owner who argues against abolition by pointing out that if slavery were abolished he would not only be forced to do his own work but would also lose significant profits. He argues as well that slaveholders actually deserve gratitude since their slaves are significantly better off now than they previously were in Africa. This speaker’s weakness, racism, and hypocrisy are palpable in his horror at the prospect of using his own “delicate hands” to take hold of a plough, as well as in his reference to slaves as “wild animals” whose sales bring higher profits than any crop—all the while insisting on his own ardent Christianity. The common Southern claim that slavery improved the lives of its victims is also found in a poem submitted in response to the call for proslavery poetry issued by the Emancipator in 1839. Its author, a so-called “Friend of the Patriarchs,” writes a satirical apostrophe to the muse of slavery, whose song inspires him with the sounds of cracking whips, clanking chains, and wailing slaves. He pays tribute to slavery as a “cure” for those who hate tilling their own land, lack power over others, and enjoy abusing the weak. The moral shortcomings of slave owners are further disclosed in the anonymous “Song of ‘The Brotherhood,’” whose speaker wishes to silence antislavery activists and censor the press, since “Freedom and slavery cannot agree.” Although he claims that his argument is based on biblical precedent as well as on the presumed contentment of slaves, it is ultimately revealed to be motivated by profit, thus illustrating the dishonest “addled-egg-logic” behind proslavery ideology. This is apparent as well in the poem by the anonymous author calling himself A Driver, whose ironic apostrophe to God thanks Him for granting slavery to Southerners and pleads for things to remain as they are by keeping freedom at bay. His motive is acknowledged to be an “all-grasping love of gain,” which can be sustained only through the consistent abuse of its victims. The black poet Benjamin Clark, who was born to The South p 173

emancipated parents, also composes a slaveholder’s satirical prayer of thanks to God for sanctioning slavery in the Bible, which he believes should serve as proof to “fanatics” that if they are right then scripture must be wrong. The author who identifies as an Anti-Fanatic directly addresses these supposed fanatics in what is a seemingly genuine instance of proslavery poetry submitted in response to the Emancipator’s request. He states that enslaved blacks are better off than freed blacks, and envisions what he believes would be the horrifying repercussions of abolition, such as riots and interracial marriages. At the relatively early date of 1839, this speaker’s anger already hints at the aggressions Northerners would later experience at the hands of their opponents. Indeed, a similar tone resurfaces twenty-five years later in 1864, once the war is well under way, in the voice of a sarcastic “Toaster” to Abraham Lincoln, who indignantly curses the president and his supporters in a frank expression of wounded Southern pride that was first published in the Mobile Southern Tribune. Poets rely heavily on satire to mimic the flawed logic of Southern rhetoric, as in the case of the author identified as Pedler, who was presumably challenged to compose an antislavery poem by the editors of the Herald of Freedom in exchange for a year’s subscription. His poem ridicules a proposal that was put forth by Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky, suggesting Northerners should pay a tax of twelve hundred million dollars to compensate the owners of slaves in the event of emancipation.6 The speaker humorously argues that these terms are unacceptable because a slave already reimburses his own cost through his work every five years and generates only profit after the age of fifteen, thus making any further remuneration unwarranted. The anonymous poem “The Northern Slaves” is addressed to the South by participants in an abolitionist fair in Lowell, Massachusetts. The poem’s purported aim is to confirm the accusation that Northerners also relied on slaves, yet they sarcastically point out that in their case these “slaves” consist of such overworked agricultural and industrial apparatuses as ploughs and boilers. In a nod to the active abolitionist press, they also acknowledge the printing types being consistently abused for its purposes. Another anonymous poem, titled “Southern and Northern Logic,” consists of a dialogue between a Southerner and a Northerner in which the latter responds to every point made by the former with a ludicrous counterargument that effectively invalidates his opponent’s logic. For instance, he argues that because Southerners get an additional legislative vote for every three slaves they own, and they claim that these slaves are tantamount to animals, then Northerners should get more votes based on the number of livestock they own. In the course of his argument he also mocks the “legislative asses” in Congress 174 p Lyrical Liberators

and their objectionable “gag-law” passed in 1836 to prohibit antislavery petitions. Although an unintended consequence of this law was to recruit more abolitionist supporters who objected to its restriction of the democratic right to petition their own government, the law was not overturned until 1845. Other poets address the distinctions between North and South more earnestly. G. S. Burleigh, for instance, responds to actual Southern threats to attack abolitionists by suggesting that their attempt to obstruct the “war cry of Liberty” is as futile as an attempt to curtail the forces of nature. The copublished works by A. B. Meek and Thomas Wickersham juxtapose a Southern rhapsody urging readers to visit a pastoral land free of trouble with a Northern response that cautions against visiting this “land in disguise” that masks a more troubling reality. As Walters notes, slavery’s supporters often defended the institution by “glorifying the plantation as a utopian alternative to the evils commerce and industry brought to the North.”7 Yet in contrast to the Alabama poet’s appealing invitation to this supposed “Eden,” which originally appeared in the Raleigh, North Carolina, Weekly Standard, Wickersham warns readers instead to steer clear of a modern-day “Sodom” whose sins will soon be violently avenged in ways that anticipate the war that is still years away. James Russell Lowell’s excerpt from The Biglow Papers, first published to denounce the Mexican-American War, consists of a Yankee’s complaint concerning Southern greed to acquire more slave states. Republished in 1855 shortly after the passage of the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 (see chapter 4), the poem advocates parting ways with Southerners who want to turn Northerners into their “white slaves.” The author of “Principles and Their Fruits” contrasts the admirable values of the North with the reprehensible ones of the South, based on their respective support for union versus secession. Writing in New York in August 1863, he may have had in mind the destructive riots in that city the previous month in reaction to the military draft issued in March.8 He clearly disapproves of the disloyal Peace Democrats, or Copperheads, who opposed the draft in favor of establishing a peace without union that would resolve the economic hardships precipitated by dwindling trade with the South during the war. The speaker disavows this merely “Wood-en” form of democracy—a reference to the dominant anti-abolitionist Peace Democrat Fernando Wood—to insist instead on following the truly democratic principles of “Justice and Liberty,” which he insists prompted the war in the first place. He thus joins multiple other authors in their assertions that loftier Northern values must be upheld over entirely inexcusable Southern ones.

p The South p 175

C. W., Untitled Herald of Freedom (September 30, 1837) The following lines were written in answer to a letter which I received from a gentleman of Dorchester meadows,1 in which he calls the wrongs of slavery fancied wrongs, and its abolition doubtful good, and in which he had contended there was equity in the system of slavery. C. W.

What! justice dwell with men-thieves! I disdain A thought so infamous. The lust of gain Their callous, frigid souls alone can warm; E’en orphan’s tears and cries cannot disarm Their lust of gold. The dearest earthly ties They reckless sever, for the glittering prize. You talk of fancied ills we would redress; Look in that father’s face, see keen distress Depicted there. Hark! hear his partner’s wail Of anguish borne upon the rising gale. The son with lamentation wrings his hands— Exposed to auction sale the father stands. The hammer falls—gone! says the auctioneer, And from his weeping friends the father disappears. Is there no woe in scenes like these, I ask? All fancied wrong no real misery here? And would the consummation of our task Cause only fancied wrongs to disappear? Give back that husband to his weeping wife; Give back that father to his son’s embrace; Is there no real good in causing life And hope and joy to flush the woe-clad face? Let thy cold frigid soul the scene survey; Let thy deaf ear the wail of misery hear; See weeping friends now take a farewell gaze Of all on earth they did esteem most dear. Of fancied wrongs I pray you do not prate; Mock not the scene sacred to grief severe; Go spit your venom;—freedom’s friends berate; But do not interrupt the falling tear; Sing of your “bless’d Union,” bought with chains, And all the countless wrongs that slavery brings; Then cry, may despotism hold its reign O’er freemen whom “mob laws” have changed to things.

1. Presumably Dorchester, Massachusetts.

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But don’t intrude on scenes sacred to grief, Your soul unfeeling would a jargon ring: Be whist! let mis’ry seek in tears relief— Here on this sacred spot of fancied wrongs don’t sing. Devoid of human feelings must he be, Whose sympathies all cluster round the thief, Who in domestic slavery cannot see No cruel wrongs loud calling for relief. And he who says the slave’s best good requires Him still to wear the chain—blind man must be, Wilfully ignorant of those strong desires That prompt the slave to Canada to flee. And who shall be the judge what his best good Requires, who’s stripp’d of all the rights of men? The robber and his allies?—he whose bread Is pending on the issue—he who when His chains shall break, his merchandize will lose, Shall he be judge? don’t common sense abuse!

William Lloyd Garrison, “Apologies. No. I. The Slave Trade” Liberator (April 9, 1831); National Anti-Slavery Standard (June 30, 1842)

I marvel that any objections are made, By those who contend for the “balance of trade,” To dealing in sinews, and souls, and black skins— As if it could rank ’mongst the least of all sins. For unless we can kidnap and purchase at pleasure, We must do our own labor, and sport—when we’ve leisure: Oh! shocking the thought, that these delicate hands Must take hold of the plough, and cultivate lands! Besides—these wild animals bring a high price, And make better returns than horn, camwood, or rice; And as it costs little to get and to keep them, Why not from all Africa speedily sweep them! Do we not, by the transfer, improve their condition? Yet, ingrates! there are, to return who petition! They catch not a spark of our Christian devotion, And our kindness excites not a grateful emotion! The South p 177

Since Congress has laid its terrific embargo Upon the importing of slaves as a cargo,2 Our commerce has lost its plethoric dimensions, And to this (not the tariff,) may be traced its declensions. For certain I am, if the law were repealed, The traffic in souls a rich harvest would yield; Though our markets were filled, yet we’ve buyers so many, No loss would ensue to the importers of any.

A Driver, “Slaveholder’s Hymns, No. 1” Herald of Freedom (February 22, 1839); Liberator (February 14, 1840) Sir—I am compelled to admit, that the following suits me better than Watts’s.3 Please insert it in the Virginia Hymn Book. Yours, &c. WICKED WILL

God of the South! we bless thy name, That when our fathers sought this shore, Not bibles only with them came, But whips and chains their vessels bore. With grateful hearts we tune our song Of praise to Thee, who gave them might To wield the scourge, secure the thong, And trample on their brother’s right. We thank thee, standing on their graves, For their all-grasping love of gain, Which sunk their fellows into slaves, For crops of cotton and of cane. O, may our hearts, like theirs, be hard— Our ears be deaf at mercy’s call— Lest labor reap its due reward, And heavenly freedom smile on all. 2. The 1807 Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves decreed that no new slaves could be imported to the United States. 3. Prominent English hymn writer Isaac Watts.

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Anonymous, “Song of ‘The Brotherhood’” Emancipator (August 29, 1839) “The steady subsidence of the agitation.”— Correspondent of the National Intelligencer. “Abolitionism is rapidly dying away.”— Pro-Slavery Papers—passim.

Dying away—day after day— This is the burden of our lay! And louder yet shall the chorus ring— For southern votes we’ll strain our throats, Till the air shall thrill with our servile notes, For the “sunny South” hath bidden us sing. What care we that the press be free? Freedom and slavery cannot agree! Muzzle the press!—for the South hath spoken— Down with petition! kill abolition With addled-egg-logic and club-ammunition! Discussion must cease or the compact is broken. Dying away—day after day— This is the song we sing for pay. True, we oppose, as every one knows, The “abstract” system of kicks and blows, But—slaves are contented and masters kind. True, we believe to plunder and thieve Is not the best thing that a man can achieve, But—the system has flourished for—time out of mind, We know ’tis an evil, the child of the devil, But to tell the South so would be thought hardly civil; Besides it was sanctioned by Peter and Paul— All good men abhor ’t—but the Bible is for ’t, And our hearts are at ease under pleas of this sort— And Colonization’s the “cure” after all! Dying away—day after day— This is the burden of our lay.

The “fanatics” are few—they are gaining ’tis true, And the time may be near when our course we shall rue—

The South p 179

But still we’ll protest they are “dying away;” Our consciences bought, we will lie, as we ought, Nor give to the future a serious thought— Sufficient the evil thereof to the day! With the many we’ll shout, and in time turn about, For ’tis easy to wear our coats either side out; And we’ve learned from the schools that “experience is right.” Old Time will disclose we are moral Jim Crows,4 And can veer like a vane with the wind as it blows— While the South pays best, for the South we’ll fight! Dying away! dying away! This is the song we sing for pay! We have seen the above in several of the papers, without any ear-mark. Hence we are unable to render “honor where honor is due.” As our British brethren would say, it is “clever.”—ED. ABO.

Pedler, “A Bargain!” Liberator (July 19, 1839); Emancipator (July 18, 1839, and March 21, 1844)5 We are not in the habit of dealing with “traders in the wagon.” Indeed, we had occasion to rank them in our last week’s with the politicians, and to say of both, that they were generally pro-slavery.—But we have since then lit of one as it were, who struck us at first sight as an exception to our rule. He seemed an abolitionist—and there was nothing of the ordinary locomotive traffic about his cart or his cut. In fact, as we caught his eye, it savored more of the “fine frenzy,” than of the dissolute, lack-scruple leer of the Bryce Snailsfoot brotherhood. He had nothing that we “cared to buy” and we had nothing by us to pay withal. But as “we had had some talk,” we offered him, “rather than not trade,” a year’s Herald, if he would reel us off a pair of anti-slavery verses, of his own spinning, for we felt that the creature was a poet. Says he, it’s “A Bargain,” and he glanced his grey eye “from heaven to earth—from earth to heaven” and handed over these following, quicker than lightning ever shivered a white pine. Thought we, mister Pedler, you are—as the musician cried, when he heard a stroller strike the Harlaem [sic] organ—either the—“d—l6 or Handel.”—You are either the unaccountable, or Burns come back, or Cowper—on the whole you are Cowper. It is the keen argument, the significant satire, the Vesuvian fire of poetry half smothered in the eruption—the restrainings of

4. Derogatory epithet for African Americans in the antebellum era. 5. Introduction appears in the 1839 issues of both periodicals. 6. Devil.

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calling and of constitutional delicacy. Finally and on the whole, we charged our “Pedler” as the Shade of Cowper.7

Twelve hundred million dollars! Mr. Clay8 Says that’s the price, we freemen (?) [sic] ought to pay (All levied from the free states by a tax)— As compensation, if the South relax Twenty-four hundred thousand negro backs From their accustomed rate of raw-hide dressing, And “turn their slaves all loose,” with freedom’s blessing! A pretty bargain this! for it appears That a slave “clears himself” once in five years. Take, then, “a boy” that is, like most slaves bred, Up with the light, and very late to bed, Fed quite as full, and clothed about as dirty,— And, between fifteen years and five-and-thirty, If we have rightly reckoned in our rhymes, He pays his master for himself four times! For,—for the master’s tenderness and cares, His kind attentions and his daily prayers, His counsels, and his hominy, we ween, He is well paid before the boy’s fifteen;— So, at that age, says Equity, who sits In judgment here,—the man and thing are quits. All beyond this, then, is clear profit, wrung From nerves and muscles,—nerves and muscles strung To their full tension by the twisted lash, That on the limbs leaves many a gory gash; And this that what the Lord ordained at first, As man’s great blessing may be so revers’d, That the rich few, exempt from labor now, May eat their (?) [sic] bread without a sweating brow, While the poor many must, with drooping head, And sweating face, toil without eating bread! 7. Bryce Snailsfoot is a peddler in Sir Walter Scott’s novel The Pirate (1822). The organ at the St.-Bavokerk church in the Dutch city of Haarlem is among the most famous in the world. German composer George Frideric Handel. Scottish poet Robert Burns. English poet William Cowper. 8. Senator Henry Clay from Kentucky, who proposed in a speech to the Senate on February 7, 1839, that slave owners should be compensated this amount in the event of emancipation. See Clay 2:368.

The South p 181

Things, then, of human aspect, that survive The kick and cow-skin till they’re thirty-five, Whether they’ve toil’d at cotton or at rice, Have, four times bought themselves at market price: Yet, not a limb, a muscle, or a bone That God made for them, is, as yet, their own; Yet their frail hearts and brittle hopes are shivered; For, though they’re paid for, they are not deliver’d. And now, forsooth, before they go away, (Such are the terms proposed by Mr. Clay,) They, or their friends for them, again must pay! It is, indeed, a very pretty sum! State it again, “it doth the mouth become.” Forty-eight hundred million dollars, laid Down at your feet,—and yet you are not paid; But, ere you open to the slave his door, Must have twelve hundred million dollars more. Nay, friend, we think, if we the truth must tell, This looks as though you did’nt [sic] mean to sell. We think that, dealing on so large a scale, You might propose some better “terms of sale,” For, if you don’t we cannot trade—we guess:— Can’t you, good sir, now, take a leetle less?

Friend of the Patriarchs, “Pro-Slavery Poetry” Emancipator (November 14, 1839) Mr. Leavitt,9—I have read in the Emancipator your repeated ironical call for pro-slavery poetry, and I have written the following lines that you and all other fanatics may cease chuckling over the vain notion that the muse is opposed to slavery. To say nothing of the verse, the sentiment they breathe will certainly meet with a response in every truly Christian or philanthropic heart, while they will sound harshly, I grant, on the ears of fanatics.

Who—Muse of rapturous poesy,— Feels pleasure of the first degree?

9. Editor of the Emancipator Joshua Leavitt.

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Who hath the sweetest joys that flow In a poor mortal’s soul below? What are the ecstacies of mind Most clear, most pleasant, most refined, And what the rising scenes that lie Most lovely on the mortal eye? Sing, Muse, once more, and may I hear The song most charming to my ear. Joy of my soul, the crack of whip, Like dreams upon my morning sleep; The merry clanking of the chains, While the blood gallops in my veins; The wail—like song of summer birds, Or bleat of lambs, or lowing herds— Of mothers for their babies sold, (Those little brats,) for shining gold; Of women, desolate of heart, From sooty husbands torn apart; Of children, never more to see Their smoky sires, or press their knee; Of huge black forms in shape of men, Never to see their wives again, Nor stand their meek-eyed babes among With soft words on their negro tongue: These, these are pleasant things to me, Imparting still a joy and glee As pure and holy as entwine The hearts of mortals drinking wine. O, Slavery! fallen from above, I love thee with a father’s love; Thou in this weary world of toil To me shalt be both balm and oil; Who to his wounded heart applies it, Doth feel the cure when first he tries it: Are any in affliction found Because they hate to till the ground? Do any shed the briny tear For love they have to domineer? To any is the bread the best That others earned while he had rest? Does any love the whip to crack The South p 183

Upon frail woman’s naked back? O, slavery! joy of iron hearts, Thou curest all these dismal smarts, And others too—for tell me where Is mortal ill the slave don’t bear, While the blest masters feel the load Rolled on to others, for their good: So it improves your horse to stir him, Ride on his back, and sharply spur him. O, bright Elysian fields that lie Where the slave’s tears are never dry: O, fertile soil, forever red, Where the full negro’s heart hath bled; O, land of whips and home of chains, Land where perennial weeping reigns, Who would not fatten on thy soil Not doomed himself to bear the toil? My heart leaps still to think of thee, “Land of the brave—home of the free.” There—like a deer before the hound If labor chase us o’er the ground— We’ll gently lay our limbs to rest, And sleep on Sorrow’s heaving breast.

Anonymous, “The Northern Slaves” Emancipator (February 20, 1840) respectfully inscribed to the south. in behalf of the lowell abolition fair. Feb. 6, 7, and 8, 1840. “There was never a community where one class was not held in bondage by another class.”—Speech of Mr. Pickens of S.C., Jun. 21, 1839. “A very slight modification of the arguments used against the institutions which sustain the property and security of the South, would make them equally effectual against the institutions of the North.”—Mr. Calhoun’s Report, in the Senate, Feb. 4, 1836.10 10. Representative Francis Wilkinson Pickens and his cousin Senator John C. Calhoun, both from South Carolina.

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Ay, we have slaves, mere hopeless chattels, Among these rocks and hills fanatic, To black our boots and fight our battles, From mountain-top to plains aquatic! Small right have we to throw a stone At men for being mere slaveholders, When back the charge may well be thrown, To rest on all our northern shoulders!— Indeed, to speak the truth between us, It hits here all of homo genus. Yes, we have slaves, and eke slave-breeding, And have had from the days of yore. By over-working, under-feeding, I cannot say we’ve used them sore; But then, their course for ever speeding, We always work them more and more, Till some are sweating, if not bleeding, Poor weary things, from every pore! I purpose now to mark the cases Of four or five poor subject races. And first, beneath the dust degraded, Held always to unwilling toil, The race of ploughs may be paraded, That till our cold and rocky soil. These serfs, by various “patents” aided, Are made all obstacles to foil. Far better than if hoed or spaded, They turn their furrows sleek as oil. Their lazy drivers, many a mile, Just muse of politics the while. Next come our keels that plough the brine; Chained porters, with their loads enormous, That bring us Sunday clothes so fine, And partly light, and feed, and warm us. Their case has called forth many tears— For all their gay and glorious flappers. We make the winds their overseers, With naughty waves for under strappers.

The South p 185

’Tis pitiful,—the way they lash on The wretched things, when roused to passion! A race of slavers next claims inspection, That carry mostly smiling faces. Though much addicted to reflection, Of thought or care they show few traces. The scamps are prone to form connection, And run away, at various paces; And e’en to rise in insurrection, Impatient of their narrow spaces. If caught—’twould make a millstone feel— They’re often broken on the wheel! They’ll bear great burdens, in their way,— Against it, nothing without beating; And here, it is but truth to say, They’re rogues at thievishness and cheating,— So much, they sometimes even steal us! Though mostly prompt with clear confession. Their father is one Mr. Cœlus; And when not ruffled by oppression, In features, they are like him—very. Their mother’s maiden name was Terry. By Lowell, once, we caught one jogging; And armed with law and charter-seal, We took him up, without much dogging; And since, with fetter on his heel, Impelled by many a paddle-flogging, He’s turned the biggest spinning-wheel That ever went by Yankee cogging— Its buzzing often makes us reel. All this he does flat on his back. We call the fellow Merry Mack. Next come the serfs of boiler breed, All hot and puffing with exertion. They drudge and labor hard, indeed, And always only by coersion. The slaves of slaves, on coarsest feed, For our advantage or diversion, 186 p Lyrical Liberators

They ply their strength or try their speed, Though suffering many a foul aspersion. So much they serve us, that we seem Almost to breathe and think by steam. In such bondage, pray what wonder, If when half drunk, and madly goaded By red-hot brands, in voice of thunder, These injured vassals have exploded— And bursting shackles all asunder, Have much their masters discommoded? Hard work, such slaves to throttle under, When daily at their hearts corroded By your incendiary pine, Or coals fanatic from the mine! But, chiefly, we must make confession, Our printing types, of divers races, Are suffering much from our oppression. Oh what a multitude of cases That ought to make a deep impression, And draw forth tears from hardest faces Within this proud and cruel nation! Through endless time, and boundless spaces, The scenes in which they are actors Will show how black our characters! By these each northern human noddle Is made less “sinned against than sinning;” In spite of Freedom’s cant and “twaddle,” Each lords it o’er our underpinning.* E’en brats whom poverty doth swaddle In muslins that our slaves are spinning, While yet they can but scarcely toddle, To lisp like masters are beginning; And if they beat no slaves but these, Are sure to beat the A. B. Cs. And now, kind southern neighbors, hark all! Your “institutions” doubtless are “Peculiar,” and most “patriarchal,” Your chattels greet your special care; The South p 187

With face and eye of kindred sparkle. Ours, dullest things that ever were! To make them work, takes, light and dark, all, For managers, and none to spare, God’s creatures of the stature human— They’ll mind no chattel, man or woman! * Domestic slavery, instead of being a political evil, is the corner-stone of our republican edifice.”—Message of Gov. McDuffie11 of South Carolina. 1835.

Anti-Fanatic, “Pro-Slavery Poetry” Emancipator (July 23, 1840)

I. Pro-slavery poetry is what you ask; Then, let me set myself unto the task; And may I have the true pro-slavery fire, My feeble muse to quicken and inspire. I sing of those misguided, reckless men, Who care in no wise how, or where, or when They scatter round their arrows, and then death— Their red hot, burning firebrands with each breath.

II. Now, let us see what the effect would be, If all the “niggers” were at once set free; Would they not rise en masse on each estate, And cut their masters’ throats, as sure as fate? Would they not cut the growing crops quite down? Plunder the city, set fire to the town? If from their bondage they should find release, Would they not give us blood and war for peace?

III. And would this mad and furious abolition, Better in any wise the slave’s condition?

11. Governor George McDuffie.

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Is he not now as happy, blithe and gay, As he would be if freed? Say, madman, say? Far better off than many who are free, And who reside in northern States, is he;— He laughs, and sings, and whistles care away, Sure he is bright and cheerful all the day.

IV. Suppose he now and then does get a licking, For being rather slack at cotton-picking, ’Tis all the better for him—’tis his due,— And if fanatics all were served so too, ’Twould be what they deserve—and what they must Receive, ere long, for kicking up a dust, About the “institutions” of our land, And by the “compact” who refuse to stand.

V. We see what you are at,—all through the nation, You want to bring about amalgamation. Well, let your daughters marry if they please, A woolly-headed “nigger,” fat as grease; You shan’t impose your notions on us,—we Are the descendants of the noble free, We scorn your mad-cap scheme, your arts defy; And if we can, we’ll “blow you up sky high.”

VI. But we are glad your cause is going down; We hope that all good men will on it frown, And if you’re not of reason quite bereft, “There’ll soon not be a grease spot of you left.” So then, our glorious Union is secure, And shall through future ages firm endure; And our “domestic institutions” stand In spite of all your rage, the glory of the land.

The South p 189

G. S. Burleigh, “The Holy War” Herald of Freedom (December 3, 1841) “Let an abolitionist come within the borders of South Carolina; if we can catch him, we will try him, and notwithstanding the interference of all the governments on earth, including this Federal Government, WE WILL HANG HIM .” Senator Preston of S.C.12 “Slavery, as it exists with us, we deny to be an evil, and we regard those who are now making war upon it, in any shape, or under any pretext, as furious fanatics, or knaves and hypocrites; and we hereby promise them, upon all occasions, which may put them in our power, the fate of the pirate, incendiary, and the midnight assassin.” Citizens of Camden, S.C. “The northern people will never sacrifice their present lucrative trade with the South, so long as the HANGING of a few THOUSANDS will prevent it.” Richmond Whig.13

Why rages the South, mid her bright, sunny rills, Where the bondman, unheeding, is bent to the sod? Why scowls the stern North, on her rock-seated hills, As the spirit of Freedom is moving abroad? Ah! vainly they trust, in their arrogant pride, They can turn back the Truth in her conquerless tide, While onward she rushes, majestic and free, Like the Amazon’s wave, as it sweeps to the sea. Let them bind, if they will, the swift clouds as they run— The storm-bolt—the whirlwind—the tempest of hail— Turn back the red light to its home in the sun— Stay the ruin that rides on the wing of the gale; But they never shall bind, with a tyrant’s command, The Spirit of Freedom gone forth in our land, Or fetter the Truth, as she moves through the world, With her hand to the sword, and her banner unfurled. The war cry of Liberty bursts on the ear; Her legions are charging with fetterless speed;

12. William Campbell Preston. 13. Periodical based in Richmond, Virginia.

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Yet not in the strength of the buckler and spear, Or the prancing, in pride, of the iron-hoofed steed. The weapons of death are flung down to the sod, And the Truth in its pureness, made mighty by God To trample the minions of error in dust, Is their van-guard—their rear-ward—their strength, and their trust. And shall the oppressor, uprising in wrath, Turn back that free spirit, fast hurrying forth, Like an angel from heaven on her merciful path, To raise the poor bondman now crushed to the earth? O never! for lo, ’tis the hand of the Lord, That guideth that Spirit unerring abroad; His arm that is stretched o’er the perishing slave, From the power of the cruel and haughty to save. The hireling may prophesy falsely for gold, And the traitor turn back from the field of the fight; The shepherd sleep on, with the wolf in the fold, While the watchmen of Zion tell nought of the night,14 And the “chivalric Southrons” rise up to their aid, With halter and faggot, with rifle and blade; But vainly are lust of dominion and pride, To check the strong impulse of Freedom allied. Her course is resistless, her triumph decreed; Though the Priest and the Levite15 pass by and are dumb, On her errand of mercy to man she shall speed, Till the day of his perfect redemption hath come, While the blackness of darkness its banner shall wave, And the “damned howl the requiem” o’er Tyranny’s grave; And the last galling chain, on that terrible day, In the breath of God’s wrath shall be melted away.



14. See Jeremiah 31:6. 15. Member of the Israelite tribe who provided assistance to Jewish priests.

The South p 191

Pocahontas, “Slavery” Anti-Slavery Bugle (January 2, 1846)

Lo! yonder in a Southern clime, ’Tis said ’tis freedom’s soil, Three millions of the human race; In loathsome bondage toil: For long, long years they’ve called in vain, For us to break the tyrant’s chain. The aged and the young are there, And lisping children too, With hearts that beat, like yours and mine, To home and kindred true: Yet they are Slaves—and doomed to toil, For freedom’s sons, on freedom’s soil. What lingering sighs—what bitter groans— What dismal sounds of wo, Arise from Slavery’s dark domain, Where crimes of every hue Pollute the heart—defile the soul, And all man’s nobler powers control. What though the frantic mother weeps, With anguish fierce and wild, As from her fond encircling arms, They tear her darling child; With scoffs and taunts and ribald jeers, They bid her dry her scalding tears. They bid her dry her scalding tears, But ah! they bid in vain; Can fetters bind the broken heart, And make it whole again? O, human nature—scathed with crime What soul-revolting deeds are thine! The bloody lash—the cruel scourge, The quivering flesh may tear; But cannot wring the heart within, 192 p Lyrical Liberators

Like dark and cold despair: Defying reason’s stern control, Its venom stings the deathless soul. Can man his fellow man enslave— With chains and fetters bind The active limbs—the beating heart— The living, deathless mind! Ah no! for fetters cannot bind That power of powers—the immortal mind.

A. B. Meek and Thomas Wickersham, “The South” Anti-Slavery Bugle (January 9, 1846)

Oh! come to the South, sweet beautiful one, ’Tis the clime of the heart, tis the shrine of the sun, Where the sky ever shines with a passionate glow, And flowers spread their treasures of crimson and snow; Where the breeze, o’er the waters wafts incense along, And gay birds are glancing in beauty and song; Where summer smiles ever over each mountain and plain, And the best gifts of Eden enshadow’d remain. Oh! come to the South. The shrine of the sun, And dwell in its bowers, Sweet beautiful one! Oh! come to the South, and I’ll build thee a home, Where winter shall never intrusively come; The queen-like catalpa, the myrtle and pine, The gold-fruited orange, the ruby-gem’d vine Shall bloom round thy dwelling and shade thee at noon, While birds of all music keep amorous tune; By the gush of glad fountains we’ll rest us at eve, No troubles to vex us, no sorrows to grieve, Oh! come to the South The shrine of the sun, And dwell in its bowers, Sweet beautiful one!

The South p 193

Oh! come to the South tis the home of the heart, No sky like its own can deep passion impart, The glow of its summer is felt in the soul, And Love keepeth ever his fervent control!— Oh! there would thy beauty most brilliantly beam, And life pass away like some delicate dream; Each wish of thy heart shall realized be, And this beautiful land seem an Eden to thee! Then come to the South The shrine of the sun, And dwell in its bowers, Sweet beautiful one! TUSCALOOSA , Alabama.16

Beware of the South, ye lovely and fair, ’Tis the land of the slave, ’tis the home of despair, Where the shrieks of wild anguish resound through the sky, And the groans of the bondmen pass constantly by; Where the wail of the slave-mother floats on the breeze, As she bleeds ’neath the shade of the gold-fruited trees; Where the smiles of the summer are turned into woe, And the beauties of Eden with tears overflow! Beware of the South, The land of the slave, ’Tis the home of oppression ’Tis Liberty’s grave! Beware of the South, oh! accept not the home, Where sorrow and sadness will fail not to come; Where the queenlike catalpa is stained with the blood, That flows ’neath the scourging of tyranny’s rod; Where the oaths of the tyrant are mingled all day With the notes of the songster while chanting its lay; And the fountains [sic] glad music is drowned in the twang By the driver’s fierce whip, and the fetter’s loud clang! Beware of the South The land of the slave, Where tyranny’s banners, Triumphantly wave! 16. This poem was originally published in the Raleigh, North Carolina Weekly Standard on April 26, 1843.

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Beware of the South—there the kindred in heart, Are severed for aye in the slavemonger’s mart; And the glow of the Love-light that lumines the soul Is quenched by the curse of the slaver’s control! Your beauty shall fade in that region of night, And the guilt of oppression your happiness blight; Each hope you have cherished shall fade like a dream, And existence float sadly down misery’s stream! Beware of the South, ’Tis a land in disguise, Its hopes are delusions Its promises, lies!

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Beware of the South—in an hour of wrath, A tempest shall rise on the slaveholder’s path; And a cloud, like a death-pall, shall sullenly loom, Enshrouding its beauty in sorrow and gloom; And the pent-up destruction that’s slumbering there; In the bosoms that vibrate ’tween hope and despair, Shall burst like an earthquake, and whelm like a flood Till its fires are quenched in a red sea of blood! Beware of the South, There is vengeance at hand, For the blood of the bondmen That cries from her land! Beware of the South—oh! attempt not the gloom, Lest you share with the tyrant his terrible doom; For the hour is coming—ah! soon ’twill be here, When the hands of the strong men shall quiver with fear! The foe shall upspring where he crouching hath lain, And exultingly lift his red hand o’er the slain; And the shouts of the ruthless avenger shall blend With the wail that goes up where no arm shall befriend! Beware of the South, For the hour draws nigh When the arm that is bound shall Be lifted on high! Beware of the South—for oh! dark is the hour That awaiteth the downfall of tyranny’s power! The South p 195

When the flames round her mansions leap flashing on high, And the sound of rebellion comes thundering by, When the helpless are left for a spoil and a prey, And the hand of the ravisher bears them away— Oh! then will the bloom of the South be laid low, Like the glory of Sodom,17 in anguish and woe! Beware of the South, For its beauty is dim, And the red-cup of vengeance, Is filled to the brim!

Anonymous, “The Virginia Negro’s Song” National Anti-Slavery Standard (April 1, 1847) Passing, lately, by a mansion of opulence, where the lordlings of the South riot in luxury, at the expense of the “black man’s toils,” my attention was arrested by the plaintive strains of an African slave in an adjoining field, on whose cheek the tear mingled with his sweat. My ear caught the following fragment of the poor negro’s song:

Sad and hungry—all forlorn, Negro work from early morn; Drear the day and sad the night, Negro’s woes find no respite. If I toil, I nothing gain, Joy ne’er comes to pay for pain; Master whip me when he like; Kill me if I dare to strike. I love Dinah—she love me; We had little children three; Dinah’s sold—and we must part, O it breaks poor Sambo’s heart! White man talk of liberty! Why not negro too be free? The lash of the driver forced a scream of anguish that moment from Sambo, and I heard no more.

17. See Genesis 13–19.

196 p Lyrical Liberators

Anonymous, “Southern and Northern Logic” Liberator (February 22, 1850); Anti-Slavery Bugle (March 9, 1850)

The Southron says, ‘All equal are,’ To boast it is our glory; But ‘niggers’ have no right to come Within this category. If dark the skin, ’tis clear as light The owner is a brute, sir, And therefore negroes are not men! There, isn’t that astute, sir? ‘O yes,’ says Jonathan,18 ‘your’e [sic] smart; Of that I have no doubt, sir; Your reasoning’s good—perhaps ’twere better If it were carried out, sir. For negroes three* you get one vote— That’s one vote for three brutes, sir; I’ve fifty cows—how many, then, Ought I to have, my ’cute sir? For if it be as you assert, A negro has no mind, sir, In brutish qualities my brutes Leave negroes far behind, sir. Your brutes have two legs, mine have four, And they know how to use them; Yours run from their kind master’s door— Mine never so abuse them. From your brute’s life there hangs a tale Of misery and the lash, sir; My brute’s tale, never troubling me, Hangs quiet at their backs, sir. Then ‘Primrose,’ and ‘Old Brindle’ too, Who feed upon my land, O, Shall have a voice at Washington, As well as Cuff and Sambo.19 18. Name used to refer to a Northerner. 19. Primrose and Old Brindle were common names for cows; Cuff and Sambo refer to slaves.

The South p 197

By long-eared Dobbin20 they will be Most nobly represented; In Halls of Congress he shall stand, Braying like one demented. For there he’ll find a brotherhood Of legislative asses; But mind! he’ll kick, if by their aid Again a gag-law passes.’ ‘Stop! Stop!’ says Southron, ‘blacks are men, Suppose we that allow, sir; Their fathers were our fathers’ slaves— Why shouldn’t they be ours, sir?’ Says Jonathan, ‘Your argument Shall meet no contradiction, And we shall see the rule will work Unto your own conviction. ‘Your sire rebelled ’gainst British laws, For which he did get hung, sir; It follows, then, that ’round your neck A rope, too, should be strung, sir. If hoisted twenty feet in air, From you we’d hear no more, then, Of right to make men slaves, because Their fathers were before them.’ *The number may be incorrect; I have no book at hand to ascertain.

Frances Ellen Watkins [Harper], “The Slave Auction” Frederick Douglass’ Paper (September 22, 1854)

The sale began — young girls were there, Defenceless in their wretchedness, Whose stifled sobs of deep despair Revealed their anguish and distress. And mothers stood, with streaming eyes, And saw their dearest children sold;

20. Common name for a donkey.

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Unheeded rose their bitter cries, While tyrants barter’d them for gold. And woman, with her love and truth— For these in sable forms may dwell— Gaz’d on the husband of her youth, With anguish none may paint or tell. And men, whose sole crime was their hue, The impress of their Maker’s hand, And frail and shrinking children too, Were gathered in that mournful band. Ye who have laid your lov’d to rest, And wept above their lifeless clay, Know not the anguish of that breast, Whose lov’d are rudely torn away. Ye may not know how desolate Are bosoms rudely forced to part, And how a dull and heavy weight Will press the life drops from the heart.

Anonymous [James Russell Lowell], Untitled Anti-Slavery Bugle (March 10, 1855) The following it is said, is from the pen of James Russell Lowell. It is pithy; read it.

We can’t suit them Southern fellers, They’re a dreffle graspin’ set,21 We must allers blow the bellers When they want their irons het; May-be it’s all right as preachin’, But my narves it kind o’ grates, When I see the over-reachin’ O’ them nigger-drivin’ States. 21. All spellings in this poem, intended to evoke the Southern dialect, are quoted as they originally appeared.

The South p 199

You may talk of Freedom’s airy Tell they’re purple in the face— It’s a grand great cemetary For the birth-right of our race; They jist want this ere Nebrasky So’s to lug new Slave States in, To abuse ye, and to scorn ye, An’ to plunder ye like sin. Aint it cute to see a Yankee, Take sich everlastin pains All to git the Devil’s thankee, Helpin’ on ’em weld their chains? Why, it’s jist as clear as figgers, Clear ez one and one make two, Chaps that make black slaves o’niggers Want to make white slaves o you. Wall, go ’long to help ’em stealin’ Bigger lands to cram with slaves; Help the men that’s ollers dealin’ Insults on your father’s graves; Help the strong to grind the feeble, Help the many agin the few; Help the men that call your people, White-washed slaves and pedlin’ crew. Ef I had my way I’d rather We should go to work and part— They take one way, we take t’other— Guess it wouldn’t break my heart! Man had ought to put assunder, Them that God has no ways jined; An’ I shouldn’t greatly wonder, Ef there’s thousands o’ my mind.

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B. Clark, Sen. [Benjamin Clark, Senior], “The Slaveholder’s Prayer” Liberator (June 15, 1855); Frederick Douglass’ Paper (August 3, 1855)

These slaves I now possess are mine, Sanction’d by laws of earth and heaven:— We thank thee, oh! thou Great Divine, That unto us this boon is given! In Scripture thou hast bade us make Slaves of the heathen and the stranger; And if we heathen ‘niggers’ take, There is no harm, nor any danger. Slavery’s a system that’s ordained On earth to be, and to us given; This can be seen in language plain:— And thus we thank thee, Lord in heaven! That in thy wisdom thou made us The instruments to show thy power; And thus fulfil [sic] on them the curse Of ‘Cain,’—nay, ‘Ham,’ until this hour.22 What care we for the Northern fools, Who talk about the rights of ‘niggers’? We know that we were made to rule, And they ordained to be the diggers. Besides, it can be seen at sight, Our slaves, if freed, would turn out lazy; And if the fanatics are right, The Scripture’s wrong, or we are crazy! Then hold on, brethren of the South— They tell me abolition’s dying; This cry’s in almost every mouth, Unless you think the rascals lying. 22. Both the mark of Cain and the curse of Ham were used to justify slavery by interpreting them as the curse of dark skin indicating the supposed sinfulness of black peoples. See Genesis 4:8–15 and 9:20–26.

The South p 201

Whether or not this ‘corner-stone’ Of our republic shall e’er crumble, Our laws and niggers are our own, So let the poor fanatics grumble.

William Allen Butler, “At Richmond” National Era (October 13, 1859)

At Richmond, in the month of May, I climbed the city’s lofty crest; Below, the level landscape lay, And proudly streamed, from east to west, The glories of the dawning day. There stand the statues Crawford23 gave His country, while with bleeding heart She showered upon his open grave The laurels of victorious Art, And wept the life she could not save. How grandly, on that granite base, The Youthful hero24 sits sublime; The Leader of the chosen Race, The noblest of the sons of Time, With all his future in his face. And he who framed the matchless plan For Freedom and his Fatherland,25 Type of the just sagacious man, Like Aristides,26 calm and grand, Within the Roman Vatican. Nor less he wears the patriot wreath, The foremost of the three, who stands As when with his prophetic breath, And flashing eyes, and outstretched hand, He cried for “Liberty or Death!”27

23. Sculptor Thomas Crawford. 24. George Washington. 25. Thomas Jefferson. 26. Athenian general renowned for his honor. 27. Patrick Henry.

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Here surely it is good to be— Where Freedom’s native soil I tread, And, on the mount, transfigured see The Fathers, with whose fame we wed The endless blessings of the free. But when the summit’s ample crown Flamed with the morning’s fiercer heat, I turned, and slowly passing down, With curious gaze from street to street, Went wandering through the busy town. And lingered where I chanced to hear The voices of a crowd, which hung, With laugh and oath and empty jeer, Beside a door o’er which was swung The red flag of the auctioneer. In truth, it was a motley crew— The brutal trader, sly and keen, The planter, with his sunburnt hue, The idle townsman, and between, With face unwashed, the foreign Jew. Within, O God of grace! what sight Was this for eyes which scarce had turned From yonder monumental height, For thoughts upon whose altars burned The fires just kindled in its light! So when the rapt disciples came From Tabor on that blessed morn,28 What chilled so soon their hearts of flame? The fierce demoniac, wild and torn, The cry of human guilt and shame. For here were men, young men and old, Scarred with hot iron and the lash; And women, crushed with griefs untold; And little children, cheap for cash; All waiting, waiting—to be sold! 28. Mount Tabor in Israel is generally believed to be the site where the apostles witnessed the transfiguration of Christ.

The South p 203

For me, each hourly good I crave Comes at the bidding of my will; For them, the shadows of the grave Have gathered, or the woes that fill The life-long bondage of the slave. Too long my thoughts were schooled to see Some pretext for such fatal thrall; Now Reason spurns each narrow plea, One thrill of manhood cancels all, One throb of pity sets me free. Virginia! shall the Great and Just, Like sentries, guard the slaver’s den? O rise, and from your borders thrust This thrice-accursed trade in men, Or hurl your heroes to the dust!

Anonymous, “The Negro on the Fence” National Anti-Slavery Standard (August 30, 1862)



Hearken to what I now relate, And on its moral meditate.

A wagoner, with grist for mill, Was stalled at bottom of a hill. A brawny negro passed that way, So stout he might a lion slay. “I’ll put my shoulder to the wheels, If you’ll bestir your horse’s heels!” So said the African, and made As if to render timely aid. “No,” cried the wagoner, “Stand back! I’ll take no help from one that’s black”; And, to the negro’s great surprise, Flourished his whip before his eyes. Our “darkey” quick “skedaddled” thence, And sat upon the wayside fence. Then went the waggoner to work, And lashed his horses to a jerk; But all his efforts were in vain 204 p Lyrical Liberators

With shout, and oath, and whip, and rein, The wheels budged not a single inch, And tighter grew the waggoner’s pinch. Directly there came by a child, With toiling step, and vision wild, “Father,” said she, with hunger dread, “We famish for the want of bread.” Then spake the negro: “If you will, I’ll help your horses to the mill.” The wagoner, in grievous plight, Now swore and raved with all his might, Because the negro wasn’t white; And plainly ordered him to go To a certain place that’s down below. Then, rushing, came the waggoner’s wife, To save her own and infant’s life. By robbers was their homestead sacked, And smoke and blood their pillage tracked. Here stops our tale. When last observed, The wagoner was still “conserved” In mud, at bottom of the hill, But bent on getting to the mill. And hard by, not a rod from thence, The negro sat upon the fence.

B., “Principles and Their Fruits” National Anti-Slavery Standard (August 29, 1863)

Principles work from within to without; So just let us see what the nation’s about. North and South have a motive which time will reveal; Both of them working, “wheel within wheel.” On the outermost circle of one, see Secession! The legitimate fruit of the traitor’s profession. The next, just within, its co-worker will be, Bearing the man-curse of Disloyalty. And Slavery comes next, that dark institution, Defended by man, and by man’s “Constitution.” Not only the slavery of black, but of white; Only he is the freeman, whose gold argues “right.” The South p 205

Slavery, begotten of that next inner wheel, Aristocracy, laboring its fruits to conceal. Weak aristocracy, built upon pelf; Sham aristocracy, boasting of self. Aye! probing for motive, we find the true sore Is self-aggrandisement, the disease at the core. In the other, the outermost circle shows ever That “Union” which prompts from the right not to sever; Union of purpose, which ever will be The legitimate offspring of true Loyalty. Then glorious Freedom, which is ever the “tower Of strength” to the Union, the Nation’s true power. Democracy moves it—ah, who knows not that? But Democracy pure, not your “Peace Democrat.” Democracy proper, breathing “good will to man.” Not Democracy Wood-en, ex-official may plan. Democracy free from all “Copperhead” sting, Outflowing from Justice, its pure living spring.29 Yes! the principles here, working outward with might, Are Justice and Liberty—Truth and the Right. New York, Aug., 1863.

Rev. George Lansing Taylor, “The Scourged Back”* National Anti-Slavery Standard (September 26, 1863); Anglo-African (October 3, 1863)30

A wilderness of scars! A field, by tangled furrows torn and riven! A sea of waves, by meeting whirlwinds driven! A cloud, storm-shattered through the midnight heaven! A wreck of rayless stars! A human form! O God! Who of one blood hast made all tribes below,31 Is this thy work, thy image, mangled so? 29. The Peace Democrats in Congress opposed the Civil War and advocated for a peace settlement with the Confederacy. Representative Fernando Wood from New York was a leading member of this group. Their Republican opponents referred to them as Copperheads, thus associating them with the venomous snakes. 30. Notes appear in the National Anti-Slavery Standard. 31. See Acts 17:26.

206 p Lyrical Liberators

Ay; thus was thy own Son, for human woe, Scourged by the soldiers’ rod. A human form! O yes; That skin had nerves as exquisite as thine; That flesh could quiver, like my child’s or mine; Those muscles writhed, when floods of burning brine Drenched their gashed nakedness. Why was it done, or borne? Behold the brow that crowns that manly form, See the strong shoulder, and the sinewy arm; ’Twas done to crush that man into a worm! ’Twas borne in hope of morn. But all is over now: A deep sereneness of unearthly grace Sheds soft o’er every lineament its trace; Hell’s mark behind, but heaven’s on his face, And victory on his brow. The sun with golden pen Has drawn two pictures here, and all may read: “Curst be the fiends who wrought this devilish deed?” Nay, rather curse the worse than devilish creed That make [sic] such fiends of men. Send such men back to chains? Not while a conscious nation feels and thinks! Not till each freeman’s lifted right-arm shrinks! Not till the perjured land that dares it sinks! And God no longer reigns! * A photographic picture, taken at Baton Rouge, La., April 2, 1863, of the back of a negro who was whipped there during the preceding October, in so horrible a manner that, although more than five months had elapsed when the picture was taken, the whole back was still a horrible tissue of ghastly wounds and scars.—See Independent, May 28, 4th page. An army officer, writing from Louisiana to the Boston Transcript concerning the colored volunteers in Gen. Banks’s32 Department, says: “My surgeons report to me that not one in fifteen is free from severe lashing. More than one-half are rejected because of disability arising from lashing with whips and the biting of dogs. Hundreds of them have welts on their backs as large as one of your largest fingers.”

32. Union general Nathaniel Prentice Banks.

The South p 207

Simon Pure, “Tony James’s Song” Anglo-African (February 13, 1864); National Anti-Slavery Standard (February 20, 1864) “Cotton shall be king more than ever.”—Gen. Saxton.33

Ole Tony James he buy a farm, An’ pay his fifty dollar; Dat’s mighty groun’ for cotton dar, Dat patch down in de hollar; An’ massa use to hab it plough An’ list up ebery Spring— An’ kase it bring him pocket full, He call de cotton king. Oh! well, de cotton king for troo— But not for massa, neber; Since Tony James is buy a farm, He king now more dan eber. An’ Tony James has got a home, A home for all his childin, A place to keep de fowl an’ pig, An’ raise de little buildin’; He call de tater now him own, De corn an’ ebery ting; An’ den de cotton b’longs to him, Dat massa say been king. Oh! well, de cotton king, for troo— But not for massa, neber; Since Tony James is buy a farm, He king now more dan eber. An’ Tony James he bress de Lord, For all dis kind protection; De nigger seen de trouble troo, An’ dis de resurrection; He neber call his hand his own, His soul been massa’s ting, But now de bery cotton’s his Dat massa say been king.

33. Union general Rufus Saxton.

208 p Lyrical Liberators

Oh! well, de cotton king for troo— But not for massa, neber; Since Tony James is buy a farm, He king now more dan eber.

Elmer Ruan Coates, “The Auction-Block” Liberator (June 24, 1864); National Anti-Slavery Standard (June 4, 1864) Dr. Seltzer, of Philadelphia, late Surgeon of the Eighty-eighth Pennsylvania Infantry, brought home from Alexandria34 a slave auctionblock, used by the firm of Burch and Price. The Mayor of Alexandria said he had witnessed many human beings sold upon it. This block can now be seen at the residence of Edwin H. Coates, 930 Spring Garden street, where the following poem was suggested:

An auction-block! great Heaven! can it be They sold “God’s image” on this wooden frame? Have we, in “free” (?) [sic] and great America, Incurred that foul and most infernal stain? Yes! brutal men, with feelings turned to rock, Sold human beings on this very block! And, as we look, we see the many dints Made by the hammer as it strongly fell— Where some low villain, for his craved per cent., Invoked the vengeance of the fiends in hell. Methinks the very Prince of Darkness found A mad’ning horror in that hammer’s sound. I see this in the land of Jefferson: The rum-bloat traders gather for a sale; The whip is cracking o’er the merchandise, Now led to market from a filthy jail, And furies seem to hover in the air, As some are jesting and as others swear. There was some transient heaven in a cot— A ray of comfort when the work was done; A doating [sic] father fondled on his wife, And kissed his only, darling little one:

34. City in the state of Virginia.

The South p 209

The hammer falls; its most accursed tone Has sold that father from the loved at home. Upon a balmy, holy night serene, Two care-worn lovers join the lip and heart— Young spirits, weary of their loathsome lot, Would heal the wounds they bear from sorrow’s dart; The hammer falls, and seals the foulest doom— A harlot’s life for that pure octoroon! I see a youth who has a noble hope— A hope to learn to read about his God; Oft would he study by the bright pine knot, When night would shield him from a tyrant’s rod The hammer waiting on the “once, twice, thrice,” For learning, sends him to the swamp of rice. Two little sisters, at their childish sport, Not dreaming they were born within a snare, Make glowing pictures for the time to come— They build grand castles in the summer air: The hammer falls:—the two are sold apart, To dream of each and feel a broken heart. Poor child of bondage!—’Tis a knavish plea That robs thee of thy liberty and bread; They aim to keep thee a submissive tool— To humble thee ’till aspiration’s dead; Then, when thy spirit’s driven to its grave, They point and say fate made thee for a slave. They speak of Afric’ as a Pagan land, And vow that bondage is thy truest friend; But with example and a freeman’s right, Thy native force would reach a prouder end. If there’s advantage or religious gain, Give it to progress, not to lash and chain. Thou bane of hope! around thee concentrate More sickly horrors than the pen can write; More damning evils than the mortal brain Can e’en imagine in its highest flight. 210 p Lyrical Liberators

Thy field is anguish, darkness, and disgust, Vile tyranny and self-consuming lust. And brilliant statesmen, for their private gain, Apologize for this inhuman trade; And fawn like spaniels to a few proud knaves, Who’d own the white man of the plough and spade. They boldly argue, with sophistic art, God smiles on that which racks a noble heart! No theologian with a doubtful text, No settled practice of an olden saint, Can scent or polish what our “framers” called A heinous scourge and pestilential taint. What our unfettered wisdom holds as true Is inspiration—ay! and Scripture, too. Bear it away! No longer I’d behold A thing suggestive of a nation’s night: Give no tradition to the child unborn, Or tell the heathen of our country’s blight. Sink to the bottom of a deep abyss All recollection of a shame like this. Senates, awake! and dedicate to God Columbia a unit—free, sublime!— Or let our manhood, with a righteous sword, Rouse sons of Afric’ in the rebel clime; Beat down their shambles with your martial knocks, And kindle fires out of Auction Blocks!

Toaster, “Toasts to Abe Lincoln—The Heavy Curse” National Anti-Slavery Standard (August 20, 1864); Liberator (August 26, 1864)

May Heaven’s curses, dark and dire, Commingled with Almighty fire, Fall on your head and press you down With dreadful torture to the ground!

The South p 211

May peace forever from you fly, Pleasures fleet when they seem nigh, And in their place may gnawing pain Seize and rack your burning brain! May sleep ne’er bless your weary eyes, Nor guardian angels from the skies Around your bed their vigils keep, To guard you well should e’er you sleep! May friends forsake you in distress, And no kind hand assist or bless, But all the world to you be foes, And crush your life with bitterest woes! May loathsome sights appall your eyes, And wasting age and maladies So mar your life that thou shalt rave For final refuge in the grave! On you may hell put forth its might, And shroud your soul in endless night; May this e’er be thy resting-place, And that of all your cursed race! And if there be a curse more dire Than hell with all its liquid fire, Oh, may it in your soul e’en creep, And hellish fiends their nightly orgies keep!

212 p Lyrical Liberators

plate 1. Destruction by Fire of Pennsylvania Hall. Rioters in Philadelphia set fire to the headquarters of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society at Pennsylvania Hall in opposition to the Second Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women, May 17, 1838. Unnamed artist; published by J. T. Bowen, Philadelphia, 1838. Library of Congress

plate 2. Rioters in Alton, Illinois, destroy the printing press that issued the Observer and fatally shoot its editor, Elijah Parish Lovejoy, November 7, 1837. New York Public Library

Facing page: plate 3. Theodor Kaufmann’s lithograph Effects of the Fugitive-Slave-Law protests the Fugitive Slave Act with textual support from the Bible and the Declaration of Independence, September 18, 1850. Library of Congress plate 4. Leap of the Fugitive Slave. A female fugitive in Washington, D.C., escapes her pursuers by jumping to her death in the Potomac River in 1842. Illustration from William Wells Brown, My Southern Home; or, The South and Its People (1880)

plate 5. Southern Chivalry—Argument Versus Club’s. In the aftermath of the divisive KansasNebraska Act, Democratic Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina assaults Republican Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with his walking cane in the Senate Chamber, May 22, 1856. Anonymous lithograph after the original by New York artist John L. Magee. New York Public Library

plate 6. The Last Moments of John Brown, Thomas Hovenden’s 1882 depiction of John Brown pausing on his way to the scaffold to kiss a black baby, December 2, 1859. Library of Congress

plate 7. Engraving of Thomas Satterwhite Noble’s 1867 painting, The Modern Medea, based on the true story of runaway slave Margaret Garner, who killed her own child in January 1856 when she was apprehended under the terms of the Fugitive Slave Act. From Harper’s Weekly (May 18, 1867). Library of Congress

plate 8. The scarred back of a Louisiana slave, Gordon, who escaped to the safety of a Union encampment in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in March 1863 and enlisted in the U.S. Army. This engraving of the original photograph, taken at the camp by William D. McPherson and J. Oliver, circulated widely as a carte de visite with the title “The Peculiar Institution Illustrated (or The Scourged Back).” Library of Congress

plate 9. “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” A ubiquitous image in antislavery publications, dating from the 1780s as the seal of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery in England. Library of Congress

plate 10. The Gallant Charge of the Fifty Fourth Massachusetts Colored Regiment. Currier and Ives lithograph of the assault on Fort Wagner in South Carolina by the first regiment of African American volunteers, the 54th Massachusetts, led by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, July 18, 1863. Library of Congress

plate 11. Emancipation. In commemoration of the Emancipation Proclamation, a portrayal of the painful scenes endured by slaves in the past and the promising future that awaits them. January 1863. Library of Congress

plate 12. William Tolman Carlton’s 1863 painting commemorating the Emancipation Proclamation, Watch Meeting—Dec. 31. 1862—Waiting for the Hour, was presented to President Lincoln by William Lloyd Garrison in 1864. Carte de visite by Heard & Moseley, Boston. Library of Congress

9 Equal it y

T

he black voice is particularly resonant in poems that insist equality is an inherent right, which should therefore be shared publicly by black and white Americans alike. These black speakers assert that they, too, were created in God’s image and therefore possess the same faculties of awareness and sensitivity as their white readers. By thus emphasizing their God-given equality, they challenge the legitimacy of an institution that discriminated against them simply on the basis of their skin color. The absurdity of such discrimination is proven by poets who commend the remarkable accomplishments of well-known black public figures. Others encourage their readers to imagine life as a black person, emphasizing that such a fraught existence would be unbearable for anyone regardless of race. The goal of moral suasion is especially apparent in these poems, which lean heavily on sentiment to demonstrate the identical humanity of individuals who were as susceptible to suffering, and as disposed to resist injustice, as any other person. It may seem remarkable now, but as Ronald G. Walters recognizes, “Abolitionists had to convince whites that black people were indeed men and women just like themselves,” and to that end their “sentimental appeals asking readers to imagine themselves in the place of slaves depended for their effectiveness on whites believing that they and blacks had common emotions and common reactions.”1 Mary G. De Jong also notes that “abolitionists were especially keen to hammer home the idea that the phrase ‘all men are created equal’ was or should be a good deal 213

more than mere words.”2 As William Lloyd Garrison declared to a gathering of freedmen in Charleston in 1864 following the Emancipation Proclamation, “It was not on account of your complexion or race, as a people, that I espoused your cause, but because you were children of a common Father, created in the same divine image, having the same inalienable rights, and as much entitled to liberty as the proudest slaveholder that ever walked the earth.”3 This belief in universal equality is also apparent in both of the anonymous poems entitled “Am I not a Man and a Brother?,” which borrow their titles from a phrase that appeared frequently in antislavery publications accompanied by the image of a supplicant slave in chains (see plate 9). This emblem was originally adopted in the 1780s as the seal of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery in England, which was made famous by Josiah Wedgwood’s medallions for the society. The medallions eventually made their way into the hands of Benjamin Franklin, who was at that time president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, and the emblem later appeared across such diverse merchandise as coins, crockery, and needlework. Jean Fagan Yellin argues that the image’s effectiveness hinges on its portrayal of “the self-affirmation of the figure as a morally responsible creature,” whose inquiry could be read either as an appeal to his owner for freedom or as a plea to the observer for help.4 Susan M. Ryan also notes its persuasiveness, which she suggests is based on phrasing the slave’s appeal as a question rather than a statement and thus transferring the ability to alter his status to the viewer by “implying that African American ‘elevation’ was contingent on white benevolence.”5 The two poems elaborate on all these implications. For instance, the speaker of the first one, from 1835, relies on a compelling trochaic rhythm to question whether he deserves to suffer despite his essential equality to any man. He finds some consolation in the signs of freedom that are dawning across the Atlantic—presumably a reference to the 1835 treaty abolishing the slave trade between Britain and France—and is also heartened by the “swelling voices loud . . . fraught with music” which may refer to the poets who were making themselves heard on his behalf. The speaker of the second poem describes the indignity of bearing oppression regardless of his race’s “kindred alliance with white men.” Yet in this case his hope stems only from anticipating that the distinctions of skin color will be erased in the afterlife, where “the soul all unclothed for inspection” will be judged on equal terms with all others. The question these speakers pose is answered in poems like “To Frederick Douglass,” which was written in 1845 shortly after the publication of Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and asserts that the former slave is indeed both a man and a brother. In her poem, Anna Quincy 214 p Lyrical Liberators

Waterston similarly argues that the accomplishments of celebrated black sculptor Edmonia Lewis demonstrate that genius transcends racial distinctions. She commends Lewis in particular for her 1864 bust of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, a martyr for the cause who had recently been killed while leading the first regiment of African American volunteers, the 54th Massachusetts, at the Second Battle of Fort Wagner (see also chapter 12). As prominent black figures in their respective fields, both Douglass and Lewis found support from Garrison at key junctures of their careers, and like Garrison both also found themselves victimized by their opponents: Douglass was assaulted by a proslavery mob in 1843 after a lecture in Pendleton, Indiana; and Lewis was attacked in 1862 during her studies at Oberlin College, among the earliest colleges to admit black students beginning in 1835, following accusations of poisoning two white classmates that could not ultimately be proved. Poems like these therefore acknowledge just how significant their accomplishments were considering the constant opposition they faced. On the other hand, Bernard Barton, among other poets, wonders whether readers have ever asked themselves “WHAT IT IS TO BE A SLAVE?” and invites them to consider how they would feel under such circumstances. He asks them to contemplate what it would be like if their own bodies did not belong to them, if their work only benefited someone else, and if they were unable to maintain their familial bonds. If they could not endure such hopeless conditions, he persuasively inquires, how could they then justify inflicting them on others? The speaker of the “moral tale” by G. G. W. Morgan recalls attending a performance by the Hutchinson Family Singers at Boston’s Tremont Temple, a Baptist church with a racially integrated congregation, where he witnessed signs of discrimination against a black girl in attendance. Considering the setting and the performers—who famously included antislavery lyrics in their songs, accompanied Frederick Douglass on his lecture circuit in the 1840s, and sang at Union army camps during the war—he is astounded by the palpable shock that greets his decision to occupy one of the many empty seats beside the girl. Like Barton, he also relies on a pivotal question to make his point, asking the ladies in attendance whether they wouldn’t also feel relieved to be free, as the black girl now is, if like her they had been forced to endure abuse and separation from their families. He brings his lesson in empathy to a close by relying on Christ’s oft-quoted words, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40), to imply that the Christian congregation should heed his guidance in its treatment of any fellow congregant. Like many fellow activists and authors, he thus relies on faith to corroborate that the right of equality must be incontestable for all. Equality p 215

p Anonymous, “Am I not a Man and a Brother?” Herald of Freedom (August 8, 1835)

Am I not a man—a brother? (Hear the sighing captive cry,) Must I dwell in chains forever? Scorned by every passer-by? What, alas! can soothe my spirit; What its noble fight sustain; If I naught but chains inherit, Groans, and sighs, and mortal pain? In freedom’s temple lo! I’m bending, Bound a wretched suffering slave; My heart new throbs of anguish rending, Plunged in dark oppression’s wave! Who’ll undo my heavy burden? Who will hear my suppliant prayer? I am weary, heavy laden,— Let a slave your pity share. Am I not a man—a brother? Kindred of the fairer race? Does the sable of my color Brand me with such deep disgrace? Must my soul by anguish riven, All her wonted powers repress? Mind and thought to sorrow given, Deeply rent with keen distress? Ah, one sweeter thought is stealing O’er the pangs of deep despair, Waking here a calmer feeling— Do I not GOD ’ S IMAGE bear? Tho’ now the chains of slavery wearing, Doomed to lordly whites to bow, Reproach and scorn, and insult bearing— All for crime of shaded brow,— 216 p Lyrical Liberators

Yet a star of hope is dawning, Harbinger of brighter day, Prelude to my freedom’s morning, Ushering in its sunlight ray See, its golden light is streaming Far across the atlantic shore; The captive’s sun of freedom’s beaming— Soon ’twill rise to set no more. Hark! swelling voices loud responding Fraught with music to my ear; My heart so long in grief desponding Starts the thrilling sound to hear, Swiftly on northern gales ’tis rolling, Southern breezes bear it on; ’Tis rapture, O! ’tis heart-consoling, To degraded Afric’s son.

Anonymous, “‘Am I not a Man and a Brother?’” Herald of Freedom (September 5, 1835)

With God’s image, erect on his footstool I stand, Clothed with strength is my arm, nerved with vigor my hand; Through my veins, conscious blood from my heart warmly flows, Awakening sensations the brute never knows; But which makes of one kindred the nations of earth, The slave to his master, a brother by birth. I’ve a soul, and though wrapt in an AEthiop1 shade, And deep in a chaos of ignorance laid; Yet it burns in its cell with a flame that’s so bright, I have sometimes a glimpse of its radient light; But alas! though it sparkles and shines in my breast, The eye of my mind still on darkness must rest. I’ve a heart that’s possessed of a power to feel, When the heart of the white man is pointed with steel; I have eyes that have wept all my life’s gloomy years, And nightly have watered my couch with their tears; I have ears that oft tingle those voices to hear, Which ne’er speak of kindness my misery to cheer.

1. Ethiopian.

Equality p 217

I’ve a monitor, too, that is restless within, Which tells me my heart is a mansion of sin; And O! dwells not the same in the slave-holder’s breast, Tho’ forbidden its voice to disquiet his rest? Ah! the same condemnation descends on us all, We are brethren involved in the guilt of the fall. A kindred alliance with white men I claim, Though degraded my mind ’tis in essence the same, Through rudely is crushed in its temple my soul, By oppressions which all its uprisings control; Yet it ne’er will descend to commingle with dust, But return to its maker, that God who is just. I’m a man, and a brother—the day is at hand, When all colors in one congregation will stand, And O! who will discern mid eternity’s light, A dark African hue from American white? There’ll no shade in that shadowless air intervene, But the soul all unclothed for inspection be seen.

Bernard Barton, “What Is It to Be a Slave”2 National Anti-Slavery Standard (January 1, 1846)

Hast thou ever asked thyself What it is to be a slave? Bought and sold for sordid pelf, From the cradle to the grave! ’Tis to know the transient powers E’en of muscle, flesh, and bone, Cannot, in thy happiest hours, Be considered as thine own: But thy master’s goods and chattels Lent to thee for little more Than to fight his selfish battles For some bits of shining ore! 2. The title appears this way in the original publication, although it is rephrased in the poem’s first stanza.

218 p Lyrical Liberators

’Tis to learn thou hast a heart, Beating in that bartered frame, Of whose ownership—no part Thou can’st challenge—but in name. For the curse of Slavery crushes Out the life-blood from its core: And expends its throbbing gushes But to swell another’s store. God’s best gift from heaven above, Meant to make a heaven on earth, Hallowing, humanizing love! With the ties which thence have birth: These can never be his lot, Who, like brutes, is bought and sold; Holding such—as having not On his own the spider’s hold! ’Tis to feel, e’en worse than this, If aught worse than this can be, Thou hast shrined, for bale or bliss, An immortal soul in thee! But that this undying guest Shares thy body’s degradation, Until Slavery’s bonds, unblest, Check each kindling aspiration: And what should have been thy light, Shining e’en beyond the grave, Turns to darkness worse than night, Leaving thee a hopeless slave! Such is Slavery! Couldst thou bear Its vile bondage? Oh! my brother, How, then, canst thou, wilt thou dare To inflict it on another?

Equality p 219

C. L. M., “To Frederick Douglass” Anti-Slavery Bugle (October 1, 1847)

Man of the dark, yet noble brow, Though tyrants proud have placed a ban Upon thy race—I feel that thou Art both a brother and a man! Yes, brother, man, to me ’tis nought That nature made thy brow less fair Than mine; since eloquence and thought Have left their noble impress there. Hath not the Great Creator said, In that blest book above all others, That of one blood all men are made3— That all mankind should live as brothers? Then fear thou not the frown of pride, But labor! labor with thy might, With Truth and Justice on thy side, Press onward in the moral fight, ’Till the slaves’ fetters all are riven, ’Till all mankind shall freedom share, And Ethiopia unto Heaven Shall stretch her hands with praise and prayer.

G. G. W. Morgan, “Aristocracy of Color. A Moral Tale for Christian Ladies (Founded on a Recent Incident)” Frederick Douglass’ Paper (May 25, 1855)

How strange it is, in such a place As Boston seems to be, Where men talk so of Liberty, And boast of being free,

3. See Acts 17:26.

220 p Lyrical Liberators

That folks should give themselves such airs, Assuming so much state, And be so callous what may be Their fellow-creatures’ fate. My wife and I, the other night, It being bright and clear, To the gorgeous Tremont Temple strolled, The Hutchinsons to hear.4 Being rather late, we found the place Filled full as it could be With people, dressed as well as one In any place could see. We searched in vain to find a seat, But none could we descry, Until at last a vacant spot I happened to espy. ’Twas near the center of the Hall, An admirable spot; I “thanked my stars” that our good fate So good a seat had got. But, as we moved towards the place, I saw some people smile; Some ladies (?) [sic] scoffed, while others frowned: Surprised, I paused awhile. I paused to think what it could mean, Why there was such commotion, And thought there must be something strange To cause such strong emotion. I saw—a genteel colored girl, Who, by a strange mistake (Perhaps by ignorance induced,) A seat had dared to take Admist the white folks. Oh, dear me What tongue is there can tell What heaps of unkind thoughts then grew? I saw them very well. 4. Tremont Temple is a Baptist church in Boston. The Hutchinson Family Singers was a popular group that toured the country.

Equality p 221

And when I handed in my wife, And took my seat beside, It seemed as if the people were Turned mad with injured pride. Each opera-glass was brought to bear With power most intense; All eyes appeared transfixed on us,— Their fury seemed immense. I sat with pride, and gazed around; The rudest starers there Shrunk from the proud, contemptuous glance, Which then I brought to bear. I gloried that it was my fate To prove myself so true, And that I had not done such wrong As I saw others do. Can this be so? I asked myself; Mistake there sure must be some; A Christian city Boston’s called, Far famed for loving Freedom; And these are dressed like those who know What ’tis good manners mean; But no; that no mistake it was Could very well be seen. For still the scoffs and frowns appeared On each fair lady’s (?) [sic] brow. Their eyes seemed rooted on our seat: I sat composed as now. Composed, ay, proud,—that is the word; I like its noble sound; None prouder than myself, methinks, Could anywhere be found. I’d rather sit beside her there Than any regal queen, Or noblest lady in the land, No matter whom she’d been. For there she sat in Freedom safe, And joy illumed her face; 222 p Lyrical Liberators

No thought of fear or sorrow then Could any one there trace. No planter’s whip or trained bloodhound Brought danger to her mind; No scars or wounds she’d henceforth bear: She’d left them all behind. No chains or fetters more would chafe. Her body and her soul Was free as air; for none but God Might exercise control. And then the blissful thought arose, If she became a wife, She’d fear no sacrilegious hand Would mar her joys of life, And break in twain the sacred bonds Which God in mercy tied; Or fear that His, or Nature’s laws By man would be defied. And if a mother she became,— Ah, then, the dreadful woe, The cruel wrongs and suffering, That mother’s heart might know; To feel the yearnings of her love, And hope its life to save, Then, crushed by heavy fate, to know ’Twas born to be a slave. To watch her child to manhood grow, And hope its future years Would be a solace to her age, And dry up all her tears; And then some day to have that child Torn from her loved embrace, And never heard of him again, As often is the case. Yet Christian ladies, tell me then,— I put the case to you,— Should you not rather joy with me Equality p 223

Than as I saw you do? Suppose that such had been your fate, As well it might have been, Would you have been the worse because God made yours darker skin? Would you not even feel as much, As keenly then as now? Would you defiant be to God, Or with submission bow? Be sure the heart that best can feel The ills another bears, Will oftenest have the least to bear, Oppressed the least with cares. And those that scoff with haughty pride Will surely come to be The most oppressed: ’tis fit they should Be taught humility. Remember what our Lord once said, “That inasmuch as ye Do it to one the least of these, Ye do it unto me.”5

A. Q. W. [Anna Quincy Waterston], “Edmonia Lewis” Liberator (December 16, 1864); National Anti-Slavery Standard (December 24, 1864) [The young colored woman who has successfully modelled the bust of Col. Shaw6]

She hath wrought well with her unpractised hand, The mirror of her thought reflected clear This youthful hero-martyr of our land. With touch harmonious she has moulded here A memory and a prophecy—both dear: The memory of one who was so pure 5. See Matthew 25:40. 6. Union colonel Robert Gould Shaw, who commanded the first all-black regiment, the 54th Massachusetts, was killed in July 1863 at the Second Battle of Fort Wagner.

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That God gave him (what only can belong To an unsullied soul) the right to be A leader for all time in Freedom’s chivalry; The prophecy of that wide, wholesome cure For foul distrust and bitter, cruel wrong, Which he did give his life up to secure. ’Tis fitting that a daughter of the race Whose chains are breaking should receive a gift So rare as genius. Neither power nor place, Fashion or wealth, pride, custom, caste, nor hue Can arrogantly claim what God doth lift Above these chances, and bestows on few.

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10 Free d o m

T

he American ideal of freedom, which formed the basis of the nation’s struggle for independence, motivated a series of poets who allude to this legacy in order to demonstrate the loss of its principles. Ronald G. Walters notes that Garrisonians in particular “felt compelled to appropriate the sacred mantle of the Revolution” in the belief that their movement represented the ultimate fulfillment of its goals.1 The poets represented in this chapter maintain that the tyranny of slavery must be abolished for freedom to truly exist, and they generally rely on patriotism to make their case. Some of the poems insist on freedom as a natural right, demonstrating that the desire for liberty is innate to all humans by featuring black speakers lamenting that they have been deprived of this right.2 Other poems address recent events, advocates, and publications that exposed the hypocrisies of a nation that claimed to be free while enslaving so many of its people. In so doing, as John L. Thomas observes, writers “showed their generation the terrible discordance between their ideals and their behavior.”3 The poet writing under the name Ion opens with a William Wordsworth quotation concerning the merits of learning from the past. He poses a sequence of provocative questions that point to the imperative need to act on the founding virtues of freedom rather than face the detrimental consequences of abandoning that cause. Yet on the whole he is confident that the abiding “love of liberty” will ultimately compel Americans to speak out against slavery. The 226

author of “The Liberty Bell” reaches a similar conclusion after accusing citizens of disregarding the bell’s symbolic toll because it disrupts their complacent reliance on slavery. He nevertheless believes that “a few chosen spirits” will respond to the sound that is urging them to put an end to the “invasions of wrong.” Two other poems that argue for liberty as a natural right refer to the forces of nature. For instance, the speaker of the poem by Rev. D. Trueman hears the “Spirit of Freedom” in the sounds of the winds and the waves that also carry the voices of suffering slaves. His apostrophe to this spirit that “made us a nation” guiltily pleads for its return from exile in exchange for the liberation of its people, echoing the well-known spiritual “Go Down Moses” by calling for their release through the refrain “let my people go.” And in “Inalienable Rights,” which is introduced by a selection from the writings of Unitarian preacher William Ellery Channing, its speaker declares that man may enslave certain natural forces and creatures to serve him but enjoins him not to do the same with other men, who are fashioned in God’s image to be equally free. References to actual incidents help underscore such arguments. “The Freed Slaves” comments on the slave ships that were at times forced by inclement weather to land on British islands like the Bahamas and Bermuda, presumably including the famed incident of the US vessel the Enterprise, which was grounded at Bermuda in February 1835. According to British law, which had abolished slavery in its Caribbean colonies in 1834, the slaves on board were liberated once they set foot on British land. Although Great Britain eventually compensated American owners for their loss of property in this incident through the 1853 Treaty of Claims, the poem portrays such episodes as holy acts of vengeance that rightfully liberated the enslaved who had been “robbed of rights to all from Nature due.” Joseph L. Chester’s poem addresses the famed slave revolt of 1839 led by Joseph Cinqué, who had been captured in Sierra Leone by Spanish traders and bound for sale in Cuba on the Amistad when he led a mutiny of slaves on board. The former captives, who believed their Spanish navigator was sailing them back to Africa, were secretly steered toward American territory and eventually reached Long Island, New York. Their Spanish owners claimed these men as property, but American abolitionists argued they were never legally slaves, because of the Anglo-Spanish treaty that had outlawed the African slave trade in 1820. With the critical assistance of John Quincy Adams pleading their case, the US Supreme Court eventually upheld this verdict in 1841. The case became a landmark victory for the cause, which was validated by such declarations as Justice Joseph Story’s claim that the captives were freed on the basis of the “eternal principles of justice.”4 In his poem, Chester happily anticipates Cinqué’s upcoming reunion Freedom p 227

with his family, made possible by American sympathizers who helped raise money for his return to Africa. This sentimental approach allows readers to relate to Cinqué by recognizing his right to freely resume the familiar roles of husband and father. Poets also pay tribute to white activists who championed the cause of freedom. Lydia Maria Child praises the early abolitionists of the 1830s whose persistence despite strong opposition succeeded in winning over even key Southern supporters. Child specifically names James Gillespie Birney, a member of the Kentucky state legislature who published the antislavery periodical the Philanthropist and ran as a presidential candidate for the Liberty Party; Kentuckian James Armstrong Thome, writer for the Herald of Freedom and faculty member at Oberlin College, among the earliest colleges to admit black students beginning in 1835; Tennessee surgeon and minister David Nelson, a key contributor to the Underground Railroad in Missouri; former president Zachary Taylor, from Virginia, who despite being a slave owner opposed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (see chapter 3); and the politically active sisters Angelina and Sarah Grimké from South Carolina. The poem praises these activists for converting numerous supporters who will hopefully work as tirelessly in the present as they did in the past to help advance the cause. By likening their efforts to carrying a “fiery cross” throughout the land to expose “sin’s secret caverns,” Child alludes to an episode from Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake, in which the torch is used to rally opposition to the king in an implied parallel to abolitionist resistance to a tyrannical institution.5 The poem by A. W. Cole, on the other hand, recognizes Harriet Beecher Stowe’s pivotal contribution to the movement with her 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly. It takes the form of an apostrophe to the slaves, or “the lowly” of Stowe’s subtitle, to reassure them that although her message may not yet reach them because they have been “denied the rights of manhood all,” liberty nonetheless awaits them in the imminent future. The desire for freedom, and an accompanying dissatisfaction with conditions that curtailed it, is most poignantly expressed by black poets and speakers. The excerpts from George Moses Horton’s work focus primarily on this longing, which is apparent in his two apostrophes pleading for deliverance from bondage. The second, lengthier one implores the figure of Liberty to speak out against the “foul Oppression” that has caused him so much suffering. Faith Barrett argues that Horton’s reliance on such traditional “voice-effects” as apostrophes allowed him to resist the many restrictions on writing and speaking he faced as a slave. What’s more, by thus demonstrating his knowledge of

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poetic tradition he could also establish his credentials as a poet “whose exceptional gifts warrant his emancipation.”6 For instance, Horton also relies on a classical genre in his dirge for a young slave girl, rejoicing that in her flight to heaven she is now “free from the pains of oppression.” As John L. Cobbs has noted, the motif of flight is a predominant one as well in Horton’s early work, where it serves as a hopeful metaphor for freedom.7 Like Horton’s poems, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s work is supplemented by commentary from white editors, who argue that her talents as a lecturer prove that prejudice against women speakers is unfounded and challenge any “female scorner of colored ladies” to write as well as she does. Her poem “Ethiopia” anticipates that the agonizing pleas of the personified figure of Ethiopia will persuade God to release “The tyrant’s yoke from off her neck / His fetters from her soul.” It advances three essential claims which Frances Smith Foster proposes are integral to most of Harper’s work, and indeed can apply to the majority of abolitionist poetry: “slaves were human; slavery violated inalienable human rights; slavery, therefore, trespassed the laws of God and country.”8 These fundamental laws are also addressed in “The Slave’s Declaration,” written in response to another poem that the speaker suggests misleadingly commemorates Independence Day by portraying America as a refuge from tyranny for people from across the globe. It is reframed from a slave’s perspective to warn readers instead against coming to a land where freedom is nothing “but a sound” since so many of its people are enslaved. In one of the most remarkable poems in this collection, J. A. Dorgan writes in the voice of a slave who has recently killed his owner yet feels no remorse about thus releasing himself from bondage. Defending his actions by relying on the argument that “might makes right,” which was espoused by supporters of slavery to justify their own behavior, he denounces a judicial system that would punish him but would allow a white man to kill a black man with impunity. The poem thus offers a memorable political statement by recognizing that its black speaker is paradoxically able to gain his freedom only by depriving another man of his own. It reaffirms the pointed critique, found in most poems in this chapter, of a status quo that was rife with contradictions, especially when it came to its supposed foundation in the principle of freedom.

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Franklin, “The Freed Slaves” Emancipator (October 10, 1839) Several years since, three vessels freighted with slaves, from the United States, were wrecked on the Bahama Islands. By the laws of the realm, every man that sets his foot on British territory is free; and thus, by the interposition of Providence, these cargoes of slaves were liberated, the chains of their bondage broken, and they at once constituted freemen. On account of applications from the pretended owners, Congress instructed the executive of our Republican government to call on Great Britain for a remuneration for their loss of property in these humble beings, and a requisition was accordingly made.

The darkness veiled the sea—the raging blast In tempests howled with ocean’s deaf’ning roar: And from the clouds the lightning’s flames were cast, As pealed the thunders round Bermuda’s shore; While in the surge, and freighted down with slaves, The guilty ship was struggling with the waves. And on its deck, and in its prisoned cell, Were human beings, helpless with their chains; There lay proud man, as ’neath some mystic spell, While madly rushed the hot blood through his veins— And there the woman weak, and quiet child, Were fettered like the madman fierce and wild. And these were beings born on Freedom’s soil, To bondage doomed by skin of sable hue; Their cheerless fate to wear the chain and toil, While robbed of rights to all from Nature due; And this their lot—from home and kindred torn! For gold to stranger lands with anguish borne! And these were proud Virginia’s sable sons,— And nurtured in that land of Freedom’s pride! Some where the fair Potomac quiet runs, And some in cool retreat on mountain’s side, Who now beneath a southern sun must toil! Are doomed with blood and tears to dress the soil?

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But will the hand of mercy quiet sleep? Will not the wail of children break its rest? Nor curse of injured man who cannot weep? Nor stifled sigh that heaves the woman’s breast? Is not the ire of vengeance now awake, Whose warning voice the boundless main doth shake? But feeble woman’s prayer will yet prevail!— The tempest gathers blackness o’er the sky!— The bondman’s foes in guilty terror quail, When vengeance in his thunder speaks on high! The troubled waves in rising anger move, And madly sweep the chastening winds above! And justice to the elements has given The work of heavenly mercy to fulfil— This high commission, for the winds of heaven, And ocean’s waves, to execute his will! The slave now wrested from the tyrant’s hands, On Freedom’s ground emancipated stands! And now is heard the voice of thankful praise, From him who uttered curses on his foe; And joyful tears, the grateful heart repays, Burst forth from him so stern in deepest woe; And woman’s heart, which dark despair withstood, In secret treasures up its joyful flood!

Ion, “Hopes and Fears” Emancipator (April 9, 1840) If this great world of joy and pain Revolve in one sure track, If Freedom set will rise again, And virtue flown come back; Woe in the purblind crew who fill Their heart with each day’s care, Nor learn from past to future skill To bear and to forbear. Wordsworth 1

1. From William Wordsworth’s “The Warning” (1837).

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Our country and our home! Oh! is there one Base craven spirit, or one recreant son Of liberty, within whose soul there burns No deep emotion whereso’er he turns Who sees not whereso’er his footsteps roam A common country and a common home? A freeman! he’s not worthy of the name, Bind fast the fetters round his shrinking frame. Oh no, we are not yet, so cold, so dead, To those high views which made our fathers shed Their blood, like water, in the stirring fight, And rather die, than yield a single right. We are not yet so wearied of our lot, Our Union’s blessings have not so forgot, As now to wish it severed, rent in twain, And war’s red banner waved o’er all the land again. Shall the bright orb, beginning to dispel The darkness round the patriot’s prison cell, To melt away the cankering chains that bind The slave’s dark limbs, but cannot chain his mind, Shall this be quenched in our fraternal gore, And sink to rise on this dark world no more? A thousand ears are pain’d, yea, ev’ry soul Is thrilled with feelings that spurn all control; At discord’s jarring sounds that every hour Grow louder, and more dreadful in their power. And will none wake, arouse and sound the call Of rescue! rescue! to prevent our fall? Will none of those whose loud and trumpet tones Have shook old Europe’s monarchs on their thrones, Speak now in tones of thunder that shall ring Through all the land and meet a welcoming! Oh! shall the last bright star, the only light That beams its brightness on the nation’s night, Shall this go down in darkness, leave its high And lofty station and obscurely die? Shall the last hope of wrong’d and suff’ring man Be rent by strifes of party and of clan; Be sacrificed upon ambition’s shrine, And made the pander of each base design? The band of brothers, who in gone-down years Braved the same dangers, felt the self-same fears, 232 p Lyrical Liberators

Who side by side, on battle-field have stood, To offer up on Freedom’s shrine their blood; Even they stand now on hostile sides arrayed, While ruin yawns beneath them, undismay’d. Each several chain the mighty mass that binds Seems sev’ring link by link, while discord blinds, And hatred, envy, malice, rage by turns, In heart alike inflam’d, whatever passion burns. But no! still shall glow the love of liberty In thousand hearts that have not bowed the knee, Until, thro’ all the land, a voice shall thrill And linger round each vale and sunny hill; Oh, then, the chain shall fall, the slave be free, And every hill shall echo liberty!

Lydia Maria [Francis] Child, “Lines to Those Men and Women, Who Were Avowed Abolitionists in 1831, ’32, ’33, ’34, & ’35” Herald of Freedom (May 23, 1840); National Anti-Slavery Standard (April 9, 1859)2 [The reader will recollect how the fiery cross of Clan-Alpine3 was hurried through the land by messengers, who paused neither for joy nor sorrow, life nor death, till the signal had warned every clansman of approaching battle.]

Ye glorious band! Ye chosen few! On whom God’s Spirit came,— Endowed with hearts so bold and true, And tongues of living flame;— How memory kindles to review The strife of recent years! As the torch of Truth went struggling through Contending doubts and fears. That torch, like Alpine’s fiery cross, Flew fast from hand to hand,— 2. Introduction appears in both publications. Note appears in the National Anti-Slavery Standard. 3. This torch is used to rally opposition to the king in Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake (1810).

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Through deadly peril, pain, and loss, It lightened round the land. Men saw the kindling watch-fires burn From rivers to the sea, And paused mid worldly gain to learn Whence all this light could be. They heard the stunning roar and clash Of elements contending, They saw the burning glare and flash Sin’s secret caverns rending. Then rose the loud discordant yell Of selfishness and power; The light too strong upon them fell, In God’s own searching hour. In civil garb, or priestly guise, The aged and the youth, The prudent, and the worldly wise Combined against the Truth. Ye smiled to see the war they waged, And scorned their rash design; Ye knew how vainly Hell had raged Against a truth divine. Right valiantly ye kept your path, And bore the beacon high, While roaring in tumultuous wrath, The stormy waves rushed by. Boldly ye sent the signal forth! Nor flashed the fire in vain; For the South answering to the North,* Reflected it again. Now the whole land is filled with light, And converts come like dew,— God grant the torch may burn as bright, As when our names were few! 234 p Lyrical Liberators

In sooth, it somewhat grieves my heart, That the world is coming in, With its polluting, prudent, art Of compromise with sin. For oh, it was a solemn joy, That tide of sin to turn! A holy and a blest employ, To make those watch-fires burn! God bless you with his love divine, Dear brethren, tried and true! And grant your light may brightly shine, As when our names were few. * James G. Birney, James A. Thome, Dr. Nelson, Mr. Taylor, Angelina and Sarah Grimké, all Anti-Slavery lecturers and agents, from the slave-holding states.4

Joseph L. Chester, “Farewell Address to Cinque” National Anti-Slavery Standard (December 16, 1841); Liberator (December 24, 1841)

Once more upon the waters! Whither now, Brave Cinque!5 do thy anxious wanderings tend? The gallant ship! Say, doth her gilded prow Again her way to climes of bondage wend? Art thou once more in chains, and borne along To regions where thy fetters will be strong? Ah, no! Thou art a freeman now! The air You breathe is but the breath of Liberty! No more of sorrow or of dark despair Shall press thy noble heart. Aye, thou art free! And even now, far o’er the trackless main, The good ship flies to bear thee home again. 4. James Gillespie Birney and James Armstrong Thome, both from Kentucky. David Nelson, originally from Tennessee. Zachary Taylor, from Virginia. Sisters Angelina and Sarah Grimké, from South Carolina. See chapter introduction. 5. Joseph Cinqué led the slave revolt aboard the Spanish ship Amistad in 1839.

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Home! Home!! thy soul must kindle at the word! Thou art a husband, and thy doting wife Will greet thee with a heart whose throbs are heard! Thou art a father: thou hast given life To those who soon will cling around thy knee, And shout for joy their sire again to see. Oh! might I then an unseen witness stand, And see the greetings of thy kindred there— The wild embrace—the grasping of the hand— And hear the shouts that then will rend the air— Of pleasure here I would an age resign, That for a day I might unite in thine. I charge you now, forget not those whose hands And hearts were opened at your tale of grief: Forget not him—that brave old man*—who stands A noble monument of your relief: Forget not any who have lent you aid, And for their welfare let your prayers be made. And most of all, forget not Him, whose name Ye now have heard aright: Him whose strong hand Gave impulse to the helm when first ye came, Heav’n-guided, to this portion of our land: Him who hath raised up friends to plead your cause, And judges who have rightly read our laws. Go, tell your kindred of the white man’s God, By whom your faces once again they see! How He hath freed you from th’ oppressor’s rod, And how His Truth hath made you doubly free: And should the memory of your friends grow dim, I charge you, on your souls, forget not Him! And now, farewell! My spirit with you flies, And Hope’s bright eye looks far beyond the sea: I seem to see your native hills arise, And all your kindred gathered on the lea. One prayer I breathe, ere yet you leave our strand— God bless thee, Cinque, and thy native land! * John Quincy Adams

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H. W. H., “The Liberty Bell” National Anti-Slavery Standard (October 10, 1844)

List! list to the sound of the Liberty Bell!6 Pealing forth on the troubled air— It tolleth in triumph proud tyranny’s knell— Each toll hath a bolder and mightier swell, As it sends the glad sound everywhere. O’er the turmoil and bustle and business of life It comes, as the thunderbolts come— With Equality, Freedom, and Love, it is rife— The oppressor’s proud spirit it filleth with strife, For the truth, to his heart, it brings home. The merchant, in hearing it, holdeth his breath, Lest his business should suffer a pressure— The time-serving preacher is gnashing his teeth, And slyly exhorts, “to oppose to the death Each vile Anti-Slavery measure.” Literati awake from their deep reveries, As its loud tone their quietude breaketh, But they heed not its strain—while the councillor sees That the poor and the captive can pay him no fees, And his former position he taketh. Very many are puzzled what course to pursue— They fear this will end in a riot,— They “feel very bad for the slave,” it is true, But pause, and ask, “What will our minister do?” And soon, very soon, they are quiet. The rich hear the peal, and think of their gold, And seek the best means to preserve it— The poor have no time to examine—there [sic] told “’Tis according to Scripture that men should be sold, And that black men most surely deserve it.”



6. The Liberty Bell is found in Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

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Yet a few chosen spirits are found ’mid them all, To respond to the Liberty Bell; Who heed not, who fear not, the great or the small, Who gladly and fearlessly march to the call, The invasions of wrong to repel. O’er city, and village, and hamlet, and plain, And in the dark woods’ silent dell, On the lone mountain-top, with its cloud-gifted fane, By the streamlet, and far, far away o’er the main, Sound the tones of the Liberty Bell. And louder, and clearer, and mightier yet, Those thundering chimes will ring forth, Till, in all, “truth and mercy together are met,” And the star of Oppression forever hath set, And Freedom, hath lighted the earth.

N. T. T., “The Slave’s Declaration” Anti-Slavery Bugle (September 12, 1845) The following humbug, called “Freedom’s Invitation” I found in an eastern paper. It is such a palpable falsehood that I wonder the author was not ashamed to have it see the light. If he did not know it was a lie, it only shows how much people can be blinded and befooled by what they style patriotism, which as they use the word means nothing more than a selfish and contemptible prejudice which the true patriot would spurn from him. I have written a reply called the “Slave’s Declaration,” which if it does not contain so much poetry as the other, has the merit of being more truthful. FREEDOM’S INVITATION. AN ODE FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY.

Floating through Columbia’s sky, Freedom’s banners wave on high, While the nations gathering round, Heard her trumpet-accents sound:— ‘Come, ye people, long oppressed, Underneath my banners rest; From the tyranny of kings Seek the refuge Freedom brings. 238 p Lyrical Liberators

‘Despots, with their iron tread, Europe’s soil have overspread; In the regions of the West, I have found a place of rest. ‘Ample is my Western home, Hither let the people come,— Oh, why will ye longer stay, Crushed beneath a tyrants [sic] sway?’ Monarchs trembled while she spoke; Men their galling fellers broke, Bade the land of slaves farewell, (!!) [sic] Sought where Freedom reigns to dwell. THE SLAVE’S DECLARATION. AN EVERY DAY ODE.

Hark! upon Columbia’s air Cries of anguish and despair, While the nations gathering round Listen to the piteous sound. “Come not here, though ye have borne Tyranny, and hate, and scorn, Better to endure the worst Than to seek this land accurst. Europe’s tyrants may not dare To inflict the wrongs we bear, For Columbia’s children bring Nought to us but suffering. Freedom here is but a sound, Chains, and whips, and yokes abound; Yonder spangled banner waves Over tyrants and their slaves.” Hell is pleased and Devils laugh, And their fiery potions quaff, Boasting they have never sold Any brother imp for gold.

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Rev. D. Trueman, “The Spirit of Freedom” National Era (July 15, 1847)

There’s a voice in the wind, as it sweeps o’er the glade, And as free as the wind shall its whispered tones fly; ’Tis the half-smothered sigh of the dark captive maid, As she thinks of the past with a tear in her eye. While she mourns for lost joys and the friends left behind, Still hopelessly toiling ’neath the summer sun’s glow, The Spirit of Freedom, from the wings of the wind, Cries, unbind them e’en now, and let my people go. There’s a voice on the wave, as it kisses the strand, And as free as the wave shall its echoes still roll; ’Tis a brother’s deep groan when decoyed from his land, ’Tis the death-bell of hope when despair chills the soul. While pinioned, and tearless, and first sold as a slave, The poor victim’s soul sinks ’neath the weight of its wo, The Spirit of Freedom, from the foam-crested wave, Cries, unbind them e’en now, and let my people go. There’s a voice from the stars, as they watch o’er the world, And brighter than starlight shall its sentiment shine; ’Tis the echo of anguish, e’en to Heaven uphurled, From the negro’s hard couch by the outspreading vine. While he groans in his sleep, from contusions and scars, And dreams of enjoyment he may ne’er hope to know, The Spirit of Freedom, from the home of the stars, Cries, unbind them e’en now, and let my people go. There’s a voice from the swamp, and it falls on the ear Like the bow-string’s sharp twang when death’s arrow is sped; ’Tis the fugitive’s gasp when the bloodhound is near— And that gasp echoes still round the fugitive’s bed. While unburied, unsought, in the dark and the damp, That grief-stricken parent lies unconscious and low, The Spirit of Freedom, from the depths of the swamp, Cries, unbind them e’en now, and let my people go. There’s a voice from the mart, on the morning breeze borne, A sweet voice, that should start e’en the slaveholder’s tears; 240 p Lyrical Liberators

’Tis the prattler’s low wail, from the mother’s breast torn, From brother and sister, and from all that endears. While agony shivers that poor bond-infant’s heart, And the soul-seller’s maul descends heavy and slow, The Spirit of Freedom, from that glittering mart, Cries, unbind them e’en now, and let my people go. Oh! Spirit of Freedom! say, where is thy home, Thou bright child of the sky, and true friend of the slave? Art thou doomed, even yet, a poor exile to roam, And to hurl back thy voice from the winds and the wave? At Trenton, at Princeton, on the Valley Forge plain, And at Brandywine, too, thou wast with us, we know;7 Oh! Spirit of Freedom! come and guard us again, For we promise ere long to let God’s people go. Oh! Spirit of Freedom! haste back to our shore, Who made us a nation when our means were all spent, Whose bright wing once brooded e’en our broad banners o’er, And whose harp was in tune in our WASHINGTON’S tent. But, alas! we grew proud, became tyrants in turn, Chained Ethiop’s children, despite misery’s throe— Oh! Spirit of Freedom! now thine absence we mourn, And we promise ere long to let God’s people go. Our hearts have long saddened, and our tongues have confess’d, O’er the chains we have forged and our slave-gathered gold; Our banners are blotted with deep wrongs unredress’d, And our churches break down where Christ’s image is sold. From the domes we have reared, Spirit of Freedom, for thee, And from Nature’s broad breast, will the truth ever flow; All men were created even equal and free, And we promise ere long to let God’s people go. We have wills to redress and warm hearts to deplore, The curse of oppression in the proud monarch’s creed; We can pity the serf on the Autocrat’s shore, And would share our last loaf with a brother in need. We fancied no nation more secure than our own, 7. Trenton, Princeton, Valley Forge, and Brandywine were locations of key battles in the Revolutionary War.

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Nor dreamed that our Charters could foster a foe; Alas! Freedom cries out, in her sad, muffled tone, Unbind them, unbind them, and let God’s people go. Oh! Spirit of Freedom! thy clear voice we have heard, As it circled our homes from the land and the sea; Thou has kindled our hopes, and our sympathies stirred, And we wish from our souls that our bondmen were free. Oh! come to our rescue, and dispel the dark cloud That shuts out the sunlight from three millions below, Nor let America’s flag be Africa’s shroud, For we promise e’en now to let God’s people go. Come, Spirit of Freedom, to our tenantless shrine, Our hearts bid thee welcome, and our flag is unfurled; Come, cherish thy blossoms, and thy chaplets entwine, Whose fragrance shall cheer us, and soon spread o’er the world— Come and call us thine own, wake thy harpstrings again, The proud despot dethrone, and oppression o’erthrow; One brotherhood make us, and let LOVE be the chain, Then all who now hold them will let God’s people go.

M. L. S., “Inalienable Rights” Anti-Slavery Bugle (March 3, 1848) Every thing else may be owned in the universe, but a moral, rational being cannot be property.—Channing.8

What! man enslave his fellow man, Crush him with want and toil and pain, Crush to the ground the undying mind, With slavery’s foul accursed chain? Barter in souls, whose living fire, Shall glow when stars and suns decay; Souls, quenchless as th’ Eternal sire, Who sits enthroned in endless day?

8. From Unitarian preacher William Ellery Channing’s Slavery (1835).

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No! thou mayest call all nature thine, And all her powers thy servants be; But touch not those, whose forms enshrine God’s image—which he fashioned free. Yon sturdy ox, go work or kill;— Make huge leviathan your prey; Men’s homes with light, his death shall fill, And turn the city’s night to day. The horse, though ‘thunder clothe his neck,’ Go seize and teach the bridle’s law; Or make the ‘fire-steed,’ at your beck, His chariot through the mountains draw. Make streams rise up to turn your wheels, And ‘work their passage’ down your vales; Make ocean serve your bounding keels, And yoke the wild winds to their sails. Bring to the telegraphic wire, The very lightning thou hast caught; And bid it fly, on wings of fire, In some far land to write thy thought! Such agents thou may’st well control, No right is crushed—no truth made dim— But man who hath a deathless soul— O, shrink from chattelizing him. Let him be free;—his nature wears, Of sacred rights, a starry crown; And wo to him who madly dares To pluck that constellation down!

Freedom p 243

George Moses Horton, “The Slave Poet of North Carolina” National Era (November 23, 1848) Some twenty years ago, a small duodecimo pamphlet was published at Raleigh, North Carolina, containing several short lyrical compositions, by George, a slave of James Horton, of Chatham county, North Carolina. The publication was made by some benevolent citizens of Raleigh, for the purpose of calling attention to the author, and to awaken a feeling in his behalf, which might enable them to fill up a subscription for purchasing his freedom. In the preface they say: “None will imagine it possible that pieces produced as these have been should be free from blemish in composition or taste. The author is now thirty-two years of age, and has always labored in the field on his master’s farm, promiscuously with the few others which Mr. Horton owns, in circumstances of the greatest possible simplicity. His master says he knew nothing of his poetry, but as he heard it from others. George knows how to read, and is now learning to write. All his pieces are written down by others; and his reading, which is done at night, and at the usual intervals allowed to slaves, has been much employed on poetry, such as he could procure—this being the species of composition most interesting to him. It is thought best to print his productions without correction, that the mind of the reader may be in no uncertainty as to the originality and genuineness of every part. We shall conclude this account of George with an assurance that he has been ever a faithful, honest, and industrious slave. That his heart has felt deeply and sensitively in this lowest possible condition of human nature, will easily be believed, and is impressively confirmed by one of his stanzas:

“Come, melting Pity, from afar, And break this vast enormous bar Between a wretch and thee: Purchase a few short days of time, And bid a vassal soar sublime, On wings of Liberty.

“Raleigh, July 2, 1829.”

The pieces in this little collection indicate genius of no common order. Conned in the midst of the squalid misery and degrading associations of “the slave quarters,” at hours snatched from the interval of rest permitted to the weary field hand, or while working with his comrades in the cornfields of his master, by one who could only, by the pitch light of his cabin fire, with diffi-

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culty read the few books which fell into his hands, they certainly merit an honorable place among the “Curiosities of Literature.” Compared with the earliest productions of the Ettrick Shepherd,9 which are in print, they by no means sink in the reader’s estimation. Take the following, from the piece on “Creation,” as an example (a favorable one, it is true) of the felicity of expression and vigor of thought which characterize the slave poet:

“When each revolving wheel Assumed its sphere sublime, Submissive Earth then heard the peal, And struck the march of Time! “The march in Heaven begun, And splendor filled the skies, When Wisdom bade the morning sun With joy from Chaos rise. “The angels heard the tune Throughout creation ring; They seized their golden harps full soon, And touched on every string. “When Time and Space were young, The music rolled along— The morning stars together sang, And Heaven was drown’d in song.” Is there not something of the divine afflatus here manifested? The wind bloweth where it listeth. Something of that inspiration of genius which enabled Haydn10 to hear the choral harmonies of the “Creation”—the songs of the morning stars, and the rejoicing of the sons of God—seems to have struggled in the breast of the poor negro rhymer. Surely there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding. Even in the slave, cast down from the position which God assigned him, herded with beasts, and classed with the wares of the merchant—degraded, abject, and despised—Nature recognises her lord, although crownless and dethroned, and ministers to him in the organ sounds of the pines which skirt his task-field, in the sunset glory which burns upon his homeward path, and in the stars which shine down upon his humble cabin. It is not even in the power of Slavery to wholly unmake the divinest work of Creation—the Chattel which it lifts upon the auction block is but the mutilated and disfigured image of God.

9. Scottish author James Hogg. 10. Austrian composer Joseph Haydn.

Freedom p 245

We copy entire the following poem, not on account of its literary merit, which is far inferior to other pieces in the collection, but because it utters with truthful earnestness the great longing of the author’s heart—the cry of a suffering spirit, from its bonds and darkness, for light and liberty:

“Alas! and am I born for this, To wear this slavish chain! Deprived of all created bliss, Through hardship, toil, and pain! “How long have I in bondage lain, And languished to be free! Alas! and must I still complain— Deprived of liberty! “Oh, Heaven! and is there no relief This side the silent grave— To soothe the pain—to quell the grief And anguish of a slave! “Come, Liberty, thou cheerful sound, Roll through my ravished ears! Come, let my grief in joys be drowned, And drive away my fears. “Say unto foul Oppression, Cease: Ye tyrants, rage no more, And let the joyful trump of peace Now bid the vassal soar. “Soar on the pinions of that dove Which long has cooed for thee, And breathed her notes from Afric’s grove, The sound of Liberty. “Oh, Liberty! thou golden prize, So often sought by blood— We crave thy sacred sun to rise, The gift of nature’s God! “Bid Slavery hide her haggard face, And barbarism fly: 246 p Lyrical Liberators

I scorn to see the sad disgrace In which enslaved I lie. “Dear Liberty, upon thy breast I languish to respire; And like the swan unto her nest, I’d to thy smiles retire. “Oh, blest asylum—heavenly balm! Unto thy boughs I flee— And in thy shades the storm shall calm, With songs of Liberty.” The following pathetic verses on the death of a young slave girl, named Rebecca, are worthy of a place with the best productions of the gifted slave poet of Cuba, the martyr of Freedom, Juan Placido.11 There is something deeply affecting in this dirge for a slave, by a slave. How bright and beautiful does even the grave seem to him who rejoices that through its portals the spirit of his sister, has passed into the glorious liberty of the children of God, where the servant is free from the master, and the wicked cease from troubling!

“I view thee now launched on Eternity’s ocean, Thy soul, how it smiles as it floats on the wave; It smiles as if filled with the softest emotion, But looks not behind on the frown of the Grave! “The Messenger came from afar to relieve thee, In this lonesome valley no more shalt thou roam; Bright seraphs now stand on the banks to receive thee, And cry, ‘Happy stranger, thou art welcome home!’ “Thou art gone to a feast while thy friends are bewailing, Oh, death is a song to the poor, ransomed slave! Away with bright visions the spirit goes sailing, And leaves the frail body to rest in the Grave. “Rebecca is free from the pains of oppression, No friends could prevail with her longer to stay; She smiles on the fields of eternal fruition, Whilst Death like a bridegroom attends her away!” 11. This supposed emancipated slave poet was invented by John Greenleaf Whittier, who may have accidentally conflated the lives of two other actual Cuban poets to create this character in his essay “The Black Man” (1845).

Freedom p 247

We do not pretend that the verses we have quoted are remarkable either for originality or artistic skill. But, viewed through the medium of the author’s condition, they cannot fail to call forth the admiration of the reader. Who can say that the glorious natural gifts of Burns, or Milton, would have shone forth more brightly than that of poor George, if, like him, these worldrenowned masters of song had been born the chattel slave of a Carolina planter! J.G.W.12

A. W. Cole, “Lines to the Lowly, Written upon reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin” Frederick Douglass’ Paper (September 10, 1852)

Let others turn the harp to please the noble and the great, But I will sing to cheer the hearts of those in low estate; The meek and lowly ones of earth shall listen to my song, And hope shall cheer them onward still to battle with the wrong. Then list ye sons and daughters, all of dark and sable hue, Ye who to God have proved yourselves amid affliction true; Long have ye groaned in cruel bonds, and ’neath oppression’s [sic] dire, Till on the altar of your hearts the fast decaying fire Of hope doth dimly burn to-day, and deep the lurid gloom O’ershadows all your pathway from the cradle to the tomb, O’er broad savannas, richly clothed with brightly blooming flowers, Where lordly tyrants sit beneath their green and leafy bowers. Ye labor on from day to day, from weary year to year, With nought to buoy the spirit up, the rayless heart to cheer; And while ye nurse the cotton plants, and rear the sugar cane, Your bitter tears as nightly dew or falling drops of rain Descend to earth—arise again—and borne to distant lands— Attest the burden of your toil, the labor of your hands; Yoked with the brutes and doomed to wear the shackle and the chain, Denied the rights of manhood all, and e’en denied the name Which marks the man ye labor on, till in a humble grave Ye buried are, and rest from all the sorrows of the slave; The Bible, holy book of books, to you a treasure sealed, Hath never yet its living truths and blissful hopes revealed. Your children from your bosoms torn, and in the market sold, As records stand that man perverse, from love of paltry gold, Will doom his fellow-man to all the sorrows of the slave, 12. Scottish poet Robert Burns and English author John Milton. The initials J.G.W. refer to National Era editor John Greenleaf Whittier.

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And sink his ev’ry love of life deep in a living grave. To you who thus in bondage groan, what though I sadly sing, No voice shall bear the notes to you or consolation bring; Still ye await must labor on—still must ye weep and mourn— And still awhile must ye endure what ye so long have borne. And though no distant ray appear of future coming light, Know ye that still a hopeful day shall yet succeed the night? Still doth the great Jehovah live, and o’er the nations reign; Nor are his judgments yet matured, but, as the ripening grain, The sickle waits so for a time, for purpose vastly wise— Awhile his dispensation sleep and hid from human eyes, The future filled with vast events arises up to view, And points to life and liberty in hidden store for you.

Frances E. [Ellen] Watkins, “Ethiopia” Frederick Douglass’ Paper (August 24, 1855) This young colored lady lectured on slavery with us a few days since, and fully sustained, and even surpassed the high estimate we had, from previous acquaintance, formed concerning her. If she continue faithful to her high calling, and her life be long spared, she will do good and great service to the AntiSlavery cause. We commend her to hearty sympathy wherever she may labor. It would seem that the prejudice against female speaking, which prevails, still in some sections but which we think is every day becoming less, might be, by every body, laid aside, so far as to hear a colored young lady plead eloquently and powerfully for the oppressed of her race. Miss W.’s lectures are thoroughly studied and highly finished. Her labors have thus far been confined principally to Maine we believe. Her first effort at lecturing was some years ago, in our, Roger Williams, church, Providence. May her last be, many, many, years hence. She has published a small pamphlet volume of poetry and prose. From her poetry we copy the following, and ask if it is not poetry indeed.

Yes, Ethiopia yet shall stretch Her bleeding hands abroad; Her cry of agony shall reach The burning throne of God!13 The tyrant’s yoke from off her neck His fetters from her soul, 13. Although the poem’s second line appears as “Her bleeding hands to God” in the original publication, this likely error has been amended to read as Harper chose to publish it in her poetry collections.

Freedom p 249

The mighty hand of God shall break, And spurn the base control! Redeemed from dust and freed from chains, Her sons shall lift their eyes; From cloud capped hills and radiant plains, Shall shouts of triumph rise! Upon her dark despairing brow Shall play a smile of peace; For God shall bend unto her woe, And bid her sorrows cease. ’Neath sheltering vines, and stately palms Shall laughing children play, And aged sires with joyous psalms Shall gladden every day! Secure by night, and blest by day, Shall pass the happy hours; No human tigers hunt for prey Within her peaceful bowers! Then Ethiopia! stretch, oh! stretch, Thy bleeding hands abroad; Thy cry of agony shall reach And find redress with God. There, is not that poetry? May its authoress have due credit for it. It is difficult to find the line in which the blood of African weakness runs. If you do not think so, pray let some female scorner of colored ladies take up the pen.

J. A. Dorgan, “Black and White” National Anti-Slavery Standard (July 9, 1859)

I stand beside his lifeless form, I gaze into his vacant eyne, His blood upon my hands is warm, But no remorse is mine.

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Why, what was he, that day by day My toil his luxury should feed— That he should dwell in bliss always, And I should groan and bleed? Chide, if you will, the doom I dealt! But wrong can make the coward brave; And weary out, as he has felt, The patience of the slave. If might makes right, as he proclaimed By word and deed through all his life, Methinks my master had not blamed The issue of our strife. Fool, ask not how our quarrel rose! A bitter word—a blow—a threat— And all our lives we had been foes— And passion will forget. If thou hadst known a life like mine, Thou wouldst not marvel at his fate, But how corroded hearts confine The secret of their hate. Why, had he slain me, as he sware, Justice had murmured, “It was well:” I slew him, and it cries, “Prepare “The fires of earth and hell.” I half rejoice that now “I may” Has grown “I must be free”—remain, And mine shall be, ere close of day, The faggot and the chain. Away! away! to do or die! Through field and wood! through swamp and flood! Strange, that I am a freeman by The baptism of his blood!

Freedom p 251

11 Atone m e n t

P

oets frequently underscored the urgency of their message by attempting to arouse a fear of retribution for participating in the sin of slavery. As early as 1831, in the aftermath of Nat Turner’s slave rebellion, Liberator editor William Lloyd Garrison was already warning readers, “There is now about as much certainty that God will destroy the slave states by a series of calamities as that the sun will rise tomorrow.”1 A few years later, in 1835, after a proslavery mob violently dragged him through the streets of Boston, Garrison wrote, “A cloud of infamy—a thunder-cloud of heaven’s vengeance—a cloud of darkness and terror, covers the nation like a mighty pall.”2 Roland H. Woodwell notes that such apocalyptic rhetoric was becoming even more common by 1840, when “most abolitionists had become convinced that their cause would not be won by gentle persuasion.”3 Their increasingly alarmist tone can be traced to revivalist methods established during the period of the Second Great Awakening. As John L. Thomas observes, Garrison and his followers lived in a deeply religious age; they believed they were “Christian soldiers doing God’s work in the world” and therefore subscribed to an apocalyptic view that addressed the problem of slavery through the path of conversion.4 Robert William Fogel notes that abolitionist leaders, like religious leaders before them, hoped to save Christians who may have failed to recognize that despite their piety in other respects their souls were nonetheless “jeopardized by their complicity with slavery,” and consequently called 252

on them to “atone by joining in the struggle against slavery through which they would not only achieve saving grace but hasten the arrival of the millennium.”5 Ronald G. Walters, as well, frames their struggle in a religious context by arguing that “abolitionists drew from Protestant traditions, with their stress on individual conscience, and fused those with 1820s revivalism and its millennialistic faith that mankind could become perfect, or nearly so, while on earth.”6 To this end poets followed in the longstanding American literary anticipation of Judgment Day, which is evident as early as the Puritan oeuvre, to envision the souls of sinners rising from the dead to atone for their amoral behavior in life.7 In this manner they hoped to persuade readers to mend their ways and support abolition before it was too late—otherwise, as Garrison cautions in his inaugural editorial for the Liberator, “let all the enemies of the persecuted blacks tremble.”8 Kevin Pelletier persuasively argues that such warnings served as “euphemisms for violence—divine vengeance was an idea through which writers could fantasize a violent challenge to slavery without having to explicitly promote acts of violence.”9 Poets commonly allude to the prospect of Judgment Day by emphasizing the equality of black Americans as fellow Christians whose abusers would no doubt be damned for their immorality, and by portraying the resurrected souls of slaves confronting the souls of their former owners for their sins. These authors also rely on graphic imagery of the imminent punishment that awaits sinners in hell. Yet it is in their anticipation of war itself, which is foreseen by a significant number of poets as a sort of hell on earth, that their threats of atonement prove to be most compelling. In this respect they echo other leading abolitionist figures like Angelina Grimké, who wrote in an 1838 letter to Catharine Beecher, “The time will come, and at no distant day, when we shall be involved in all the horrors of a servile war, which will not end until both sides have suffered much, until the land shall everywhere be red with blood”; and William Jay, who that same year anticipated that if the Union were to collapse, “a civil war ensues—the moral means heretofore used by abolitionists give place to the confused noise of the warrior, and to garments rolled in blood; servile insurrection necessarily follows in the train of civil war, and if slavery perish it will perish only in a deluge of BLOOD .”10 Twenty years later on the eve of the war in 1859, the slave poet George Moses Horton anticipated in an address to students at the University of North Carolina that “the fire of faction which still appears cannot be extinguished but with blood which must proceed from the hand of sectional havoc.”11 And perhaps most memorably, that same year John Brown (see chapter 5) left a note with his jailer before his execution in which he predicted that Atonement p 253

“the crimes of this guilty, land: will never be purged away, but with Blood.”12 The poets in this chapter adopt similar imagery and rhetoric to suggest that the longer injustice is endured, the more violent will be the ensuing inevitable retaliation. The persecutors of slaves—among them slave owners, legislators, and clergymen—are thus warned that their efforts will actually contribute to the abolitionist cause by instigating the sort of relentless aggravation that must be avenged in due course. The implication is not only that slaves face such abusive circumstances that they cannot but retaliate in similarly violent ways, but more commonly that divine justice will intercede on their behalf to punish the perpetrators of abuse through a devastating civil war. All but one of the poems in this selection appeared in the antebellum era; in retrospect, considering the devastating warfare that was indeed to come, their predictions proved to be remarkably prophetic. The popular poet Lydia Sigourney predicts that at the day of judgment God will not consider the color of one’s skin, but rather “the hue of deeds and thoughts,” which will be tainted by evidence of racism. Boston minister John Pierpont’s “Hymn for Slaveholders,” which was published anonymously, urges slave owners to liberate their slaves in order to free themselves from the guilt that not only troubles them in the present but will follow them to the grave— unless they break the chains that paradoxically bind them to their slaves as much as the converse. Pierpont’s second poem in this chapter, “The Prisoner,” is based on the imprisonment of William L. Chaplin, who was arrested in Maryland in August 1850 for aiding in the escape of fugitives belonging to two senators from Georgia.13 This frankly political poem asserts that it is unjustifiable to imprison Chaplin for attempting to free others, and that failing to either release or reward him for his actions will prevent both Northerners and Southerners from finding a place among the saved at God’s right hand. James Hurnard also alludes to this outcome by juxtaposing various scenarios from the lives of slaves—violent abductions from their native land, harrowing conditions aboard slave ships, abusive work environments—with hopeful anticipations of the moment when their souls will rise en masse to confront the souls of their captors “face to face.” His vigorous anapestic poem amounts to a warning that God will lack empathy for those who currently lack empathy for their fellow man. The same assurance proves heartening to the black protagonist of “The Slave,” who finds consolation for his present sorrow by anticipating that his abusers will eventually be forced to atone for their actions, “Since all must unforgotten be.” This threat of damnation is vividly foreseen in poems that portend an afterlife of suffering in hell. The anonymous 1834 apostrophe to the personi254 p Lyrical Liberators

fied figure of Slavery declares that despite its apparent triumphs, the tide is nonetheless turning in favor of Liberty, and Slavery will thus certainly be doomed to “feel the anguish / Thy crimson deeds have earned” in hell. Another distinctive poem, “The Devil’s Walk in Washington,” takes aim at legislators by imagining Satan stopping by a slave auction to take notes on the torturous procedures in order to implement them himself and paying a visit to the Capitol in support of a proposed bill to grant more land to slave owners. He ultimately finds the politicians he encounters there to be so “hot” that he resolves to return to the less heated atmosphere of hell, where he will prepare to greet them in due course. The editor of the Herald of Freedom defends the poem’s facetious treatment of Satan as a vehicle for its justifiable critique of a corrupt Congress whose members are essentially being warned that they will wind up in hell if they continue on their current path. The poem by Orange S. Grary correspondingly censures the clergy by envisioning the soul of a proslavery Southern priest, who was paid to “preach down Abolition,” burning amidst the flames of hell that are being stoked by a “Negro” in retaliation. Having contributed to the enslavement of others in life, the preacher accordingly finds himself transformed into a veritable slave without any hope of liberation in death. Concerning the potential threat of war itself, poets rely on allegory or religious rhetoric to help effect the change of outlook they suggest may prevent it. Hendiboe, for instance, compares the nation to a slave ship that is “freighted with living victims” and must resolve this predicament before it is wrecked by a storm. C. C. Burleigh specifically condemns the state of Virginia for profiting from the sale of slaves to Southern markets. He suggests that while the personification of Justice may currently be asleep, there will be dire repercussions for the state when she is surely awoken by the sounds of suffering —a prescient warning, considering that most of the battles in the Eastern Theater of the Civil War would indeed take place in Virginia. Black poet Frances Ellen Watkins Harper also relies on a personification, representing the “Crisis of our time,” who responds to queries about the country’s future with answers that predict redemption for those who “battle for the Right” but suffering for those who are tainted by the “guilty stains” of slavery. Thomas Wickersham, on the other hand, evokes the Old Testament voice of God, who issues an unequivocal warning that His destructive vengeance will be felt across the land unless its slaves are liberated. F. M. Adlington also bases his admonition on biblical precedent in a poem concerning the actual case of a female fugitive whose failed escape from prison in Washington, D.C., in 1842 caused her to jump to her death in the Potomac River (see also chapters 3 Atonement p 255

and 7). His speaker forewarns Americans that if they keep permitting such tragedies and disregarding predictions like his, they will inevitably face the wrath of God much as the Jews once did for ignoring their own prophets. W. Hathaway anticipates this very outcome after acknowledging the many forms of refuge that are inaccessible to slaves, reassuring them that God will answer their prayers and the nation will come to regret their oppression. The notable poem by Joseph Shinn also envisages this scenario through its enslaved speaker’s recollection of a dream in which his prayers to God were answered, and “armies of the North” arrived to liberate him and his fellow slaves from their “guilty tyrants.” Other poets frame their predictions more generally as punishments for those who helped perpetuate slavery. James Stillman bases his poem on the suicide of the free black man Stephen Redden, which occurred during his imprisonment in Maryland for possession of antislavery materials. He portrays his death as an act of martyrdom in the name of freedom as heroic as any performed by white patriots. Redden’s persecutors, on the other hand, are not only warned that the score for their reprehensible actions will in time be violently settled, but also that they are paradoxically contributing to abolitionism by motivating more activists to join the movement. The anonymous author of “The Negro’s Wrongs” similarly encourages slave owners to persist in their exploitative behavior since it will inevitably strengthen their slaves’ desire for freedom and thus motivate them to act on it by severing their chains. Pierpont takes a comparable approach in “The Call of Kansas,” his third poem here, whose speaker applauds the violent border wars that were precipitated by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which permitted settlers to bring slaves to the Kansas territory (see chapter 4). He points out that in this conflict between pro- and antislavery settlers, to speak out on behalf of freedom is to risk one’s life. Because this outcome negates the nation’s founding principles, and because the opponents involved are so ideologically disparate that they cannot be reconciled, he resolves to “let WAR come, for come it must.” In Harper’s untitled poem from 1859, her second in this chapter, she comments on the actual case of a father in Washington, D.C., who was imprisoned for harboring his own fugitive son overnight, presumably the outcome of enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (see chapter 3). She suggests that a “guilty land” that sanctions such laws will in time be forced to face the manifestations of God’s wrath. And in the only poem in this chapter published during the course of the Civil War, George Washington Bungay relies on the New Testament to admonish a clergyman who denies the sinfulness of slavery. This speaker effectively reclaims the Bible for the abolitionist cause by enu256 p Lyrical Liberators

merating the many sins of slavery which scripture simply cannot justify. Comparing those who ignore the plight of slaves to the betraying figure of Judas, he also establishes a significant parallel between the martyrdom of slaves and that of Christ. He therefore suggests that anyone who supports slavery, as the priest does, must confront the prospect of “falling fire from Heaven.” Published in October 1863 following the Union’s recent battle victories in the preceding months (see chapter 12), the poem thus also offers much-needed reassurance that the violent struggle against slavery was divinely ordained. It constitutes a wartime confirmation that antebellum poets had been right: the inevitable hostilities they predicted had indeed come to pass.

p Anonymous, “To Slavery” Emancipator (April 22, 1834)

Thou grim and cursed creature! Pale death sits on thy face, And ev’ry [illegible] feature Is doomed to deep disgrace. The sons of woe and wailing Have sent their voice to heaven; And mercy, never failing, Deliverance hath given. Wail thou in tones of thunder, No help can save thee now: Ye nations look and wonder, To see the fatal blow. Down, down to hell’s dominion— Thy birth-place quickly hie, Take Satan’s iron pinions And like the lightning fly. Thou hast deceived the nations, Hast held thine empire long; Hast multiplied thy stations, And made each fortress strong, But Liberty will vanquish: The tide of battle’s turned, Atonement p 257

And thou wilt feel the anguish Thy crimson deeds have earned. And those who do uphold thee Will burn with thee at last; And when the flames enfold thee Dark fiends will stand aghast. “Is this the worshiped demon Who sucked the blood of men? Is this proud foe of freemen Thus miserably slain?”

E. C., “The Slave” Liberator (April 2, 1836); Emancipator (December 1, 1836); Colored American (August 11, 1838)

The day was o’er; towards his cot His steps the Negro turned, And as he mused upon his lot, His heart within him burned. Grief, and the bitter sense of wrong, Unwonted forethought gave; And wildly sad burst forth the song Of that lone Prophet-slave. ‘Too well avenged! not I alone Am doomed in grief to pine; One day too thousands shall atone For wrongs as fierce as mine; A thousand tales of unknown pain Shall first be heard that morn; I do but add one other stain To the land where I was born. Still upon Carolina’s woods Of dark eternal pine, Still on her broad and beauteous floods Heaven’s light, as now, may shine; It comes not yet;—it tarrieth long;— Wrath to this erring land! 258 p Lyrical Liberators

They wronged and they who did the wrong, Before one God must stand. What then are these my pains to me? Why mourn I thus my lot, Since all must unforgotten be, By one who erreth not? Let them go on; guilt grows with time, This night ’tis weightier worn, Than when, the victim of their crime, I hied me forth at morn.’ And the Negro turned him to his cot, For his toils that day were o’er; Still, as he strove to bear his lot, He mourned for it the more. The transient fire that lit his eye Was quenched in grief’s dark stream, And his passionate mood of soul went by, Like a strange and feverish dream.

Mrs. [Lydia] Sigourney, “Difference of Color” Colored American (August 11, 1838)

God gave to Afric’s sons A brow of sable dye, And spread the country of their birth Beneath a burning sky; And with a cheek of olive, made The little Hindoo child, And darkly stain’d the forest tribes That roam our Western wild. To me he gave a form Of fairer, whiter clay; But am I, therefore, in his sight Respected more than they? No—’tis the hue of deeds and thoughts He traces in his book— ’Tis the complexion of the heart, On which He deigns to look. Atonement p 259

Not by the tinted cheek, That fades away so fast— But by the color of the soul We shall be judged at last. And God, the Judge, will look at me With anger in his eyes, If I my brother’s darker brow Should ever dare despise.

N. C., “The Devil’s Walk in Washington” Herald of Freedom (July 30, 1841); National Anti-Slavery Standard (August 19, 1841)1 We do not relish the lightness with which the following verses speak of the Enemy of man. He is not a being to be trifled with or about. He is to be “resisted”—not trifled with. But the character of our slave-trading, slave-holding, dueling Congress, is so set forth in it, that we can hardly withhold the piece from our cause and readers. We do not think, however, with the writer, that Washington is any new haunt for Satan. It is one of his old lounging places, as he “walks to and fro in the earth.” We know no spot so congenial to him—unless it be in the great pro-slavery, slave-holding Ecclesiastical Congress,—the General Conferences—Associations, and the like, where his servants meet, clothed in “the stolen livery of Heaven”—himself among them, “transformed into an angel of light.” “From his brimstone bed, at break of day, A walking the Devil is gone, To visit his little snug farm of the earth, And see how his stock went on.” Coleridge 2

The Devil was tired of all his old haunts, And he longed to gang a new way; So one morning, he said, as he drew on his pants, “I’ll to Washington to-day!” He stopped in the principal Avenue, And shook off the brimstone perfume,

1. Introduction appears in the Herald of Freedom. 2. From Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Devil’s Thoughts” (1835).

260 p Lyrical Liberators

And coiled up his tail; he always knew What phase it is best to assume. ’Twas cool for him, so he opened his vest, And gaily he twirled a light cane, As other fops do, when they sport their best, And, perhaps, feel a little vain. He saw two coaches, conveying out Two duelists, going to fight; “Aye, aye!” quoth he, “I’ll turn me about, That will be a pleasant sight!” He afterwards passed the market-place, Where cattle and men were bought; And the Devil exclaimed, “Ye angels of grace! Here’s humanity’s story, self-taught!” He stood up to see them buy and sell, Bidding mortals off under the hammer; And he chuckled to hear the mothers’ yell, And their children’s delightful clamor. He examined the thumb-screws, the chains, and the lash, And took patterns to carry to Hell; He watched all the men who took the cash, And observed that they spent it well. Some went to the “coffee-house,” some to dice, And some to run horses to death; Fools call such places “abodes of vice”— But he grinned, and held his breath. A mob demolished a house on a hill, Because its owner drew the latchet; “Ah!” said he, “so they here make laws with a quill, And break them with club and hatchet.” The Devil bethought him he would walk Towards the Capitol, in style; To hear the nation’s guardians talk, And encourage them with his smile. Atonement p 261

So he dressed him in a priestly coat, That he might not shame his friends, And went up to see the members vote, And shape the country’s ends. He heard all the honorable gentlemen Speak freely of his home, And swear and argue, and swear again, That ’twas time a war should come. One member rose to offer a bill; The Devil admired his phiz, For he always likes purple, and always will— The Devil has reason for this. The bill, too, he liked, for that provided That those should be plunged in the waves, Who owned the soil, while this was divided To white men with gangs of slaves. An orator made a brilliant speech, And the Devil made him show it, To compare with one he was led to preach, Reported by Milton, the Poet.3 Just then a Senator’s honor was wounded By something said in debate, Whereat the chamber with words resounded, That stunned even the Devil’s pate. He said to himself, “They’re too hot for me, These men of this upper air; I’ll get me back to my sulphur sea, And be ready to meet them there!”



3. English poet John Milton.

262 p Lyrical Liberators

Anonymous [John Pierpont], “Hymn for Slaveholders” National Anti-Slavery Standard (December 22, 1842)

Strike from the laborer’s limbs his chains! In the fierce sun the iron burns! By night, it fills his dreams with pain; By day, it galls him, as he turns. Yes and your dreams it visits, too, When Fear stands o’er your restless bed; And shakes it in your ears, till you Tremble as at an earthquake’s tread. Then break his chain, and let him go, And, with the spirit of a man, Earn his own bread; and you shall know Peace,—that you know not now, nor can. The chain that binds to you your slave, Binds you to him, with links so strong That you must wear them to your grave, If all your days you do him wrong. Then from his body and your soul, Throw off the load while yet you may; Thus strive, in faith, for heaven’s high goal, And wait, in hope the judgment day.

Orange S. Grary, “A Vision. In form of a Dialogue” Anti-Slavery Bugle (September 26, 1845)

At dead of night, when others sleep, Near Hell I took my station; And from that dungeon, dark and deep, O’er heard this conversation:— GHOST.

Hail! Prince of Darkness, ever hail! Adored by each Infernal, Atonement p 263

I come among your gang to wail, And taste of death eternal: To weep and howl, in endless pains, Among your frightful legions, To gnaw my tongue, and clank my chains, In these Infernal Regions. DEMON.

Where are you from? the fiend demands, What makes you look so frantic? Are you from Carolina’s strand, Just west of the Atlantic? Are you that man of Mood and birth, Devoid of human feeling? The wretch I saw, when hist on earth, ln human cattle dealing? Whose soul, with blood and rapine stained, With deeds of crime, to dark it? Who drove God’s image, starve’d and chain’d To sell like beasts in market! Who tore the infant from the breast, That you might sell its mother? Whose craving mind could never rest, ’Till you had sold a brother? Who gave the sacrament to those Whose chains and hand-cuffs rattle? Whose backs soon after felt thy blows More heavy than thy cattle? GHOST .

I’m from the South, the Ghost replies, And I was there a teacher; Saw men in chains, with laughing eyes, I was a Southern preacher!

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In tasselled pulpits, gay and fine, I strove to please the tyrants, To prove that slavery is divine, And what the scripture warrants. And when I saw the horrid sight, Of slaves by tortures dying, And told their masters all was right, I knew that I was lying. I knew the time would soon roll round, When Hell would be their portion, When they in turn in fetters bound. Would plough the fiery ocean. That murdered Ghosts would haunt them there, Their hearts in pieces sever; Their conscience sling, their vitals tear, And curse their souls forever. I know all this and who can doubt, I felt a sad misgiving? But still, I knew, if I spoke out, That I should lose my living. They made me fat, they paid me well, To preach down Abolition; I slept—I died—I woke in hell, How altered my condition! I now am in a sea of fire, Whose fury ever rages: I am a slave and can’t get free, Through everlasting ages. Yes, when the sun and moon shall fade, And fire the rocks dissever, I must sink down beneath the shade, And feel God’s wrath forever.

Atonement p 265

The fiend heard this, and with a yell, That made his chains to rattle, Resounding through the vaults of hell, Like to the raging battle. Rejoice my friends, in chains he cried, A moment leave your wailing, And toss your fettered arms on high, Our kingdom is prevailing. With Priest and Politicians blest, Heroes renowned in story, And Bishops, too, among the rest, Have paved their way to glory. Peal joined to peal, and yell to yell Throughout those dismal regions, In notes which none can raise or swell, But the Infernal Legions. Wave followed wave with horrid glare Along the fiery ocean, And Ghost and Demon mingled there, In tumult and commotion. How long they cried, how long must we, From hopes of pardon sever, Sink down and plough the fiery sea? The answer was, forever! Our Ghost stood trembling all the while, He saw the scene transpiring; With soul aghast and visage wild, All hope was now retiring. The Demon cried, on vengeance bent, I say, in haste, retire! And you shall have a Negro sent, To attend and punch the fire.

266 p Lyrical Liberators

Thomas Wickersham, “The Tyrant’s Warning” Anti-Slavery Bugle (December 5, 1845) “Deliver him that is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my fury go out like fire, and burn that none can quench it.”—Jeremiah, XXI, 12.

“Deliver him”—thus saith he, Whose dwelling is Infinity— The God Omnipotent— “Deliver him whose soul is spoil’d, Who unrequited, long has toil’d, Whose aspirations all are foil’d, Whose joy of life is spent. “Deliver him whose form is bow’d Beneath the haughty and the proud Oppressor’s power—whose wailings loud Ascend unto my throne; Deliver him whose soul is crush’d, Whose spirit-breathings all are hush’d, Whose tears in agony have gush’d With each upheaving groan. “Deliver him whose mental sight, Is whelmed in dark and gloomy night, Till it is stricken by the blight Of his unceasing woe; Whose spirit with oppression groans— Who ’neath his burdens sighs and moans, Uplooking with imploring tones, Beseeching, ‘let me go.’ “Deliver him whose wages, long Have been witheld [sic] from him by wrong Whose arm is weak that once was strong, From unremitted toil; Who crieth unto me all day, Who bows beneath the tyrant’s sway, Until, with age, his head is gray, And bow’d unto the soil.

Atonement p 267

“Deliver him whose heart is riven From kindred hearts—whose wife is given A prey before his eyes, and driven Forever from his sight; Whose dearest ties are torn apart, And left alone to feel the smart Of agony, consume his heart, Till it is seared with blight. “Deliver her whose child is torn From out her arms, and rudely borne Away, while she is left to mourn Its loss with wailings wild; Who feels upon her flesh the smart Of stripes, because when forced to part From her loved one, her breaking heart Cries out, ‘my child! my child!’ “Deliver those from whom the ray Of Heaven’s light is shut away, Whose noble faculties all lay In superstition’s gloom; Who ’neath the slaver’s gory rod, Are made to kiss the blighted sod, And worship slavery’s demon-god, Then sink into the tomb. “Deliver him whose mouth is dumb, Lest swift destruction on you come, With fiery vengeance for the sum Of all your villany— Lest like the whirlwind with its scath, Consuming fury cross your path And rushing in avenging wrath, Shall crimson land and sea! “Deliver him whom you have bound, For quickly shall the trumpet sound, To dash the tyrant to the ground, Beneath the trampling heel; For brimfull with dread vengeance flows

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The red wine cup of wrath for those Who side by side stand with my foes, Whose doom, despair shall seal. “Deliver him”—it is the word Of Him whose voice in darkness heard, The elements of chaos stirr’d, And called this world to birth; “Deliver him, scarred with the lash, Lest scathing thunders o’er you crash, And waves of dark damnation dash You from the realms of earth!”

Joseph Shinn, “The Slave’s Dream” Anti-Slavery Bugle (October 9, 1846)

At dead of night, when silence deep Had hushed the world in peaceful sleep, A vision sweet did o’er me creep And sooth me in my revery. Methought in silent, pensive mood, I, with my brethren weeping stood, With fettered limb and streaming blood— And sighed and wept for liberty. Our wives were from our bosoms torn And driven far away to mourn— My breast with rage began to burn, Clenched was my hand in agony. Then changed my mind to prayerful mood— I humbly craved the living God To break in twain the oppressor’s rod, And hasten our delivery. Then came a burst upon my ear; A pealing shout I plain could hear, And loud and long huzzas drew near And rent Heaven’s arching canopy.

Atonement p 269

We saw the armies of the North— The sons of valor and of worth, Arrayed for battle coming forth To rend the chains of slavery. The guilty tyrants could not stand The hardy freemen’s battle brand, But, trembling, slunk and left the land A “proud retreat for Liberty.” Then countless hearts were made to bound— Fast fell the fetters to the ground— Then shook the hills with pealing sound. And gladsome shouts of victory. I felt myself most truly blessed, I clasped my wife unto my breast, My babe I tenderly caressed And smiled upon him joyfully, But hark! Alas, the driver’s horn Has waked me to the hateful morn, Weary, heart-laden and forlorn, To toil in hopeless misery.

F. M. Adlington, “Alas, the Poor Slave” Liberator (September 22, 1848) ‘Hail, Columbia! happy land! Where tyrants get the upper hand.’4

In that proud land the haughty Southron calls, But falsely so, the city of the free, Where in the gilded Capitoline Halls The foes of freedom prate of liberty. An honor’d servant of th’insulted North With shame and sorrow saw a female slave Burst wildly from her gloomy prison forth, Life’s chiefest boon, her liberty, to save.

4. Satirical reference to the patriotic song “Hail, Columbia.”

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Her savage master’s voice behind her rang, But liberty, dear liberty, is sweet; Forward to ’scape the dread pursuit she sprang, The dastard crowd prevented her retreat. All hope was lost, her fainting heart was crush’d, And yet she would not live to live a slave, But desp’rate in the living stream she rush’d, Resolv’d on freedom—freedom or the grave. There the oppressor’s hateful voice no more Strikes on thine ear more dread than death to thee; There the detested tyrant’s power is o’er, The chains are broke—the hunted slave is free. All-seeing heaven! did thy searching eye Behold the slave to death in terror driv’n; Like Abel’s blood, her wrongs to heaven will cry;5 Does justice sleep—is there no hope from heav’n? There broke no thunder when the deed was done, No ’venging lightning scath’d the guilty clime? The earthquake slumber’d—earth sent forth no groan, Yet heaven beheld, and will avenge the crime. This guilty nation yet will rue the day, When in the despot hand she placed the rod; No prayers can change, no supplications stay The equal justice of the impartial God. The sordid Jews their Moloch idol rais’d, Revil’d the prophets who foretold their doom; Revell’d in crime till Salem’s temple blaz’d, And guilty Judah found a bloody tomb.6 Columbia! read your sentence in their fate, If crimes like this to heaven for vengeance call— Justice will lift her sword—or soon or late Will vengeance on this guilty nation fall. 5. See Genesis 4:10. 6. Moloch was a Canaanite god associated with child sacrifice in the Old Testament. Salem is a shortened version of Jerusalem. Judah refers to the land of Judea, or more generally to Jews.

Atonement p 271

James Stillman, Untitled National Anti-Slavery Standard (September 21, 1848); Liberator (April 13, 1849) Verses occasioned by the suicide of Stephen Redden, a free colored man, who was sentenced to a lengthened imprisonment by a Judge in Somerset county, State of Maryland, for having anti-slavery prints and publications in his possession:

Dig, tyrants, dig! your dungeons deep, And arch the lonesome dwellings o’er; Pile on the dens the buttress’d keep, With massy walls, and iron door; There in the murky depths confined, Though your devoted victims be, Know, fools! ye have not pow’r to bind A soul determined to be free. The voice of Liberty can thrill Along the dismal vaults beneath, And teach the unconquerable will To laugh at fetters, bonds, and death, Spurn the dull clod that feels your pow’r, And in afflicting durance lies, And ante-date the fated hour Which gives it entrance to the skies. Not for self-murder would I plead,— Life is the glorious gift of Heaven, My soul abhors the Atheist creed That o’er that life man pow’r hath given— Yet pity claims my falling tear, When the poor captive or the slave, Driven unto madness by despair, Seeks for deliverance in the grave. If on the bloody battle-field, Where Liberty erects its shrine, The soil a laurel wreath can yield, The patriot’s hero’s brow to twine, Surely the dungeon, red with gore, 272 p Lyrical Liberators

For him a leaf or two may bear, Who did on freedom’s altar pour His life a free-will-offering there. Ah! on that blood-bedabbled floor, Another grain of hope is sown, One added to the millions more, O’er the wide world so lavish strown, And spirit watchers come and tend With loving care the precious trust, Unseen the spreading roots extend, Though trodden yet beneath the dust. Cell, gibbet, rack, or tented field, The corpse cramm’d breach, or battle plain, Where’er the patriot’s blood is spill’d, One drop is never spilt in vain; Those sacred spots still hovering near Those scenes of suffering, or of fight, There spirit-champions come to cheer, Fresh strugglers for the truth and right. Dig, tyrants, dig! more dungeons deep, And build more gibbets, high and strong; Yet vengeance will not always sleep, Nor justice ever suffer wrong. Patience must surely fail at length, Waiting for rights too long withstood, And madden’d suffering taught its strength Wipe out the fearful score in blood.

John Pierpont, “The Prisoner” Anti-Slavery Bugle (October 12, 1850); Liberator (October 25, 1850)

The prison’s walls are gray with mold. Damp stone its floor; The prison cell is low and cold— Bolted its door. The lonely prisoner feels not now A breath of air Atonement p 273

Upon his broad and lofty brow Stir his thin hair. Why has that friend of Man and God Met such a doom? Why while he lives, is he thus trod Into a tomb? Because he was a Man, and felt As man should feel! Because God said his heart should melt At woe’s appeal. Because, when a poor brother cried He felt the pain; And, when he saw him bound, he tried To break his chain. And therefore chains are put on him! And he must bear The weight on every stiffning limb, And the foul air, That only newts and toads should breathe, Must be his breath, Till he shall find relief beneath Thy shade, O Death! Men of the North! must Chaplin7 lie And suffer thus While we’re abroad, and God’s blue sky Bends over us? Shame on the South, that he is there Buried in Prison! Ere long the North that shame will share, Or he’ll have risen. God of the Freeman and the Slave! If we forget 7. William L. Chaplin was arrested in Maryland in August 1850 for aiding in the escape of fugitives belonging to two senators from Georgia.

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That prisoner in his living grave, Nor pay the debt, Due to that “brother” of Thy Son, How shall we stand With his great flock, gathered in one, At his right hand!

W. Hathaway, “The Negro” Anti-Slavery Bugle (January 3, 1852)

No spot where the black man can live, No shelter to which he can flee; No home that protection can give, In all this wide land of the free; No mountain, no hillock or glen, No island, no valley or plain, Where Negroes may stand up as men, Where Blacks are not bound with a chain. No refuge for them but the grave, No help but the rest of the tomb; The Negro is ever a slave, His sun ever shrouded in gloom. The winds of the South bear his groan, The breeze of the North bears his sigh, He has neither friends nor a home, But Home and the Friend that’s on high. But, Afric, brood not o’er the past, Gaze into the future afar, Though darkness be over it cast, Beyond, there is beaming a star. Thou shortly shalt see it arise, To brighten thy earth with its blaze, To scatter the gloom of thy skies, And bring to thee halcyon days. Though God is a being of love, His Justice to man shall not cease; Thy prayers have ascended above, Atonement p 275

And thou shalt have answers of peace. But woe to the nation whose laws Have given no comfort nor rest, When God shall remember the cause Of those who are sorely oppressed!

C. C. Burleigh, “Virginia” National Era (August 24, 1854); Liberator (October 20, 1854)8 VIRGINIA.*

Virginia feeds upon her own children. Of breaking hearts, the sighs and groans Of dark despair, the fearful moans, The low heart-wail, the anguish wild Of mother, parted from her child; These sounds Virginia loves; with these— A fearful weight—she loads the breeze. For her own sons she forges chains, Which loudly clank on all her plains; And on her daughters bids a fate, Darker than death itself, await. With murderous guilt her hand is red; The price of blood is on her head. For gold Virginia buys and sells Her children; and each gale that swells, For gold she loads with deathly freight Of vengeance and the fiercest hate; For gold she brings upon her soil The curse of slavery’s unpaid toil. Those fields—so barren now—a smile Of loveliness have worn erewhile; They bear reluctantly the trace, Most withering, of a servile race; And the wild brier and thistle spring, Where once bright flowers were blossoming.

8. The footnote to the poem appears in the National Era.

276 p Lyrical Liberators

Still lingering near her ‘chosen land,’ Drooping and pale, see Freedom stand, With powerless wing and saddened eye; O! what is left her but to die! In the wide world no nook remains, Where is not heard the clank of chains. Justice, in death-like slumber bound, Heeds not of sighs the feeble sound; But summer gales, though soft and warm, Oft bear abroad the furious storm; And sighs have power the earth to shake: Tremble, Virginia—she will wake! * It is almost unnecessary for us to remind the reader that slavery in Virginia derives much of its profitableness from the demand in the more Southern States for the young men and women reared for that market in the “glorious Old Dominion,” the “Mother of Presidents,” the “home of Washington!”

James Hurnard, “The Crowning Crime of Christendom” Liberator (June 1, 1855)

I saw in the visions of night An African village on fire! The flames rolled along in their might, And the shrieks of the victims rose higher and higher,

As of infant, and parent, and grey-headed sire. The man-stealers sprang on their prey! And hundreds were slain or subdued; Some perished in utter dismay, And others were slain while for mercy they sued; And the soil they had tilled with their blood was imbrued. One sight I shall never forget, Till the sunbeam of life is denied, And the star of my memory shall set: A bridegroom, self-slaughtered, enclasping his bride, Who lay murdered, and mangled, and scorched by his side. The captives in fetters were bound, Fear ran through their tremulous frames, Atonement p 277

And they sobbed as they gazed round and round, For where children that day had been playing their games, There were carcasses, captives, and smouldering flames. The vision fled slowly away, And another appeared in its place: I looked on a beautiful bay, And ships in tranquillity slept on its face: They were slavers!—the pest of the African race. On the shore was a horrible mart, Where man was the merchandize [sic] sold, Where the best blood that boils through the heart Was bartered as though it were stolid and cold As the storm-beaten rock, or the slave-dealer’s gold! Sweet babes from their mothers were torn— Wives were rent from their husbands away— Fond brothers asunder were borne— And lovers were parted and sold far astray To clasp hands never more till the great Judgment-day. I heard them in anguish complain For life without love is but dross; But they pleaded for mercy in vain, For the demons who swore by the creed of the Cross, Turned their faces away with an insolent toss. I gazed on the hot iron brand, As it hissed on each ebony skin; I saw the slaves borne from the land To a slave-ship, and packed in a large loathsome bin, Where the stench seemed to quench the dull light that stole in. The vision fled slowly away, And another appeared in its place: Far around flashed the bright ocean spray, And a ship sped along in her beauty and grace, Bounding o’er the wild waves with the swift swallow’s pace. But pestilence, madness and death Raged and raved in her dark crowded hold, 278 p Lyrical Liberators

And the slaves, as they drew their last breath, Uncoffined, unwept, ere their limbs were yet cold, O’er the tall vessel’s side were remorselessly rolled! Swift, swift o’er the billowy main, Flew onward that death-stricken bark, And following as swift in her train Swam many a monstrous and ravenous shark, Gorging freely their fill of the carcasses dark. As I gazed, the great deep was unsealed; I looked down on the broad ocean’s bed, And a valley of bones was revealed, Which shall yet be an army with banners outspread, When the last trumpet sounds which shall waken the dead! The vision fled slowly away, And another appeared in its place: Before me a fair vision lay, Where mountains rose high, like a huge giant race, With sweet flowery fields lying calm at their base. That land was the land of the slave! The scene of his closing career! Where the generous, the fond, and the brave, Toiled on in their manacles, year after year, Paid with stripes for their labor—their solace, a jeer. I saw them worn out with their toil, Urged on by the slave-driver’s whip; I saw the lash cruelly coil Round their scar-covered backs, till the warm blood would drip, While a groan faintly fell from the eloquent lip! Enslaved both in body and mind, The victims of grief and despair, They seemed to their fortune resigned, With no will of their own, for the future no care, Like the dumb beasts of burden, whose lot is—to bear. I beheld a poor African chief, Whose name was once honored afar, Atonement p 279

Yet meekly he bore with his grief, And sang to himself, ‘Calabar! Calabar! ‘Me could die in sweet peace could me see Calabar!’9 The vision fled slowly away, And another appeared in its place: I witnessed the great Judgment-day! And the branded, down-trodden, enslaved negro race, With their tyrants and task-masters stood face to face! Then spake ONE from the cloud which he trod— ‘IF MAN HAS NO MERCY ON MAN,

HOW CAN MAN HOPE FOR MERCY FROM GOD?’

And a cry of despair through the multitude ran, ‘There is no hope for men who have trafficked in man!’

Hendiboe, “The Two Pictures” National Anti-Slavery Standard (September 15, 1855)

The sun set on an ocean, o’er which sailed A ship slave-freighted; cloud rose o’er cloud Girdling the horizon as with a belt Of gold and purple, for the zoneless Night: The sun sinks to his home, and darkness vast Rests like a grotesque giant, on the sea. No moon or cheering star appears to guide That lonely prison-ship; the free North wind, In ominous disquiet, sighs and shrieks, Telling its plainéd legend to the skies! Still, onward sails the galleon—astern Is golden Africa, torrid and blurred— A tawny mother weeping for her young! Anon the scene is changed, and tempest wild Enshrouds the sea with horror. Through the night, Opaque and palpable, the ship reels on, A wreck, hopeless and shattered. In her throes The bonds are loosened which confine the slaves. And o’er the decks they stalk, vengeful and wild.

9. City in Nigeria.

280 p Lyrical Liberators

Yet all unconscious of impending doom. ’T was their first knowledge of that mighty sea, Which had delivered them; why should they fear In this their hour of triumph? Who shall say That vengeance was unjust which rioted In bloodiest saturnalia?. . . . . Morn came, But Ocean hid another tragedy; Death claimed alike the wronger and the wronged. The sun sets on a Nation, whose domain Stretches from sea to sea—but in whose States Oppression reigns in terror—like a ship, Freighted with living victims, whom the sun Scorched into darkness; an unhappy throng Prisoned in her midst; branded, and aliened, And full of strength, though impotent through fear! Are there no storms save those of elements? Are States ne’er wrecked like vessels? Can we make Prosperity perpetual? Can chains, Bars, stripes, or death, imprison Mind?—or graft Foul crime on Nature’s garden? Will the night Ne’er usher tempests to destroy our homes, And arm the enfranchised hand against our peace? Oh! Providence, remove a Nation’s blindness— Curse not our children for the oppressor’s deed!

Anonymous, “The Negro’s Wrongs” Anti-Slavery Bugle (December 1, 1855)

Ay! fetter his limbs with your rusty chains, That clank at his every motion, And bear him away from his native plains, To your homes across the ocean; And think the mind of the kidnapped black Turns never across the ocean back. Ay! take his wife and little ones, too; Tear the cords of affection asunder, And never repent of the deeds you do— ’Tis a negro’s heart you plunder! Atonement p 281

For who wouldn’t torture, tear and rack The wretched heart of the trembling black! Drive him about in the sunburnt field, His deep wounds all festered and sore, And then thank God for the crop it yields, Drenched in the black man’s gore! And believe he smiles to see you hack And bruise the flesh of the suffering black! Strain now his sinews as much as they’ll bear, His strong muscles make the most of, For the hope has dawn’d in his breast to share The freedom you proudly boast of, His sinews and nerves are—if need be—as strong To wield the sword, as yours the thong. Beware the time when that chain shall break, That galls the flesh and the spirit, When the yoke is thrown from the bended neck, That is chafed too much to bear it! There’s a God above that looks with a frown, To see how long you have trodden him down!

Rev. John Pierpont, “The Call of Kansas” National Anti-Slavery Standard (August 9, 1856)

Sons of the men who, long ago, Planted their feet on Plymouth Rock, There stood and faced a savage foe, There braved and bore the battle shock, Hear ye the cry from Kansas’ plains? Does your blood boil not in your veins? That cry! does it not make you start? The murderous shot came from the South? The ball has struck your brother’s heart! His life-blood gushes from his mouth! No more that brother shall you see; He spoke, he dies for Liberty!

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Whoe’er of Freedom dares to blab, Where Kansas for free labour calls, Feels the Missourian’s ruffian stab, And, dead, on his own threshold falls, The freeman, there, must bate his breath; To speak of Freedom there, is death! Slavery demands the sacrifice! Her bullies deal the blows; and while The murdered freeman gasps and dies, Her perjured panders sit and smile, On her high places, where they swore That she should agitate no more. Grasping and bloody is the hand, That Slavery stretches forth, to clutch A region that she vowed should stand Unscorched forever by her touch! Look at the Fury’s faith—her oath! Her bloody hand has torn them both! The bond, that bore her hated name, That Freedom gave an empire for, She’s snatched, to light with it a flame— The baleful flame of civil war! Her troops, e’en now, are in the lists, And “war exists!” ay, “war exists!” Yes, it is war—the war of Cain, Where Right is stricken down by Wrong, Religion at her altar slain, And the weak dies beneath the strong. Let him, then, bear Cain’s forehead brand, Who sees the blow, nor lifts his hand!10 Who, sitting in the highest seat, And wielding a whole nation’s might, Sees Freedom bleeding at his feet, And Wrong triumphing over Right, 10. The mark of Cain was used to justify slavery by interpreting it as the curse of dark skin indicating the supposed sinfulness of black peoples. See Genesis 4:8–15.

Atonement p 283

And throws his sword into the scale, To make red-handed wrong prevail! ’Tis war! Then be it so! For aye Has there been peace—or can there be— ’Twixt God and Satan? Night and Day? ’Twixt black and white? the bond and free? Belial11 with Christ in concord dwell! Freedom with Slavery! Heaven with Hell! Ay! let war come, for come it must, Or Slavery must her steps retrace; Let hostile hosts the scales adjust, Looking each other in the face! In battle let the feebler fall, And let the stronger have it all. For, Kansas’ plains, to Freedom vowed, To Freedom shall belong—unless, When the wind drives the battle cloud Away, they’re left a wilderness. Far better make those plains our graves, Than leave them to be tilled by slaves! Far better fall, in such a strife, Than still to Slavery’s claims concede: Than crouch beneath her frown, for life, Far better on the field to bleed; To live thus is a life-long shame! To die thus, victory and fame!

Frances E. [Ellen] Watkins, “Lines” National Anti-Slavery Standard (November 29, 1856)

At the portals of the future, Full of madness, guilt and gloom, Stood the hateful form of Slavery, Crying, Give, Oh! give me room— Room to smite the earth with cursing, Room to scatter, “rend” and slay,

11. The devil.

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From the trembling mother’s bosom Room to tear her child away; Room to trample on the manhood Of the country far and wide; Room to spread o’er every Eden Slavery’s scorching lava-tide. Pale and trembling stood the Future, Quailing ’neath his frown of hate, As he grasped with bloody clutches The great keys of Doom and Fate. In his hand he held a banner All festooned with blood and tears: ’Twas a fearful ensign, woven With the grief and wrong of years. On his brow he wore a helmet Decked with strange and cruel art; Every jewel was a life-drop Wrung from some poor broken heart. Though her cheek was pale and anxious, Yet, with look and brow sublime, By the pale and trembling Future Stood the Crisis of our time. And from many a throbbing bosom Came the words in fear and gloom, Tell us, Oh! thou coming Crisis, What shall be our country’s doom? Shall the wings of dark destruction Brood and hover o’er our land, Till we trace the steps of ruin, By their blight, from strand to strand? With a look and voice prophetic Spake the solemn Crisis then: I have only mapped the future For the erring sons of men. If ye strive for Truth and Justice, If ye battle for the Right, Ye shall lay your hands all strengthened On God’s robe of love and light; But if ye trample on His children, To His ear will float each groan, Jar the cords that bind them to Him, And they’ll vibrate at his throne. Atonement p 285

And the land that forges fetters, Binds the weak and poor in chains, Must in blood or tears of sorrow Wash away her guilty stains.

Frances Ellen Watkins, Untitled Anti-Slavery Bugle (May 14, 1859)

[A father was imprisoned in Washington, not long since, for sheltering his son for a night and giving him food and clothing.] Only one night beneath your roof My father, let me stay, Break to my hungry lips your bread And clothe my limbs I pray. Only one night: his eager eyes Flashed on his father’s face. Only one night with those I love Give me a resting place. The father gazed upon his child, His pleading touched his heart, And love and pity moved his soul; He would not say depart. He would not shut his open doors Upon his prayer so wild, He could not coldly thrust aside His wretched, wandering child. He took him to his heart and home And broke to him his bread, And one short night the father’s roof Stretched o’er his weary head. The morning broke, and nature smiled, The son was clothed and fed, And one short night the father’s roof Stretched o’er his weary head. 286 p Lyrical Liberators

’Twas where our country frames her laws This deed of shame was done, A father met a felon’s doom For sheltering his own son. Tremble and blush, Oh guilty land, Thou smiter of the dumb! The sighing of the wronged and robbed Before our God shall come. His lightning shall not always sleep Or slumber in its lair, His thunderbolts are fused with wrath And freighted with despair.

George W. [Washington] Bungay, “Lines to a Clergyman Who Says Slavery Is Not a Sin” Liberator (October 23, 1863); National Anti-Slavery Standard (October 31, 1863)

No sin to buy and sell and hold The negro in his galling gyves, And pocket the blood-crusted gold, The price of human hearts and lives? No sin to steal an African, And rob him of each sacred right; Wipe from his brow the stamp of man, And blot the stars out of his night? No sin to score his quivering back With the red lash dripping there, Because his Maker made him black, Thickened his lips and crisped his hair? No sin to tear his frantic wife From his outreaching arms of love; What God has joined, divorce for life, Though Heaven forbid it from above? No sin to steal the clinging child From the fond mother’s dear embrace, Atonement p 287

And leave her broken-hearted, wild, And crazed, to curse her ebon race? God gave the black a living soul, A conscience and a heart to feel; Wrote freedom on his spirit’s scroll, And sealed it with His holy seal. Woe unto him who breaks the chart Endorsed by God’s unerring hand, A curse shall smite his cruel heart, His brow shall wear the slaver’s brand. No greater, grosser crime than this Can man commit who steps aside; Christ in the slave, with leprous kiss, Is thus betrayed and crucified. When hoary priest, with honeyed tongue, Long face and lubricated knees, Bows low before this brazen wrong, And prates like the old Pharisees,12 We look to see the earth divide, And falling fire from Heaven consume The impious babbler in his pride, And leave no mourners at his tomb.



12. Ancient Jewish sect characterized by its strict observance of the law.

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12 Wartim e

C

ivil War hostilities began in earnest on April 12, 1861, when Southern forces fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. The attack was precipitated by the U.S. Army’s refusal to abandon its presence in Charleston following the secession of seven Southern states shortly after Abraham Lincoln was elected in November 1860. In response to a presidency that would potentially jeopardize slavery, the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America in February 1861. Following Lincoln’s call for troops to defend the nation after the events at Fort Sumter, the states of Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia also seceded. Although the Confederacy would dominate in many of the early battles of the war, the tide turned decisively in favor of Union troops by the summer of 1863. The conflict came to a close following a series of Confederate defeats throughout 1864, culminating in 1865 with the loss of their capital at Richmond and the surrender of General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox. Both sides suffered heavy losses in battle, amounting to at least 650,000 deaths. On November 19, 1863, following the devastation at the Battle of Gettysburg, Lincoln had delivered his memorable address, in which he publicly declared his commitment to the antislavery cause by quoting from the Declaration of Independence to remind his audience that “all men are created equal.” In the course of the war he had championed a series of decisive measures in support 289

of abolition: the Confiscation Acts of 1861 and 1862; the enlistment of black troops in 1861; ending slavery in the territories and in the District of Columbia in 1862; the preliminary and final Emancipation Proclamations on September 22, 1862, and January 1, 1863; repealing the Fugitive Slave Act in 1864 (see chapter 3); and supporting the Thirteenth Amendment, which was passed by Congress in January 1865 and ratified by the states in December 1865 (see chapter 13). The public’s support for his initiatives became apparent when Lincoln was overwhelmingly reelected in November 1864, while the lingering resentment others felt came to a head when he was assassinated by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865.1 John L. Thomas recognizes that the abolitionist campaign of moral agitation “played an indispensable part in precipitating the crisis that led to war.”2 Many more Americans were persuaded to support the cause by the “boom of the slave-drivers’ cannon at Fort Sumter,” which “startled the North from its sleep,” as the assault was described in the pages of the National Anti-Slavery Standard.3 Robert William Fogel acknowledges that the attack helped further the movement by sending “a surge of patriotic sentiment through the North that temporarily made the coalition invincible.”4 Yet not all activists supported the conflict at first, most famously William Lloyd Garrison, whose mistrust of the federal government and Southern politicians led him to oppose not only the war effort but also the goal of Union itself, as proclaimed by his famous slogan “No Union with Slaveholders.” Garrison came around to supporting the war only once it became clear that it was actually being waged for the cause of freedom, which for a number of political reasons was not officially acknowledged to be the administration’s goal until the fall of 1862 (see chapter 13). A year later, in a November 1863 letter to Garrison, the prominent abolitionist Sarah Grimké could finally assert that the nation was in fact engaged in “God’s War,” which she believed would lead to the “salvation of the Anglo-Saxon as well as the African race.”5 The mass media attained tremendous reach and influence during the course of the war, when authors came to trust their ability to alter public perception. With respect to wartime poems in particular, Eliza Richards argues that “underpinning them all is an acknowledgement that war and its media forms are inextricably linked, and that together they change the way people think, write, and process information.”6 Abolitionist poets worked alongside their journalist peers to modify what they believed to be the nation’s misguided views on slavery. Ronald G. Walters recognizes that their work thus helped “foster a general cast of mind in the North that accepted disruption of the government, even war, as a means of ending an evil institution.”7 This approach 290 p Lyrical Liberators

is apparent from the very start of the war, which immediately made itself felt in poems that for the most part voiced support for the conflict and encouraged Americans to join the fight in the name of freedom for all. Faith Barrett goes so far as to propose that the Civil War was in many respects “a poetryfueled war.”8 Several of the poets in this chapter articulate their confidence in winning a war that they believe will expose the South’s inexcusable motives. Considering the climate of injustice and suffering that precipitated the conflict, they often draw on imagery that suggests war is as inevitable and irrepressible as the forces of nature—in other words, that it is only natural that war has ensued. Once the war is well under way, poets seize the opportunity to recognize the participation of black soldiers by emphasizing their equal valor and celebrating their forthcoming liberation. They also acknowledge the integral supporting role of women, chiefly their sacrifices on behalf of the men in their lives who are fighting in the war. After several years of devastating violence and loss, poets make an effort to motivate politicians to persist in their support of the cause despite seemingly discouraging circumstances, urging them in particular to advocate for the passage of abolitionist legislation. And as the conflict came to a close, their compositions testify to a palpable sense of encouragement at the imminent outcome of liberty. Published two months prior to the assault on Fort Sumter, when it was becoming increasingly clear that animosities were escalating, John Greenleaf Whittier’s “A Word for the Hour” takes the rare stance of cautioning against war. His speaker adopts a prayerful tone, no doubt influenced by Whittier’s pacifist Quaker beliefs, to advise the Union that it should avoid fighting and take the high road instead to remain “Safe on Freedom’s vantage ground.” Several months later when the war is well under way, Whittier’s second poem in this chapter praises Union general John C. Frémont for acting on similar principles by independently issuing his own emancipation proclamation, which freed slaves owned by Confederate sympathizers in the state of Missouri in August 1861. The former Republican presidential candidate—the first to base a platform on combating slavery, under the slogan “Free soil, free labor, free speech, free men, Frémont”—had responded to the increasing violence of border wars in his district by declaring martial law, allowing federal forces to confiscate the property of dissidents and thus liberate their slaves (see chapter 4). Fearing his order would motivate loyal slave states to join the Southern cause, Lincoln modified Frémont’s proclamation to emancipate only those slaves who aided the Confederate military, and relieved him of his command for insubordination, a decision the National Anti-Slavery Standard critiqued as “one of those blunders which are worse than crimes.”9 Whittier’s poem asserts that Wartime p 291

attempting to suppress Frémont’s words is as futile as attempting to “arrest / The winds,” and celebrates his proclamation as a prophecy that will assuredly be fulfilled in time. One month later, William Cullen Bryant echoes Whittier in his call for men across the country to join the fight. He insists that their actions in this regard will prove, much like natural forces do, that might and right are inextricably linked and will eventually triumph.10 The anonymous author of “’Tis Come at Last” sounds positively enthusiastic as well about the onset of a war which will finally prove that union and slavery are incompatible, and which will also expose the hypocrisy of Southerners who perpetuated abuse while at the same time claiming to uphold Christian values. Several years later, in the midst of hostilities, James Russell Lowell also alludes to Southern duplicity in his satirical depiction of a supposed message issued to the Confederate Congress by its president, Jefferson Davis. In the poem Davis appears in a state of despair occasioned by the South’s failing economy. He rejects such proposed solutions as hanging their bankers, because they simply have no funds left to appropriate; burning their cities for insurance, as they would in any case have to pay for these losses themselves; and turning their slaves into currency, since these slaves are already sufficiently exploiting their own newfound political “currency.” Davis admits that the need for funds is particularly dire since their soldiers will only fight for pay regardless of the cause. He also acknowledges that Southern rhetoric is being punctured like so many balloons full of hot air. Lowell thus builds a case against a leader who is morally inferior, whose men will only fight in selfinterest, and whose alliance is already significantly defeated—all of which would presumably help motivate Union fighters by suggesting they are dealing with a decimated opponent. Some of the most persuasive poems in this collection commend the black men whose involvement on the frontlines testifies to their courage as peers. By the end of the conflict, over 186,000 black soldiers had fought for the United States; about 94,000 of these came from Confederate states, many of whom originally hailed from the border states where their recruitment helped significantly weaken slavery in those regions well before legal emancipation took effect.11 Furthermore, as Dudley Taylor Cornish notes, their participation in the war was integral to establishing “the rights and responsibilities of American citizenship” for the black community.12 Their own voices are a significant feature of Whittier’s third poem in this chapter, “At Port Royal. 1861,” one of his most widely reprinted works. In it he commemorates Union troops for taking possession of a strategic group of islands in South Carolina, where a predominantly black population enabled them to begin the work of emancipation at a 292 p Lyrical Liberators

local level (see also chapter 8). Whittier depicts the region’s former slaves collaborating as rowers for Union forces and replicates their unique vernacular and musicality in the “Song of the Negro Boatmen” that forms an integral part of the poem, in which the boatmen celebrate their liberation from the slavedrivers who had been forced to flee the region. Whittier recognizes their common humanity by asserting that the Union’s fate will ultimately be intertwined with their own. By the same token, George H. Boker’s innovative poem, composed entirely in rare dactylic verse, extols the 2nd Louisiana, a black regiment whose commitment to the cause exceeds that of any white regiment because they fought on behalf of their own freedom. He argues that while those who died on the battlefield succeeded in liberating themselves from slavery, those who survived deserve to be recognized as comrades worth fighting beside. Elizabeth Whitney Brown focuses on an episode from March 1863 when the Confederacy attempted to retake the town of Washington, North Carolina, which had attracted a large population of former slaves from the surrounding areas during the Union’s occupation. In the course of this ultimately failed siege, a black man on a boat that was grounded under fire sacrificed his life pushing the boat back into the water to save the men on board. The poem is related from the perspective of a white participant in the event who commends this black hero as a “fair and saintly” martyr, thus in a certain sense equating him with the “fair” white soldiers themselves. Elizabeth Buckminster Sedgwick and Mary Brown both comment on the death of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the iconic commander of the first all-black volunteer regiment, the 54th Massachusetts, who was killed on July 18, 1863, while leading their failed assault on Fort Wagner in South Carolina (see plate 10). Frederick Douglass himself had helped recruit the 54th Massachusetts, in the belief that military participation was essential to the black claim to citizenship, and two of his sons served in the regiment.13 Following the loss at Fort Wagner, Northern newspapers reported that the Confederates had disdainfully ordered Shaw’s body to be “buried with his niggers” in a mass grave, a fate the abolitionist press reinterpreted as an honorable end. Sedgwick, who had lost her own son at the battle of Antietam, was personally acquainted with Shaw through her son’s former service alongside him in the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry. She borrows from Shakespeare’s King Henry V to portray the fallen men as a “band of brothers” who were placed on equal footing with their leader by their valor on the battlefield, much as King Henry persuaded his own outnumbered soldiers they would be before the battle of Agincourt. These themes are reiterated in Brown’s poem, which also portrays the men as “Brothers in Death,” and moreover predicts that they will be reunited as such at the day of judgment. Wartime p 293

The poems by Caroline Atherton Mason and Augusta Cooper Kimball acknowledge the extent to which women contributed to the cause despite being mostly limited to supportive roles. In Mason’s case, her speaker recognizes that there is only so much a woman can do, hindered as she is from participating in either battle or politics, and in many cases also impeded from tending to the wounded by the priorities of motherhood. She comes to terms with her limitations by taking a cue from John Milton’s sonnet “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent”—in which his anxiety over an inability to serve God is appeased by the realization that “they also serve who only stand and wait”—and resolves to serve in her own way by waiting for the day when she will witness the triumph of freedom. In Kimball’s poem, the speaker shares her emotional response to reading what is presumably President Lincoln’s fourth annual message to Congress, delivered on December 6, 1864. She is moved in particular by one “immortal paragraph,” most likely referring to his recommendation to pass the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery which had not passed at the previous session. Although she has already lost a son in the conflict, she nevertheless feels a “rapport with the heroes of the Nation” that explains why she supports her husband’s decision to enlist following Lincoln’s call for three hundred thousand more volunteers, issued on December 19. Her choice places her in solidarity with other women whose “mount of sacrifice” is as integral to the cause as the military participation of the male recruits she encourages to enlist. Barrett points out that poetry thus allowed female writers like Kimball to “create speakers whose voices resist the limits of individual racial or gender communities,” and who can therefore transcend their social limitations in order to “boldly call on men to join up and head to the front.”14 Once the war entered its third year in 1864, poets evidently felt compelled to motivate politicians to persevere in their support for the cause. “Take No Step Backward!,” for instance, is dedicated to the members of Congress, who by the time this poem was published in February had not yet accomplished such anticipated measures as repealing the Fugitive Slave Act and passing a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. Its author claims to write from Kentucky, thus suggesting that even a slave state has moved toward supporting abolition, although in fact the state consistently opposed antislavery policies throughout the war. The poem attempts to persuade Congress to support abolitionist legislation by arguing that its members will thus ensure their future legacy. Its persuasiveness hinges both on emphasizing the efforts of black men who are fighting on their own behalf to reverse “Centuries of oppression” and on using religious rhetoric to encourage legislators to act as instruments of God despite the many obstacles in their way. Bayard Taylor, in contrast, urges politi294 p Lyrical Liberators

cians to change their course in the wake of what he perceives to be the humiliating outcome of the Democratic Party Convention held in Chicago in August 1864, which proposed a negotiated peace with the South. Taylor insists on the need to keep fighting on behalf of freedom when the enemy is clearly about to be routed. He suggests that ceasing hostilities would amount to a cowardly surrender “too debasing for freemen to bear,” since it would essentially invalidate all the sacrifices that had already been made for the sake of the Union. In the final years of the war, poets found cause to be encouraged by the imminent arrival of freedom, which they looked forward to largely in symbolic terms. Black poet Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, for instance, based her poem on a speech delivered by the abolitionist minister James Miller McKim, in which he called for repairing the crack in the Liberty Bell that he suggested was caused by “the spirit of slavery.” Daniel J. Boorstin points out that abolitionists were indeed the first to christen this iconic bell at the Philadelphia statehouse, contributing the patriotic concept of the “Liberty Bell” to the national lexicon.15 Harper’s poem symbolically pleads for the nation to repair its own ruptured trust in liberty so the restored bell can once again ring its proclamation of freedom across the land. Her speaker is confident that the trials of war will lead to the nation’s renewal by liberating slaves and thus repairing the “chasms rent by Hate and Pride,” and she personally looks forward to the time when she herself will no longer need to work for someone else or dread being separated from her loved ones. Ralph Waldo Emerson offered his own figurative commentary on the state of affairs in late 1863. His poem blames the unjustifiable suffering of slaves on the nation’s founders, who “forebore to break the chain” of slavery, and whose descendants are now being forced to atone for their cowardice. Yet the speaker nonetheless affirms that because it is in the nature of freedom to expand, it will inevitably make its way down South, and that since the cause of justice always conquers, those fighting on its behalf will naturally overpower their foes. This sense of trust is apparent as well in Whittier’s fourth poem here, “What the Birds Said,” published early in the summer of 1864. Its speaker recounts listening to the song of birds who relate what they saw on their flight back up North over the devastated land of the South. While they recall witnessing evidence of the war’s destructiveness, they also recollect overhearing the “crash of Slavery’s broken locks” accompanied by the grateful prayers of freed slaves. Their heartening message echoes the many poems that not only confirmed the necessity of a conflict that had to be endured for the cause of liberation but also served as encouraging harbingers of the peace that was soon to come.

p Wartime p 295

J. G. W. [John Greenleaf Whittier], “A Word for the Hour” Anti-Slavery Bugle (February 2, 1861)

The firmament breaks up. In black eclipse Light after light goes out. One evil star, Luridly glaring through the smoke of war, As in the dream of the Apocalypse, Drags others down. Let us not weakly weep, Nor rashly threaten. Give us grace to keep Our faith and patience; wherefore should we leap On one hand into fratricidal fight, Or, on the other, yield eternal right, Frame lies of law, and good and ill confound? What fear we? Safe on Freedom’s vantage ground Our feet are planted: let us there remain In unrevengeful calm, no means untried Which truth can sanction, no just claim denied, The sad spectators of a suicide! They break the links of Union: shall we light The fires of hell to weld anew the chain? Draw we not even now a freer breath As from our shoulders falls a load of death Loathsome as that the doomed Mezentius1 bore? Why take we up the accursed thing again? Pity, forgive, but urge them back no more Who, drunk with passion, hoist disunion’s rag With its vile reptile blazon. Let us press The golden cluster on our brave old flag In closer union, and, if numbering less, Brighter shall shine the stars which still remain!

J. G. [John Greenleaf] Whittier, “To John C. Fremont” National Anti-Slavery Standard (October 12, 1861)

Thy error, Fremont,2 simply was to act A plain man’s part, without the statesman’s tact, And, taking counsel but of common sense, 1. In Roman mythology, a tyrannical Etruscan king renowned for his cruelty. 2. General John C. Frémont independently issued an emancipation proclamation on August 30, 1861, decreeing that any slaves belonging to insurgents in the state of Missouri would be confiscated and thereafter freed.

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To strike at cause, as well as consequence. So take thou courage! God has spoken through thee, Irrevocable the mighty words, Be Free! The land shakes with them, and the slave’s dull ear Turns from the rice-field stealthily to hear. Who would recall them now must first arrest The winds that blow down from the free North-West, Ruffling the Gulf; or, like a scroll, roll back The Mississippi to his upper springs. Such words fulfil their prophecy, and lack But the full time to harden into things.

William Cullen Bryant, “Our Country’s Call” National Anti-Slavery Standard (November 2, 1861)

Lay down the axe, fling by the spade; Leave in its track the toiling plough; The rifle and the bayonet blade For arms like yours were fitter now; And let the hands that ply the pen Quit the light task and learn to wield The horseman’s crooked brand, and rein The charger on the battle-field. Our country calls; away! away! To where the blood-stream blots the green. Strike to defend the gentlest sway That Time in all his course has seen. See, from a thousand coverts—see Spring the armed foes that haunt her track; They rush to smite her down, and we Must beat the banded traitors back. Ho! sturdy as the oaks ye cleave, And moved as soon to fear and flight, Men of the glade and forest! leave Your woodcraft for the field of fight. The arms that wield the axe must pour An iron tempest on the foe; His serried ranks shall reel before The arm that lays the panther low. Wartime p 297

And ye who breast the mountain storm By grassy steep or highland lake, Come, for the land ye love to form A bulwark that no foe can break. Stand, like your own gray cliffs that mock The whirlwind, stand in her defence: The blast as soon shall move the rock As rushing squadrons bear ye thence. And ye, whose homes are by her grand Swift rivers, rising far away, Come from the depth of her green land As mighty in your march as they; As terrible as when the rains Have swelled them over bank and bourne, With sudden floods to drown the plains And sweep along the woods uptorn. And ye who throng, beside the deep, Her ports and hamlets of the strand, In number like the waves that leap On his long murmuring marge of sand, Come, like that deep, when, o’er his brim, He rises, all his floods to pour, And flings the proudest barks that swim, A helpless wreck against his shore. Few, few were they whose swords, of old, Won the fair land in which we dwell; But we are many, we who hold The grim resolve to guard it well. Strike for that broad and goodly land, Blow after blow, till men shall see That Might and Right move hand in hand, And glorious must their triumph be.

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Anonymous, “ ’Tis Come at Last” National Anti-Slavery Standard (January 18, 1862)

’Tis come at last!—the conflict dread ’Twixt Freedom’s hosts and Slavery’s herds; Cannon resound in rhetoric’s stead, And sabres clash in place of words; The politician’s craft is o’er— ’Twere well dispensed with long before! Poor drivelling earles [sic], and brainless fools, And moral nondescripts, to deem Union can live while slavery rules! A vile conceit, a guilty dream! No league hath long cemented stood In groans, and shrieks, and tears, and blood. And groans and shrieks enough have risen To rend the earth from strand to strand; And tears and blood enough have flowed To thrice o’erwhelm our hapless land; A faithful record God hath kept, Though men have thought His justice slept. ’Tis come at last! I see it now, In myriads mustering for the fight; Men of the firm, unblenching brow, Strong in the consciousness of right, Behold stern Retribution’s rod, The vengeance of an outraged God! So stalks His justice ever forth, When Pride and Cruelty, grown strong, Have made a prison-house of earth, And marred its lovely scenes with wrong: Much more when Crime, so deeply dyed, Beneath His holy word would hide. Ah, tyrants! did ye think to hold ‘Bible and lash in either hand’ At once, be sheep in Jesus’ fold, And bear the wolf’s ignoble brand? Wartime p 299

Your slave-pens by God’s temple rear, And wed your bondmen’s groans with prayer? Well, haste! Before your altars bow: Seek Southron priests’ and prophets’ aid; For Freedom’s hosts are gathering now, And on they march with thundering tread. The time has come the test to try— Your idol now shall live or die! Press on, ye patriot host, press on! God fights not on the oppressor’s side; Your country’s flag aloft be thrown, ’Tis Freedom’s emblem, Freedom’s pride! Guilty Concession’s day is past, The reckoning-day has come at last! Concession! Scheme conceived in hell! Moloch3 to set on high with God, Put Lust with Chastity to dwell, Give Crime and Virtue one abode! ’Tis well, the shameful compact ends, God’s covenant bow now o’er us bends. ’Tis come at last! The reeking field, The booming gun, the leaping flame, Foretell that Fraud and Wrong must yield: That God will vindicate His name. Shout, patriots, with each clarion’s blast, “’Tis come at last! ’tis come at last!”

J. G. [John Greenleaf] Whittier, “At Port Royal. 1861” National Anti-Slavery Standard (January 25, 1862)

The tent-lights glimmer on the land, The ship-lights on the sea; The night wind smooths with drifting sand Our track on lone Tybee.4

3. Canaanite god associated with child sacrifice in the Old Testament. 4. Tybee Island in the state of Georgia.

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At last our grating keels outslide, Our good boats forward swing; And while we ride the land-locked tide, Our negroes row and sing. For dear the bondman holds his gifts Of music and of song: The gold that kindly Nature sifts Among his sands of wrong; The power to make his toiling days And poor home-comforts please; The quaint relief of mirth that plays With sorrow’s minor keys. Another glow than sunset’s fire Has filled the West with light, Where field and garner, barn and byre, Are blazing through the night. The land is wild with fear and hate, The rout runs mad and fast; From hand to hand, from gate to gate The flaming brand is passed. The lurid glow falls strong across Dark faces broad with smiles: Not theirs the terror, hate, and loss That fire yon blazing piles. With oar-strokes timing to their song, They weave in simple lays The pathos of remembered wrong, The hope of better days— The triumph-note that Miriam sung,5 The joy of uncaged birds: Softening with Afric’s mellow tongue Their broken Saxon words. 5. Miriam sang the “Song of the Sea” upon the Jews’ salvation at the Sea of Reeds. See Exodus 15:1.

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SONG OF THE NEGRO BOATMEN

Oh! praise an’ tanks! De Lord he come To set de people free; An’ massa tink it day ob doom, An’ we ob jubilee. De Lord dat heap de Red Sea waves He jus’ as ’trong as den; He say de word: we las’ night slaves; To-day, de Lord’s freemen. De yam will grow, de cotton blow, We’ll hab de rice an’ corn: Oh, nebber you fear, if nebber you hear De driver blow his horn! Ole massa on he trabbels gone; He leaf de land behind: De Lord’s breff blow him furder on, Like corn-shuck in de wind. We own de hoe, we own de plow, We own de hands dat hold; We sell de pig, we sell de cow, But nebber chile be sold. De yam will grow, de cotton blow, We’ll hab de rice an’ corn; Oh nebber you fear, if nebber you hear De driver blow his horn! We pray de Lord: he gib us signs Dat some day we be free; De Norf-wind tell it to de pines, De wild-duck to de sea; We tink it when de church-bell ring, We dream it in de dream; De rice-bird mean it when he sing, De eagle when he scream. De yam will grow, de cotton blow, We’ll hab de rice an’ corn: Oh nebber you fear, if nebber you hear De driver blow his horn!

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We know de promise nebber fail, An’ nebber lie de word; So like de ’postles in de jail, We waited for de Lord: An’ now he open ebery door, An’ trow away de key; He tink we lub him so before, We lub him better free. De yam will grow, de cotton blow, He’ll gib de rice an’ corn; Oh nebber you fear, if nebber you hear De driver blow his horn! So sing our dusky gondoliers; And with a secret pain, And smiles that seem akin to tears, We hear the wild refrain. We dare not share the negro’s trust, Nor yet his hope deny; We only know that God is just, And every wrong shall die. Rude seems the song; each swarthy face, Flame-lighted, ruder still: We start to think that hapless race Must shape our good or ill; That laws of changeless justice bind Oppressor with oppressed; And, close as sin and suffering joined, We march to Fate abreast. Sing on, poor hearts! your chant shall be Our sign of blight or bloom— The Vala-song of Liberty, Or death-rune of our doom!6

6. Vala and rune are Nordic terms meaning prophet and incantation, respectively.

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Anonymous [James Russell Lowell], “Rebel ‘Politikle ’Con’my’” National Anti-Slavery Standard (April 5, 1862) [Extract from Jeff. Davis’s Message in Secret Session, as “conjecturally reported” for The Atlantic Monthly, by H. BIGLOW.]7

It ’s ne’ssary to take a good confident tone With the public; but here, jest amongst us, I own Things look blacker ’n thunder. Ther’ ’s no use denyin’ We ’re clean out o’ money, an’ ’most out o’ lyin’,— Two things a young nation can’t mennage without, Ef she wants to look wal at her fust comin’ out; For the fust supplies physickle strength, while the second Gives a morril edvantage thet ’s hard to be reckoned: For this latter I ’m willin’ to du wut I can; For the former you ’ll hev to consult on a plan— Though our fust want (an’ this pint I want your best views on) Is plausible paper to print I.O.U.s on. Some gennlemen think it would cure all our cankers In the way o’ finance, ef we jes’ hanged the bankers; An’ I own the proposle ’ud square with my views, Ef their lives wuz n’t all thet we ’d left ’em to lose. Some say thet more confidence might be inspired, Ef we voted our cities an’ towns to be fired,— A plan thet ’ud suttenly tax our endurance, Coz ’t would be our own bills we should git for th’ insurance; But cinders, no metter how sacred we think ’em, Might n’t strike furrin minds ez good sources of income, Nor the people, perhaps, would n’t like the eclaw O’ bein’ all turned into paytriots by law. Some want we should buy all the cotton an’ burn it, On a pledge, when we ’ve gut thru the war, to return it,— Then to take the proceeds an’ hold them ez security For an issue o’ bonds to be met at maturity With an issue o’ notes to be paid in hard cash On the fus’ Monday follerin’ the ’tarnal Allsmash: This hez a safe air, an’, once hold o’ the gold, ’Ud leave our vile plunderers out in the cold, An’ might temp’ John Bull,8 ef it warn’t for the dip he 7. The second series of James Russell Lowell’s Biglow Papers was published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1862. 8. Personification of England.

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Once gut from the banks o’ my own Massissippi. Some think we could make, by arrangin’ the figgers, A hendy home-currency out of our niggers; But it wun’t du to lean much on ary sech staff, For they ’re gittin’ tu current a’ready, by half. One gennleman says, ef we lef’ our loan out Where Floyd9 could git hold on ’t, he ’d take it, no doubt; But ’t ain’t jes’ the takin’, though ’t hez a good look, We mus’ git sunthin’ out on it arter it ’s took, An’ we need now more ’n ever, with sorrer I own, Thet some one another should let us a loan, Sence a soger wun’t fight, on’y jes’ while he draws his Pay down on the nail, for the best of all causes, ’Thout askin’ to know wut the quarrel ’s about,— An’ once come to thet, why, our game is played out. It ’s ez true ez though I should n’t never hev said it Thet a hitch hez took place in our system o’ credit; I swear it ’s all right in my speeches an’ messiges, But ther’ ’s idees afloat, ez ther’ is about sessiges: Folks wun’t take a bond ez a basis to trade on, Without nosin’ round to find out wut it ’s made on, An’ the thought more an’ more thru the public min’ crosses Thet our Treshry hez gut ’mos’ too many dead hosses. Wut ’s called credit, you see, is some like a balloon, Thet looks while it ’s up ’most ez harnsome ’z a moon, But once git a leak in ’t an’ wut looked so grand Caves righ’ down in a jiffy ez flat ez your hand. Now the world is a dreffle mean place, for our sins, Where ther’ ollus is critters about with long pins A-prickin’ the globes we ’ve blowed up with sech care, An’ provin’ ther’ ’s nothin’ inside but bad air: They ’re all Stuart Millses,10 poor-white trash, an’ sneaks, Without no more chivverlry ’n Choctaws or Creeks,11 Who think a real gennleman’s promise to pay Is meant to be took in trade’s ornery way: Them fellers an’ I could n’ never agree; They ’re the nateral foes o’ the Southun Idee; I ’d gladly take all of our other resks on me To be red o’ this low-lived politikle ’con’my! 9. Possibly a reference to John B. Floyd, governor of Virginia from 1849 to 1852 and Confederate general during the Civil War. 10. English political economist John Stuart Mill. 11. Choctaws and Creeks are Native American tribes.

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Caroline A. [Atherton] Mason, “The Will for the Deed. A Poem for the Times” National Anti-Slavery Standard (June 7, 1862)

No sword have I, no battle-blade Nor shining spear; how shall I aid My Country in her great crusade? I cannot sow with gold the sod, Like dragons’ teeth, and from the clod See armed men rise, battle-shod.12 I may not stand in mart or hall, And shout aloud great Freedom’s call: “Come to the rescue, one and all!” I am a woman, weak and slight— No voice to plead, no arm to fight— Yet burning to support the Right. How shall I aid my Country’s cause? How help avenge her trampled laws? Alas! my woman’s heart makes pause. With oil and wine I may not go Where wounded men toss to and fro, Beneath the invader’s hand laid low. My little child looks up to me, And lisps a stronger, mightier plea; God wills where he is I should be. Ah! well, I am not needed. He Who knows my heart, perchance, for me Has other work than now I see. “They also serve who stand and wait.”13 Oh, golden words! and not too late, My soul accepts her humbler fate, 12. In Greek mythology, both Cadmus and Jason plant dragon’s teeth that grow into armed warriors. 13. From John Milton’s “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent” (1673).

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Content to serve in any way— Less than the least—if so I may But hail the dawning of that day When my beloved land shall rise, And shout as one man to the skies, Lo! Freedom lives and Slavery dies!

Frances E. W. [Ellen Watkins] Harper, “The New Liberty Bell” National Anti-Slavery Standard (February 28, 1863) “After our fathers had issued to the world their Declaration, the bell that hung in the dome over the building in which the immortal paper was adopted, bearing the motto, “Proclaim liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof,” became cracked—as if by the spirit of slavery—and made utterly unfit for its purpose. There it hangs, in yonder hall, a voiceless but speaking monument of a glorious and also of a disgraceful fact. It is a symbol—a striking symbol— striking in the fact that it cannot strike. It would be a good idea, at this time, while we are correcting the errors of our fathers, to repair the breach in the bell. I propose, therefore, this being a proper occasion, that we have a new bell, made of the right stuff, with the ring of the genuine metal; that it shall bear the same glorious motto and be hung in the same dome, over the same old Hall of Independence, so that it may ring out in a glorious chime, “Liberty throughout the land, and to all the inhabitants thereof.”—Speech of J. Miller McKim.14

Yes! ring again the freedom bell, And let its tones be loud and clear; With glad hosannas let it swell, Until they reach the bondman’s ear. Through pain that wrings the life apart, And spasms full of deadly strife, And throes that shake the nation’s heart, The fainting land renews her life.

14. Abolitionist minister James Miller McKim of Pennsylvania.

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Where shrieks and groans distract the air, And sods grow red with crimson rain, The ransomed slave shall kneel in prayer, And bury deep his rusty chain. Where cheeks now pale with sickening dread, And brows grow dark with cruel wrath, Shall Freedom’s banner wide be spread, And peace and joy attend her path. White-robed and pure her feet shall move O’er rifts of ruin deep and wide, Her hands shall span with lasting love The chasms rent by Hate and Pride. Where waters blushed with human gore, Unsullied streams shall purl along; Where crashed the battle’s awful roar, Shall rise the freeman’s joyful song. Then ring, aye, quickly ring the bell Proclaiming all the nation free! Let earth with glad thanksgiving swell, And heaven catch up the melody: I no more dread his cruel grasp Shall tear my loved ones from my clasp They are mine forevermore. From dewy morn to starry night, I toil with heart and footsteps light: My very soul is calm. No more my blood with anger boils, To see the fruit of all my toils Clutched in a master’s palm. My walls are bare of pictured grace, My cheerful hearth’s an humble place, But joy is my dear guest.

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In peace I lull my boy to sleep, And watch his slumbers calm and deep: Oh, Freedom give us rest!

George H. Boker, “The Second Louisiana” National Anti-Slavery Standard (June 20, 1863)15

May 27th, 1863 Dark as the clouds of even, Ranked in the western heaven, Waiting the breath that lifts All the dread mass, and drifts Tempest and falling brand Over a ruined land;— So still and orderly, Arm to arm, knee to knee, Waiting the great event, Stands the black regiment. Down the long dusky line Teeth gleam and eyeballs shine; And the bright bayonet, Bristling and firmly set, Flashed with a purpose grand, Long ere the sharp command Of the fierce rolling drum Told them their time had come, Told them what work was sent For the black regiment. 15. This poem mistakenly identifies the 2nd Louisiana as participating in the Union assault on the Confederate fortification at Port Hudson, Louisiana, on May 27, 1863, which actually involved the 1st and 3rd Louisiana Native Guard regiments. This was apparently a common misconception: Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper  published an  illustration titled “Assault of the Second Louisiana (Colored) Regiment on the Rebel Works at Port Hudson, May 27” a week later, on June 27, 1863. The 2nd Louisiana was in fact posted at Ship Island, Mississippi, at this time and did not participate in this engagement.

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“Now,” the flag-sergeant cried, “Though death and hell betide, Let the whole nation see If we are fit to be Free in this land; or bound Down, like the whining hound— Bound with red stripes of pain In our old chains again!” Oh! what a shout there went From the black regiment! “Charge!” Trump and drum awoke; Onward the bondmen broke; Bayonet and saber-stroke Vainly opposed their rush. Through the wild battle’s crush, With but one thought aflush, Driving their lords like chaff, In the guns’ mouths they laugh; Or at the slippery brands Leaping with open hands, Down they tear man and horse, Down in their awful course; Trampling with bloody heel Over the crashing steel, All their eyes forward bent, Rushed the black regiment. “Freedom!” their battle-cry— “Freedom! or leave to die!” Ah! and they meant the word, Not as with us ’tis heard, Not a mere party shout: They gave their spirits out; Trusted the end to God, And on the gory sod Rolled in triumphant blood. Glad to strike one free blow, Whether for weal or woe; Glad to breathe one free breath, Though on the lips of death. Praying—alas! in vain!— 310 p Lyrical Liberators

That they might fall again, So they could once more see That burst to liberty! This was what “freedom” lent To the black regiment. Hundreds on hundreds fell; But they are resting well; Scourges and shackles strong Never shall do them wrong. O, to the living few, Soldiers, be just and true! Hail them as comrades tried; Fight with them side by side; Never, in field or tent, Scorn the black regiment!

Miss E. W. [Elizabeth Whitney] Brown, “The Slave-Martyr” National Anti-Slavery Standard (July 4, 1863); Liberator (July 10, 1863)16 “During the siege of Washington, N.C., a flat, full of soldiers, with a few negroes, got aground under rebel fire. A heroic African said, ‘Somebody’s got to die to get us out of this, and it may as well be me.’ He then deliberately got out and pushed the boat off, and fell into it pierced by five bullets.”

The surf with ricocheting balls Was churned and splashed around us; I heard my comrades’ hurried calls, “The rebel guns have found us.” Our vessel shivered; for beneath, The treacherous sand had caught her; What man will leap to instant death To shove her into water? Strange light shone in our hero’s eye; His voice was strong and steady;

16. Introduction appears in the National Anti-Slavery Standard.

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“My brothers, one of us must die, And I, thank God! am ready.” A shell flew toward us, hissing hate, Then screaming like a demon; He calmly faced the awful fate, Resolved to die a freeman! He fell, his heart cut through with shot, The true blood of that martyr Out from his body spurted hot, To flee the shame of barter. We lifted up the brave man’s corse [sic]; We thought him fair and saintly: The rebel bullets round us hoarse We heard, but dull and faintly. ’Tis ever so; a great deed wrought, The doer falls that moment, As if to save the Godlike thought From any human comment. Heroes are dead men by that fact; Fame haunts our grave-yards, sighing, “Alas! that man’s divinest act Should be the act of dying.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Voluntaries” National Anti-Slavery Standard (October 17, 1863)

I. Low and mournful be the strain, Haughty thought be far from me; Tones of penitence and pain, Moanings of the tropic sea; Low and tender in the cell Where a captive sits in chains, Crooning ditties treasured well From his Afric’s torrid plains. Sole estate his sire bequeathed— 312 p Lyrical Liberators

Hapless sire to hapless son— Was the wailing song he breathed, And his chain when life was done. What his fault, or what his crime? Or what ill planet crossed his prime? Heart too soft and will too weak To front the fate that crouches near,— Dove beneath the vulture’s beak;— Will song dissuade the thirsty spear? Dragged from his mother’s arms and breast, Displaced, disfurnished here, His wistful toil to do his best Chilled by a ribald jeer. Great men in the Senate sate, Sage and hero, side by side, Building for their sons the State Which they shall rule with pride. They forebore to break the chain Which bound the dusky tribe, Checked by the owners’ fierce disdain, Lured by “Union” as the bribe. Destiny sat by, and said, “Pang for pang your seed shall pay, Hide in false peace your coward head, I bring round the harvest day.”

II. Freedom all winged expands, Nor perches in a narrow place, Her broad van seeks unplanted lands, She loves a poor and virtuous race. Clinging to the colder zone Whose dark sky sheds the snow-flake down, The snow-flake in her banner’s star, Her stripes the boreal streamers are. Long she loved the Northman well; Now the iron age is done, She will not refuse to dwell With the offspring of the sun Foundling of the desert far, Wartime p 313

Where palms plume and siroccos blaze, He roves unhurt the burning ways In climates of the Summer star. He has avenues to God Hid from men of northern brain, Far beholding, without cloud, What these with slowest steps attain. If once the generous chief arrive To lead him willing to be led, For freedom he will strike and strive, And drain his heart till he be dead.

III. In an age of fops and toys, Wanting wisdom, void of right, Who shall nerve heroic boys To hazard all in freedom’s fight, Break sharply off their jolly games, Forsake their comrades gay, And quit proud homes and youthful dames, For famine, toil, and fray? Yet on the nimble air benign Speed nimbler messages, That waft the breath of grace divine To hearts in sloth and ease. So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can.

IV. Oh, well for the fortunate soul Which Music’s wings infold, Stealing away the memory Of sorrows new and old! Yet happier he whose inward sight, Stayed on his subtile thought, Shuts his sense on toys of time, To vacant bosoms brought. But best befriended of the God He who, in evil times, 314 p Lyrical Liberators

Warned by an inward voice, Heeds not the darkness and the dread, Biding by his rule and choice, Feeling only the fiery thread Leading over heroic ground, Walled with mortal terror round, To the aim which him allures, And the sweet heaven his deed secures.

V. Stainless soldier on the walls, Knowing this—and knows no more— Whoever fights, whoever falls, Justice conquers evermore, Justice after as before, And he who battles on her side, God—though he were ten times slain— Crowns him victor glorified, Victor over death and pain; Forever; but his erring foe, Self-assured that he prevails, Looks from his victim lying low, And sees aloft the red right arm Redress the eternal scales. He, the poor foe, whom angels foil, Blind with pride, and fooled by hate, Writhes within the dragon coil, Reserved to a speechless fate.

VI. Blooms the laurel which belongs To the valiant chief who fights; I see the wreath, I hear the songs Lauding the Eternal Rights, Victors over daily wrongs; Awful victors, they misguide Whom they will destroy, And their coming triumph hide In our downfall, or our joy; Speak it firmly—these are gods, All are ghosts beside. Wartime p 315

Elizabeth B. [Buckminster] Sedgwick, “‘Buried with His Niggers’” National Anti-Slavery Standard (October 31, 1863)17 When the body of Col. Robert G. Shaw 18 was asked of those rebels in the midst of whom he fell, it was replied: “He is buried with his niggers.”

Buried with a band of brothers19 Who for him would fain have died; Buried with the gallant fellows Who fell fighting by his side. Buried with the men God gave him, Those whom he was sent to save; Buried with the martyred heroes, He has found an honored grave. Buried where his dust so precious Makes the soil a hallowed spot; Buried where, by Christian patriot, He shall never be forgot. Buried in the ground accursed, Which man’s fettered feet have trod; Buried where his voice still speaketh, Appealing for the slave to God. Fare thee well, thou noble warrior, Who in youthful beauty went On a high and holy mission, By the God of battles sent. Chosen of Him, “elect and precious,”20 Well didst thou fulfil thy part: When thy country “counts her jewels,” She shall wear thee on her heart.21 17. Introduction appears in the National Anti-Slavery Standard. 18. Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, who commanded the first all-black Union regiment, the 54th Massachusetts, was killed in July 1863 at the Second Battle of Fort Wagner. 19. In William Shakespeare’s Henry V, King Henry motivates his soldiers to fight as a “band of brothers” who will triumph at the Battle of Agincourt (4.3.18–67). 20. From a hymn honoring the martyr St. Stephen; see 1 Peter 2:6 in the King James version. 21. A reference to the virtuous Roman matron Cornelia (ca. 190–ca. 100 BCE), mother of popular reformers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, who responded to a guest’s boast about her jewelry by referring to her own children as her most precious treasures.

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W. D. G., “Take No Step Backward!” National Anti-Slavery Standard (February 27, 1864) EARNESTLY INSCRIBED TO THE THIRTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES.

I. Take no step backward! The eternal Ages Look down upon you from their height sublime, And witness the events which History’s pages Shall class among the noblest of all time. Right onward now the path of duty lieth, Though it may lead to dangers that appall. “Right onward! onward!” Justice sternly crieth, And Mercy joins with Justice in the call.

II. Take no step backward! Centuries of oppression Are culminating ’midst our Nation’s throes; And wrong that might have stood, with fair concession, Yields to the force of self-inflicted blows. The hand grown horny in the life-long labor That clothed and pampered those who held it bound, Now grasps the gun, or wields the flashing sabre, And wins and wears its honors on the ground.

III. Take no step backward! Contraband, or chattel, Or slave, or “person”—what you will—they’re men; And if we stand or fall in this dread battle, God leads the bondman from his thrall again. The pillar of a cloud by day is hazing The atmosphere where’er the battles lie: The pillar of a fire by night is blazing Where conflagration paints yon Southern skies.22

22. In the course of their flight from slavery in Egypt, God sheltered the ancient Israelites with a pillar of cloud in the daytime, and guided them with a pillar of light at night. See Exodus 13:22.

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IV. Take no step backward! Ye have sorely smitten, At hip and thigh, the Evil and the Wrong. What ye have said, now verify! what written, Seal with the seal of action, broad and strong. Be not alarmed at apparitions dire Of flaming swords that hurtle into view; The element that purifies is fire: Pass firmly in, and resolutely through.

V. Take no step backward! Ye, whom God now uses To solve the problems of Man’s destiny, To rectify his wrongs, right his abuses, The grand accomplishment ye may not see: But in the future—in the years of glory That peace restored shall bring our land again— Your names shall glitter in the noblest story That celebrates the deeds of noblest men. Kentucky, Jan. 8, 1864.

John G. [Greenleaf] Whittier, “What the Birds Said” National Anti-Slavery Standard (May 14, 1864)

The birds, against the April wind, Flew Northward, singing as they flew; They sang, “The land we leave behind Has swords for corn-blades, blood for dew.” “O wild-birds, flying from the South, What saw and heard ye, gazing down?” “We saw the mortar’s upturned mouth, The sickened camp, the blazing town! “Beneath the bivouac’s starry lamps, We saw your march-worn children die; In shrouds of moss, in cypress swamps, We saw your dead uncoffined lie.

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“We heard the starving prisoner’s sighs, And saw, from line and trench, your sons Follow our flight with home-sick eyes Beyond the battery’s smoking guns.” “And heard and saw ye only wrong And pain,” I cried, “O wing-worn flocks?” “We heard,” they sang, “the Freedman’s song, The crash of Slavery’s broken locks! “We saw from new, uprising States The Treason-nursing mischief spurned, As, crowding Freedom’s ample gates, The long-estranged and lost returned. “O’er dusky faces, seamed and old, And hands horn-hard with unpaid toil, With hope in every rustling fold, We saw your star-dropt flag uncoil. “And, struggling up through sounds accursed, A grateful murmur clomb the air, A whisper scarcely heard at first, It filled the listening Heavens with prayer. “And sweet and far, as from a star, Replied a voice which shall not cease, Till, drowning all the noise of war, It sings the blessed song of peace!” So to me, in a doubtful day Of chill and slowly-greening spring, Low stooping from the cloudy grey, The wild-birds sang or seemed to sing. They vanished in the misty air, The song went with them in their flight; But lo! they left the sunset fair, And in the evening there was light.

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Bayard Taylor, “On the Chicago Surrender” National Anti-Slavery Standard (September 10, 1864)

What! hoist the white flag when our triumph is nigh?23 What! crouch before Treason? make Freedom a lie? What! spike all our guns when the foe is at bay And the rags of his black banner dropping away? Tear down the strong name that our nation has won, And strike her brave bird from his home in the sun? He’s a coward who shrinks from the lift of the sword; He’s a traitor who mocks at the sacrifice poured; Nameless and homeless the doom that should blast The knave who stands idly till peril is past, But he who submits when the thunders have burst And victory dawns, is of cowards the worst! Is the old spirit dead? Are we broken and weak, That cravens so shamelessly lift the white cheek To court the swift insult, nor blush at the blow, The tools of the Treason and friends of the foe? See! Anarchy smiles at the Peace which they ask, And the eyes of Disunion flash out through the mask! Give thanks, ye brave boys, who by vale and by crag Bear onward, unfaltering, our noble old flag, Strong arms of the Union, heroes living and dead, For the blood of your valor is uselessly shed! No soldier’s green laurel is promised you here, But the white rag of “sympathy” softly shall cheer! And you, ye war martyrs, who preach from your graves How captives are nursed by the masters of slaves, Or, living, still linger in shadows of Death,— Puff out the starved muscle, recall the faint breath, And shout, till those cowards rejoice at the cry: “By the hands of the Union we fought for we die!” By the God of our Fathers! this shame we must share, But it grows too debasing for freemen to bear, 23. The Democratic Party Convention held in Chicago in August 1864 proposed a negotiated peace with the South.

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And Washington, Jackson, will turn in their graves24 When the Union shall rest on two races of slaves, Or, spurning the spirit which bound it of yore, And sundered, exist as a nation no more!

Augusta Cooper Kimball, “Three Hundred Thousand More” National Anti-Slavery Standard (February 11, 1865)

The stars above the mountain, that evening in December, Upon the ice and granite poured out a golden boon; And across the snowy garden and the window I remember, Dropped the reflected brightness of the crystals in the moon. And my heart said to itself, “all this beauty is a presage Of the Nation’s calm and glory, that is coming by and by”; And turning to the lamp-light, I studied Lincoln’s Message,25 To see if there was word or line my hope to terrify. I had not given him a love that seemed to draw me near him, Although he stood the figure-head on Freedom’s threatened boat; Yet just for that one fact alone, I said, “I will revere him, So long as our brave crew can keep the noble bark afloat.” I read on by the lamp-light; I did not mind the fashion Of sentences, for suddenly my tears fell on the sheet; My being shook and trembled with an impulse and a passion Too deep for praise—my woman’s soul went down at Lincoln’s feet. I kissed the immortal paragraph! ’twas charged with power magnetic! I laid my hands upon it, and drew life from every line! I felt my spirit growing with a grandeur deep, pathetic, As the aura from the author’s soul touched and enveloped mine. And I cried aloud, “O Freedom, larger service would I render To thee, for whom the breast of all Humanity hath sighed! Larger burdens heap upon me, O Love divine and tender! Tax heavier and test my worth, thou Crowned and Crucified!

24. George Washington and Andrew Jackson. 25. President Lincoln’s annual message to Congress delivered on December 6, 1864.

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“My manly boy, my noble one, my all—I had no other— My previous great heart-sacrifice to Freedom’s cause was given; The telegram has told me that no voice can call me ‘mother,’ For rebel balls crashed down the bars that kept him out of heaven. “And yet my offering, just God, cannot have satisfied Thee, So heavy is our debt!”—I ceased, for steps were at the door; My husband came in eagerly and took the seat beside me; “There is a call,” he said, “for just three hundred thousand more.”26 I looked out on the evening, I saw each starry taper, I saw the bar of moonlight gold that lay across my cheek; And closely in my hands I clasped that grand immortal paper, My spirit more than willing, and my flesh no longer weak. I felt myself in rapport with the heroes of the Nation, The martyrs gone up higher, and the patriots below; And I read the face beside me with its deep interrogation, So I answered, clear and firmly, “My husband, you may go.” Then he rose and gazed upon me with an earnest look, and tender; “Now that’s my own brave wife,” he said, “a tower of strength to me!” And he marvelled that my eyes were ablaze with inward splendor, As if fired with inspiration, or aflame with prophecy. We shook with love and firmness, not with weakness at the parting; How well he looked, and noble, in his loyal coat of blue! And he whispered at the last, when the shrieking train was starting, “I give my heart and life, beloved, to Freedom and to you!” My silent rooms seem empty; but I gather from the stillness Some precious strains of melody I’ve never heard before; And rays of warming sunlight reach my soul through all the chillness; God suffers not His faithful ones to falter, or give o’er. True women of America—he’s here—the great Refiner! We’ve felt his purifying flame, we’ve seen him with our eyes; The shadows, rolling back, reveal the glory of Shekinah,27 An awful beauty round about our mount of Sacrifice. 26. President Lincoln issued a call for 300,000 more volunteers to fight on behalf of the Union on December 19, 1864. 27. Divine presence of God.

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And brave men of the Union, wait not a second calling! Leave work-shop, farm, and counter, the mill, and threshing-floor! Be ever true to Duty, though the heavens should seem afalling! ’Tis God who calls through Lincoln for three hundred thousand more.

Mary Brown, “Col. Robert G. Shaw” National Anti-Slavery Standard (May 6, 1865)

“They buried him with his niggers,”28 Together they fought and died, There was room for them all where they laid him The grave was deep and wide, For his beauty and youth and valor, Their patience and love and pain, And at the last day together They shall be found again. “They buried him with his niggers.” Earth holds no prouder grave, There is not a Mausoleum In the world beyond the wave That a nobler tale has hallowed, Or a purer glory crowned, Than the nameless trench where they buried The brave so faithful found. “They buried him with his niggers,” A wide grave should it be! They buried more in that shallow trench Than human eye could see; Aye, all the shames and sorrows Of more than a hundred years Lie under the weight of that Southern soil Despite those cruel sneers. “They buried him with his niggers,” But the glorious souls set free 28. From a Confederate report concerning the burial of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, who was killed in July 1863 while leading the first all-black Union regiment, the 54th Massachusetts, at the Second Battle of Fort Wagner.

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Are leading the van of the army That fights for Liberty. Brothers in Death, in Glory The same palm branches bear, And the crown is as bright o’er the sable brows As over the golden hair.

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13 Emanci pat i o n , the Proc lam at i o n , a n d the Thi rteenth A m e n d m e n t

T

he goal of emancipation was clearly articulated from the outset of the abolitionist campaign. In the early years of the movement, when many of its supporters believed it could only be achieved by repatriating freed blacks to Africa, the American Colonization Society was formed in 1816 to pursue this objective. Its members helped found the colony of Liberia, where most of the settlers in the region between 1816 and 1865 were recently emancipated American slaves.1 Many of the supporters of repatriation were admittedly motivated by the belief that free blacks could not be integrated within a predominantly white society and would be better off in their native land. Yet by the 1830s their efforts were meeting with resistance from activists who observed that the majority of African Americans who had been in the country for several generations understandably had no desire to leave what they considered to be their proper home.2 Black poet Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, for instance, observed that “we neither see the wisdom nor expediency of our selfexportation from a land which has in great measure [been] enriched by our toil for generations.”3 Although Abraham Lincoln himself claimed to support colonization through the 1840s, he is believed to have reconsidered his stance once black troops began fighting on behalf of the Union, in recognition of service that would make it unjustifiable to ship them off to Africa at the war’s end.4 While some slaves were emancipated during the early years of the war (see chapter 12), President Lincoln faced considerable criticism for publicly 325

insisting through the summer of 1862 that the object of the war was simply to save the Union and not to abolish slavery, a position he felt politically pressured to maintain. Frederick Douglass expressed his disapproval of Lincoln’s “slothful deliberation” on the matter, while the Liberator attacked his “halting, shuffling, backward policy.”5 It was only following the Union’s military triumph at Antietam that Lincoln officially acknowledged abolition as a goal by issuing the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862. It decreed that any slaves remaining in rebel states on January 1, 1863, would be freed at that date, and also officially announced that liberated slaves were permitted to join the armed services (see chapter 12). Because Lincoln still had no power to free all slaves inside the United States, this proclamation was limited to abolishing slavery only in disloyal states and not in either loyal border states or occupied regions, yet it nevertheless freed close to four million slaves. William Lloyd Garrison, who could at last support Lincoln unreservedly, reflected on the movement’s progress by pronouncing, “Thirty years ago it was midnight with the anti-slavery cause; now it is the bright noon of day with the sun shining in his meridian splendor.”6 Douglass declared the proclamation to be “the greatest event in our nation’s history.”7 In the following months more than 500,000 Americans signed a petition calling for an amendment to the Constitution that would ensure nationwide abolition.8 Yet it took quite a bit more time—two years and three months after the preliminary proclamation and one year and eleven months after the final proclamation, to be exact—before the Thirteenth Amendment effectively abolished slavery. The amendment was first drafted by Illinois congressman Owen Lovejoy, brother of the martyred abolitionist publisher Elijah P. Lovejoy (see chapter 2), and introduced in December 1863 following pivotal Union victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg. It faced considerable opposition for some time from the Democratic minority that viewed it as a challenge to states’ rights, and did not pass until January 1865 after significant persuasion from the Lincoln administration. Following its ratification by the required number of states, 27 of the 36, it became part of the Constitution on December 6, 1865. That same month, Garrison published the final issue of the Liberator, announcing that because the publication’s purpose had finally been “gloriously consummated, it seems to me specially appropriate to let its existence cover the historic period of the great struggle.”9 Regardless of their particular focus, most of the poems in this collection were of course generally intended to mobilize public opinion in support of emancipation. Starting in the 1830s, the poets represented in this chapter more specifically advocate for this end, and also comment on the viability of colo326 p Lyrical Liberators

nization. Once the Emancipation Proclamation was finally issued a full thirty years later, they not surprisingly find reason to celebrate an outcome they had been pursuing for an entire generation. They either applaud President Lincoln or depict slaves eagerly anticipating their liberation. Following the culmination of their efforts with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, they become frankly triumphant in their commemorations of Lincoln and their portrayals of the celebrations of former slaves. From the very start in the pages of the Liberator, Garrison was frank about his intent to rally support for absolute and immediate emancipation. A poem he contributed to the inaugural issue of January 1831 promotes this objective by comparing the eradication of slavery to the deposition of a monstrous king. The parallel Garrison draws between the fight for abolition and the struggle for independence thus calls attention to the patriotic intent of both. His alarmist tone is unquestionably intended to rouse the sentiments of a populace that had overthrown its own bondage to a colonial power in the not too distant past. He confidently anticipates the future liberation of slaves, alluding to the figure of the phoenix that rose from its own ashes much as he believes slaves will rise from their bondage to freedom. Yet his hope is that their emancipation will be achieved without resorting to warfare, which he presciently fears would have dire consequences. The poem thus reflects Garrison’s personal belief that the North should simply part ways with the South—as promoted by his paper’s motto, “No Union with Slaveholders”—in order to prevent being dragged into war. On a different note, the poem by Martin Cross addresses colonization from the perspective of a freedman who resists emigrating from what is essentially his native land. This speaker advocates instead for the emancipation he believes his people deserve, since they have suffered so much at the hands of their country, or “borne its stripes of crimson hue,” that they should therefore also be entitled to “share its stars’ proud glory too.” Poets rallied to support Lincoln once he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. S. B. Gookins, a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives and justice of the Indiana Supreme Court, explains “How Mr. Lincoln Became an Abolitionist” through a humorous parable that amounts to a Republican defense of the proclamation’s constitutionality, which had been questioned by the so-called Peace Democrats in Congress (see chapter 8). His extended allegory portrays Lincoln as the “woodman” who built the “house” of the nation, as the president himself famously referred to it in his “House Divided” speech of 1858.10 This house is being robbed by a “burglar” who relies on a “ladder” to break in, referring respectively to the supporters of slavery who are threatening the nation and to their reliance on arguments that Emancipation, the Proclamation, and the Thirteenth Amendment p 327

defended slave ownership as property. The inhabitants of the house, or the country’s politicians, are shown discussing the various possible ways of reacting to the burglary, corresponding to their legislative deliberations on the matter of slavery. The first option—smashing the so-called ladder, or destroying slavery—proves impossible due to the thief’s constitutional rights to the ladder as property. The second option—paying for this ladder, or offering compensation for liberated slaves—is rejected as an objectionable tax by someone who is referred to as “V.,” standing for the leader of the Peace Democrats, Clement Laird Vallandigham, who consistently challenged Lincoln’s policies. Ultimately, the burglar is warned to obey the law within a specified time or face retaliation, in parallel to the proclamation’s call for slaves to be liberated by a certain date. Yet because he disregards this warning, the woodman has no alternative but to join forces with the “fanatics,” or abolitionists, and move forward with the threatened response, or the plan culminating in emancipation, which leads to protestations from “burglars” across the country. The poem thus suggests not only that Lincoln’s opponents resemble disreputable thiefs but also that there is no merit to their grievances concerning emancipation since they were sufficiently forewarned about this outcome. Earl Marble’s poem “‘I Will Never Retract’” is inspired by Lincoln’s own resolute language to applaud his steadfast commitment to the proclamation despite strong political opposition and discouraging war losses. Its speaker calls on Americans to “stand by him,” notwithstanding their own considerable wartime suffering, and predicts that their gratitude for his leadership will become apparent when he is reelected on November 8, 1864. Published three days later, on November 11, the poem proves him to have been right. The exclamatory style that pervades both of these commentaries on the proclamation underscores just how gratifying it indeed was for antislavery activists. The day after the proclamation took effect, on January 2, 1863, the Liberator published a poem that greets the arrival of freedom by visualizing it reflected in the natural landscape. Its author, Lydia Louisa Ann Very, envisions the sun melting the “ice-ribbed armor” of winter, much the way emancipation is breaking the chains of slavery. A year later, Phebe Ann Hanaford bases her poem on William Tolman Carlton’s 1863 painting commemorating the proclamation, Watch Meeting—Dec. 31. 1862—Waiting for the Hour, which Garrison presented to President Lincoln in 1864 (see plate 12). The picture originally hung in the office where Lincoln signed the proclamation and can still be found in the West Wing of the White House. It depicts a group of African Americans of all ages gathered around one of their elders holding a watch, waiting for the clock to strike midnight on January 1, when the proc328 p Lyrical Liberators

lamation will take effect. Various symbolic elements—the watch, an anchor, a cross, and a torch—accentuate how long they have been waiting for this moment as well as how unflagging their hope has been. The only white characters in the scene are a few women on the sidelines, perhaps in recognition of their substantial contributions to the cause (see chapters 1, 3, and 12). Hanaford acknowledges that although the painting is powerful, neither she nor Carlton can adequately convey the joy former slaves must be feeling now that their anticipation has been fulfilled. Poets frankly celebrate the culmination of their cause with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. Anna Gardner greets its “joyous peal of liberty,” which in a sense fulfills Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s expectation in her poem from 1863 that the ringing of a new Liberty Bell would in time be heard throughout the land (see chapter 12). In this case the jubilant sounds of celebration are echoed not only across America but around the globe. M. A. Cunningham, as well, relies on musical imagery to express his hope that the news of emancipation will be heard all over the world. His speaker enumerates the many times Americans refused to heed either God’s mandates to free their people or abolitionists’ pleas on their behalf before the devastation of war finally compelled the “chastened nation” to listen. One month after Lincoln’s assassination, William Cullen Bryant commemorates the fallen president’s many attributes and comforts a nation in mourning by acknowledging that he died for the righteous cause of freeing the slaves. Most compellingly, the feelings of liberated slaves themselves come through in the anonymous poem written in the black vernacular “The Freedman’s Song,” which once again takes a musical approach that suggests its joyful speaker has broken into song. It portrays liberation as a symbolic outgrowth of all the planting that slaves had done in the past, acknowledging as well how black Americans themselves contributed to the abolitionist struggle through their own wartime service. Their flourishing optimism at this historic moment is reflected in the image of bountiful crops that are growing “higher far dis year” and thus predict a fruitful future for all—except for former slaveholders. Published in May 1865, just a few months after the passage of the amendment, the poem acknowledges that the former slave’s patient waiting has paid off. It expresses his gratefulness to the Northerners who fought on his behalf and recognizes as well how his own master has been left “broken” by the war. Its speaker thus brings closure to the long and arduous pursuit of emancipation through his triumphant declaration of freedom at last.

p Emancipation, the Proclamation, and the Thirteenth Amendment p 329

William Lloyd Garrison, “Universal Emancipation” Liberator (January 1, 1831); Herald of Freedom (August 20, 1841)1

Though distant be the hour, yet come it must— Oh! hasten it, in mercy, righteous Heaven! When Afric’s sons, uprising from the dust, Shall stand erect—their galling fetters riven; When from his throne Oppression shall be driven, An exiled monster, powerless through all time; When freedom—glorious freedom, shall be given To every race, complexion, caste, and clime, And nature’s sable hue shall cease to be a crime! Wo if it come with storm, and blood, and fire, When midnight darkness veils the earth and sky! Wo to the innocent babe—the guilty sire— Mother and daughter—friends of kindred tie! Stranger and citizen alike shall die! Red-handed Slaughter his revenge shall feed, And Havoc yell his ominous death-cry, And wild Despair in vain for mercy plead— While hell itself shall shrink, and sicken at the deed! Thou who avengest blood! long-suffering Lord! My guilty country from destruction save! Let Justice sheathe his sharp and terrible sword, And Mercy rescue, e’en as from the grave! O for the sake of those who firmly brave The lust of power—the tyranny of law— To bring redemption to the perishing slave— Fearless though few—Thy presence ne’er withdraw, But quench the kindling flames of hot, rebellious war! And ye—sad victims of base avarice! Hunted like beasts—and trodden like the earth; Bought and sold daily, at a paltry price— The scorn of tyrants, and of fools the mirth— Your souls debased from their immortal birth! 1. The text included here, from the inaugural issue of the Liberator, is slightly modified and abridged in the Herald of Freedom.

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Bear meekly—as ye’ve borne—your cruel woes; Ease follows pain—light, darkness—plenty, dearth; So time shall give you freedom and repose, And high exalt your heads above your bitter foes! Not by the sword shall your deliverance be; Not by the shedding of your masters’ blood; Not by rebellion—or foul treachery, Upspringing suddenly, like a swelling flood: Revenge and rapine ne’er did bring forth good. God’s time is best!—nor will it long delay: Even now your barren cause begins to bud, And glorious shall the fruit be!—Watch and pray, For, lo! the kindling dawn, that ushers in the day!

Martin Cross, Untitled Colored American (September 30, 1837); Frederick Douglass’ Paper (April 8, 1853)2 Mr. Editor, The following lines are the fruits of my first idle hour’s attempt at rhyming. If you think they contain sufficient poetry to entitle them to publication, you will insert them;—if not, I am sure you can light segars [sic] with them! Yours, &c. MARTIN CROSS . FRIEND DOUGLASS :—As that old colonization scheme has made its appearance in our part of the country, it reminds me of that antiquated song: “Sing a song of sixpence—a bottle full of rye,” &c. And as it has not changed its principles, (if it ever had any,) I send you the following stanzas, composed by me some years ago, on the said theme, in which are embodied the sentiments of every intelligent colored man in the country. Your with much esteem, MARTIN CROSS .

Talk not to me of Colonization, For I’m a freeman of this nation. Then why forsake my native land For Afric’s burning sun and sand? We hereby make our proclamation, 2. The first introduction appears in the Colored American, and the second one much later in Frederick Douglass’ Paper, where this version of the poem appears.

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That we’re opposed to emigration. This is the land which gave us birth— Our fathers’ graves are freedom’s earth. They won the freedom they enjoy, How can you freemen’s rights destroy? We, to a man, determined stand To ne’er forsake our native land. Then away, say we, to Colonization, But give us God-emancipation; Success attend our holy cause— Our motto—“God and righteous laws.” Then, friends of Colonization, give o’er Nor strive to drive us from this shore; For we’re determined to a man, Not to forsake our native land— Where bright Emancipation gleams— Where Freedom’s banner o’er us streams, We’ve borne its stripes of crimson hue, We’ll share its stars’ proud glory too!

L. L. A. V. [Lydia Louisa Ann Very], “President Lincoln’s Proclamation of Emancipation” Liberator (January 2, 1863)

The Voice of Freedom swells the blast— Our country shall at last be free! Stand out in summer warmth, ye hills! Earth, ’neath her ice-ribbed armor, thrills To welcome Liberty! No more her cotton fields shall blow, To mock the slave’s long patient toil, Bursting with wealth he ne’er may know— Nor unpaid hands the rice-plant grow Within the dank, unhealthy soil. No more the sugar-cane shall wave Derisively upon the field, Where ceaseless work dug many a grave; No pitying hand stretched forth to save— No thought, except how large the yield. 332 p Lyrical Liberators

No more the mother with a kiss Her babe to other hands shall give, Fearful her ’customed task to miss, Urged onward by the whip’s fierce hiss; Living to delve, delving to live. No more shall piercing wails be heard Where sundered are the holiest ties, And miscalled Christians stand around, Bidding as though ’twere horse or hound, With stony hearts and tearless eyes. Shine forth, O Sun, with summer gleams, While winter rules the lakes and hills! In frozen hearts the pent up streams Have caught the warmth of Freedom’s beams, And Life with new-found vigor thrills! Shine down, O Moon, upon our land! Henceforth your rays behold no slave! No cow’ring forms despair unmanned; Erect and free, thank God, they stand, Finding new hope this side the grave. The Voice of Freedom swells the blast— Our country shall at last be free! The sport of foreign foes no more, Proudly her Eagle learns to soar, Looks on the sun as ne’er before, The Sun of Liberty!

S. B. Gookins, “How Mr. Lincoln Became an Abolitionist” National Anti-Slavery Standard (June 6, 1863)

The woodman one night was roused by a clatter, Each one in the house crying, “Ho! what’s the matter?” All jumped out of bed and ran hither and thither, Scarce knowing amid their alarm why or whither; But soon it was found mid the tumult and din That burglars were making attempts to break in. And now there arose o’er the turmoil and noise Emancipation, the Proclamation, and the Thirteenth Amendment p 333

The woodman’s loud summons addressed to “the boys.” “The boys” quickly came, and on looking around, At one of the windows a ladder was found, And on it a burglar, who, plying his trade, A burglarious opening already had made. Now the woodman, though making this nocturnal sortie All armed and equipped, at the rate of “two-forty,”3 Called a halt, and proposed, before firing a gun, To question with care what had better be done. Forthwith he assembled a council of war, To gravely consider how fast and how far In a case of this kind it was lawful to go. Some said, “Smash the ladder,” but others said, “No, There were many objections to that, and the chief Was the constitutional rights of the thief; That the ladder was property all men agreed, And as such was protected, secured, guaranteed; And if ’twas destroyed, our greatest of laws Could not be upheld and maintained ‘as it was.’” But others replied, “That ladder’s the chief Supporter, as all men may see, of the thief; Let’s aim at the ladder, and if it should fall, Let the burglar fall with it, or hang by the wall As well as he can; and by the same token, Whose fault will it be if his neck should be broken?” To which it was answered, “That ladder may be The chattel of some honest man, d’ye see.” “Well, then, we will pay for’t.” “No, never!” says V.,4 “To be taxed for that ladder I’ll never agree; You have brought on this fuss,” said V., mad and still madder; “You always intended to break the man’s ladder; You have been for a long time the people deceiving With false and pretended objections to thieving; You never desired to have robbing abolished; You only have sought to have ladders demolished.” “Pray, hold!” said another, “perhaps, while we’re trifling 3. Colloquial reference to a high speed, having been a trotting record of a mile in two minutes and forty seconds. 4. Clement Laird Vallandigham, a leading Peace Democrat who challenged President Lincoln’s policies.

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About this old ladder, the thief will be rifling The house of its contents, or, venturing further, May set it on fire—the children may murder.” “Can’t help it,” says V.; “though he murder to-day, Who knows but to-morrow the murderer may Repent and reform; then who shall restore The ladder all perfect and sound as before? But whether or no, I can never consent That the thief and the ladder should make a descent, Which haply might hurt a burglarious brother, Or totally wreck and demolish the other.” The woodman bade “Silence!” He cried out, “Ho! list!” Then called on the burglar his work to desist, And made proclamation throughout all the town That if in a specified time he came down And gave a firm pledge of obeying the laws, He might keep his old ladder all safe “as it was”; But if he pursued his felonious intent Beyond the time given, he’d cause to be sent ’Mid the conflict of arms and the cannon’s loud thunder, A missile to knock his old ladder from under. Then pausing to see the effect of his speech, He saw nought but the thief still at work at the breach; And, being opposed to thieves visiting attics, Combined with those vile anti-ladder fanatics,5 And sent a projectile which left the thief where Thieves and traitors should all be, suspended in air, Except that he lacked what was due to his calling, A hempen attachment to keep him from falling. Then burglars, and thieves, and traitors, and all Their friends sympathetic forthwith ’gan to bawl, “We’re ruined! we’re ruined! To what a condition The country is brought by this man’s abolition!” And echo replied: “Oh! dreadful condition! Abolition—bolition—bolition—abolition!”



5. Antislavery activists were often referred to as “fanatics” by their opponents.

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Mrs. P. A. [Phebe Ann] Hanaford, “Waiting for the Hour” National Anti-Slavery Standard (August 20, 1864); Liberator (September 16, 1864)6 [Suggested by W. J. Carleton’s [sic—William Tolman Carlton] picture, entitled “Waiting for the Hour,” representing slaves waiting for the time to come when the President’s Emancipation Proclamation should be in force.]

They wait! Long, weary years have passed, And Liberty seemed far; Lo! bright upon their future path Now beams the Polar Star.7 God from on high His ear hath bowed, His the Redeemer’s power, With rev’rent joy and holy hope They’re “waiting for the hour.” That hour! the bell of Liberty May ring it out with joy, When midnight stars shall sound it forth In th’ belfries of the sky.* The hour of Freedom! well may he Who holds Time’s measure there, Intently on the hour-hand gaze, Still “watching unto prayer.” Long had his voice proclaimed the hope The symbol-anchor tells,† And yet, he listens, half afraid To hear the chiming bells Which tell that Freedom’s hour hath dawned, The long, sad night is o’er, The chains and fetters, woe and sin Of slavery are no more. Shout, friends of Liberty, aloud! Shout with a mighty tone! Sing, angels in the upper world, 6. Introduction appears in the National Anti-Slavery Standard. 7. The North Star, a symbol of liberty that illuminated the path to freedom in the Northern states for fugitive slaves.

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A song of Freedom’s own! Now stripes and bondage are exchanged For peace and quiet homes, Where no slave-driver’s voice is heard, And never bloodhound comes. Oh, artist! on whose canvas glows This picture grand and high, Hast thou not won by work like this The “Well Done” of the sky? And yet no pen can write the hopes, No pencil paint the joy, In all its fullness, which they know To whom this hour was nigh. They wait! yet while we look, the hour Comes with its blissful freight; Fling out the Stars and Stripes, a sign They may no longer wait. Shout Lincoln’s name, with blissful tears, Pray for him, day by day, And, through all coming time, look back With joy to “Sixty-three.”8 * Everett’s Oration on “The Uses of Astronomy.”9 † The watch-key was in form of an anchor.

Earl Marble, “‘I Will Never Retract’” Liberator (November 11, 1864) “They may defeat us; but, if we fall, we will fall with our principles. I will never retract my Proclamation of Emancipation.”—President Lincoln.10

“I will never retract!” tho’ the light through the gloom From the battle-field fainter and fainter comes stealing; 8. The preliminary Emancipation Proclamation decreed that any slaves remaining in rebel states would be freed on January 1, 1863. 9. Edward Everett delivered this oration in Albany, New York, on July 28, 1856. 10. From President Lincoln’s message to Congress on December 8, 1863. He repeated the same declaration a year later prior to the presidential election. See Liberator, June 16, 1865.

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Though the rifle’s shrill whistle and cannon’s dull boom Are succeeded by only the dread crack of doom, And the world in its frenzy and madness is reeling. Though the black hosts of ill may my sceptre lay low, For the treacherous one there are faithful eleven;11 And I ne’er will add aught to his full page of woe, To the poor praying slave giving back a cold “No!” For ye always shall reap whatsoever ye sow, Is the mandate that comes from the throne of high heaven. “I will never retract!” He himself is a host, In his manhood the cohorts of evil defying: Then stand by him, ye freemen, and give as a toast, “The proud land of our fathers, of freemen the boast, And the undaunted hero with faith e’er undying.” Stand by him, ye slaves, having free papers sealed With the best, noblest blood of the suffering nation; Stand by him, ye heroes of crimson-dyed field, Who stood up erect as the dread cannon peeled, And never e’en blanched till in anguish ye kneeled, And prayed ’gainst Chicago’s proposed separation.12 “I will never retract!” ’Tis a maxim as proud As ever was uttered by dust-embalmed hero. “I will never retract!” Go and cry it aloud, Till the traitors in sackcloth and ashes have bowed, Who cluster in fear around Richmond’s great Nero!13 “Uncle Abe,” (the title is hallowed and dear,) We ask you, in view of these words, to remember, Though the eye be a-dim with the bitterest tear, And the heart reaches forth o’er a yet open bier, That the hand with a ballot will thank you, as ne’er Was a man thanked before, on the eighth of November!

11. Among the twelve disciples, Judas was the only one who betrayed Christ. 12. The Democratic Party Convention held in Chicago in August 1864 proposed a negotiated peace with the South. 13. Confederate president Jefferson Davis, who is equated with the famously corrupt Roman emperor.

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A. G. [Anna Gardner], “On the Passage of the Constitutional Amendment” National Anti-Slavery Standard (March 25, 1865)

To-day God smiles upon our cause; The Nation’s heart beats high! To-day the Heaven-defying laws (Long cursed) of slavery, Are blotted from our Nation’s page By Freedom’s royal hand, While grateful, throbbing hearts presage Peace to our war-worn land. The shackles from four million slaves Fall, broken, to the ground! Our starry banner proudly waves, Our bells exultant sound! From town to town, from sea to sea, By loyal breezes fanned! The joyous peal of liberty Rings out through all the land. The Freedman, kneeling on the soil Bedewed with the tears and blood, Wrung out by unrequited toil, Breaks forth in praise to God! His long, long life of agony, And concentrated wrong, Exchanged for rapt’rous Liberty! Oh! raise the grateful song! Thank God! our country now is free! Redeemed from Slavery’s blight! Ring out, O joy bells, merrily! Ring in an age of light! From North to South, from East to West, Swell high the loud acclaim! Dark Slavery’s curse no more shall rest Upon our Nation’s fame!

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Triumphant let the shout be heard, “Freedom for coming years!” While distant Nations catch the words, And echo back our cheers!

M. A. Cunningham, “Our Nation’s Free” National Anti-Slavery Standard (April 15, 1865) Written on the adoption by Congress, Jan. 31, 1865, of the Amendment to the Constitution, Abolishing and Forever Prohibiting Slavery.

Our nation’s free! our nation’s free! All hail! the land of liberty! Loud swell the trump that sounds its fame, No longer now an empty name; Far let the joyful tidings spread, Where’er the feet of man can tread. Waft it, ye breezes, o’er the sea, And tell the world our nation’s free. Our nation’s free! our nation’s free! Proclaim the glorious jubilee! Sublimely let its echo roll, And thrill with music to the soul. The oppressor’s power at last is broke, And millions, freed from slavery’s yoke, Their thankful hearts and voices raise, To speak their great Deliverer’s praise. Our nation’s free! our nation’s free! How bright its future destiny! Within its bounds no clanking chain Shall bind the human form again. The husband now may claim his wife, The faithful partner of his life. The mother now her babe may nurse, Nor see it doom’d by slavery’s curse. Our nation’s free! our nation’s free! To gain his rightful liberty, 340 p Lyrical Liberators

The panting fugitive no more Shall strive to reach a foreign shore. The laws, to bind him once employed, Forever now “made null and void,” Are like the withes by Samson worn Before his mystic locks were shorn.14 Our nation’s free! our nation’s free! To God let all the glory be. He said, “Let ye my people go”; But the proud nation answered, No. The ministers of truth and love Ignored the message from above, And knowingly refused to teach What Jesus came from heaven to preach. Whene’er a human voice was found To plead for those in slavery bound, Whate’er his rank, his very name Was loaded with contempt and shame. Thus by self-seeking minions led, Through Church and State corruption spread. Yet did the sovereign Lord maintain His unacknowledged right to reign. He blest the land with peace and health, And filled its ample stores with wealth, And said, “Let ye my people go.” The thankless nation answered, No. By scorching heat, and blighting frost, The precious fruits of earth were lost. He said, “Let ye my people go.” The murmuring nation answered, No. Again, he raised his chastening hand; Disease and death swept o’er the land, And said, “Let ye my people go.” The sullen nation answered, No. The trump of war began to sound, The cannon’s thunder roared around, 14. Delilah attempted to bind Samson with withes in his sleep, and later ordered a servant to cut off his hair, leading to the loss of his legendary strength. See Judges 13–16.

Emancipation, the Proclamation, and the Thirteenth Amendment p 341

And said, “Let ye my people go.” The stubborn nation answered, No. In widows’ tears and orphans’ cries, In famished prisoners’ dying sighs, In tones of grief, and blood, and woe, He said, “Let ye my people go.” At length, the chastened nation heard The sovereign mandate of his word, And bowed its will to his decree; And now we sing, our nation’s free!

William Cullen Bryant, “Abraham Lincoln” National Anti-Slavery Standard (May 6, 1865)

Oh, slow to smite and swift to spare, Gentle and merciful and just! Who, in the fear of God, didst bear The sword of power, a nation’s trust! In sorrow by thy bier we stand, Amid the awe that hushes all, And speak the anguish of a land That shook with horror at thy fall. Thy task is done; the bond are free; We bear thee to an honored grave, Whose proudest monument shall be The broken fetters of the slave. Pure was thy life; its bloody close Hath placed thee with the sons of light, Among the noble host of those Who perished in the cause of Right.

342 p Lyrical Liberators

Anonymous, “The Freedman’s Song” National Anti-Slavery Standard (July 1, 1865)

De Lord, He makes us free indeed In His own time an’ way; We plant de rice an’ cotton seed, An’ see de sprout some day! We know it come, but not de why— De Lord know more dan we; We ’spected freedom by-an’-by, An’ now we all are free. Praise de Lord! Praise de Lord! For now we all are free. De Norf is on the side of right, An’ full of men, dey say; An’ dere, when poor man work, at night He sure to get his pay; De Lord, He glad dey are so good, An’ make dem bery strong; An’ when dey called to give deir blood Dey all come right along. Praise de Lord! Praise de Lord! Dey all come right along. Deir blue coats cover all de groun’, An’ make it like de sky; An’ every grayback loafin roun’ He tink it time to fly; We not afraid; we bring de child An’ stan’ beside de door, An’ oh! we hug it bery wild, An’ keep it ebermore. Praise de Lord! Praise de Lord! We keep it ebermore. De mas’er’s come back from his tramp, ’Pears he is broken quite; He takes de basket to de camp For rations ebery night; Dey fought him when he loud and strong, Emancipation, the Proclamation, and the Thirteenth Amendment p 343

Dey fed him when he low, Dey say dey will forgive de wrong An’ bid him ’pent an’ go. Praise de Lord! Praise de Lord! Dey bid him ’pent an’ go. De rice is higher far dis year, De cotton taller grow; De lowest corn-silk on de ear Is higher than de hoe; De Lord He lift up eberything ’Cept rebel in his grave; De negro bress de Lord an’ sing He is no longer slave. Praise de Lord! Praise de Lord! De negro no more slave.

344 p Lyrical Liberators

Notes Introduction 1. William Lloyd Garrison, “To the Public,” Liberator (January 1, 1831); John Greenleaf Whittier, letter to Joseph Sturge, January 7, 1851, Anti-Slavery Reporter (February 1, 1851). 2. Ralph Waldo Emerson remarked that so many abolitionist speakers appeared in Concord, Massachusetts, in the course of the 1830s that it seemed “every third man lectures on Slavery” (Gougeon, “Abolition,” 353). Whittier’s poems in particular circulated throughout all sorts of media: in newspapers and broadsides, in the recitations of orators and schoolchildren, in musical form, and in memorials presented to state legislators. For more on the widespread impact of Whittier’s work, see Pickard. 3. Stewart, 70–71. 4. Beecher, 36. Garrison openly acknowledged what he perceived to be the suppression of freedom of the press: “And what has brought our country to the verge of ruin. . . . THE ACCURSED SYSTEM OF SLAVERY ! To sustain that system, there is a general willingness to destroy LIBERTY OF SPEECH and of the PRESS , and to mob or murder all who oppose it” (“The Reign of Terror,” Liberator, August 15, 1835). 5. Thomas, 190. 6. Lydia Maria Francis Child, “To the Readers of the Standard,” National Anti-Slavery Standard (May 20, 1841). For a discussion of Child’s recognitions of the commonalities between the conditions of women and slaves, see Yellin, 53–76. 7. William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp, “Prospectus of the Liberator, Volume VI,” Liberator (December 12, 1835); Nord, 103. 8. Satelmajer, 200. 9. Barrett, 2–4. 10. Michael Bennett, 15. 11. Dobson, 272, 284. 12. Tompkins, 210. For more on the significance of sentimental literature see Merish; De Jong and Bennett; and Paula Bernat Bennett, “Not Just Filler.” 13. Garrison believed reform would be accomplished primarily by influencing public opinion, writing, “Let us aim to abolitionize the consciences and hearts of the people and we may trust them at the ballot-box, or anywhere else” (“Advocate of Freedom,” Liberator, March 13, 1840). 14. Pickard, 106. 15. With respect to his collaborators, Garrison himself observed, “Are they not all branded as fanatics, disorganizers and madmen?” (Thomas, 186). He seemingly took pride

345

in reprinting the virulent attacks published by his critics, as evidence of the challenges he was determined to defy. One typical remark reprinted from the Boston Recorder claims, “His insanity is really growing contagious, and fanatics are multiplying on every side!,” while another from the Boston Catholic Observer asks, “Who has not heard of his antisabbath, anti-church, anti-state abolitionist ranting?” (“Hear! Hear!!,” Liberator, October 15, 1831, and “Father Mathew,” Liberator, August 24, 1849). 16. Pickard, 106. 17. Whittier, introduction to Complete Poetical Works, xxi. For further critical responses to Whittier, see Kribbs. 18. See Whittier’s Poems Written during the Progress of the Abolition Question in the United States, between 1830–1838 (1838), Voices of Freedom (1846), and In War Time, and Other Poems (1864). 19. Whittier, “The Sentence of John L. Brown,” in Complete Poetical Works, 289. 20. Tebbel and Zuckerman, 41. 21. The Quakers were among the first to point out slavery’s incompatibility with Christianity: a Mennonite group in Pennsylvania issued the earliest condemnation on record, now known as the “German-town Protest,” in 1688; Gerbner argues that this protest was seminal to American abolitionism. For a broader discussion of the abolitionist movement’s debts to, and critiques of, evangelical Protestantism, see Walters, 37–53. 22. Stewart, 64, 205. 23. Thomas, 190, 200. 24. Stewart, 72. 25. Garrison, “To the Public,” Liberator (January 1, 1831). 26. Garrison, “Riot in New-York,” Liberator (October 12, 1833). 27. For a detailed description of the episode, see Thomas, 387. 28. Stewart, 72–73. 29. Fogel, 273. 30. By 1838, the AASS had collected over 400,000 signatures in its petitions to Congress and reached a membership of 100,000, which doubled to 200,000 by 1840 (Walters, 4; Fogel, 271). See Clytus for more on the society’s reliance on pictorial depictions of slavery to sway readers in the course of its 1835 campaign. 31. Thomas, 187. 32. “Refuge of Oppression,” Liberator (February 15, 1839). 33. Prior to starting the Liberator, Garrison contributed to the Newburyport weekly Free Press, the Boston weekly National Philanthropist, the Bennington, Vermont, weekly Journal of the Times, and the influential Baltimore weekly (also issued in a monthly edition) Genius of Universal Emancipation published by Quaker abolitionist Benjamin Lundy. 34. Nord, 103. 35. Garrison, “The Constitution—Political Action. No. II.,” Liberator (April 24, 1846). 36. Michael Bennett, 43; Thomas, 131. 37. Garrison, “To the Public,” Liberator (January 1, 1831). 38. Thomas, 136–38. 39. See Fauchald, 55–56; Sherman, 17; and Fogel, 272. Garrison’s own account of the episode, which he refers to as a “Triumph of Mobocracy in Boston,” appears in the November 7, 1835, issue of the Liberator. 40. Lord notes that Child’s abolitionism lost her the editorship of the children’s magazine Juvenile Miscellany as well as her library privileges at the Boston Athenaeum.

346 p Notes to Pages 4–11

For more on Child’s career see Fiesta; Karcher; Levy; Mills; Yellin; and Yellin and Van Horne. 41. Fogel, 273. 42. Watts, 12. 43. Anti-Slavery Bugle (June 20, 1845). 44. Thoreau, “Herald of Freedom,” 508. See Glick for an analysis of Thoreau’s involvement with the Herald of Freedom. 45. Herald of Freedom (May 10, 1844). 46. Frederick Douglass’ Paper (June 26, 1851). For a detailed discussion of Douglass’s changing views on abolition, see Peter F. Walker, 207–62. 47. Douglass, Life and Times, 324. 48. “Our Paper and Its Prospects,” North Star (December 3, 1847). 49. Ferrell, 82. 50. Mott, 2:131. 51. Michael Bennett, 11. 52. See Irmscher and Arbour—which includes my own essay concerning the cultural importance of Longfellow’s sentimentalization of death—for a recent reconsideration of the poet’s significant contributions to nineteenth-century American discourse. 53. See Frances Smith Foster, “African Americans,” 24. 54. See King for a discussion of the many challenges encountered by free black women at this time. 55. Michael Bennett, 48. 56. Leonard, 172. 57. Peterson, 124. 58. McGill, 67. See also Barrett, and Frances Smith Foster, Written by Herself and Brighter Coming Day. 59. George Moses Horton was personally involved in the Civil War in his later years. In the spring of 1865, at the age of sixty-eight, he fled for safety to the Union army’s 9th Michigan Cavalry Volunteers as they made their way through Raleigh, North Carolina. The regiment’s Captain William H. S. Banks helped publish Horton’s final collection, Naked Genius, in Philadelphia later that year (Sherman, 29). 60. Sherman, 43. 61. See Richmond. 62. Yellin, 74; Walters, 105. Yellin focuses her discussion on the image of a kneeling female slave printed under the legend “Woman and Sister” which was circulated in antislavery publications published by women in the 1830s and ’40s. The image was first selected in 1826 by the Ladies Negro’s Friend Society in Birmingham, England, and then reproduced in America by Benjamin Lundy in the May 1830 issue of The Genius of Universal Emancipation facing “The Ladies’ Repository,” a feature targeting female readers. Garrison later incorporated the image as a stock heading above the “Ladies’ Department” in the Liberator, and Lydia Maria Child used it as the frontispiece to her Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans (1833). 63. Finkelman and Miller, 963. For more concerning women’s participation in abolitionism, see Moody, Yellin and Horne, and Lutz. 64. Stewart, 183. 65. Michael Bennett, 44.

Notes to Pages 11–17 p 347

Chapter 1: Calls for Actions 1. “Anniversary of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society,” Liberator (November 19, 1836). 2. Pierpont believed it was “his duty to disregard those portions of the Constitution which he considered contrary to Christian morality. . . . The fact that the highest law of the land violated a ‘divine law’ prompted him to assume his radical stand: ‘I am bound to transgress that Constitution’” (Ravitz, 196). 3. Yellin treats the episode at Pennsylvania Hall as a manifestation of social opposition to women’s participation in the political sphere (65). 4. Michael Bennett, 54.

Chapter 2: The Murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy 1. See Elijah P. Lovejoy, “Awful Murder and Savage Barbarity,” St. Louis Observer (May 5, 1836). 2. See Abraham Lincoln, “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions. An Address Delivered before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois. January 27, 1838,” Sangamon Journal (February 3, 1838). 3. Gougeon, “Emerson’s Abolition Conversion,” 172. 4. Gougeon, “Abolition,” 362.

Chapter 3: Fugitive Slaves 1. Finkelman and Miller estimate that this census figure is probably low (909). 2. For more on the historical context and repercussions of the Compromise of 1850, see Finkelman, “Appeasement.” See also Potter for an overview of events during the period from 1848 to 1861. 3. Campbell, 207. 4. Fogel, 342. 5. See Siebert’s seminal 1898 text for one of the earliest published histories of the Underground Railroad, based mostly on the recollections of surviving white participants. In Gateway to Freedom, Foner has recently revised Siebert’s claim that thousands of white activists participated in the network to argue that this number was merely in the hundreds. Black abolitionist William Still in 1872 issued his own account of helping more than six hundred fugitives. Most recently, Schulz addresses how problematic it is to focus on the Underground Railroad since she argues it was perhaps the least popular method for slaves seeking liberty, who mostly either purchased their own freedom, earned legal judgments in their favor by claiming to have a white mother, or escaped to Spanish Florida, Mexico, or the Caribbean (72). See also Bordewich, and Blight. 6. William Oland Bourne, “The Self-Freed,” Frederick Douglass’ Paper (October 16, 1851). 7. See Douglass, Narrative, 121. 8. Barrett, 123. 9. Barrett, 124. 10. Murphy, xviii.

348 p Notes to Pages 18–52

Chapter 4: The Assault on Senator Charles Sumner 1. Rodriguez, 810. See Etcheson for a historical overview of the “Bleeding Kansas” crisis. 2. New-York Tribune (May 23, 1856); Boston Daily Atlas (May 24, 1856). Hoffer considers the assault on Sumner as an important harbinger of the Civil War. See also Donald for a definitive biography of the senator. 3. Barrett, 122. 4. McGill, 66.

Chapter 5: John Brown and the Raid on Harpers Ferry 1. Thomas, 397. 2. See McGlone for a recent reconsideration of John Brown’s motives, martyrdom, and influence. 3. See John Brown. 4. Finkelman, “Martyrdom,” 46. 5. John Brown to Jeremiah Brown, November 12, 1859 (Ruchames, Brown, 142); Garrison, “To an Unknown Correspondent,” December 18, 1859 (Ruchames, Garrison, 4:664–65). 6. Walters, 31. 7. Excerpts from Emerson’s lecture entitled “Courage,” which he delivered at Tremont Temple in Boston on November 8, 1859, were published in the Liberator as “Emerson on Courage” on November 18, 1859. See Melville, “The Portent,” and Thoreau, “A Plea for Captain John Brown.” 8. Paula Bernat Bennett, Poets, 49. 9. Pelletier, 154–55. 10. The Correspondence between Lydia Maria Child and Governor Wise and Mrs. Mason, of Virginia, which was published as a pamphlet by the American Anti-Slavery Society, became a veritable bestseller when it sold three hundred thousand copies (Yellin, 62–64). 11. Finkelman, “Martyrdom,” 50–52. Most scholars agree that the supposed incident, which was first related in the New-York Tribune (December 5, 1859), simply could not have taken place since Brown was guarded by fifteen hundred troops and all civilians had been ordered to remain at home, which meant that his execution could only have been witnessed by soldiers or people with official approval. 12. Finkelman, “Martyrdom,” 59. 13. Finkelman, “Martyrdom,” 60.

Chapter 6: Slaves and Death 1. Sánchez-Eppler, 20; Rohrbach, 727. 2. Sherman notes that there were various campaigns to free Horton during his lifetime, conducted primarily through periodicals from his home state of North Carolina. 3. This argument also appeared in the introduction to the 1838 edition of Horton’s The Hope of Liberty, which was issued in Boston by Liberator publisher Isaac Knapp (Sherman, 15). 4. Patterson argues that slavery constituted a kind of “social death” (63).

Notes to Pages 108–137 p 349

5. A similar case occurred in 1781 on the slave ship Zong, whose officers threw slaves overboard in order to recover their insured value rather than incur the unrecoverable loss of the many deaths they anticipated from the lack of food and water on board (Finkelman and Miller, 586). 6. Pickard is exceedingly critical of Whittier’s “The Slave Ships,” which he claims is “rife with cliché and hampered by the rhetorical pattern. . . . Whittier editorializes, telling the reader that the scene is a ‘hell’ and filled with ‘horror.’ . . . Basically the appeal remains on a crude level of propaganda where the issue is starkly presented in terms of good and evil and where stereotyped images elicit desired emotional responses” (106). This critique exemplifies twentieth-century resistance to sentimentalism; for contemporary readers, who did specifically seek out didactic guidance from their authors, the poem would almost certainly have been emotionally compelling.

Chapter 7: Slave Mothers 1. Michael Bennett, 51. 2. See note 62 to the introduction for the history of this image. 3. See Taylor for a recent account of the Margaret Garner case, and Coffin for a contemporary firsthand account of the episode. 4. See Genesis 4:10, which in the King James Bible states: “And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.” 5. See Genesis 4:11–16: “And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand; When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me. And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.” See Priest for a contemporary example of reliance on this interpretation to justify slavery.

Chapter 8: The South 1. Thomas, 187, 401. 2. See Potter, 163. 3. Walters, 111, 148. See Cummins for a discussion of the Southern perspective which objected to abolitionism as a worse evil than slavery itself. 4. Finkelman and Miller, 297. 5. Johnson, 138. 6. Senator Henry Clay from Kentucky proposed in a speech to the Senate on February 7, 1839, that slave owners should be compensated twelve hundred million dollars in the event of emancipation. See Clay, 2:368. 7. Walters, 111. 8. The New York City draft riots left over a hundred people dead and three hundred more wounded, many of them African Americans; it ended up costing the city up to five million dollars in damages (Rodriguez, 296).

350 p Notes to Pages 138–175

Chapter 9: Equality 1. Walters, 57. 2. De Jong and Bennett, 5. 3. Thomas, 431. 4. Yellin, 8. 5. Ryan, 63.

Chapter 10: Freedom 1. Walters, 137. 2. Sherman points out that George Moses Horton consistently supported the “idea of natural rights,” for instance by claiming in an address to students at the University of North Carolina, “I know that liberty is undoubtedly the birth right which heaven has conferred upon the world of mankind” (28). 3. Thomas, 407. 4. Finkelman and Miller, 56. See Jones for more on the Amistad case. 5. Members of the Ku Klux Klan would later adopt the practice of cross-burning for decidedly different aims. 6. Barrett, 226, 239. 7. Cobbs, 449. 8. Frances Smith Foster, Brighter, 31.

Chapter 11: Atonement 1. “Letters from Georgia—No. 3,” Liberator (November 12, 1831). 2. “Picture of the American Nation in 1835,” Liberator (November 14, 1835). 3. Woodwell, 254. 4. Thomas, 5. 5. Fogel, 264–65. 6. Walters, 18. 7. See, for instance, Michael Wigglesworth’s The Day of Doom (1662). Ralph Waldo Emerson himself, whom the Boston Advertiser referred to as a “decided abolitionist” in 1854, wrote in his journal, “The fury with which the slaveholder and the slave-trader defend every inch of their plunder, of their bloody deck and howling auction, only serves as a Trump of Doom to alarum the ear of mankind, to wake the sleepers and drag all neutrals to take sides and listen to the argument which justice shall finally pronounce” (Moody, 16; Emerson, Journals, 4:374). 8. William Lloyd Garrison, “To the Public,” Liberator (January 1, 1831). 9. Pelletier, 156. 10. Japp, 337; William Jay, “Judge Jay’s Examination of Mr. Alvan Stewart’s Constitutional Arguments,” Emancipator (May 31, 1838). 11. Sherman, 18. 12. Finkelman, “Martyrdom,” 52. 13. William L. Chaplin had previously been involved in the largest—albeit unsuccessful—nonviolent escape attempt known to have occurred, which involved more than seventy slaves boarding the schooner Pearl in Washington, D.C., with the intent to sail to the free state of New Jersey on April 15, 1848.

Notes to Pages 213–254 p 351

Chapter 12: Wartime 1. See McPherson for a comprehensive historical account of the Civil War. 2. Thomas, 406. 3. “A North at Last!,” National Anti-Slavery Standard (April 27, 1861). 4. Fogel, 386. 5. Venet, 112. 6. Richards, 149. 7. Walters, xvi. 8. Barrett, 3. 9. “General Fremont,” National Anti-Slavery Standard (September 28, 1861). 10. Bryant’s personal conviction in this regard was apparent well before the war: as editor of the New York Evening Post he severed the paper’s connection to the Democratic Party in opposition to its passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, and he backed the fledgling Republican Party as early as 1856. 11. Finkelman and Miller, 197–98. 12. Cornish, xiii. Cornish offers a comprehensive overview of the movement to arm black soldiers, and their ensuing contributions to the Union army. 13. Finkelman and Miller, 259. Egerton notes that although the assault on Fort Wagner has traditionally been understood as the culmination of the regiment’s career, most of its members fought on through the end of the war, and some later pursued careers in Southern state assemblies (8). For more on Shaw, see Duncan’s biography and edited collection of his letters. 14. Barrett, 12. 15. Boorstin, 380.

Chapter 13: Emancipation, the Proclamation, and the Thirteenth Amendment 1. Pitts proposes that black poet George Moses Horton may have emigrated to Liberia following his move to Philadelphia after his emancipation from slavery in his home state of North Carolina at the end of the Civil War. 2. See David Walker’s Appeal for one of the first published attacks on colonization. 3. F. [Frances] E. [Ellen] W. [Watkins] Harper, “Mrs. Frances E. Watkins Harper on the War and the President’s Colonization Scheme,” Christian Recorder (September 27, 1862); Sinha, 184. 4. See Foner, “Lincoln and Colonization.” 5. “Emancipation Proclaimed,” Douglass’ Monthly (October 1862); “President Lincoln’s Veto of Gen. Hunter’s Emancipation Order,” Liberator (May 23, 1862). 6. “Speech of William Lloyd Garrison, Delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, in Music Hall, Jan. 30,” Liberator (February 6, 1863). 7. Stewart, 191. 8. Michael Bennett, 43. 9. William Lloyd Garrison, “Valedictory,” Liberator (December 29, 1865). 10. Lincoln delivered his “House Divided” speech on June 16, 1858, upon his acceptance of the Republican Party’s nomination for senator representing the state of Illinois.

352 p Notes to Pages 290–327

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358 p Works Cited

General I n d e x American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), 7, 18, 117, 349n10 American Colonization Society, 325 Amistad (ship), 227, 235n5 Antietam, battle of, 293, 326 Anti-Slavery Bugle, 10, 11, 49, 118, 137; poems from, 27, 32, 33, 35, 61, 63, 71, 72, 76, 78, 80, 83, 86, 89, 90, 96, 98, 102, 103, 112, 113, 119, 127, 154, 155, 192, 193, 197, 199, 220, 238, 242, 263, 267, 269, 273, 275, 281, 286, 296 antislavery movement: opposition to, 2, 7, 11, 19, 20, 41, 173, 256, 294, 335n5; publications, 1–3, 5, 7–17, 41, 49, 152, 172, 214, 226, 228, 244, 272, 326, 347n62, 349n2, Plate 9 Appomattox, surrender at, 289 Aristides, 202 Arkansas, 289 Arlington, VA, 69 army, 121–22, 279; Union, or U.S., 17, 132, 173, 207, 215, 289, 323, 347n59, 352n12, Plate 8 Asia, 103n46 Atlantic Monthly, 5, 304 Atlantic Ocean, 111, 214, 217, 264

1st South Carolina Volunteers, 51 2nd Louisiana, 293, 309 2nd Massachusetts Infantry, 293 54th Massachusetts Colored Regiment, 215, 224n6, 293, 316n18, 323n28, Plate 10 Abel, 158, 271 abolition, 5, 9, 18, 24n, 67–68, 83, 113, 214, 253, 255, 265, 327, Plate 9; and the South, 172–74, 176, 179, 184, 188, 201 abolitionism, 256, 346n21, 346n40, 347n46, 347n63; Southern resistance to, 179, 350n3 abolitionist(s), 8, 12, 16, 19, 42, 51, 68n19, 114n8, 116–18, 227–28, 233, 295, 307n14, 345n2, 345n15, 346n33, 348n5, 351n7; and civil rights, 2–3; and legislation, 291, 294; and moral suasion, 1, 4, 290, 213, 252–53; opposition to, 2, 6, 20, 68n21, 109; and the press, 18, 290 Acts, book of, 206n31, 220n3 Adams, John Quincy, 227, 236n Afric(a), 150n5, 173, 177, 210–11, 217, 242, 246, 259, 275, 301, 312, 330; capture of slaves from, 78, 102, 145, 227–28, 277– 78, 280; repatriation to, 6, 325, 331 African(s), 11, 102, 196, 204, 287, 311 African American(s), 14, 137, 180n4, 214, 215, 325, 328, 350n8, Plate 10 Agincourt, battle of, 293, 316n19 Alabama, 175, 194, 289 Albany, NY, 337n9 Alexandria, VA, 172, 209 Alton, IL, 24n, 41–45, Plate 2 Alton Observer, 41, Plate 2 Amazon River, 190 America, 10, 21, 39, 61n5, 65n12, 117, 153, 209, 229, 242, 322, 329 American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (AFASS), 8

Bagby, Sara Lucy, 52 Bahamas, 227, 230 Bailey, Gamaliel, 13 Baltimore, MD, 14, 346n33 Banks, Nathaniel Prentice, 207n Barrett, Faith, 3, 52, 109, 228, 291, 294 Baton Rouge, LA, 207n, Plate 8 Beaufort, SC, 172 Beecher, Catharine, 3, 253 Bell, Philip A., 13 Bennett, Michael, 3, 20, 156 Bermuda, 227, 230 Bethlehem, star of, 51, 64

359

Bible, 22, 48–49, 178, 248, 255, 256, 299, 350n4, Plate 3; slavery in, 6, 67n16, 134n16, 158, 169n6, 173, 174, 179, 201n22, 283n10, 350n5 Biglow Papers, The, 175, 304n7 Birney, James Gillespie, 51, 68, 228, 235n Bistineau, Lake, 50, 86 black(s), 3, 6, 9, 16, 48, 52, 61, 114, 170–71, 174, 196, 198, 213–15, 226, 228, 253–54, 275, 281–82, 284, 288, 325; antislavery activists, 12, 13, 41, 256; authors, 14–15, 20, 50, 109, 117, 136–38, 172, 173, 201, 228–29, 255, 295; troops, 9, 215, 224n6, 290–93, 294, 309–12, 316n18, 323n28, 325, 329, 352n12, Plate 10 Booth, John Wilkes, 290 border states, 292, 326 Boston, MA, 52, 73n26, 152, 215, 220–24, 346n33, 346n39, 349n7 (chap. 5), 349n3 (chap. 6); antislavery movement in, 16, 20, 24n, 26–27; authors from, 19, 51, 254; Garrison attacked in, 6, 11, 252; publications based in, 10, 109, 207n Boston Advertiser, 351n7 Boston Daily Atlas, 109 Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, 11 Boston Transcript, 207n Brandywine, battle of, 241 Britain, 214, 227, 230 Brooks, Preston, 108–10, Plate 5 Brown, John, 8, 51, 116–35, 253, Plate 6 Bunker Hill, battle of, 24, 74, 113 Burch and Price, 209 Burns, Robert, 180, 248 Butler, Andrew, 108 Byron, Lord, 158 Cain, 158, 169, 201, 283, 350n5 Calhoun, John C., 184 California, 47, 74n28 Canada, 61n5; destination for fugitives, 34n10, 48, 61n4, 81n32, 100, 177 Capitol, 61, 69, 255, 261 Caribbean, 227, 348n5 Carlton, William Tolman, 328–29, 336–37, Plate 12 Carolina, 78, 248, 258, 264 Cervantes, Miguel de, 111n2 Channing, William Ellery, 227, 242 Channing, William Henry, 27 Chapel Hill, NC, 15 Chaplin, William L., 254, 274–75

Charlemagne, 43n1 Charleston, SC, 7, 214, 289 Charlestown, VA, 118, 122, 125, 132–33; trial of John Brown in, 123 Chase, Salmon P., 109, 113 Chicago, IL: Democratic Party Convention in, 295, 320–21, 338 Child, Lydia Maria: participation in antislavery movement, 3, 11–12; poems by, 13, 49, 53, 117, 127, 228, 233 Christ, 20, 29, 44n2, 48, 64n11, 115, 171, 203n28, 215, 241, 257, 284, 288, 338n11 Christian(s), 11, 36, 48, 166, 168, 252, 253, 333 Christianity, 173, 346n21 Cincinnati, OH, 157, 169 Cinqué, Joseph, 227–28, 235–36 Civil War, American, 8–10, 13, 15, 19, 20, 51, 109, 118, 171–72, 206n29, 255, 256, 289– 324, 349n2; emancipation of slaves during, 325–29, 352n1 Clay, Henry, 174, 181–82 Cleveland, OH, 52, 103 Coates, Edwin H., 209 Cobbs, John L., 229 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 260 colonization, 179, 325–27, 331–32 Colored American, 13; poems from, 21, 258, 259, 331 Columbia, 69, 211, 238, 239, 270, 271 Compromise of 1850, vii, 47, 88n36 Concklin, Seth, 50, 90–95 Concord, MA, 5, 24, 74, 345n2 Concord, NH, 12 Confederacy, 171, 206n29, 289, 293 Confederate(s), 290–93, 305n9, 338n13 Confiscation Acts, 290 Congress, U.S., 109, 174, 178, 198, 206n29, 230, 255, 260, 294, 317, 321n25, 327, 337n10; antislavery petitions to, 16, 346n30; and Fugitive Slave Act, 47–48; legislation opposing antislavery movement, 2; and Thirteenth Amendment, 2, 290, 340–42; and “three-fifths clause,” 6–7 Connecticut, 2 Constant de Rebecque, Henri-Benjamin, 145 Constitution, U.S., 6–7, 10, 48, 88, 205, 326, 340, 348n2 Copperhead(s), 175, 206 Corinthians, book of, 126n Cornelia, 316n21 Cornish, Dudley Taylor, 292

360 p General Index

Cornish, Samuel E., 13 cotton, 66, 173, 178, 182, 189, 208–9, 248, 302–3, 304, 332, 343–44 Cowper, Willam, 180–81 Crawford, Thomas, 171, 202 Cuba, 227, 247 Currier and Ives, 117, Plate 10 Davis, Jefferson, 292, 304, 338n13 Day of Doom, The, 351n7 death of slaves, 5, 8–9, 101, 136–55, 157, 160– 69, 247–48; in Civil War, 293, 309–12, 323–24; filicide, 157–60, 169; in Kansas border wars, 282–84; on ships, 278–81; suicide, 49, 53–57, 69–70, 85–86, 166– 67, 255–56, 271, 272–73, Plate 4 Declaration of Independence, 6, 61, 119, 289, 307, Plate 3 De Jong, Mary G., 213 Democratic Party, 295, 320n23, 338n12, 352n10 Dennison, Charles, 12 Deuteronomy, book of, 48 Dial, 12 District of Columbia, 47, 290 Dobson, Joanne, 4 Don Quixote, 111 Dorchester, MA, 176 Douglass, Frederick, 51, 119, 220, 326, 331; participation in antislavery movement, 12–13, 214–15, 293 Douglass’ Monthly, 13 Eden, 193–94, 285 Egypt, 63n9, 76n30, 317n22 Elysian fields, 184 emancipation, 2, 6, 9, 10, 15, 17, 20, 27n5, 62, 119, 133, 174, 181n8, 229, 291, 292, 296n2, 325–44 Emancipation Proclamation, 9, 17, 109, 214, 290, 326–29, 332–33, 336–38, Plate 11 Emancipator, 12, 137, 173, 174, 182; poems from, 30, 53, 63n10, 145, 150, 152, 166, 179, 180, 182, 184, 188, 230, 231, 257, 258 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 5, 12, 42, 117, 345n2, 351n7; participation in antislavery movement, 13; poem by, 295, 312 England, 61, 65n12, 66, 214, 304n8, 347n62, Plate 9 Enterprise (ship), 227 Erie, Lake, 104 Esther, book of, 133n15

Ethiopia, 220, 229, 241, 249–50 Europe, 84, 103n46, 232, 239 Everett, Edward, 337n Exodus, book of, 63n9, 76n30, 301n5, 317n22 filicide, 9, 156, 157–60, 169 Finkelman, Paul, 117–18 Florida, 25n, 289, 348n5 Floyd, John B., 305n9 Fogel, Robert William, 252, 290 Foner, Eric, 48 Fort Sumter, attack on, 118, 129–32, 289–91 Fort Wagner, battles of, 215, 224n6, 293, 316n18, 323n28, Plate 10 Foster, Abby Kelley, 7, 11 Foster, Frances Smith, 229 Foster, Stephen Symonds, 19 Fox, George, 51, 67, 68n19 France, 214 Franklin, Benjamin, 214 Frederick Douglass’ Paper, 13, 48; poems from, vii, 34, 85, 89, 198, 201, 220, 248, 249, 331 freeman, 33, 57, 60, 74, 205, 207, 210, 232, 235, 251, 274, 283, 308, 312, 331–33 freemen, 46, 70, 71–72, 77, 109, 176, 181, 230, 258, 270, 295, 302, 320, 332, 338 Free South, 172 Frémont, John C., 20, 27, 291–92, 296–97 French Revolution, 11 fugitive slave(s), 8, 33–34, 47–107, 115n9, 157–58, 167n5, 240, 254, 255, 256, 270– 71, 274n7, 286–87, 336n7, 341, Plate 3, Plate 4, Plate 7 Fugitive Slave Act, 8, 14, 47–52, 71, 105, 106n50, 113, 158, 228, 256, 290, 294, Plate 3, Plate 7 “gag law,” 2, 175, 198 Gambia, 78 Garner, Margaret, 95n40, 157–58, Plate 7 Garrison, William Lloyd, 2–4, 14, 17, 109, 114, 214, 215, 252–53, 290, 326–28, 345n4, 345n13, 345n15, 347n62; and John Brown, 116–17; opposition to, 6–7, 10–11; poems by, 19–20, 25, 177, 330; and the South, 170, 173 Garrisonians, 226 Gates, Seth M., 69 Genesis, book of, 67n16, 134n16, 158, 169n6, 196n17, 201n22, 271n5, 283n10, 350nn4–5 (chap. 7)

General Index p 361

Genius of Universal Emancipation, 346n33, 347n62 Georgia, 6, 10, 33, 59n2, 254, 274n7, 289, 300n4 Gettysburg, battle of, 289, 326 Giddings, Joshua Reed, 109, 113 Gomorrah, 134n16 Goodell, William, 12 Gougeon, Len, 42 Great Britain, 227, 230 Grimké, Sarah, 16, 228, 235n, 290 Grimké Weld, Angelina, 16, 51, 68, 228, 235n, 253 Guadaloupe, 145, 148 Haarlem, Netherlands, 181n7 Hades, 97 Haitian Revolution, 138 Ham, 67, 201 Handel, George Frideric, 180 Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins, 101, 112, 117, 155, 284, 286, 325, 329; poems by, 14–15, 20, 35, 50, 52, 103, 109, 137, 172, 198, 229, 249, 255, 256, 295, 307 Harpers Ferry, raid on, 8, 51, 116, 119–23, 125 Harper’s Weekly, 123n Haydn, Joseph, 245 Hazlett, Albert, 125 Henry, King, 293, 316n19; Henry V, 293, 316n19 Henry, Patrick, 118, 128–29, 171, 202n27 Henry, William “Jerry,” 52, 105–7 Herald of Freedom, 12, 16, 19, 51, 68n19, 174, 228, 255; poems from, vii, 21, 26, 42, 45, 59, 61, 63n10, 158, 161, 163, 176, 178, 190, 216, 217, 233, 260, 330 Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 51, 76 Hindu (“Hindoo”), 259 Hogg, James, 245n9 Horton, George Moses, 14–15, 253, 352n1; poems by, 136–37, 138, 152, 154, 228–29, 244 Horton, James, 152, 244 Hovenden, Thomas, Plate 6 Howard, George, 61n7 Hutchinson Family Singers, 215, 221 Illinois, 6, 12, 41, 48, 326, 348n2 (chap. 2), 352n10, Plate 2 Illinois State Anti-Slavery Society, 41 Independence Day, American, 229 Independence Hall, 73, 237n6, 307

Indiana, 12, 48, 50, 90, 215, 327 Iowa, 12 Isaiah, book of, 165n4 Israel, 63, 64, 76, 203n28 Israelite(s), 44n3, 51, 63n9, 76n30, 124n6, 191n15, 317n22 Jackson, Andrew, 2, 321 Jay, William, 253 Jefferson, Thomas, 119n1, 171, 202n25, 209 Jehovah, 26, 60, 103, 249 Jeremiah, book of, 191n14, 267 Jerusalem, 271n6 Jesus, 54, 107, 127, 299, 341 Jew(s), 133n15, 203, 256, 271, 301n5 Jim Crow, 180 Johnson, Francis, 137 Johnson, Wendy Dasler, 172 Judas, 29, 33, 257, 338n11 Judges, book of, 31n, 124n6, 341n14 Judgment Day, 9, 95, 104, 253, 254, 263, 278, 280, 293 Kansas, 130n11; border wars in, 108, 118, 120–21, 256, 282–84 Kansas-Nebraska Act, 108, 175, 256, 352n10, Plate 5 Kaufman, Theodor, Plate 3 Kentucky, 11, 68n19, 157, 158, 174, 181n8, 228, 235n4, 294, 318, 350n6 Knapp, Isaac, 349n3 Ku Klux Klan, 351n5 (chap. 10) Ladies Negro’s Friend Society, 347n62 Lady of the Lake, The, 228, 233n3 Leavitt, Joshua, 12, 182 Lee, Robert E., 116, 289 Leonard, Keith D., 14 Lewis, Edmonia, 215, 224 Lexington, battle of, 24, 74 Liberator, 2, 7, 10–11, 19, 50, 109, 137, 157, 173, 252, 253, 326, 327, 328, 347n62; poems from, 25, 27, 33, 35, 42, 45, 59, 69, 78, 82, 98, 102, 110, 112, 114, 119, 123, 124, 125, 127, 128, 138, 140, 143, 149, 158, 161, 162, 165, 169, 177, 178, 180, 197, 201, 209, 211, 224, 235, 258, 270, 272, 273, 276, 277, 287, 311, 330, 332, 336, 337 Liberia, 137, 152, 325, 352n1 (chap. 13) Liberty Bell, 227, 237–38, 295, 307–8, 329, 336 Liberty Party, 12, 13, 228 Liberty Party Paper, 13

362 p General Index

Lincoln, Abraham, 9, 17, 20, 41, 135n, 174, 211–12, 291, 294, 321–23, 325, 342; support of antislavery cause, 289–90, 294, 326–29, 332–38 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth: poems by, 14, 137, 138, 149, 150 Long Island, NY, 227 Louisiana, 50, 85–86, 171, 207n, 289, 293, 309, Plate 8 Lovejoy, Elijah P., 6, 8, 19, 24n, 41–46, 326, Plate 2 Lovejoy, Owen, 326 Lowell, James Russell, 5, 13; poems by, 19–20, 26, 27, 32, 52, 61, 175, 199, 292, 304 Lowell, MA, 174, 184, 186 Lucifer, 67 Lundy, Benjamin, 346n33, 347n62 Lycidas, 145 lynch(ing), 7, 41, 51, 68 Lynch, Charles, 68n23 Magee, John L., Plate 5 Maine, 74, 249 Martinsburg, VA, 122 Maryland, 12, 14, 254, 256, 272, 274n7 Mason-Dixon Line, 51, 68 Massachusetts, 5, 10, 21n2, 24n, 62–63, 88n36, 100, 106n50, 108, 174, 176, 215, 224n6, 293, 316n18, 323n28, 345n2, Plate 5, Plate 10 Massachusetts Anti-slavery Society, 352n6 (chap. 13) Matthew, book of, 22n3, 48, 127n9, 215, 224n5 May, Samuel J., 7 McDuffie, George, 188n McGill, Meredith L., 14, 109 McIntosh, Francis, 41 McKim, James Miller, 295, 307 McPherson, William D., Plate 8 media, 3, 13–15, 108, 290–91 Melville, Herman, 117 Merchant of Venice, The, 103n45 Mexican-American War, 47, 175 Mexico, 348n5 Middle Passage, 138 Mill, John Stuart, 305 Milton, John, 44n3, 145, 248, 262, 294, 306n13 Mississippi, 158, 289, 309n15 Mississippi River, 41, 297, 305 Missouri, 20, 27, 41, 228, 283, 291, 296n2 Mobile Southern Tribune, 174 Modern Medea, The, Plate 7

Moloch, 36, 124, 271, 300 moral suasion through poetry, 1, 3–4, 213, 221 Morpeth, Lord, 61 Mount Tabor, 171, 203 Nantucket, MA, 19, 21 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, 214 National Anti-Slavery Standard, 10, 11, 20, 50, 290, 291; poems from, 27, 31, 35, 37, 38, 57, 61, 63n10, 69, 71, 86, 101, 103, 105, 112, 129, 132, 134, 155, 165, 177, 196, 204, 205, 206, 208, 209, 211, 218, 224, 233, 235, 237, 250, 260, 263, 272, 280, 282, 284, 287, 296, 297, 299, 300, 304, 306, 307, 309, 311, 312, 316, 317, 318, 320, 321, 323, 333, 336, 339, 340, 342, 343 National Era, 5, 13, 35n11, 68n19, 248n12; poems from, 75, 167, 202, 240, 244, 276, National Intelligencer, 179 Native American(s), 23, 171, 259, 305 Nebraska, 108, 200 Nelson, David, 228, 235n4 Nero, 82, 338 New Bedford, MA, 21 Newburyport, MA, 10, 140, 346n33 New England, 7, 14, 32, 62, 116, 131 New England Anti-slavery Association, 14 New England Anti-Slavery Convention, 116 New Hampshire Anti-Slavery Society, 12 New Jersey, 351n13 New Mexico, 47 New Orleans, 79n31 New Testament, 116, 118, 256 New York, 7, 12, 52, 61n4, 69, 105n49, 131, 137, 206n29, 227, 337n9, Plate 5 New York City, 6, 7, 11, 13, 52, 73n26, 175, 206 New York Evangelist, 69 New York Evening Post, 352n10 New-York Tribune, 109, 349n11 Niagara Falls, NY, 61 Nigeria, 280n9 Niger River, 150–51 Noah, 67n16 Noble, Thomas Satterwhite, Plate 7 Nord, David Paul, 3 North, the, 12, 21, 30, 46, 48, 52, 58, 63–66, 73–74, 79, 82, 109, 110, 113–14, 115, 117, 119, 122, 131, 134, 170, 175, 184, 190, 205, 234, 256, 270, 274, 275, 290, 295, 327, 343

General Index p 363

North Carolina, 10, 14, 111n3, 136, 152, 175, 194n16, 244, 253, 289, 293, 347n59, 349n2 (chap. 6), 351n2 (chap. 10), 352n1 (chap. 13) Northerner(s), 48, 108–9, 171, 174, 175, 197n18, 254, 329 North Star, 33n9, 51, 58n1, 60n3, 63–68, 76, 92, 100, 114, 167n5, 336n7 North Star, 12–13; poem from, 85 Oberlin College, 215, 228 Ohio, 6, 7, 11, 14, 48, 95n, 113n6, 158 Ohio River, 50, 90–91, 157 Old Testament, 36n12, 48, 118, 124n5, 255, 271n6, 300n3 Oliver, J., Plate 8 Osawatomie, KS, 118, 120–23, 130 Othello, 68 Paradise Lost, 44n3 Patterson, Francis Engle, 132 Paul, apostle, 179 Peace Democrat(s), 175, 206, 327, 328, 334n4 Pearl (ship), 351n13 Pelletier, Kevin, 117, 253 Pendleton, IN, 215 Pennsylvania, 6, 14, 48, 131, 172, 209, 131, 172, 209, 307n14, 346n21 Pennsylvania Abolition Society, 214 Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, 19, Plate 1 Pennsylvania Hall, riot at, 19, 24n, Plate 1 Peter, apostle, 44, 179; book of, 316n20 Peterson, Carla, 14 Pharaoh, 44n3, 63 Pharisees, 288 Philadelphia, 15, 52, 73n26, 152, 172, 209, 237n6, 295, 347n59, 352n1; antislavery movement in, 16, 19, 21, 24n, Plate 1; publications based in, 11, 13 Philanthropist, 68n19, 228 Phillips, Wendell, 109, 114 Pickard, John B., 4 Pickens, Francis Wilkinson, 184 Pierpont, John, 24n; poems by, 19, 21, 51, 63, 254, 256, 263, 273, 282 Pilgrim(s), vii, 20, 21n2, 30, 52, 60–61, 63 Plymouth, MA, 21n2 Plymouth Rock, 30, 282 Pocahontas, 171, 192 Port Hudson, LA, 309n15 Port Royal, SC, 292, 300

Potomac River, 49, 69–70, 122, 157, 166, 230, 255, Plate 4 press, the, 19–20, 293; impact of, 12, 17, 18; and the right of free speech, 2–4, 8, 41–45, 173, 179 Preston, William Campbell, 190 Princeton, battle of, 241 prison, 69, 107, 117, 232, 255, 270–75, 299 proslavery advocates, 2–3, 6–8, 41, 116, 118, 158, 171, 173–74, 215, 252, 255 Protestant(ism), 253, 346n21 Providence, RI, 249 Quaker(s), 5, 11, 51, 66, 68n19, 291, 346n21 Raleigh, NC, 152, 175, 194n16, 244, 347n29 Redden, Stephen, 256, 272–73 Red Sea, 63, 302 repatriation, 6, 325 Republican(s), 108, 206n29, 291, 327, Plate 5 Republican Party, 352n10 (chap. 12) Revelation, book of, 88n37 Revolutionary War, American, 68n23, 74n27, 113n7, 128n10, 226, 241n7 Richards, Eliza, 290 Richmond, VA, 122, 171, 190n13, 202–4, 289, 338 Richmond Examiner, 13 Richmond Whig, 190 Rochester, NY, 12 Rogers, Nathaniel Peabody, 12, 51, 67 Rohrbach, Augusta, 136 Romans, 171 Romans, book of, 126n Ryan, Susan M., 214 Samson, 124, 341 Sánchez-Eppler, Karen, 136 Satan, 46, 49, 255, 257, 260, 284 Satelmajer, Ingrid, 3 Saxton, Rufus, 173, 208 Scott, Sir Walter, 181n7, 228, 233n3 Sea Islands, 172 secession, 109, 114, 175, 205, 289 Second Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women, 19, Plate 1 Second Great Awakening, 252 Senate, U.S., 23, 108, 110, 114, 134, 181n8, 184, 211, 313, 350n6, Plate 5 sentimentalism, 3–5, 8–9, 12, 14, 49, 117, 136–38, 156, 172, 213–14, 350n6 (chap. 6)

364 p General Index

Shakespeare, William, 68n20, 103n45, 293, 316n19 Shaw, Robert Gould, 215, 224–25, 293, 316, 323–24, Plate 10 Sheperdstown, VA, 122–23 Sherman, Joan R., 15 Shylock, 103 Sierra Leone, 227 Sigourney, Lydia, 254, 259 slave(s), images of, Plates 3–4, Plates 7–9, Plates 11–12 slave auctions, 170–72, 176, 195, 198–99, 203, 209–11, 240–41, 245, 255, 278 slave child(ren), 9, 19, 26, 33, 49, 53, 56, 59, 76, 79, 81, 95n, 127, 150, 156–60, 163–65, 167–69, 183, 192, 196, 198–99, 203, 208, 210, 223, 230–31, 241, 248, 250, 261, 268, 276, 278, 285–87, 343, Plate 7 slave hunter(s), 48, 52, 71, 93, 96–97, 99 slave mother(s), 9, 33, 36, 49, 80–81, 84, 95n, 144, 146, 155, 156–69, 183, 192, 194, 198, 223, 241, 261, 264, 276, 278, 280, 285, 287, 313, 333, 340 slave owner(s), 8, 10, 12, 47, 50, 52, 137, 157– 58, 171–74, 181n8, 214, 227–30, 253–56, 313, 350n6 slavery: abolition of, 10, 81n32, 153n7, 326–28, 336, 339, 340–41; defense of, 6–7, 19, 175, 265; opposition to, 6–10, 12–13, 15–17, 19–20, 47–48, 61n7, 117, 136, 170, 172; and the press, 2–3, 13– 14, 109 slave ship(s), 78, 138, 143–50, 227, 230–31, 235, 254–55, 278–81, 350n5 slave trader(s), 81, 138, 203, 209, 227 slave trading, 78, 260 Smith, Gerritt, 13, 109, 114 Society for the Abolition of Slavery in England, 214, Plate 9 Sodom, 134n16, 175, 196 South, the, 7, 9, 10, 12, 15, 42, 45, 48, 57, 59, 60, 99, 102, 109, 110, 113, 119, 121, 134, 170–212, 234, 264, 274, 275, 282, 291, 292, 295, 318–19, 320n23, 327, 338n12 South Carolina, 5, 7, 10, 51, 68, 108, 111, 172, 184n10, 188n, 190, 228, 235n4, 289, 292, 293, Plate 5, Plate 10 Southerner(s), 7, 9, 52, 71, 108, 170–71, 173– 75, 254, 292 Stanton, Henry B., 6 Stevens, Aaron Dwight, 121, 125 Stewart, James Brewer, 16

Still, William, 348n5 St. Louis, MO, 41 Story, Joseph, 227 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 13, 18, 35n11, 171, 228 St. Stephen, 316n20 (sugar)cane, 164, 178, 248, 332 Sumner, Charles, 8, 108–15, Plate 5 Supreme Court, U.S., 227 Symmes, John Cleve, Jr., 67 Syracuse, NY, 52, 105–7 Tappan, Arthur, 7–8 Tappan, Lewis, 7–8 Taylor, Zachary, 228, 235n Tennessee, 228, 235n4, 289 Texas, 289 Thirteenth Amendment, 2, 8, 10, 290, 326– 27, 329, 339–42 Thomas, John L., 3, 170, 226, 252, 290 Thome, James Armstrong, 228, 235 Thoreau, Henry David, 12, 117 Tompkins, Jane, 4 Treaty of Claims (1853), 227 Tremont Temple, 215, 221, 349n7 Trenton, battle of, 241 Turner, Nat, 10, 252 Tuscaloosa, AL, 194 Tybee Island, GA, 300 Tyler, John, 21n2 Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 13, 18, 35, 171, 228, 248 Underground Railroad, 11, 16, 48, 50, 52, 98–100, 228 Union, 27, 37, 51, 52, 78–80, 88, 103–4, 118, 132n13, 172–73, 176, 189, 206, 208n33, 215, 224n6, 232, 253, 257, 289–93, 295, 296, 299, 309n15, 313, 316n18, 320–21, 322n26, 323, 323n28, 325–26, 347n59, 352n12, Plate 8 Unitarian, 14, 27n6, 227, 242n8 United States, 178n2, 230, 292, 317, 326 University of North Carolina, 253, 351n2 (chap. 10) Utah, 47 Vallandigham, Clement Laird, 328, 334n4 Valley Forge, battle of, 74, 241 Vatican, 202 Vicksburg, battle of, 326 Victoria, Queen, 66n13 Vincennes, IN, 50, 90

General Index p 365

Virginia, 10, 52, 68n23, 102, 116–26, 128–29, 132–35, 171–72, 178, 190n13, 196, 204, 209n34, 228, 230, 235n4, 255, 276–77, 289, 305n9 Wade, Benjamin, 109, 113 Walker, David, 352n2 (chap. 13) Walters, Ronald G., 170, 175, 213, 226, 253, 290 war, 8–10, 20–21, 31, 39, 45, 68n23, 74n27, 88n36, 113n7, 128n10, 206n29, 215, 232, 234, 241n7, 289–324, 325–29, 334, 339, 341; anticipation of, 84, 253–57, 262, 285–86, 330; John Brown and, 118–19, 121, 134; in Florida, 25n; in Kansas, 118, 121, 282–84; the South and, 171–72, 174–75, 188, 190 Washington, D.C., 7, 13, 49, 52, 61, 69–70, 109, 114–15, 132n14, 157, 197, 255, 256, 260–62, 286, 351n13, Plate 4 Washington, George, 70, 171, 202n24, 241, 277n, 321 Washington, NC, 293, 311 Watts, Isaac, 178 Webster, Daniel, 21, 88n36, 106 Wedgwood, Josiah, 214 Weekly Standard (Raleigh, NC), 175, 194n16 Weeks, Edward, 5

Weld, Theodore Dwight, 51, 68 West Indies, 152n7 White House, 328 Whitman, Walt, 14 Whittier, John Greenleaf, 51, 68, 247n11, 248n12; participation in antislavery movement, 2, 7, 345n2; poems by, 4–5, 13, 138, 145, 291–92, 293, 295, 296, 300, 318 Wigglesworth, Michael, 351n7 (chap. 11) Williams, R. G., 18 Winchester, VA, 122–23 Wisconsin, 12 Wise, Henry, 117 women: in antislavery movement, 7, 11, 15–16, 19, 21, 32, 38–40, 83–84, 98–100, 224–25, 229, 233–35, 249–50, 291, 294, 306–7, 321–33, 329, Plate 1; fugitive slaves, 49, 69–70, 255, 270–71, Plate 4; slaves, 5, 131, 156–69, 183–84, 188, 199, 203, 230– 31, 277n Wood, Fernando, 175, 206n29 Woodwell, Roland H., 252 Wordsworth, William, 226, 231 Yankee, 67, 120, 175, 186, 200 Yellin, Jean Fagan, 16, 214 Zion, 191

366 p General Index

Index of poe m ti t l e s “The Execution of John Brown,” 123 “Farewell Address to Cinque,” 235 “Feed the Fire!,” 38 “The Freedman’s Song,” 329, 343 “The Freedmen of Washington to Charles Sumner,” 114 “The Freed Slaves,” 227, 230 “The Fugitive” (Burleigh), 57 “The Fugitive” (E. D. H.), 59 “The Fugitive” (S. S. A. D.), 49, 80 “The Fugitive and His Pursuers,” 96 “The Fugitive’s Hymn,” 76 “The Fugitive Slave,” 85 “The Fugitive Slave Law,” 49, 82 “The Fugitive Slave’s Apostrophe to the North Star,” 63 “The Fugitive’s Soliloquy and Prayer after His Rendition to Slavery,” 89 “The Goldheaded Cane,” 113 “The Grave of the Slave,” 137, 140 “The Hero’s Heart,” 127 “The Holy War,” 190 “Hopes and Fears,” 231 “How Mr. Lincoln Became an Abolitionist,” 327, 333 “How Old Brown Took Harper’s Ferry, a Ballad of the Times,” 119 “Hymn for Slaveholders,” 254, 263 “Inalienable Rights,” 227, 242 “I Will Never Retract,” 328, 337 “John Brown Avenged,” 134 “A Lay of the Underground Railroad,” 98 “The Leap from the Long Bridge: An Incident at Washington,” 69 “The Liberty Bell,” 227, 237 “Liberty! Liberty!,” 25 “Liberty or Death,” 166 “Lines,” 284 “Lines on the Passage of the Fugitive Bill,” 71

“Abraham Lincoln,” 342 “Address Of the Committee appointed to present a Cup and Cane to Preston S. Brooks, as a memorial of a late ‘Collision,’” 110 “Alas, the Poor Slave,” 270 “The Alton Riot” (Arion), 45 “The Alton Riot” (Mack), 42 “American Union,” 51, 78 “Am I not a Man and a Brother?” (Anonymous, August 1835), 214, 216 “Am I not a Man and a Brother?” (Anonymous, September 1835), 214, 217 “Apologies. No. I. The Slave Trade,” 177 “An Appeal to Poets,” 18, 30 “Aristocracy of Color. A Moral Tale for Christian Ladies (Founded on a Recent Incident),” 220 “At Port Royal. 1861,” 292, 300 “At Richmond,” 202 “The Auction-Block,” 209 “A Bargain!,” 180 “Black and White,” 250 “The Bloodhound’s Song,” 72 “Buried with His Niggers,” 316 “Bury Me in a Free Land,” 137, 155 “The Call of Kansas,” 256, 282 “The Chaplain’s Prayer in the Judge’s Chair,” 132 “The Chase—A Dream,” 49, 86 “Col. Robert G. Shaw,” 323 “The Crowning Crime of Christendom,” 277 “Decree by the Alton Mob,” 42, 45 “The Devil’s Walk in Washington,” 255, 260 “Difference of Color,” 259 “The Dying Fugitive,” 101 “The Dying Slave,” 140 “Edmonia Lewis,” 224 “Ethiopia,” 229, 249

367

“Lines, Respectfully dedicated to the woman who sent the following to the Bugle,” 83 “Lines, Suggested by Reading the Late Slave Tragedy in Cincinnati,” 169 “Lines. The Death of an Infant Slave,” 162 “Lines to a Clergyman Who Says Slavery Is Not a Sin,” 287 “Lines to the Lowly, Written upon reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” 248 “Lines to Those Men and Women, Who Were Avowed Abolitionists in 1831, ’32, ’33, ’34, & ’35,” 233 “Lines Written at the Anti-Slavery Convention, Boston. May, 1844,” 26 “The Long Bridge—The Escape,” 69 “The Man Hunter,” 71 “Modern Ghosts,” vii, 17 “The Negro,” 275 “The Negro on the Fence,” 171, 204 “The Negro’s Wrongs,” 256, 281 “The New Liberty Bell,” 307 “The Northern Slaves,” 174, 184 “Old John Brown,” 124 “On Reading of the Capture of Certain Fugitive Slaves Near Washington,” 61 “On the Chicago Surrender,” 320 “On the Passage of the Constitutional Amendment,” 339 “Onward!,” 20, 35 “Our Country’s Call,” 297 “Our Nation’s Free,” 340 “The Plague Spot of Slavery,” 31 “The Present Crisis,” 20, 27 “President Lincoln’s Proclamation of Emancipation,” 332 “Principles and Their Fruits,” 175, 205 “The Prisoner,” 254, 273 “Pro-Slavery Poetry” (Anti-Fanatic), 188 “Pro-Slavery Poetry” (Friend of the Patriarchs), 182 “Reading ‘Uncle Tom,’” 18, 35 “Rebel ‘Politikle ’Con’my,’” 304 “Reflections,” 154 “Reply. Lewis Lee, To N. B. Watkins,” 102 “The Rescue of Jerry,” 52, 105 “The Returned Fugitive’s Soliloquy,” 89 “The Runaway,” 53 “The Scourged Back,” 206 “The Second Louisiana,” 309 “Seth Concklin,” 90

“The Slave,” 254, 258 “The Slave—A Tableau,” 75 “The Slave Auction,” 198 “The Slaveholder’s Address to the North Star,” 66 “Slaveholder’s Hymns, No. I,” 178 “The Slaveholder’s Prayer,” 201 “The Slave-Martyr,” 311 “The Slave Mother” (Eames), 167 “The Slave Mother” (Hempstead), 163 “The Slave Mother” (Lewis), 157, 158 “The Slave Mother and Her Babe,” 165 “The Slave Mother’s Prayer,” 161 “The Slave Poet,” 152 “The Slave Poet of North Carolina,” 244 “Slavery,” 138 “Slavery” (Pocahontas), 192 “The Slave’s Complaint,” 153 “The Slave’s Declaration,” 229, 238 “The Slave’s Dream” (Longfellow), 150 “The Slave’s Dream” (Shinn), 269 “The Slave Ships,” 138, 145 “Song of the Agitators,” 20, 33 “Song of ‘The Brotherhood,’” 179 “The South,” 193 “Southern and Northern Logic,” 174, 197 “The Spectre at Sumter,” 118, 129 “The Spirit of Freedom,” 240 “Stanzas on Freedom,” 19, 32 “A Story for the President,” 37 “Take No Step Backward!,” 294, 317 “Thoughts, Suggested by the Sacrifice of John Brown,” 128 “Three Hundred Thousand More,” 321 “’Tis Come at Last,” 292, 299 “Toasts to Abe Lincoln—The Heavy Curse,” 211 “To Charles Sumner,” 112 “The Tocsin,” 19, 21 “To Frederick Douglass,” 214, 220 “To John C. Fremont,” 296 “Tony James’s Song,” 172, 208 “To Slavery,” 257 “To the Cleveland Union-Savers,” 103 “The Two Pictures,” 280 “The Tyrant’s Warning,” 267 “Universal Emancipation,” 330 Untitled, vii, 172, 176, 199, 256, 272, 286, 331 “Virginia,” 276 “The Virginia Martyrs,” 125

368 p Index of Poem Titles

“The Virginia Negro’s Song,” 172, 196 “A Vision. In form of a Dialogue,” 263 “Voluntaries,” 312 “Waiting for the Hour,” 336 “What Is It to Be a Slave,” 218 “What the Birds Said,” 295, 318

“Who Is the Slave?,” 19, 34 “The Will for the Deed. A Poem for the Times,” 306 “The Witnesses,” 138, 149 “A Word for the Hour,” 291, 296 “The Wreck of a Slave Ship,” 138, 143

Index of Poem Titles p 369

Index of p o e t s Cunningham, M. A., 329, 340 C. W., 172, 176 Dickerson, Ellen C., 49, 71 Dorgan, J. A., 229, 250 Eames, E. Jessup, 157, 167 E. C., 258 E. D. H., 59 E. H. M., 34 Elizabeth, Charlotte, 157, 165 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 295, 312 Forten, Sarah Louisa, 137, 140 Franklin, 230 Friend of the Patriarchs, 173, 182 Gardner, Anna, 329, 339 Garrison, William Lloyd, 19, 25, 173, 177, 327, 330 G. M. K., 50, 85 Gookins, S. B., 327, 333 Gould, Hannah F., 157, 161 Grary, Orange S., 255, 263 Greenwood, Grace, 50, 69 Hanaford, Phebe Ann, 328, 336 Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins, 20, 35, 50, 52, 101, 103, 109, 112, 137, 155, 172, 198, 229, 249, 255, 284, 286, 295, 307 Hathaway, W., 256, 275 Hempstead, Martha, 157, 163 Hendiboe, 255, 280 Hick, William, 109, 113 Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 51, 76 Hooper, Lucy, 137, 138, 140, 143, 157, 162 Horton, George Moses, 136, 138, 152, 154, 228, 244 Hurnard, James, 254, 277 H. W. H., 237 Ion, 226, 231 Justitia, 118, 125 Kent, Lucian H., vii Kimball, Augusta Cooper, 20, 38, 294, 321 Lee, Lewis, 52, 102

Ada, 140 A. D. A. B., 118, 123 Adams, H. G., 52, 98 Adlington, F. M., 118, 128, 255, 270 A Driver, 173, 178 Anonymous, 20, 33, 42, 45, 50, 51, 52, 89, 90, 105, 119, 129, 140, 157, 166, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 179, 184, 196, 197, 199, 204, 214, 216, 217, 254, 256, 257, 263, 281, 292, 299, 304, 329, 343 Anti-Fanatic, 174, 188 A. P. C., 35 A. Q. W., 224 Arion, 42, 45 A. W. M., 30 B., 205 Barton, Bernard, 215, 218 Boker, George H., 293, 309 Brown, Elizabeth Whitney, 293, 311 Brown, Mary, 293, 323 Bryant, William Cullen, 292, 297, 329, 342 B. S. J., 78 Bungay, George Washington, 256, 287 Burleigh, C. C., 255, 276 Burleigh, G. S., 190 Burleigh, W. H., 50, 57 Butler, William Allen, 171, 202 C. A. D., 82 Campbell, Gibbs A., 118, 124 Carlisle, Katt, 109, 114 Chester, Joseph L., 227, 235 Child, Lydia Maria Francis, 3, 11, 13, 49, 53, 117, 127, 228, 233 Clark, Benjamin, 173, 201 Clarke, Sarah J., 49, 69 C. L. M., 86, 220 Coates, Elmer Ruan, 172, 209 Cole, A. W., 228, 248 Cross, Martin, 327, 331

371

Lewis, Alonzo, 157, 158 Lloyd, S. H., 51, 75 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 137, 138, 149, 150 Lowell, James Russell, 19, 20, 26, 27, 32, 52, 61, 175, 199, 292, 304 Mack, 42 Marble, Earl, 328, 337 Martin, J. S., 50, 96 M. B. G., vii Mason, Caroline Atherton, 20, 37, 294, 306 Meek, A. B., 175, 193 M. L. S., 242 Morgan, G. G. W., 215, 220 N. C., 260 N. T. T., 238 Pabor, William E., 118, 132 Pedler, 174, 180 Pierpont, John, 19, 21, 51, 63, 254, 256, 263, 273, 282 Plumb, D., 119, 134 Pocahontas, 171, 192

Quattlebum, General, and Chairman of the Committee of Presentation, 110 Sarah, 49, 83 Sedgwick, Elizabeth Buckminster, 293, 316 Shinn, Joseph, 256, 269 Shiras, Esq., Charles P., 52, 72 Sigourney, Lydia, 254, 259 Simon Pure, 172, 208 S. S. A. D., 49, 80 Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 118, 119 Stillman, James, 19, 31, 256, 272 Taylor, Bayard, 294, 320 Taylor, George Lansing, 171, 206 Toaster, 174, 211 Trueman, Rev. D., 227, 240 Very, Lydia Louisa Ann, 328, 332 Waterston, Anna Quincy, 215, 224 W. D. G., 317 Whittier, John Greenleaf, 138, 145, 291, 292, 295, 296, 300, 318 Wickersham, Thomas, 52, 71, 175, 193, 255, 267

372 p Index of Poets