THE DUTY OF THE FREE STATES.

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING.

Boston, March 26, 1842.

I respectfully ask your attention, fellow-citizens of the free states, to a subject of great and pressing importance.

The case of the Creole, taken by itself, or separated from the principles which are complicated with it, however it might engage my feelings, would not have moved me to the present address.

I am not writing to plead the cause of a hundred or more men scattered through the West Indies, and claimed as slaves. In a world abounding with so much wrong and woe, we at this distance can spend but a few thoughts on these strangers. I rejoice that they are free; I trust that they will remain so; and with these feelings I dismiss them from my thoughts. The case of the Creole involves great and vital principles, and as such I now invite to it your serious consideration.

The case is thus stated in the letter of the American Secretary of State to the American Minister in London:

"It appears that the brig Creole, of Richmond, Va., Ensor, master, bound to New Orleans, sailed from Hampton Roads with a cargo of merchandise, principally tobacco, and slaves, about one hundred and thirty-five in number; that, on the evening of the 7th of November, some of the slaves rose upon the crew of the vessel, murdered a passenger named Hewell, who owned some of the negroes, wounded the captain dangerously, and the first mate and two of the crew severely; that the slaves soon obtained complete possession of the brig, which, under their direction, was taken into the port of Nassau, in the island of New Providence, where she arrived on the morning of the 9th of the same month; that, at the request of the American consul in that place, the governor ordered a guard on board, to prevent the escape of the mutineers, and with a view to an investigation of the circumstances of the case; that such investigation was accordingly made by two British magistrates, and that an examination also took place by the consul; that, on the report of the magistrates, nineteen of the slaves were imprisoned by the local authorities, as having been concerned in the mutiny and murder; and their surrender to the consul, to be sent to the United States for trial for these crimes, was refused, on the ground that the governor wished first to communicate with the government in England on the subject; that, through the interference of the colonial authorities, and even before the military guard was removed, the greater number of the slaves were liberated, and encouraged to go beyond the power of the master of the vessel, or the

American consul, by proceedings which neither of them could control. This is the substance of the case, as stated in two protests, one made at Nassau and one at New Orleans, and the consul's letters, together with sundry depositions taken by him; copies of all which are herewith transmitted."

This statement of the case of the Creole is derived chiefly from the testimony of the officers and crew of the vessel, and very naturally falls under suspicion of being colored, in part, by prejudice and passion. We must hear the other side, and compare all the witnesses, before we can understand the whole case.

The main facts, however, cannot be misunderstood. The shipping of the slaves at Norfolk, the rising of a part of their number against the officers of the vessel, the success of the insurrection, the carrying of the vessel into the port of Nassau, and the recognition and treatment of the slaves as free by the British authorities of that placethese material points of the case cannot be questioned. The letter of our government, stating these facts as grounds of complaint against England, is written with much caution, and seems wanting in the tone of earnestness and confidence which naturally belongs to a good cause. It does not go to the heart of the case. It relies more on the comity of nations than on principles of justice and natural law.

Still, in one respect it is decided. It protests against, and complains of, the British authorities, and calls loudly for redress." It maintains that "it was the plain and obvious duty" of the authorities at Nassau to give aid and succor to the officers of the Creole in reducing the slaves to subjection, in resuming their voyage with their cargo of men as well as of tobacco, and in bringing the insurgents to trial in this country. It maintains that the claims of the American masters to their slaves existed and were in force in the British port, and that these claims ought to have been acknowledged and sustained by the British magistrate. The plain inference is, that the government of the United States is bound to spread a shield over American slavery abroad as well as at home. Such is the letter.

This document I propose to examine, and I shall do so chiefly for two reasons: first, because it maintains morally unsound and pernicious doctrines, and is fitted to deprave the public mind; and secondly, because it tends to commit the free states to the defence and support of slavery. This last point is at this moment of peculiar importance. The free states are gradually and silently coming more and more into connexion with slavery; are unconsciously learning to regard it as a national interest; and are about to pledge their wealth and strength, their bones and muscles and lives, to its defence. Slavery is mingling more and more with the politics of the country, determining more and more the individuals who shall hold office, and the great measures on which the public weal depends. It is time for the free states to wake

up to the subject; to weigh it deliberately: to think of it, not casually, when some startling fact forces it up into notice; but with earnest, continued, solemn attention; to inquire into their duties in regard to it; to lay down their principles; to mark out their course; and to resolve on acquitting themselves righteously towards God, towards the South, and towards themselves. The North has never come to this great matter in earnest. We have trifled with it. We have left things to take their course. We have been too much absorbed in pecuniary interests to watch the bearing of slavery on the government. Perhaps we have wanted the spirit, the manliness, to look the subject fully in the face. Accordingly, the slave-power has been allowed to stamp itself on the national policy, and to fortify itself with the national arm. For the pecuniary injury to our prosperity which may be traced to this source I care little or nothing. There is a higher view of the case. There is a more vital question to be settled than that of interest—the question of duty-and to this my remarks will be confined.

The letter which is now to be examined may be regarded either as the work of an individual, or as the work of the government. I shall regard it in the latter light alone. Its personal bearings are of no moment. No individual will enter my thoughts in this discussion. I regard the letter as issuing from the Cabinet, as an executive document, as laying down the principles to which the public policy is in danger of being conformed, as fitted to draw the whole country into support of an institution which the free states abhor. With the opinions of an individual I have nothing to do. Corrupt principles adopted by the government-these, and these alone, it will be my object to expose.

There is a difficulty lying at the threshold of such a discussion, which I should be glad to remove. A northern man writing on slavery is supposed to write as a northern man, to be swayed by state feelings and local biasses; and the distrust thus engendered is a bar to the conviction which he might otherwise produce. But the prejudices which grow out of the spot where we live are far from being necessary or universal. There are persons whose peculiarity, perhaps whose infirmity it is, to be exceedingly alive to evils in their neighborhood, to defects in the state of society in which they live, whilst their imaginations are apt to cast rosy hues over distant scenes. There are per

sons who, by living in retirement and holding intercourse with gifted minds in other regions, are even in danger of wanting a proper local attachment, and of being unjust to their own homes. There are also worthier causes which counteract the bigotry of provincial feelings. A then is not necessarily presumptuous in thinking himself free from local biasses. In truth, slavery never presents itself to me as belonging to one or another part of the country. It does not come to me in its foreign relations. I regard it simply and nakedly in itself, and on this account feel that I have a right to discuss it.

man,

May I be allowed one more preliminary remark? The subject of

slavery is separated in my mind not only from local considerations, but from all thought of the individuals by whom it is sustained. I speak against this institution freely, earnestly, some may think vehemently; but I have no thought of attaching the same reproach to those who uphold it; and this I say, not to propitiate the slave-holder, who cannot easily forgive the irreconcilable enemy of his wrong-doing, but to meet the prepossessions of not a few among ourselves, who, from esteem towards the slave-holder, repel what seems to them to involve an assault on his character. I do, indeed, use, and cannot but use, strong language against slavery. No greater wrong, no grosser insult on humanity can well be conceived; nor can it be softened by the customary plea of the slave-holder's kindness. The first and most essential exercise of love towards a human being, is to respect his rights. It is idle to talk of kindness to a human being whose rights we habitually trample under foot. "Be just before you are generous." A human being is not to be loved as a horse or a dog, but as a being having rights; and his first grand right is that of free action; the right to use and expand his powers; to improve and obey his higher faculties; to seek his own and others' good; to better his lot; to make himself a home; to enjoy inviolate the relations of husband and parent; to live the life of a man. An institution denying to a being this right, and virtually all rights, which degrades him into a chattel, and puts him beneath the level of his race, is more shocking to a calm, enlightened philanthropy than most of the atrocities which we shudder at in history; and this for a plain reason. These atrocities, such as the burning of heretics, and the immolation of the Indian woman on the funeral pile of her husband, have generally some foundation in ideas of duty and religion. The inquisitor murders to do God service; and the Hindoo widow is often fortified against the flames by motives of inviolable constancy and general self-sacrifice. The Indian in our wilderness, when he tortures his captives, thinks of making an offering, of making compensation, to his own tortured friends. But in slavery, man seizes his brother, subjects him to brute force, robs him of all his rights, for purely selfish ends-as selfishly as the robber fastens on his prey. No generous affections, no ideas of religion and self-sacrifice throw a gleam of light over its horrors.

As such I must speak of slavery, when regarded in its own nature, and especially when regarded in its origin. But when I look on a community among whom this evil exists, but who did not originate it, who grew up in the midst of it, who connect it with parents and friends, who see it intimately entwined with the whole system of domestic, social, industrial, and political life, who are blinded by long habit to its evils and abuses,, and who are alarmed by the possible evils of the mighty change involved in its abolition, I shrink from passing on such a community the sentence which is due to the guilty institution. All history furnishes instances of vast wrongs inflicted, of cruel institu

tions upheld. by nations or individuals who in other relations manifest respect for duty. That slavery has a blighting moral influence where it exists, is, indeed, unquestionable; but in that bad atmosphere so much that is good and pure may and does grow up as to forbid us to deny esteem and respect to a man simply because he is a slave-holder. I offer these remarks because I wish that the subject may be approached without the association of it with individuals, parties, or local divisions, which blind the mind to the truth.

I now return to the executive document with which I began. I am first to consider its doctrines, to show their moral unsoundness and inhumanity; and then I shall consider the bearing of these doctrines on the free states in general, and the interest which the free states have at this critical moment in the subject of slavery. Thus my work divides itself into two parts; the first of which is now offered to the public.

In regard to the reasonings and doctrines of the document, it is a happy circumstance, that they come within the comprehension of the mass of the people. The case of the Creole is a simple one, which re quires no extensive legal study to be understood. A man who has had little connexion with public affairs is as able to decide on it as the bulk of politicians. The elements of the case are so few, and the principles on which its determination rests are so obvious, that nothing but a sound moral judgment is necessary to the discussion. Nothing can darken it but legal subtlety. None can easily doubt it, but those who surrender conscience and reason to arbitrary rules.

The question between the American and English governments turns mainly on one point. The English government does not recognize within its bounds any property in man. It maintains that slavery rests wholly on local, municipal legislation; that it it is an institntion not sustained and enforced by the law of nature, and still more, that it is repugnant to this law; and that, of course, no man who enters the territory or is placed under the jurisdiction of England can be regarded as a slave, but must be treated as free. The law creating slavery, it is maintained, has and can have no force beyond the state which creates it. No other nation can be bound by it. Whatever validity this ordinance, which deprives a man of all his rights, may have within the jurisdiction of the community in which it had its birth, it can have no validity anywhere else. This is the principle on which the English government founds itself.

This principle is so plain that it has been established and is acted upon among ourselves, and in the neighboring British provinces. When a slave is brought by his master into Massachusetts, he is pronounced free, on the ground that the law of slavery has no force beyond the state which ordains it, and that the right of every man to liberty is recognized as one of the fundamental laws of the Commonwealth.

A slave flying from his master to this Commonwealth is.