The Conflict with Slavery, Part 1, from Volume VII, - The Works of Whittier: the Conflict with Slavery, Politics - and Reform, the Inner Life and Criticism by John Greenleaf Whittier
page 96 of 161 (59%)
page 96 of 161 (59%)
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"Look upon this picture, and on this." HAMLET. CONSIDERING that we have a slave population of nearly three millions, and that in one half of the states of the Republic it is more hazardous to act upon the presumption that "all men are created free and equal" than it would be in Austria or Russia, the lavish expression of sympathy and extravagant jubilation with which, as a people, we are accustomed to greet movements in favor of freedom abroad are not a little remarkable. We almost went into ecstasies over the first French revolution; we filled our papers with the speeches of orator Hunt and the English radicals; we fraternized with the United Irishmen; we hailed as brothers in the cause of freedom the very Mexicans whom we have since wasted with fire and sword; our orators, North and South, grew eloquent and classic over the Greek and Polish revolutions. In short, long ere this, if the walls of kingcraft and despotism had been, like those of Jericho, destined to be overthrown by sound, our Fourth of July cannon-shootings and bell- ringings, together with our fierce, grandiloquent speech-makings in and out of Congress, on the occasions referred to, would have left no stone upon another. It is true that an exception must be made in the case of Hayti. We fired no guns, drank no toasts, made no speeches in favor of the establishment of that new republic in our neighborhood. The very mention of the possibility that Haytien delegates might ask admittance to the congress of the free republics of the New World at Panama "frightened from their propriety" the eager propagandists of republicanism in the Senate, and gave a death-blow to their philanthropic projects. But as Hayti is a republic of blacks who, having revolted from their masters as well as from the mother country, have placed themselves entirely without the pale |
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