Total Wealth Symposium.
This will be the transfer of the World’s wealth.
God YHWH has spoken and we as people must act now and claim it!!!!!
The fear of the World is that if our nation is to truly succeed, that would be
a dream come true and to our nation’s leaders that would be a nightmare to them.
For all men would know how to properly
lead themselves and the politician’s jobs would end that very moment. They would not be able to keep creating
unemployment because they would be part of their own creation. The people of
the so called Americas, would be able to live the once talked about American
dream. To our nation’s leaders, this would be a slap to them, for all
would be able to now stand up and this would prevent others from having to look
up to them, because all would be on the same level. If this is being questioned
by any of us, then call your Congressman and see if he will disagree. Then you will
know he's trying to BS you once again. Well,
here we all are on another day at the wheel of life. We’re going around on this
merry go round of life, with no true love from those that tell us we are
one big happy family in this country. Just
last night I tried to call my brother Barrack. They told me they had to place me on a waiting
list. I couldn't wait, so I told them I
needed to speak to my cousin Joe. They
just simply told me he was still not taking calls. All I wanted to do was to ask them when were
they going to get back home, for home is falling apart and I just wanted to
bring this to their attention. Well it seems the secret service doesn't
work for everyone the same. For they
wouldn't let me in on the whereabouts of my brother and cousin. They just kept blowing me off. This is a
Hollar out to the rest of the world "Help", I can't located my family
and our house is falling apart. How can this family that I am a part of be so
loving and at the same time, not know what each other is doing. Transparent is
what we said we would be, but that faded right after our family reunion ended
on that September day. Now I am once again waiting to hear, where do we go
from here. You understand every family always has a day for coming together and
ours just so happens to be every September. Go figure this one out. I haven't got it yet (smile). They gave me
this beautiful thing they call the greatest technologies ever, but I can only
use it when they allow it.
13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up
the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you
allow those who are entering to go in. 14 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long
prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation. 15 “Woe to you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one
proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as
yourselves.
Matthew: 23: 13-15.
Will someone please past this message on to my American family? They can't hear me. I can't talk plain enough for them and when I
think I am, they say they don't understand me, Ha ha! Please! 198 nations and this one seems
to be the only one that understands homosexuality, war, debt, broken down
living areas but how to fix them they say they are at a lost. Come on people. Help
walk me through this. I’ve got to find my way forward. If not forward, the wait
out.
Here we go again. Another 4th of July and the same old patriotic lie of independence.
The message that Fredrick Douglas gave us back on the 5th of
July, fell on deaf ears. Oh! I am
sorry! That was the 5th
of July, year 1852. Check this out. We revisit his speech
this year and still not much change.
What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?
Frederick Douglass
July 5, 1852
(What follows is an abridged version. Abridged by Janet
Gillespie, Director of Programming, Community
Change. The complete text may be found at: http://www.masshumanities.org/?p=douglass)
Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens:
...This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. It is the
birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to
you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your
minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the
signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day. This
celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and
reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. I am glad,
fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. Seventy-six years, though a good
old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score
years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their
years by thousands. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the
beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood.
I repeat, I am glad this is so. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much
needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. ...
...Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations
that cluster about this day. The simple story of it is that, 76 years ago, the
people of this country were British subjects. The style and title of your
"sovereign people" (in which you now glory) was not then born. You
were under the British Crown. Your fathers esteemed the English Government as
the home government; and England as the fatherland. This home government, you
know, although a considerable distance from your home, did, in the exercise of
its parental prerogatives, impose upon its colonial children, such restraints,
burdens and limitations, as, in its mature judgment, it deemed wise, right and
proper.
But, your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable idea of this day, of the
infallibility of government, and the absolute character of its acts, presumed
to differ from the home government in respect to the wisdom and the justice of
some of those burdens and restraints. They went so far in their excitement as
to pronounce the measures of government unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive,
and altogether such as ought not to be quietly submitted to. I scarcely need
say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that
of your fathers...Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home
government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly
sought redress. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous,
respectful, and loyal manner. Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. This,
however, did not answer the purpose. They saw themselves treated with sovereign
indifference, coldness and scorn. Yet they persevered. They were not the men to
look back.
Page 1 of 15
As the sheet anchor takes a firmer hold, when the ship is tossed by the storm,
so did the cause of your fathers grow stronger, as it breasted the chilling blasts
of kingly displeasure. The greatest and best of British statesmen admitted its
justice, and the loftiest eloquence of the British Senate came to its support.
But, with that blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of
tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea, the British
Government persisted in the exactions complained of.
The madness of this course, we believe, is admitted now, even by England; but
we fear the lesson is wholly lost on our present ruler.
Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did
not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. They felt themselves the
victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. With
brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. Just here, the idea of a
total separation of the colonies from the crown was born! It was a startling
idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. The timid and
the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and
alarmed by it.
Such people lived then, had lived before, and will, probably, ever have a place
on this planet; and their course, in respect to any great change, (no matter
how great the good to be attained, or the wrong to be redressed by it), may be
calculated with as much precision as can be the course of the stars. They hate
all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! Of this sort of change they
are always strongly in favor.
These people were called Tories in the days of your fathers; and the
appellation, probably, conveyed the same idea that is meant by a more modern,
though a somewhat less euphonious term, which we often find in our papers,
applied to some of our old politicians.
Their opposition to the then dangerous thought was earnest and powerful; but,
amid all their terror and affrighted vociferations against it, the alarming and
revolutionary idea moved on, and the country with it.
On the 2nd of July, 1776, the old Continental Congress, to the dismay of the
lovers of ease, and the worshipers of property, clothed that dreadful idea with
all the authority of national sanction. They did so in the form of a
resolution; and as we seldom hit upon resolutions, drawn up in our day whose
transparency is at all equal to this, it may refresh your minds and help my
story if I read it.
"Resolved, That these united colonies are, and of right, ought to be free
and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the
British Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of
Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved."
Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. They succeeded; and to-day
you reap
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the fruits of their success. The freedom gained is yours; and you, therefore,
may properly celebrate this anniversary. The 4th of July is the first great
fact in your nation’s history - the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet
undeveloped destiny.
Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to
hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the Declaration of
Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny; so,
indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving
principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all
places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.
...
Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic.
The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great
men too—great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not often happen to a
nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from
which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and
yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were
statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles
they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory.
They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though
this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a
rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect. He who
will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not
in human nature to despise. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes,
and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. In their admiration of
liberty, they lost sight of all other interests.
They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to
bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against
oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They
believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was
"settled" that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and
humanity were "final;" not slavery and oppression. You may well
cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation.
Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate
times...
THE PRESENT
My business, if I have any here to-day, is with the present. The accepted time
with God and his cause is the ever-living now.
"Trust no future, however pleasant, Let the dead past bury its dead; Act,
act in the living present,
Heart within, and God overhead."
We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to
the future. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from
the past, we are
Page 3 of 15
welcome. But now is the time, the important time. Your fathers have lived,
died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. You live and
must die, and you must do your work. You have no right to enjoy a child’s share
in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your
labors. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your
fathers to cover your indolence...Washington could not die till he had broken
the chains of his slaves. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human
blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men, shout - "We have
Washington to our father." Alas! that it should be so; yet so it is.
"The evil that men do, lives after them, The good is oft’ interred with
their bones."
What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence?
Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here
to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national
independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural
justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am
I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar,
and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings
resulting from your independence to us?
Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be
truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my
burden easy and delightful...
...But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the
disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious
anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance
between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in
common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence,
bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that
brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This
Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a
man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him
to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do
you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? ...
...Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful
wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day,
rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do
forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this
day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to
the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs,
and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and
shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject,
then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see, this day, and its
popular characteristics, from the slave’s point of view. Standing, there,
identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate
to declare, with all my
Page 4 of 15
soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker
to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the
past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems
equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the
present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with
God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of
humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the
name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled
upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can
command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery-the great sin and shame
of America! "I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;" I will use
the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that
any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a
slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.
But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance
that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on
the public mind. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade
more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I
submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the
anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do
the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave
is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders
themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They
acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There
are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black
man, (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death;
while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like
punishment. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral,
intellectual and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is
admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments
forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read
or to write. When you can point to any such laws, in reference to the beasts of
the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. ...
...For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race.
Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting and reaping, using
all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building
ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while
we are reading, writing and cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants and
secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors,
editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of
enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the
whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living,
moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and
children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian’s God, and
looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon
to prove that we are men!
Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the
rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the
wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled
by the rules of logic and argumentation,
Page 5 of 15
as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application
of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? ...There is not a man
beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.
What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their
liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations
to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the
lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at
auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to bum their
flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I
argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is
wrong? No! I will not. I have better employments for my time and strength than
such arguments would imply.
What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God
did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is
blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can
reason on such a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such
argument is past.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O!
had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour
out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm,
and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the
gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the
earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the
nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy
of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be
proclaimed and denounced.
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals
to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelly
to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your
boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity;
your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of
tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow
mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your
religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception,
impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a
nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more
shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very
hour.
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and
despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every
abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the
everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting
barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE.
Page 6 of 15
Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is
especially prosperous just now. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men
was never higher than now. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no
danger. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. It is
carried on in all the large towns and cities in one-half of this confederacy;
and millions are pocketed every year, by dealers in this horrid traffic. In
several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. It is called (in
contradistinction to the foreign slave-trade) "the internal slave
trade." It is, probably, called so, too, in order to divert from it the
horror with which the foreign slave-trade is contemplated. That trade has long
since been denounced by this government, as piracy. It has been denounced with
burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. To
arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost,
on the coast of Africa. Everywhere, in this country, it is safe to speak of
this foreign slave-trade, as a most inhuman traffic, opposed alike to the laws
of God and of man. The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by
our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. In order to put an end to it, some of these last have
consented that their colored brethren (nominally free) should leave this
country, and establish themselves on the western coast of Africa! It is,
however, a notable fact that, while so much execration is poured out by
Americans upon those engaged in the foreign slave-trade, the men engaged in the
slave-trade between the states pass without condemnation, and their business is
deemed honorable.
Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American
slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America religion. Here you will
see men and women reared like swine for the market. You know what is a
swine-drover? I will show you a man-drover. They inhabit all our Southern
States. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation,
with droves of human stock. You will see one of these human flesh-jobbers,
armed with pistol, whip and bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men,
women, and children, from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. These
wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. They are
food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. Mark the sad procession,
as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. Hear his
savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted
captives! There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. Cast one glance,
if you please, upon that young mother, whose shoulders are bare to the
scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the brow of the babe in her arms.
See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! weeping, as she thinks of the
mother from whom she has been torn! The drove moves tardily. Heat and sorrow
have nearly consumed their strength; suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the
discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously;
your ears are saluted with a scream, that seems to have torn its way to the
center of your soul! The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the
scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. Her speed had
faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! that gash on her
shoulder tells her to move on. Follow the drove to New Orleans. Attend the
auction; see men examined like horses; see the forms of women rudely and
brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave-buyers. See this drove
sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from
that scattered multitude. Tell.
Page 7 of 15
me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish
and shocking. Yet this is but a glance at the American slave-trade, as it
exists, at this moment, in the ruling part of the United States.
I was born amid such sights and scenes. To me the American slave-trade is a
terrible reality. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its
horrors. I lived on Philpot Street, Fell’s Point, Baltimore, and have watched
from the wharves, the slave ships in the Basin, anchored from the shore, with
their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the
Chesapeake. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of
Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. His agents were sent into every town and
county in Maryland, announcing their arrival, through the papers, and on
flaming "hand-bills," headed CASH FOR NEGROES. These men were
generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. Ever ready
to drink, to treat, and to gamble. The fate of many a slave has depended upon
the turn of a single card; and many a child has been snatched from the arms of
its mother by bargains arranged in a state of brutal drunkenness.
The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained,
to the general depot at Baltimore. When a sufficient number have been collected
here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to
Mobile, or to New Orleans. From the slave prison to the ship, they are usually
driven in the darkness of night; for since the antislavery agitation, a certain
caution is observed.
In the deep still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by the dead
heavy footsteps, and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed our
door. The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I was often consoled,
when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom
was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the
heart-rending cries. I was glad to find one who sympathized with me in my
horror.
Fellow-citizens, this murderous traffic is, to-day, in active operation in this
boasted republic. In the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of dust raised on
the highways of the South; I see the bleeding footsteps; I hear the doleful
wail of fettered humanity, on the way to the slave-markets, where the victims
are to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the highest
bidder. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust,
caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. My soul sickens at the
sight.
"Is this the land your Fathers loved, The freedom which they toiled to
win? Is this the earth whereon they moved? Are these the graves they slumber
in?"
But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains
to be presented. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old,
slavery has been
Page 8 of 15
nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. By that act, Mason
& Dixon’s line has been obliterated; New York has become as Virginia; and
the power to hold, hunt, and sell men, women, and children as slaves remains no
longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United
States. The power is co-extensive with the Star- Spangled Banner and American
Christianity. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. Where
these are, man is not sacred. He is a bird for the sportsman’s gun. By that
most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every
man are put in peril. Your broad republican domain is hunting ground for men.
Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of
no crime. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this
hellish sport. Your President, your Secretary of State, your lords, nobles, and
ecclesiastics, enforce, as a duty you owe to your free and glorious country,
and to your God, that you do this accursed thing. Not fewer than forty
Americans have, within the past two years, been hunted down and, without a
moment’s warning, hurried away in chains, and consigned to slavery and
excruciating torture. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on
them for bread; but of this, no account was made. The right of the hunter to
his prey stands superior to the right of marriage, and to all rights in this
republic, the rights of God included! For black men there are neither law,
justice, humanity, not religion. The Fugitive Slave Law makes MERCY TO THEM, A
CRIME; and bribes the judge who tries them. An American JUDGE GETS TEN DOLLARS
FOR EVERY VICTIM HE CONSIGNS to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. The
oath of any two villains is sufficient, under this hell-black enactment, to
send the most pious and exemplary black man into the remorseless jaws of
slavery! His own testimony is nothing. He can bring no witnesses for himself.
The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side; and
that side, is the side of the oppressor. Let this damning fact be perpetually
told. Let it be thundered around the world, that, in tyrant-killing,
king-hating, people-loving, democratic, Christian America, the seats of justice
are filled with judges, who hold their offices under an open and palpable
bribe, and are bound, in deciding in the case of a man’s liberty, hear only his
accusers!
In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of
administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenseless, and in
diabolical intent, this Fugitive Slave Law stands alone in the annals of
tyrannical legislation. I doubt if there be another nation on the globe, having
the brass and the baseness to put such a law on the statute-book. If any man in
this assembly thinks differently from me in this matter, and feels able to
disprove my statements, I will gladly confront him at any suitable time and
place he may select.
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
I take this law to be one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty,
and, if the churches and ministers of our country were not stupidly blind, or
most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so regard it.
At the very moment that they are thanking God for the enjoyment of civil and
religious liberty, and for the right to worship God according to the dictates
of their own
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consciences, they are utterly silent in respect to a law which robs religion of
its chief significance, and makes it utterly worthless to a world lying in
wickedness...The fact that the church of our country, (with fractional
exceptions), does not esteem "the Fugitive Slave Law" as a
declaration of war against religious liberty, implies that that church regards
religion simply as a form of worship, an empty ceremony, and not a vital principle,
requiring active benevolence, justice, love and good will towards man. It
esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings
above practical righteousness. A worship that can be conducted by persons who
refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing
to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy,
is a curse, not a blessing to mankind. The Bible addresses all such persons as
"scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe of mint, anise, and cummin,
and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and
faith."
THE CHURCH RESPONSIBLE.
But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the
slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the
bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Many of
its most eloquent Divines. who stand as the very lights of the church, have
shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave
system. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation
of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to
his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and
this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity.
For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! welcome atheism! welcome
anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines! They
convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny, and barbarous
cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel
writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke, put together, have done!
These ministers make religion a cold and flinty- hearted thing, having neither
principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of
God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive
form. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. It is
not that "pure and undefiled religion" which is from above, and which
is "first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and
good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy." But a religion
which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud above the
humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says
to the man in chains, stay there; and to the oppressor, oppress on; it is a
religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of
mankind; it makes God a respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the
race, and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man. All
this we affirm to be true of the popular church, and the popular worship of our
land and nation - a religion, a church, and a worship which, on the authority
of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of God. In
the language of Isaiah, the American church might be well addressed,
"Bring no more vain ablations; incense is an abomination unto me: the new
moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is
iniquity even
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the solemn meeting.... Yea! when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. YOUR
HANDS ARE FULL OF BLOOD; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment;
relieve the oppressed; judge for the fatherless; plead for the widow."
The American church is guilty, when viewed in connection with what it is doing
to uphold slavery; but it is superlatively guilty when viewed in connection
with its ability to abolish slavery.
The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission.
Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all observant
of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared that
"There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour,
if it were not sustained in it."
Let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday school, the conference meeting,
the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land
array their immense powers against slavery and slave-holding; and the whole
system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds; and that they do not
do this involves them in the most awful responsibility of which the mind can
conceive.
In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to spare the
church, to spare the ministry; but how, we ask, could such a thing be done? We
are met on the threshold of our efforts for the redemption of the slave, by the
church and ministry of the country, in battle arrayed against us; and we are
compelled to fight or flee. From what quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a
fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern
pulpit? As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology
have appeared-men, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning.
The LORDS of Buffalo, the SPRINGS of New York, the LATHROPS of Auburn, the
COXES and SPENCERS of Brooklyn, the GANNETS and SHARPS of Boston, the DEWEYS of
Washington, and other great religious lights of the land, have, in utter denial
of the authority of Him, by whom they professed to be called to the ministry,
deliberately taught us, against the example or the Hebrews and against the remonstrance
of the Apostles they teach, "that we ought to obey man’s law before the
law of God."
My spirit wearies of such blasphemy; and how such men can be supported, as the
"standing types and representatives of Jesus Christ," is a mystery
which I leave others to penetrate. In speaking of the American church, however,
let it be distinctly understood that I mean the great mass of the religious
organizations of our land. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there
are. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom
Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed
friend on the platform, are shining examples; and let me say further, that upon
these men lies the duty to inspire our ranks with high religious faith and
zeal, and to cheer us on in the great mission of the slave’s redemption from
his chains.
RELIGION IN ENGLAND AND RELIGION IN AMERICA.
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One is struck with the difference between the attitude of the American church
towards the anti-slavery movement, and that occupied by the churches in England
towards a similar movement in that country. There, the church, true to its
mission of ameliorating, elevating, and improving the condition of mankind,
came forward promptly, bound up the wounds of the West Indian slave, and
restored him to his liberty. There, the question of emancipation was a high[ly]
religious question. It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to
the law of the living God..... The anti-slavery movement there was not an
anti-church movement, for the reason that the church took its full share in
prosecuting that movement: and the anti-slavery movement in this country will
cease to be an anti-church movement, when the church of this country shall
assume a favorable, instead or a hostile position towards that movement.
Americans! your republican politics, not less than your republican religion,
are flagrantly inconsistent. You boast of your love of liberty, your superior
civilization, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of
the nation (as embodied in the two great political parties), is solemnly
pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of your
countrymen. You hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and
Austria, and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while you
yourselves consent to be the mere tools and bodyguards of the tyrants of
Virginia and Carolina. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from
abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast
them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water;
but the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and
kill. You glory in your refinement and your universal education yet you
maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character of a
nation - a system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in
cruelty. You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs
the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till your gallant sons are
ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause against her oppressors; but, in
regard to the ten thousand wrongs of the American slave, you would enforce the
strictest silence, and would hail him as an enemy of the nation who dares to
make those wrongs the subject of public discourse! You are all on fire at the
mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are as cold as an iceberg at
the thought of liberty for the enslaved of America. You discourse eloquently on
the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence,
casts a stigma upon labor. You can bare your bosom to the storm of British
artillery to throw off a threepenny tax on tea; and yet wring the last
hard-earned farthing from the grasp of the black laborers of your country. You
profess to believe "that, of one blood, God made all nations of men to
dwell on the face of all the earth," and hath commanded all men,
everywhere to love one another; yet you notoriously hate, (and glory in your
hatred), all men whose skins are not colored like your own. You declare, before
the world, and are understood by the world to declare, that you "hold
these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; and are
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that, among these
are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;" and yet, you hold
securely, in a bondage which, according to your own Thomas Jefferson, "is
worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose," a
seventh part of the inhabitants of your country.
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Fellow-citizens! I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies.
The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham,
your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys
your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the
foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a by word to a
mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing
that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. It fetters your progress; it
is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it
breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the
earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet
anchor of all your hopes. Oh! be warned! be warned! a horrible reptile is
coiled up in your nation’s bosom; the venomous creature is nursing at the
tender breast of your youthful republic; for the love of God, tear away, and
fling from you the hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty millions crush
and destroy it forever!
THE CONSTITUTION.
But it is answered in reply to all this, that precisely what I have now
denounced is, in fact, guaranteed and sanctioned by the Constitution of the
United States; that the right to hold and to hunt slaves is a part of that
Constitution framed by the illustrious Fathers of this Republic.
Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers
stooped, basely stooped
"To palter with us in a double sense: And keep the word of promise to the
ear, But break it to the heart."
And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they
were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. This is the
inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape. But I differ from those
who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United
States. It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe...In (the
Constitution) I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the
hateful thing; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution
is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is
slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? It is
neither. While I do not intend to argue this question on the present occasion,
let me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were
intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave- holding instrument, why
neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it? Now,
there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all
legal instruments. These rules are well established. They are plain,
common-sense rules, such as you and I, and all of us, can understand and apply,
without having passed years in the study of law. I scout the idea that the
question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a
question for the people. I hold that every American citizen has a fight to form
an opinion of the constitution, and to propagate that opinion, and to use all
honorable means to make his opinion the prevailing one....
Page 13 of 15
Now, take the constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the
presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be
found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of
slavery...
Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this
day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country.
There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of
slavery.
"The arm of the Lord is not shortened," and the doom of slavery is
certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing
encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it
contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by
the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same
relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up
from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers
without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established
customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their
evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the
privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change
has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become
unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city.
Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its
pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and
lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations
together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively
annihilated. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are, distinctly
heard on the other.
The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. The
Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. The fiat of the
Almighty, "Let there be Light," has not yet spent its force. No
abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from
the all-pervading light. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be
seen, in contrast with nature. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven
garment. "Ethiopia shall stretch out her hand unto God." In the
fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join
in saying it:
God speed the year of jubilee
The wide world o'er!
When from their galling chains set free, Th' oppress'd shall vilely bend the
knee,
And wear the yoke of tyranny
Like brutes no more.
That year will come, and freedom's reign. To man his plundered rights again
Restore.
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God speed the day when human blood Shall cease to flow!
In every clime be understood,
The claims of human brotherhood, And each return for evil, good,
Not blow for blow;
That day will come all feuds to end, And change into a faithful friend Each
foe.
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Keep this one important thing in mind this was 76 years after they had already
declared themselves independent . What are we the people doing now. We
declare the Omni law and we are still waiting on something , someone help me
with these actions. The iron grip of this nation will never be broken
until all men, women, boy and girl stand up and take their active part to bring
it to reality . This is a cry out to the leaders and followers that can see and
know that we are on a course of a doom destiny.
Yes ! And this day we can now change but a few things , that is the name of and
the color of the people being carry on the ships to become slaves in their own
countries and that is the poor human race. Money cannot buy love but it
has in all cases purchased hate.
Again he who has an ear let him hear and he who has eyes let him see !!!!
Dr. Hendo I. L. Henderson
17 June 2013
Sovereign Civil People Rights