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Show 8 b een tl1 e represe ntative of three and a half millions of white persons h el d as slaves , every one of those muskets would have started into life, and four hundred thousand men would have come forth, each with a firelock on his shoulder; and then one hundred thousand women would have followed, bringing the rest of the muskets. Th~t would h~ve been the state of things if she had been a white, Caucasian woman, and not a black African. We should not then have asked Quakers to lead in the greatest enterprise in the world: the leaders would have been Soldiers; I mean such men as our fathers, who did not content themselves with asking Great Britain to leave off oppressing them. They asked that first ; and when Great Britain said, "Please God, we never will!" what did the Saxon say? "Please God, I will make you!" And he kept his word. "Gods ! " (we should have said,) " Can a Saxon people long debate Which of the two to choose,- slavery, or death? No : let us rise at once, gird on our swords, ... Attack the foe, break through the thick array Of his thronged legions, and charge home upon him ! " That would have been the talk. Meetings would have been "opened wth prayer'' by men who trusted in God, and likewise kept their powder dry. But in this case it was otherwise. The work has not been to arouse the Indignation of the Enslaved, but to stir the Humanity of the Oppressor, to touch his conscience, his affection, his religious sentiment; or to show that his political and pecuniary interests required the freedom of all men in America. And it has been very fortunate for us that this great enterprise fell into the hands of just such men as these,that it was not soldiers who chiefly engaged in it, but Men of Peace, By and by I will show you why. The attempt was made at first, and by that gentleman • • 9 too (pointing to Mr. Garrison), with others, to arouse the antislavery feeling in the actual Slaveholders at the South. You know what followed. He and every one who tried it there were driven over the border. Then the attempt was made at the North ; and there it has been continued. It is exceedingly important to get a right antislavery feeling at the North: for two-thirds of the population are at the North; three-fourths of the property, four-fifths of the education, are here, and I suppose six-sevenths of the Christianity; and one of these days it may be found out that seven-eighths of the courage are at the North also. I do not say it is so; but it may turn out so. So much for the matter of Sentiment. II. Now look at the next point. If the sentiment be right, then the mind is to furnish the Idea. But a statement of the idea before the sentiment is fixed helps excite the feeling; and so a great deal has been done to spread abroad the antislavery idea, even amongst persons who had not the antislavery feeling; for, though the heart helps the head, the head likewise pays back the debt by helping the heart. If Mr. Garrison has a clear Idea of freedom, he will go to men who have no very strong Sentirnent of freedom, and will awake the soul of liberty underneath those ribs of death. The Woman hood of Lucy Stone Blackwell will do it; the Complexion of Mr. Remond will do it. In spreading this Idea of Freedom, a good deal has been done, chiefly at the North, but son1ething also at the South. Attempts have been made to diffuse the antislavery idea in this way: Men go before merchants, and say, " Slavery is bad economy; it don't pay: the slave can't raise so much tobacco and cotton as the freeman." That is an argument which Mr. May's "mercantile friend" could have understood; and a political economist might have shown him, that, although there were millions of dollars invested "on account of slavery," there were tens of millions invested 2 |
