Discussion on American Slavery. Thompson George
he had undeservedly said of America. With regard to the feelings he entertained towards the Americans, he need only refer to the last letter he had published to the American people, from which he would read a passage to show the feelings he entertained towards that country, as well as to those of her citizens who might reach these shores from America. Mr. Thompson then read the following passages: —
I love America, because her sons, though my persecutors, are immortal – because 'they know not what they do,' or if enlightened and wilful, are so much the more to be pitied and cared for. I love America, because of the many affectionate friends I have found upon her shores, by whom I have been cherished, refreshed and strengthened; and upon whose regard I place an incalculable value. I love America, for there dwells the fettered slave – fettered and darkened, and degraded now, but soon to spring into light and liberty, and rank on earth, as he is ranked in heaven, 'but a little lower than the angels.' I love America, because of the many mighty and magnificent enterprises in which she has embarked for the salvation of the world. I love her rising spires, her peaceful villages, and her multiplied means of moral, literary, and religious improvement. I love her hardy sons, the tenants of her vallies and her mountains green. I love her native children of the forest, still roaming, untutored and untamed, in the unsubdued wildernesses of the 'far west.' I love your country, because it is the theatre of the sublimest contest now waging with darkness and despotism, and misery on the face of the globe; and because your country is ordained to be the scene of a triumph, as holy in its character and as glorious in its results, as any ever achieved through the instrumentality of men.
But though my soul yearns over America, and I desire nothing more eagerly than to see her stand forth among the nations of the world, unsullied in reputation, and omnipotent in energy, yet shall I, if spared, deem it my duty to publish aloud her wide and fearful departures from rectitude and mercy. I shall unceasingly proclaim the wrongs of her enslaved children; and, while she continues to 'traffic in the souls of men,' brand her as recreant to the great principles of her revolutionary struggle, and hypocritical in all her professions of attachment to the cause of human rights.
I thank God, I cherish no feelings of bitterness or revenge, towards any individual in America, my most inveterate enemy not excepted. Should the sea on which I am about to embark receive me ere I gain my native shore – should this be the last letter I ever address to the people of America, Heaven bears me witness, I with truth and sincerity affirm that, as I look to be freely forgiven, so freely do I forgive my persecutors and slanderers and pray – 'Lord lay not this sin to their charge.'
In another part of the same letter he had thus expressed himself: —
Should a kind providence place me again upon the soil of my birth, and when there, should any American (and I hope many will) visit that soil to plead the cause of virtue and philanthropy, and strive in love to provoke us to good works, let him know that there will be one man who will uphold his right to liberty of speech, one man who will publicly and privately assert and maintain the divinity of his commission to attack sin and alleviate suffering, in every form, in every latitude, and under whatever sanction and authorities it may be cloaked and guarded. And coming on such an errand, I think I may pledge myself in behalf of my country, that he shall not be driven with a wife and little ones, from the door of a hotel in less than 36 hours after he first breathes our air – that he shall not be denounced as an incendiary, a fanatic, an emissary, an enemy, and a traitor – that he shall not be assailed with oaths and missiles, while proclaiming from the pulpit in the house of God, on the evening of a Christian Sabbath, the doctrines of 'judgment, justice, and mercy,' – that he shall not be threatened, wherever he goes, with 'tar and feathers' – that he shall not be repudiated and abused in newspapers denominated religious, and by men calling themselves Christian Ministers – that he shall not have a price set upon his head, and his house surrounded with ruffians, hired to effect his abduction – that his wife and children shall not be forced to flee from the hearth of a friend, lest they should be 'smoked out' by men in civic authority, and their paid myrmidons – that the mother and her little ones shall not find at midnight, the house surrounded by an infuriated multitude, calling with horrible execrations for the husband and the father – that his lady shall not be doomed, while in a strange land, to see her babes clinging to her with affright, exclaiming, 'the mob shan't get papa,' 'papa is good is he not? the naughty mob shan't get him, shall they?' – that he shall not, finally, be forced to quit the most enlightened and christian city of our nation, to escape the assassin's knife, and return to tell his country, that in Britain the friend of virtue, humanity, and freedom, was put beyond the protection of the laws, and the pale of civilized sympathy, and given over by professor and profane, to the tender mercies of a blood-thirsty rabble.
These extracts were from the last letter that he had written to the people of America, and which had been widely published there; and he was glad of an opportunity of now laying them before a Glasgow audience, and of having them incorporated in the proceedings of the evening, in order to show that he then forgave America, that he now forgave America. He would stand there to defend the right of Mr. Breckinridge to a fair hearing from his (Mr. Thompson's) countrymen; and stand forward as his protector, to save him from the missile that might be aimed at him, and to receive into his own bosom the dagger which might be aimed at his heart. His opponent might be anxious to know what report he (Mr. T.) made on his return to Britain of his proceedings in America. He would therefore read an extract from the minutes of the London Society for Universal Emancipation: —
George Thompson was then introduced to the Committee, and communicated at length the result of his Mission in the United States, and the present cheering aspect of the Anti-Slavery cause in that country. The following is a brief outline of his statement:
He desired to be devoutly thankful to Divine Providence for the signal preservation and help vouchsafed to him in all his labors, perils, and persecutions. He considered it a high honor to have been permitted to proclaim in the ears of a distant people the great principles held by the Society.
He sailed from this country on the 17th August, 1834, landed at New York on the 20th September, and commenced his public labors on the 1st of October. His public Lectures were continued down to the 20th October, 1835, during which period he delivered between 2 and 300 public Lectures, besides innumerable shorter addresses before Committees, Conventions, Associations, &c. &c. His audiences had invariably been overflowing, and composed from time to time of members of State Legislatures, the Heads of Colleges, Professors, Clergymen of all denominations, members of the legal profession, and the students of nearly all the Theological and Academical Institutions in New England. The result of his labors had been the multiplication of Anti-Slavery Associations to an unprecedented extent. Up to the month of May, 1835, he met with no serious or formidable opposition. At that time the National Society reported the existence of 250 auxiliaries, and its determination to appropriate during the ensuing year the sum of 30,000 dollars in the printing of papers and pamphlets to be gratuitously circulated amongst the entire white population of the country. The Southern States, previously almost silent and inoperative, soon after commenced a system of terrorism, intercepting the public conveyances, rifling the Mail Bags, scourging, mutilating or murdering all suspected of holding Anti-Slavery views, and calling with one consent upon the Free States to pass laws, abridging the freedom of speech and of the press, upon the subject of slavery. The North promptly responded to the call of the South, and in every direction through the Free States the Abolitionists became the victims of persecution, proscription and outrage. The friends of Negro freedom every where endured with a patience and spirit of christian charity, almost unexampled, the multiplied wrongs and injuries accumulated upon them. They ceased not to labor for the Holy cause they had espoused, but perseveringly pursued their course in the use of all means sanctioned by Justice, Religion, and the Constitution of their country. The result had been the rapid extension of their principles, and a vast accession of moral strength. G. T. gave an appalling account of the condition of the Southern Churches. The Presbyterians, Baptists, and Episcopal Methodist Churches were the main pillars of the system of Slavery. Were they to withdraw their countenance, and cease to participate in its administration and profit, it would not exist one year. Bishops, presiding Elders, Travelling Preachers, Local Preachers, Trustees, Stewards, Class Leaders, private Members, and other attendants in the Churches of the Episcopal Methodists, with the preachers and subordinate members of the other denominations,