Antislavery movements -- United States; Slavery -- United States
Branded with falsehood and impiety, the author was happily put on her
trial before the civilized world. She collected, arranged, and gave to
the press, a mass of unimpeachable documents, consisting of laws,
judicial decisions, trials, confessions of slaveholders,
advertisements from southern papers, and testimonies of eye-witnesses.
The proof was conclusive and overwhelming that the picture she had
drawn of American slavery was unfaithful, only because the coloring
was faint, and wanted the crimson dye of the original. A verdict of
not guilty of exaggeration has been rendered by acclamation.
It has long been the standing refuge of the slaveholders, that
northern men and Europeans, in condemning slavery, were passing
judgment against an institution of which they were ignorant. The
"peculiar institution" was represented as some great _mystery_ which
could not be understood beyond the slave region. Thanks to the
fugitive law, it has led to the construction of a "_key_," which has
unlocked our Republican bastile, thrown open to the sunlight its
hideous dungeons, and exposed the various instruments of torture for
subjecting the soul, as well as the body, to hopeless and unresisting
bondage. The iniquity of our cherished institution is no longer a
MYSTERY. All Christendom is now made familiar with it, and is sending
forth a cry of indignant remonstrance and of taunting scorn. Such is
the suppression of anti-slavery agitation given to the slaveholders by
their northern friends--such the strength imparted by the fugitive
slave law to the system of human bondage. How applicable to the
inventors and supporters of that statute are the words of David, in
regard to some politician of his own day: "Behold he travaileth with
iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood. He
made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made.
His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing
shall come down upon his own pate;" and then he adds, "I will praise
the Lord." So also let the Christian bless and magnify HIM, who by his
infinite wisdom brings good out of evil, and in the case of the
fugitive law, HATH CAUSED THE WRATH OF MAN TO PRAISE HIM.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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