The Heroic Slave

by Frederick Douglass

  This principle is so plain, that it has been established and is acted upon among ourselves, and in the neighboring British provinces. When a slave is brought by his master into Massachusetts, he is pronounced free, on the ground that the law of slavery has no force beyond the state which ordains it, and that the right of every man to liberty is recognized as one of the fundamental laws of the commonwealth. A slave flying from his master to this commonwealth is indeed restored, but not on account of the validity of the legislation of the South on this point, but solely on the ground of a positive provision of the constitution of the United States; and he is delivered, not as a slave, but as a “person held to service by law in another state.”2 We should not think for a moment of restoring a slave flying to us from Cuba or Turkey. We recognize no right of a foreign master on this soil. The moment he brings his slave here, his claim vanishes into air; and this takes place because we recognize freedom as the right of every human being….

  I repeat it, for the truth deserves reiteration, that all nations are bound to respect the rights of every human being. This is God’s law, as old as the world. No local law can touch it. No ordinance of a particular state, degrading a set of men to chattels, can absolve all nations from the obligation of regarding the injured beings as men, or bind them to send back the injured to their chains. The character of a slave, attached to a man by a local government, is not and cannot be incorporated into his nature. It does not cling to him, go where he will. The scar of slavery on his back does not reach his soul. The arbitrary relation between him and his master cannot suspend the primitive indestructible relation by which God binds him to his kind.

  The idea that a particular state may fix, enduringly, this stigma on a human being, and can bind the most just and generous men to respect it, should be rejected with scorn and indignation. It reminds us of those horrible fictions, in which some demon is described as stamping an indelible mark of hell on his helpless victims. It was the horrible peculiarity of the world in the reign of Tiberius,3 that it had become one vast prison. The unhappy man, on whom the blighting suspicion of the tyrant had fallen, could find no shelter or escape through the whole civilized regions of the globe. Every where his sentence followed him like fate. And can the law of a despot, or of a chamber of despots, extend now the same fearful doom to the ends of the earth? Can a little state at the South spread its web of cruel, wrongful legislation over both continents? Do all communities become spell-bound by a law in a single country creating slavery? Must they become the slave’s jailers? Must they be less merciful than the storm which drives off the bondman from the detested shore of servitude and casts him on the soil of freedom? Must even that soil become tainted by an ordinance passed perhaps in another hemisphere? Has oppression this terrible omnipresence? Must the whole earth register the slave-holders’ decree? Then the earth is blighted indeed. Then, as some ancient sects taught, it is truly the empire of the Principle of Evil, of the power of Darkness. Then God is dethroned here; for where injustice and oppression are omnipotent, God has no empire.

  I have thus stated the great principle on which the English authorities acted in the case of the Creole, and on which all nations are bound to act. Slavery is the creature of a local law, having power not a hand-breadth beyond the jurisdiction of the country which ordains it. Other nations know nothing of it, are bound to pay it no heed. I might add that other nations are bound to tolerate it within the bounds of a particular state, only on the grounds on which they suffer a particular state to establish bloody superstitions, to use the rack in jurisprudence, or to practice other enormities. They might more justifiably put down slavery where it exists, than enforce a foreign slave code within their own bounds. Such is the impregnable principle which we of the free states should recognize and earnestly sustain.

  1. Webster’s letter to Everett of 29 January 1842.

  2. A reference to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. A belief among many proslavery people that this act was inadequate led to the adoption of a more forceful fugitive slave law as part of the Compromise of 1850.

  3. Tiberius (42 BC–AD 37) was emperor of Rome from AD 14 to 37.

  JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS

  Resolutions

  By March 1842, debate on the Creole had heated up in a Congress already divided about the gag rules: the effort by southern leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives to ban debate on antislavery petitions. The Massachusetts congressman John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), the sixth president of the United States (1825–29), led the opposition to the gag rules, and he was joined by Congressman Joshua R. Giddings (1795–1864) of Ohio. When southerners and their northern supporters (known as “doughfaces”) failed in their effort to censure Adams, Giddings felt emboldened to address the Creole rebellion. With the help of the prominent abolitionist Theodore Dwight Weld (1803–1895), who formulated some of his language, Giddings drew up a series of resolutions offering support for the Creole rebels and questioning the legality of slavery beyond the jurisdiction of the slave states. Giddings proposed the resolutions on the House floor on 21 March 1842. Making use of an arcane procedural move, southern leaders refused either to table or to vote on the resolutions, which allowed them to put forth a resolution the very next day to censure Giddings. That censure passed on a vote of 125–60, with the entire Democratic Party and most southern Whigs voting against Giddings. In response, Giddings resigned from the House in protest, only to be reelected by his constituents in a special election on 5 May 1842. Giddings and Adams continued their campaign against the gag rules, which were eventually repealed on 3 December 1844. Giddings’s resolutions on the Creole rebellion and Virginia congressman John Minor Botts’s censure resolution are taken from the Congressional Globe, 27th Congress, 2nd session, 21–22 March, 1842.

  Mr. GIDDINGS said he had a series of resolutions upon a subject which had called forth some interest in the other end of the Capitol, and in the nation. He desired to lay them before the country, and would call them up for action at the next opportunity.

  The resolutions were read as follows:

  Resolved, That, prior to the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, each of the several States composing this Union exercised full and exclusive jurisdiction over the subject of slavery within its own territory, and possessed full power to continue or abolish it at pleasure.

  Resolved, That by adopting the Constitution, no part of the aforesaid powers were delegated to the Federal Government, but were reserved by and still pertain to each of the several States.

  Resolved, That by the 8th section of the 1st article of the Constitution, each of the several States surrendered to the Federal Government all jurisdiction over the subjects of commerce and navigation upon the high seas.

  Resolved, That slavery being an abridgment of the natural rights of man, can exist only by force of positive municipal law, and is necessarily confined to the territorial jurisdiction of the power creating it.

  Resolved, That when a ship belonging to the citizens of any State of the Union leaves the waters and territory of such State and enters upon the high seas, the persons on board cease to be subject to the slave laws of such State, and therefore are governed in their relations to each other by, and are amenable to, the laws of the United States.

  Resolved, That when the brig Creole, on her late passage for New Orleans, left the territorial jurisdiction of Virginia, the slave laws of that State ceased to have jurisdiction over the persons on board such brig, and such persons became amenable only to the laws of the United States.

  Resolved, That the persons on board the said ship, in resuming their natural rights of personal liberty, violated no law of the United States, incurred no legal penalty, and are justly liable to no punishment.

  Resolved, That all attempts to regain possession of, or to re-enslave said persons, are unauthorized by the Constitution or laws of the United States, and are incompatible with our national honor.

  Resolved, That all attempts to exert our national influence in favor o
f the coastwise slave trade, or to place this nation in the attitude of maintaining a “commerce in human beings,” are subversive of the rights and injurious to the feelings and the interests of the free States; are unauthorized by the Constitution and prejudicial to our national character.

  Mr. BOTTS … then asked leave … to offer a resolution— …

  Whereas the Hon. JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS, the member from the 16th Congressional district of the State of Ohio, has this day presented to the House a series of resolutions touching the most important interests connected with a large portion of the Union, now a subject of negotiation between the United States and Great Britain of the most delicate nature, the result of which may eventually involve those nations, and perhaps the whole civilized world in war:

  And whereas it is the duty of every good citizen, and particularly every selected agent and representative of the people to discountenance all efforts to create excitement, dissatisfaction, and division among the people of the United States at such a time, and under such circumstances, which is the only effect to be accomplished by the introduction of sentiments before the legislative body of the country, hostile to the grounds assumed by the high functionary having in charge this important and delicate trust:

  And whereas mutiny and murder are therein justified and approved in terms shocking to all sense of law, order, and humanity; therefore

  Resolved, That this House holds the conduct of the said member as altogether unwarranted, and unwarrantable, and deserving the severe condemnation of the people of this country, and of this body in particular.

  HENRY HIGHLAND GARNET

  from “An Address to the Slaves of the United States of America”

  On 16 August 1843, at the National Convention of Colored Citizens held at Buffalo, New York, the African American Presbyterian minister Henry Highland Garnet (1815–1882) addressed the approximately seventy delegates in attendance. Rejecting the nonviolent, moral-suasion approach championed by William Lloyd Garrison and his supporters, including Frederick Douglass, Garnet, in “An Address to the Slaves,” celebrated slave resistance as an act of patriotism and self-defense, invoking such black freedom fighters as Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, and Madison Washington. This speech marks the first notable invocation of Washington beyond the newspaper accounts of 1841 and 1842, showing that he had entered the pantheon of black revolutionary heroes. Garnet came under fire from the Garrisonian abolitionists who made up most of the delegates, and after much debate the “Address” failed by one vote in winning the endorsement of the subcommittee charged with formulating the convention’s recommendations for future action. Douglass, who was on that committee, voted against Garnet’s speech. By the mid-1840s, however, Douglass had moved much closer to Garnet’s position, in part because of his shared admiration for the rebels of the Creole. In his speeches on Washington of the late 1840s (which are excerpted in the next section), he could be just as vociferous as Garnet in calling for slave resistance. The text below of the closing paragraphs of Garnet’s speech is taken from Walker’s Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life. By Henry Highland Garnet. And also Garnet’s Address to the Slaves of the United States of America (New York: J. H. Tobbit, 1848), a reprinting of two major black-revolutionary documents funded by the white abolitionist and revolutionary John Brown.

  Fellow-men! patient sufferers! behold your dearest rights crushed to the earth! See your sons murdered, and your wives, mothers, and sisters, doomed to prostitution! In the name of the merciful God! and by all that life is worth, let it no longer be a debatable question, whether it is better to choose LIBERTY or DEATH!1

  In 1822, Denmark Veazie, of South Carolina, formed a plan for the liberation of his fellow men. In the whole history of human efforts to overthrow slavery, a more complicated and tremendous plan was never formed. He was betrayed by the treachery of his own people, and died a martyr to freedom.2 Many a brave hero fell, but History, faithful to her high trust, will transcribe his name on the same monument with Moses, Hampden, Tell, Bruce, and Wallace, Touissaint L’Ouverture, Lafayette and Washington.3 That tremendous movement shook the whole empire of slavery. The guilty soul thieves were overwhelmed with fear. It is a matter of fact, that at that time, and in consequence of the threatened revolution, the slave states talked strongly of emancipation. But they blew but one blast of the trumpet of freedom, and then laid it aside. As these men became quiet, the slaveholders ceased to talk about emancipation: and now, behold your condition to-day! Angels sigh over it, and humanity has long since exhausted her tears in weeping on your account!

  The patriotic Nathaniel Turner4 followed Denmark Veazie. He was goaded to desperation by wrong and injustice. By Despotism, his name has been recorded on the list of infamy, but future generations will number him among the noble and brave.

  Next arose the immortal Joseph Cinque, the hero of the Amistad.5 He was a native African, and by the help of God he emancipated a whole ship-load of his fellow men on the high seas. And he now sings of liberty on the sunny hills of Africa, and beneath his native palm trees, where he hears the lion roar, and feels himself as free as that king of the forest. Next arose Madison Washington, that bright star of freedom, and took his station in the constellation of freedom. He was a slave on board the brig Creole, of Richmond, bound to New Orleans, that great slave mart, with a hundred and four others. Nineteen struck for liberty or death. But one life was taken, and the whole were emancipated, and the vessel was carried into Nassau, New Providence. Noble men! Those who have fallen in freedom’s conflict, their memories will be cherished by the true hearted, and the God-fearing, in all future generations; those who are living, their names are surrounded by a halo of glory.

  We do not advise you to attempt a revolution with the sword, because it would be INEXPEDIENT. Your numbers are too small, and moreover the rising spirit of the age, and the spirit of the gospel, are opposed to war and bloodshed. But from this moment cease to labor for tyrants who will not remunerate you. Let every slave throughout the land do this, and the days of slavery are numbered. You cannot be more oppressed than you have been—you cannot suffer greater cruelties than you have already. Rather DIE FREEMEN, THAN LIVE TO BE SLAVES. Remember that you are THREE MILLIONS.

  It is in your power so to torment the God-cursed slaveholders, that they will be glad to let you go free. If the scale was turned, and black men were the masters, and white men the slaves, every destructive agent and element would be employed to lay the oppressor low. Danger and death would hang over their heads day and night. Yes, the tyrants would meet with plagues more terrible than those of Pharaoh. But you are a patient people. You act as though you were made for the special use of these devils. You act as though your daughters were born to pamper the lusts of your masters and overseers. And worse than all, you tamely submit, while your lords tear your wives from your embraces, and defile them before your eyes. In the name of God we ask, are you men? Where is the blood of your fathers? Has it all run out of your veins? Awake, awake; millions of voices are calling you! Your dead fathers speak to you from their graves. Heaven, as with a voice of thunder, calls on you to arise from the dust.

  Let your motto be RESISTANCE! RESISTANCE! RESISTANCE!—No oppressed people have ever secured their liberty without resistance. What kind of resistance you had better make, you must decide by the circumstances that surround you, and according to the suggestion of expediency. Brethren, adieu. Trust in the living God. Labor for the peace of the human race, and remember that you are three millions.

  1. The famous credo of Virginia’s revolutionary patriot Patrick Henry (1736–1799).

  2. In 1822, Denmark Vesey (1767?–1822) allegedly attempted to bring about a slave insurrection in Charleston, South Carolina. He was executed after a house servant revealed the plot.

  3. References to revolutionary heroes from antiquity to the nineteenth century. Moses led the Jewish people out of slavery in Egypt; John Hampden (1594–1643) helped lead the Puritan opposition to Charles I during the late 1630s and
early 1640s; William Tell was a legendary (perhaps apocryphal) Swiss freedom fighter of the fourteenth century; the Scots Robert Bruce (1274–1329) and William Wallace (1272?–1305) championed popular resistance to England during the thirteenth century; Toussaint-Louverture (1743–1803) was one of the leaders of the late-eighteenth-century Haitian uprising against French colonial control; and the Frenchman the Marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834) and George Washington (1732–1799), the eventual first president of the United States, were celebrated American Revolutionary military leaders.

  4. Tuner (1800–1831) led a slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, on 22 August 1831 that resulted in the deaths of approximately sixty whites.

  5. Joseph Cinqué was one of the leaders of the 1839 slave uprising on the Spanish slave ship Amistad. The U.S. Navy seized the ship and mutineers, but in 1841 the U.S. Supreme Court granted the rebels their freedom. Abolitionists helped Cinqué and others return to Africa.

  PART 3

  Douglass on the Creole and Black Revolution

  DOUGLASS DID NOT SPEAK OR write about the Creole rebellion in the early 1840s, or if he did, those comments are no long extant. But beginning in the fall of 1845, when he commenced a nearly two-year antislavery lecture tour in Great Britain and Ireland, Douglass regularly referred to Madison Washington and the Creole rebellion in his speeches, praising both the bravery of the Creole rebels and the courage of the British in refusing to return the former slaves to their U.S. owners. Douglass’s British tour of 1845–47 was motivated by his need to leave the United States after the May 1845 publication of his Narrative, for suddenly the celebrated author—who was still legally a slave—was vulnerable to fugitive slave hunters. (Douglass was bought out of slavery in 1846 by his British admirers.) Speaking in Ireland, Scotland, and England, Douglass no doubt identified with Washington as a person who took refuge with the British, and on several occasions he made the connection himself. Increasingly, he expressed his admiration for Washington as a black who was willing to use violence to bring about his and his compatriots’ freedom. As a lecturer in William Lloyd Garrison’s antislavery organization, Douglass from 1841 to 1845 had generally followed Garrison in advocating moral suasion over violence. But by the late 1840s, he was arguing that violent rebellion could well be an appropriate response to the violence of slavery. In 1851, he publicly broke with Garrison, and in his writings of the 1850s, including The Heroic Slave, he celebrated black rebels as belonging in the heroic tradition of the American revolutionaries of 1776 and the Haitian revolutionaries of the 1790s and early 1800s.