Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Pausing for a moment, he stood with his hands tightly clasped before him, leaning forward, looking into the distance. At last, with the action and energy of one who beholds a triumphant reality, he broke forth: “Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? This, that is glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength?”

  He seemed to listen, and, as if he had caught an answer, he repeated: “I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save!”

  “Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winepress? I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with me; for I will tread them in my anger, and trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled on my garments, and I will stain all my raiment! For the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed is come! And I looked, and there was none to help! And I wondered that there was none to uphold! Therefore mine own arm brought salvation, and my fury it upheld me! For I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury!”

  Gradually the light faded from his face. His arms fell. He stood a few moments with his head bowed down on his breast. Yet the spell of his emotion held every one silent. At last, stretching out his hand, he broke forth in passionate prayer: —

  “How long, O Lord, how long? Awake! Why sleepest thou, O Lord? Why withdrawest thou thy hand? Pluck it out of thy bosom! We see not the sign! There is no more any prophet, neither any among us, that knoweth how long! Wilt thou hold thy peace forever? Behold the blood of the poor crieth unto thee! Behold how they hunt for our lives! Behold how they pervert justice, and take away the key of knowledge! They enter not in themselves, and those that are entering in they hinder! Behold our wives taken for a prey! Behold our daughters sold to be harlots! Art thou a God that judgest on the earth? Wilt thou not avenge thine own elect, that cry unto thee day and night? Behold the scorning of them that are at ease, and the contempt of the proud! Behold how they speak wickedly concerning oppression! They set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth! Wilt thou hold thy peace for all these things, and afflict us very sore?”

  The energy of the emotion which had sustained him appeared gradually to have exhausted itself. And, after standing silent for a few moments, he seemed to gather himself together as a man waking out of a trance, and, turning to the excited circle around him, he motioned them to sit down, — when he spoke to them in his ordinary tone: —

  “Brethren,” he said, “the vision is sealed up, and the token is not yet come! The Lamb still beareth the yoke of their iniquities; there be prayers in the golden censers which go up like a cloud! And there is silence in heaven for the space of half an hour! But hold yourselves in waiting, for the day cometh! And what shall be the end thereof?”

  A deep voice answered Dred. It was that of Hannibal. “We will reward them as they have rewarded us! In the cup that they have filled to us we will measure to them again!”

  “God forbid,” said Dred, “that the elect of the Lord should do that! When the Lord saith unto us, Smite, then will we smite! We will not torment them with the scourge and fire, nor defile their women, as they have done with ours! But we will slay them utterly, and consume them from off the face of the earth!”

  At this moment the whole circle were startled by the sound of a voice which seemed to proceed deep in from among the trees, singing, in a wild and mournful tone, the familiar words of a hymn: —

  “Alas! and did my Saviour bleed,

  And did my Sovereign die?

  Would he devote that sacred head

  For such a wretch as I?”

  There was a dead silence as the voice approached still nearer, and the chorus was borne upon the night air: —

  “Oh, the Lamb, the loving Lamb,

  The Lamb of Calvary!

  The Lamb that was slain, but liveth again,

  To intercede for me!”

  And as the last two lines were sung, Milly emerged and stood in the centre of the group. When Dred saw her, he gave a kind of groan, and said, putting his hand out before his face: —

  “Woman, thy prayers withstand me!”

  “Oh, brethren,” said Milly, “I mistrusted of yer councils, and I’s been praying de Lord for you. Oh, brethren, behold de Lamb of God! If dere must come a day of vengeance, pray not to be in it! It’s de Lord’s strange work. Oh, brethren, is we de fust dat’s been took to de judgment seat? dat’s been scourged, and died in torments? Oh, brethren, who did it afore us? Didn’t He hang bleeding three hours, when dey mocked Him, and gave Him vinegar? Didn’t He sweat great drops o’ blood in de garden?”

  And Milly sang again, words so familiar to many of them that, involuntarily, several voices joined her: —

  “Agonizing in the garden,

  On the ground your Maker lies;

  On the bloody tree behold Him,

  Hear Him cry, before He dies,

  It is finished! Sinners, will not this suffice?”

  “Oh, won’t it suffice, brethren?” she said. “If de Lord could bear all dat and love us yet, sha’n’t we? Oh, brethren, dere’s a better way. I’s been whar you be. I’s been in de wilderness! Yes, I’s heard de sound of dat ar trumpet! Oh, brethren! brethren! dere was blackness and darkness dere! But I’s come to Jesus, de Mediator of de new covenant, and de blood of sprinkling, which speaketh better tings than dat of Abel. Hasn’t I suffered? My heart has been broke over and over for every child de Lord give me! And, when dey sold my poor Alfred, and shot him, and buried him like a dog, oh, but didn’t my heart burn? Oh, how I hated her dat sold him! I felt like I’d kill her! I felt like I’d be glad to see mischief come on her children! But, brethren, de Lord turned and looked upon me like he done on Peter. I saw him with de crown o’ thorns on his head, bleeding, bleeding, and I broke down and forgave her. And de Lord turned her heart, and he was our peace. He broke down de middle wall ‘tween us, and we come together, two poor sinners, to de foot of de cross. De Lord he judged her poor soul! She wa’n’t let off from her sins. Her chil’en growed up to be a plague and a curse to her! Dey broke her heart! Oh, she was saved by fire — but, bress de Lord, she was saved! She died with her poor head on my arm, — she dat had broke my heart! Wa’n’t dat better dan if I’d killed her? Oh, brethren, pray de Lord to give ’em repentance! Leave de vengeance to him. Vengeance is mine — I will repay, saith de Lord. Like he loved us when we was enemies, love yer enemies!”

  A dead silence followed this appeal. The keynote of another harmony had been struck. At last Dred rose up solemnly: —

  “Woman, thy prayers have prevailed for this time!” he said. “The hour is not yet come!”

  CHAPTER XLVI

  FRANK RUSSEL’S OPINIONS

  Clayton was still pursuing the object which he had undertaken. He determined to petition the legislature to grant to the slave the right of seeking legal redress in cases of injury; and, as a necessary to this, the right of bearing testimony in legal action. As Frank Russel was candidate for the next state legislature, he visited him for the purpose of getting him to present such a petition.

  Our readers will look in on the scene, in a small retired back room of Frank’s office, where his bachelor establishment as yet was kept. Clayton had been giving him an earnest account of his plans and designs.

  “The only safe way of gradual emancipation,” said Clayton, “is the reforming of law; and the beginning of all legal reform must of course be giving the slave legal personality. It’s of no use to enact laws for his protection in his family state, or in any other condition, till we open to him an avenue through which, if they are violated, his grievances can be heard, and can be proved. A thousand laws for his comfort, without this, are only a dead letter.”

  “I know it,” said Frank Russel; “there never was anything under heaven so atrocious as our slave code. It’s a bottomless pit of oppression. Nobody knows it so well as we lawyers. But then, Clayton, it’s quite another thi
ng what’s to be done about it.”

  “Why, I think it’s very plain what’s to be done,” said Clayton. “Go right forward and enlighten the community.

  Get the law reformed. That’s what I have taken for my work; and, Frank, you must help me.”

  “Hum!” said Frank. “Now, the fact is, Clayton, if I wore a stiff neckcloth, and had a D. D. to my name, I should tell you that the interests of Zion stood in the way, and that it was my duty to preserve my influence, for the sake of being able to take care of the Lord’s affairs. But, as I am not so fortunate, I must just say, without further preface, that it won’t do for me to compromise Frank Russel’s interests. Clayton, I can’t afford it, — that’s just it. It won’t do. You see, our party can’t take up that kind of thing. It would be just setting up a fort from which our enemies could fire on us at their leisure. If I go in to the legislature, I have to go in by my party. I have to represent my party, and, of course, I can’t afford to do anything that will compromise them.”

  “Well, now, Frank,” said Clayton, seriously and soberly, “are you going to put your neck into such a noose as this, to be led about all your life long, — the bond-slave of a party?”

  “Not I, by a good deal!” said Russel. “The noose will change ends one of these days, and I’ll drag the party. But we must all stoop to conquer, at first.”

  “And do you really propose nothing more to yourself than how to rise in the world?” said Clayton. “Isn’t there any great and good work that has beauty for you? Isn’t there anything in heroism and self-sacrifice?”

  “Well,” said Russel, after a short pause, “maybe there is; but, after all, Clayton, is there? This world looks to me like a confounded humbug, a great hoax, and everybody is going in for grub; and, I say, hang it all, why shouldn’t I have some of the grub, as well as the rest?”

  “Man shall not live by bread alone!” said Clayton.

  “Bread’s a pretty good thing, though, after all,” said Frank, shrugging his shoulders.

  “But,” said Clayton, “Frank, I am in earnest, and you’ve got to be. I want you to go with me down to the depths of your soul, where the water is still, and talk to me on honor. This kind of half-joking way that you have isn’t a good sign, Frank; it’s too old for you. A man that makes a joke of everything at your age, what will he do before he is fifty? Now, Frank, you do know that this system of slavery, if we don’t reform it, will eat out this country like a cancer.”

  “I know it,” said Frank. “For that matter, it has eaten into us pretty well.”

  “Now,” said Clayton, “if for nothing else, if we had no feeling of humanity for the slave, we must do something for the sake of the whites, for this is carrying us back into barbarism as fast as we can go. Virginia has been ruined by it, — run all down. North Carolina, I believe, has the unenviable notoriety of being the most ignorant and poorest State in the Union. I don’t believe there’s any country in old, despotic Europe where the poor are more miserable, vicious, and degraded than they are in our slave States. And it’s depopulating us; our men of ability, in the lower classes, who want to be respectable, won’t stand it. They will go off to some State where things move on. Hundreds and hundreds move out of North Carolina every year to the Western States. And it’s all this unnatural organization of society that does it. We have got to contemplate some mode of abolishing this evil. We have got to take the first step towards progress some time, or we ourselves are all undone.”

  “Clayton,” said Frank, in a tone now quite as serious as his own, “I tell you, as a solemn fact, that we can’t do it. Those among us who have got the power in their hands are determined to keep it, and they are wide awake. They don’t mean to let the first step be taken, because they don’t mean to lay down their power. The three fifths vote that they get by it is a thing they won’t part with. They’ll die first. Why, just look at it! There is at least twenty-four millions of property held in this way. What do you suppose these men care about the poor whites, and the ruin of the State, and all that? The poor whites may go to the devil for all them; and as for the ruin of the State, it won’t come in their day; and ‘after us the deluge,’ you know. That’s the talk! These men are our masters; they are yours; they are mine; they are masters of everybody in these United States. They can crack their whips over the head of any statesman or clergyman, from Maine to New Orleans, that disputes their will. They govern the country. Army, navy, treasury, church, state, everything is theirs, and whoever is going to get up must go up on their ladder. There isn’t any other ladder. There isn’t an interest, not a body of men, in these whole United States, that they can’t control; and I tell you, Clayton, you might as well throw ashes into the teeth of the north wind as undertake to fight their influence. Now if there was any hope of doing any good by this, if there was the least prospect of succeeding, why, I’d join in with you; but there isn’t. The thing is a fixed fact, and why shouldn’t I climb up on it, as well as everybody else?”

  “Nothing is fixed,” said Clayton, “that isn’t fixed in right. God and nature fight against evil.”

  “They do, I suppose; but it’s a long campaign,” said Frank, “and I must be on the side that will win while I’m alive. Now, Clayton, to you I always speak the truth; I won’t humbug you. I worship success. I am of Frederick the Great’s creed, ‘that Providence goes with the strongest battalions.’

  “I wasn’t made for defeat. I must have power. The preservation of this system, whole and entire, is to be the policy of the leaders of this generation. The fact is, they stand where it must be their policy. They must spread it over the whole territory. They must get the balance of power in the country, to build themselves up against the public opinion of mankind.

  “Why, Clayton, moral sentiment, as you call it, is a humbug! The whole world acquiesces in what goes, — they always have. There is a great outcry about slavery now; but let it succeed, and there won’t be. When they can outvote the Northern States, they’ll put them down. They have kept them subservient by intrigue so far, and by and by they’ll have the strength to put them down by force. England makes a fuss now; but let them only succeed, and she’ll be civil as a sheep. Of course, men always make a fuss about injustice, when they have nothing to gain by holding their tongues; but England’s mouth will be stopped with cotton, — you’ll see it. They love trade and hate war. And so the fuss of anti-slavery will die out in the world. Now, when you see what a poor hoax human nature is, what’s the use of bothering? The whole race together aren’t worth a button, Clayton, and self-sacrifice for such fools is a humbug. That’s my programme!”

  “Well, Frank, you have made a clean breast; so will I. The human race, as you say, may be a humbug, but it’s every man’s duty to know for himself that he isn’t one. I am not. I do not worship success, and will not. And if a cause is a right and honorable one, I will labor in it till I die, whether there is any chance of succeeding or not.”

  “Well, now,” said Frank Russel, “I dare say it’s so. I respect your sort of folks; you form an agreeable heroic poem, with which one can amuse the tediousness of life. I suppose it won’t do you any good to tell you that you are getting immensely unpopular with what you are doing?”

  “No,” said Clayton, “it won’t.”

  “I am really afraid,” said Russel, “that they’ll mob you some of these bright days.”

  “Very well,” said Clayton.

  “Oh, of course, I knew it would be very well; but say, Clayton, what do you want to get up a petition on that point for? Why don’t you get up one to prevent the separation of families? There’s been such a muss made about that in Europe, and all round the world, that it’s rather the fashion to move about that a little. Politicians like to appear to intend to begin to do something about it. It has a pleasing effect, and gives the Northern editors and ministers something to say as an apology for our sins. Besides, there are a good many simple-hearted folks, who don’t see very deep into things, that really think it possible
to do something effective on this subject. If you get up a petition for that, you might take the tide with you; and I’d do something about it myself.”

  “You know very well, Frank, for I told you, that it’s no use to pass laws for that, without giving the slaves power to sue or give evidence in case of violation. The improvement I propose touches the root of the matter.”

  “That’s the fact, — it surely does!” said Russel. “And, for that very reason, you’ll never carry it. Now, Clayton, I just want to ask you one question. Can you fight? Will you fight? Will you wear a bowie-knife and pistol, and shoot every fellow down that comes at you?”

  “Why, no, of course, Frank. You know that I never was a fighting man. Such brute ways are not to my taste.”

  “Then, my dear sir, you shouldn’t set up for a reformer in Southern States. Now, I’ll tell yon one thing, Clayton, that I’ve heard. You made some remarks at a public meeting, up at E., that have started a mad-dog cry, which I suppose came from Tom Gordon. See here; have you noticed this article in the ‘Trumpet of Liberty’?” said he, looking over a confused stack of papers on his table. “Where’s the article? Oh, here it is.”

  At the same time he handed Clayton a sheet bearing the motto, “Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable,” and pointed to an article headed —

  COVERT ABOLITIONISM! CITIZENS, BEWARE!

  We were present, a few evenings ago, at the closing speech delivered before the Washington Agricultural Society, in the course of which the speaker, Mr. Edward Clayton, gratuitously wandered away from his subject to make inflammatory and seditious comments on the state of the laws which regulate our negro population. It is time for the friends of our institutions to be awake. Such remarks dropped in the ear of a restless and ignorant population will be a fruitful source of sedition and insurrection. This young man is supposed to be infected with the virus of Northern abolitionists. We cannot too narrowly watch the course of such individuals; for the only price at which we can maintain liberty is eternal vigilance. Mr. Clayton belongs to one of our oldest and most respected families, which makes his conduct the more inexcusable.