Elizabeth Cady Stanton SPEECHES & WRITINGS FILE Speech: "Free Speech", 4th Annual N.Y. State Anti-Slavery Convention, Albany New York, Feb. 4-5 1861 Written at the Farm Home of Mary S. and Susan B. Anthony the few days previous to the Rochester Con. of the year of 1861-- [*34 <-- This is Susan B. Anthony's writing.*] FREE SPEECH : BY ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, AT THE Fourth Annual N. Y. State Anti-Slavery Convention, AT ASSOCIATION HALL, ALBANY, N. Y., FEBRUARY 4th and 5th, 1861. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN--As I sat in St. James' Hall, Buffalo, a few days since, and watched the development of an infuriated mob, I could not help philosophizing on the future of this Republic. The rioters were chiefly young men led on by a few older heads. As I marked the bold defiance of those boys --the total absence of respect either for themselves, the rights of others, or the authority of their chief magistrate, I said to myself, Are such as these, to be our future Judges, Senators, Presidents; the expounders of our constitutional law, the Fathers of our Republic? Alas! what an education is this for the grave responsibilities of self-government! Are such as these to be the legal representatives of woman, the mouth-piece of her civil and political rights? And must my five sons, to whose education I have given the very hey-day of my existence, in whose young hearts I have endeavored to instil the purest principles of democracy, when they come to be actors in public affairs, must they too be false to God, to man and to themselves, turn their backs on justice and free speech ; or be martyrs too--to whom the rights of freemen will be denied? When I look around and see brave, strong, full grown men swamped in the whirlpool of numbers, I feel that a mother's duty is not all at home. Love prompts us to clear up the rubbish in the outer world, and pluck the thorns from the paths our sons so soon must tread. What avails it, that Christian mothers cultivate a high morality, a deep religious earnestness, if, on the very threshhold of public life they find law, gospel, custom; the people, pulpit, press, all adverse to the lessons learned at home? Lessons of solemn warning, baptized in prayers and tears, and high resolve, all held up to ridicule, as womanly sentimentalism, fanatical absurdities, impracticable abstractions. I tell you, citizens of our Republic, it is something to true mothers, where and how their precious jewels shall be set. We train them not for passing time alone, but for the endless ages of eternity. Rather than see my sons in an hour like this, trembling like Belshazar, in their knees, false to freedom, to themselves, to man, to God; I would consecrate them all to martyrdom, to die, if need be, bravely, like a John Brown, on the accursed soil of Southern despotism, boldly declaring that Jesus died to give to the nations of the earth a blood bought liberty. How is it possible for men of age and experience, rank and respectability, to be so heedless and indifferent to the example and precept they are giving to those who soon shall fill their vacant places? In the hurry of life, do they never forsee and think of the glorious principles of republicanism, and the abundant materials our young civilization has furnished for the experiment? Do the Recreant sons of the Pilgrims already repudiate the divine faith of their Fathers in self-government? Will they thus recklessly crush the hopes of breathless nations who, on tip-toe, await our triumph, who, in our success, behold the redemption of the [*35*] [*2*] race; and would they, for our fair temple of liberty, transmit to our children, a slaveholding despotism, and precipitate, into their hands the fearful responsibilities of a government, where the rights of person and of speech, are under the jurisdiction of mob law? If it were possible, thus to cut the jugular vein of Abolitionism, it would be at a fearful cost; for, once admit the principle, that one man may hold another's right of speech, and its sacredness is gone, - at the mercy of any set of men who may constitute themselves a tribunal to judge what is wise or prudent to say or not to say, under all circumstances whatever. Once establish the principle of mob law, and though it crushes me today, it will as surely crush you to-morrow. Remember it is a fearful self-directing force. It seeks no adjudication of the case in hand; no deliberate faithful investigation - the justice it meets out is quick and sure - it asks no judge or juror, or bar; its motive power is violence; its gravitating law is death. Give to the locomotive, will, the blind purpose, simply to move on, and on, without the knowledge or power of self-direction; as that fearful iron horse, with full steam on, goes snorting and puffing by; who would not tremble at the thought of all that precious freight of life and hope, rushing to swift destruction, with no hand to govern, no knowledge to direct? Can we be indifferent spectators, when a nation's destiny is hurried on by those who know not justice, who have no power of self control? As the train speeds on, obedient to its law, it stops not, but when its steam is spent; its fires burn faint and low. But let some other mighty force oppose its swift advance, and there's a general clash of elements. Thus with the mob; so long as its victims, with moral grandeur, obedient to their higher law, make no show of force, it spends it folly, and its fury, as it will, until its spite and spleen, its power and purpose, are all gone. But, blindly oppose it with brute force, and property, and speech, and life are sacrificed, and it rides, rough-shod, over the rights and laws of man and God! Every true lover of his country, should, by example and precept, teach our young men the sacredness of individual rights. "Take care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves," is an old saying, and full of thrift. Take care of individual rights, and the nation will take care of itself, is an old idea, full of wisdom. If mob law is to be sanctioned North, as well as South, remember the step between insult and death is not a long one there. If to-day respectable people stand silent by, and see Christian men and woman insulted, their right of speech invaded, their meetings disturbed and broken up, a few blows, or shots to-morrow, need not surprise them. If drunken, Northern rowdies, with Southern principles, may shake their fists and canes in the faces of the noblest women the Empire State can boast, pleading in the forum for justice and mercy to the oppressed - in Buffalo, on the 5th day of January - they may try the full force of a blow on the head of their Chief Magistrate, on the 4th of March, in Washington. If the Union must be saved, no matter whose rights are violated, so that the South is happy in the embrace of slavery, it could not be more effectually done, than by such a blow at the heart of the nation. The South would not place a very high valuation on the sacrifice of one poor Abolitionist. Do you hope to appease the wrath of your Southern idols, with offerings such as these? The smoke of your incense is far more likely to blacken yourselves, than to tickle their nostrils. Let those who, by word or look, encourage mob law - our lawyers, doctors, merchants, who smile at their first aggressions, at their wit and ribaldry; our editors, who, in the same hour, ridicule, and misrepresent, and scandalize those, whom the mob attack - let them go down to the Gulf States and see their principles triumphantly carried out. I say their principles, because, if the respectable men of Buffalo had chosen to do their duty, the mob could not have triumphed there. If Mr. Jewett, the Republican editor, was opposed to the mob, why did he not use the one whole column in his paper - he wasted in stale jests on "Woman's sphere, - for a manly defence of free speech - a stern rebuke of those who violated it; or an earnest call on the true men, the lovers of order, and justice, to come out in their power, and protect the constitutional rights of freemen? Why? Because they all wanted the anti-slavery sentiment at the North choked down. Rest assured it cannot be choked down, nor hissed down, nor stamped down, for truth is mighty and must eternally prevail; and in spite of mobs, and bluster and threats, Freedom shall triumph, and crush the reptile Slavery beneath her feet. Is the North so silly as to suppose that the southern secession movement will be influenced the weight of a feather, that here and there two or three abolitionists have been mobbed? In their present excited state, they have something else to think about than the valient feats of northern rioters. If they did condescend to notice the fact, that some of our Union-loving men were trying to smooth down their ruffled feathers in this small way, they would see through your game as clearly as you do yourselves. Do you suppose with 40,000 slaves in Canada, with the John Brown expedition so fresh in their memories, with a Republican President in prospect, that your petty efforts can lull them to sleep? No, they are wiser than you, - they know, full well, that liberty and slavery cannot dwell together in peace and equality. One or the other must ever be dominant. They now say to all of us, whose ears are not so full of cotton that they cannot hear, take your Goddess of Freedom, so long prostrate in the dust, set her up on your family altars, your temples of liberty, your cathedral domes, and [*3*] worship her, but leave us alone to our idols; let them worship the true God who will, as to us and ours we will serve the calf of gold and cotton, forever and ever. If we, descendants of the Puritans, had any self-respect, any true love of liberty, any just appreciation of the blood bought rights left us by our fathers, we should ourselves have seceded, long ago, from these heathen idolators, who set all laws, both human and Divine, at defiance; these cannibals who sell babies by the pound, and feed on their flesh! - these polygamists, who have many wives, and sell their own children! - these hunters, whose game is men! - who make beasts of burthen of the princes and nobles of Africa, stolen from their country by American pirates, who fear not Jehovah, nor keep his commandments, not acknowledge him in all their ways. The God of thunder says to us in words not to be misunderstood, "Come ye out, oh my people. from the land of Egypt, and the house of bondage, and build ye up a nation, such as my soul loveth, in the land of Freedom, where the bondmen may dwell in safety, and be thou a haven of rest for those who flee before the pursuer." But, say you, this is a bad time to agitate the slavery question! Perhaps it is. But it seems to be the grand national topic, South and North, East and West, in church and state, in the nursery and the parlor, in the exchange, on steamboat and railroad, in the capitols of our State and Nation. Rhett, Yancey, Iverson, Keitt, Chestnut and Davis; Seward, Hale, Wade, Wilson, Sumner and Fessenden, are all talking about it. James Buchanan, the immortal platform, is fasting, and praying, and crying over it. The merchants, and bankers and brokers, are trembling over it. The priests, like faithless nurses, are on all sides giving their people anodynes, that they may sleep over it. The "rowdies" in all our northern cities and towns, stand ready to bluster and swear for it. General Scott and Major Anderson are pledged to fight for it. And the south declare they will die for it. In fine, it is the national epidemic. Now, why, in the name of sense, should we be the only people to escape the contagion; why, when all talk on this question, should we be forbidden to open our lips? Perhaps you think, as we have occupied the rostrum thirty years, in discussing this subject, we should now modestly retire, and let the nation have their say! Inasmuch as a Republican President is tolled into power, by such an overwhelming majority of tried and true friends of freedom, while 100,000 Wide Awakes, with their lanterns all trimmed and burning, stand ready to watch and defend freedom, could not the old soldiers lay down their armor and rest? For weeks, and weeks, we did stand silent and anxious on the outposts, to see what the mighty hosts encamped round about the thrones of the Pharaohs would do; but we soon perceived, that while in the enemys' camp, all was life, and bustle, and preparation, our armies had fallen into a deep, deep sleep, from which, I fear, nothing short of the arch- angel's trump, sounding through another Presidential campaign, could arouse them! But you do not object so much to all this agitation, as you do to the particular view we take. Now, having just gone through a political campaign, in which five sides of this question have been freely presented to listening multitudes - as, with the grand national kaleidoscope, we have had the Lincoln & Hamlin, Douglas & Johnson, Breckinridge & Lane, Bell & Everett, Smith & McFarlin, presentation of the picture; while five distinct views have thus been permitted to all, may we, Northern secessionists, not claim the poor privilege of giving the kaleidoscope just one shake more, to take the view we like best of all? No! That is the very view that is so bad for the Union! What ails the Union? What is the disturbing force? You all acknowledge it is Slavery. And will it not ever be a disturbing force? Are not the very elements of Slavery and Freedom eternally antagonistic? But why do you fear us? We say no more than Washington, Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution have said, for near a century. All their sayings did not emancipate the slaves, nor break up the Union. Why are you afraid to have them repeated? The difference is, that in those days, Freedom was stronger than Slavery; and the cunning wolf was compelled to put on the guise of the lamb, to be permitted to lie down in the green pastures of the Union; but in time, the wolf waxed stronger and stronger, and multiplied, and as he grew in numbers, he encroached on forbidden pastures, and threatened to devour lambs, and watch dogs, and shepherds, and all there was of strength, and health, and life, throughout the vast domains of Freedom; and now, when the law of self-preservation warns us imperatively to drive back the hungry wolves to their fastnesses in the heart of barbarism, their howls of disappointment go up in the ears of the whole nation. The position of the Union at this hour presents itself to my mind a compact living picture, that to my wondering eyes stands out in bold relief. In the foreground behold Freedom and Slavery locked in a stern embrace, not in a fraternal love like that of Jonathan and David, but in the deadly wrestling of a Cain and Abel. On one side, stand the Northern Secessionists, urging Freedom to cease her struggle, and sunder her monstrous and unnatural union with sin and death. Arrayed in pure white robes, with crowns of light and glory on their brows, they are pleading for justice and mercy, for purity and peace. Angels are hovering o'er them, mid clouds -4- of dazzling radiance, from whose midst a voice seems to say "Come ye out from among them." On the other, stand the Southern Secessionists, clad, cap-a-pie, in scarlet and steel - through that armor, no arrow of mercy can penetrate - mid the din of arms, and the smoke of booming cannon, flying serpents with tongues of fire and hisses, of flame, urge their victims on to deadly conflict. In the whole back-ground, on the bold hill tops, and in receding vallies, millions of sable men stand anxious, but silent spectators of the fearful scene!! This is no fancy sketch, but the living fact of this hour, brought into the smallest possible focus, and daguereotyped on paper. Where do each of you, my hearers, choose to take your place in the picture? With those who would fasten the deadly fangs of slavery on the very vitals of this young Republic, with those, who would stand to parley and wrestle, and make compromises and concessions, with the giants fraud and falsehood, until the most sacred rights of freemen are all bartered away for an ignoble, uncertain peace: Or with those who stand at God's right hand, with the angels and the archangels? with Christ and his church, with all those who believe in the golden rule--in the precepts of Jesus--the Bible, and our glorious Declaration of Independence, which, when first proclaimed at the month of the cannon, lifted us head and shoulders above the nations of the earth? If you would take your place in the royal ranks of God's nobility, join us, and help to rouse a nation's heart, to a holy love of liberty, a firm abiding faith in the everlasting principles of justice. This has ceased to be a question of the black man's rights alone. With us at the North, it has resolved itself into a question of Free Speech. A sure way at any time to test this right, is to talk about something people do not wish to hear. But, you say, what is the use of agitating this question? Slavery must eventually die. Your idea that agitation is needless to hasten its death, is like the clown in the old classic play, two thousand years ago, who, seeing a man bring down with an arrow, an eagle, floating in the blue ether above, said "You need not have wasted your arrow, the fall would have killed him." Transcribed and reviewed by volunteers participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.