The Natick Resolution; or, Resistance to Slaveholders/Letter to the Richmond Enquirer
LETTER TO THE RICHMOND ENQUIRER.
To the Editor of the Richmond Enquirer:—
Sir,—A large and enthusiastic meeting of the citizens of this town (the residence of Hon. Henry Wilson) was held last evening, called to consider the following resolution:—
"Whereas, Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God; therefore,
"Resolved, That it is the right and duty of the slaves to resist their masters; and it is the right and duty of the people of the North to incite slaves to resistance, and to aid them in it."
This was adopted; and though a United States Senator (Hon. Henry Wilson) and a United States Postmaster were present, not a dissentient voice was raised against it.
The resolution utters the thought of Massachusetts, of New England, and of New York. I have reason to know it does.
Insurrection,—resistance on the part of the slaves and of the North against slaveholders,—is the one idea of the people. That insurrection is the right and duty of slaves, is he one controlling thought of the masses here. Though our Senators and Representatives in Congress dare not avow this as their opinion in Washington, at home, among their constituents, they countenance and sustain it by direct advocacy, or by silence. The North has reason to expect it of them, the coming session, that they will openly advocate the doctrine and practice of insurrection and resistance, as the right and duty of the slaves of the South and of the people of the non-slave States. We have much reason to hope, that, come what may, they will do it.
It was asserted in the above meeting, that John Brown, at Harper's Ferry, had truly embodied the general idea of the North, and had done no more than his simple duty to himself, to the slave, to the slaveholder, to his country, and his God. There are thousands among those who have known his plans and movements the past four or five years, and have sympathized with him, and who have known of his call, as he believes, from God, to do a deed that would arouse the South and the nation to consider the sin and danger of slavery, and who have known also of his unfaltering determination to do that deed, and strike that blow, who would now cheerfully take his place in the dungeon and welcome the gallows in his stead, if thereby he might be spared to lead on the mustering sons of liberty to free the slaves, and crush the power of those who live by whipping and selling women, and by "trafficking in slaves, and the souls of men."
The sin of this nation, as it was asserted in that meeting, is to be taken away, not by Christ, but by John Brown. Christ, as represented by those who are called by his name, has proved a dead failure, as a power to free the slaves. John Brown is and will be a power far more efficient. The nation is to be saved, not by the blood of Christ, (as that is now administered,) but by the blood of John Brown, which, as administered by Abolitionists, will prove the "power of God and the wisdom of God" to resist slaveholders, and bring them to repentance. John Brown and him hung will do that for the slaves and for those who enslave them which Christ and Him crucified has never been made to do. The blood of Christ, as dispensed by the American Church and clergy, has been the most nutritious aliment of American slavery, and has been made to add only to its growth and power; but the blood of Brown, as it will be dispensed by the friends of justice and humanity, will be its certain death, while it will add energetic life and resistless power to liberty.
Redemption is to come to the slave and his oppressors, not by the Cross of Christ, as it is preached among us, but by the gallows of Brown. The Cross of Christ—as borne aloft before this nation—has been and now is a bulwark of defence, a tower of strength, a munition of rocks,—the Gibraltar of American slaveholders; the Gallows of Brown, as it will be borne aloft in front of the hosts of freedom—the true army of the living God against slavery—does and will strike terror to their hearts, and consternation into the ranks of slave-breeders and slave-traders, drive them from their strongholds, and make them a hissing and byword to all lands.
Henceforth, the slaves and their friends in the North will know nothing but John Brown and him hung; and they have only to shriek his name through the midnight chambers of repose of the merciless, but shivering, cowering, slave-drivers, to carry dismay to their guilty hearts. Slaveholders, and their allies and abettors, have known and will continue to know, nothing but Christ and him crucified, as they have learned Him from their slaveholding priests and churches; and they have raised and will continue to raise Him from the sepulchre of the dead past, only to sanctify "the sum of all villany," as embodied in themselves. John Brown and him hanged will be the inspiration and slogan of the aroused slaves and their friends, till the four millions, now held and used as chattels, bought and sold and herded together in concubinage as brutes, punished with death for every attempt to raise themselves to the condition of men and women, and compelled to feel after God and immortality amid beasts and creeping things, shall be regenerated and redeemed.
This may seem to you madness. It is so, as viewed from the slaveholding stand-point. But, it is the madness of the Good Samaritan and of Paul; it is the madness of Jesus Christ; the madness of one who sees and worships God in the living, rather than in the dead; in the living slave, rather than in a dead Jesus; in a living, rather than in a dead Christ. It is the madness of one who, on the public arena of life, by word and by deed, has sought to incite the slaves and the entire nation to a living, practical resistance to slaveholders, in every department of life, and who has taught the people of the North, for twenty-five years, that the purest, sublimest, and most acceptable worship they could render to the God of Justice and Liberty is—"to break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free."