Take Away the Cash, and You Would Lose the Lash: An Address Delivered in Northampton, England on March 29, 1847

Take Away the Cash, and you Would Lose the Lash: An Address Delivered at Northampton, England, March 29, 1847

In preparation for his return to the United States after nearly two years of lecturing in the British Isles, Douglass a hectic “farewell” lecturing tour of England. He was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd at the New Hall in Northampton where the city’s mayor presided over the evening gathering. Northampton Mercury, Saturday 3 April 1847.

A very interesting and important meeting (to which we regret our inability to do justice), was held on Monday evening, at the New-hall, Newland. The two-fold object of this gathering was to introduce to the people of Northampton, the individual known for some months in this country as the “run-away slave,” and to elicit such an expression of feeling as may aid public opinion in putting down the detestable system of which Mr. Douglass has been the victim, and the iniquities of which he has so eloquently and successfully exposed. When we entered the hall we found it well filled with a respectable and attentive auditory, to whom the Mayor (Thomas Sharp, Esq.)^{1Thomas Sharp served as Northampton’s mayor in 1839-40 and again in 1846-47. Christopher A. Markham, The Records of the Borough of Northampton, 2 vols. (Northampton, Eng., 1898), 1:192} who had been called to the chair, was lucidly and impressively explaining the object of the meeting, adding a very appropriate allusion to the moral influence which Nations may exert upon each other, showing how the decided and strong expression of the feelings entertained on the subject of American Slavery in this country would affect the public mind, and ultimately the social institutions of the United States. At the conclusion of his address he introduced Mr. Douglass, who rose amidst the warmest greetings. His lecture was of exceeding length and interest, and to the effect of its sterling truth and unexaggerated manner, the tears of human sympathy trickling down the cheeks of many of the listeners, bore conclusive evidence. As was well observed by one of the speakers who followed him, his drollery was not less effective than his pathos, and assuredly the easy transition from one to the other might have been more amusing than impressive had he ever compromised by this facility the intense feeling and entire devotion which make him so distinguished and triumphant an advocate of his enslaved race. One of the highest compliments to Mr. Douglass’s style of oratory was a comparison with that of Mr. O’Connell,^{2Daniel O’Connell (1775-1847), Irish lawyer and member of Parliament, played a major role in both the British and American antislavery movements.. A leader of the movement to repeal the Act of Union between England and Ireland, as well as a participant in the related campaign to remove the civil restrictions imposed upon Catholics, O’Connell saw the bill for Catholic Emancipation pass Parliament in 1829 with strong support from antislavery politicians. Four years later, he marshaled crucial Irish votes needed for passage of the Emancipation Act of 1833, inaugurating gradual abolition in the British West Indies. Oliver MacDonagh, The Emancipationist: Daniel O’Connell, 1830-47 (New York, 1989); Douglas C. Riach, “Daniel O’Connell and American Anti-Slavery,” Irish Historical Studies, 20:3-25 (March 1976).} which we heard made on the night of his lecture, and which would be mainly supported, we think, by that graceful and simple interweaving and relieving of gay and grave, to which we have just referred. Apart, however, from his oratorical attractions (and these must not be quitted without advertence to his copious vocabulary, his tasteful selection of phraseology, his appropriate imagery, his acquaintance with the poets, and other classical writers, and his altogether refined elocution) Mr. Douglass possesses personal advantages which are no mean auxiliaries to the effect which he produces. His figure is commanding, his eyes and entire countenance animated and expressive, his voice at once sonorous and musical; and with perfect self-possession he united equal modesty of manner. His address consisted of the thousand times told tale of the horrors of the Slave traffic, illustrated by his personal experiences, and relieved by those inimitable morceaux of humour which give to his oratory so distinctive a character. Whilst contending with so much earnestness for the creation of a moral power which should be irresistible in its action upon the accursed system, he did not affect to consider that there were not other gigantic wrongs to be wrestled with—other slaveries to be extirpated; but this he said, “towered above ordinary crimes—a solitary horror.” He dwelt strongly on the sordid passion which is the mainspring of slave-dealing propensities, coming to the obvious conclusion that were the trade rendered unprofitable it would cease altogether, here introducing one of his extemporaneous couplets:—

“Take away the cash, And you would lose the lash.”

Alluding to his own sufferings as a slave, he stated that he had been whipped for looks—whipped because robbed of all his rights as a human being, proscribed every social privilege, a trampled and contemned nonentity, he could not look as he ought, resigned and happy. His master was a Methodist class leader,^{3Born in St. Michaels, Maryland, Thomas Auld (1795-1880) supervised the construction of the Lloyd sloop, the Sally Lloyd, and subsequently became its captain. In 1823, he met and married Lucretia Anthony while a boarder in the Anthony home. Shortly thereafter, Auld became a storekeeper in Hillsborough, Maryland, and inherited Douglass along with ten other slaves from the estate of Aaron Anthony. He later kept store in St. Michaels where he also served as postmaster, before retiring to a nearby farm. Auld attended a revival in August 1833 and thereafter affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church. David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom (New York, 2018), 23, 31, 48-49. 55-56; Oswald Tilghman, comp., History of Talbot County, Maryland, 1661-1861, 2 vols. (Baltimore, 1915), 1:395, 2:302-05.} and probably as good as most slave-holders, but his cruelties were of the most atrocious description. Very harrowing indeed were the details into which Mr. Douglass proceeded: he had seen the blood pouring over the back and bosom of a female; and such gratuitous tortures inflicted when the sufferers have been fainting in their agony, as humanity shudders to think of, and demons alone could perpetuate. “I would put down so demoralizing a system,” exclaimed Mr. Douglass, “for the sake of the slave-master himself.” These men, he urged, had no particular prepossession as to the colour of the article in which they dealt; it was the abstract love of slavery for the sake of its gains which influenced them, and care should be taken that the unholy traffic did not ultimately extend to white men. They who would steal black men would steal white ones. Among other startling facts, Mr. Douglass stated that the grand-children of President Jefferson are at this moment slaves in the Southern States!^{4Douglass alludes to the descendants of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third president of the United States, and his enslaved mistress Sarah “Sally” Hemmings (c1773–1835). Jefferson never acknowledged fathering any of Hemming’s six children and freed none of them. Rumors of Jefferson’s illegitimate off-spring were widely circulated in the antebellum era. Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingeses of Monticello: An American Family (Lexington, Va., 1997).} Adverting to the sensation occasioned here and in America by his lectures and proceedings, Mr. Douglass said, “I come here because the slave-holders don’t want me to come; and I shall go back because they will be equally unwilling to see me there. My freedom has been purchased for £150, and I can now go back to Hugh Auld, my master—my uncle Hugh—for they tell me he is a bit of a relation of mine!^{5Throughout his life, Douglass never knew his father’s identity: here he implies Thomas Auld, but he also refers to Aaron Anthony as a possible candidate. All Douglass ever knew was that his father was white. See David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom (New York, 2018), 13-6.} I have got all the documents of my manumission, and with these in my hand I depart for America next Sunday.” Loud applause followed the announcement of this heroic resolution. Mr. Douglass went on to state that he knew and did not under-rate the perils which he would have to encounter, but no apprehension of these would deter him from the performance of his duty. Alluding to the Evangelical Alliance, and its unprincipled shrinking from all denunciation of the crime of slavery,^{6In August of 1846, over nine hundred delegates from Great Britain, Europe, and the United States met in London in the hopes of forming an organization uniting evangelical Protestants of the Western Hemisphere. The Evangelical Alliance, as this organization was called, was extremely short-lived because it could not reach agreement on whether to include enslavers in its membership. No compromise could be reached before the conference adjourned and the delegates left London resolving to form their separate national alliances. Ernest R. Sandeen, “The Distinctiveness of American Denominationalism: A Case Study of the 1846 Evangelical Alliance,” CH, 45:222-34 (June 1976).} Mr. Douglass forcibly exposed the complete undermining and destruction of all manliness of character and true piety which is the inevitable consequence of the traffic in human beings, and un-sparingly castigated “those White-blackbirds—the Evangelical Man-eaters.” Reverting to the proceedings of the “Evangelical Alliance,” he took occasion to do justice to, and pass a high eulogium on Messrs. Nelson^{7Isaac Nelson (1812-88), a Belfast Presbyterian minister, was an active member of the anti-Garrisonian British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Douglass's befriended Nelson during his tour of Ireland in the mid-1840s. Nelson penned a letter of support for Douglass that appeared in the Irish edition of Douglass's Narrative. Patricia J. Ferreira, “Frederick Douglass in Ireland: The Dublin Edition of His Narrative,” New Hibernia Review, 5:59 (Spring 2001).} and Stanfield,^{8James Standfield (c,1809-c.1861) was a grocer and secretary of the Belfast Anti-Slavery Society. Standfield had introduced Douglass to the controversy over the Free Church of Scotland accepting contributions from American enslavers. Douglas C. Riach, "Ireland and the Campaign against American Slavery, 1830–1860" (Ph.D. diss., University of Edinburgh, 1975), 130-31, 276-78, 297-303, 332-33, 351.} of Belfast, who spiritedly protested against the conduct of the Alliance in this particular. His portrait of a religious defender of slavery in the person of Dr. Cox,^{9The Reverend Dr. Samuel Hanson Cox (1793-1880) was licensed to preach by the presbytery of New York three years later. Cox joined his brother Abraham L. Cox on the executive committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1834. He later moderated his views and at the World’s Temperance Convention held in London in August 1846, Cox defended the American temperance movement against charges of racial prejudice leveled by Douglass. Cox was accused of compromising his abolitionist principles to gain church offices after he helped block attempts to exclude slaveholders from the Evangelical Alliance. George Lewis Prentiss, The Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York (Asbury Park, N.J., 1899), 156-63; Linda K. Kerber, “Abolitionists and Amalgamators: The New York City Race Riots of 1834,” New York History, 48:28-39 (January 1967).} “a very dear, nice man,” was exceedingly piquant. It appears that whilst the Doctor was cordially shaking hands and exchanging unctuous amenities with his reverend and religious brethren in this country, he was writing letters about them to the American newspapers, full of satirical condemnation

and grotesque caricature. The Doctor hoped and expected to be safely returned to America, or at least on his way thither, before any account of those epistolary sincerities should appear in judgment against him in this country. But driven by stress of weather into Dundrum Bay,^{10Located on the coast of Ireland, Cox was stranded on the S.S. Great Britain at Dundrum Bay on his return to the United States.} and detained there by the merciless winds, back came the letters to shame the candid preacher, and proclaim to his associates what manner of animal they had been dealing with. “Imagine,” exclaimed Mr. Douglass, “the Doctor’s state of mind!”—Towards the conclusion of his lecture, Mr. Douglass took occasion, with admirable effect, to introduce Campbell’s lines “To the United States of North America”:—

“United States, your banner wears Two emblems—one of fame; Alas, the other that it bears Reminds us of your shame. Your standard’s constellation types White freedom by its stars; But what’s the meaning of the stripes?— They mean your negroes’ scars.”^{11Douglass and other Black abolitionists frequently quoted these lines from To the United States of North America by Thomas Campbell (1877-1844), a Scottish poet.}

(Loud applause.) The lecturer concluded with a glowing contrast between his treatment during his sojourn of nineteen months in this country, and that to which his unfortunate brethren are subjected in America. One of these in America approaching a public conveyance would be rudely repulsed with, “we don’t carry niggers!” To him (Mr. Douglass) every public establishment had been cordially opened, from places of amusement or instruction, up to the Houses of Parliament themselves. He amused the meeting by adding that the very asses of Old England were more kindly disposed towards men of his colour than were the people of America. He had never met with one of these creatures which did not look at him sociably and shake his ears with a sort of friendly greeting. “I will go back,” he said, “and I’ll use English donkeys to shame the American Republicans!” (Loud laughter and applause). He was grateful, he continued, to Englishmen,—he loved England; and he had been offered the means of remaining here, but this could not be, as he had work to do in America. (Much cheering). Among the most pleasant and sustaining recollections which he should carry back to that country, would be that of this large and unanimous Northampton meeting, which he should not fail to make much of, and which would not be the less influential in America,

Because their Mayor Was in the chair— (laughter)—for the Americans, considering their Republican pretensions, had an extraordinary fondness for titles, dignities, and authorities. (Hear, hear).