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Edwin W. Clarke to the Oswego Palladium Dated April 13, 1840 Printed April 29, 1840 Re: James Watkins Seward Mr. Carpenter"What has the North to do with Slavery?" is a question frequently asked by the apologists for oppression, with as much assurance as though the negative were a self-evident truth, or as though the free and the Slave States were in different worlds. With so much effrontery has the South asserted, and maintained her right to control the Press and the tongue of the Northand to check and extinguish the impulses of humanity and liberty in the bosoms of Freemen, and with so much obsequiousness have our little great men at the North been accustomed to bow to her dictation, and to kiss the gory foot of Republican despotism. That an assumption so cowardly and monstrous has come to be considered with political men almost a conceded point. The principles of Slavery and liberty are never dormant, never stand still, they are at constant war; each striving for its own life, and conscious that it can exist only by the annihilation of the other. "A nation may lose its liberties in a day, and not miss them for a century." We have lost ours long since, and we just begin to miss them. The evidences of this loss are thickening upon us, and well will it be for our land and the world, if there shall be found remaining enough of the embers of Liberty to kindle again the flame that warmed this nation into being. The following circumstances showing that the North has something to do with Slavery, have just come to my knowledge: James Watkins Seward is a native of Whitesboro, Oneida County, and has been for the last fifteen years a citizen of Oswego County, residing in the vicinity of Fulton, and known to thousands of our citizens as a very intelligent, respectable, virtuous and enterprising young colored man. His parents and a large circle of relatives are now industrious and reputable inhabitants of this County. A few months since he went to Ohio for the purpose of finding employment as a teacher among the colored people in the vicinity of Cincinnati, or in default thereof, of engaging in such other business as he might obtain. He took with him respectable testimonials of his character and abilities. He was cautioned against the danger of exposing himself of the borders of the Slave States. Trusting to his superior knowledge and acquirements he replied, "There is no danger to a man who understands himself." Little did he know of slavery or dream that the subjugation of a superior man, of the "hated hue," is an object of no ordinary moment in her estimationand that so far from finding his cultivated mind, a defence against the rapacity of the oppressor, it would prove an incentive to his more eager and determined grasp. His friends have heard nothing from him until the last week. A letter has now been received from M. M. Robinson, Esq., Attorney at law of the city of New Orleans, containing a postscript from James himself and also a cover letter from Rev. T. S. Wright of New York; from all which they learn that, being the last autumn engaged as a s[t]eward or in some other capacity on board a Steamboat from Cincinnati, he visited New Orleans. As he was going on board the boat to return early in the evening, he was arrested by the guards as a fugitive slave. His acquaintances on the boat appeared before the Recorder and testified to his freedom. His letters were presented, but all of no avail; he was thrust into jail on the 10th [?] day of last December. There he has remained ever since, laboring on the public streets in a chained gang during the day, and living in a dismal, filthy negro prison during the night; and there he must remain according to the laws of Republican America, until he can bring actual proof that he was born free, and pay his jail fees, or until in default of such proof and payment, he be sold into slavery for life to pay his "jail fees." Mr. Robinson wrote in his behalf on the 6th of March, requesting to be furnished with the only proof of his freedom that can be admissible, to wit: the exemplified certificate of the Court in which his freedom is recorded. He writes also for one hundred dollars to pay the jail fees and expenses. As though the citizens of the State of New York hold their freedom by so frail a tenure as the decisions and records of her "Courts," and not by inalienable birth right. Such proof the very mention of which is an outrage on the name of Liberty, of course cannot be furnished. And as to the hundred dollars, the day has gone by when the freemen of New York will submit to purchase their Liberty with money. Time has been when all civilized nations paid tribute to the Barbary powers and meanly submitted to ransom with gold their own citizens from Algerine and Tunisian bondage. Our nation, in its very infancy, resisted these piratical claims, humbled the power of the Corsairs, and obtained for our people a last immunity against such barbarous claims. And shall the citizens of these free States in the year 1840, quietly submit to such monstrous demands from the authorities of a sister state? It cannot be. Affidavits of the free birth and citizenship and good character of Seward, have been transmitted to the Governor of this State, accompanied by a memorial signed by a large number of the most respectable citizens of Oswego County, requesting his official interposition with the government of Louisiana to obtain the release of our fellow citizen without the degrading condition of a ransom. A similar [event] occurred during the administration of DeWitt Clinton, and his requisition was instantly and unconditionally complied with. Such occurrences, bringing into collision the principles of Liberty with those of Slavery, are becoming so frequent in our country, as to convince the reflective mind that institutions so antagonistical in their nature cannot much longer subsist together. Yours, &c. EDWIN W. CLARKE Oswego, April 13, 1840 Found by Eleanor Cali. |