Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the Second Session Thirty-eighth Congress, Part I
Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward.
Sir: I transmit herewith the copy of a resolution passed at a public meeting held at Blaydon in Durham, and likewise a copy of the Newcastle Daily Chronicle of the 4th instant, containing a report of the proceedings. They will not require acknowledgment.
I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
Hon, William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.
Public meeting at Blaydon, England.
“That in the election of President Lincoln, and in the principal acts of his administration—the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; the prohibition of slavery in the Territories; the recognition of the republics of Hayti and Liberia; [Page 312] the concession of the right of search for the suppression of the slave trade; the scheme of compensated emancipation, and the proclamation—this meeting recognizes successive triumphs of anti-slavery sentiments in the United States; rejoices in the prospect thus afforded of friendship between England and America, as well as of liberation to the enslaved; offers to the government and to the people of the loyal States the assurance of fraternal sympathy in their noble struggle, and requests the chairman to communicate this resolution to his excellency the American minister.
“Signed in behalf of the meeting,
[Untitled]
ANTI-SLAVERY MEETING AT BLAYDON.
An anti-slavery meeting was held in the lecture-room, Blaydon, on Wednesday evening. The room was filled by an intelligent and respectable audience. Mr. John Emerson, in the absence of Mr. Joseph Oowen, jr., occupied the chair. Mr. Bright, M. P., who was expected to visit the north, was invited to preside at the meeting; and the following extract from his letter will be read with interest. Mr. Bright says: “It is quite out of my power at present to come to your proposed meeting. I dare not add to my engagements. I am glad to see that you are taking an interest in the American question. Public opinion is becoming more intelligent than it was some time ago. I wish you all success in your efforts.”
The chairman in a brief speech alluded to slavery as the cause of the present conflict, and said that no one would convince him to the contrary.
Mr. James Eadie moved the following resolution: “That the revolt of the southern States of America against the federal government having avowedly originated in the determination not only to maintain but to extend slavery, and having been followed by the organization of a confederacy based upon the denial of human rights to the negro race, this meeting indignantly repels the assumption that the English people sympathize with a rebellion that thus violates every principle of political justice, or with institutions framed in defiance of the moral sense of civilized mankind, and which are an outrage upon the religion whose sanction has been claimed in their support.” Mr. Eadie said he did not necessarily bind himself to believe in everything that President Lincoln and his administration had done. He was willing to admit that they were defective in some things, but they were right in the one needful thing, and that was to suppress and destroy slavery. [Applause.] The war that was now raging in America was to be deplored; but when they considered that it was on the one hand for freedom, and on the other for slavery, they were bound, as Englishmen, to use every means that lay in their power to encourage and help the right side, and that side was the north. [Cheers.] President Lincoln was worthy of the support of every true lover of freedom, for he believed a more feeling and sensitive President never occupied the presidential chair. [Cheers.] His sympathies were all for the north, and he was glad that so many of his neighbors were present that night to express sympathy with the negro race. [Applause.] He had great pleasure in moving the resolution he had just read.
Mr. J. A. Jackson, formerly a slave in South Carolina, and a man of color, seconded the resolution, and in a long and eloquent speech spoke of his birth and training; and the cruel treatment he had gone through. He gave touching pictures of the horrors of slavery, and how he escaped, and his flight from Charleston to Boston. He had great pleasure, he said, in seconding the resolution, for [Page 313] no one knew more of the horrors of slavery than himself. The general character of the slaveholder was to work his slaves very hard, so that they might not get up in the night to raise an insurrection, or carry off cotton or corn to other masters who traded with slaves at night. The slaveholders lived upon their slaves just as the hawk and owl lived upon the hen and chickens. [Shame, shame!] He was sorry to say that England gave America slavery. England, by the use of her cotton, had mainly helped to continue it; and let but English sympathy be withdrawn from the south, and soon slavery there must fall. [Cheers.] It lay with Christian men and women to expose its evils, denounce its cruelties, lay open its horrors, and spare not its infamous immoralities. [Cheers.] The day of escape from bondage would come to all, as it has come to some, or he would not have been there—(laughter]—and surely their cry would be heard, and the hymn so long sung by the negroes of the south—
“O let ray people go,”
be answered from heaven, perhaps even with a slaughter as great as that of the Egyptians, when they came onward with all the panoply of their chariots and horsemen to the Red sea, there to sink amid the waters.
Mr. J. P. Dalton moved the next resolution, as follows: “That in the election of President Lincoln, and in the principal acts of his administration—the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; the prohibition of slavery in the Territories; the recognition of the republics of Hayti and Liberia; the concession of the right of search for the suppression of the slave trade; the scheme of compensated emancipation, and the proclamation—this meeting recognizes successive triumphs of anti-slavery sentiments in the United States; rejoices in the prospect thus afforded of friendship between England and America, as well as of liberation to the enslaved; offers to the government and to the people of the loyal States the assurance of fraternal sympathy in their noble struggle, and requests the chairman to communicate this resolution to his excellency the American minister.” He had great pleasure in moving that resolution; in the first place, because he thought that the Lincoln government deserved it; and in the second place, because they were sympathizing with a race that had been kept down by tyranny. [Hear, hear.] No one deplored more than he (Mr. Dalton) did the present war that was now raging on the continent of America. He hated wars at all times; but this was a singular war. It was a war for freedom. [Cheers.] It was the death-blow of slavery. [Cheers.] It would also be the means of abolishing the slave trade in Cuba and Brazil. [Hear, hear.] We ought to blame our country for the curse of slavery—not America. We exported libertines, bankrupts, felons, and all kinds of low and lazy men, and to follow out their lust and appetite they began this traffic of human beings. Because they thought they had a right to deal in men who were inferior to themselves they were encouraged by the aristocracy of England. Dr. Hunt, and a few more English gentlemen, might say what they liked about the inferiority of the negro race; it was his (Mr. Dalton’s) firm belief that they would make intelligent and industrious citizens. [Cheers.] He hoped the day was not far distant when every Englishman, and even foreigners, would join with one voice, and proclaim “freedom” all over the world. [Cheers.]
Mr. Robert Eadie, in seconding the resolution, gave a short sketch of the origin of the war, and said that he was sorry that so many Englishmen should sympathize with the Confederate States. So long as sympathy was given from England, the war was sure to be prolonged. He hoped, however, that slavery was a thing of the past. [Cheers.]
The chairman invited any gentleman that had an amendment to move, to do so. No one coming forward, the resolution was carried amidst great cheering.
After the usual votes of thanks to Mr. Jackson and the chairman, the audience quietly dispersed.