Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-02-06
The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher's Reply
to John Mitchell.

A Letter to John Mitchell.
You address very long letter to me IN the
Citizen of Jan. 2Sth, 1854, in defense of your
self and Of American Slavery. That you select
me from among all who reprobated your apostacy
from the gospel OF human liberty, arises, pre-
sumo, from reasons Of convenience to yourself
rather than of compliment to me. am cler-
gymen; and 1t might seem to the unwary very
natural thing to address to such an one an argu-
ment upon Hebrew Slavery 1t is doubtless more
agreeable for you to stumble over the records of
rude society four Thousand years ago, and to talk
about Moses and the prophets, than TO ponder
what John Mltchel-the Irish patrioi-sold but
the other day about american Slavery. shall
not suffer that new issue to be made.
In the article which has excited such surprise,
you expressed no opinion about Abraham you
said nothing of what you would have thought it
right to do, if born four thousand years age, on
Chadcan plains, or if you had been Jew. 1t
was American Slavery that you spoke of; He
brew Slavery admitted that slave was man
with all appropriate human responsibilities, and
made ample provision for his religious and civil in
sruction. American Slavery stands upon the
fundamental idea that slave is a chattel, not a
man; and it makes the teaching him to read
peuiteniary offence for which Mrs Douglass now
lies in Virginia prison. This Slavery, that de-
stroys manhood by its first touch, you not only
justified abstractly, but longed to practice it, in
Alabama; and that no doubt might remain of your
intention, you volunteered your belief in fogging
and other means of coercing unwilling slaves TO
their hated tasks.
Now, Sir, don't wonder that you would like
to have that forgotten, and that you find 1t more
pleasing 10 take an amateur survey of Moses and
the prophets, than 10 talk about John Mitchell, land
that plantation in Alabama, from whose owner
ship he is kept only by poverty, moi by principle
Your letter is very poor argument on very
bad side. But the poverty of its reasoning is the
best part Of it. No man in your circumstances
could make good Argument for voluntary slave
holding; without more time for practice. Corrup-
ton does not work so quickly. II takes time, to
round up and ripen a treason to moral prlnci-
pies.
Under the circumstances, marvel that you
have done so well. Your engagements in Ireland
for many years would not be apt to turn your in
vestgations in the direction of arguments for sla
very.
Neither was it to be expected that you would
spend your leisure in penal colony, where you
expiated the crime of fanaticism for liberty, in
searching eur arguments TO prove the right of one
set of men to own and Cypress another
After your arrival in America, you were SO
busy in receiving republican congratulations upon
the restoration Of your oacn liberty, that you had
little time to bestOw upon reasons for taking
away other mems liberty.
If to these considerations be added some inapt-
ness natural to new work, some awkwardness in
the discussion of Scriptural topics, and that dizz
ness which one must be expected to feel after a
somerset, think every one will regard your per-
Torrance as far beyond anything that could have
been expected.
| hope it will not be accounted vanity for me to
say, that could have helped you to frame a far
better argument in favor Of Hebrew Slavery. 1t
is new question to you; it is very old one TO
US. have heaps of trash in my library thai you
might have added 10 your rubbish. have with
in reach enough clay and straw on that matter to
have builded you an argument huge an Egyp-
tan pyramid.
If you desire 10 defend monarchy from Scrip
ture, have by me writers that do that. The Bi.
BILE has been regarded as a bulwark of oppression
by all oppressors. 1t has opened its doors like
vast magazine, in which every man who wanted
TO wrong his fellows could find precedent or rea-
son; sword to slay the innocent, and shield
10 cover the guilty. And poemical freebooters
there have been, to defend, fiom scripture, every
wrong that the sun ever shone upon; and their
tracts and books are thick as the ocusts and frogs
Of Egypt, aud as oathsome. And yet, in spite OF
all sermons and tyranous interpretations, where
ever a free Bible is read, it inspires free heart
and strikes the root Of liberty down into mems
bosoms with ineradicable grasp.
If, therefore, your Argument be regarded, not
in the light of your past personal history, but in
comparison OF what has been done TO make the
Bible lie, and what could be done again. you
have been but poor workman. You have been
angling in petty ditch among pin fish and wrig
Cling vermin. You should have struck right out
into those CULTS and bays where prolific Oppres-
sion has for ages spawned and Matched unnumber-
ed monsters that dsport themselves upon the sur
face, guzzle IN the slime, or hang poised IN 81.
lent vigilance for the unwary, like tropical sharks
in the warm bays of equatorial waters. If 1t is
your purpose TO 60 on in your new vocation, you
will find deep waters and ponderous prey all ready
for your sport!
But what has turned you TO such waters at all!
Had you been born IN Alabama, had you sucked
in republican ism from The breasts of Southern
gospel, had your conscience been cultivated like
a cotton plant, and your principles spun from it
fine as thread, and as easily wound around any
spool that interest might choose to whir in potl-
cal spinning jennies, we should have been less
surprised For we have learned to be surprised
at nothing in moral and political legerdemain -
But to see honest, riotous John Michel ,audacious
and ferocious John Mitchell, whom the world has
admired as CGur de Lion, laundering with his
battle axe, at the postern of the castle of Tor
qullstone, till his blows rung above the whole
shout of the battle; to this Hercules,now sit
ting with his dslaff and patiently spinning out
fine threads for the meshes of the worst kind of
slavery that the woI Id has ever known, this is
moral marvel. At las! we are surprised again.
The long lost luxury Of that feeling has returned
But, of course, you did moi expect me 10 fol-
low you into your twilight researches You had
no idea that l should be coaxed away from
the real issue between you and the American pub
lie, into discussion of Greek and Hebrew Sla-
very.
The question between yon and the public is
not whether Hebrew Slavery was right. Nor
whether Roman Slavery was right. Nor even
whether American Slavery is right
: The questions simply this: Can John Mitch
Ell be an american stakeholder, Dithout apostle
cy from the grounds achich he took against The
English Government? That is question about
which MIR. Mitchell will find little light, either in
the Greek or Hebrew. That has 10 be discussed
in plain Saxon English.
What was the liberty which you asserted for