We shall one day learn to supersede politics by education." He
sympathizes with Lovelace's theory as to iron bars and stone walls, and
holds that freedom and slavery are inward, not outward conditions. Slavery
is not in circumstance, but in feeling; you cannot eradicate the irons by
external restrictions; and the truest way to emancipate the slave would be
to educate him to a comprehension of his inviolable dignity and freedom as
a human being. Amelioration of outward circumstances will be the effect,
but can never be the means of mental and moral improvement. "Nothing is
more disgusting," he affirms, generalizing the theme, "than the crowing
about liberty by slaves, as most men are, and the flippant mistaking for
freedom of some paper preamble like a 'Declaration of Independence' or the
statute right to vote." But, "Our America has a bad name for
superficialness. Great men, great nations, have not been boasters and
buffoons, but perceivers of the terrors of life, and have nerved
themselves to face it." He will not be deceived by the clamor of blatant
reformers. "If an angry bigot assumes the bountiful cause of abolition,
and comes to me with his last news from Barbadoes, why should I not say
to him: 'Go love thy infant; love thy wood-chopper; be good-natured and
modest; have that grace, and never varnish your hard, uncharitable
ambition with this incredible tenderness for black folk a thousand miles
off!'"
He does not shrink from questioning the validity of some of our pet
institutions, as, for instance, universal suffrage.
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