Iron Gray
The Gospel of Slavery A Primer of Freedom

A Stands for Adam. Creation began
By giving dominion of Nature to man.
Men differ in color, and stature, and weight,
Nor equal are all in their talent or state,
But equal in rights are the great and the small
In sight of the God and Creator of all.
Then how comes dominion of brother by brother?
Or how can the one be the lord of the other?
Consider it well-for an answer I crave,
That reaches the question of Master and Slave.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." —Decl. of Ind. It is nothing to affirm that the Negro, or Indian, or Arab, is not equal to the white man – namely, in talent and the like. No two white men are equal in all respects – but if you deny an equality of rights, specify the grounds of such denial.

B Stands for Bloodhound On merciless fangs
The Slaveholder feels that his "property" hangs,
And the dog and the master are hot on the track,
To torture or bring the black fugitive back.
The weak has but fled from the hand of the strong,
Asserting the right and resisting the wrong,
While he who exults in a skin that is white,
A Bloodhound employs in asserting his might.
– O chivalry-layman and dogmatist-priest,
Say, which is the monster – the man, or the beast?

How long is it since Southern papers advertised the offers of rival hunters of fugitive Negroes, who claimed that they had the best bloodhounds, &c.? Truly an honorable and manly vocation. Runaway Slaves were advertised as having been torn by the dogs, thus and so, on former occasions of flight, and large rewards were offered for the capture of such ingrates, dead or alive! Shall not specimens of these advertisements be some day included in the literary curiosities of civilization?

C Stands for Cotton Its beautiful bolls,
And bales of rich value, the Master controls.
Of "mud-sills" he prates, and would haughtily bring
The world to acknowledge that "Cotton is King."
But "Democrat Coal" and "Republican Corn,"
The locks of the monarch have latterly shorn;
And Slaveocrats, living by clamorous fraud,
By Freemen shall yet into learning be awed,
That the sceptre is not in position nor gift,
But only in honest, industrial thrift.

"What is the difficulty, and what the remedy? Not in the election of Republican Presidents. No. Not in the non-execution of the Fugitive bill. No. But it lies back of all these. It is found in the Atheistic Red Republican doctrine of the Declaration of Independence. Until that is trampled under feet, there can be no peace." —Dr. Smyth, a Rebel leader in South Carolina. "Mud-sills" and "poor white trash" seem not to his liking; but what if they should trample him under feet?

D Stands for Driver, His duty, I hear,
Is mostly described as the Slave-Overseer.
O tell me, I pray you, if any one can,
If planters acknowledge the brute as a man!
With whip and with pistols, the vagabond wields
The law of the Master in hovels and fields,
But scarcely removed, in a social degree,
Above the rude gang that he governs is he,
And, like the Slave Trader, his service is prized
As treason is loved, and the traitor despised!

Some persons sneer at any distinction between hirelings of a month or year and hirelings for life – the latter being their definition of Southern Slavery! A taste of the wormwood and the gall might bring them to exclaim with Sterne: "Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still Slavery, still thou art a bitter draught; and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account." Suppose the chalice were commended to the lips of Slaveholders?

E Stands for Eagle, In Liberty springs
The strength of his beak and the pride of his wings.
Though vultures still cloud the political sky,
And "carrion, more carrion!" incessantly cry,
Shall Slave-craft prevail, and the moralist nod
O'er evils reserved in the judgment of God?
– The Eagle has come to the rescue of right,
And all institutions of fraudulent might,
Shall perish and cease from the bountiful clime,
Long cursed by the stench of a carrion-crime!

The Constitution grants neither right nor authority to interfere with the domestic institutions of any State; but Congress, representing the people and the States, has absolute control in the Territories. "More Slavery!" has been the continual cry of the South. Rebellion provoked the war-power of the President; and it is now probable that the institution which claimed a continent, will be numbered with the abominations that were! Let all the people say Amen.

F Stands for Fugitives hasting from wrath,
And furies are hot on their dangerous path.
Away from the cabins of slavery pomp,
A refuge they seek in the hideous swamp;
Or, haply eluding the hunters of blood,
They struggle through thicket and perilous flood,
Till, reaching the lines of the Union Host,
The echo has died of the scandalous boast,
"Hurra for the banner that Liberty waves,
"With stars for the Masters and stripes for the Slaves!"

A history of this Liberty War would be very incomplete without sample-sketches of the patient, shrewd efforts of individuals and families of Slaves in getting away from the house of bondage into the lines of the Union Army. Almost starved, hunted by dogs and men, shot at, some of the party killed, – none but the good Lord knoweth the miseries endured by thousands in escaping from the comfortable, patriarchal, Gospel institution of the South!

G Stands for Gospel. How beautiful are
The feet of the bearer of news from afar,
When coming to touch a humanity-chord -
And preach the acceptable year of the Lord!
Set free the scourged bondman, now branded and sore,
And write him a freeman, a man evermore,
Around whom a family closely may draw.

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