3: Frederick Douglass

Excerpt from "The Inhumanity of Slavery"

    Lecture delivered in Rochester, New York, on December 8, 1850.

    Reprinted in Autobiographies, 1994.

The national debate over slavery intensified during the 1840s as the United States added huge new territories that could potentially become new slave states. At that time in the nation's history, the country was becoming sharply divided between free states and slave states. Free states were located primarily in the North. They did not allow slavery and were opposed to its extension into new territories acquired by the Union. The slave states were found mainly in the South. These states wanted to protect their legal right to slavery and to extend that right throughout the nation, especially into new land acquired by the United States. Among the new territories added during the 1840s was the vast region called the Republic of Texas, which was admitted in 1845, becoming the twenty-eighth state in the Union. The sizeable region, which consisted of much of present-day New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah, as well as all of California, was claimed by the United States upon winning the Mexican-American War (1846–48). In addition, present-day Kansas and Nebraska were not yet states.

"[S]lavery is alike the sin and the shame of the American people; it is a blot upon the American name, and the only national reproach which need make an American hang his head in shame, in the presence of monarchical governments."

In 1850 a series of laws were debated in the U.S. Congress that were intended to settle divisive debates about the spread of slavery. Under the proposed legislation, California would be admitted to the Union as a free state; the territories of New Mexico and Utah (encompassing present-day Utah and Nevada) would determine for themselves whether or not to permit slavery; and the Fugitive Slave Act, passed in 1850, would permit slave owners to enter non-slave states to pursue, capture, and return escaped slaves.

Frederick Douglass (c. 1817–1895), an ex-slave, was among the most persuasive and powerful spokespeople for abolition, ending slavery, to emerge on the national scene during the 1840s. Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, he was separated from his mother as a boy and treated poorly by a cruel and violent slave owner. At nine, he was sent to Baltimore, Maryland, to work as a house servant for the daughter of the plantation owner where Douglass was a slave. The daughter often read aloud from the Bible, and Douglass asked her to teach him to read, although the woman's husband did not approve. Douglass had just a few lessons, but he realized that reading and writing was a way to freedom. In the South, slaves were not allowed to go to school or learn how to read and write. Douglass continued his education through interaction with people—by questioning and listening to them—and by reading anything he could find. He sometimes traded food for a newspaper or a book. By age thirteen, Douglass was reading abolitionist newspapers.

Becoming a social activist

At the age of twenty-one, Douglass traveled in disguise by train from Baltimore to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and on to New York City. If discovered, he could have been jailed, sold to plantation owners, or even killed. On September 4, 1838, he safely reached New York City. He married and moved to a safe haven in New Bedford, Massachusetts, living for a time with a prosperous African American family. Douglass quickly became involved with abolitionist groups. He attended a convention of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society in Nantucket, Massachusetts, in 1841 and was invited to speak. His skills as an inspiring and stirring public speaker were so well received that he was invited to become an activist with the group. William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879), publisher of the abolitionist newspaper the Liberator, hired Douglass to speak about his life story and help sell copies of the paper. In 1843 Douglass participated in the Hundred Conventions project, the American Anti-Slavery Society's six-month tour of meeting halls throughout the Midwest.

Meanwhile, Douglass wrote his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), recounting his life experiences in a strong moral tone directed against the evils of slavery for both victim and victimizer. The book was an instant success, widely popular in the North and in Europe. As a fugitive slave, however, Douglass had no legal protection if his former slave owner were to seize him as his "property." Douglass traveled to England for two years, during which time supporters, against his wishes, paid his owner for his freedom.

Returning to the United States in 1847, Douglass and his family (his wife and four children) moved to Rochester, New York. He set up a printing shop and started his own newspaper, the North Star. Featuring articles on abolition and equality, the North Star was published under the motto "Right is of no sex. Truth is of no color. God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren [brothers]." Meanwhile, Douglass participated in the Underground Railroad, a series of safe sites where escaped slaves could stop as they moved north to freedom in Canada. He helped more than four hundred slaves reach freedom.

From his base in Rochester, Douglass campaigned against labor discrimination and racial segregation (separation of the races) on public transportation, and he supported women's rights. He attended the landmark women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848 and signed the "Declaration of Sentiments" at the convention. He made many speeches against the series of bills Congress debated in 1850.

Things to remember while reading the excerpt from "The Inhumanity of Slavery":

• Douglass immediately challenges listeners who believe there are respectful relations between slave owners and slaves. His Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, published five years earlier, was among the most powerful writings to date on the brutalities of slave life. In the speech, Douglass cites laws that permit cruel and vicious treatment based on the judgment of slave owners, advertisements that identify and describe runaway slaves, and examples of slaves preferring to escape and take their chances surviving in wilderness and swamps over returning to life on a plantation.
• Douglass frequently uses biblical references and language associated with religion to emphasize the wickedness and evil in slavery. More than a political or economic issue, he describes slavery as a moral issue. Under those terms, he argues, slavery is not simply an abusive system, slavery itself is an abuse, a moral wrong.
• In the excerpt, Douglass mentions mobocratic violence in New York and Boston. Racism was rampant in many northern communities, and Douglass is referring to recent swells of group violence directed at African Americans.
• Douglass does not confine the evils of slavery to the southern states where it is practiced. "[T]he whole American people are responsible for slavery," he declares. He cites several examples of racist violence in the North—in New York City, in Boston, Massachusetts, and Rochester, New York, where the speech is being delivered. He is challenging listeners to act against slavery and racism. Otherwise, through their silence, they are indirectly supporting the existence of slavery.

Excerpt from "The Inhumanity of Slavery"

The relation of master and slave has been called patriarchal, and only second in benignity [safety] and tenderness to that of the parent and child. This representation is doubtless believed by many northern people; and this may account, in part, for the lack of interest which we find among persons whom we are bound to believe to be honest and humane. What, then, are the facts? Here I will not quote my own experience in slavery; for this you might call one-sided testimony. I will not cite the declarations of abolitionists; for these you might pronounce exaggerations. I will not rely upon advertisements cut from newspapers; for these you might call isolated cases. But I will refer you to the laws adopted by the legislatures of the slave states….

Now, if [these laws] be an indication of kindness, what is cruelty? If this be parental affection, what is bittermalignity? A more atrocious [awful] and blood-thirsty string of laws could not well be conceived of. And yet I am bound to say that they fall short of indicating the horrible cruelties constantly practiced in the slave states.

I admit that there are individual slaveholders less cruel and barbarous [harsh] than is allowed by law; but these form the exception. The majority of slaveholders find it necessary, to ensure obedience, at times, to avail themselves of the utmost extent of the law, and many go beyond it. If kindness were the rule, we should not see advertisements filling the columns of almost every southern newspaper, offering large rewards for fugitive slaves, and describing them as being branded with irons, loaded with chains, and scarred by the whip. One of the most telling testimonies against the pretended kindness of slaveholders, is the fact that uncounted numbers of fugitives are now inhabiting the Dismal Swamp, preferring the untamed wilderness to their cultivated homes—choosing rather to encounter hunger and thirst, and to roam with the wild beasts of the forest, running the hazard of being hunted and shot down, than to submit to the authority of kind masters.

I tell you, my friends, humanity is never driven to such an unnatural course of life, without great wrong. The slave finds more of the milk of human kindness in the bosom of the savage Indian, than in the heart of his christian master. He leaves the man of the bible, and takes refuge with the man of the tomahawk. He rushes from the praying slaveholder into the paws of the bear. He quits the homes of men for the haunts of wolves. He prefers to encounter a life of trial, however bitter, or death, however terrible, to dragging out his existence under the dominion [power] of these kind masters.

The apologists for slavery often speak of the abuses of slavery; and they tell us that they are as much opposed to those abuses as we are; and that they would go as far to correct those abuses and to ameliorate [improve] the condition of the slave as anybody. The answer to that view is, that slavery is itself an abuse; that it lives by abuse; and dies by the absence of abuse. Grant that slavery is right; grant that the relation of master and slave may innocently exist; and there is not a single outrage which was ever committed against the slave but what finds an apology in the very necessity of the case. As was said by a slaveholder, (the Rev. A. G. Few,) to the Methodist conference, "If the relation be right, the means to maintain it are also right;" for without those means slavery could not exist. Remove the dreadful scourge [plague]—the plaited thong —the galling [annoying] fetter —the accursed chain—and let the slaveholder rely solely upon moral and religious power, by which to secure obedience to his orders, and how long do you suppose a slave would remain on his plantation? The case only needs to be stated; it carries its own refutation [denial] with it.

Absolute and arbitrary power can never be maintained by one man over the body and soul of another man, without brutal chastisement [punishment] and enormous cruelty.

To talk of kindness entering into a relation in which one party is robbed of wife, of children, of his hard earnings, of home, of friends, of society, of knowledge, and of all that makes this life desirable, is most absurd, wicked, and preposterous [ridiculous].

I have shown that slavery is wicked—wicked, in that it violates the great law of liberty, written on every human heart—wicked, in that it violates the first command of the decalogue —wicked, in that it fosters the most disgusting licentiousness [wastefulness]—wicked, in that it mars and defaces the image of God by cruel and barbarous inflictions—wicked, in that it contravenes [contradicts] the laws of eternal justice, and tramples in the dust all the humane and heavenly precepts [teachings] of the New Testament.

The evils resulting from this huge system of iniquity [wickedness] are not confined to the states south of Mason and Dixon's line. Its noxious (poisonous) influence can easily be traced throughout our northern borders. It comes even as far north as the state of New York. Traces of it may be seen even in Rochester; and travelers have told me it casts its gloomy shadows across the lake, approaching the very shores of Queen Victoria's dominions.

The presence of slavery may be explained by—as it is the explanation of—the mobocratic [mob rule] violence which lately disgraced New York, and which still more recently disgraced the city of Boston [Massachusetts]. These violent demonstrations, these outrageous invasions of human rights, faintly indicate the presence and power of slavery here. It is a significant fact, that while meetings for almost any purpose under heaven may be held unmolested [untouched] in the city of Boston, that in the same city, a meeting cannot be peaceably held for the purpose of preaching the doctrine of the American Declaration of Independence, "that all men are created equal." The pestiferous [diseased] breath of slavery taints the whole moral atmosphere of the north, and enervates [weakens] the moral energies of the whole people.

The moment a foreigner ventures upon our soil, and utters a natural repugnance [extreme dislike] to oppression, that moment he is made to feel that there is little sympathy in this land for him. If he were greeted with smiles before, he meets with frowns now; and it shall go well with him if he be not subjected to that peculiarly fitting method of showing fealty [respect] to slavery, the assaults of a mob.

Now, will any man tell me that such a state of things is natural, and that such conduct on the part of the people of the north, springs from a consciousness of rectitude [decency]? No! every fibre of the human heart unites in detestation [hatred] of tyranny, and it is only when the human mind has become familiarized with slavery, is accustomed to its injustice, and corrupted by its selfishness, that it fails to record its abhorrence [hatred] of slavery, and does not exult in the triumphs of liberty.

The northern people have been long connected with slavery; they have been linked to a decaying corpse, which has destroyed the moral health. The union of the government; the union of the north and south, in the political parties; the union in the religious organizations of the land, have all served to deaden the moral sense of the northern people, and to impregnate [fill] them with sentiments and ideas forever in conflict with what as a nation we call genius of American institutions. Rightly viewed, this is an alarming fact, and ought to rally all that is pure, just, and holy in one determined effort to crush the monster of corruption, and to scatter "its guilty profits" to the winds. In a high moral sense, as well as in a national sense, the whole American people are responsible for slavery, and must share, in its guilt and shame, with the most obdurate men-stealers of the south.

While slavery exists, and the union of these states endures, every American citizen must bear the chagrin [embarrassment] of hearing his country branded before the world as a nation of liars and hypocrites; and behold his cherished national flag pointed at with the utmost scorn and derision [contempt]. Even now an American abroad is pointed out in the crowd, as coming from a land where men gain their fortunes by "the blood of souls," from a land of slave markets, of blood-hounds, and slave-hunters; and, in some circles, such a man is shunned altogether, as a moral pest. Is it not time, then, for every American to awake, and inquire into his duty with respect to this subject?

Wendell Phillips —the eloquent New England orator—on his return from Europe, in 1842, said, "As I stood upon the shores of Genoa [Italy], and saw floating on the placid waters of the Mediterranean, the beautiful American war ship Ohio, with her masts tapering proportionately aloft, and an eastern sun reflecting her noble form upon the sparkling waters, attracting the gaze of the multitude, my first impulse was of pride, to think myself an American; but when I thought that the first time that gallant ship would gird [bind] on her gorgeous apparel, and wake from beneath her sides her dormant thunders, it would be in defense of the African slave trade, I blushed in utter shame for my country."

Let me say again, slavery is alike the sin and the shame of the American people; it is a blot upon the American name, and the only national reproach [disgrace] which need make an American hang his head in shame, in the presence of monarchical governments.

With this gigantic evil in the land, we are constantly told to look at home; if we say ought against crowned heads, we are pointed to our enslaved millions; if we talk of sending missionaries and bibles abroad, we are pointed to three millions now lying in worse than heathen [nonbelievers] darkness; if we express a word of sympathy for Kossuth and his Hungarian fugitive brethren, we are pointed to that horrible and hell-black enactment, "the fugitive slave bill. "

Slavery blunts [dulls] the edge of all our rebukes of tyranny abroad—the criticisms that we make upon other nations, only call forth ridicule, contempt, and scorn. In a word, we are made a reproach and a by-word to a mocking earth, and we must continue to be so made, so long as slavery continues to pollute our soil.

We have heard much of late of the virtue of patriotism, the love of country, etc., and this sentiment, so natural and so strong, has been impiously [without respect] appealed to, by all the powers of human selfishness, to cherish the viper which is stinging our national life away. In its name, we have been called upon to deepen our infamy [bad reputation] before the world, to rivet the fetter more firmly on the limbs of the enslaved, and to become utterly insensible to the voice of human woe that is wafted to us on every southern gale. We have been called upon, in its name, to desecrate our whole land by the footprints of slave-hunters, and even to engage ourselves in the horrible business of kidnapping.

I, too, would invoke [appeal to] the spirit of patriotism; not in a narrow and restricted sense, but, I trust, with a broad and manly signification [significance]; not to cover up our national sins, but to inspire us with sincere repentance [regret]; not to hide our shame from the world's gaze, but utterly to abolish the cause of that shame; not to explain away our gross inconsistencies as a nation, but to remove the hateful, jarring, and incongruous [incompatible] elements from the land; not to sustain an egregious [obvious] wrong, but to unite all our energies in the grand effort to remedy that wrong.

I would invoke the spirit of patriotism, in the name of the law of the living God, natural and revealed, and in the full belief that "righteousness exalteth a nation, while sin is a reproach to any people." "He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from the holding of bribes, he shall dwell on high, his place of defense shall be the munitions [weapons] of rocks, bread shall be given him, his water shall be sure."

We have not only heard much lately of patriotism, and of its aid being invoked on the side of slavery and injustice, but the very prosperity [wealth] of this people has been called in to deafen them to the voice of duty, and to lead them onward in the pathway of sin. Thus has the blessing of God been converted into a curse. In the spirit of genuine patriotism, I warn the American people, by all that is just and honorable, to BEWARE!

I warn them that, strong, proud, and prosperous though we be, there is a power above us that can "bring down high looks; at the breath of whose mouth our wealth may take wings; and before whom every knee shall bow;" and who can tell how soon the avenging angel may pass over our land, and the sable [black] bondmen now in chains, may become the instruments of our nation's chastisement! Without appealing to any higher feeling, I would warn the American people, and the American government, to be wise in their day and generation. I exhort [strongly urge] them to remember the history of other nations; and I remind them that America cannot always sit "as a queen," in peace and repose; that prouder and stronger governments than this have been shattered by the bolts of a just God; that the time may come when those they now despise and hate, may be needed; when those whom they now compel by oppression to be enemies, may be wanted as friends. What has been, may be again. There is a point beyond which human endurance cannot go. The crushed worm may yet turn under the heel of the oppressor. I warn them, then, with all solemnity [seriousness], and in the name of retributive justice, to look to their ways; for in an evil hour, those sable arms that have, for the last two centuries, been engaged in cultivating and adorning the fair fields of our country, may yet become the instruments of terror, desolation, and death, throughout our borders.

It was the sage of the Old Dominion [territory] that said—while speaking of the possibility of a conflict between the slaves and the slaveholders—"God has no attribute that could take sides with the oppressor in such a contest. I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that his justice cannot sleep forever." Such is the warning voice of Thomas Jefferson; and every day's experience since its utterance until now, confirms its wisdom, and commends its truth.

What happened next …

The Compromise of 1850, which included the Fugitive Slave Act, passed the U.S. Congress and was signed into law by President Millard Fillmore (1800–1874; served 1850–53). The Fugitive Slave Act, the threat of slavery expanding into new states, and impassioned pleas by the likes of Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896), whose antislavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was immediately popular upon publication in 1852, helped further the abolitionist movement.

The dispute over the expansion of slavery into western territories became even more heated in 1854 when a bill was introduced in Congress to organize the country west of Iowa and Missouri as the territory of Nebraska. The territory was to be divided into two parts, Kansas and Nebraska. The bill permitted the people of the territories, acting through their representatives, to decide whether the territory should be slave or free. Abolitionists were outraged, and passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act furthered tension between the North and the South. Wanting to ensure that Kansas would be a slave state, proslavery people from Missouri flooded into the territory, obtained the right to vote, and organized a proslavery legislature. At the same time, abolitionists moved into Kansas, organized their own legislature, and fought for free state status. The tense situation between longtime inhabitants and temporary residents, and pro-slavery people and abolitionists, erupted into a civil war, called "Bloody Kansas," in 1856.

Douglass met on several occasions with John Brown (1800–1859), a fiery abolitionist who preached violence against slave owners. Brown and a small band of followers were captured in 1859 as they assaulted an arsenal, a place where weapons were stockpiled, in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. They hoped to take guns and use them to arm slaves. Douglass was accused by the Governor of Virginia of being a conspirator. Douglass fled to Canada and then returned to Great Britain, where he enjoyed a successful lecture tour.

Douglass returned the following year and supported Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865; served 1861–65) in his successful run for president. When the American Civil War (1861–65) began shortly after Lincoln took office, Douglass was disappointed that Lincoln's first priority was to save the Union, even if it did not include the abolition of slavery. Douglass focused on two goals: emancipation of slaves and inclusion of African Americans in the Union army. The Emancipation Proclamation, announced by Lincoln in 1863, abolished slavery in the states fighting against the Union during the Civil War. It was a major step toward ending slavery and opened up military opportunities for African Americans.

Following the end of the Civil War in 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, abolishing slavery, became law. At a meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society in May 1865, one month after the end of the war, William Lloyd Garrison had called upon the organization to disband, now that its goal was achieved. Douglass came out against Garrison's proposal, stating that "Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot." In 1868 the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, granting citizenship to all people born in the United States. Before that amendment, ex-slaves were not officially recognized as citizens. In 1870 the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, extending voting rights to African American males. Section 1 of the amendment states: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

In 1870 Douglass and his sons began publishing a weekly newspaper, the New National Era. He moved to Washington, D.C., in 1872 after his Rochester home was destroyed by fire. In 1877 President Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893; served 1877–81) appointed Douglass as U.S. marshal of Washington, D.C., a first for an African American. Douglass enjoyed the position of city administrator and purchased a 15-acre estate in the area. Douglass called it "Cedar Hill" and frequently entertained family members and friends. After giving a speech on February 20, 1895, at the National Council of Women, Douglass suffered a heart attack later that evening and died at the age of seventy-seven.

Meanwhile, a new form of racism had spread, particularly in southern states, during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. After several U.S. Supreme Court rulings struck down federal civil rights legislation in favor of state and community laws, many southern states began enacting what came to be known as "Jim Crow laws," which enforced separate facilities for blacks and whites. Segregation and more violent forms of racism were widespread by the turn of the twentieth century.

Did you know …

• Douglass was so eloquent in his early speeches in 1841 and 1842 that some people questioned whether he had actually experienced the incidents he related. Those doubts helped motivate Douglass to write his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845).
• Douglass's sons, Lewis and Charles, were among the first African Americans to enlist in the Union army, and Douglass actively recruited African Americans for the Union cause. He stopped recruiting, however, upon learning that segregation was being practiced in the military.

Consider the following …

• Research the Compromise of 1850. Consider why some significant politicians believed it would put an end to slavery. For example, three successive presidents—Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce (1804–1869; served 1853–57), and James Buchanan (1791–1868; served 1857–61)—all of whom were from northern states, supported the Compromise of 1850. Write an essay about why the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) increased tension between the North and the South.
• In the lecture excerpted earlier and in his book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Douglass personalized the relationship between slave owner and slave to show the brutalities of slavery. Read either or both of those pieces, and focus on passages where examples of relationships between slaves and slave owners are described. Write an essay on how you responded to these passages, considering that many people believed the relationship between slave owner and slave was like a typical boss-worker arrangement.

For More Information

BOOKS

Burchard, Peter. Frederick Douglass: For the Great Family of Man. New York: Atheneum, 2003.

Douglass, Frederick. Autobiographies. New York: Library of America, 1994.

Douglass, Frederick. Escape from Slavery. New York: Knopf, 1994.

Douglass, Frederick. "Frederick Douglass's Speech to the Thirty-second Annual Convention of the American Anti-Slavery Society." Crossing the Danger Water: Three Hundred Years of African American Writing, edited by Dierdre Mullane. New York: Doubleday, 1993.

Douglass, Frederick. My Bondage and My Freedom. New York: Miller, Orton and Mulligan, 1855. Reprint, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987.

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Boston: Anti-Slavery Office, 1845. Reprint, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1997.

Fleming, Alice Mulcahey. Frederick Douglass: From Slave to Statesman. New York: PowerPlus Books, 2004.

Lawson. Bill E., and Frank M. Kirkland, eds. Frederick Douglass: A Critical Reader. New York: Blackwell Publishers, 1998.

Russell, Sharman. Frederick Douglass. New York: Chelsea House, 1992.

WEB SITES

Douglass, Frederick. My Bondage and My Freedom. FullBooks.com. http://www.fullbooks.com/My-Bondage-and-My-Freedom-My-Bondage-and-My.html (accessed on June 12, 2006).

Frederick Douglass Museum & Hall of Fame for Caring Americans. http://www.nahc.org/fd/history.html (accessed on June 12, 2006).

Frederick Douglass, National Historic Site. http://www.nps.gov/frdo/freddoug.html (accessed on June 12,2006).

Patriarchal: Father and son

Malignity: Being hateful or cruel.

Branded with irons: Marked with hot irons to identify them as someone's property.

Dismal Swamp: A large area of forested wetlands along the eastern border of Virginia and North Carolina.

Apologists: Those who, through argument, defend an idea, practice, or point of view.

Platited thong: A thick and heavy leather whip.

Fetter: Chains or shackles for the feet.

Decalogue: The Ten Commandments of the bible.

New Testament: The second half of the Christian bible.

Mason and Dixon's line: The southern, border of Pennsylvania, which before the American Civil War marked the border between free states and slave states.

Queen Victoria's dominions: Reference to Canada, which had ties to Great Britain and its Queen Victoria.

Obdurate: Hardened against feeling.

Hypocrites: Faking or only pretending to believe in something.

Wendell Phillips: (1811–1884), a prominent American abolitionist.

Monarchical governments: Monarchy; led by king or queen.

Kossuth: Reference to Lajos (Louis) Kossuth (1802–1894) who led Hungary during its fight for independence and democracy.

Fugitive slave bill: A bill, passed by Congress in 1850, that allowed slave owners to enter non-slave states to pursue, capture, and return escaped slaves.

Rivet: To join with a metal pin or bolt.

Desecrate: Violate the sacredness of.

Avenging: Inflicting punishment in return for an injury or wrongdoing.

Retributive: Punishment that is deserved because of some wrongdoing or evil.

Thomas Jefferson: (1743–1826), third president of the United States (served 1801–09), who wrote the Declaration of Independence.