Lydia Maria Child, Letters of Lydia Maria Child
John Greenleaf Whittier, Wendell Phillips, Harriet Winslow Sewall, Ed.

To the same.

I am glad to witness the universal enthusiasm for the U. S. flag, though the sight of that flag always inspires a degree of sadness in my own breast. I should so delight in having it thoroughly worthy of being honored! But every flap of the stars and stripes repeats to me the story of those poor slaves who, through great perils and sufferings, succeeded in making their way to Fort Pickens, strengthened by the faith that President Lincoln was their friend, and that his soldiers would protect them. They were chained and sent back to their masters, who whipped them till they nearly died under the lash. When such things are done under the U. S. flag, I cannot and I will not say, “God bless it!” Nay, unless it ceases from this iniquity, I say, deliberately [151] and solemnly, “May the curse of God rest upon it! May it be trampled in the dust, kicked by rebels, and spit upon by tyrants!” But I think it will cease from this iniquity. These wicked things that have happened at Fort Pickens and Fort Monroe, occurred during the twenty days before hostilities commenced. The U. S. government, having offered the rebels twenty days during which they might make up their minds to lay down their arms, perhaps thought it necessary to obey that hateful clause in the Constitution. But now the offered term of grace has expired. If they continue in arms, they are no longer a part of the Union, and none of those devilish obligations of the Union can be considered as any longer binding upon us; not even by men who have no other consciences than legal consciences. . . . Twenty years ago, John Quincy Adams maintained on the floor of Congress the constitutional right of the United States to proclaim emancipation to all the slaves in time of war, either foreign or civil. He maintained that it was in strict conformity to the law of nations and the laws of war, and he challenged any man to prove to the contrary. No one attempted to do it. Let us hope and trust that a great good is coming out of this seeming evil. Meanwhile, I wait to see how the United States will deport itself. When it treats the colored people with justice and humanity, I will mount its flag in my great elm-tree, and I will thank you to present me with a flag for a breast-pin; but, until then, I would as soon wear the rattlesnake upon my bosom as the eagle. I have raved and I have wept about that Fort Pickens affair. When one puts one's self in the slave's stead, pity and indignation will boil over in rage, in view of such enormities.