During his five years’ residence as a fugitive slave in England after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, Brown became an expert in addressing British sensibilities. One of the hundreds of lectures he gave was at the Royal Public Subscription Rooms in the southwestern city of Exeter in May 1851. Brown’s remarks that day, as rendered by a local reporter, contrasted the exculpatory psychology of white Americans who allowed the Fugitive Slave Law to pass through a northern-dominated Congress with the fighting spirit—which he was inciting as he spoke—of freedom-loving Englishmen and -women.
Mr. WILLIAM WELLS BROWNE was received with loud cheers. He hoped that there would be but one feeling entertained by the audience, on the present occasion, and that a feeling of the most intense hatred against an institution that was at the present time perpetrating more wrong, more injustice, and more inhumanity upon one-sixth of the people of the United States, than could be found in any other part of the world—and on the people, not only of the present generation of the United States, but he feared on future generations—(hear, hear.) When the American colonies separated from the mother country in 1776, and adopted the constitution for themselves, and formed a government upon their own plan, they engrafted in the constitution of that country certain provisions, giving certain rights to the slave-holding people of the colonies—rights of property in their fellow man—the right of carrying on the African slave trade for a period of twenty years, the right of chasing a runaway slave, not only in the free states, and re-capturing him if they could find him, and taking him back to the prison house he had left, to fasten the chains upon his limbs; but it was required that they should bind themselves to put down any insurrection, any effort on the part of the blacks of the slave states to regain their liberties—by physical force. These were certain parts of the American constitution, which had become the law of the land. That spirit had grown with the growth of the country, and now they found the United States—the north, and the south—the free and slave states—combined to keep in degradation and slavery between three and four millions of the people of that country—(hear, hear). He knew the question had been asked in this country, how was it that the American Fugitive Slave Bill could be enacted by the people of the United States when it was well known that not only one-half of the States were free, or called so; but that above two-thirds of the free white population of that country resided in the free states. But it was through the connection of the people of the free states with the people of the slave states—a connection, commercial, social, political, and religious—it was through that connection and influence that the people of the slave states succeeded in carrying every measure through the United States Congress, upon which they depended, for the protection of that infernal system in that country—(hear, hear). The combination of the people of the free with the slave states was the very life-blood of the institution of American Slavery, and he wanted that they should understand this for many reasons—for they had not only slave-holders coming to this country and apologising for the institution of slavery, but they had men from the free states—from the north and the west,—men, who travelled through the country for pleasure and other purposes, and when spoken to on the subject, would try to get out of it by saying—“Oh, I reside in New York, or Massachusetts, or Ohio, where there is no slavery, and one state cannot interfere with another—it is a State Institution with which we have nothing to do.” When they tried however to exculpate themselves by such arguments, and such sophistries, they must not believe them, for there was not a single citizen of a Free State in the American Union who had taken the oath of allegiance to the Constitution—but what was bound to put down any effort of the slave population towards regaining their liberties—not a single citizen, but what was bound to return the fugitive slave back again into slavery, if he would do his duty as an American citizen—(hear, hear). Many fugitive slaves had been dragged back again to slavery from the free states, under this infamous Fugitive Bill. Boston was called the Athens of America, because there were no slaves in that part of the country, and they would therefore imagine that there the bondsman would be protected when he escaped from the sugar, the cotton, or the rice plantations, and found himself under the shadow of Bunker Hill—(cheers). But the last steamer told them—the last post revealed to them the fact, that a poor slave, named Simms, was seized in the city of Boston, dragged on board a vessel, over which the American flag was floating, and was now probably in a rice plantation, or in a loathsome dungeon of the Slave States—(shame). Such was the fact as it regarded the Free States. When, therefore, these apologists came there, and said they had nothing to do with slavery, ask them who passed the Fugitive Law—the free or the slave states?—(hear, hear). The free states had a large majority in both houses of Congress—in the Senate as well as the House of Assembly, where they had a majority of twenty members. The Fugitive Slave Bill was brought forward and carried by men from the Free States—by such men as Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts, one of the greatest political jugglers that ever appeared on the stage—(cheers)—a man, who had turned his political coat, and got more holes in it, than any beggar to be found in the street—(laughter)—a man, who had sacrificed principle and everything, for the purpose of hoisting himself into the presidential chair, and who had been backed up by professing Christians, by ministers, professing to be the followers of the humble, meek, and lowly Saviour—by doctors of divinity, professors of theology—and he said this in the face of the old and the new countries, knowing it would be reported—that the Fugitive Slave Bill was carried through Congress by such men as these—by men of the northern free states, who professed to love liberty as much as any man in that room—(hear, and cheers). That Law was one of the most abominable laws ever enacted by any people under heaven. They might search Europe throughout—search all Christendom, and go beyond into heathen lands taking with them the lantern of Diogenes, and he would challenge them to find a parallel to this infamous Fugitive Slave Law—(loud cheers). Mr. Browne then proceeded at some length to comment upon the different provisions of the Bill, with considerable ability, relating several anecdotes illustrative of its cruel character. It was said by certain apologists of the bill that if it was annulled, it would be the signal for the dissolution of the American Union. All he could say to that was that if the American Union were dissolved, and the slaves emancipated, let it be so—(loud cheers). If it could not exist, unless at the expense of human liberty, and the lifeblood of one-sixth of the population, then let it go down—(cheers). When William Tell directed the aim that was to strike the fatal apple upon the head of his son, he exclaimed “Let my name and memory perish so that Switzerland be free.” He would say “Let the American Union and Constitution perish, if it might be, that the slaves, shall have their liberty”—(loud cheers). Many slave-holders would come over to the Great Exhibition, and would probably travel through the country, with the money obtained by the sale of their slaves. Whilst eschewing the advocacy of physical force, still he believed that Old England should demonstrate its abhorrence of the system, by refusing to associate with them—for they would not do so with the man who stole their property, and ought they not to avoid men who were men-stealers?—(hear, hear). He concluded as follows—“I must thank you Mr. Chairman, and Ladies and Gentlemen, for the very warm reception you have given my friends and myself. I thank you because I feel that you sympathize with the bondsman in the United States. I thank you because you have expressed your feelings in favour of a class of people, with whom I am connected by the tenderest ties of nature, who are suffering under a system, which inflicted upon me the very scars I carry upon my person now. You have expressed your feelings against an institution that robbed my friends of their liberties—one of 31 years, and the other of 22—(hear, hear). I thank you, because you have expressed your abhorrence of an institution, which not only robbed me of my liberty until I was twenty years of age, but kept me from getting any education before that time, and is now keeping in chains my own kindred—a dear and affectionate sister, three dear brothers, a beloved and aged mother—all, if living, are clanking their chains upon a soil which we are told is consecrated to freedom—(shame). I thank you for your reception of us, because I am glad that my friends here to-night are not only receiving hospitality at your hands, but are standing upon soil that is really consecrated to freedom—(loud cheers)—standing upon soil where a slave-holder—no matter how many angry whips he might have in his pocket—no matter how many constitutions, or declarations of independence he might have in his hat—no matter how many prayers he has put up to his Creator—let him come here; and while you recognise his right to be free, you will not recognise his right to lay his hands upon us, and drag us back to slavery”—(loud and prolonged cheering).
The thanks of the meeting were unanimously accorded to the rev. chairman; and after Mr. Browne had sung an anti-slavery melody, of his own composition, in a voice of much sweetness and power, the meeting separated.