The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus
Chapter 224 : Her vanity, her treachery, her oppression, her self-exaltation, and her defiance of th

Her vanity, her treachery, her oppression, her self-exaltation, and her defiance of the Almighty, far surpa.s.s the madness and wickedness of Edom. What shall be her punishment? Truly, it may be affirmed of the American people, (who live not under the Levitical but Christian code, and whose guilt, therefore, is the more awful, and their condemnation the greater,) in the language of another prophet--"They all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net.

That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire: _so they wrap it up_." Likewise of the colored inhabitants of this land it may be said,--"This is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison-houses; they are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore."

By this stipulation, the Northern States are made the hunting ground of slave-catchers, who may pursue their victims with bloodhounds, and capture them with impunity wherever they can lay their robber hands upon them. At least twelve or fifteen thousand runaway slaves are now in Canada, exiled from their native land, because they could not find, throughout its vast extent, a single road on which they could dwell in safety, in _consequence of this provision of the Const.i.tution_? How is it possible, then, for the advocates of liberty to support a government which gives over to destruction one-sixth part of the whole population?

It is denied by some at the present day, that the clause which has been cited, was intended to apply to runaway slaves. This indicates either ignorance, or folly or something worse. JAMES MADISON, as one of the framers of the Const.i.tution, is of some authority on this point. Alluding to that instrument, in the Virginia convention, he said:--

"Another clause _secures us that property which we now possess_. At present, if any slave elopes to those States where slaves are free, _he becomes emanc.i.p.ated by their laws_; for the laws of the States are _uncharitable_ (!) to one another in this respect; but in this const.i.tution, 'No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.' THIS CLAUSE WAS EXPRESSLY INSERTED TO ENABLE THE OWNERS OF SLAVES TO RECLAIM THEM. _This is a better security than any that now exists_. No power is given to the general government to interfere with respect to the property in slaves now held by the States."

In the same convention, alluding to the same clause, GOV. RANDOLPH said:--

"Every one knows that slaves are held to service or labor. And, when authority is given to owners of slaves _to vindicate their property_, can it be supposed they can be deprived of it? If a citizen of this State, in consequence of this clause, can take his runaway slave in Maryland, can it be seriously thought that, after taking him and bringing him home, he could be made free?"

It is objected, that slaves are held as property, and therefore, as the clause refers to persons, it cannot mean slaves. But this is criticism against fact. Slaves are recognized not merely as property, but also as persons--as having a mixed character--as combining the human with the brutal. This is paradoxical, we admit; but slavery is a paradox--the American Const.i.tution is a paradox--the American Union is a paradox--the American Government is a paradox; and if any one of these is to be repudiated on that ground, they all are. That it is the duty of the friends of freedom to deny the binding authority of them all, and to secede from them all, we distinctly affirm. After the independence of this country had been achieved, the voice of G.o.d exhorted the people, saying, "Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compa.s.sion, every man to his brother: and oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart. But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear; yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone." "Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord. Shall not my soul be avenged on such a notion as this?"

Whatever doubt may have rested on any honest mind, respecting the meaning of the clause in relation to persons held to service or labor, must have been removed by the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Prigg versus The State of Pennsylvania. By that decision, any Southern slave-catcher is empowered to seize and convey to the South, without hindrance or molestation on the part of the State, and without any legal process duly obtained and served, any person or persons, irrespective of caste or complexion, whom he may choose to claim as runaway slaves; and if, when thus surprised and attacked, or on their arrival South, they cannot prove by legal witnesses, that they are freemen, their doom is sealed! Hence the free colored population of the North are specially liable to become the victims of this terrible power, and all the other inhabitants are at the mercy of prowling kidnappers, because there are mult.i.tudes of white as well as black slaves on Southern plantations, and slavery is no longer fastidious with regard to the color of its prey.

As soon as that appalling decision of the Supreme Court was enunciated, in the name of the Const.i.tution, the people of the North should have risen _en ma.s.se_, if for no other cause, and declared the Union at an end; and they would have done so, if they had not lost their manhood, and their reverence for justice and liberty.

In the 4th Sect. of Art. IV., the United States guarantee to protect every State in the Union "against _domestic violence_." By the 8th Section of Article I., congress is empowered "to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, _suppress insurrections_, and repel invasions." These provisions, however strictly they may apply to cases of disturbance among the white population, were adopted with special reference to the slave population, for the purpose of keeping them in their chains by the combined military force of the country; and were these repealed, and the South left to manage her slaves as best she could, a servile insurrection would ere long be the consequence, as general as it would unquestionably be successful. Says Mr. Madison, respecting these clauses:--

"On application of the legislature or executive, as the case may be, the militia of the other States are to be called to suppress domestic insurrections. Does this bar the States from calling forth their own militia? No; but it gives them a _supplementary_ security to suppress insurrections and domestic violence."

The answer to Patrick Henry's objection, as urged against the const.i.tution in the Virginia convention, that there was no power left to the _States_ to quell an insurrection of slaves, as it was wholly vested in congress, George Nicholas asked:--

"Have they it now? If they have, does the const.i.tution take it away?

If it does, it must be in one of those clauses which have been mentioned by the worthy member. The first part gives the general government power to call them out when necessary. Does this take it away from the States? No! but _it gives an additional security;_ for, beside the power in the State government to use their own militia, it will be _the duty of the general government_ to aid them WITH THE STRENGTH OF THE UNION, when called for."

This solemn guaranty of security to the slave system, caps the climax of national barbarity, and stains with human blood the garments of all the people. In consequence of it, that system has multiplied its victims from five hundred thousand to nearly three millions--a vast amount of territory has been purchased, in order to give it extension and perpetuity--several new slave States have been admitted into the Union--the slave trade has been made one of the great branches of American commerce--the slave population, though over-worked, starved, lacerated, branded, maimed, and subjected to every form of deprivation and every species of torture, have been overawed and crushed,--or, whenever they have attempted to gain their liberty by revolt, they have been shot down and quelled by the strong arm of the national government; as, for example, in the case of Nat Turner's insurrection in Virginia, when the naval and military forces of the government were called into active service. Cuban bloodhounds have been purchased with the money of the people, and imported and used to hunt slave fugitives among the everglades of Florida. A merciless warfare has been waged for the extermination or expulsion of the Florida Indians, because they gave succor to those poor hunted fugitives--a warfare which has cost the nation several thousand lives, and forty millions of dollars.

But the catalogue of enormities is too long to be recapitulated in the present address.

We have thus demonstrated that the compact between the North and the South embraces every variety of wrong and outrage,--is at war with G.o.d and man, cannot be innocently supported, and deserves to be immediately annulled. In behalf of the Society which we represent, we call upon all our fellow-citizens, who believe it is right to obey G.o.d rather than man, to declare themselves peaceful revolutionists, and to unite with us under the stainless banner of Liberty, having for its motto--"EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL--NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS!"

It is pleaded that the Const.i.tution provides for its own amendment; and we ought to use the elective franchise to effect this object.

True, there is such a proviso; but, until the amendment be made, that instrument is binding as it stands. Is it not to violate every moral instinct, and to sacrifice principle to expediency, to argue that we may swear to steal, oppress and murder by wholesale, because it may be necessary to do so only for the time being, and because there is some remote probability that the instrument which requires that we should be robbers, oppressors and murderers, may at some future day be amended in these particulars? Let us not palter with our consciences in this manner--let us not deny that the compact was conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity--let us not be so dishonest, even to promote a good object, as to interpret the Const.i.tution in a manner utterly at variance with the intentions and arrangements of the contracting parties; but, confessing the guilt of the nation, acknowledging the dreadful specifications in the bond, was.h.i.+ng our hands in the waters of repentance from all further partic.i.p.ation in this criminal alliance, and resolving that we will sustain none other than a free and righteous government, let us glory in the name of revolutionists, unfurl the banner of disunion, and consecrate our talents and means to the overthrow of all that is tyrannical in the land,--to the establishment of all that is free, just, true and holy,--to the triumph of universal love and peace.

If, in utter disregard of the historical facts which have been cited, it is still a.s.serted, that the Const.i.tution needs no amendment to make it a free instrument, adapted to all the exigencies of a free people, and was never intended to give any strength or countenance to the slave system--the indignant spirit of insulted Liberty replies:--"What though the a.s.sertion be true? Of what avail is a mere piece of parchment? In itself, though it be written all over with words of truth and freedom--though its provisions be as impartial and just as words can express, or the imagination paint--though it be as pure as the gospel, and breathe only the spirit of Heaven--it is powerless; it has no executive vitality; it is a lifeless corpse, even though beautiful in death. I am famis.h.i.+ng for lack of bread! How is my appet.i.te relieved by holding up to my gaze a painted loaf? I am manacled, wounded, bleeding, dying! What consolation is it to know, that they who are seeking to destroy my life, profess in words to be my friends?" If the liberties of the people have been betrayed--if judgement is turned away backward and justice standeth afar off, and truth has fallen in the streets, and equality cannot enter--if the princes of the land are roaring lions, the judges evening wolves, the people light and treacherous persons, the priests covered with pollution--if we are living under a frightened despotism, which scoffs at all const.i.tutional restrains, and wields the resources of the nation to promote its own b.l.o.o.d.y purposes--tell us not that the forms of freedom are still left to us! "Would such tameness and submission have freighted the May-Flower for Plymouth Rock? Would it have resisted the Stamp Act, the Tea Tax, or any of those entering wedges of tyranny with which the British government sought to rive the liberties of America? The wheel of the Revolution would have rusted on its axle, if a spirit so weak had been the only power to give it motion. Did our fathers say, when their rights and liberties were infringed--"_Why, what is done cannot be undone_. That is the first thought." No it was the last thing they thought of: or, rather it never entered their minds at all. They sprang to the conclusion at once--"_What is done_ SHALL _be undone_. That is our FIRST and ONLY thought."

"Is water running in our veins? Do we remember still Old Plymouth Rock, and Lexington, and famous Bunker Hill?

The debt we owe our fathers' graves? and to the yet unborn, Whose heritage ourselves must make a thing of pride or scorn?

Gray Plymouth Rock hath yet a tongue, and Concord is not dumb; And voices from our fathers' graves and from the future come: They call on us to stand our ground--they charge us still to be Not only free from chains ourselves, but foremost to make free!"

It is of little consequence who is on the throne, if there be behind it a power mightier than the throne. It matters not what is the theory of the government, if the practice of the government be unjust and tyrannical. We rise in rebellion against a despotism incomparably more dreadful than that which induced the colonists to take up arms against the mother country; not on account of a three-penny tax on tea, but because fetters of living iron are fastened on the limbs of millions of our countrymen, and our own sacred rights are trampled in the dust.

As citizens of the State, we appeal to the State in vain for protection and redress. As citizen of the United States, we are treated as outlaws in one half of the country, and the national government consents to our destruction. We are denied the right of locomotion, freedom of speech, the right of pet.i.tion, the liberty of the press, the right peaceably to a.s.semble together to protest against oppression and plead for liberty--at least in thirteen States of the Union. If we venture, as avowed and unflinching abolitionists, to travel South of Mason and Dixon's line, we do so at the peril of our lives. If we would escape torture and death, on visiting any of the slave States, we must stifle our conscientious convictions, hear no testimony against cruelty and tyranny, suppress the struggling emotions of humanity, divest ourselves of all letters and papers of an antislavery character, and do homage to the slaveholding power--or run the risk of a cruel martyrdom! These are appalling and undeniable facts.

Three millions of the American people are crushed under the American Union! They are held as slaves--trafficked as merchandise--registered as goods and chattels! The government gives them no protection--the government is their enemy--the government keeps them in chains! There they lie bleeding--we are prostrate by their side--in their sorrows and sufferings we partic.i.p.ate--their stripes are inflicted on our bodies, their shackles are fastened to our limbs, their cause is ours!

The Union which grinds them to the dust rests upon us, and with them we will struggle to overthrow it! The Const.i.tution, which subjects them to hopeless bondage, is one that we cannot swear to support! Our motto is, "NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS," either religious or political.

They are the fiercest enemies of mankind, and the bitterest foes of G.o.d! We separate from them not in anger, not in malice, not for a selfish purpose, not to do them an injury, not to cease warning, exhorting, reproving them for their crimes, not to leave the peris.h.i.+ng bondman to his fate--O no! But to clear our skirts of innocent blood--to give the oppressor no countenance--to signify our abhorrence of injustice and cruelty--to testify against an unG.o.dly compact--to cease striking hands with thieves and consenting with adulterers--to make no compromise with tyranny--to walk worthily of our high profession--to increase our moral power over the nation--to obey G.o.d and vindicate the gospel of His Son--to hasten the downfall of slavery in America, and throughout the world!

We are not acting under a blind impulse. We have carefully counted the cost of this warfare, and are prepared to meet its consequences. It will subject us to reproach, persecution, infamy--it will prove a fiery ordeal to all who shall pa.s.s through it--it may cost us our lives. We shall be ridiculed as fools, scorned as visionaries, branded as disorganizers, reviled as madmen, threatened and perhaps punished as traitors. But we shall bide our time. Whether safety or peril, whether victory or defeat, whether life or death be ours, believing that our feet are planted on an eternal foundation, that our position is sublime and glorious, that our faith in G.o.d is rational and steadfast, that we have exceeding great and precious promises on which to rely, THAT WE ARE IN THE RIGHT, we shall not falter nor be dismayed, "though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea,"--though our ranks be thinned to the number of "three hundred men." Freemen! are you ready for the conflict? Come what may, will you sever the chain that binds you to a slaveholding government, and declare your independence? Up, then, with the banner of revolution! Not to shed blood--not to injure the person or estate of any oppressor--not by force and arms to resist any law--not to countenance a servile insurrection--not to wield any carnal weapons! No--ours must be a bloodless strife, excepting _our_ blood be shed--for we aim, as did Christ our leader, not to destroy men's lives, but to save them--to overcome evil with good--to conquer through suffering for righteousness' sake--to set the captive free by the potency of truth!

Secede, then, from the government. Submit to its exactions, but pay it no allegiance, and give it no voluntary aid. Fill no offices under it.

Send no senators or representatives to the national or State legislature; for what you cannot conscientiously perform yourself, you cannot ask another to perform as your agent. Circulate a declaration of DISUNION FROM SLAVEHOLDERS, throughout the country. Hold ma.s.s meetings--a.s.semble in conventions--nail your banners to the mast!

Do you ask what can be done, if you abandon the ballot-box? What did the crucified Nazarene do without the elective franchise? What did the apostles do? What did the glorious army of martyrs and confessors do?

What did Luther and his intrepid a.s.sociates do? What can women and children do? What has Father Mathew done for teetotalism? What has Daniel O'Connell done for Irish repeal? "Stand, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breast-plate of righteousness," and arrayed in the whole armor of G.o.d!

The form of government that shall succeed the present government of the United States, let time determine. It would be a waste of time to argue that question, until the people are regenerated and turned from their iniquity. Ours is no anarchical movement, but one of order and obedience. In ceasing from oppression, we establish liberty. What is now fragmentary, shall in due time be crystallized, and s.h.i.+ne like a gem set in the heavens, for a light to all coming ages.

Finally--we believe that the effect of this movement will be,--First, to create discussion and agitation throughout the North; and these will lead to a general perception of its grandeur and importance.

Secondly, to convulse the slumbering South like an earthquake, and convince her that her only alternative is, to abolish slavery, or be abandoned by that power on which she now relies for safety.

Thirdly, to attack the slave power in its most vulnerable point, and to carry the battle to the gate.

Fourthly, to exalt the moral sense, increase the moral power, and invigorate the moral const.i.tution of all who heartily espouse it.

We reverently believe that, in withdrawing from the American Union, we have the G.o.d of justice with us. We know that we have our enslaved countrymen with us. We are confident that all free hearts will be with us. We are certain that tyrants and their abettors will be against us.

In behalf of the Executive committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society,

WM. LLOYD GARRISON, _President_.

WENDELL PHILLIPS, MARIA WESTON CHAPMAN } _Secretaries_.

_Boston, May 20, 1844_.

LETTER FROM FRANCIS JACKSON.

BOSTON, 4th July, 1844.

_To His Excellency George N. Briggs_:

SIR--Many years since, I received from the executive of the Commonwealth a commission as Justice of the Peace. I have held the office that it conferred upon me till the present time, and have found it a convenience to myself, and others. It might continue to be so, could I consent longer to hold it. But paramount considerations forbid, and I herewith transmit to you my commission respectfully asking you to accept my resignation.

While I deem it a duty to myself to take this step, I feel called on to state the reasons that influence me.

In entering upon the duties of the office in question, I complied with the requirements of the law, by taking an oath "_to support the Const.i.tution of the United States_." I regret that I ever took that oath. Had I then as maturely considered its full import, and the obligations under which it is understood, and meant to lay those who take it, as I have done since, I certainly never would have taken it, seeing, as I now do, that the Const.i.tution of the United States contains provisions calculated and intended to foster, cherish, uphold and perpetuate _slavery_. It pledges the country to guard and protect the slave system so long as the slaveholding States choose to retain it. It regards the slave code as lawful in the States which enact it.

Still more, "it has done that, which, until its adoption, was never before done for African slavery. It took it out of its former category of munic.i.p.al law and local life, adopted it as a national inst.i.tution, spread around it the broad and sufficient s.h.i.+eld of national law, and thus gave to slavery a national existence." Consequently, the oath to support the Const.i.tution of the United States is a solemn promise to do that which is morally wrong; that which is a violation of the natural rights of man, and a sin in the sight of G.o.d.

I am not, in this matter, const.i.tuting myself a judge of others. I do not say that no honest man can take such an oath, and abide by it. I only say, that _I_ would not now deliberately take it; and that, having inconsiderately taken it, I can no longer suffer it to lie upon my soul. I take back the oath, and ask you, sir, to take back the commission, which was the occasion of my taking it.

I am aware that my course in this matter is liable to be regarded as singular, if not censurable; and I must, therefore, be allowed to make a more specific statement of those _provisions of the Const.i.tution_ which support the enormous wrong, the heinous sin of slavery.

The very first Article of the Const.i.tution takes slavery at once under its legislative protection, as a basis of representation in the popular branch of the National Legislature. It regards slaves under the description "of all other _persons_"--as of only three-fifths of the value of free persons; thus to appearance undervaluing them in comparison with freemen. But its dark and involved phraseology seems intended to blind us to the consideration, that those underrated slaves are merely a _basis_, not the _source_ of representation; that by the laws of all the States where they live, they are regarded not as _persons_, but as _things_; that they are not the _const.i.tuency_ of the representative, but his property; and that the necessary effect of this provision of the Const.i.tution is, to take legislative power out of the hands of _men_ as such, and give it to the mere possessors of goods and chattels. Fixing upon thirty thousand persons, as the smallest number that shall send one member into the House of Representatives, it protects slavery by distributing legislative power in a free and in a slave State thus: To a congressional district in South Carolina, containing fifty thousand slaves, claimed as the property of five hundred whites, who hold, on an average, one hundred apiece, it gives one Representative in Congress; to a district in Ma.s.sachusetts containing a population of thirty thousand five hundred, one Representative is a.s.signed. But inasmuch as a slave is never permitted to vote, the fifty thousand persons in a district in Carolina form no part of "the const.i.tuency;" _that_ is found only in the five hundred free persons. Five hundred freemen of Carolina could send one Representative to Congress, while it would take thirty thousand five hundred freemen of Ma.s.sachusetts, to do the same thing; that is, one slaveholder in Carolina is clothed by the Const.i.tution with the same political power and influence in the Representatives Hall at Was.h.i.+ngton, as sixty Ma.s.sachusetts men like you and me, who "eat their bread in the sweat of their own brows."