Chapter V: Part 5

How exactly descriptive of this boasted republic is the impeachment of Edom by the same prophet! "The pride of thy heart hath deceived thee, thou whose habitation is high; that sayeth in thy heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground? Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord." The emblem of American pride and power is the _eagle_, and on her banner she has mingled _stars_ with its _stripes_. Her vanity, her treachery, her oppression, her self-exaltation, and her defiance of the Almighty, far surpass 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 blood-hounds, 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 Constitution_? 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 Constitution, 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 emancipated by their laws_; for the laws of the States
are _uncharitable_(!) to one another in this respect; but in this
constitution, '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 upon claim of the party to whom such service or
labor away 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 Constitution 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 God exhorted the people, saying, "Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassion 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 nation 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 multitudes 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 Constitution, the people of the North should have risen _en masse_, 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 1., 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 constitution 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 constitution 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 over awed 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 God 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 God 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 Constitution 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 Constitution 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, washing our hands in the waters of repentance from all further participation 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 asserted, that the Constitution 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 assertion 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 famishing for lack of bread! How is my appetite 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 judgment 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 frightful despotism, which scoffs at all constitutional restraints, and wields the resources of the nation to promote its own bloody 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 most sacred rights are trampled in the dust. As citizens of the State, we appeal to the State in vain for protection and redress. As citizens 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 petition, the liberty of the press, the right peaceably to assemble 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, bear no testimony against cruelty and tyranny, suppress the struggling emotions of humanity, divest ourselves of all letters and papers of an anti-slavery 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 participate--their stripes are inflicted on our bodies, their shackles are fastened on 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 Constitution, 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 God! 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 perishing 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 ungodly 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 God and vindicate the gospel of his Son--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 pass through it--it may cost us our lives. We shall be ridiculed as fools, accused 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 God 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 mass meetings--assemble 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 associates 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 God!

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 shine 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 constitution of all who heartily espouse it.

We reverently believe that, in withdrawing from the American Union, we have the God 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, } _Secretaries_.
MARIA WESTON CHAPMAN, }

_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 Constitution 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 Constitution 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 municipal law and local life, adopted it as a national institution, spread around it the broad and sufficient shield of national law, and thus gave to slavery a national existence." Consequently, the oath to support the Constitution 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 God.

I am not, in this matter, constituting 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 Constitution_ which support the enormous wrong, the heinous sin of slavery.

The very first Article of the Constitution 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 _constituency_ of the representative, but his property; and that the necessary effect of this provision of the Constitution 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 Massachusetts containing a population of thirty thousand five hundred, one Representative is assigned. But inasmuch as a slave is never permitted to vote, the fifty thousand persons in a district in Carolina form no part of "the constituency;" 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 Massachusetts, to do the same thing: that is, one slaveholder in Carolina is clothed by the Constitution with the same political power and influence in the Representatives Hall at Washington, as sixty Massachusetts men like you and me, who "eat their bread in the sweat of their own brows."

According to the census of 1830, and the ratio of representation based upon that, slave property added twenty-five members to the House of Representatives. And as it has been estimated, (as an approximation to the truth,) that the two and a half million slaves in the United States are held as property by about two hundred and fifty thousand persons--giving an average of ten slaves to each slaveholder, those twenty-five Representatives, each chosen, at most, by only ten thousand voters, and probably by less than three-fourths of that number, were the representatives, not only of the two hundred and fifty thousand persons who chose them; but of _property_ which, five years ago, when slaves were lower in market, than at present, were estimated, by the man who is now the most prominent candidate for the Presidency, at twelve hundred millions of dollars--a sum, which, by the natural increase of five years, and the enhanced value resulting from a more prosperous state of the planting interest, cannot now be less than fifteen hundred millions of dollars. All this vast amount of property, as it is "peculiar," is also identical in its character. In Congress, as we have seen, it is animated by one spirit, moves in one mass, and is wielded with one aim; and when we consider that tyranny is always timid, and despotism distrustful, we see that this vast money power would be false to itself, did it not direct all its eyes and hands, and put forth all its ingenuity and energy, to one end--self-protection and self-perpetuation. And this it has ever done. In all the vibrations of the political scale, whether in relation to a Bank or Sub-Treasury, Free Trade or a Tariff, this immense power has moved, and will continue to move, in one mass, for its own protection.

While the weight of the slave influence is thus felt in the House of Representatives, "in the Senate of the Union," says John Quincy Adams, "the proportion of slaveholding power is still greater. By the influence of slavery in the States where the institution is tolerated, over their elections, no other than a slaveholder can rise to the distinction of obtaining a seat in the Senate; and thus, of the fifty-two members of the federal Senate, twenty-six are owners of slaves, and are as effectually representatives of that interest, as the eighty-eight members elected by them to the House."

The dominant power which the Constitution gives to the slave interest, as thus seen and exercised in the _Legislative Halls_ of our nation, is equally obvious and obtrusive in every other department of the National government.

In the _Electoral colleges_, the same cause produces the same effect--the same power is wielded for the same purpose, as in the Halls of Congress. Even the preliminary nominating conventions, before they dare name a candidate for the highest office in the gift of the people, must ask of the Genius of slavery, to what votary she will show herself propitious. This very year, we see both the great political parties doing homage to the slave power, by nominating each a slaveholder for the chair of the State. The candidate of one party declares. "I should have opposed, and would continue to oppose, any scheme whatever of emancipation, either gradual or immediate;" and adds, "It is not true, and I rejoice that it is not true, that either of the two great parties of this country has any design or aim at abolition. I should deeply lament it, if it were true."[94]

[Footnote 94: Henry Clay's speech in the United States Senate in 1839, and confirmed at Raleigh, N.C. 1844.]

The other party nominates a man who says, "I have no hesitation in declaring that I am in favor of the immediate re-annexation of Texas to the territory and government of the United States."

Thus both the political parties, and the candidates of both, vie with each other, in offering allegiance to the slave power, as a condition precedent to any hope of success in the struggle for the executive chair; a seat that, for more than three-fourths of the existence of our constitutional government, has been occupied by a slaveholder.

The same stern despotism overshadows even the sanctuaries of _justice_. Of the nine Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, five are slaveholders, and of course, must be faithless to their own interest, as well as recreant to the power that gives them place, or must, so far as _they_ are concerned, give both to law and constitution such a construction as shall justify the language of John Quincy Adams, when he says--"The legislative, executive, and judicial authorities, are all in their hands--for the preservation, propagation, and perpetuation of the black code of slavery. Every law of the legislature becomes a link in the chain of the slave; every executive act a rivet to his hapless fate; every judicial decision a perversion of the human intellect to the justification of wrong."

Thus by merely adverting but briefly to the theory and the practical effect of this clause of the Constitution, that I have sworn to support, it is seen that it throws the political power of the nation into the hands of the slaveholders; a body of men, which, however it may be regarded by the Constitution as "persons," is in fact and practical effect, a vast moneyed corporation, bound together by an indissoluble unity of interest, by a common sense of a common danger; counselling at all times for its common protection; wielding the whole power, and controlling the destiny of the nation.

If we look into the legislative halls, slavery is seen in the chair of the presiding officer of each, and controlling the action of both. Slavery occupies, by prescriptive right, the Presidential chair. The paramount voice that comes from the temple of national justice, issues from the lips of slavery. The army is in the hands of slavery, and at her bidding, must encamp in the everglades of Florida, or march from the Missouri to the borders of Mexico, to look after her interests in Texas.

The navy, even that part that is cruising off the coast of Africa, to suppress the foreign slave trade, is in the hands of slavery.

Freemen of the North, who have even dared to lift up their voice against slavery, cannot travel through the slave States, but at the peril of their lives.

The representatives of freemen are forbidden, on the floor of Congress, to remonstrate against the encroachments of slavery, or to pray that she would let her poor victims go.

I renounce my allegiance to a Constitution that enthrones such a power, wielded for the purpose of depriving me of my rights, of robbing my countrymen of their liberties, and of securing its own protection, support and perpetuation.

Passing by that clause of the Constitution, which restricted Congress for twenty years, from passing any law against the African slave trade, and which gave authority to raise a revenue on the stolen sons of Africa, I come to that part of the fourth article, which guarantees protection against "_domestic violence_," and which pledges to the South the military force of the country, to protect the masters against their insurgent slaves: binds us, and our children, to shoot down our fellow-countrymen, who may rise, in emulation of our revolutionary fathers, to vindicate their inalienable "right to life, _liberty_ and the pursuit of happiness,"--this clause of the Constitution, I say distinctly, I never will support.

That part of the Constitution which provides for the surrender of fugitive slaves, I never have supported and never will. I will join in no slave-hunt. My door shall stand open, as it has long stood, for the panting and trembling victim of the slave-hunter. When I shut it against him, may God shut the door of his mercy against me! Under this clause of the Constitution, and designed to carry it into effect, slavery has demanded that laws should be passed, and of such a character, as have left the free citizen of the North without protection for his own liberty. The question, whether a man seized in a free State as a slave, _is_ a slave or not, the law of Congress does not allow a jury to determine: but refers it to the decision of a Judge of a United States' Court, or even of the humblest State magistrate, it may be, upon the testimony or affidavit of the party most deeply interested to support the claim. By virtue of this law, freemen have been seized and dragged into perpetual slavery--and should I be seized by a slave-hunter in any part of the country where I am not personally known, neither the Constitution nor laws of the United States would shield me from the same destiny.

These, sir, are the specific parts of the Constitution of the United States, which in my opinion are essentially vicious, hostile at once to the liberty and to the morals of the nation. And these are the principal reasons of my refusal any longer to acknowledge my allegiance to it, and of my determination to revoke my oath to support it. I cannot, in order to keep the law of man, break the law of God, or solemnly call him to witness my promise that I will break it.

It is true that the Constitution provides for its own amendment, and that by this process, all the guarantees of Slavery may be expunged. But it will be time enough to swear to support it when this is done. It cannot be right to do so, until these amendments are made.

It is also true that the framers of the Constitution did studiously keep the words "Slave" and "Slavery" from its face. But to do our constitutional fathers justice, while they forebore--from very shame--to give the word "Slavery" a place in the Constitution, they did not forbear--again to do them justice--to give place in it to the _thing_. They were careful to wrap up the idea, and the substance of Slavery, in the clause for the surrender of the fugitive, though they sacrificed justice in doing so.

There is abundant evidence that this clause touching "persons held to service or labor," not only operates practically, under the judicial construction, for the protection of the slave interest; but that it was intended so to operate by the framers of the Constitution. The highest judicial authorities--Chief Justice Shaw, of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in the Latimer case, and Mr. Justice Story, in the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of _Prigg_ vs. _The State of Pennsylvania_,--tell us, I know not on what evidence, that without this "compromise," this security for Southern slaveholders, "the Union could not have been formed." And there is still higher evidence, not only that the framers of the Constitution meant by this clause to protect slavery, but that they did this, knowing that slavery was wrong. Mr. Madison[95] informs us that the clause in question, as it came out of the hands of Dr. Johnson, the chairman of the "committee on style," read thus: "No person legally held to service, or labor, in one State, escaping into another, shall," &c., and that the word "legally" was struck out, and the words "under the laws thereof" inserted after the word "State," in compliance with the wish of some, who thought the term _legal_ equivocal, and favoring the idea that slavery was legal "_in a moral view_." A conclusive proof that, although future generations might apply that clause to other kinds of "service or labor," when slavery should have died out, or been killed off by the young spirit of liberty, which was _then_ awake and at work in the land; still, slavery was what they were wrapping up in "equivocal" words; and wrapping it up for its protection and safe keeping: a conclusive proof that the framers of the Constitution were more careful to protect themselves in the judgment of coming generations, from the charge of ignorance, than of sin; a conclusive proof that they knew that slavery was _not_ "legal in a moral view," that it was a violation of the moral law of God; and yet knowing and confessing its immorality, they dared to make this stipulation for its support and defence.

[Footnote 95: Madison Papers, p. 1589]

This language may sound harsh to the ears of those who think it a part of their duty, as citizens, to maintain that whatever the patriots of the Revolution did, was right; and who hold that we are bound to _do_ all the iniquity that they covenanted for us that we _should_ do. But the claims of truth and right are paramount to all other claims.

With all our veneration for our constitutional fathers, we must admit,--for they have left on record their own confession of it,--that in this part of their work they intended to hold the shield of their protection over a wrong, knowing that it was a wrong. They made a "compromise" which they had no right to make--a compromise of moral principle for the sake of what they probably regarded as "political expediency." I am sure they did not know--no man could know, or can now measure, the extent, or the consequences of the wrong, that they were doing. In the strong language of John Quincy Adams,[96] in relation to the article fixing the basis of representation, "Little did the members of the Convention, from the free States, imagine or foresee what a sacrifice to Moloch was hidden under the mask of this concession."

[Footnote 96: See his Report on the Massachusetts Resolutions.]

I verily believe that, giving all due consideration to the benefits conferred upon this nation by the Constitution, its national unity, its swelling masses of wealth, its power, and the external prosperity of its multiplying millions; yet the _moral_ injury that has been done, by the countenance shown to slavery by holding over that tremendous sin the shield of the Constitution, and thus breaking down in the eyes of the nation the barrier between right and wrong; by so tenderly cherishing slavery as, in less than the life of man, to multiply her children from half a million to nearly three millions; by exacting oaths from those who occupy prominent stations in society, that they will violate at once the rights of man and the law of God; by substituting itself as a rule of right, in place of the moral laws of the universe;--thus in effect, dethroning the Almighty in the hearts of this people and setting up another sovereign in his stead--more than outweighs it all. A melancholy and monitory lesson this, to all timeserving and temporising statesmen! A striking illustration of the _impolicy_ of sacrificing _right_ to any considerations of expediency! Yet, what better than the evil effects that we have seen, could the authors of the Constitution have reasonably expected, from the sacrifice of right, in the concessions they made to slavery? Was it reasonable in them to expect that after they had introduced a vicious element into the very Constitution of the body politic which they were calling into life, it would not exert its vicious energies? Was it reasonable in them to expect that, after slavery had been corrupting the public morals for a whole generation, their children would have too much virtue to _use_ for the defence of slavery, a power which they themselves had not too much virtue to _give_? It is dangerous for the sovereign power of a State to license immorality; to hold the shield of its protection over any thing that is not "legal in a moral view." Bring into your house a benumbed viper, and lay it down upon your warm hearth, and soon it will not ask you into which room it may crawl. Let Slavery once lean upon the supporting arm, and bask in the fostering smile of the State, and you will soon see, as we now see, both her minions and her victims multiply apace till the politics, the morals, the liberties, even the religion of the nation, are brought completely under her control.

To me, it appears that the virus of slavery, introduced into the Constitution of our body politic, by a few slight punctures, has now so pervaded and poisoned the whole system of our National Government, that literally there is no health in it. The only remedy that I can see for the disease, is to be found in the _dissolution of the patient_.

The Constitution of the United States, both in theory and practice, is so utterly broken down by the influence and effects of slavery, so imbecile for the highest good of the nation, and so powerful for evil, that I can give no voluntary assistance in holding it up any longer.

Henceforth it is dead to me, and I to it. I withdraw all profession of allegiance to it, and all my voluntary efforts to sustain it. The burdens that it lays upon me, while it is held up by others, I shall endeavor to bear patiently, yet acting with reference to a higher law, and distinctly declaring, that while I retain my own liberty, I will be a party to no compact, which helps to rob any other man of his.

Very respectfully, your friend,

FRANCIS JACKSON.

* * * * *

FROM MR. WEBSTER'S SPEECH AT NIBLO'S GARDENS.

"We have slavery, already, amongst us. The Constitution found it among us; it recognized it and gave it SOLEMN GUARANTIES. To the full extent of these guaranties we are all bound, in honor, in justice, and by the Constitution. All the stipulations, contained in the Constitution, _in favor of the slaveholding States_ which are already in the Union, ought to be fulfilled, and so far as depends on me, shall be fulfilled, in the fullness of their spirit, and to the exactness of their letter."!!!

* * * * *

EXTRACTS FROM JOHN Q. ADAMS'S ADDRESS

AT NORTH BRIDGEWATER, NOV. 6, 1844.

The benefits of the Constitution of the United States, were the restoration of credit and reputation, to the country--the revival of commerce, navigation, and ship-building--the acquisition of the means of discharging the debts of the Revolution, and the protection and encouragement of the infant and drooping manufactures of the country. All this, however, as is now well ascertained, was insufficient to propitiate the rulers of the Southern States to the adoption of the Constitution. What they specially wanted was _protection_.--Protection from the powerful and savage tribes of Indians within their borders, and who were harassing them with the most terrible of wars--and protection from their own negroes--protection from their insurrections--protection from their escape--protection even to the trade by which they were brought into the country--protection, shall I not blush to say, protection to the very bondage by which they were held. Yes! it cannot be denied--the slaveholding lords of the South prescribed, as a condition of their assent to the Constitution, three special provisions to secure the perpetuity of their dominion over their slaves. The first was the immunity for twenty years of preserving the African slave-trade; the second was the stipulation to surrender fugitive slaves--an engagement positively prohibited by the laws of God, delivered from Sinai; and thirdly, the exaction fatal to the principles of popular representation, of a representation for slaves--for articles of merchandise, under the name of persons.

The reluctance with which the freemen of the North submitted to the dictation of these conditions, is attested by the awkward and ambiguous language in which they are expressed. The word slave is most cautiously and fastidiously excluded from the whole instrument. A stranger, who should come from a foreign land, and read the Constitution of the United States, would not believe that slavery or a slave existed within the borders of our country. There is not a word in the Constitution _apparently_ bearing upon the condition of slavery, nor is there a provision but would be susceptible of practical execution, if there were not a slave in the land.

The delegates from South Carolina and Georgia distinctly avowed that, without this guarantee of protection to their property in slaves, they would not yield their assent to the Constitution; and the freemen of the North, reduced to the alternative of departing from the vital principle of their liberty, or of forfeiting the Union itself, averted their faces, and with trembling hand subscribed the bond.

Twenty years passed away--the slave markets of the South were saturated with the blood of African bondage, and from midnight of the 31st of December, 1807, not a slave from Africa was suffered ever more to be introduced upon our soil. But the internal traffic was still lawful, and the _breeding_ States soon reconciled themselves to a prohibition which gave them the monopoly of the interdicted trade, and they joined the full chorus of reprobation, to punish with death the slave-trader from Africa, while they cherished and shielded and enjoyed the precious profits of the American slave-trade exclusively to themselves.

Perhaps this unhappy result of their concession had not altogether escaped the foresight of the freemen of the North; but their intense anxiety for the preservation of the whole Union, and the habit already formed of yielding to the somewhat peremptory and overbearing tone which the relation of master and slave welds into the nature of the lord, prevailed with them to overlook this consideration, the internal slave-trade having scarcely existed while that with Africa had been allowed. But of one consequence which has followed from the slave representation, pervading the whole organic structure of the Constitution, they certainly were not prescient; for if they had been, never--no, never would they have consented to it.

The representation, ostensibly of slaves, under the name of persons, was in its operation an exclusive grant of power to one class of proprietors, owners of one species of property, to the detriment of all the rest of the community. This species of property was odious in its nature, held in direct violation of the natural and inalienable rights of man, and of the vital principles of Christianity; it was all accumulated in one geographical section of the country, and was all held by wealthy men, comparatively small in numbers, not amounting to a tenth part of the free white population of the States in which it was concentrated.

In some of the ancient, and in some modern republics, extraordinary political power and privileges have been invested in the owners of horses; but then these privileges and these powers have been granted for the equivalent of extraordinary duties and services to the community, required of the favoured class. The Roman knights constituted the cavalry of their armies, and the bushels of rings gathered by Hannibal from their dead bodies, after the battle of Cannae, amply prove that the special powers conferred upon them were no gratuitous grants. But in the Constitution of the United States, the political power invested in the owners of slaves is entirely gratuitous. No extraordinary service is required of them; they are, on the contrary, themselves grievous burdens upon the community, always threatened with the danger of insurrections, to be smothered in the blood of both parties, master and slave, and always depressing the condition of the poor free laborer, by competition with the labor of the slave. The property in horses was the gift of God to man, at the creation of the world; the property in slaves is property acquired and held by crimes, differing in no moral aspect from the pillage of a freebooter, and to which no lapse of time can give a prescriptive right. You are told that this is no concern of yours, and that the question of freedom and slavery is exclusively reserved to the consideration of the separate States. But if it be so, as to the mere question of right between master and slave, it is of tremendous concern to you that this little cluster of slave-owners should possess, besides their own share in the representative hall of the nation, the exclusive privilege of appointing two-fifths of the whole number of the representatives of the people. This is now your condition, under that delusive ambiguity of language and of principle, which begins by declaring the representation in the popular branch of the legislature a representation of persons, and then provides that one class of persons shall have neither part not lot in the choice of their representatives; but their elective franchise shall be transferred to their masters, and the oppressors shall represent the oppressed. The same perversion of the representative principle pollutes the composition of the colleges of electors of President and Vice President of the United States, and every department of the government of the Union is thus tainted at its source by the gangrene of slavery.

Fellow-citizens,--with a body of men thus composed, for legislators and executors of the laws, what will, what must be, what has been your legislation? The numbers of freemen constituting your nation are much greater than those of the slaveholding States, bond and free. You have at least three-fifths of the whole population of the Union. Your influence on the legislation and the administration of the government ought to be in the proportion of three to two.--But how stands the fact? Besides the legitimate portion of influence exercised by the slaveholding States by the measure of their numbers, here is an intrusive influence in every department, by a representation nominally of persons, but really of property, ostensibly of slaves, but effectively of their masters, overbalancing your superiority of numbers, adding two-fifths of supplementary power to the two-fifths fairly secured to them by the compact, CONTROLLING AND OVERRULING THE WHOLE ACTION OF YOUR GOVERNMENT AT HOME AND ABROAD, and warping it to the sordid private interest and oppressive policy of 300,000 owners of slaves.