that it purposes to itself is to keep slavery out of Kansas, provided the actual settlers there do not want to have it in. This is a very small platform for a great party to stand upon, it must be owned; and in rejoicing to see it, we certainly are grateful for very moderate mercies. But it is not the platform that is significant-it is not the point nominally at issue that is the material thing. The position is everything. It is the attitude that is expressive and encouraging. It is the entire separation of the party from all southern alliance, and from all possibility of slaveholding help, that gives it its encouraging aspect, and makes it, with all its shortenings, a thing to thank God for. "We need hardly say that we do not look upon this new party as one that should supersede the anti-slavery movement. It has sprung from that movement, and whatever of strength and hope it has lies in the anti-slavery feeling of the Northern mind. It is vain that servile menpleasers seek to separate this effect from its anti-slavery origin. The slaveholders stamp it with its real character, and describe it better than it likes to do itself. It is true that the differing sagacities of the Slaveholders and the Abolitionists both discern that this must be the ultimate result."-From the New York National Anti-Slavery Standard, June 21, 1856. Debate in the New England Anti-Slavery Convention, on the 29th of May, 1856. Mr. William Lloyd Garrison said :"I come now to the Republican party; and while I do not forget its actual position under the Constitution and within the Union, I am constrained to differ in judgment from some of my respected friends here about the comparative merits of that party. I think that they do not always accord to it all that justice demands; that they overlook the necessary formation of such a party as the result of our moral agitation; and I marvel that they do not see that to quarrel with it, to the extent they are doing, is to quarrel with cause and effect-with the work of our own hands. Mrs. Foster.-I admit that the party is our own progeny; but, as every child needs a great deal of reproof and constant effort to bring it up in the way it should go, this party, which is the necessary offspring of our efforts, needs constant admonition and rebuke; and, God giving me strength, I will not spare it an hour until it is fully educated, reformed, and brought up to the high position of truth and duty. [Applause.] "Mr. Foster.-Do you believe they can succeed? "I cannot, therefore, agree with such of our friends here as regard it as the worst or most dangerous party with which our movement has to contend. In its attitude toward the slave power, in the amount of conscience and humanity to be found in it, in its direct effort to baffle the designs of the slave oligarchy respecting the territories of the country, it is a far better party than either of the others, and to that extent it is a sign of progress which we have no cause to lament. I have said again and again, that in proportion to the growth of disunionism will be the growth of Republicanism or Free-Soilism. I think if you will examine the map of Massachusetts, for example, you will find this to hold true, with singular uniformity: that in those places where there are the most Abolitionists who have disfranchised themselves for conscience and the slave's sake, the heaviest vote is thrown for the Free-Soil ticket. This is as inevitable as the law of gravitation. The greater includes the less. If we should begin our work over again, and try the same experiment ten thousand times over, we should have the same result in the formation of the same party. Why, then, should any one speak in a tone of despondency, or feel that our cause is in imminent danger of being wrecked? Is this to take a philosophical view of the subject? Such then, is my judgment of the Republican party." 66 Although I am not one of that class of men who cry for the perpetuation of the Union, though I am willing in a certain state of circumstances to led it slide,' I have no fear for its perpetuation. But let me say, if the chief object of the people of this country be to maintain and propagate chattel property in man, in other words, human slavery, this Union cannot and ought not to stand."Speech of Mr. Speaker Banks.* On the 16th of January, 1855, the Rev. Mr. Beecher said, in a lecture in New York, on the subject of cutting the North from the South: "All attempts at evasion, at adjourning, at concealing and compromising, are in vain. The reason of our long agitation is, not that restless Abolitionists are abroad, that ministers will meddle with improper themes, that parties are disregardful of their country's interest. These are symptoms only, not the disease; the effects, not the causes. "Two great powers that will not live together are in our midst, and tugging at each other's throats. They will search each other out, though you separate them a hundred “Mr. Garrison.-Certainly not! But that times. And if by an insane blindness you is not the question. They believe that they shall contrive to put off the issue, and send can. They laugh at my incredulity because this unsettled dispute down to your children, I do not believe it. I think that, ere long, it will go down, gathering volume and strength they will be satisfied that I am right, and that at every step, to waste and desolate their heritthey have been deluded; in which case, I age. Let it be settled now. Clear the place. expect then to hear them cry, 'Excelsior-come Bring in the champions. Let them put their up higher!' and to see many of them take their position under the banner of disunion. * Mr. Banks disclaims this sentiment. lances in rest for the charge. Sound the trumpet, and God save the right!" At a public meeting held in his church, to promote emigration to Kansas, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher made the following remarks, as we find them in the report of the New York Evening Post: "He believed that the Sharp rifle was truly moral agency, and there was more moral power in one of those instruments, so far as the slaveholders of Kansas were concerned, than in a hundred Bibles. You might just as well, said he, read the Bible to buffaloes as to those fellows who follow Atchison and Stringfellow; but they have a supreme respect for the logic that is embodied in Sharp's rifles. The Bible is addressed to the conscience; but when you address it to them it has no effectthere is no conscience there. Though he was a peace man, he had the greatest regard for Sharp's rifles, and for that pluck that induced those New England men to use them. In such issues, under such circumstances, he was decidedly in favor of such instrumentalities. General Scott had said it was difficult to get the New England men into a quarrel, but when they are waked up and have the law on their side, they are the ugliest customers in the world." "The object to be accomplished is this: That the free states shall take possession of the government by their united votes. Minor interests and old party affiliations and prejudices must be forgotten. We have the power in number; our strength is in union."-Simon Brown, Massachusetts Free-Soil Candidate for Lieutenant Governor. "If asked to state specially what he would do, he would answer: First, repeal the Nebraska bill; second, repeal the fugitive slave law; third, abolish slavery in the District of Columbia; fourth, abolish the inter-state slavetrade; next, he would declare that slavery should not spread to one inch of the territory of the Union; he would then put the government actually and perpetually on the side of freedom-by which he meant that a brighteyed boy in Massachusetts should have as good a chance for promotion in the Navy as a boy of one of the first families in Virginia. He would have our foreign consuls take side with the noble Kossuth, and against that butcher Bedini. He would have judges who believe in a higher law, and an anti-slavery constitution, an anti-slavery Bible, and an anti-slavery God! Having thus denationalized slavery, he would not menace it in the states where it exists; but would say to the states. It is your local institution-hug it to your bosom until it destroys you. But he would say, You must let our freedom alone. [Applause.] If you but touch the hem of the garment of freedom we will trample you to the earth. [Loud applause.] This is the only condition of repose, and it must come to this. He was encouraged by the recent elec tion in the North, and he defended the 'new movement,' which he said was born of Puritan blood, and was against despotism of all kinds. by its fruits. It had elected a champion of This new party should be judged, like others, freedom to the United States Senate for four years, to fill the place of a man who was false to freedom, and not true to slavery. For himself, he could say that, so long as life dwelt in his bosom, so long would he fight for liberty and against slavery. In conclusion, he expressed the hope that soon the time might come when the sun should not rise on a master, nor set on a slave.”—Mr. Burlingame. "I will not stop to inquire whether or not the act is constitutional. If it is not, it ought to be. I view the act as the faithful expres sion of the moral sentiment of the people of Massachusetts."-Mayor Chapin of Worces ter. * * burst upon the country. I want to see Ame- "If the Angel Gabriel had done what their fathers did, he would be a scoundrel for it. Their fathers placed within the Constitution a provision for the rendition of fugitive slaves, and therein did a wicked thing. It would have been no more wrong for George the Third to put chains on George Washington than it was for George Washington to put chains on the limbs of his slaves. Their fathers had undoubtedly believed that they had made a government which would_work beautifully, and that in a few years slavery would be extinct. But in that they were deceived. The government was running as it was made to run, and it could not be made to run otherwise; so the Republicans might not boast of what they would do if they had the government as it was in the days of Washington and Jefferson. It was said in the good book that the Lord sitteth on a high throne, and that all mankind are as grasshoppers be fore him. He expected that that included Congress and the President, and the Supreme Court, and the Church. [Laughter.] Where slavery and freedom are put in the one nation there must be a fight-there must be an explosion, just as if fire and powder were brought together. There never was an hour when this blasphemous and infamous government should be made, and now the hour was to be prayed for when that disgrace to humanity should be dashed to pieces for ever." Rev. Andrew T. Foss of N. H. at the Ame rican Anti-Slavery Society meeting at New York, May 13, 1857. "If Kansas were saved from oppression | in favor of the fugitive slave bill. I never while the Carolinas were under the heel voted for a man who favored it, knowing such of the slaveholder, it would be said God is to be his views, and I must very much change a liar.' They had to strike off every chain before I ever do. I never, by word, act, or from every Southern slave. To do that the vote, favored its passage, and I am an advosum proposed to be raised was insignificant. cate of its essential modification, or in lieu Nevertheless, she hoped that those persons thereof, its unconditional repeal. Returning present would be induced to double their sub- from Canada last June, I read in the cars that scriptions and contributions this year, which there was a petition for its repeal at the Exis the best year for their labor."-Abby Kelly change news room, and, on my arrival, before Foster at the American Anti-Slavery Society even going to my place of business, I hastened meeting, May 13, 1857. to the Exchange, and signed the petition."Hon. Henry J. Gardner. "They demanded justice for the slave at any price of constitution, of Union, of country. This was the principle of the anti-slavery association. It was it which urged their next demand-the immediate emancipation of the slave for the same reason as they would demand of a person pursuing a vicious course of drunkenness, gambling, or debauchery, that he should desist from it at once, at any cost of physical pain. Immediate emancipation presented no financial or political difficulty. He believed that this Union effectually prevented them from advancing in the least degree the work of the slave's redemption. Disunion is a spiritual process. It must be begun, ended, and potentially completed in the mind before it is commenced as a fact. They could break from it internally with no greater convulsion than would arise from passing from one state of temper to another. The breaking off from the savage idea of money-making would be a step leading to disunion. Let such an internal disunion be effected, and the dissolution of the states would follow as a "So long as this blood-stained Union existed there was but little hope for the slave. They saw the work to be done. Darkness was around them, but God's truth was over them. He asked them to bring God's truth home with them. They were murderers if they turned away and refused to help their brother, and said 'Am I my brother's keeper?' This case was their own. He asked them to argue it out of their own nature. Let them suppose the case that on their going home they should find their home desolate, their wife gone, their children gone, and gone irrevocably. This was the case with the slaves. They should make their cause their own. It was a glorious cause, good for time and good for eternity."-Wm. Lloyd Garrison at American Anti-Slavery Society meeting, New York, May 13, 1857. York on the 1st day of August, 1855:- "The issue is this: God Almighty has made matter of course. God be thanked, said he, and slavery to mingle together, or a union to it impossible from the beginning for liberty this internal disunion already exists. [Slight be founded between abolitionists and slaveapplause.] The Northern people were begin-holders-between those who oppress and those ning to see that the South was divided from them by its system of labor and by its ideas of human rights. They wanted to make that gulf of division deeper. They wanted it to be understood that there could be no union between light and darkness. They must cherish a conviction which could not live and breathe who are oppressed. This Union is a lie; the American Union is a sham, an imposture, a covenant with death, an agreement with hell, and it is our business to call for a dissolution. millions and a half of slaves can be driven to unrequited toil by their masters. Let that Union be accursed wherein three in the same atmosphere with the slaveholders. If they would abolish the ignorance and it is all madness. Let the slaveholding Union "I will continue to experiment no longergloom in which the crime of slavery shadows itself, they must withdraw from it. In no go, and slavery will go with the Union down temper of malignity or animosity toward the into the dust. If the Church is against disslaveholders need this be done. As to the union, and not on the side of the slave, then I word 'Union' they all knew it was but a popronounce it as of the devil. litical catchword."Rev. O. B. Frothingham of N. J. at the American Anti-Slavery Society meeting, New York, May 13, 1857. "Were the same charge made against yourself, it could not be more groundless than it is against me. The power of language does not permit me to express the utter loathing I have for the conduct attributed to me. Far sooner would I be the poor quivering wretch on the road again to the agony of bondage, than a volunteer guard to aid in his return. He who invented the charge grossly slandered me; they who repeat it, or believe it, do not know me. "It is not true that I am, or have ever been, thieves and adulterers, and give to the winds "I say let us cease striking hands with the rallying cry, 'no union with slaveholders, socially or religiously, and up with the flag of disunion.' The following extracts are taken from a letter addressed by the Hon. J. R. Giddings, of the House of Representatives, to an antifugitive slave law meeting held at Palmyra, Ohio, in 1850: : "The fugitive slave law commands us to participate in arresting and sending victims to this Southern immolation by torture a thousand times more cruel than ordinary as sassination. I would be as willing to handle is familiar to my readers; but the recollection the scourge to sink the thong into his quiver- is, perhaps, more vividly impressed on my ing flesh, and to tear from him the life which own mind than that of any other man living. God has given him-as to seize him and hand I will not, however, trust my pen nor my lanhim over to his tormentors, with the full know- guage to express the emotions which I then ledge and conviction that they will do it. Nor experienced. is the crime of the slave-catcher less in the sight of God and good men than is the guilt of him who consummates the outrage by this final sacrifice of the victim. "Yet we are told we must obey this law, and perpetuate these crimes, until a slave-ridden Congress shall see fit to reclaim us from such sin against God by repealing the law. Whether it be right to obey God rather than man, judge ye.' "From my innermost soul, I abhor, detest, and repudiate this law. I despise the human being who would obey it, if such a being has existence. I should regard such a man as a moral nuisance, contaminating the air of freedom, and would kick him from my door should he attempt to enter my dwelling. "The authors of this law may take from me my substance, may imprison me, or take my life; but they have not the power to degrade me, by compelling me to commit such transcendent crimes against my fellow man and against God's law. "I rejoice exceedingly that the people of the free states comprehend and appreciate this insult to every freeman at the North. Public feeling is aroused; popular indignation is speaking trumpet-tongued to those servants of the people who dared thus degrade the American character by constituting us the catchpoles of Southern slave-hunters." The Columbus (Ohio) State Journal, Rep., contains the following extract, taken from a Washington letter, dated the 5th of December, 1856: "Our friends now appeared to feel that we had found a common sentiment and a common principle on which we could rally. Hope seemed to cheer them, and a firmer purpose to unite appeared to pervade the minds of all present." "Why, sir, I never saw a panting fugitive speeding his way to a land of freedom, that an involuntary invocation did not burst from my lips, that God would aid him in his flight! Such are the feelings of every man in our free states, whose heart has not become hardened in iniquity. I do not confine this virtue to Republicans, nor to Anti-Slavery men; I speak of all men, of all parties, in all Christian communities. Northern Democrats feel it; they ordinarily bow to this higher law of their natures, and they only prove recreant to the law of the Most High,' when they regard the interests of the Democratic party as superior to God's law and the rights of mankind. "Gentlemen will bear with me when I as sure them and the President that I have seen as many as nine fugitives dining at one time in my own house-fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, parents, and children. When they came to my door, hungry and faint, cold and but partially clad, I did not turn round to consult the Fugitive Law, nor to ask the President what I should do. I knew the constitution obeyed the divine mandate, to feed the hungry of my country, and would not violate it. I and clothe the naked. I fed them. I clothed them, gave them money for their journey, and sent them on their way rejoicing. I obeyed God rather than the President. I obeyed my of my moral being, the commands of Heaven, conscience, the dictates of my heart, the law and, I will add, of the constitution of my country; for no man of intelligence ever beResolved, That we will support no man intended to involve their descendants of the lieved that the framers of that instrument for Speaker who is not pledged to carry out free states in any act that should violate the the parliamentary law by giving to each pro- teachings of the Most High, by seizing a felposed measure ordered by the House to be committed a majority of such special commit-low-being, and returning him to the hell of tee, and to organize the standing committees slavery. If that be treason, make the most of the House by placing on each a majority of the friends of freedom, and who are favor-know if the gentleman would not have gone "Mr. BENNETT, of Mississippi. I want to able to making reports on all petitions committed to them." "On the 1st of December, at a very full meeting of the members opposed to the extension of slavery, the following resolution was offered by Mr. Giddings, and adopted without a dissenting voice: of it. one step further? "Mr. GIDDINGS. Yes, sir; I would have gone one step further. I would have driven the slave-catcher who dared pursue them from my premises. I would have kicked him from my door-yard, if he had made his appearance ing, I would have stricken him down upon there; or, had he attempted to enter my dwellthe threshold of my door. "I do not speak these things to give the President unhappiness. I mention them to show the people of our free states the rights which I hold to be clear and sacred under the constitution. There is neither constitution nor law that forbids them to speak their opinions in regard to slavery. As already stated, the master holds the power of life and death over the slaves; he not only robs the slave of his earnings, his intelligence, his manhood, but murders him if he refuses to be flogged-a tyranny revolting to every sense of justice, to every dictate of Christianity-a tyranny more unmitigated than any despotism of the Old World."-Hon. J. R. Giddings, in House of Representatives, First Session, 34th Congress. "The gentleman, however, says that Abolitionists look to the insurrection of the slaves. Sir, who does not look to that inevitable result, unless the slave states remove the heavy burdens which now rest upon the down-trodden and degraded people whom they oppress? Is there a slaveholder who can shut his eyes to this sure finale of slavery? And why should we not expect it? Were we thus oppressed, outraged, and abused, would we not use all the means which God and nature have placed within our power to remove such evils? Would not duty to ourselves, to our offspring, to God, and to humanity, demand that we should rise with one accord and hurl our oppressors from us? Can we justify our fathers of the Revolution in their patriotic struggle for political freedom, and then turn round and condemn the slaves of the South for breaking the chains which hold them in physical bondage and in intellectual degradation? No, sir; no lover of justice, no unbiassed mind, could blame them for asserting and maintaining their inalienable rights."-Hon. J. R. Giddings, in House of Representatives, April 25, 1848. "The people of Boston did not see fit to interfere between the administration and the 'negroes' of that city. In the name of humanity I thank them for it, and assure them, and the country that those whom I represent never will interfere in such case. The citizen who would do so would be driven from decent society in northern Ohio. It is here, on this point, that I take issue with the supporters of this law. That portion which commands me to assist in catching slaves is a flagrant usurpation of power, unauthorized by the constitution. My constituents hold that portion of the law in detestation. They spurn and abhor it. I say, as I have often said, 'My constituents will not help you catch your slaves.' They will feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and direct the wanderer on his way, and use every peaceful means to assist him to regain his God-given rights. If you pursue your slave there, they will let you catch him, if you can. If he defends himself against you, they will rejoice. If you press him so harl that he is constrained actually to slay you in self-defence, why, sir, they will look on and submit with proper resignation. In such cases they will carry out their peace principles by abstaining from all interference." Hon. J. R. Giddings. See page 453 of his "I would not be understood as desiring a servile insurrection; but I say to Southern gentlemen, that there are hundreds of thousands of honest and patriotic men who will laugh at your calamity, and will mock when your fear cometh.' If blood and massacre should mark the struggle for liberty of those who for ages have been oppressed and degraded, my prayer to the God of heaven shall be, that justice, stern, unyielding justice, may be awarded to both master and slave. I desire that every human being may enjoy the rights with which the God of nature has endowed him. If those rights can be regained by the down-trodden sons of Africa in our Southern States, by quiet and peaceful means, I hope they will pursue such peaceful measures. But, if they cannot regain their Godgiven rights by peaceful measures, I nevertheless hope they will regain them; and, if blood be shed, I should certainly hope that it might be the blood of those who stand between them and freedom, and not the blood of those who have long been robbed of their wives and children, and all they hold dear in life.”Hon. J. R. Giddings. See pages 159 and 160 of his Book of Speeches. "Sir, I would intimidate no one; but I tell you there is a spirit in the North which will set at defiance all the low and unworthy machinations of this Executive, and of the minions of its power. When the contest shall come; when the thunder shall roll, and the lightning flash; when the slaves shall rise in the South; when, in imitation of the Cuban bondmen, the southern slaves of the South shall feel that they are men; when they feel the stirring emotions of immortality, and recognise the stirring truth that they are men, and entitled to the rights which God has be stowed upon them; when the slaves shall feel that, and when masters shall turn pale and tremble; when their dwellings shall smoke, and dismay sit on each countenance: then, sir, I do not say, 'We will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh;' but I do say, when that time shall come, the lovers of our race will stand forth and exert the legitimate powers of this government for freedom. We shall then have constitutional power to act for the good of our country, and do justice to the slave. "Then will we strike off the shackles from the limbs of the slaves. That will be a period when this government will have power to act between slavery and freedom, and when it can make peace by giving freedom to the slaves. And let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, that that time hastens. It is rolling forward. The President is exerting a power that will hasten it, though not intended by him. I hail it as I do the approaching dawn of that political and moral millennium which I am well assured will come upon the world."-Hon. J. R. Giddings, in House of Rep., March 16, 1854. |