"Mr. Hale congratulated the convention upon the spirit of unanimity with which it had done its work. I believe, said he, that this is not so much a convention to change the administration of the government, but to say whether there shall be any government to be administered. You have assembled, not to and glorious union of our own," &c.—William L. Garrison. "Mark! How stands Massachusetts at this hour in reference to the Union? Just where she ought to be-in an attitude of open hostility."-The Liberator, Garrison's paper. for the cause of freedom. To this end all who it is delayed, the worse for the country, and love liberty will labor."-Liberator, Sept., say whether this Union shall be preserved, with slaveholders. To all this is fast tending. "A Northern Confederacy, with no union but to say whether it shall be a blessing or a and to this all must soon come. The longer scorn and hissing among the nations. Some men pretend to be astonished and surprised at the events which are occurring around us; but I am not more surprised than I shall be this autumn to see the fruits following the buds and the blossoms."-Hon. J. P. Hale, Senator from New Hampshire, a delegate to the Republican Convention of the 17th of June, 1856. 66 "Washington, Sunday, Aug. 10, 1856. Gentlemen:-I have received your very polite note of the 6th inst., inviting me to attend a mass meeting at the Tabernacle on the evening of the 21st inst. I regret that it is not in my power to be present with you on that occasion, but my engagements will not permit me. I rejoice in your movement. I have faith and hope in progress. I look forward hopefully for the day when the word slave shall be without practical meaning in this, or the Eastern Continent; when universal man shall stand erect as God intended he should, calling no one lord or master save the common Father of us all, and recognising no government save that which is founded on the principles of Eternal Justice and universal rights of humanity. If I did not believe that the election of Fremont and Dayton would be a step in that direction, the movement would receive little sympathy from me. "With much respect, gentlemen, I am your friend, JOHN P. HALE." "A man, then, who has no feeling in common with us, who never felt the pulse of liberty till he set foot upon our soil, such a man is to enjoy the opportunity and the right to vote amongst us, whilst these rights are to be denied to the unfortunate black man, who has ten times more intelligence, and who has lived in the state of Indiana from his birth."David Kilgore, in the Indiana Constitutional Convention in 1850. [See Debates in the Convention, vol. 1, p. 253.] "Justice and liberty, God and man, demand the dissolution of this slaveholding Union and the formation of a Northern Confederacy, in which slaveholders shall stand before the law as felons and be treated as pirates. God and humanity demand a ballot-box in which the slaveholders shall never cast a ballot. In this, what state so prepared to lead as the old Bay State? She has already made it a penal offence to help to execute a law of the Union. I want to see the officers of the state brought into collision with those of the Union. 1855. "BUT ONE ISSUE-THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION.-See what the desperate and infernal spirit of the South is, by turning to the 'Refuge of Oppression,' and by reading the intelligence from Kansas in subsequent columns, and then sign and circulate this petition. Congress : 66 That as, in the nature of things, antago nistical principles, interests, pursuits, and institutions can never unite: "That an experience of more than threescore years having demonstrated that there can be no real union between the North and the South, but, on the contrary, ever increasing alienation and strife, at the imminent hazard of civil war, in consequence of their conflicting views in relation to freedom and slavery: "That the South, having declared it to be not only her right and purpose to eternize her slave system where it now exists, but to extend it over all the territories that now belong or may hereafter be annexed to the republic, come what may; and having outlawed from her soil the entire free colored population of the North, made it perilous for any Northern white citizen to exercise his constitutional right of freedom of speech in that section of the country, and even in the national capitol, and proclaimed her hostility to all free institutions universally: "We, therefore, believe that the time has come for a new arrangement of elements so hostile, of interests so irreconcileable, of institutions so incongruous; and we earnestly request Congress, at its present session, to take such initiatory measures for the speedy, peaceful, and equitable dissolution of the existing Union as the exigencies of the case require leaving the South to depend upon her own resources, and to take all the responsibility, in the maintenance of her slave system, and the North to organize an independent government in accordance with her own ideas of justice and the rights of man."-Liberator, June 20, 1856. "The United States Constitution is a cove"No union with slaveholders. Up with nant with death, and an agreement with the flag of disunion, that we may have a free hell.”—Liberator, June 20, 1856. "INDEPENDENCE DAY.-This is the Eightieth sometimes mortified, at the injudicious and Aniversary of American Independence. That unfair measures of men who ought to have independence began in a spirit of compromise known better; but, we place our great movewith the foul spirit of slavery; it ends with ment above men it is the only movement every seventh person in the land a chattel which aims or is calculated to save Kansas, slave the universal mastery of a slaveholding and put an end to the despotism which reoligarchy-the overthrow of all the constitu- pealed the Missouri Compromise, and is pertional rights of Northern citizens-the reign petually seeking to subjugate the country to of Lynch Law and Border Ruffianism through- slavery: its platform is clear, sound, and out the entire South-the subversion of the comprehensive: its nominations must reprenational government by a clique of desperate sent it by sustaining them, we sustain it: and unprincipled demagogues, of which the opposition to them will only tend to perpetuPresident is a miserable and perjured tool- ate the spirit and policy of an administration the reign of violence, tyranny, and blood, on which has brought the country to the verge a frightful scale. So much for disregarding of civil and foreign war. Will not patriotic the Higher Law' by our fathers! So much men, whatever may have been their preferfor entering into a covenant with death, and ences, hesitate long before assuming such a an agreement with hell!' Truly, God is just, responsibility as that?" and our national retribution another striking proof that, as a people sow, so shall they also reap. A new revolution has begun-another this danger; the counsels of temporizing men secession is to take place and freedom for all secured upon a sure basis. 'No union with slaveholders!'"-Liberator, 4th July, 1856. "THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION ESSENTIAL TO THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY.-But until we cease to strike hands religiously, politically, and governmentally with the South, and declare the Union to be at an end, I believe we can do nothing even against the encroachments of the slave power upon our rights. When will the people of the North see that it is not possible for liberty and slavery to commingle, or for a true union to be formed between freemen and slaveholders? Between those who oppress and the oppressed, no concord is possible. This Union-it is a lie, an imposture, and our first business is to seek its utter overthrow. In this Union there are three millions and a half of slaves clanking their chains in hopeless bondage. Let the Union be accursed! Look at the awful compromises of the constitution by which that instrument is saturated with the blood of the slave!"-Boston Liberator. "In conclusion I have only to add that such is my solemn and abiding conviction of the character of slavery, that under a full sense of my responsibility to my country and my God, I deliberately say, better disunion--better a civil or a servile war-better anything that God in his providence shall send-than an extension of the bounds of slavery."-Hon. Horace Mann, formerly of Massachusetts, in the House of Rep. during the 31st Congress. "Having thus given an exposition of the action of the Convention, and defined our position, we shall henceforth do all that may lie in our power to bring about a perfect union of the friends of freedom at home and of good faith and peace in our foreign relations, against the Cincinnati nominations, pledged as they are by the platform which accompanies them, and the majority who framed both, to slavery at home and filibustering abroad. Like many others, we may have been vexed, disappointed, * * * "Thank God! the movement has escaped have failed; to the bold, clear-sighted Joshua R. Giddings, sustained by the good sense of the Convention, are we indebted for the preservation of the Great Movement against the Slave Power, free from all entangling alliances."-National Era, of June 26, 1856. "The Philadelphia Convention has defined the issues of the campaign, framed the platform, made the nominations, and respectfully called upon the people of the United States, without distinction of party, to sustain them. We shall be very happy to see North Americans and South Americans and all sorts of Americans rallying to the standard of Fremont, and uniting to put down the slave power, but let us have no talk of special arrangements with any particular class or party."-National Era, July 3, 1856. "Let me suppose a case which may happen here and before long. A woman flies from South Carolina to Massachusetts to escape from bondage. Mr. Greatheart aids her in her escape, harbors and conceals her, and is brought to trial for it. The punishment is a ment for six months. I am drawn to serve fine of one thousand dollars and imprisonas a juror and pass upon this offence. I may refuse to serve and be punished for that, leaving men with no scruples to take my place, or I may take the juror's oath to give a verdict according to the law and the testi mony. The law is plain, let us suppose, and the testimony conclusive. Greatheart himself confesses that he did the deed alleged, saving one ready to perish. The judge charges that if the jurors are satisfied of that fact, then. they must return that he is guilty. This is a nice matter. Here are two questions. The one put to me in my official capacity as juror, is this-" Did Greatheart aid the woman?" The other, put to me in my natural character as man, is this-"Will you help to punish Greatheart with fine and imprisonment for helping a woman to obtain her unalienable rights?" If I have extinguished my manhood by my juror's oath, then I shall do my We confess that we intend to trample under foot the constitution of this country. Daniel Webster says: 'You are a law-abiding people; that the glory of New England is, that it is a law-abiding community.' Shame on it, if this be true; if even the religion of New England sinks as low as its statute-book. But I say we are not a law-abiding community. God be thanked for it!"-Wendell Phillips, of Massachusetts, at a Free-Soil meeting in Boston, in May, 1849. "He wished for the dissolution of the Union, because he wanted Massachusetts to be left free to right her own wrongs. If so, she would have no trouble in sending her ships to Charleston and laying it in ashes. There was no state in the Union that would not contract, at a low figure, to whip South Carolina. Massachusetts could do it with one hand tied behind her back. He did not like such a republic as this. It was against his conscience. He hated and abhorred it. In order to hold any office under the government of the United States a man must swear to support the constitution, and consequently to support slavery in its various phases. It was as inevitable that this Union should be dissolved as that water and oil must separate, no matter how much they may be shaken. They could not tell how it was to be done, but done it must be."-Edmund Quincy, of Mass., at American N. Y. Anti-Slavery Society meeting, at New York, May 13, 1857. "The Nebraska fraud is not that burden on which I now intend to speak. There is one nearer home, more immediately present and more insupportable. Of what that burden is I shall speak plainly. The obligation incumbent upon the free states to deliver up fugitive slaves is that burden-and it must be obliterated from that Constitution at every hazard. | "And such an obliteration can be demon strated to be as much the interest of the South as it is of the North."-Hon. Josiah Quincy at Boston, Aug. 18, 1854. “Resolved, That while we would express our deep gratitude to all those earnest men and women who find time and strength, amid their labors in behalf of British reform, to study, understand, and protest against American slavery, to give us their sympathy and aid, by munificent contributions, and by holding our Union up to the contempt of Europe, we feel it would not be invidious to mention William and Mary Howitt, Henry Vincent, and George Thompson, as those to whose untiring advocacy our cause is especially indebted in this country, as well as for the hold it has gained on the hearts of the British people. "Resolved, That the discriminating sense of justice, the steadfast devotedness, the generous munificence, the untiring zeal, the industry, skill, taste, and genius, with which British abolitionists have co-operated with us for the extinction of slavery, command our gratitude. "From the abolitionists of England, Scotland, and Ireland, we have received renewed and increasing assurances and proofs of their constant and enlightened zeal in behalf of the American slave. Liberal gifts from all of these countries, falling behind none of the most bounteous of former years, helped to fill the scanty treasury of the slave."-Resolutions of the American Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. A convention held in Boston in 1855, adopted by a unanimous vote, these resolutions :— Resolved, That a constitution which provides for a slave representation and a slave oligarchy in Congress, which legalizes slavehunting and slave-catching on every inch of American soil, and which pledges the military and naval power of the country to keep four millions of chattel slaves in their chains, is to be trodden under foot and pronounced accursed, however unexceptionable or valuable may be its other provisions. 66 Resolved, That the one great issue before the country is, the dissolution of the Union, in comparison with which all other issues with the slave power are as dust in the balance; therefore we will give ourselves to the work of annulling this 'covenant with death,' as essential to our own innocency, and the speedy and everlasting overthrow of the slave system." The following resolution passed the Legislature of New Hampshire, of 1856: was unanimously adopted, with Salmon P. | issue necessarily involves the claims of their Chase as chairman of the committee on reso- advocates and adversaries in the public counlutions:cils to the confidence of the country. Some of those advocates have entered the popular arena, criminating those from whom they had differed, while others have endeavored by extraordinary means either to control discussion or to suppress it altogether, and thus they have shown themselves disqualified, by prejudice or interest, for practising that impartiality and candor which the occasion demanded. "Resolved, That we hereby give it to be distinctly understood, by this nation and the world, that, as Abolitionists, considering that the strength of our cause lies in its righteousness, and our hopes for it in our conformity to the laws of God, and our support of the rights of man, we owe to the sovereign Ruler of the Universe, as a proof of our allegiance to Him, in all our civil relations and offices, whether as friends, citizens, or as public functionaries, sworn to support the Constitution of the United States, to regard and treat the third clause of the instrument, whenever applied in the case of a fugitive slave, as utterly null and void, and consequently as forming no part of the Constitution of the U. States, whenever we are called upon or sworn to support it." 86 Recognising, therefore, the paramount issue, I recognise, as the only practical means of sustaining our position upon that issue, our co-operation with the masses of our friends in other states in the formation of the Republican party of the Union.-Julius Rockwell, Massachusetts Free-soil Candidate for Governor. "Yes, with that freedom and Fremont and Dayton emblazoned on the ample folds of our national banner, we will drive the base minions of slavery from their control of the Government, and we will use its powers to build up our new country free from the taints of slavery, and make America worthy of being the North Star of freedom, by which the eye of the exile can be guided with safety to the asylum of liberty."-Hon. W. R. Sapp, of Ohio, in the House of Reps., 1st Sess. 34th Cong. Mr. Seward declared, in a speech which he made in Cleveland, in 1848: "What, then, you say, can nothing be done for freedom because the public conscience is inert? Yes; much can be done, everything can be done. "Auburn, April 5, 1851. "DEAR SIR: Your letter inviting me to attend a convention of the people of Massachusetts opposed to the fugitive slave law, and to communicate in writing my opinion on that statute, if I should be unable to attend the convention, has been received. "I am unwilling even to seem to imply, by reiterating arguments already before the public, either any distrust of the position of those with whom I stood in Congress or impatience for that favorable popular verdict which I believe to be near, and know to be ultimately certain. 66 Nevertheless, there can be no impropriety in my declaring, when thus questioned, the opinions which will govern my vote upon any occasion when the fugitive slave law shall come up for review in the national legislature. "I think the act signally unwise, because it is an attempt, by a purely federative government, to extend the economy of slave states throughout states which repudiate slavery as a moral, social, and political evil. Any despotic government would awaken sedition from its profoundest slumbers by such an attempt. "The attempt by the Government has aroused constitutional resistance, which will not cease until the effort shall be relinquished. He who teaches another faith than this, whether self-deceived or not, misleads. I think, also, that the attempt was unnecessary; that political ends-merely political ends--and not real evils resulting from the escape of slaves, constituted the prevailing motives to the enactment."-Letter of the Hon. W. H. Seward. "We deem the principle of the law, for the recapture of fugitive slaves, unjust, unconstitutional, and immoral; and thus, while patriotism withholds its approbation, the conscience of our people condemns it. You will say that these convictions of ours are disloyal. Grant it, for the sake of argument. They are nevertheless honest; and the law is to be executed among us, not among you; "While offering the pressure of duties here not by us, but by the federal authority. too long deferred as an apology for non-attend- Has any government ever succeeded in ance, I pray you to assure the committee changing the moral convictions of its subjects in whose behalf you act of my profound by force? But these convictions imply no sense of their courtesy and kindness. It disloyalty. We reverence the Constitution, would be an honor to be invited to address although we perceive this defect, just as we the people of Massachusetts on any subject, acknowledge the splendor and the power of but it might well satisfy a generous ambition the sun, although its surface is tarnished with to be called upon to speak to that great and here and there an opaque spot. enlightened Commonwealth on a question of human rights and civil liberty. "I confess, sir, that I have earnestly desired not to mingle in the popular discussions of the measures of the last Congress. The "We cannot, in our judgment, be either true Christians or real freemen, if we impose on another a chain that we defy all human power to fasten on ourselves. You believe and think otherwise, and doubtless with equal sincerity. We judge you not, and He alone, | The temper of the nation is just, liberal, and who ordained the conscience of man and its forbearing. It will contribute any money laws of action, can judge us. Do we then, and endure any sacrifices to effect this great in this conflict, demand of you an unreason- and important change; indeed, it is half made able thing, in asking that, since you will already. The House of Representatives is have property that can and will exercise already yours, as it always must be when you human powers to effect its escape, you shall choose to have it. The Senate of the United be your own police, and in acting among us States is equally within your power, if you as such, you shall conform to principles in- only will persistently endeavor, for two dispensable to the security of admitted rights years, to have it. Notwithstanding all the of freemen? If you will have this law wrong that has been done, not another slave executed, you must alleviate, not increase its State can now come into the Union. Make rigors. only one year's constant, decisive effort, and you can determine what States shall be admitted. "The Constitution regulates our stewardship; the Constitution devotes the domain to union, to justice, to defence, to welfare, and to liberty. "But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes."-Mr. Seward's Higher Law Speech. "Wherein do the strength and security of slavery lie? You answer that they lie in the * * * * * * * * * * "I do not know, and personally I do not greatly care, that it [abolition] shall work out its great ends this year or the next, or in my lifetime; because I know that those ends are ultimately sure, and that time and trial are the elements which make all great reformations sure and lasting."-From the Hon. W. H. Seward's speech at Albany, Oct. 12, 1855. Senator Sumner, of Massachusetts, in a speech delivered in Faneuil Hall, Boston, on the 2d November, 1855, said:* constitution of the United States, and the con- "In the case of the alternative being prestitutions and laws of the slaveholding states.sented of the continuance of slavery or a disNot at all. They lie in the erroneous senti- solution of the Union, I am for dissolution, ment of the American people. Constitutions and I care not how quick it comes."-Judge and laws can no more rise above the virtue of Spaulding of Ohio, in the Republican Conrenthe people than the limpid stream can climb tion. above its native spring. Inculcate, then, the love of freedom and the equal rights of man under the paternal roof; see to it that they are taught in the schools and in the churches; reform your own code; extend a cordial welcome to the fugitive who lays his weary limbs at your door, and defend him as you would your paternal gods. Correct your own error-that slavery has any constitutional guarantee which may not be released, and ought not to be relinquished." And he says further on : "Whenever the public mind shall will the abolition of slavery, the way will open for it. -Mr. Seward's Speech at Cleveland in 1848. 66 Slavery can be limited to its present bounds; it can be ameliorated. It can be, and it must be abolished, and you and I can and must do it.-Speech of Mr. Seward." "The task is as simple and easy as its consummation will be beneficent, and its rewards glorious. It requires to follow only this simple rule of action: To do everywhere and on every occasion, what we can, and not to neglect or refuse to do what we can, at any time, because at that precise time and on that particular occasion we cannot do more. Circumstances determine possibilities."-Speech of Mr. Seward. "Slavery is not, and never can be, perpetual. It will be overthrown either peacefully and lawfully under this Constitution, or it will work the subversion of the Constitution to gether with its own overthrow. Then the laveholders would perish in the struggle. The change can now be made without violence, and by the agency of the ballot-box. "Not that I love the Union less, but freedom more, do I now, in pleading this great cause, insist that freedom, at all hazards, shall be preserved. God forbid that for the sake of the Union, we should sacrifice the very thing for which the Union was made." Debate in the Senate on the 26th of June, 1854. he "Mr. Butler. Why, yes. "Mr. Sumner. Is thy servant a dog, that should do this thing?" the constitution. Sir, standing here before "Mr. Butler. Then you would not obey this tribunal, where you swore to support it, office of a dog to enforce it. You stand in my you rise and tell me that you regard it the that it is a dog's office to execute the Constitupresence as a co-equal Senator, and tell me tion of the United States ?" To which Mr. Sumner said: "I recognise no such obligation." The New York Tribune, a leading and powerful press in the North, whilst the Nebraska bill was before Congress, remarked : "Better that confusion should ensue; better that discord should reign in the national coun |