Part 6

But the time expended in converting the people of the _North_ to a willingness to alter the Constitution, would amply suffice to persuade them to organize a new government; for the Northern people are as ready to go for a dissolution of the Union, as they are for an alteration of the Constitution; for much advance has already been made in indoctrinating them in reference to the former idea, and thousands and tens of thousands are probably converts to this doctrine, while but little or nothing has been said in reference to the latter alternative. No party has yet proposed this step; but a large and increasing one, embodying a great portion of the talent of the nation, is now earnestly engaged in advocating the former. Which would be the easiest of accomplishment then, the conversion of the North to disunion principles, or to a willingness to alter the Constitution? Every one at all versed in political affairs, must be aware, that an alteration of the Constitution, without the consent of the South, would be a virtual dissolution of the Union, even if such a step were possible; so that converting the Northern people to the doctrine of an alteration of the Constitution, would be, in fact, only another phase of conversion to disunion; for, of course, the South will never consent to such an alteration, only as an alternative, in opposition to dissolution. To be sure, if the Northern people would act as a body, and boldly say to the South, “give us an alteration of the ‘three-fifths representation’ clause of the Constitution; a change of that in reference to ‘domestic insurrection;’ and an entire destruction of the one requiring ‘persons held to service, under the laws of a state,’ to be given up to ‘those to whom _such_ service or labor may be due,’ or we will break away from your polluting embrace;” there would probably be no need of our ever dissolving the Union, if the South believed the North was speaking truly; for, a petted and indulged child, rendered effeminate by parental fondness and neglect of all discipline, would be in no more danger of leaving forever its parent’s abode, without a farthing in its pocket, or the ability to walk a single step alone, because of its parents’ refusal to gratify its whims any longer; than would the “spoiled child” of the South, who has been fed on the richest viands our Northern pantry could supply, and drank of the costliest wines our free cellars could furnish, be in danger of leaving its well-supplied table of Northern spreading, and spring from the soft lap of Northern indulgence, to go forth to its own poverty-stricken lands, obliged to earn its coarse bread and clear water, by the hard toil of its own delicate hands.

But will the Northern people ever be ready to say this to the South? Not until years of patient toil in cultivating the pro-slavery soil of their hearts, have been expended by those whose office it seems to be to labor for the slaves’ release; and even then, it is questionable whether, after having been supported by the North so long, and so patiently, the South would believe all our affirmations; and we after all might be obliged to withdraw from her. But if the plan we propose, should be adopted, it would save all this uncertainty, for the South would then know we meant what we said, and would be frightened at our movements; as a woman is filled with dismay, when her only protector, talks of leaving her and her helpless babes, to the cold charities of an unfeeling world.

It is certain the South never would consent to an alteration of the Constitution, unless she was driven to it by the North, which object has not yet been proposed by any Northern party; and before any great progress could be made in the reception of such a doctrine, a little knot of patriots, armed with the invincible resolution of him, whose narrative has been presented to you, or with that of our revolutionary fathers; could have erected the standard of revolt, and have formed the basis of a new and powerful government. It is not a reform in our government that we need, but _a revolution--an overthrow of the present one_, and the establishment of a new one. Supposing a few individuals should be hung as traitors, would not that create a sympathy for us among the governments of the old world? and would not the universal voice of all civilized nations cry out against our immolation? Let but as many individuals unite, as signed the famous manifesto of our fathers, and armed with their Spartan spirit, _pledge our lives and fortunes_ to the accomplishment of this end! Let our _declaration of independence_ be sent forth to all the world, and our grievances be stated in the hearing of mankind! Let a new Continental Congress meet, at some favorable point, draft a new Constitution, and all who drink of the spirit of liberty, which flowed into the hearts of our fathers, be requested to annex their names to the document! Let it go forth to the whole land as _our_ Constitution! Let immediate measures be taken for an active and efficient agitation of the whole subject; our orators to go forth, and in the streets and lanes of our cities and villages, proclaim the object we have in view; or, if a more silent way of proceeding shall be deemed the most expedient, let committees visit every house and shop in our land, and see who will gird on this armor, and resolve to perish in an attempt to rescue the bleeding slave, from the hands of his cruel master, by refusing all support to this government, even to the deprivation of the necessaries of life.

And now comes the period of our proposed bloodless revolution, which will try men’s souls. Let us do as our fathers did, and _refuse to pay taxes to the general government_. “Millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute,” cried our ancestors, in order to save their descendants from the oppressive spirit of England’s grasping avarice. They at first were ridiculed, and it is stated that when John Warren, one of the aristocracy of Boston, made an inflammatory speech, at a rebel meeting, that he was denounced by the leading citizens of this place, and a copy of a letter is still preserved, written by some of them in reference to the transaction, in which they state, that “one Dr. Warren, had indeed made a rebellious speech, but he was applauded only by _a few rowdies_.” Shall not we be as willing to sacrifice our property and lives, as were our ancestors? Did not John Hancock hand the keys of his stores and dwelling to the authorities of the city, saying to them, “this is all of my property, but if the good of Boston requires its destruction, I freely yield it to you?” To pay taxes is to support the government, under which we live, for without this support it could not exist. These taxes are not paid of course directly, but still we eat, drink, and wear those things, on which a duty is paid, which gives the general government all its power. For instance. The Mexican War has left a large debt resting on our shoulders. The only way in which it will be paid probably is, by an increased tariff on particular articles of consumption. Now if an entire cessation of such consumption should take place, would not the government be left destitute of the means to pay this debt? Who pays the salaries of the officers of this government, but the consumer of the articles taxed by it? If the consumption of all such articles can be prevented, would not our government be obliged to cease operations, for want of oil to grease its machinery with? It moves only as money is furnished it. Our navy and army, the protectors of the South, can only be supported by large sums of money, derived from the revenue of the nation, which revenue we help to create by our consumption of these things. If sugar pays a large duty, or tea and coffee, or silks and satins, broadcloths and cassimeres, by refusing to use those articles, and inducing others to do the same, would not the revenue of the nation be affected? and when the actual tax-gatherer in the shape of the merchant, holds out his seductive wares for our purchase, could we not exhibit to him our pledge to “totally abstain” from the use of such articles; as the temperance man shows his ticket, as a reason why he should not partake of the intoxicating cup?

Another step could also be taken. A president could be chosen by us, and other necessary officers, and we could go on with our government, just as if no other existed, “beating for recruits” all the while, and offering no physical resistance to those who molest us. _Have we not a right so to do?_

“Children of the glorious dead! Who for freedom fought and bled,”

have you become bond slaves to a power fully as oppressive of you, as that of Britain’s tyrannical king, against whom your ancestors lifted their stout arms in rebellion, and unfurled their banner of revolt, on which was gloriously inscribed, “victory or death?” Have you forever lost all that portion of your ancestral fire, which armed three millions of poor and feeble men to engage in deadly combat with the richest and most powerful nation in Christendom? Ah, has God forsaken you so entirely, that no pulse of gladness beats in your frame, as you listen to the stirring notes of the wild, clarion sound of freedom, coming over these hills, and echoing from the far-distant prairies of the wide West? Oh is there not, friends, any deep fountain of sorrow gushing up from the inmost depths of your secret souls, for the sufferings and woes of the three millions of your Southern brethren? Ah, is there not any remnant of the spark of divinity which our Father in heaven has placed in every human heart, left to warm up your frigid souls? Say, breathes there not a particle of indignant life in your moral nature, as you listen to the mad agonies of shrieking mothers, the victims of remorseless tyrants who now stand defacing God’s image and stamping in the dust the lineaments of their Creator? Oh, is there none of manhood left in you, that the shrieks of trampled upon and bleeding innocence, should not move you to contend with Slavery’s cruel power? But is not your own safety a reason why you should cease to doff your beavers to the South, and should refuse to pay homage to her any longer? Listen a moment while I exhibit to you some more personal and selfish arguments. At the last election, the Southern States were allowed one electoral vote for every 7,500 voters, while at the North, it took 12,000 voters to entitle us to _one_ elector. The number of electors, of which we were thus deprived, was about 100, which was the same as excluding from the privilege of the elective franchise, 750,000 voters, about the number in all New England and Pennsylvania! Now are not these persons taxed equally with those who have the privilege of voting? Do not all the citizens of the North pay taxes? Yes, and much more than their true proportion, for by far the greater portion of duty-paying goods, are consumed at the North. Then, is not the principle which our fathers died to oppose, fully carried out by our government, _taxation without representation_? and yet we tamely submit to this plucking our substance from us, by the fierce beak of our country’s eagle; while our fathers would not so much as listen to the slight growling of the English lion, as he shook his shaggy mane in their faces, and touched them with but the extremities of his bloody paw! Robbery, if committed by a bird of prey, the American eagle, is to be patiently submitted to, and indeed we call it but the tickling of an affectionate friend or child; but let the valiant lion of Old England take the value of a pin’s point, or a few old pine trees and worthless rocks from us, and how the welkin rings with the sound of our abhorrence of such depredations. We are like the slaveholder, spoken of in our friend’s narrative, who told the slaves it was a crime to steal from him, but none to rob his neighbors, because he reaped the benefits of the theft. So with us. We are _rewarded_ for our submission to this robbery, by the paltry trade of the South, and as long as a few of us can make more money than we lose otherwise by our connection with the South, we care not for our principles, although every fourth of July we laud our fathers for fighting in behalf of them; or for the losses of the mass of the people. _Taxation without representation!_ This practice deluged the fields of our country, with our ancestor’s and Briton’s son’s blood; and caused our prosperity, as a nation, to be stricken to the ground, and we magnify our fathers for their boldness, in reference to it; yet we cherish the same principle, and press it to our bosoms as a part of our religion!

Great Britain _tried_ our fathers, accused of crime, away from their homes, across the waters of the ocean, and we call it a great oppression; but let one of our sons be guilty of an act in violation of Southern law, or be even suspected of it, and there is _no_ law by which he can be tried. All law is trampled under foot, and he is doomed to waste away his life, in a gloomy prison, or to be whipped almost to death. Which is the worst, being tried across the sea, by an impartial court, or being strung up by Lynch law between the heavens and the earth, and left dangling on the limb of a tree, or else doomed to wear out a miserable existence in some foul dungeon?

But to make the case still more parallel. Great Britain, our fathers complained, quartered soldiers upon them in times of peace, who eat out their substance and corrupted the people. For what other earthly purpose is the army of the United States continued in existence, but to watch the bidding of the monster Slavery, and be ready to fly at a moment’s warning to her assistance, in case the least attempt should be made by their victims to regain their freedom? That this is a true statement, may be seen from the fact, that all our wars for the last thirty-five years, have been waged in behalf of Slavery, and even our last war with Great Britain, is attributed by many persons to the demands of the slave power. It is certain, that no war will ever be allowed by the South, except in behalf of Slavery, for it would be detrimental to their interests; and it is well known that she rules over the destinies of this country, and guides its affairs of state, as effectually as Alexander or Napoleon ruled the countries they had conquered. Slavery rules this nation, did we say? It can hardly be called ruling, for we are so submissive to the faintest manifestation of her will, that she has but to glance her glowing eye towards our craven souls, and we will prostrate our abject forms lowly on the ground, with our faces hid in the dust, which we are truly unworthy to touch; as submissively and reverentially, as the devout Mussulman kisses the ground when the hour of prayer arrives, crying, “God is great.” Our God is emphatically Slavery. To him we address our early matins, and in his ear are uttered our evening orisons. More devoutly do we render homage to our god, Slavery, than the most pious of us adore the God of heaven, which proves that we are a very religious people, worshipping, not crocodiles, leeks and onions, snakes, and images of wood and stone, but a god, whose service is infinitely more disgusting than that of any heathen idol, but one who _pays_ us well, for our obeisance, as we imagine.

In this matter of a standing army, we go beyond our fathers in suffering oppression. They were not obliged to fight for England, when the object of the war was to enslave themselves; but it is well known that the great object the South has in view, in all her wars, is the aggrandizement of herself and the subjection of the North to her complete dictation; and we are called upon to engage in these wars, and after they are fought, we are compelled to foot the heavy bills.

But when our fathers were oppressed, they could plead in their own behalf. If they placed their feet on England’s shores, no harm could befal them, as long as they were guilty of no crime. They could defend their own cause; and the thunders of a Burke’s eloquence, shook the walls of Parliament to their foundation, and made the tyrants of England tremble and quake with fear, as he poured forth the fervor of his vehement eloquence in strong condemnation of the oppression of the colonies. A William Pitt too, could frighten the British minister from his unhallowed security, amid the multitude of fawning sycophants surrounding him, in the height of his political power, by the thunders of his voice, uttered in faithful rebuke of the war measures of the government. This noble Earl, was allowed to plead in behalf of American freedom, until his earnest spirit was claimed by the grim messenger death, as he arose in his place in the House of Lords, to speak in our behalf. But suffer what we may, is there any redress for us at the hands of our government? Our property may be injured by spoliations on our commerce, such as imprisoning our seamen, as well as by the crime of seizing our free citizens and depriving them of their liberty; and can we obtain the least redress? O the ignominy of our puerile connection with the South!

It is well known that under the system of Slavery, the three great blessings of republicanism are denied to a large portion of our citizens. These are, freedom of the press, of speech and of locomotion. And will we allow ourselves to be deprived of what even Europe’s despotic kings have been bestowing upon their subjects? Are we more base and abject in our submission to the South, than are the oppressed millions of the old world, in their subjection to their kingly oppressors? O what falsifiers of our own professions, and truants to our own dearly prized principles, we are! Can an abolitionist travel unexposed at the South? I have had some little experience in the matter, and know that such is not the case. Men have pursued me with relentless hate, and implements of death have been brought into requisition against me, for no crime, only for exposing Slavery, in its own dominions. Can we send to any part of the South those newspapers we may wish to send there? While at the South, I was advised by a friend to conceal a paper I had received, because of its being opposed to Slavery; and it is in only particular portions of that ill-fated country, that anti-slavery publications, can be introduced. It is not many years, since a man was publicly whipped, for having an anti-slavery newspaper wrapped around a bible, which he was offering for sale. As to liberty of speech, not half the freedom is allowed the opponents of Slavery on the floors of Congress, that the British Parliament allowed the opposers of the American War. In Boston, on the day which ushered the famous _stamp act_ into existence, the bells were tolled, and a funeral procession passed through the streets, bearing a coffin, on which the word _Liberty_ was inscribed. “During the movement of the procession, minute guns were fired, and an oration was pronounced in favor of the _deceased_. Similar expressions of grief and indignation occurred in many parts of the land;” but, friends, no funeral procession passed through our streets when Liberty died the second time--no muffled bells sounded their melancholy peals in the ears of a mourning people; no liberty-loving orator was found to pronounce a requiem for the departed goddess; and yet she was slain--and slain too, not by foreign hands, nor by the natural allies of human oppressors, but, shall I tell the sad and dismal tale? by those, who twenty-five years before, had shrouded their faces in mantles of mourning, and rent the air with their expressions of grief, at the destruction of one of liberty’s little fingers, by the passage of the stamp act; but when Liberty lay a full length corpse, on the floors of that Congress, which sold her to the South, as Judas betrayed the Son of God, and for almost as small a boon, viz.: “the carrying trade” of the South; not only were there _no_ lamentations made over her complete departure, but she was taken by night and buried hastily; while

“Not a drum was heard nor a funeral note,”

as her corse was deposited without a “winding sheet,” or even “a soldier’s cloak” to wrap around her bleeding form. Clandestinely was she hurried out of the sight of the men who murdered her; and instead of songs of sorrow, being heard throughout the land, pæans of praise ascended from its every corner, and honors were heaped on the heads of her murderers. But Liberty as truly died then, as if loud lamentations had been made in her behalf, and the descendants of those very men, who in 1765 followed the coffin of liberty to its place of deposit, because no business was deemed lawful unless the records of it were made on _stamped paper_; the descendants of these very mourners of liberty, now, do what is infinitely worse than to use the stamped paper of a British king; they swear to support that sacrifice of Liberty upon the altar of Southern slavery, whenever they are admitted to any offices of trust and renown. Is not this oppressive, when we may not administer justice to our fellow men, or exercise the most common authority, without renewing the thrust at the departed spirit of liberty, as our fathers actually slew her fair form?

O Liberty! didst thou draw thy keen sword For those, whom av’rice sought to rob, and slay, And sent its minions far, to seek its prey, That glittering gold might its coffers fill; While they their foes should crush, and seek to kill, That England’s lords, their gold could steal, and hoard?

Goddess celestial, and divine, and pure, Wert thou, the champion brave, the soldier true, Who fought with youthful vigor, with the few, Of Columbia’s sons, who stood, a sturdy band, And bade their country’s foes to leave their land, While they, to thee didst vow allegiance sure?

Insulted nymph! thy fair form shone so bright, That kings, as thee they saw, could not reject That face, alive with claims to their respect; E’en they, besotted with the lust of power, Could not refuse to yield to thee thy dower, But ceased at thy command, their foes to fight.

But ah! the men who thee so loud did call, The souls, whom thou hadst saved from bondage dread, O fearful tale! _themselves on thee did tread_; And thy fair robe was pierced with traitorous thrusts. As Cæsar groaning fell and kissed the dust, When ingrate Brutus’ blows on him did fall.