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Show 56 SECONO OA\'-l'IIO!tNING S~l'lSION. flatter our vanity; but it is no fancy sketch-it has all the painful vividness of reality. . . . . \Ve should ponder on the signs of the times wllh ser•ous deliberatiOn. \Ve have been and are still a prosperous and favor~<~ people; but I fear that in the eyes of Him in whose hands are our destmu':s, and who can search the heart, we are viewed as a proud and sinful nation. And if f1is chastisements have not already commenced, our wickedness, without repentance, must call them down at last. To understand our errors, and know the evil that bcsels us, is the first step towards reformation. To examine into, and ascertain the causes which have produced those evils, is neces~:ary to their radical cure. This examination I shall now allempt. There is implanted in our very nature a love of power and dominion, no doubt for wise and beneficial purposes; but dominion, in the creation of man, was only given him over "the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, the cattle, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the face of the earth." It was never intended by the Creator that man should have dominion over his rellow man, but by his full and free consent. Had this been intended, it would have been given when ll1e boundaries of man's dominion were fixed and established. The exercise, then, of all power which subjects man to involuntary servitude, and to a dominion to which he ha~ not given his full and free consent, is a violation of the laws of heaven, and contrary to the very nature of man, who, though formed ror dominion and imbued with its love, yet has authority from his lHaker to exercise it only over inanimate mauer, and over creatures not made in the awrul image of God! But when man became wicked and corrupt, he began to usurp dominion over his rellow man, reducing the weaker and less guarded portions of the race to the condition of the cattle of the field. This, however, could not totally destroy the principle of reason within the immortal creature thus degraded; he knew stjll that he was entitled to the same rights as his fellow man, and that his condition was the effect of gross injustice and grinding oppression. This produced the constant strife between the oppressed and the oppressor, the fruitful source of violence and crime through all time, and created the desire and stimulated the action of those in power to pre· vent, as far as possible, all examination into the rights of man as established by his Creator. The exercise of c.lominion begat the love of ease and opulence. This could more readily be obtained by appropriating to his own use the labor of others without any just compensation therefor. Thus the love of money, the root of all evil, grew and expanded. [n our own time and day, those principles which our fathers intended to subdue and eradicate, if possible, in the formation of a Constitution founded upon the natural and unalienable rights of man, have sprouted afresh, with a luxuriance which is calculated to fill the mind of the just and good with deep and solemn reflection. · I have heard it asserted by a sagacious statesman of our own country, that it was one of the unchanged and unchangeable Jaws of Providence that one man .should live upon the labor of another, that this always had and always would be the case, and that .!lmerican slavery, as it existed in the Southern slates, was the best human modification of that tmallerable decree. This was the language of a Southern gentleman, from a slaveholding state. The practical operation of this despotic system, of man as an individual usurping dominion over man, and endeavoring to live upon the labor of others, began in our country with the slaveholders, and its ramifications are now seen and felt in all parts of our country. The desire to live upon the unrequited labor of others is acquiring a dreadful universality. ]tis the LETTERS READ. 57 slaveholdiug power,-this Goliath of all monopolies,-that now brandishes his spear and threatens the overthrow of our most essential rights, and the most sacred of all our privileges. It defies even the Constitution, itself, to engage in single combat. It claims to be before and superior tu that instrument, which it contends has acknowledged its superiority, and has guaranteed its existence and perpetual duration. ll imperiously asserts that it has converted men into property; and, as a matter of course, any person, when he becomes a CITIZEN of the United States, has a right to the enjoyment ami usc of this species of property, in each and every stale in the Union. It is upon this false position, that a person can be converted by law into a thing, that slavery rests its whole claim-a position at war with the Constitution of the United States, and which ought not to be sustained in our courts of justice. It is provided in the fourth article of the amendments to the Constitution, that the right of the PEOPLF. to be secure in their PERSONS 3gainst unwarrantable seizure shall not be Yiolated; and that warrants, when issued, shall particularly describe the PERSONS or THINOS to be seized. I suggest, then, as the settled conviction of my own mind, that our courts of justice cannot rightfully adjudge that a negro slave is property, BECAUSE JIE IS NOT A TiliNG, and property consists in things ONLY. That be may be claimed as owing labor or service to another, does not shake, but confirms the argument. If the free states intend to continue free, as it respects uegro slavery and all its concomitant evils, they must not permit that system to lake one single step beyond its constitutional, legal, and present geographical boundaries. If it can break one bar of its enclosure, it will be like the unchained lion escaping from his cage-it will make war upon and destroy every obstacle that opposes its onward march. Il will be insatiate until all constitutional barriers which may impede its progress shall be broken down and destroyed; we shall be unable to stay its fury, or appease its rage, or again reduce it to constitutional limits; and the consequences will be that our entire liberties will be annihilated. The evils and propensities of the slaveholding system, which I have but faintly attempted to describe, are not the workings of imagination. I draw on sober realities and solemn facts. \Vho in our country justified slavery tluring the war of the revolution? No one, who was willing to defend his country from the grasp of the oppressor, or shed his blood in defence of her liberties. Who justified the practice, or contended for its perpetual duration, at the close of that memorable contest? Not a single hero or patriot of that day. Did any one altempt to make its chains more strong, or bind its victims more securely, or enlarge its borders by any constitutional provision? No, not one. Slavery at that day was deemed so dissonant to tl1e principles of American liberty, that none were found to render it so much respect as to insert its name, or even the word "slave," in the Constitution. A11 then looked for and de~ired the speedy downfall of the entire system; and Congress proceeded to fix limits to its power, and rebuke its practice upon every possible occasion, as in the ordinance in the vcar 1787, for the government of the North-Western territory, and in subse'quent acts passed after the adoption of the Constitution. But slavery flattered the pride of man, because it enabled him to extend his legitimate dominion beyond its just and rightful landmarks. It gratified his cupidity by increasing the means of enjoyment. It was adhered to, not as a political, but as an individual claim, and was lef't subject to the power or the laws, and in that day, like all other subjects, it was freely discussed at all times and in all places without fear or restraint. But what is the con· rlitiou of the country now? Slaves have incrca3ed vaslly 111 nnrnber, and 8 |