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Show U4 SECOND DAY-F.\'1\i\INO SESSION. big about not being bound by the will of their constitucnls, lHit some how or other they generally act as their constituents desire. Antl we care very liltle how they talk, if we can be sure of right action. . . . Many timid people appear to be alarmed that the abolttJotusts avow themselves disposed to have any thing to do with political matters; not so much on account of the measures being faulty themselves, as the fear that in consequence of adopting them the abolitionists may be charged by their enemies with ambition. Our cause, they think, should be carried forward only by moral means. True, it should be, so far as to make men abolitionisls. But suppose every body in this nation were abolitionists but twenty thousand slaveholders, and these were of such a character that you could no more persuade them to emancipate the vieti.ms of their avaric.c, lust, and cruelty, than you could the enemy of mank10d to become a saint. \Vhat would you do? The hammer of divine truth would rebound from their hearts like that of a blacksmith from his anvil. I could easily manage them on my plan. Let abolitionists be elected representatives in all the Southern Legislatures, and they would purge their land of slavery as quickly and eirectually, as did Herculel:l the Augean stable. llut without this, I do not know how you could liberate the victims of their wickedness. In the capitol of our nation, a few men hold about six thousand more in the condition of beasts-and that little spot is the slave-mart of the whole South. Some of these men you may persuade to emancipate their slaves. How will you emancipate the remainder? Congress can do the work any day they choose; and they will choose to do it, when they know they cannot hold their seats on any other condition ; and this fact they can easily be taught by the ballot-box and petitions. But without these measures on the part of abolitionists, it is in vain to expect any such result. Sir, we have had a little experiment on the tendency of these measures in Massachusetts. Two years 11go last winter, the Southern states sent on their edicts to our Legislature, demanding the enactment of penal laws to gag us on the subject of slavery, and prevent the organization of anti·~lavery societies. Our governor, in his message, intimated, that we were ltable to be indicted at common law as disturbers of the peace. A committee was appointed by the Legislature to consider and report on the subject, who, out of courtesy, permitted the abolitionists, at their own earnest desire, to come forward and show cause-if any there was-why they should not be condemned j but finally did not permit them to speak, because some of them were not sufficiently suppliant to square with the chairman's notion of anti-slavery propriety. After giving the subject that profound attention which its importance demant]ed, he made his best bow to the slaveholder, and delivered the abolitionists over to the sovereign mob. His report and resolutions were, however, never taken up nor acted upon. The old far· seeing politicians knew too much of the spirit of Massachusetts to burn their fingers in a fire· kindled and fed by slaveholders. They wer~. a~are that, how little soever of anti-slavery, or how much of hatred to abohttontsts, there might be among the people, there was too much self-respect to bow the knee •' to the dark spirit of slavery," and they very prudently let the report lie on the table, where it " stilllieth." The slaveholders, disappointed and chagrined at the result of their com· mands, did not repeat them the following year, and the citizens concluded to try their hand at the game. They circulated petitions, signed, and sent them in with many thousand ~ignatures. A committee was now appointed to consider and report upon them, but with the design, as l was assured, ~f reporting that it would be inexpedient to legi~late on the subject. But pet1· lion and the ballot-b.ox are powerful arguments, and generally go further to SPEECH 01'' ALANSON S'l', CLAIR. V5 ~onvince polilicians, than the ablest made speeches or written communicatiOns ; a~1d before the committee were ready to repor\, the former had accumulated Jn s~ch numbers upon their hands, they saw it would not answer to adopt qu1te so summary a course,-the subject matter of the petition ~egan ~o look m.n~h !css ~bjectionable-evcu to wear the appearance of reaor.. rhe abolitionists d1d not now have to crave permission to come forward and show cat~se why they ought not to be condemned ; but a day was fixed by the commJtlee, and they were notified, and invited to come ami sp.eak to ~he questions embraced in the petitions. They came-the commt~ tee adJourned day after day, and nearly all the Legislature sat with them, or 1.n. the sam.e hall, gav~ them a most patie~t, candid, and manly hearing; pettlions conh.nue? to t.h•cken upon them, till they became ~:-1isfied there wou~d be no ~tsk 111 takmg a manly stand against slavery, and. instead of rcportmg tl~at It was ine~pedient. to legisl~te on the subject, they offered a noble stnng of resolutiOns, wh1ch astomshed the friends of them no less than the enemies. When they came into the Honse for action the issue mad? up between the two political parties was, w!ticA should g~ strongest agauut slavery-and they passed by an almost unanimous vote. When sent to the Senate for concurrence, the same strife arose there and that bodv not only adopted the ones passed by the House, but hitched ~n three mo;e of a much stronger and more decided character. Owing to the alarm raised by ~~e pro·slavery presses, w.hich l1ad formerly set the mobs upon the abolit10msts-the House was fnghtcned from concurring with those added by the Senate. The people not only sustained them, but ou the follow· ing_ year, to a very wide extent, proposed questions to the candidates for the1r suffrage .. ~Vhen the Legislature convened they sent in a still larger number of petttions than for.merly,, and _obtained every thing they asked for ~u.t one word, anJ. that was tmmechale, 111 the resolution demanding the abohuon of slavery. Such have been the results of our measures in Massachusetts· and such w~ll be :heir result in C~ngress, and in every state in this nation' when apphed w1th the same effie~cncy. Do you discover in them any imprudence forocity, o.r anti-ch!istianitJ:? A~e they not well calculated to produce th~ e~d at which we a1m ? Is tl possible to carry our principJeg into practice Without them? If then ~he oppone.nt b~ a~ much an abolitionist and opposed to slavery as .you, let lum _show Ins prmctples by his practice, remembering that the tree IS known by 1ts fruits. |