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Show so SECOND DA\'-EVENINO SESSION. No, the whole system of Divinity, the worship of God, whether it be that of the Mahometan, or the Jew,-Protestant, or Catholic,-whether it be idolatrous or spiritual, in whatever form rcW.gion ln.s been shadowed forth to this world, its votaries hold communion with the Unseen Power by petition. Man as man, the .erring, t~le _w~a_k , the_ naked :uul trembling mortal of a clay, goes to the Belllg \vho IS anJuutcly has supenor, by prayer and petition. . . . . The Almighty's ear is not dull of ~earmg our p~uuons and ~ompl~ants. Petition is the everlasting language 111 all countnes and all climes, 111 all ages and comlitions, of the suhordinate, asking assistanc~ ~rom ~nan, or deliverance from God. This is inseparable from the condauon ot man, man free, or man a slave. \Vhat subjecL so proper, whether presented in person, or by another, as a petition to deliver the slave. from his cruel. b01~dage, his paia~,. his stripes, his insults,-to repeal laws takmg away all h1s raghts; to petallOn that a man may have his wife, a woman her husband, and both their children,-and that the daughter and son may not be taken from them and sent where the parents shall see them no more,-that their own backs may feel stripes no more,-that they may hunger no more, thirst no more, be insulted no more, deballched no more, kept ignorant no more, chained no more, and unpahl for labor no more. The being::~, of all others, requiring the intervention of supreme legislative power in their behalf, are the poor slaves, already bereaved of every political right in this world. Shocking to relate, these same audacious men, who have stolen the slave from Africa, by tempting the kidnapper, with their money. to go and catch him, or have held the slave as though the slave was under special obligation to the master, that he even permits and allows him to breathe and swallow God's fresh air, and look upon the same sun with· out striking him dead, and that he ought to be delighted to have an oppor· tunity to serve a man, naked or in rags, who will suffer him to hoe cotton from daylight in his cotton field till dark, and have a peck of corn a week, or four cents per day to buy food,-ah! yes, these Southern slavehold· ing members of Congress deny the right of petition in behalf of these most forlorn beings, who are made wretched by being made the victims of piifer· ing, by having their masters meanly rob them, and steal from them, and whip them, to get more out of them, and then say to them," we have abused you so badly that we shall not allow you to state your wrongs to the world or to Congress, as we do not intend our meanness shall be known." The truth may as well be known to the world first as last. The reason why the slaveholders rose up in the face of day and went out of the Hall of Representatives of this nation on the 20th December last, and concocted their successful scheme, which was put in execution, the next day to "lay all petitions on the subject of slavery unread, unprinted, unreferr~d, unc~n· sidered, and undebated on the table," was from shame and conscious gUJit, not having courage to face their deeds of cruelty, darkness, shame, crime, stealing, robbery, debauchery, and meanness, when held up to the glare of the world! They withered in advance, before the coming storm. "Ah !" say they, " are we, the sons of chivalry, to be called thieves and sons ?f thieves-we, who are members of Congress, living in pomp on the unpaid labor of the helpless, are we to be called devourers of widow's houses, yea, of the widows themselves and their children? Shall it be told that we made the poor child motherless and fatherless by selling, for money, the father from the children one year to a distant part of the country never to return, the next year that we have sold the mother whose sable breasts we~e the fountains of our infantile subsistence-the next year that we hal•e wh1pped SI'EECII OF Al.VAN STEWART, 81 and ~old our own children, and uninstructed made them bondmen to the ~~~:ar~r of half~ million, who have inherited from us, their white fathers, a r. h , reputation, ami all the wretched sorrows of a slave." Is this a Jat er s legacy? th Deep, co.nscious guilt, on the part of the Southern masters1 has made . em . roar like the ocean's waves, to turn the eyes of the world in ever dJ~ectwn except tO\~ard themselvcs,-t.he ears of mankind to hear eve/ tt;m~, except the ~hnce·told tale or. slaveholding infamy. Fear,fear, sham!. s wme, yes, burnang SHAME, bud those resolutions on the tab\ ~.hat! could the slaveholder bear a reference of the two ~illions of petataons, to a select cnmmittee who felt deeply for the slave, with ower to send f?r persons and p apers, and with leave to said committee to ~it in the v~cat10n, from the coming July till December after, to collect all the maten~ls 1for a report and draw the death warrant of slavery as the very report 1tse f would be? , This nation. only requires the report of a select committee of Mven er· son:'S, energetacally employed a few months, to make out the indict!ent agdH.mst Slave:yl to have a verdict of guihy pronounced by an injured and In 1gnant nahan. \Vl~at will be in that report 1 How will it be made up 1 What are the :ait~e:'~!~tl~: such a report, and how are they to be obtained 1 J .... et us look 1. This committee should send for all the codes of slave laws of the stwera.l states, ~nd of the United States. Briner up, now those statu;e books of ~!ood. and cnme, and you will find them full of high ~reason against Gud an aga1nst humanity. Laws made by the very men who claim this property un~er those laws. And what do they establish 1 \Vh , ower l~respons1ble power, of man over man. This is the beginning and ~e ~nd __: t. e. pe.rvadmg. spmt of the whole code, from beginning to end. Name ~he civil flght.\~htch these laws secure to the slave! There are none· there is no recognlli~n of a single right in the slave. ' 2. \Vhat IS the susten?nce. whic.h these laws claim for the black man, a"' ~~e only legal compensatiOn lor a life of compulsory toil? Read the words- ~ne peck of corn per week"-that is, two shillings a week, or about six rm Is for each me.al. Our Northern horses,-pardon me, I do not in· tend to be low; It touches humanity, and cannot be low ·-I was sa in our Northern l.lo.rses must have at least twentv.five cents p;r day in 03~8.~ or fourteen slnlilngs per week. The keepialg of one Northern horse · equal to that of fourteen Southern slaves. There is no man in a Jaborio~: ~:~loyme~t here, who does not pay a dollar and a half or two dollars a k for h1s bnard. Does a Northern man eat fourteen times as much as p~c at the .south 1 No, bu.t the savi.ng is in the quali ty and cost of the food. 1 gures ~viii tell you, t~at 111 the article of keeping alone, the master of 200 shaves w11l make a savmg of $3 14 a week, barely by the deductions from t. e poor slave's stomach. This in a year would make the pretty sum of ~~:~~~nwtho1~sand dolh~~· pin~hed out. of ~!1ese wretc~ed men! . The whole ou cry out, . Oh, ~nhumamty! But untal such an mvestigation ?a? be made, { fear thiS nat1011 will nol believe the fact, although we show ~ 111 the ve~y statute. books of the. South. Very probably there are numbers b:f?e/o·day' who w11l s~t all th1s down as abolition slang, not worthy of or. regard. But 1f they could see the evidence brought out in a Congress1~nal report, the whole nation would cry out, in a voice that mi ht al~os~.~n.l ~~e rocks, fa~ the s~eedy abolition of this detestable system~ the .sla,,eeret IS anothrer th!O~ which we s.hould fin? in these statute books of s ate!ol. No black man can, m any circumstances, be a witness ll |