mulged, as startling, and very revolting positions; but they are infallible truths, which no enlightened honest man will dare to impugn. It is due to those slave-drivers in the southern states, who are merely profligate infidels, to acknowledge, that they never attempt to justify slavery upon principle. The nominal Christians are the only persons who strive to sanctify their man-stealing, by the sacred volume. The former plead their present difficult situation, and their incapacity, that is a very pernicious misnomer, it should be, their unwillingness, to remedy their peculiar condition, and the danger of emancipation, and prudence in the adoption of means, and the expediency of a general movement upon the subject, and the propriety of waiting until all the slave-drivers are agreed. As if the wildest lunatic who ever raved, could fancy, that a large horde of widely scattered kidnappers, will all simultaneously and voluntarily coalesce, at once, to become honest men, and to restore their ungodly spoils, while their honour, opulence, and enjoyments are augmented and retained solely by their legalized felonies! These men desire only present honours and enjoyments! The acquisition of the latter, no person ought to interrupt, provided the man who attempts to obtain worldly comfort does not infringe upon the laws of society: but elevation to office in this republic involves totally different principles. American citizens are amenable to God and the world, for the men whom they elect to fill the dignified and influential stations of our federal and state governments. The candidate when he enters upon public office, swears, that he will obey the constitution of the United States, and of course, that he believes the principles upon which our social fabric is avowedly founded. Hence, no slaveholder can take this oath consistently, in the true and legitimate meaning of the terms; and therefore, he is either ignorant of his duty, which is ample disqualification for office, or he is guilty of wilful and corrupt perjury. Among persons of this character, all the holier obliga tions have little or no influence. The oath of office, by the greater part of the southern men-stealers, is deemed to be merely a stupid form, invented by ignorant fanatics, and which is complied with, because the honours and emolu ments cannot be obtained without a submission to the requirement. As to any supposed bond of fidelity, further than as it may serve the public interest, when their own personal aggrandizement is also secured, not one out of a hundred of the whole of the slave-driving Confederacy ever supposed, that the official oath imposed any additional test, or implied any other claim, than that which is voluntarily displayed. All this is consistent, but then, it is a tissue of deliberate equivocation, exactly analogous to the man-stealer's notions of honesty, and the precise counterpart of the atrocious falsehood which he utters, when he declares, that his coloured fellow citizen's child whom he has stolen, and the money which he obtained as the price of his own offspring, are his honestly gotten property. It is vain to reason, argue, or to persuade these men who "love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil." You must apply more coercive machinery, and boldly and peremptorily announce, and from your resolution never swerve, that no slaveholder shall receive your vote. In principle, he is a merciless tyrant, by his constant profession, he is a shameless deceiver, and in his unvarying practice, he is the most abhorrent of all thieves. How any enligh tened, patriotic, and virtuous citizen can vote for a perjured, kidnapping despot to rule over him, either as a legislator, or an administrator of the law, is a "Mystery of iniquity," which no one but Satan, the original contriver of his own hell-born work, slavery, can possibly explain. This resolution in practice, thanks be to God! cannot be exemplified in the eastern and northern states: but the principle must float upon your banner of emancipation, and be resounded throughout the United States, until it shall rouse, into concentrated action, all the honest and consistent citizens of our Republic. A beginning must instantly be made. The efforts already commenced, by petitioning Congress for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, must be repeated, with renewed vigour, with enlarged numbers, and in a more thundering tone. The Federal Legislature is controlled by the kidnappers; who, like the unjust judge, "neither fear God nor regard man;" and who yet at last may grant to persevering importunity, that which could be obtained, neither by the wailings of sorrow, nor by the demands of justice. This "continuance in prayer," will be also of great importance, because it will attract public attention, until the act shall be passed, that slavery shall no longer disgrace that portion of our country which belongs to the whole federal union. It would be irrelevant here to consider the principle for which we contend, in reference to the only two public officers, the President, and the Vice President, to whom this doctrine can apply in the non-slaveholding states, because, nothing is more detestable, than the ever fluctuating expe diency, by which all sins and corruption can be justified. We stand upon holier ground. Our oracle is this, slavery is wickedness in every variety, and " only evil continually,' and all slaveholders without exception, are “men-stealers, sinners of the first rank, and guilty of the highest kind of theft." Therefore, slavery ought instantaneously to be abolished. One of the two only effectual means, according to human judgment, to secure this desirable result, is this; to eject from public office all those who are its chief abettors, and who will ever resist all measures to exterminate the ungodly machination; except they shall ascertain, that their ambition and their sensuality cannot be gratified, unless by assenting to the demands of the Christian fanatics. There are honest, wise, patriotic, and conscientious citizens in ample numbers, to execute all the duties of our republican government. Voluntarily, therefore, to select men, who upon their admission into the office, perjure themselves, and all whose acts testify, that they have no clear or upright perceptions of the difference between truth and error, honesty and theft, cruelty and love, good and evil, is equally absurd, as it would be for a man to choose for his confidential domestic, the greatest villain who was ever condemned to the Penitentiary, in preference to a diligent, long tried, and inflexibly faithful friend. The banner of truth and liberty must be unfurled, and all American citizens must adopt this motto, No slaveholder |