THE EXTIRPATION OF SLAVERY FROM THE WORLD.

Civil government is necessary to the preservation, prosperity and safety of society. In some important sense, “the powers that be, are ordained of God.” It does not appear that[Pg 196] the Creator has established any specific form of government, but the genius of christianity is evidently democratic. The leading objects of government are defined to be “the punishment of evil doers and the praise of them that do well.” When a government fails to protect and encourage the good and to punish evil doers,—when it becomes a mighty engine of oppression, the object of its institution is frustrated.

In the United States the voters are responsible for the character of the government. The people are the sovereign rulers. The ballot box controls legislation. If our country is badly governed it is the people’s fault.

The free white people of America are responsible for the existence of American slavery. They could at the ballot box break every yoke. They have the power to release more than three millions of slaves and thereby make heaven and earth rejoice!

A weighty responsibility, therefore, rests upon voters in relation to slavery. If it continue, it will be because they shall will it, and express that will at the ballot box. He who votes for a representative that is pledged to sustain slavery, becomes responsible for that representative’s acts on the slavery question. The responsibility cannot be shifted or dodged.[Pg 197] Representatives consult the will of their constituents and act as they wish them to act. They are only the people’s agents, the echo of the people’s voice.

In the light of these facts how can a christian vote for a slaveholder or a friend of slavery? How can he, by his vote, say that slavery shall be perpetual? Every pulsation of a christian’s heart beats in harmony with liberty; he could not have slaves in his own hands. How then can he, how dare he, by his vote, chain them and deliver them over to the slave driver? It is mean and wicked for a strong man to beat a weak one, but it is equally as mean and wicked to hold the weak man so that the strong one may beat him at his leisure and with ease. So it is bad to own a slave and tax his sinews, sweat and blood, to beat and bruise him, but it is equally wrong to hold the slave while the southern slaveholder does the same thing. Hence, he who votes for pro-slavery representatives, votes for slavery and all its swarms of evils, and is indirectly a slaveholder himself.

Let it be distinctly understood, then, that political power has been entrusted to the christian people of America by the God of nations, who holds them responsible for its proper exercise; and that acting politically is a serious[Pg 198] business, affecting the interests directly, in this country, of twenty millions of freemen, and more than three millions of slaves; and also affecting indirectly, the interests of the whole human family.

If the supporters of slavery continue to control the policy of the American government; to trample under foot the “higher law;” to render the Declaration of Independence a nullity; to denationalize liberty; to nationalize slavery and perpetuate and extend it; and thus to belie all our professions of Democracy, and render this government a Godless tyrant, delighting in crushed hopes and hearts—then the whole human race may weep. That our government has been progressing toward this terrible consummation for the last thirty years is but too evident.

The Declaration of Independence is a sound anti-slavery document. It does not regard the right of all men to liberty as an unsettled opinion or a question to be proved by abstruse argument, but pronounces it a “SELF EVIDENT TRUTH.”

The Constitution in form if not in fact, pretty fully embodies the sentiments of the Declaration. The word slave is not found in it, and it was kept out not accidentally, but purposely. The framers of the Constitution[Pg 199] carefully guarded that instrument against any endorsement of slavery. In the convention which formed the Constitution, Gov. Morris of Pennsylvania said, “He never would concur in upholding domestic slavery. It was a nefarious institution.” Mr. Getry, of Massachusetts, in the same convention said, “we had nothing to do with the conduct of the States as to slavery, but we ought to be very careful not to give any sanction to it.” The idea that there could be property in man was carefully excluded from the Constitution. It was about to be foisted into that instrument by the adoption of a report of a committee fixing a tax on importations. But Mr. Sherman was against “acknowledging men to be property, by taxing them as such under the character of slaves.” Madison “thought it wrong to admit in the constitution the idea that there could be property in man.” But if the idea of property in man was carefully excluded from the Constitution, then it is clear that chattel slavery is not in form recognized, much less established by that instrument.

It is evident that the framers of the Constitution expected the speedy abolition of slavery; and hence, while providing in fact though not in form, for its continuance under the constitution, by virtue of local State laws, they so[Pg 200] framed that instrument that it would not countenance slavery or deny the glorious doctrines of the immortal Declaration, which contained what Mr. Sumner calls “the national heart, the national soul, the national will, and the national voice.”[23]

Washington said “That it was among his first wishes to see some plan adopted, by which slavery may be abolished by law.”

Adams regarded slavery as “a sacrilegious breach of trust.”

Hamilton considered slaves, “though free by the law of God, held in slavery by the laws of men.”

Jefferson said that the “abolition of domestic slavery was the greatest object of desire.”

Patrick Henry said—“I will not, I cannot justify it.”

Benj. Franklin, when 84 years of age, came up before Congress with a petition from the “Abolition Society of Pennsylvania, praying that body to counte............