The Liberator

From the Essex County Freeman.
PATRICK HENRY.
The men who most impudently claim to be the patriots and saviors of the Union to-day, by suppressing agitation on the subject of slavery, will please read the following extracts from a letter of Patrick Henry, dated Hanover, January 18th, 1773.
Would any one believe that I am master of slaves of my own purchase? I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living here without them. I will not, I cannot justify it. However culpable my conduct, I will so far pay my devoir to virtue as to own the excellence and rectitude of her precepts, and lament my want of conformity to them.
I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish—this lamentable evil. * * * It is a debt we owe to the purity of our religion, to show that it is at variance with that law which warrants slavery.
We strongly recommend these extracts to every supporter of the two Baltimore platforms, and let him publicly proclaim, if he dare, wherein he is consistent therein to the expressed principles and opinions of the Founders of the Constitution. To every pro-slavery Northern Priest, we particularly recommend the latter portion of the letter, and then would urge him to repent, and ask pardon of that God whose laws of love and mercy he has outraged by defending slavery.
The more the writings and opinions of the Constitutional Fathers are examined, the clearer does it become, that they never justified the system of Slavery. They lamented and deplored it, and believed that it would gradually be abolished. They were not, like the tyrants and dough-faces of our day, afraid to whisper on the subject, lest freedom and justice and humanity should triumph in the land. We may and must regret that slavery was not done away with long since, but let us not confound the Fathers of the Union with the tyrants and cowards who framed the Baltimore Platforms, and who would save their own fancied Union by injustice, suppression of the truth, and violation of the laws of God.