The Liberator

From the Ohio Anti-Slavery Bugle.

A MOVEMENT OF THE RIGHT SORT.

From the last Liberator. we learn that the abolitionists of Massachusetts have, in good earnest, directed their attention to one specific object,—to utterly prevent all slave-hunting and slave-rendition within the Commonwealth. Massachusetts, having already purged her statute-book from the infamy of caste legislation, in regard to colored persons, when she shall treat all kidnappers, though coming under the sanction of Federal law, as she does robbers, pirates, assassins, and other outrageous criminals, will then be able to talk, without blushing, of being a free State.

The following is the form of petition in circulation to the Legislature of Massachusetts, and will do well for circulation in Ohio or elsewhere :—

To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts :—

The undersigned, citizens of Massachusetts, respectfully ask you to enact that no person, who has been held as a slave, shall be delivered up, by any officer or court, State or Federal, within this Commonwealth, to any one claiming him on the ground that he owes 'service or labor' to such claimant, by the laws of one of the Slave States of this Union.

Speaking of this petition, the Liberator says:—

It is to be circulated for signatures throughout the length and breadth of the Commonwealth, and signed alike by men and women, either in separate columns or promiscuously as may be thought advisable. Let every one have a chance to sign it; and let there be a noble rivalry to see which shall be THE BANNER Town' in regard to the number of signatures procured.'

This 'noble rivalry ' should not be confined to the towns of Massachusetts, but there should be a rivalry of States for the honor of thus first effectively bidding defiance to the Slave Power. Ohio should press Massachusetts in this honorable race for justice, and the anti-slavery sentiment of Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, should thus be developed, and brought into action. No anti-slavery heart can fail. to respond to the proposition, however love for the Union, party drill, or desire for party success, for whatever cause, may restrain its expression.

Last Sunday, at Marlboro', we urged the measure as best we could, when Republicans in the audience volunteered in response, We will go for that.' And so we trust they will, bringing so much of the party as is within their influence with them. Let no one, to whom its justice thus commends itself, stand back, and wait to see if the party will incorporate it in its platform ; but let each man for himself lead the way, exerting his largest possible quota of public sentiment in its favor, both in his party and out of it.

Last week, we quoted the New England Convention's strong declaration in its favor. Below we add, though we have published it before, Gerrit Smith's declaration for it. We quote from his letter to Governor Chase, addressed to him just after his last inauguration, when he had so shamefully permitted Margaret Garner and her family to be taken back to
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slavery.

Addressing the Governor, Mr. Smith says:

Am I then to conclude that Ohio, too, like all other States, is still to be without a government?

For, surely, if she suffers kidnappers within her borders, and the tearing away from her soil of innocent persons, she can have nothing under the name of government, that is at all worthy of that sacred name.

When I took up your Inaugural, I hoped to find it speaking true words at this point. I hoped to find it declaring, that at this point especially, Ohio should, so far as it lies in her Chief Magistrate, enjoy a real Government:--that the day of her sham or shirk government was past:--that henceforth her government was to be no longer the patron and partner of kidnappers, but their stern, unrelenting, prompt, effectual punisher. I need not add that I was sorrowful at your silence on this vital point. Of course, I did not desire to have it to say, that the future kidnapping of Ohio is to be done by the State, instead of the Nation. If the diabolical work is to be done, I care little whether it is done by State devils or Federal devils.

What I looked to your Inaugural to say was, that it should not be done at all; and had it said so, this horrid scene, to which I have referred, would not have been enacted. Let me be very explicit at this point.

I looked to your Inaugural not to say that no man should be taken from your State, as a slave, without first having had a fair and proper trial; but I looked to it to say, that there should be no trial whatever in your State, of the question whether a man is a slave --or, in other words, whether a being, made in the image of God, is a chattel, and a marketable commodity. If need be, in order to arrest such a trial, I would have the Governor of a State march a band of armed men, Oliver Cromwell like, into the Court Room to expel from it the Court guilty of such an outrage on the dignity of human nature, and of such blasphemy against the Majesty of Heaven.

The duty of a Governor, in regard to these frequent forays into the Northern States, is, in my mind, clear of all doubts.

The anti-slavery sentiment of Ohio has power, if it will combine and act, to compel just such an inaugural as Mr. Smith has suggested, from the next Governor elect, whoever he may be. To bring this about, commends itself to us as the special anti-slavery action of the hour. Shall we not see abolitionists everywhere, in the West and the East, address themselves to it like men and women in earnest?

Who, that calls himself an abolitionist, is willing that any supineness or negligence on his part, shall be in any measure the occasion of the repetition of such outrages upon the rights of the State, and the rights of property and personal liberty, as were witnessed in the cases of Van Zant, Parish, Connelly, the Broadhursts and the Garner family? Whoever would not, let him be up and doing.