Vermont Telegraph

MISCELLANY.

From the Liberator.

REPEAL OF THE UNION,

An extract from an editorial article in our paper of the 22d ultimo, relating to the approaching anniversary of the American A. S. Society, has been eagerly copied into several pro-slavery newspapers in New-York, accompanied with comments manifestly designed and adapted to stir up, on that occasion, a strong mobocratic excitement. In the opinion of their unprincipled editors, the infamy which so deeply stains the character of that city, on account of the frightful excesses which were allowed to be perpetrated upon the persons and property of abolitionists in 1833-4-5, is not sufficiently deep and damning; and, therefore, they are attempting to exasperate an ignorant and vicious populace to deeds of violence, during the anniversary week. The folly of these monsters of the age exceeds, if possible, their wickedness. The Union, they aver, is in danger; and in order to preserve it, they are for shedding innocent blood, and trampling all law and order under foot. To demonstrate its value, they pronounce it a treasonable act to say or publish aught against it. They would fain put down the anti-slavery movement; and the process by which they attempt to prove that they are right, and the abolitionists wrong, is to cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of mobocracy. Blind and infatuated enemies of liberty! Will they never give heed to the warnings of history? Must experience teach her retributive lessons in vain? Are all the instructive events which have transpired since the arm of violence was first raised in opposition to the friends of universal emancipation, to avail nothing? Is the demoniac spirit of slavery not yet satisfied that the divine spirit of liberty is not to be overcome by brute force? that truth cannot be shot down, or slain by the sword? that brickbats and rotten eggs only serve to stimulate to fresh exertions those against whom they are hurled, and to excite sympathy and abhorrence in every generous bosom? that reason is more than a match for violence? that a righteous cause invariably thrives by persecution? Let it, then, muster its hellish forces, and again put forth its impotent efforts! "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh—the Almighty shall have them in derision. He shall break them with a rod of iron; he shall dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." "Who is like unto thee, O Lord, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?"

In strongly urging on the members and friends of the American Anti-Slavery Society, by the most solemn considerations, the importance of giving an unusually large attendance at its annual meeting, we ventured to say—

"Many important topics will be presented for consideration at the meeting in New-York. The first of these, in importance, is the duty of making the repeal of the Union between the North and the South, the grand rallying point until it be accomplished, or slavery cease to pollute our soil. We are for throwing all the means, energies, actions, purposes, and appliances of the genuine friends of liberty and republicanism into this one channel, and for measuring the humanity, patriotism and piety of every man by this one standard. This question can no longer be avoided, and a right decision of it will settle the controversy between liberty and slavery."

This is "the head and front of our offending"—and for this, the American Anti-Slavery Society is held responsible! Now, be it known to all the world, that we are not the mouth-piece of any body of men, and that the Liberator is not the organ of any anti-slavery association. We utter our own thoughts freely, on our own responsibility. The American Society is not committed to any course of action that we may happen to mark out, nor bound by any thing that we may happen to indite. It has its official organ, the Standard, and deserves praise or condemnation only for what it officially sanctions. In expressing our opinions in regard to the subjects that would probably come before next week, for calm and deliberate examination, we spoke only as an individual, and not by its authority. Every member of the Society has an unquestionable right, at its annual meeting, to introduce such topics for discussion as he may deem pertinent to the occasion; but no sentence can be justly passed upon the Society going beyond what it actually approves. The language or action of individual members is one thing—that of the association another. Whether we erred in our conjecture or not, as to the nature of the questions that would in all probability be considered at New-York, time alone could determine. We are thus explicit on these points, because we mean to claim what is ours, and to relieve the American Society from any imputation that may be unjustly cast upon it, in consequence of our proceedings. How many or how few are prepared to go with us, in carrying out our anti-slavery principles, is not a matter of consideration with us. With our feet planted upon the eternal rock, and our eyes directed heavenward, we need no human props to sustain us, and shall not falter though all men forsake us and flee in the hour of trial.

The American Union—is it of heaven, or of men? If of heaven, then it will bear the closest scrutiny, and the more it is examined, the brighter it will shine. Its friends will be ready, at all times, to measure the weapons of truth and argument with its foes, feeling that victory is sure. If of men, then it may be defective, oppressive, impious; and every citizen is bound to investigate its claims to homage. An infallible sign of its rottenness will be a determination, on the part of its professed admirers, to make all doubts on this subject a treasonable offence; and the more rotten it is, the louder will be their outcries when they perceive that a probe is about to be put into it.

We affirm that the Union is not of heaven. It is founded in unrighteousness, and cemented with blood. It is the work of men's hands, and they worship the idol which they have made. It is a horrible mockery of freedom. In all its parts and proportions, it is misshapen, incongruous, unnatural. The message of the prophet to the people in Jerusalem describes the exact character of our "republic" compact:

"Hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men, that rule this people. Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with DEATH, and with HELL are we at agreement: when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made Lies our refuge, and under FALSEHOOD have we hid ourselves: Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, Judgement will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the REFUGE OF Lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place. And your covenant with DEATH shall be annulled, and your agreement with HELL shall not stand: When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it."

Another message of the same inspired prophet is equally applicable:

"Thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon: Therefore, this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly, AT AN INSTANT. And he shall break it as the breaking of a potter's vessel that is broken in pieces; he shall not spare; so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it, a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit."

Slavery is a combination of DEATH and HELL, and with it the North have made a covenant, and are at agreement. As an element of the government, it is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. As a component part of the Union, it is necessarily a national interest. Divorced from northern protection, it dies; with that protection, it enlarges its boundaries, multiplies its victims, and extends its ravages. Read the following confession of Mr. Underwood, of Kentucky, in a recent debate in Congress:

"To dissolve the Union, and separate the different States composing this confederacy, making the Ohio river the line, and Mason and Dixon's line the boundary line, he knew as soon as that was done, slavery was done in Kentucky, Maryland, and a large portion of Virginia, and it would extend to all the States south of this line. The Dissolution of the Union was the Dissolution of Slavery. It had been the common practice for Southern men to get up on this floor and say, 'Touch this subject, and we will dissolve this Union as a remedy.' Their remedy was the destruction of the thing they wished to save, and any sensible man could see it. If the Union were dissolved into two parts, the slave would cross the line and then turn round and curse his master from the other shore."

In the same debate, Mr. Arnold, of Tennessee, said—

"He would ask his Southern friends what the South had to rely on, if the Union were dissolved! Suppose the dissolution could be peaceably effected, (if that did not involve a contradiction in terms.) What had the South to depend upon? All the crowned heads were against her. A million of slaves were ready to rise and strike for freedom at the first tap of the drum. If they were cut loose from their friends at the North, (friends that ought to be, and without them the South had no friends,) whither were they to look for PROTECTION? How were they to sustain an assault from England or France, with that cancer at her vitals? The more the South reflected, the more clearly she must see that she has a deep and vital interest in maintaining the Union."

These are slaveholding witnesses, and, in the present case, their testimony is true! What is this Union, then, but a horrible combination to prevent three millions of people, now held in abject slavery, successfully resisting their oppressors? Who can support it, and not be a traitor to the rights of mankind? Who will dare to pretend that its repeal is foreign from the anti-slavery enterprise? Mark the language of Mr. Underwood: "The dissolution of the Union is the dissolution of slavery!" Then its preservation is essential to the perpetuity of that hellish system! Let the North withdraw, and "what has the South to depend upon? Where else can she look for 'Protection,' while she is engaged in setting all the laws of God at defiance, trading in human flesh, opening the flood-gates of licentiousness, and perpetrating the most horrible crimes? If she has 'a deep and vital interest in maintaining the Union,' then the North can have none whatever; for the interest of the one is antagonistic to that of the other. What is good for liberty, is bad for slavery; and what invigorates the latter, necessarily weakens the former.

Of what value has the Union been to the North? It has subjected her to the lash of the slave-driver from the hour it was formed to the present time. It has taken from her pockets more than a thousand millions of dollars, directly and indirectly, to support slavery. It has placed a ferocious slaveholding oligarchy in both houses of Congress, to stamp the impress of its sovereignty on northern "dough faces," and to control the legislation of the country and the action of government in all cases whatsoever. It has cloven down the sacred right of petition, and put a gag into the mouth of every northern representative. It has made it a high misdemeanor, a capital offence, to remember those in bonds as bound with them. It has created sectional animosities, and led to perpetual discord. It has made the North responsible at the tribunal of heaven for every heart that has been broken, every intellect quenched, every soul ruined, every victim killed, under the slave driving system at the South.

What is the liberty enjoyed by the citizens of the North? The liberty, if they travel or reside south of Mason and Dixon's line, to be cast into prison on suspicion of being inimical to slavery, as was Crandall in the District of Columbia, and Torrey at Annapolis! The liberty to be scourged on the bare back by the driver's whip, as was Dresser at Nashville! The liberty to be tarred and feathered, as was Kendall in Georgia? The liberty to be hunted for their lives, like wild beasts, as was Hopper at Savannah! The liberty to be shut up in the penitentiary with felons for fourteen years, as are Thompson, Burr and Work in Missouri! The liberty to be shot down, and consigned to an untimely grave, as was Lovejoy at Alton! The liberty to be hanged by a mob, as was Albe Dean (a citizen of Connecticut) in Mississippi! The liberty, if having a colored complexion, of being thrown into jail on suspicion of being fugitive slaves, and sold into slavery to pay their jail fees! True, if they will renounce their manhood, deny their God, swear allegiance to the southern Moloch, give no utterance to free thoughts, curse the abolitionists, maintain the divine origin and patriarchal nature of slavery, discard from their possession every book, pamphlet, tract, newspaper, circular or letter, which contains any reflections upon slaveholding injustice and cruelty, or pleads in favor of immediate emancipation—if they will do all these things, and whatever else the South shall choose to require, then they may travel in safety, and receive extraordinary hospitality, and enjoy liberty!

People of the North! this is your condition. The tyranny of the South over you is a million times more frightful than was the oppression of the mother country, which drove your revolutionary sires to take up arms in self-defence. You crouch beneath its overshadowing power, and scarcely dare to think or breathe. You feel its blighting influence upon your prosperity, and know that it has taken away your dearest rights; yet you tremble at the sound of the slavedriver's whip. Your petitions are treated with as much contempt as though you were dogs or swine, and all your senators and representatives are gagged on the floor of Congress. It is the Union that has reduced you to this pitiable condition.

People of the North! resolve, as did your fathers, never willingly to wear the yoke of bondage! But do not, as they did, engage in a bloody conflict to redress your wrongs; for it is not lawful in the sight of God to do evil that good may come—and all war is forbidden by that gospel which you profess to revere. Let your weapons be of ethereal temper, and a revolution be effected through the majesty of moral power. You can be free without the shedding of blood. Demand the repeal of the Union, or the abolition of slavery—not as a threat, but as a moral obligation—as the performance of an imperative duty to clear your garments from pollution, and your souls from blood-guiltiness. This you have a right to do, by the very theory of your government. You are an overwhelming majority of the American population. The majority have no right to do wrong, but they are bound to hearken to the voice of God, and to give heed to the claims of bleeding humanity. Do you ask for human authority? Read the Declaration of Independence! Hear what one of the signers of that Declaration, Justice Wilson, says—"Of the right of a majority of the whole people to change their government at will, there is no doubt. The supreme or sovereign power of society resides in the citizens at large; and they always retain the right of abolishing, altering or amending their constitution, at whatever time, and in whatever manner, they shall deem expedient." Chief Justice Marshall declares that "the people may change the constitution whenever and however they please.—This is a right, of which no positive institution [not even that of slavery!] can deprive them." Thomas Jefferson declares it to be "not only the right, but the duty of those now on the stage of action, to change the laws and institutions of government, to keep pace with the progress of knowledge, the light of science, and the melioration of the condition of society."

People of the North! if the South be wholly dependent upon you for protection in prosecuting her bloody enormities, who are the real slaveholders, the real slave-traders, the real slave-drivers, the real slave-plunderers, but yourselves? You cannot extricate yourselves from this position without a repeal of the Union. Talk not of consequences! Consult only duty. Say not that the evils of slavery are light and transient. They are the legitimate fruits of a corrupt tree, and that tree must be cut down, and cast into the consuming fire. The disease is of a radical nature, and can be cured only by a radical remedy. The calamity is not that there are occasional violations of your rights, and popular commotions to uphold slavery, but that slavery is the supreme law of the land, and an integral part of the national compact.