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ANTI-SLAVERT TRACTS. No.l.

REVOLUTION THE ONLY REMEDY FOR SLAVERY.

In the treatment of diseases of the human system, an accurate
knowledge of their nature and cause is essential to success. An
eruption upon the skin indicates a derangement of the internal ma
chinery; and he is the truly skilful physician who discovers the
cause of this derangement, and applies himself wisely to its remov
al, thereby restoring to the vital economy ifs original harmonious
action. Precisely so is it in administering to the moral maladies of
our race. A clear and distinct knowledge of their nature and cause
is absolutely essential to the discovery and skilful application of ap
propriate remedies. The absence of such knowledge is one of the
principal reasons why, with an unequalled number of spiritual phy
sicians, our country, at the present time, is reeking with corruption,
and presents an aspect which, in some respects, might well shame
the darkest portions of the heathen world. Slavery, that crime of
crimes, with all its untold horrors and abominations, not only exists
among us, but is extending itself with a rapidity hitherto unknown
in the annals of history. It stands out before the world, to-day, a
dark plague-spot upon our national escutcheon. It is an eruption
upon the surface of our social system — a foul nicer, already gan
grened, and threatening the very life of the nation. Confined, it is
true, in its external developments, to a distinct portion of the body
politic, but in its cause and consequences coextensive with the re
motest current of life blood which circulates through our common-
heart. Unfortunately, however, such is not the popular belief. Slavery
is regarded by the masses at the north not only as an evil of trifling:
magnitude, but as altogether a southern affair; and hence they de
cline all efforts for its abolition. As well might the head refuse tO)
I

Z ANTI-SLAVEBT TEACTS.
prescribe remedies for diseases of the foot ; or the hand refuse to
apply the assuaging ointment to an angry wound, because it had
chanced upon the knee, and not upon the thumb. The south is but
a part of ourself, — bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, — and we
share with her the sin, the shame, and the misfortunes of slavery.
We are a united people, with one and the same destiny ; and in
nothing are we more thoroughly united than in support of this odious
institution. It is a sad mistake to suppose that the south alone is involved in
the unparalleled crime of enslaving three and a half millions of the
people of this republic. In this terrible holocaust she has officiated
at the altar, it is true ; but the north has furnished the knife and the
wood, withoat which not a single victim would now be gasping in
the agonies of a living death. To illustrate this important truth, and
place the matter beyond the possibility of doubt, or even of cavil, —
to point out some of the most iraportant channels through which the
wealth, the physical force, and the religious influence of the north
are employed to sustain this great national iniquity, and to suggest
the appropriate reraedy, — will be the object of the following pages.
To understand the ^tual relations of the different sections of our
country to the institution of slavery, it is necessary, in the first place,
to bring to mind certain important facts of common notoriety, and
consider them in their relative position and general bearing upon
this subject.
The slaves, it is well known, constitute about one seventh part of
our entire population. In several of the States they are the majori
ty. Taken together they are more numerous than the entire popu
lation of the country at the time of the declaration of our national
independence. If, in their knowledge of their rights, and their
means of defending them, they are more circumscribed than were
our revolutionary fathers, the oppression to which they are subjected
is infinitely raore severe and galling, and hence the motive to re
sistance proportionally stronger. Said Thomas Jefferson, himself a
revolutionist and a slaveholder, " One hour of their bondage is
fraught with more misery than whole ages of that which we rose in
rebellion to oppose." Oar fathers were stimulated to resistance by
the loss of political rights merely. They were subjected to taxation
without representation ; and when accused of crime, the right to an
impartial trial by a jury of their peers was denied them. But a

RRVOLUTION XHE ONLT REMEDY FOR SLAVERY. 3
nation in our midst has been roTabed of personal liberty, utterly de
nied an appeal to the laws of the land for protection in any shape
whatever, and, so far as rights and personal security are concerned,
placed absolutely on a level with the brutes. Our fathers, under
the most rigorous administration of the British government, were
never doomed, even in anticipation, to the loss of a tithe of their
possessions. The slaves are robbed of all. They have earned thou
sands of millions of dollars — the wealth of a nation; but among.
them all there cannot be found a solitary individual who is the le
gally recognized owner of a single cent Their plunderers have lit
erally spared them nothing. " A slave," says the statute, " is one
who is in the power of the master to whom he belongs. He can do
nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire any thing but what must be
long to his master." With the loss of property has gone also the
sacred right of marriage, and the parental relation. These heaven-
descended institutions exist for them only to mock their agony. A
million and a half of slave women, some of them without even the
tinge of African blood, are given up a lawfiil prey to the unbridled
lusts of their masters. Even the most refined and virtuous are lia-
bles,, at any hour, to come under the absolute control of any vile and
bloated wretch who has the gold to command their price, and can
appeal neither to the government nor to their friends for protection.
Their backs are scarred with the lash ; their foreheads exposed to
the branding iron. Their families are sold upon the auction block.
The spelling book is denied them. The Bible is to them a sealed
book; the public worship of God a crime.
Such is but a faint picture of the condition of more than three and
a half millions of the people of this country, many of whom are the
offspring of their masters, and some of them children of our most
distinguished statesraen. To hold this vast people in such a condi
tion of wretchedness; to plunder, maim, and imbrute them; and
especially to do this in a country where liberty is, theoretically, the
acknowledged right of all, requires the constant application of an
immense force. In this age of light, of discussion, of world-wide
sympathy with the oppressed, it requires the strength of numbers as
well as superior intelligence to triumph over those who are, by na
ture, our equals, and bind thera in fetters. Whence then coraes the
force by means of which this great wrong is perpetrated ? In other
words, how, and by whom, are the slaves actually held in this

4 ANTI-SLAVERY TRACTS.
condition ? What power is that which makes them slaves ? which
holds possession of their plundered rights ? We know their mas
ters, the men who claim them as their property, and who are usually
denominated slaveholders. Their position is clear and unmis
takable. But is it by them alone that the slaves are held in bond
age ? or are others concerned with them, as accomplices and abet
tors? This is a raost iraportant inquiry, an intelligent answer to
Kvhich will shed a world of light upon all the various raraifications
of this raost intricate subject.
That the slaves are not held by their clairaants unaided by any
foreign force, is apparent from the vast disparity in their nurabers.
The slaves, it must be remembered, are more than three and a
half millions ; their masters less than half a million, or as one to
seven. We must, therefore, look elsewhere than to the plantation
for the power which makes the plantation what it is — the charnel
house of liberty, the grave of unnumbered hopes. The master, be
yond all question, has his accomplices somewhere. To find them
is the object of our search, that upon them also, as well as upon him,
we may roll the mountain weight of this terrible iniquity.
Slavery in this country was, originally, a purely domestic institu
tion. It existed without the sanction of law, solely on the responsi
bility of the families into which it was introduced, and the neigh
borhoods which tolerated it. But as it grew in strength, it became
necessary for the government to take cognizance of it, and either
adopt and regulate it, or put an end to its existence. It was seen to
be a beast of prey which must either be caged or exterminated, or,
in time, its depredations would become indiscriminate, and the chil
dren of all classes would be exposed to its terrible fangs. The gov
ernments, in most of the States, decided to adopt it, and assume its
regulation and support. Hence the system lost its purely domestic
character, and became a political institution. In those States slaves
were declared to be lawful property, and the whole power of the
government, civil and military, was pledged to the claimants of such
property for its protection. By that act of the government the re
sponsibility of slavery, which had hitherto been confined to a com
paratively small nuraber of private individuals, was extended to the
whole coramunity, or, at least, to that portion of it which constituted
the government ; and supporting the government became synony
mous with slaveholding. It is now no longer the claimants of the

REVOLUTION THE ONLY REMEDY FOR SLAVERY. 5
slaves who control their destiny. The government has assumed
that prerogative. It, and not the master, decides their condition. It
puts the official brand of slavery upon them, and follows them,
wherever they may go, by night and by day, with a doora as certain
as their own existence. It makes it a crime in any one to shelter or
protect them, or to aid their escape. The masters, in some oases,
would gladly set free their slaves ; but the government overrules
their wishes, and holds them still in bondage. The real slavehold
ers, therefore, are those who, through the government, actually or
dain, uphold, and protect the systera — who doom the negro, by law,
to the condition of a brute. And hence, as slavery is preeminently
a political institution, and slaveholding a political act, we should go
to the caucus and to the ballot box, as well as to the plantation, to
ascertain a man's standing on this question. One may possibly be
the legally-recognized owner of slaves, and be innocent in the sight
of God. But he cannot sustain a slaveholding government, know
ing its character, without involving himself in all the guilt and
crimes inherent in the system. To sustain such a government is
inevitably to aid in holding slaves. Not the slaves only of humane
masters, but of the most cruel and brutal also. By that act he
makes himself the accomplice of all the Legrees and Haleys in the
land who perpetrate their crimes under the sanctions of a govern
ment of which he constitutes a part, and to the strength of which he
voluntarily consents to add the weight of his own personal influ
ence. For, it raust be remembered, these wretches derive all their
power over their victims from the government. Let its protection
be withdrawn but for a single hour, and they would have returned
to their own lips the poisoned chalice which they had mingled for
the lips of their hapless slaves. Whoever, therefore, consents to ac
cept a slaveholding government, and proffers to it his support, should
be classed with the worst of slave clairaants, inasmuch as he is not
only their accoraplice, but is party to an association without whose
authority and protection these miscreants could never perpetrate
their crimes. Such is the cost at which, in this republic, a citizen
purchases the privilege of membership in the government.
Originally, the responsibility of slavery rested exclusively with
the States in which it existed. No State had, necessarily, any con
nection with it in any other State ; and if any of fhe States chose,
they might be entirely free from the contamination. But in the for-
l*

6 ANTI-SLAVERY TRACTS.
mation of our present political union the relations of the several
States to slavery became entirely changed. The support of the in
stitution which had hitherto devolved exclusively upon the States in
which it existed, was now assumed by the Federal Government, and
the responsibility thereby thrown upon the whole country. In the
United States Constitution are four important provisions, each of
which, in its operations, makes the north a party to the continuance
of the system, and is of such a nature as necessarily to involve all
who acknowledge allegiance to the government in the guilt of that
odious institution. There is also in the Constitution another pro
vision of the same tenor, but it has become inoperative by its own
limitation. Of these provisions, the one which presents itself first in order for
our notice relates to the rendition of escaped slaves. Prior to her
adoption of the United States Constitution the soil of Massachu
setts was free. The slave no sooner planted his feet upon it than
his chains fel], off. She knew no difference between the fugitive
from Carolina and the fugitive from Hungary. All who sought her
protection were alike the objects of her care. It was her proud
boast that her soil, barren though it might be, was untainted with the
footprints of a slave — that her chill breezes fanned no tyrant brow.
But alas, the change! To-day every rood of her soil is hunting
ground for kidnappers. '"Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill
are all deeded to the slave power. There is no temple in all her
borders so sacred that it may not be profaned by the presence of the
impious man-hunter ; while her young men, who should have been
the pride and glory of the Commonwealth, may be seen armed with
murderous steel, assisting him to seize and bind his hapless prey.
But recently have we seen two arraies, headed respectively by
National and State ofliicials, — the strong arm of the Federal Govern
ment, backed and supported by the strong arm of the State Execu
tive, — marshalled in deadly array through the streets of New Eng
land's proud capital, over the very spot where Attucks fell, and with
in sight of Bunker Hill, dragging back to the hell from whence he
had escaped one poor, solitary victim who had trustingly sought pro
tection at her hands! Alas! who could have believed this proud
old Commonwealth capable of such a crime ! And yet this is the
legitimate fruit of our " glorious Union." What better could be ex
pected from the political companionship of a people who live by

REVOLtJTION THE ONLY REMEDY FOR SLAVERY. 7
plunder, and make education a crime ? What is here said of Mas
sachusetts is essentially true of all the north. There is not a soli
tary foot of soil beneath the shadow of the stars and stripes where
the slave-hunter may not pursue his prey.
Another provision of the Constitution requires the United States
to "protect each of the States against domestic violence." This
provision pledges the entire blood and treasure of the north to fight
the battles of slavery, and makes all who acknowledge allegiance
to the government virtually the body guard of slave masters. It is to
thera that the master looks to keep the peace on his plantation, and
in more instances than one have they responded to his call, by
sending a railitary force to suppress a slave insurrection. It is this
provision of the Constitution, more especially, which guaranties the
perpetuity of slavery. In a conflict with her slaves, it is not upon
herself that the south relies, but upon the strong, vigorous, athletic
arm of the north. Says the Maryville (Tenn.) Intelligencer, "We
of the south are, emphatically, surrounded by a dangerous class of
beings, — degraded, stupid savages, — who, if they could but once
entertain the idea that immediate and unconditional death would
not be their portion, would react the St. Domingo tragedy. But the
consciousness, with all their stupidity, that a tenfold force, superior
in discipline if not in barbarity, would gather from the four corners
of the United States and slaughter them, keeps them in subjection.
But to the non-slaveholding States particularly are we indebted for
a perman«nt safeguard against insurrection. Without their assist
ance, the white population of the south would be too weak to quiet
that innate desire for liberty which is ever ready to act itself out
with every rational creature." Said the Hon. Thomas D. Arnold,
of Tennessee, in the United States House of Representatives,
" What had the south to rely on if the Union were dissolved ?
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 drura ! "
Said the Hon. Mr. Underwood, of Kentucky, (lately of the United
States Senate,) on the sarae occasion, " 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"

8 ANTI-SLAVERY TRACTS.
Similar admissions have been made by many of the prominent
statesmen of the south, among whom is the late Hon. Henry
Clay; but our limits will not permit us to introduce them here.
Indeed, testimony on this point is unnecessary; for, as Mr. Un
derwood has well said, no sensible raan, at all familiar with the
subject, can fail to see that slavery draws its life blood from the
Union. If the protection of the north were withdrawn, the slaves
could only be kept in subjection by the constant presence of an
imraense standing array; and this would be entirely out of the
power of the south to raaintain.
A third provision of the Constitution requires the United States
" to protect each of the States against invasion."
It will readily be seen, that to protect the slave States against in
vasion is to cut off the slaves frora all hope of foreign aid, — the
very aid which secured our own independence, — and thereby to
postpone the day of their emancipation. It is defending freebooters
in the very act of plunder, and, of course, raakes us a party to the
crime. In resisting their masters by force, the slaves have a natu
ral right to seek assistance from whatever quarter they may think
proper ; and we cannot interfere with the free exercise of that right
without making ourselves responsible for the continuance of their
enslavement. Were they left thus free, — that is, were the protec
tion which the south receives from the Federal Government with
drawn, — there is reason to.believe that their appeal to the awakened
syrapathies of Christendom would not be in vain. The north is
to the slave what Russia is to Hungary — the strong right arm of the
power which mocks all his hopes.
The fourth provision of the Constitution touching the question of
slavery is that which gives to the slave States a representation in
Congress based upon slave property.
The effect of this provision is to give the slaveholding interests a
preponderance in the Federal Government, and thereby to place the
whole military and naval power of the nation, together with the na
tional treasury, entirely at the disposal of the slave power, thus ren
dering it morally impossible for the north to oppose any effectual
resistance to its raost arrogant deraands. In speaking of this with
other provisions of the Constitution, the late Hon. John Quincy
Adams holds the following language : —
" Yes, it cannot be denied — the slaveholding lords of the sjuth

REVOLUTION THE ONLY REMEDY FOR SLAVERY. 9
prescribed, as a condition of their assent to the Constitution, three
special provisions to secure the perpetuity of their dorainion over
their slaves. The first was the iramunity for twenty years of pre
serving the African slave trade ; the second was the stipulation to
surrender fugitive slaves — an engagement positively prohibited by
the laws of God, delivered from Sinai ; and, thirdly, the exaction,
fatal to the principles of popular representation, of a representation
for slaves — for articles of merchandise under the narae of persons.
* * * in fact, the oppressor representing the oppressed. * * *
To call government thus constituted a democracy, is to insult the
understandings of mankind. It is doubly tainted with the infection
of riches and slavery. Its reciprocal operation upon the govern
ment of the nation is to establish an artificial majority in the slave
representation over that of the free people in the American Con
gress, and thereby to make the preservation, propagation, and per
petuation of slavery the vita! and animating spirit of the national
government." By this critical analysis of the subject, we find three distinct
classes of slaveholders, each sustaining peculiar external relations
to the system. The first class are the clairaants of slaves. Tha
second are the raembers of those State governments which have
adopted and now regulate the system. The third are the members
of the general government — that government having assumed its
protection from all forcible interference from within or from without
It should also be remarked, that the latter class stand in the same
relation to the system in the District of Columbia and the Terri
tories as that occupied by the constituents of the State governments,
within their respective States. We have further seen that it is to
the support given to slavery by the general government that it owes
its existence at the present time. Had it been left exclusively to
the States in which it existed for protection, it might have passed
away many years since. The responsibility and guilt of slavehold
ing, therefore, rest upon the Federal government to the sarae extent,
and in the same degree, that they do upon the State governments,
or the slave claimants. As the virus of slavery is inwrought into the
very framework of the government, and the support of it is the legit
imate fruit of the existing compact, and must inevitably follow from
any political union whatever with slaveholders, this responsibility
is not confined to any particular party, or class of parties, but it falls

10

ANTI-SLAVERY TEACTS.

necessarily upon all parties which are now, or raay be hereafter,
organized under the Constitution ; and not only upon such parties,
collectively, but upon every individual of society who gives his
assent to that blood-stained instrument, or to the govemraent of which
it is the basis. It matters not how anti-slavery one may be in his
feelings or professions — to promise allegiance and support to a
Constitution which is "doubly tainted with the infection of riches
and slavery," is practically to betray the cause of freedom into the
hands of its enemies, by whomsoever that proraise may be made.
No support of slavery is so potent as that given to it by honest raen.
If the interpretation here given to the Constitution — and it is the
only one ever given to it by any legislative, judicial, or executive
body in the country — be the true one, the conclusion is inevitable
that to support it is, virtually, to becorae a slaveholder. It is to be
come an accomplice of the raaster in all the crimes which flow from
the systera, and, of course, to share his guilt and infamy. The only
admissible plea which can be made in abatement of judgraent, in
the case of any individual, is the general one of ignorance of the
nature of the act. We are, therefore, driven, logically, to the con
clusion, that all that anti-slavery which accepts the Constitution, and
acknowledges the Union, is utterly worthless, if not tainted and
epurious, so far at least as its political character and influence are
concerned. At best it is but a promissory note, the indorser of which,
though an honest man, has not the means to redeem his promise.
It is this complicity with slavery through the government which
has palsied all the efforts of our politicians to resist its encroach
ments, and confine it within its present limits. Having pledged
themselves to support it with their treasure and blood, within the
limits of the States where it now exists, they have become tainted
with its guilt, and have thereby lost their moral power to oppose its
progress into new territory. All their denunciations of slaveholding,
and their arguments against it, are rendered powerless by their
position. They are nothing more nor less than self-condemnatiotf
and self-reproach. " If slavery be a sin," responds its advocate,
"why do you engage to support it? Why allow it any where ? Ifit
be not a sin, why object to its introduction wherever fhe people
choose to have it?" And so all their preaching against it serves
only to disgust and exasperate while it has no tendency to reform.
The Christian proverb, " Cast first the beam out of thine own eye,

REVOLUTION THE ONLY REMEDY FOR SLAVERY. 11
and thou shalt then see clearly to pull out the mote fhat is in thy
brother's eye,'' contains a great philosophic principle, which, if dis
regarded in our efforts to reform others, is sure to vindicate itself in
our utter defeat. They who have sworn upon the altar of slavery
.are not the men fo fight the baffles of freedom. The recent un
paralleled success of the slave power has in it no hidden mystery.
If was repeatedly predicted by the abolitionists as the inevitable
result of the composition of the elements of our government. They
clearly saw, several years since, fhat a struggle against slavery car
ried on under a Constitution which pledged them fo its support must
inevitably end in utter defeat; and therefore wisely determined fo
renounce the government, and raise fhe flag of revolution. They
also saw, wifh equal clearness, that there was no alternative left
them but either to withdraw from fhe government or involve them
selves in fhe guilt of slaveholding ; and hence, for the sake of pre
serving their own personal purify, as well as for fhe slave's sake,
they decided fo exchange an alliance with slave claimants in the
government for an alliance with their slaves outside of if, and
against it.
In the Federal Union lies fhe grand secret of fhe strength of the
slave power. Of itself fhat power is contemptibly weak. If in the
countenances of their masters only fhe slaves discovered the visage
of a foe, not another sun would go down upon an unbroken fetter.
Backed by fhe entire body of non-slave-claimants of the south, it
could have no strength to stand against fhe combined forces of the
slaves, and their many sympathizers in the north, and in Europe.
But in its alliance with fhe free States, through the Federal govern
ment, its strength is immense. If rules with a rod of iron, and
none can say to it, " Why do ye so ? " If kills, and it raakes alive.
It casts info fhe shade fhe giant intellect of Webster, and places on
the highest pinnacle of political erainence and power a man whose
boon companions may be found in the bar rooms of the Granite
State, and whose fame has scarcely reached the reraofest township
of fhe county which gave him birth. It is able not only to com
mand the services of the entire body of our militia when an insur
rection is to be suppressed, an invasion fo be repelled, or a slave to
be recaptured, but it has seduced into its willing service, or awed
into submission, nearly every prominent raan throughout the entire
north. It has by fhe sarae means corrupted fhe heart of fhe church.

12 ANTI-SLAVERY TRACTS.
It has awed the pulpit into silence, and, in some instances, bribed
it info a scriptural defence of slavery. Whatever crime is perpe
trated against freedom amongst us, it is done in the name and for
the sake of the Union. Is a slave to be recaptured, it must be done
to save the Union. Is an abolitionist fined and imprisoned for hid
ing the outcast, it is done fo save the Union. Is the freedora of
speech cloven down by the lawless violence of a ruthless mob, '
by a shameful perversion of fhe law by a faithless court, it is dor
fo save the Union. Does a doctor of divinity offer up his mother i
his son on the altar of slavery, to serve in the harem or toil in tl
rice swamps, it i,s to save the Union. Indeed, no language ce
describe fhe depth of degradation to which this guilty connecfic
with slavery has reduced us. It has led us into the perpetration c
crimes at the very sight of which all Christendom has turned pa
with horror. And where this career of infamy is fo end God on,
knows. Thanks to his name, there is a remnant left, which has n
bowed the knee to this poUtical Baal — the seed, it may be, of a re-
olution which will yet bring light out of darkness, order out of chi
OS and confusion, and the sweet nectar of liberty from this sea c
fathomless corruption.
One of the most obvious, if not disgraceful crimes commi
ted against the cause of freedom by the north, is her fellowshi
of southern slave breeders and slave mongers as Christians and mil
isters of Christ. At the south the merabers of fhe different rei
gious sects traffic in the bodies and souls of their fellow-membei
They sell fhe living temple of the living God. Baptist sells h
brother Baptist on the auction block. The Methodist corarauni
with a woman on one day, and on the next sells her, if may be, f
prostitution. The Presbyterian gives fhe elements of a Savior's boc
and blood to a mother on Sunday, and on Monday sells her babe f o fl
slave trader, as we sell the calf to fhe butcher. And yet whe
these men visit our northern cities and large towns, they are take
to the bosom of our churches, and oftentimes made welcome to oi
pulpits, even while the blood of their victims is sfill dripping fres
from their fingers ! Againsf such indecency every instinct of oi
nature rises in rebellion. Even the unregenerate heart of fhe mo.= .
confirmed worldling mocks at fhe infamy of fhe church in this mat
ter. Indeed, so gross and flagrant is her inconsistency even with her
own professions, and so little apparent interest has she in maintain-

REVOLUTION THE ONLY REMEDY POR SLAVERY. 18
ing her present fellowship of southern slaveholders, that, to many,
her conduct seems a perfect enigma. They can see no sufficient
motive to induce her to adhere fo a practice which is a source of
great grief fo many of fhe most devoted of her merabers. But the
fault of such lies in searching for raotives in the wrong direction.
The secret of this attachment to an ecclesiastical connection with
the south is not to be found in any special love or affection exist
ing between the two sections, nor in any conscious honor or strength
derived from it by fhe north, but it is one of the many latent, but
fatal results of our " glorious Union." It is this political network
in the toils of which our ministry, as well as our statesmen, find
themselves bound hand and foot, and delivered over to fhe fender
mercies of fhe slave power. Gladly would the northern church,
undoubtedly, to-day cut her connection wifh fhe south, could it ba
done without disturbing other, and, to her, more important relations.
She feels the infamy of her position, and is smarting under tha
withering scorn of Christendom, but sees no ready way of escape.
The difficulty lies here ; By our political connection wilh the
south, all our influential statesraen and politicians are forced into
the interests of slavery. They have no hope of political preferment
and eminence but in swearing upon ifs altars, and vying with each
other in their readiness fo do its bidding. The government, which
is but another name for fhe slave power, holds in ifs hands the an
nual distribution of more than fifty millions of dollars, with all the
honors of office, and is therefore a power whose will none but a
martyr can afford to disregard. By means of this connection a sim
ilar influence is also exerted over our capitalists. All our commer
cial cities are threatened with the loss of southern trade unless they
consent to reraain true to the interests of slavery. By this mean*
Boston is made to vie with New York, and New York to rie with
Philadelphia, in doing whatever work the slave power may require
at their hands. The tariff is also a most effective instrument in the
hands of the slave power in controlling northern capitalists. The
north desires protection for her manufactures ; the slave power will
grant that protection only on condition of the most faithful allegi
ance on her part to its one great iiterest — its own preservation and
aggrandizement. Here, then, we have the two dominant classes of
society — fhe wealth and talent — placed entirely at the disposal of
the slave power, and ever listening to catch itt word of commaad
2

14 ANTI-SLAVERY TEACTS.
To them the Constitution is the higher law, and the will of the slave
power is the Constitution. What slavery requires of us is, that there
shall be no discussion of the subject here, and that we shall promptly
fulfil all our constitutional obligations to protect it, leaving the south to
direct the policy of the general government undisturbed by northern
interference; and the duty and aim of these men have ever been to
see fhat this requirement was obeyed. This is the work demanded
of them by their southern masters, and in consideration of the faith
ful performance of which they receive political preferment and
southern trade, with a tariff pitched upon a sliding scale. In fhe
prosecution of this work the pulpit, from its powerful influence over
the popular mind, naturally became a coveted instrument, and
through its dependence on the voluntary sj'stem for support, became
an easy prey to the assaults of so powerful an antagonist.
At a very early period of the anti-slavery enterprise, nearly fhe
entire clergy of fhe north were either bribed into an open, though in
direct support of slavery, or constrained to silence by the threat of
expulsion from their pulpits, and starvation for their dependent fam
ilies. Thus, through our political union with the south, have our
clergy been made the slaves of slaves, and our churches kept in a
position which is fast making the very name of Christianity a re
proach. What is here said of fhe clergy is essentially true of our
periodical press. By means similar fo those employed to subjugate
the pulpit has the press been muzzled by the slave power, and
made fo speak only fhe language of oppression.
Another difficulty which lies across the pathway of the church in
cutting her ecclesiastical connection with southern slaveholders, so
long as she reraains in a political union with thera, is fhe glaring
inconsistency of the act What principle of Christianity or of com
mon sense would warrant her in excluding a raan from her fellow
ship for a heinous crime, in the commission of which she had stood
his sworn defender? In concert with others, she has made slavery
and the slave trade lawful in our capital. Shall she, then, banish
a man from her table whose only offence is, that he has bought aud
sold slaves ?
Again : Should she exclude frora her fable those who hunt slaves
at the south, wifh what show of consistency could she admit to that
table those who, " conquering their prejudices," do the same thing
at the north ? Is slave hunting any more unchristian and villanous

REVOLUTION THE ONLT REMEDY FOR SLAVERY. 15
in Virginia than in Massachusetts or Michigan? As well might
the common drunkard refuse to associate with his cronies on ac
count of the quality of the liquor on which they had become intox
icated, or the bad character of the house at which it had been pur-
chasedjsas the northern church refuse to fellowship those of her own
faith, at the south, merely because they held slaves. Such a course,
should she attempt it so long as her political relations remain un
changed, would only make her fhe laughing stock, as she is now
the fool, of the slave power.
The only practicable way of cutting any of fhe cords which bind
her fo slavery is to sever them all at a single stroke. But so long
as she consents to sustain a government which annually consigns to
all fhe horrors of chattel slavery more than a hundred thousand of
ifs own children, turn and shift as she may, the mark of Cain will
remain upon her forehead. The only possible salvation from the
guilt of slaveholding is in the position long occupied by a singje
sect, — the old school Covenanters, — and more recently assuraed
by the abolitionists, of uncomproraising hostility fo a slaveholding
government, and total disfellowship, religiously, of all who persist
in upholding it.
We have now laid open before us fhe secret sources of the
strength of the slave power. We see that power, feeble in itself,
through the agency of fhe national government gathering into its
hand the strength and resources of twenty millions of freemen, and
employing them for its own aggrandizement. By means of this
agency it lays its hand upon our pulpit, and it is dumb ; upon the
press, and it is silent ; upon capital, and straightway, for the sake
of its per cent., it parts with its birthright ; upon our literature, and
forthwith it is self-emasculated. It commands our armies. It con
trols our treasury. It dictates law to our judges. It expounds the
gospel fo our churches. It has bound the conscience of the nation
by an oath to participate in its crimes, and thereby rendered its op
position impossible, or powerless. At its comraand we trample the
law of God under our feet, and refuse to hide fhe outcast. Thus has
it made us at once a nation of atheists and an empire of slaves.
Such is but a faint picture of the nature and strength of the evil
with which, as abolitionists, we are called to grapple. Our contest
is not with a few hundred thousand slave claimants, in distant
States, but with a nation powerful in all the elements of physical

16 ANTI-SLAVERT TRACTS.
Strength and intellectual greatness. The enemy is at our own door.
The entire government, from fhe presitlenf down fo the humblest
citizen in the retirement of private life, is, by the requirements of
the Constitution, its protector, and is sworn to defend it, if need be,
wifh fhe heart's blood. We lift our hand to succor the victim of the
merciless man-hunter, and the bayonet, not of the Carolina planter,
but of our next door neighbor, is thrust into our bosoms. We hasten
the panting fugitive on his flight, and forthwith we find ourselves
incarcerated within the walls of a prison built with our own money.
We turn fo the church for sympathy, and she brands us with the
double infamy of fanatici.^m and infidelity. We, on the other hand,
are few in number and liraited in resources. And yet our only
chance of success lie.s in being able to bring into the field and op
pose to this mighty cordon of strength, behind which slavery has in
trenched itself, a superior force. Where, then, lies our hope? Is it
in political tactics? in fhe skilful manoeuvring of forces already
committed by an oath fo the slave power ?
To the enlightened vision there is for this evil but one reraed)'.
Our strength all lies in a single force — the conscience of fhe na
tion. All else is on fhe side of fhe oppressor. But conscience,
that force of forces when properly instructed, is all, and always, on
our side. It is to this element of strength, then, that our attention
should be mainly directed. Our only hope is in being able to bring
the conscience of the nation into active conflict wifh its present
po.sition, in respect to slavery, and thereby induce a radical change.
What that position is we have already seen. The Constitution
requires of the general government the protection of slavery in such
of the States as choose to retain if, with no power to regulate or
abolish it. Hence the private citizen has no course left to hira but
either to aid in upholding the system, or renounce his allegiance to
the government. His only choice is between slaveholding and
revolution. By this subtle device of the slave power fhe whole
country has been leagued in defence of the institution, and the
north reduced to a raere subjugated province of the plantation.
The heart of fhe church has been corrupted by if, fhe conscience
of the country fettered, and our statesmen converted into sycophants
fawning at fhe feet of the slave power. Here, then, is the seat of
this terrible disease, and here especially must the remedy be ap
plied. Our first great work is to cut this Gordian knot, — the Union,

REVOLUTION THE ONLY REMEDY FOR SLAVERY. 17
— and set free the northern conscience from the restraints of the
constitutional oath. Till this is done, all other efforts will prove of
little avail. There is no hope for the slave, nor for the country, but
in revolution.
So long as we fulfil our constitutional obligations to slavery, it
will live, a,nd extend its domain, in spite of freesoil and free
democratic triumphs. To promise to fulfil them, with a different
purpose in our hearts, is an act of fraud which will most certainly
rob us of our raoral power, and make us alike fhe prey and sport of
our enemies. At present, we have little or nothing to do with fhe
slave claimants. They are, of themselves, but a mere cipher. Our
controversy is with the government which upholds the system, and
makes it possible for the raaster fo plunder his victira, and with a
clergy and church who baptize such a government, and thank God
for its existence, because, forsooth, it protects them and theirs,
though at the same time it inflicts upon millions of their counfryraen
outrages such as find no parallel under fhe darkest despotisms of
the old world — a government in whose capital stands the auction
block for the sale of huraan flesh, and many of whose senators have
acquired princely fortunes by robbing mothers of their babes. This
sin of the government and of fhe church must be brought and laid
at the door of every individual member of these corrupt bodies.
They must be made to see and feel that they cannot remain in or
ganizations which are employed in fhe commission of' such atro
cious crimes without being themselves partakers of the guilt. It
is fhe presence, mainly, of the seemingly good in these corrupt
organizations which gives them power to do the wrong. The vilest
members of our ffovernraent, if left alone, would stand aghast at its
wickedness. But the presence of better men keeps them in coun
tenance, fhe better class, meanwhile, excusing themselves with the
belief thaf the villains who use and direct them will alone be held
responsible for the results of their united action. Such delusion
must be dispelled, and all the guilt, and blood, and fathomless
aborainations of slavery rolled upon the individual conscience of
every raan who consents to support a government which legalizes
and protects it, or to fellowship a church which recognizes the mem
bers of such a government as ministers or followers of Christ If
we would succeed, our separation frora slavery raust be thorough
2*

18 ANTI-SLAVERY TRACTS.
and complete. " Come out from among them, and be ye separate,
and touch not the unclean thing," is the voice of reason, as well as
the language of Scripture.
The great anti-slavery lesson of to-day is, that support to institu
tions which protect or sanction slavery is slaveholding; and that
uncompromising hostility to all such institutions is the only genuine
anti-slaveiy. The tirae has gone by when lower ground than this
can be safely occupied by any true friend of liberty. As well
might we recognize a man who is in the daily use, in moderate
quantities, of intoxicating drinks, as a genuine friend of temper
ance, as regard him as a true abolitionist who proffers his allegiance
and support to a slaveholding government. The honesty of such a
man we may not perhaps question : but in his influence, as well as
by his position, he stands with the oppressor, and we should regard
and treat him as an enemy of the slave. Freedom allows no com
promises. The man who raakes them is ill begotten, and can never
inherit her estates. To consent to yield to fhe oppressor a single
barleycorn is, in, fact, fo yield principle, and consequently to yield
every thing. So we have always found it. So we always shall
find it, till fhe law of God is reversed, and the corrupt tree brings
forth good fruit. In every contest with evil, the highest ground is
the strongest. Indeed, our only real strength is in planting our feet
upon the absolute right, so that God can work wilh us and through
us. He is no compromiser. He has no part or lot with those who
abate one "jot or tittle " of his law to accommodate themselves to
fhe institutions of wicked men. The idea of hedging slavery in with
in certain limits is morally absurd. It can be exterminated, but it
can never be controlled. You can never say to it, " Thus far — but
no farther." And that anti-slavery which seeks raerely to confine
it within its present limits, or within any limits, is utterly spurious
and worthless. It is but a milder type of pro-slavery — a hybrid,
or, more properly, a kind of varioloid, whose only grace is in com
parison with the hateful disease to which it bears so close a resem
blance, and for which it serves as a substitute. Talk of confining
slavery ? As well might you talk of regulating fhe cholera, or of
confining the plague within certain limits, or say to intemperance,
" In such and such localities seek your victims, and we will defend
you there ; but pass not those boundaries." The vices are not our

REVOLUTION THE ONLY REMEDY FOR SLAVERY. 19
servants. We have power to exterminate them, if we will, but we
can never tolerate thera, except fo become our masters. A people
whose moral standard will permit them to tolerate slavery any where
are too weak fo resist ifs most arrogant demands, under fhe pres.sure
of temptations such as fhe slave power is always able to present.
If we would see our country free from the curse of slavery, we
must begin fhe work of its abolition by applying to it the golden
rule — the eternal law of absolute moral rectitude.
Our first work is with ourselves, fo bring our own conduct within
the requirements of this law, by assuming such a position towards
the slaveholding institutions of the country as we should desire
others fo occupy were we fhe slaves ; thus practically " remember
ing those in bonds as bound with them." Our next duty is to press
ifs claims upon fhe conscience of our neighbor, and give him no
rest till he also yields fo its requirements. Anti-slavery, it must be
remembered, is a reform as well as a revolution. It can progress
only cis the people are made better; and we can aid it only as we
exert a healthful moral influence on those around us. The slaves
can be delivered from their chains only by delivering their enslavers
from their guilt. In the same proportion thaf the one is raade mor
ally better is the other made politically and socially free.
By raeans such as are here proposed must fhe moral sentiments
of the country be renovated. When thaf shall have been done to
any considerable extent, fhe time will have come to commence the
work of reconstructing the government and remodelling the church.
But it raust be remembered, we cannot build without material; nor
is it wise to comraence fhe work till a raoderate portion, at least,
shall have been previously prepared. Let it be the aim, then, of
every true friend of liberty fo gef ready the public mind ; and in due
time will appear a master-builder under the superintendence of
whose tasteful and discerning eye will be reared an edifice worthy
the highest love and admiration of a free and generous people.
May God hasten the day when it shall be, our happiness to hail for
our beloved country a new State and a new Church, "wherein
dwelleth righteousness."
Reader, do you agree, in the main, with fhe views here presented ?
Suffer us, then, to exhort you fo engage, with all your heart, in the
work of their dissemination. Be yourself a preacher of this divine

20 ANTI-SLAVERY TEACTS.
gospel, leaning, in fhe mean time, upon the arm of Him who is
above all, and keeping your heart warra and overflowing with that
love which aniraated the bosom of our great Leader while on earth.
Remember the wretchedness and utter desolation of those for whom
you toil, and with what eagerness and intense anxiety they watch
your every raotion. Their destiny is in your hands ! Disappoint
not their hopes. Remember, too, thaf you are laboring for a world's
rederaption — for such is really fhe scope of this great enterprise.
" The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but raighty through
God to the pulling down of strong holds." Like the divinely illu
minated Saul of Tarsus, " Confer not with flesh and blood." Like
our revolutionary fathers, though with better weapons, defend fhe
struggling cause of Freedom manfully, heroically, against all its
enemies. Now is emphatically the time to work.

Published for gratuitous distribution, at the Office ofthe American
Anti-Slavert Society, No. 138 Nassau Street, New York. Also
to be had at the Anti-Slavery Offices, No. 21 CornhiU, Boston, and
No. 31 North Fifth Street, Philadelphia.

VAtI

3 9002 00775 1861