Viewing page 1 of 4

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[start page 1, left of header image]]

THE LIBERATOR IS PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY MORNING, AT THE ANTI-SLVERY OFFICE, 21 CORNHILL.

ROBERT F. WALLCUT, GENERAL AGENT
[image hand pointing right] TERMS-Two dollars and fifty cents per annum, in advance.
[image hand pointing right]  Five copies will be sent to one address for TEN DOLLARS, if payment be made in advance.
[image hand pointing right]  All remittances are to be made, and all letters relating to the pecuniary concerns of the paper are to be directed, (POST PAID,) to the General Agent.
[image hand pointing right]  Advertisements making less than one square inserted three times for 75 cents-one square for $1 00.
[image hand pointing right]  The Agents of the American, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Ohio Anti-Slavery Societies are authorized to receive subscriptions for the Liberator.
[image hand pointing right]  The following gentlemen constitute the Financial Committee, but are not responsible for any of the debts of the paper, viz.: FRANCIS JACKSON, ELLIS GRAY LORING, EDMUND QUINCY, SAMUEL PHILBRICK, and WENDELL PHILLIPS.
[image hand pointing right]  In the columns of the THE LIBERATOR, both sides of every question are impartially allowed a hearing.

[[end, left of header image]]

[[start page, right of header image]]

NO UNION with SLAVEHOLDERS!
THE U.S. CONSTITUTION IS 'A COVENANT WITH DEATH AND AN AGREEMENT WITH HELL.'

[image hand pointing right]  'Yes!  IT CANNOT BE DENIED-the slaveholding lords of the South prescribed, as a condition of their assent to the Constitution. three special provisions TO SECURE THE PERPETUITY OF THEIR DOMINION OVER THEIR SLAVES.  The first was the immunity, for twenty years, of preserving 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 merchandize, under the name of persons . . . . . in fact, the oppressor representing the oppressed! . . . To call government thus constituted a democracy, is to insult the understanding of mankind.  It is doubly tainted with the infection of riches and slavery.  Its reciprocal operation upon the government of the nation is to establish an artificial majority in the slave representation over that of the free people, in the American Congress ; AND THEREBY TO MAKE THE PRESERVATION, PROPAGATION AND PERPETUATION OF SLAVERY THE VITAL AND ANIMATING SPIRIT OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.' - John Quincy Adams.

[[end, right of header image]]

[[start page, middle header image]]

[[center of header image:  round medallion with Jesus Christ in the center with right hand raised and left hand holding a long staff with cross near top; to left of Jesus kneels a slave with bound hands folded as in prayer, looking up; to right of Jesus is a white man (plantation owner), on knees with back to Jesus, looking over right shoulder with right hand raised, blocking the gaze of Jesus, who is looking down at him;  in block letters in a rainbow-like arc are the words "I COME TO BREAK THE BONDS OF THE OPPRESSOR."  A ribbon threads from left to right along bottom of the medallion; left-side of ribbon reads THOU SALT LOVE THY; right-side of ribbon reads NEIGHBOR AS THEY SELF]]

[[left side of header image:  slave auction in progress, slave toddler with face in hands at feet of auctioneer, back of slave woman next to child, other slaves and horses to right of woman underneath a sign that reads SLAVES, HORSES, & OTHER CATTLE IN LOTS TO SUIT PURCHASE]]

[[right side of header image:  multigenerational family outside a barn-like structure, pointing to the right at a gate labeled EMANCIPATION under which and walking towards are throngs of people with hats waiving and carrying flags; to the left of the gate is the U.S. Capitol with a banner FREEDOM hanging off the top flag pole; hanging off the barn-like structure is a birdcage, with the cage door open; at the feet of the multigenerational family, to the right, is a spade lying on the ground, with a hoe crossed over it.]]

[[across bottom of image THE LIBERATOR]]

[[left]WM. LLOYD GARRISON, EDITOR.  [center]Our Country is the World, our Countrymen are all Mankind.  [right] J.B. YERRINTON & SON, PRINTERS.]

[[left]VOL. XXVI. NO 6.  [center]BOSTON, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1856.  [right]WHOLE NUMBER 1127.]

[start page left, column 1]
REFUGE OF OPPRESSION.
From the South-West Independent.
ABOLITIONISM AMONG THE CHEROKEES.
     Our readers will peruse the action had at the late Cherokee Council in regard to abolitionists.  The wisdom of the law is manifest, and the execution of such a law is not only vitally necessary to the welfare of the Cherokees, but is also of great importance to slave interests.
     The Cherokees cannot too soon enforce the salutary provisions of this act, nor can they be too early in placing themselves in an attitude of defense against the encroachments of the enemies of slavery.  They know not but the very soil they, with other tribes, occupy, may soon become the field where shall be fought the great and final battlefield where shall be fought the great and final battle in the cause of slavery.  Therefore, their action in respect to the protection of their slave property, and their declaration that their territory is slave soil, are of the utmost importance to the South ; and to the South the Cherokees must look as their natural and only refuge in the contest now going on with the foes of slavery.  It greatly behooves them to act up strenuously and firmly to the principles declared in the law referred to, and be prepared at all hazards to maintain the institution of slavery, and the rights they thereby possess.  In this maintenance they will most certainly receive the support, if need be, of the whole South.
     Too much care cannot be taken with regard to the insidious entrance among the Cherokees of abolition or Free Soil sentiments, and they cannot be too much on their guard against the wily principles of anti-slavery taking root in the minds of their youth.  Consequently, they should regard with distrust all those persons, whether they be missionaries or teachers, whether they be sincere in their Free Soilism, and ardent friends to the Cherokees, or not, who seek to promulgate or secretly circulate abolition doctrines, or in any degree to lessen that obedience and sense of service which the slave owes his master.  Such persons may have been the instruments of great good to the Cherokee people, and may justly claim the gratitude of the nation ; yet any attempt to introduce abolition doctrines to disaffect the slaves, or to exclude from the Church slaveholders because they are such, cancels that debt of gratitude, overcomes with evil the good they may have done, and deserves the frown of the nation and the condemnation of the law.
     We are happy to see this true spirit animating Cherokee legislators and that the people are determined that the abolitionist shall have no abiding place with them, but that he shall, when known, be immediately expelled their country.
     These sentiments, spirit and law, are the more important at this moment, on account of the strife now waging in Kansas.  That Territory is on the immediate Northern border of the Cherokee country.  The struggle that may there produce sanguinary results may tend to the success of anti-slavery, when the battle will be transferred to Indian territory.  How necessary, then, to be completely prepared to resist every encroachment, in any manner displayed, of the abolitionists against the right of Cherokees to hold slaves on their soil !  Kansas may become a free State, (which God fore-fend,) in which event, the whole northern boundary of the Cherokee Nation will be exposed to the constant depredations of abolitionists, and energetic attempts be made to lay the track of an 'underground railroad' across the Cherokee, Creek and Choctaw countries in Texas, for the spiriting away of slaves.  In that event, slave property may become untenable, or nearly valueless, through this whole region, while the abolitionists, flushed with victory in Kansas, may strain every nerve to bring Indian territory under the ban of Free Soilism. Should Kansas become a free State, (a result we deem at present improbable, but no impossible,) these things will surely transpire, and the struggle now rending Kansas will be transferred to the soil of the Cherokees, Creeks and Choctaws, and Kansas scenes there be re-enacted.  This is no idle talk.  Every word of it may, is liable to prove true.  The reality as well as the foreshadowing may come.  Five years since, had any one predicted what has taken place, is taking place in Kansas, his predictions would have been declared vain and idle.  But they would have been truth.  So, if Kansas should become a free State, if Southern immigration there is overwhelmed by a Northern Free Soil immigration, the battle afterwards will surely be fought on Indian soil.
     It not only then pressingly behooves the Cherokees and other tribes to take very stringent measures for the defense of their property, but it is a question of vital moment to the citizens of Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas, and should be heeded by them in time.  Early action of the sort indicated by the Cherokee law may prevent much future mischief, and may be the means of adverting a storm that elsewhere may sweep over our heads.
     In this action of the Cherokees, we have a deep interest, and we repeat that they cannot do too much to put down abolitionism, fraught as it is with so much present and future evil.

[[image line with small flattened diamond in middle -- indicates a break]]

     ABOLITION IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY- IS JOHN ROSS AN ABOLITIONIST?  We transfer to the [italics] Herald this morning, several very interesting extracts from our Kansas exchanges, on the slavery question and abolitionism in the Cherokee Nation, including a racy description of the great chief, John Ross, and the way in which he has become abolitionized through the anti-slavery Quakeress who rejoices in the title of the wife of the great, talented and wealthy chieftain.  One of our Arkansas contemporaries, however, insinuates that Gov. Ross is something of a Mormon in his matrimonial relations, which may or may not be true, as we have no positive personal knowledge upon the subject.  Be that as it may, our purpose in these extracts will be accomplished in exhibiting the anti-slavery sympathies of Gov. Ross, and the trouble which he is likely to bring upon himself and his people, if he shall persist in following this Jack-o'-lantern of abolitionism.
     The Cherokee Nation occupy a large portion of that great and fertile Indian reservation lying south of Kansas Territory, and west of Missouri and Arkansas.  To this reservation the government has transferred, from time to time, the remnants of various Indian tribes from the eastern side of the Mississippi, including Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks and Seminoles.  Surpassing all the rest in numbers, and in their progress in the arts and customs of civilized life, the Cherokees alone appear to have substantially solved the problem of the capacity of the Indian for civilization in his favor.  They are a prosperous and thriving community.  Their farms, shops, schools, churches, &c., their general habits of industry, sobriety and honesty ; their general character as intelligent, peaceable and law-abiding people, have established the fact that they at least are equal to the de-

[[end page left, column 1]]

[[start column 2]]

hands of a civilized organization.  Many of them, we believe, are wealthy planters and owners of slaves, and the institution of slavery is as much a part of their social system as of their next neighbors, the people of Missouri, Arkansas and Texas.
     Considering, therefore, their geographical situation and the Southern structure of their social institutions.  It is not surprising that the Cherokee Legislature should provide a law for protection against abolition emissaries living or coming among them.  The act which they recently did pass, it strikes us, was altogether reasonable, under the circumstances.  Nor can we conceive how their Governor, or Great Chief, John Ross, could veto such as act, except from sympathy with such fanatics, demagogues and humbugs as Wm. Lloyd Garrison, W.H. Seward, and 'Uncle Tom.'
     The commentaries of our Arkansas contemporaries on the mischievous tendency of any tampering or conniving with abolitionism among the Cherokess, in any case, are not overdrawn.  The only safety to the Cherokee nation, in their present locality, is to maintain their Southern institution of slavery, and to discourage, by all lawful means, the visitations of intermeddling and mischief-making abolitionists.  John Ross is said to be a half-breed, ranked as a great man even by the Cabinet at Washington.  As Governor of his people, he has certainly exhibited the highest qualities of soldier and civilian.  He must be aware, then, or ought to know, that the abolition of slavery among the Cherokees would inevitably be followed by their removal to some less desirable country farther West, or with the speedy destruction of the tribe, originating from repeated forays from Arkansas, Missouri and Texas, in search of fugitive slaves.  These visits would create bad blood, war would follow, and the now prosperous and happy Cherokees, with all the surrounding tribes, would soon be exterminated or expelled from their beautiful and fertile reservation.
     Let John Ross beware of the Kansas abolitionists.  The tribe of which he is the great Chief and Governor have made him a millionaire.  Let him, in return, remain faithful to them and their true interest.  Have nothing to do with abolitionism.  Its sympathies are for the black man, not the red man ; and for the black slave and against his master, and not for the free black, though he be starving for a crust of bread.  What would our abolitionists care for the utter destruction of the Cherokee nation, providing that thus another opening were made for another Kansas experiment against the South?  The Cherokees,, slaveholders themselves, have Southern Stats and slaveholders as their neighbors.  Is John Ross an abolitionist? [italics] New York Herald.

[[image line with small flattened diamond in middle -- indicates a break]]

[centered in column]  ALABAMA AND MASSACHUSETTS.
[italics] A Bill to be entitled an Act to enforce the Rights of Alabama against her enemies.

     Sec. 1.  Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Alabama in General Assembly convened.  That any one criminally indicted in this State for any cause whatever, may plead in bar to such indictment, that the person he had injured, by the act for which he was indicted, was a citizen of the State of Massachusetts, or that he was an agent or attorney, who in this State, had (since the passage of this bill) aided, or was aiding, in prosecuting or sueing [sic] in some Court, some person in some cause, in favor of a citizen of Massachusetts, or the defendant may plead in bar, that the cause he is indicted for, was directly prejudicial to some one, who in this State had aided, or was aiding in the extradition of some offender against the laws of the State of Massachusetts.
     Sec. 2.  And be it further enacted, that any one hereafter sued in a civil case, in law or equity, may suggest the facts provided for as a bar to indictments in the first section of this bill, and upon proof thereof, the Court shall continue said cause from term to term, until the said State of Massachusetts shall wholly remove the cause complained of in the preamble to this bill ; and if the plaintiff shall fail at each term to pay all costs due, the cause shall stand dismissed at the next Term of the Court.
     Sec. 3.  And be it further enacted, that when Massachusetts shall wholly remove the offense complained of herein, the Governor of the State shall issue his proclamation, stating the fact, and then this bill, as to that State, shall be void.
     Sec. 4.  And be it further enacted, that when any other State shall pass a law against the constitutional right of the Southern States to retake in their borders persons bound to service, the Governor of this State shall issue his proclamation announcing the fact, and then this bill shall to all intents and purposes be in full force against said State and its citizens.

[[image line with small circle in middle -- indicates a break]]

[centered in column] LYNCH LAW INVOKED
     'In an other country but this-under any other government but ours-Greeley, Giddings, Sumner ad Seward, with their gang of conspirators, would have long since have suffered a felon's death upon the gibbet, for the crime of treason against the country and the Constitution.  Their constant effort for years has been to break down the barriers of the Constitution and to overthrow the Union itself.  For the first time in the history of the country, they seem to have gained a position where their overt acts will claim, at the hands of the people, the infliction of that punishment from which, up to this time, they have been saved by the forbearing technicalities of the law.'- [italics] Richmond Examiner.

[[image line with small flattened diamond in middle -- indicates a break]]

[centered in column] From the Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle
     JEFFERSON SHERIFF'S SALE.-Will be sold, on the first Tuesday in FEBRUARY next, at the Market House, in the town of Louisville, Jefferson county, the following property, to wit : [italics] Two Hound Dogs, trained for running negroes.[end italics]-Levied on as the property of Nathaniel H. Bostick, to satisfy a fi. fa. from Jefferson Superior Court in favor of Thomas Pierce vs. said Nathaniel B. Bostick.  Property point out by the Plaintiff.  
[right justified] J.P. MULLING, D. Sheriff.

[solid line - break]
[centered in column] SELECTIONS.
[double line]
[centered in column] CALEB CUSHING IN 1836.
SPEECH DELIVERED IN CONGRESS ON THE ADMISSION OF ARKANSAS AND MICHIGAN INTO THE UNION.
[centered in column] [From Benton's Thirty Years' View.]
     Mr. Cushing, of Massachusetts, addressed the committee at length on the subject, of which only the leading passages can be given.  He said:
     'The House has now continued in session for the space of eighteen or nineteen hours, without any interval of refreshment or rest.  It is impossible to mistake the intentions of the ruling majority.

[end column 2]

[start column 3]

I see clearly that the committee is resolved to sit out the debate on these important bills for the admission of Michigan and Arkansas into the Union.  This, it is apparent, the majority have the power as well as the right to do.  Whether it be just and reasonable, is another question.  I shall not quarrel, however, with the avowed will of the House.  It has done me the favor to hear with patience on other occasions ; and I cannot render it the unfit return of trespassing on its indulgence at this unseasonable hour, nor seek to defeat its purposes by speaking against time.  But having been charged with sundry memorials from citizens of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, remonstrating against that clause in the constitution of Arkansas which relates to the subject of slavery, I should be recreant to the trust they have reposed in me, if I suffered the bill for the admission of Arkansas to pass without a word of protestation The extraordinary circumstances under which rise to address the committee impel me to brevity and succinctness ; but they would afford me no justification for a passive acquiescence in the admission of Arkansas into the Union, with all the sins of its constitution upon its head.
     The constitution of Arkansas, as communicated to the Congress in the memorial of the people of that territory, praying to be admitted into the Union, contains the following clause: 'The General Assembly shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves, without the consent of the owners.  They shall have no power to prevent emigrants to this State from bringing with them such persons as are deemed slabes by the laws of any one of the United States.'  This provision of the constitution of Arkansas is condemned by those whom I represent on this occasion as anti-republican, as wrong on general principles of civil polity, and as unjust to the inhabitants of the non-slaveholding States.  They object to it as being, in effect, a provision to render slavery perpetual in the new State of Arkansas.  I concur in reprobating such a clause.  The legislature of Arkansas is forbidden to emancipate the slaves within its jurisdiction, even though it should be ready to indemnify fully their owners.  It is forbidden to exclude slaves from being imported into the State.  I cannot, buy any vote of mine, ratify or sanction a constituion of government which undertakes in this way to forclose [sic] in advance the progress of civilization and of liberty for ever.  In order to do justice to the unchangeable opinions of the North, without, in any respect, invading the rights, real or supposed, of the South, my colleague [Mr. Adams.] the vigilant eye of whose unsleeping mind there is nothing which escapes, has moved an amendment of the bill for the admission of Arkansas into the Union, so that if the amendment be adopted, the bill would read as following [hole in paper] The State of Arkansas is admitted into the [hole in paper] upon the express condition that the people of the said State shall never interfere with the primary disposal of the public lands within the primary disposal of the public lands within the said State, nor shall they levy a tax on any of the lands of the United States within the State ; and nothing in this act shall be construed as an assent by Congress [to the article in the constitution of the said State relating to slavery, and to the emancipation of the slaves, or] to all or to any of the propositions contained in the ordinance of the said convention of the people of Arkansas, nor to deprive the said State of Arkansas of the same grants, subject to the same restrictions, which were made to the State of Missouri."  This amendment is, according to my judgment, reasonable and proper in itself, and the very least that any member from the North can propose in vindication of the opinions and principles of himself and his constituents.
     It is opposed, however, by the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wise.] with his accustomed vigor and ability.  He alleges considerations adverse to the motion.  He interrogates the friends of the proposed amendment in regard to its force, effect, and purposes, in terms which seem to challenge response ; or which, at any rate, if not distinctly and promptly met, would leave the objections which those interrogatories impliedly convey, to be taken as confessed and admitted by our significant silence.  What may be the opinions of Martin Van Buren as to this particular bill, what his conduct formerly in reference to  similar case, is a point concerning which I can have no controversy with the gentlemen from Virginia.  I look only to the merits of the question before the committee.  There is involved in it a principle which I regard as immeasurably more important than the opinion of any individual in this nation,  however, high his present situation or his possible destiny-the great principle of constitutional freedom.  The gentleman from Virginia, who I cheerfully admit, is always frank and honorable in his course upon this floor, has just declared that, as a southern man, he had felt it to be his duty to come forward and take a stand in behalf of an institution of the South.  That institution is slavery.  In like manner, I feel it to be my duty, as a northern man, to take a counter stand in conservation of one among the dearest of the institutions of the North.  This institution is liberty.  It is not to assail slavery, but to defend liberty, that I speak.  It is demanded of us, Do you seek to impose restrictions on Arkansas, in violation of the compromise under which Missouri entered the Union?  I might content myself with replying that the State of Massachusetts was not a party to that compromise.  She never directly or indirectly assented to it.  Most of her representatives in Congress voted against it.  Those of her representatives who, regarding that compromise in the light of an act of conciliation important to the general interest of the Union, voted for it, were disavowed and denounced at home, and were stigmatized even here, by a southern member, as over-compliant towards the exactingness of the South.  On the first introduction of this subject to the notice of the House, the gentleman from Virginia made a declaration, which I particularly noticed at the time, for the purpose of having the tenor of the declaration distinctly understood by the House and by the country.  The gentleman gave it to be known that, if members from the North held themselves not engaged by the terms of the compromise under which Missouri entered into the Union, neither would members form the South hold themselves engaged thereby : and that, if we sought to impose restrictions affecting slave property on the one hand, they might be impelled, on the other hand, to introduce slavery into the heart of the North.  I heard the suggestion with the feelings natural to one born and bred in a land of equality and freedom.  I took occasion to protest, in the surprised impulse of the moment, against the idea of putting restrictions on liberty in one quarter of the Union, in relation of the attempt to limit the spread of slavery in another quarter.  I held up to view the inconsistency and inconsequence of uttering the warmest eulogiums on freedom one day, of pouring out aspirations that the spirit of liberty might pervade the universe, and at another time threatening the North with the establishment of slavery within its borders, if a northern member should deprecate the legal perpetuation of slavery in a proposed new State of the West.  It did not fall within the rules of pertinent

[end column 3]

[start column 4]

debate to pursue the subject at this time ; and I have but a single idea to present now, in addition to what I then observed.  It is not possible for me [hole in page] whether the gentleman from Virginia, and [hole in paper] of his friends or fellow-citizens at the South, deliberately and soberly cherish the extraordinary purpose which his language implied.  I trust it was but a hasty thought, struck out in the ardor of debate.  To introduce slavery into the heart of the North?  Vain idea!  Invasion, pestilence, civil war, may conspire to exterminate the eight millions of free spirits who now dwell there.  This, in the long lapse of ages incalculable, is possible to happen.  You may raze to the earth the thronged cities, the industrious villages, the peaceful hamlets of the North.  You may lay waste its fertile valleys and verdant hillsides.  You may plant its very soil with salt, and consign it to everlasting desolation.  You may transform its beautiful fields into a desert as bare as the blank face of the sands of Sahara.  You may reach the realization of the infernal boast with which Attila the Hun marched his barbaric hosts into Italy, demolishing whatever there is of civilization or prosperity in the happy dwelling of the North, and reducing their very substance to powder, so that a squadron of cavalry shall gallop over this site of populous cities, unimpeded as the wild steeds on the savannas of the West.  All this you may do : it is within the bounds of physical possibility.  But I solemnly assure every gentleman within the sound of my voice, I proclaim to the country and to the world, that, until all this be fully accomplished to the uttermost extremity of the letter, you cannot, you shall not, introduce slavery into the heart of the North'

[[image line with small flattened diamond in middle -- indicates a break]]

[centered in column] From the Boston Atlas.
[centered in column] PRESIDENTIAL HEARTLESSNESS.
     Mr. Franlin Pierce came into office upon the top-wave of popular feeling, and as he took the President's chair, he saw the only party that had ever successfully opposed his own, disbanded forever.  He has managed since that time with marvelous ingenuity to alienate a thousand friends, and to build up an opposition strong in principle and numbers, and needing only harmony to secure success.  There must have been a perversity positively unique in the policy which he has adopted, for no man ever lost supporters and made enemies with half the rapidity.  We waive the petty animosity of disappointed office-seekers, and the inevitable jealousies of rivals ; we confine ourselves to the popular masses, which the President ha been so successful (his only success!) in alienating.  And, when we consider his career, we are at no loss to account for the downfall of his popularity.  He is not only hard-headed but hard-hearted ; beyond the narrow limits of a party creed his attachments never wander ; to the world's progress he seems utterly blind, and of the world's emotion utterly ignorant.  No public person of our time ha  had such a knack at doing ungenerous and ungraceful things.  We do not understand how any man, of the most ordinary good nature, could have been willing to rekindle the smoldering fires of a terrible controversy-could have been made the dupe or tool of Douglas-could have adopted, not merely as a part, but as the distinguishing feature of his administration, the Kansas iniquity.  Surely, upon retiring from the Presidency, most men would have preferred to look back, not upon prejudices strengthened, not upon the peace of society disturbed, not upon dangerous passions awakened, not upon the Union convulsed by civil broils ; but rather upon feuds arranged, upon agitation quieted, upon compacts kept, upon laws preserved and obeyed.  But national chaos, rather than national contentment, seems to have been most pleasing to the soul of the President.  To awaken the whirlwind, to stimulate sectionalism, to alienate brethren, has been its most congenial work.
     The minor characteristics of the Administration have been worthy of its leading one.  There has b been a perfect consistency throughout, and every thing is in admirable keeping.  No generous act disfigures the charming deformity.  The Land bill for the benefit of the insane might have tempted the strictest constructionist to relax a little the rigor of his interpretation ; but our President found an odd sort of pleasure in crushing it by a veto.  The French Spoliation bill was of a similar character.  If it had become a law, an act of simple national justice would have been performed ; and, more than this, private penury would have been relieved, private suffering abated.  This was enough to secure official disapproval ; Mr. Pierce made haste to veto it, and to break the hearts of the petitioners.  The bombardment of Greytown was another act not at all inconsistent with those already mentioned.  To knock over a village, to frighten all the women and children, and to ruin half a dozen merchants, were deeds, at which the future historian will not be at all incredulous.
     But the last Kansas message caps the climax of Presidential fearlessness. One might have thought that Mr. Pierce, New England born and bred, and knowing, as he must have known, the character of those who left homes here, to found new homes in the wilderness, would have sympathized, not warmly, perhaps, for his nature is a cold one, but to a limited extent, with those who were willing to suffer and to toil for a principle.  he knows the character of these emigrants.  he knows what they are sober, laborious, hard-working men.  He knows that they are not intermeddler nor brawlers ; that unmolested, uninjured, they are peaceable, law-abiding citizens.  He knows that they suffered contumely, and insult, and provocation of every description, before they lifted a finger in self-defense.  And yet yet looks coldly upon their forbearance and their injuries, and contemptuously puts them in the same category with the Missouri borderers, whose daily avocation is violence, and whose business is brawling!  Would a nNew Englander, with his heart in the right place, have done this?  Would he have insulted and defied the highly respectable gentlemen interested in the Emigrant Aid Societies?  No pleas of nationality will suffice to excuse the monstrous infidelity; for the President swings quite in an opposite direction, and for fear of being sectional with New England, he prefers being sectional with Missouri.  He discards the equal laws, the free labor, the peace and order of the East, only to adopt the semi-civilized code, the oppression of white men, and the anarchy of the baronial Legislature.
     Such a President, we do not b believe the people will desire to re-elect.  They do not wish for a continual refrigerant in Washington.  They do not, it is true, want a fanatical, nor a merely emotional President ; but they have a slight preference for a man who is capable of feeling, whenever the occasion demands feeling.  To be icily stern, to steel the heart against all emotions of pity, against every suggestion of honor ; to be utterly merciless against all contemners of the party creed, is to be simply a party President, and not the President of the people.  Let us hope that Mr. Pierce's successor, whoever he may be, will bring to the office more head, or at least a little more heart.

[end column 4]

[start column 5]
[center in column] THE LIBERATOR.
[double line]
GENERAL AGENT OF THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY,
[italics] At the Twenty-Third Annual Meeting, Jan., 1856.
     During the year 1855, the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society has, to a greater extent than usual, divided with the American Anti-Slavery Society the work of cultivating the moral soil of New England, and of sowing on such good ground as could be found within its limits, that seed-wheat of Truth, which, in accordance with the unchangeable laws of the Lord of the harvest, never fails to produce good fruits, even an hundred fold in the present life, and in the time to come a growth far more precious, Losing not one jot of hope or faith, and undeceived by the specious cries of 'Lo, here! and lo, there!' which continually arise in various quarters, from such as think to find an easier road to justice and righteousness than by repentance of sin and ceasing from all union with oppressors, -this Society has steadfastly pursued its way, laying the axe at the root of slavery, and exposing and rebuking the time-serving partizans, the sycophantic and servile editors, the hireling priests, who give their pens and voices to the advocacy or palliation of the Heaven-defying sin of slaveholding, and who invent every conceivable apology for the commission of crimes on which God, in Nature and in Revelation, has set the express seal of his abhorrence and condemnation.-The work of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, and of its associate Societies, can never be a popular work.  When the truths it teaches shall be accepted by the people in reality, and its principles wrought out into living statutes and actual measures, its object will have been gained, its occupation will be gone, and it will have kolonger a work and office to perform.  Until that time, it must continue to do the thankless yet necessary work of showing the people their transgressions and their sins ; of branding the respectable and wealthy criminals of th eland with their just characters, and of facing the oppressor in high places with the plain and wholesome declaration, THOU ART THE MAN.  The command of God, the voice of whatever in us is noble and divine, calls us to this work as our [italics] duty.  We have accepted it as such, and the doing of it has already been made an exceeding great reward.  Both are possible [rest of line obscured by fold in paper] better peace which accompany a sincere devotion to this work, and an honest utterance of its so needful truths.
     The work done in New England during the year past, though done in part under the auspices of the American A.S. Society, as already suggested, is also truly the work of this Society.  Whenever the American Society has been able to give of its strength to the cause in New England, this Society has promptly spared to it such agents as might be in its employ, and has liberally (in proportion to its means) contributed to sustain the work which the American Society was doing, both here and in several Western States besides.  I shall not, therefore, speak of the anti-slavery work done in Massachusetts and other New England States, the past year, as a divided work, but as one and the same, having one common spirit and purpose ; though I shall designate, generally, the several fields occupied by the two Societies, respectively.
     The following persons have acted as Agents of his Society during the past year, or of the American Anti-Slavery Society, cooperating with this :
     WILLIAM W. BROWN, SALLIE HOELLEY, STEPHENS. FOSTER, ABBY KELLEY FOSTER, CHARLES C. BURLEIGH, ANDREW T. FOSS, CHARLES L. REMOND, WILLIAM H. FISH, LEWIS FORD, DANIEL S. WHITNEY, NATHANIEL H. WHITING, and others.  Messrs. GARRISON, QUINCY and PHILLIPS have often, and generously, contributed their valuable aid.  Rev. ROBERT HASSALL, late of Mendon, has cooperated zealously and effectively with our Agents, acting himself occasionally as an agent of one of our County Societies (the Worcester South); and a few other Christina ministers have cheerfully and vigorously come to the help of our cause and our movement, among whom we gladly name THEODORE PARKER, JAMES F. CLARKE, D.A. WASSON, T.W. HIGGINSON, SAMUEL JOHNSON, DANIEL FOSTER, ELNATHAN DAVIS, CHARLES E. HODGES, and others, whom it would be a pleasure to name.
     W.W. BROWN, with the exception of the tow months of March and April, when he was in Ohio, spent the entire year in New England, lecturing in the five States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.  Recently, Mr. B. has been accompanied by his daughter, who gives promise of becoming an interesting and useful speaker.  MISS HOLLEY has been in New England the whole year, always as an Agent of this Society, visiting also New Hampshire and Rhode Island, and doing by her persuasive eloquence a large work in favor of humanity.  MR. FOSTER, sometimes as an Agent of this, and sometimes of the American Society, has been occupied during the year in New England, with the exception of the three autumn months, in which he labored in Michigan, Indiana, and other Western States.  The health of MRS. FOSTER has been such as to withdraw her from the public service of the cause the greater part of the year.  But, while her health permitted, she conducted a brief but successful anti-slavery campaign in New Hampshire, and also labored awhile effectively in Rhode Island.  Mr. BURLEIGH passed about half the year in New England, mainly as an Agent of the American Society.  Mr. REMOND has given occasional and valuable help, in various parts of the State.  Messrs. FISH, WHITNEY, WHITING AND FORD have labored, with zeal, and most ready self-consecration, as circumstances have allowed.  As already remarked, every State in New England has been visited,-some of them repeatedly and laboriously; every county in Massachusetts has been visited and gone over with more of less thoroughness, with the exception of the two island counties.  Not fewer than 450 Conventions, County meetings, and town and village lectures, have been held or given ; but earnest and thorough as these have been doubtless been, how few are they amongst the large population of New England, and how greatly counteracted by the sophistries and moral opiates which the pulpits of New England, for the most part, are constantly administering on this subject!  It has formed a considerable part of the business of the General Agent of this Society [SAMUEL

[[end of column 5]]

[[start of column 6]]

MAY, Jr.] to make the needful arrangements for the Conventions, lectures, &c., just spoken of, and to attend such of the former as he might be able.  A large portion of his time is necessarily given to the interests of the cause beyond the limits of New England.
     In this connection, I cannot fail to notice, and in doing so I desire to commend to the especial attention and regard of the members of this Society, the systematic distribution of the Tracts of the American Anti-Slavery Society, by the hands of colporteurs, so called.  Want of funds alone has prevented the Society from pushing this measure on a much more extensive scale than as yet they have been able to do.  Three colporteurs of the American A.S. Society have labored in Massachusetts during the year past, viz., JOSEPH A. HOWLAND, CAROLINE F. PUTNAM, and DANIEL S. WHITNEY, the last for a few weeks only.  Miss Putnam has for the most part accompanied Miss Holley in her lecturing tours, and has effectively commended the cause she serves wherever she has gone.  her distribution of the Tracts appears to have been wise, and her efforts to enlarge the Tract Publishing Fund have been comparatively successful.  Mr. Howland's labors have been of the most persevering and uncompromising sort.  He has travelled through town after town, (chiefly in Worcester County,) visiting every school-district therein, every house and shop, passing by none whom a word of counsel or instruction could reach, and has carried sound doctrine, the undiluted, unadulterated truth of God to many hearts and homes, where before it had been known but partially, if at all on the subject.  It is obvious that, in doing so minute and thorough a work, many disagreeable and painful experiences must occur, as well as those of an opposite description.  These close personal inquiries and conferences did not fail to reveal much of the sources and nature of the opposition existing in the Northern States to the Anti-Slavery cause.  At some future time, it may be that Mr. Howland will prepare for publication i our papers a record of his experiences as an anti-slavery colporteur and lecturer.  Viewed only in a philosophical point, and with reference to the better study and understanding of the New England mind, and of those sectarian and clerical, or political and self-seeking influences which go to shape and form it, such a record would be a valuable one.
     This leads me to say a word of the TRACTS themselves.  There is the greater reason for doing so, as these tracts are stereotyped and published in Boston, and the General Agent of this Society is also the Agent [words lost in fold of paper] the superintendence of this branch of their operations, and for the publication and distribution of the Tracts.  Seventeen different Tracts have been published in the Society's series, in addition to several not included in the regular series ; and of these, a very great number have been scattered during the year past.  They are highly valued by our friends as able essays and effective appeals.  Still, a want is felt and expressed of some additional Tracts, briefer, more practical, more direct in their work upon the heart and conscience ; some, also, which shall be specially adapted to children and young persons-interesting, adapted to their thoughts and feelings, and suited to make upon their young natures the moral impression, which, one made at that plastic time, is never effaced.
     The [italics] Tract Fund [end italics] is nearly exhausted.  It needs replenishing and enlarging.  Our friends should remember this fund.  In nearly every town in New England, if the moderate effort were made, by an intelligent person resident in the town, a handsome sum might be collected for this fund; and many would contribute to it who would not help the cause in any other way.  Our Tracts may safely challenge the scrutiny of the most fastidious and the most prejudiced.  In respect of the social force, clear statement, abundant authority for their startling facts and disclosures, and moral and truly Christian character, they invite and will bear the closest inspection.  Millions of their pages have gone over the land, doing a silent but irresistible work in behalf of justice and humanity; and we ask the true, the unselfish, the real friends of the Anti-Slavery cause, to continue their support of this work, and see to it that it does not languish and fail through their forgetfulness and lack of timely aid.
     Among the other leading publications of our Society (or of the parent Society) during the past year are, [italics] The Annual Report of the American Anti-Slavery Society [end italics], a work of the highest moral and historical value,-the Proceedings of the Meeting held to commemorate the [italics] Twentieth Anniversary of the Boston Pro-Slavery Mob of 1835, - and the Liberty Bell, [end italics] published in connection with the Anti-Slavery Bazar of December last.  These are, in an especial manner, works which anti-slavery men and women should procure, or aid in circulating through the community.  They contain that truth, in rich and varied forms, which alone can make our people wise to their salvation as a people.
     If, then, this Society should seem to any to have done less the past year than in former years, it is mainly because it has transferred its agents and means to other fields, where they have appeared to be more needed, or more likely to advance the common cause.  It has contributed, more lately than usual, to the treasury of the Parent Society ; and it has received in return a due share of that Society's efficient aid.
     It has necessarily, therefore, fallen to the General Agent's lot to have the sphere of his duties extended considerably beyond the State.  But he has not felt, at any time, that he had ceased to be the Agent of Massachusetts Abolitions, knowing that they would rejoice all the more hen their principles were extended, and a portion of their contributions employed in proclaiming the gospel of freedom amongst thousands who have left their New England homes, or who have gathered from every quarter of the earth to found a nation in the far western land.
     The past has been an eventful year in the history of our cause, and the present one opens with like prophecy.  The struggles in Kansas to found  a Sate without slavery are matters of daily and most eventful history; and every lover of freedom and true republicanism listens anxiously, yet hopingly, for every new report from that distant territory.  How will the contest be decided ? is a question of very deep significance.  Believing it to be a contest of desperation on the slaveholdrs' part, we cannot but earnestly desire their defeat.  Yet, we cannot conceal it from ourselves, that the too probable result will be, if Kansas be secured to a nominal freedom, that the vile American spirit of 

[[end of column 6]]

[[end of page 1]]