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[[newspaper masthead]] [[double-line]] [[3 columns]] [[column 1]] [[bold]] THE LIBERATOR. [[/bold]] --IS PUBLISHED-- EVERY FRIDAY MORNING, --AT THE-- [[bold]] ANTI-SLAVERY OFICE, 21 CORNHILL. [[/bold]] [[horizontal line]] [[bold]] ROBERT F. WALLCUT, General Agent. [[/bold]] [[horizontal line]] [[^Image: line drawing of hand pointing right]] TERMS--Two dollars and fifty cents per annum, in advance. [[^Image: line drawing of hand pointing right]]Five copies will be sent to one address for TEN DOLLARS, if payment be made in advance. [[^Image: line drawing of 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: line drawing of hand pointing right]]Advertisements making less than one square inserted three times for 75 cents--one square for $1.00. [[^Image: line drawing of hand pointing right]]The Agents of the American, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan Anti-Slavery Societies are authorised to receive subscriptions for THE LIBERATOR. [[^Image: line drawing of 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. [[/column 1]] [[column 2]] [[^image: masthead for THE LIBERATOR depicting a slave auction on one side, a Jesus emblem in the middle, and freed slaves on the right]] [[/column 2]] [[column 3]] [[bold]] NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS [[/bold]] ----- [[bold]] The United States Constitution is a 'covenant with death, and an agreement with hell.' [[/bold]] ----- [[^Image: line drawing of hand pointing right]]' The free States are the guardians and essential supports of slavery. We are the jailers and constables of the institution. . . . There is some excuse for communities, when, under a generous impulse, they espouse the cause of the oppressed in other States, and by force restore their rights; but [[italics]] they are without excuse in aiding other States in binding on men an unrighteous yoke. [[/italics]] ON this subject, OUR FATHERS, IN FRAMING THE CONSTITUTION, SWERVED FROM THE RIGHT. We their children, at the end of half a century, see the path of duty more clearly than they, and [[italics]] must walk in it. [[/italics]] To this point the public mind has long been tending, and the time has come for looking at it fully, dispassionately, and with manly and Christian resolution. . . . No blessing of the Union can be a compensation for taking part in the enslaving of our fellow-creatures; nor ought this bond to be perpetuated, if experience shall demonstrate that it can only continue through our participation in wrong doing. To this conviction the free States are tending.' --WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. [[/column 3]] [[double-line]] WM. LLOYD GARRISON, Editor. Our Country is the World, our Countrymen are all Mankind. J. B. YERRINTON & SON, Printers. [[double line across page]] [[/newspaper masthead]] VOL. XXVII. NO. 23. BOSTON, FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 1857. WHOLE NUMBER, 1378. [[double line across page]] [[6 columns]] [[column 1]] REFUGE OF OPPRESSION. [[double line across column]] From the Boston Traveller. [[sic]] THE ABOLITIONISTS AT THE MELODEON. The Garrisonian Abolition Convention honored the Traveller yesterday with several hours of unqualified abuse. We are rather hardened to such compliments, but accept it thankfully, in the assurance that whatever the Garrisonians abuse any one for doing, is generally about right. The particular sin laid to our charge appears to consist in having reported, somewhat sportively, the operations of the gentle gathering in the Melodeon the day before. We were present once at a debate in the United States Senate, in which Mr. Cass took similar offence [[sic]] at Mr. Hale, and the latter replied that he treated subjects according to their merits in his judgment; if ridiculous, with ridicule; if serious, with gravity. Mr. Cass, on cooling, adjusted his wig, and begged Mr. Hale's pardon, but it is too much to expect the Garrisonians to follow his example. It is generally well to let these peppery individuals alone. (We use the word individuals, because the word gentlemen does not apply, being applicable to one sex only.) They are trained to proficiency in abusive language just as a carpenter is trained in planing, or a mantua-maker in sewing, and they understand their trade. At the risk, however, of another demolition to-day, we shall venture to make a few serious suggestions, which our Melodeonic friends will do well to heed. We have a sincere respect for certain members of the Garrisonian party. Some of them are talented, refined, eloquent, honest, and our personal friends. We know hardly any one, for example, for whom we entertain more regard than for Mr. Wendell Phillips. But the great majority forfeit all claim to our esteem by being blasphemous, vituperative, coarse and vile, in their manners and language. We need only instance a man named Foss, who has the impudence to claim the title Reverend, and who began a sentence in a speech at New York week before last with the phrase, 'I hate the Union,' and ended it with saying, 'I hate Jesus Christ.' All the leaders of the Garrison party sat around, but no one of them rebuked this monstrous blasphemy. The speech was circulated through all the Southern papers, and Mr. Ross was denounced as 'a Republican.' If he had died in his cradle, he would have done better by himself, than to have lived to commit this sin. The same style of thought has been manifested at this gathering in the Melodeon. We listened yesterday to the comprehensive abuse uttered by Mr. Higginson, who also claims to be a minister of the Gospel. If we had staid five minutes longer than we did, we should have been convinced that the population of the world consisted of one billion of depraved wretches, and one perfect man named Higginson. It was just so with the whole of them, the same eternal whine, redeemed only in the case of Wendell Phillips by eloquence. All such stuff does only harm. The few Garrisonians whom we believe honest in uttering it, we wish could be brought under different influences, for they are unconsciously injuring the Anti-slavery cause. They are sustaining by the weight of their character an organization, four-fifths of whose members are selfish or indiscreet men, or unsexed women; and organization which has become fruitless, and will die in the next generation. In the monotony of life, individuals are not continually conscious of their real position in society, but though rare, moments of such realization sooner or later occur to every man. We wish that such a moment may occur to part of these gentlemen in the Melodeon, to-day. Let them stop and think in what company they are training, and what good purpose, if any, they are serving. For the remainder of the Garrisonian party, the strong-minded women, and the professional humanitarians, who earn their daily bread by injuring the noble cause they profess to serve, we have no feelings but of ridicule and contempt. It is useless to meet them with argument. They are not worth treating with pity. One of their peculiarities is a key to their whole character--the nearer a well-behaved man comes to their professed Anti-slavery doctrines, the more vilely they abuse him. [[short dividing line]] NEW ENGLAND ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION. The afternoon meeting of the Anti-Slavery Convention was not very fully attended, probably owing to the necessity of obtaining a further supply of physical fuel* to keep the fires of disunion at white heat. [[Footnote from the bottom of the column.]] *In noticing the first session of the Convention, the Traveller flippantly said--'Mr. Phillipe here gave out, when the meeting adjourned for physical fuel.'--Lib. [[Footnote ends.]] The Traveller was the principal, certainly the only interesting subject of discussion during the afternoon; but before that was taken up a gentleman, whose name we were unable to learn, hailing, we believe, from Virginia, spoke for half or three-quarters of an hour in a strain of uninterrupted fervor, and with an immense expenditure of lingual, lungual, ventral and physical force. To compare his eloquence to anything except Niagara, would be to do him and that well-know mill-stream great injustice. Our reporter's feelings were precisely like those of a man under the sheet of this famous cataract, but our limited space prevents us from transcribing anything from his notes, except the following sentence, which will give in a nut-shell the gist of the speaker's logical argument, and convey some idea of the exuberance of his rhetoric, the fire of his manner, and the music of his voice: 'A a ang o w gh o sh pzzz st m a e i o n ng rrr K a nn gs a zzz f l g i q p st rr sh sh n g ang--rrr rrr rrr--and the temple of the free.' [[That gibberish was intentional.]] Notwithstanding the enthusiasm with which the speaker was received and applauded, some person in the assembly had the impertinence to get up and ask the chairman of the meeting if he was going to speak all the afternoon. Owing to his shockingly bad taste in the matter of oratory, the speaker speedily concluded, and was succeeded by Mr. Samuel May, who took for his text the [[italics]] Traveller's [[/italics]] report of the meeting of the Convention yesterday. We are sorry to say that he failed to do justice to his excellent subject. We had supposed that the nature of the theme would inspire him, but no--it was one dead level, only varied by a few biographical reminiscences of the [[italics]] Traveller's [[/italics]] editor-in-chief, the history of the Great Consolidation &c., &c., all instructive and interesting but not exactly [[italics]] ad rem [[/italics]]. Mr. May forgot to mention that our ten-cylinder press will soon be sent on and put up, when we hope to be able to satisfy all our friends and patrons, and move wholly in quarto-style. At the conclusion of his remarks, Mr. May offered some resolutions:-- 1. Resolved, That the [[italics]] Traveller's [[/italics]] report is scurrilous in general and false in particular, and now we know which way the fox runs. 2. Resolved, That the gentlemen who constitute this Convention have the monopoly of scurrility defamation, impiety, blasphemy, slander, and other moral and intellectual virtues and excellences. 3. Resolved, That good-natured raillery and sar- [[/column 1]] [[column 2]] casm when applied to this Convention, having the monopoly above mentioned, is sacrilege. 4. Resolved,That the [[italics]] Traveller [[/italics]] is a great but corrupt institution. 5. Resolved, That we never have read the [[italics]] Traveller [[/italics]], and do not take it. 6. Resolved, That we never will. All of which resolutions were adopted [[italics]] nem. con. [[/italics]], except that our reporter wished to add the following, but feared for his personal safety:-- 7. Resolved, That Mercury may just as well lay aside his 'talaria,' and wear brogans during the rest of his natural iife [[sic]]--that the [[italics]] Traveller [[/italics]] is now the organ of the Thunderer, and that all one-horse gods and goddesses are required to make room for the celestial incumbent. Our reporter left the Convention, with its various forefingers upon its respective noses, considering what could be done for P.P., versus the New York Tribune and the Boston [[italics]] Traveller, [[/italics]] while Mr. Garrison was occupying the platform.--[[italics]] Traveller. [[/italics]] [[flourish]] [[bold]] ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION. [[/bold]] William Lloyd Garrison, Abby Foster and Wendell Phillips were the speakers who addressed the Convention at the Melodeon in the evening. The hall was well filled with a gay and brilliant audience, rainbowlike in the brilliancy and delicate gradations of its colors. Mr. Garrison discussed the relations of the American Church to the Anti-Slavery Society, and discussed without the 'dis' the former. He characterized the Church as mean, base, bad-hearted, wicked, contemptible and cowardly. He bade his auditors give no more money (rather a useless piece of advice) to the various organizations co-operating with the Church, such as the Missionary, Tract, Sunday School and Bible Societies; and besought them to turn their funds into the all-perfect, the excellent and wholly disinterested Society which he represented. We observed no outbreak of spontaneous benevolence following this appeal, but it was evidently great fun to the audience to see this unceremonious vituperation of the bulwarks of orthodoxy. It did them a great good to hear the Church called the bulwark of slavery, especially as the speaker did not mention any fensible substitute for its systematic rascality in the process of converting the world. Abby Foster--[[italics]] in her Bloomer regimentals [[/italics]]--followed Mr. Garrison, in a brief and somewhat ineffective speech, which aimed to convince the Kansas free State men that their sufferings were good for them, and were merely in accordance with the law which has been wisely ordained, that the suffering of a single member shall be the warning of danger to the body politic. We didn't hear her explain how this comforted the suffering Member. She speedily made way for the orator of the evening. Mr. Wendell Phillips stepped upon the platform, and was greeted with long and continued cheers. He spoke for half an hour in a strain of mingled beauty and eloquence, such as only he is capable of. His argument was for disunion, and his immediate purpose to show that the Union was only a useless husk, to be puffed away for its worthlessness. 'Our civilization,' he said, 'was a growth, not a creation, and if the Union was taken away, there would still remain the Anglo-Saxon mind, that has risen through its hundreds of years to its present strength and power. Anecdote, fact, fun and fancy, sarcasm, wit and argument, all mingled in the stream of his eloquence, and [[italics]] puttied the audience to their seats [[/italics]] till half-past nine, when the Convention adjourned till ten to-morrow morning.--[[italics]] Traveller. [[/italics]] [[short dividing line]] [[BOLD]] NEW ENGLAND A. S. CONVENTION. [[/BOLD]] Our reporter regrets that the interesting question of 'physical fuel' did not come up before the convention in the evening. He is confident that all the physiologists treat of man as a stove for the creation of heat; and of bread and beef-steak as its appropriate fuel, and therefore we went down to the Melodeon with an armful of authorities, from Carpenter to Cutter, and were ready to discharge at them the precedents and the language of surgeons and doctors, enough to give the disunionists visions of raw-heads and bloody-bones for the rest of their lives. The Convention wisely refrained from discussing the question. The resolutions condemning the [[italics]] Traveller's [[/italics]] infringement of patent, were read again, amidst murmurs of gentle applause. Mr. C. L. REMOND, of Salem, (colored,) then uncorked his vials of wrath and anointed Chief Justice Taney pretty effectually. Edward Everett, Robert C. Winthrop and Rufus Choate also received some of the drippings. PARKER PILLSBURY recounted fragments of his personal history, beginning at the time he studied how to be a 'reverend' in a little theological school in New Hampshire. The most effective portion of his speech was a [[italics]] cannon [[/italics]]-ization of General Taylor as the Beelzebub of the old Whig party. Perhaps we ought to make an exception, however, in behalf of a disquisition on the 'empty-headed Natick Cobbler.' He took up the [[italics]] Traveller [[/italics]] at the close of his speech, but, like Mr. May, failed to do justice to his subject. Our reporter was really disgusted with P. P.; his speech was as like Mr. May's as two P's. MR. GARRISON presented and sustained some resolutions upon the Dred Scott decision, but with less of the monomaniacal inspiration than usual. WINDELL PHILLIPS made the concluding speech. He began with the [[italics]] Traveler [[/italics]]. All his predecessors had fired their pop-guns, but the powder wasn't worthy of the game. It is a favorite expression down east, when a man fails in any attempt from incapacity or overdoing, to say that he 'slops over.' Now, our reporter is of the opinion that Mr. May and P.P., (happy coincidence of May and Peas) 'slopped over' in treating of the [[italics]] Traveller [[/italics]]. But when Wendell Phillips brought out his Paixhan, our reporter felt like a hen-coop. The orator was worthy of the theme. The theme was worthy of the orator. Rome was not Rome to the world till she had found a historian. Gibbon was not Gibbon till he had written of the decadence of Rome. Napoleon was not Nepoleon till the Rev. Abbott had written his history. The Rev. Abbott was not the Rev. Abbott till he had consummated the sum of his literary villanies by the life of the great conquerer. To be sure, his biography is full of nonsense, cant, trumpery and bosh; but that makes no difference. It is perfect for its kind. It ends his labors and is the crown of his career. The matchless Phillips can do no more. No other theme is worthy of his voice. To be sure, his 'View' of the [[italics]] Traveler [[/italics]] and its conductor is as distorted as a landscape seen through a bull's-eye glass. But the bull's-eye is perfect, for a thicker and muddier one never existed. Few civilized beings would be willing to use an Australian boomerang. But who does not admire the skill of the native boomeranger? These disunionists can now 'melt, thaw and dissolve.' The climax has been reached. The church has been happy in being consigned to infamy by them. The union has been bound together by their attacks. Orthodoxy has stood up the straighter for their ridicule. The [[italics]] Traveller [[/italics]] has added another laurel to its chaplet. It has been damned by Garrison, and consigned to infamy by Phillips. What more is needed? Verily, [[italics]] quantum suff.--Traveller. [[/italics]] [[/column 2]] [[column 3]] [[bold]] The Liberator. [[/bold]] [[double line across column]] [[bold]] NEW ENGLAND ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION. [[/bold]] The annual New England Anti-Slavery Convention assembled in the MELODEON in Boston, on Wednesday, May 27th, at 10 o'clock, A.M., and was called to order by Francis Jackson, President of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. The Committee of Arrangements reported the following officers of the convention: [italics]] For President [[/italics]]--EDMUND QUINCY, of Dedham. [[italics]] Vice-Pesidents [[/italics]]--Francis Jackson, of Boston; Andrew Robeson, of New Bedford; Adin Ballou, of Milford; William Ashby, of Newburyport; Jehiel Claflin, of New Hampshire; Frederick Frothingham, of Maine; N.R. Johnson, of Vermont; Philip Scarborough, of Connecticut. [[italics]] Secretaries [[/italics]]--Samuel May, Jr., of Boston; Joseph A. Howland, of Worcester; Dan A. Comstock, of Millville. [[italics]] Business Committee [[/italics]]--Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Maria W. Chapman, Parker Pillsbury, Andrew T. Foss, Charles C. Burleigh, Charles L. Remond, Aaron M. Powell, Stephen S. Foster. [[italics]] Finance Committee [[/italics]]--Abby Kelley Foster, Susan B. Anthony, Lewis Ford, Nathaniel B. Spooner. The Convention accepted the above organization, without dissent. REV. JEHIEL CLAFLIN, of Westmoreland, N. H., offered prayer. WM. LLOYD GARRISON read a series of resolutions touching the American Church and the American Tract Society; there had been no opportunity, he said, as yet, to lay them before the Business Committee, and therefore they were not now officially reported. MR. GARRISON addressed the Convention in an able speech, mainly on the position of the American Tract Society. [This speech will be found reported in full in another place.] WENDELL PHILLIPS and THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON followed, and occupied the remainder of the morning session. Their speeches will also be found reported in full elsewhere. At 1 o'clock, the Convention adjourned to quarter to 3. AFTERNOON. ADIN BALLOU, one of the Vice-Presidents, in the chair. A letter from Rev. M. D. Conway, of Cincinnati, was read by the Secretary. It was dated at Alton, Illinois, May 17, and the following is an extract: 'I would like much to go on your platform straight from this place, whose glory and shame are associated with the martyrdom of Lovejoy. Is it not well worthy of joy that our ministers could now collect here, and utter their extremest views, and take a true stand, where so lately that tragedy occurred? I was glad to find on some of the parlor tables pieces of the iron of Lovejoy's printing-press preserved. A large company of us visited the spot where the brave man fell, and the spot where he lies buried. No stone marks the spot, but an effort is making, in which all the ministers indicated their desire to unite, to build a fitting monument over him. And may god be with you! M. D. CONWAY.' WM. W. Brown said, that one of the best features of this Convention was, that every one could speak his own thought, himself alone being responsible for what he may say. He then read a resolution affirming the slave's right to obtain his freedom, if necessary by revolution; and went on to say that there was no hope for the slave through the Government. That is irrevocably against him, with no hope of change for the better. The Church is also against him, and he can have no hope from that quarter; and therefore there is no hope for him but through the abolitionists, and by his own right arm. These positions Mr. B. defended at length, taking the ground that the slaveholders fear a slave insurrection more than anything else. Every man, said he, has the right to life and to liberty, and if these are worth anything, they are worth defending and protecting by force, if we can. If it is right for the white man to fight for his rights, it is also right for the colored man,--if it was right for the fathers to rebel in 1776, it is right for the slave to rebel in 1857. WM. LLOYD GARRISON, from the Business Committee, reported the following resolutions: 1. Resolved, That as the American Church still continues to be in solumn league and covenant with the 'traffickers in slaves and the souls of men;' still stops her ears to the cries of the perishing bondmen; still withholds the Bible from four millions of souls in the land, while professing to receive it as the word of God, able to make those who read it wise until salvation; she is still to be charged with the basest apostacy and the most shameless wickedness. 2. Resolved, That as nothing is easier than conformity with the prevailing religion of the times, in all its requirements; so, while that religion is at peace with prevailing iniquity, and screens from condemnation every form of pollution, every conceivable crime and outrage, and the most terrific oppression, is more obvious than that of testifying against it as a deplorable cheat and a hollow mockery. 3. Resolved, That an experiment of two hundred years has demonstrated the fact, that any amount of sabbatical consecration, public worship, theological instruction, church extension, evangelical profession, reverence for the Bible, and revivals of religion, is no barrier to the existence and constant enlargement of the bloodiest and most exacting despotism in the civilized world. Therefore, 4. Resolved, That any longer reliance upon such a religious profession, and such religious machinery, to redeem our land or to break the yoke of the oppressed, is a delusion of the most fatal character. Whereas, the action of the American Tract Society at New York--first in adopting such Jesuitical, self-contradictory and inefficient resolutions as those reported by their Committee of Investigation, and then in re-electing, by a very large vote, to control the publications of the Society for another year, the same Publishing Committee (including Dr. South-side Adams) whose maladministration had given rise to [[/column 3]] [[column 4]] the necessity for a Committee of Investigation--shows a determination still to maintain their pro-slavery position; and Whereas, the Committee of Investigation themselves, though purporting to be a reformatory body, did only small parts of the work needful to be done, and even those parts but imperfectly, bringing their speech and action as near as possible to saying and doing [[italics]] nothing; [[/italics]]and Whereas, by speaking of 'those moral duties which grow out of the existence of slavery,' and of 'those moral evils and vices which it is known to promote,' they intimate not obscurely their judgement that slavery may be a right and proper relation, and their intention that such discussion of it as may possibly be admitted under their new rule shall be, at most, only an attempt to prune, and not to eradicate it; and Whereas, even men who have been crying out so loudly for reform in the Tract Society as the editors of the [[italics]] Independent [[/italics]] and the [[italics]] Congregationlist [[/italics]] can be so faithless to it as to say--the former, that the Society ought [[italics]] not [[/italics]] to enjoin immediate emancipation on the master, but [[italics]] ought [[/italics]] to enjoin [[italics]] obedience [[/italics]] and [[italics]] fidelity [[/italics]] on the slave--and the latter, that he does not want an Abolitionist on the Publishing Committee; therefore, 5. Resolved, That, in the readiness shown to retreat, to compromise, and to sacrifice both Christian fidelity and the interests of the slave to sectarian policy, by even those of the clerical body most advanced towards a reformatory position, we recognize new evidence of a truth long since manifest--that the Church, under the leadership of the clergy, is the main bulwark of slavery. 6. Resolved, That it is only in and through the American Union that the Slave Power finds its resources, obtains its conquests, accomplishes its designs, and drags the whole North at its chariot wheels; hence, to seek the immediate dissolution of that Union becomes the first, highest and holiest duty of every friend of freedom. SAMUAL, MAY, Jr., moved the adoption, at the present time, of the following resolution: Resolved, That in order to defray the expenses of the Convention, each friend of the Anti-Slavery cause here present is hereby requested to contribute the sum of one dollar, or such other sum as he or she may be able, when called upon by the Finance Committee. ADIN BALLOU then addressed the Convention. He said if we were going to advise the slave to take the life of his master as a guilty person, he thought we ought to come nearer to home, and recommend the killing of the more criminal and guilty men, who, in pulpits and honored places all about us, justify and defend the slaveholder. What, (he asked,) was the estimate which such men as these put upon slavery? If we would know the real influence which sustains and fosters slavery, and who are really the guilty men, we must look at this question just asked. These men drive from their fellowship and their churches the pickpocket, the stealer of their sheep and their horses, yet admit to their communion and all the privilege of church fellowship the stealers of men, of their brethren and their sisters. Again--the state of public opinion in New England would not tolerate genuine and consistent anti-slavery preaching; the man who attempts it is arraigned and driven from his place, with very rare exceptions. They tell us that their church is endangered by preaching anti-slavery. What is the true character of such a church? In this country, where the Bible is highly reverenced, (professedly,) it is only a company of (alleged) fanatics and infidels who can preach against one man stealing another; in a professedly republican and democratic country, [[italics]] traitors [[/italics]] only (so-called) are laboring to prove that enslaving and selling a man is worse than picking his pocket. The guiltiest men in the country are those who, at the North, are upholding and endorsing the Christian and republican character of the slaveholders of this land. Professor J. SYMINGTON BROWN took the platform, and spoke of the retrogradation of ideas in this country. Negros were once everywhere recognized as men, but now the necessity is to prove that he is really a man and not an ape. He was glad to see this issue made. He liked to have people 'toe the mark,' if it was devilish mark. He then went into a criticism of the tests of humanity, concluding his remarks by asserting that if the negro is not a human being, there is no evidence that there are any human beings. ANDREW T. FOSS said that he should not spend any time discussing whether or no slavery was wrong. He should assume that; for if he did not know that slavery was wrong, he did not know that anything was wrong. He need not labor to prove burglary, piracy, and murder wrong; then why slavery, the sum of all villanies? He had a criticism to make upon the church: it was more in fault in this matter than the State, for it created the politics. And the Beechers and the Cheevers were, in his judgment, more dangerous to the cause of the slave than the open, undisguised pro-slavery priests; for, whatever their professions, their position is identical with that of the others, and they are enemies to anti-slavery, in the guise of friends. He would not criticise the Democratic party, because it was beyond the hope of redemption. It was composed of two classes, one fools, the other knaves. But the Republican party he would criticise; they are within the reach of the means of grace; they are neither knaves nor fools; they, in the main, are desirous for abolition of slavery. The sentiment of the masses of the party is good, but they are deceived by their leaders. Individually, they would not return a fugitive or suppress a slave insurrection, but as a party they are true to the Union, and ready to discharge all their duties to it. Adjourned till 7 1-2 o'clock. [[short dividing line]] EVENING. The President, E. Quincy, in the chair. Mr. GARRISON said that he was almost tired of hearing his own voice on this subject. He felt that it ought not to be necessary to keep arguing this matter to the people. It needed no argument with him. It should need none with anybody. We have much tehology, but what does it amount to? In the light of it, slavery lives and thrives, as all evil must under a system of religion that is purely [[/column 4]] [[column 5]] theoretical, and which overlooks the practical. We must not look to it to regenerate the country. Our friend Ballou told us this afternoon that the Church did not treat slavery as a sin of equal magnitude with picking pockets. It was prompt to discipline the pickpocket, but not the slaveholder. But in dealing thus with petty theft, it was no evidence of morality on its part; for if picking pockets were made as legal and popular as is slavery, it would not be considered immoral by the Church. Its morality is merely conventional. Mr. Ballou thought that if an order of nobility were attempted to be established, it would be resisted on all hands. But is this so? Are we not verging towards a military despotism? How much do we lack of an order of nobility, except in the form? We are all too callous to the sufferings and claims of the slave. We have sympathy enough for a single case that comes to our notice; but while our hearts bleed for the individual, we forget the millions of equal sufferers, and do not realize their sufferings. Four millions are in an enforced Sodom and Gomorrah, and four millions of Church members consent to their enslavement. What is such a Church, such a religion? It is spurious, it is satanic. And if for this denunciation they brand me as infidel, I will bind their epithets as the choicest laurels about my brow. Let me ask you, Where do you stand in this matter? I care not what is your theology, whether you believe in the unity or the trinity, or whatever shade of theological opinion, but how do you stand to the slave? You are a member of a church, are you? Is it a pro-slavery church? Does it keep silence in the presence of this gigantic crime? Then it is your duty to flee out of it as did Lot out of Sodom. Do you support the Bible, the Tract, or the Missionary Society? Do you dare support them while they are in league with the vilest oppressors? Do you know of a religious newspaper in the land, that is at all popular, that opens its columns to a free discussion of the question of the relation of the church to slavery? I know of none. Do you know of an anti-slavery pa-paper in the land whose columns are not fully open to the friends of the American church, to defend it against our charges? I know of none. Why do not the clergy come upon our free platform, and vindicate themselves from the tremendous charges we make against them? Simply because they dare not; they know we are right, and they cannot successfully stand against us. Who now comes upon our platform to defend the Union? No one. The American Anti-Slavery Society has just held its anniversary,--a series of five public meetings in New York, and I heard but two hisses in all those large audiences,--one in defence of the Church, and one in defence of the Union! No one ventures an argument on our platform in defence of the old Union. A dodge is resorted to; they come with a new constitution,--an anti-slavery constitution, and so attempt to evade the guilt and responsibility. As though Washington and Jefferson did not know what they were about; as if all our history was false! ABBEY KELLEY FOSTER spoke of a meeting called at another place to hear Dr. Chever on Kansas. She thanked God that a handful still remembered the slave, that we have not met to consider side or minor issues, but to consider [[italics]] the cause [[/italics]] out of which these things,of which Dr. Cheever speaks, have grown. And I thank God, she said, that these things do good, that his laws do not return void, that those who fasten a chain upon the heel of their fellows must of necessity find the other end around their own necks; and that Northern men are beginning to feel, in their own persons, in Kansas, some of the outrages and wrongs that hey have helped to inflict upon the slave. WENDELL PHILLIPS made the closing speech--in which he showed, in a clear and eloquent manner, the soundness of the policy as well as morality of a dissolution of the Union. He showed the [[italics]] safety [[/italics]] of that movement, and demonstrated, to absolute moral certainty, the happy results which would follow to the cause of freedom, North and South. Adjourned to Thursday, 10 A. M. [[short dividing line]] THURSDAY. The Convention re-assembled at the Melodeon, and was called to order, at 10 o'clock, by FRANCIS JACKSON. Mr. MAY brought to the attention of the Convention the scurrilous manner in which its meetings of yesterday had been reported in the Boston [[italics]] Daily Traveller [[/italics]] of this morning. He read portions of that report, and said he had called at the office of the paper to inquire why the Anti-Slavery Convention was thus treated. One of the proprietors of the journal, said Mr. M., whom I saw, expressed surprise when his attention was called to the language in the paper, and promised to inquire into it. I said that if he and the editors of the paper disapproved of such an abuse of their columns, they would probably not object to say so in their afternoon edition. In hope that the paper in question would yet set itself right on the subject, Mr. M. proposed that the subject should be dropped for the presen The Resolutions before the Convention were read by the Secretary. CHARLES C. BURLEIGH took the floor, and addressed the Convention in an able and effective speech, of which we hope to give an extended report in another place. ABBY KELLEY FOSER offered a resolution, which she prefaced by a brief and earnest appeal to the audience present, that they would enable the Anti-Slavery Committee to prosecute the work during the coming year to an extent greater than ever before. The resolution, which was seconded by Wendell Phillips, was adopted without dissent, and is as follows: Whereas, the present year being particularly auspicious for the inculcation of Anti-slavery principles in consequence of the absence of special political excitement, and by the more general awakening of the public mind through the bold and unscrupulous usurpations of the Slave Power; therefore, Resolved, That this Convention deem it a solemn duty to make strenuous efforts to put into the hands of our Executive Committees at least 50 per cent. greater amount of funds than they received last year, thereby enabling them to carry forward our work of [[/column 5]] [[column 6]] regenerating the public sentiment with far greater energy than heretofore. Rev. CALEB STETSON, of South Scituate, then spoke in a most earnest and eloquent manner. A full sketch of his speech may be expected. MR. GARRISON, from the Business Committee, reported the following resolutions:-- 7. Resolved, That the Republican party, by its constant and reiterated declarations, whether official or otherwise, is not an anti-slavery party, but the white-man's party, opposed only to the extension of slavery, and therefore so far as the cause of the enslaved millions is concerned it is a pro-slavery party, taking its place to that extent by the side of the Democratic party, and more dangerous because so liable to be mistaken for an anti-slavery one--the most fatal obstacle, in the political arena, to the anti-slavery movement whenever considered an effectual opponent of the Slave Power; and that the constant liability to this mistake, demands of us, on all occasions, the most strenuous efforts to set it in its true light, and save Abolitionists from regarding it as an Anti-Slavery movement. 8. Resolved, That if we could be surprised that any measure of audacity on the part of Northern apologists for slavery, then should we be surprised at the fact that the 'Southern Aid Society,' the monstrous progeny of Northern commercial cupidity in union with a false and canting religion, should dare to cross the borders of New England, and appeal to this professedly enlightened community to sustain its blasphemous doctrines and its infamous plans. 9. Resolved, That in going forward to embrace slaveholders as good and Christian men, at a time when other Societies are beginning to open their eyes to the horribly sinful nature of slaveholding,--in encouraging the slaveholder to perseverence in his obstinate contest with Heaven itself,--in collecting Northern money to be used in proclaiming a gospel of blood, of cruelty, and of pollution, as the very gospel of Christ,--in the shameless proposition to the slaveholder that, if he will select missionaries to preach such a gospel as he is willing his slaves should hear, the North would provide the money to pay for the vile work, and professed Northern Christians should approve and endorse it; in all these ways, the 'Southern aid Society' is giving every possible aid and comfort to the system of slavery, is tearing the crown with wicked hands from the head of the Redeemer of men, and trampling it beneath their own polluted and scornful feet. Mr. GARRISON, as it was near the hour of adjournment, said he would make out a single remark in relation to one word which fell from the lips of our friend, Rev. Mr. Stetson, viz., that 'he would as soon sell into slavery Christ himself, were he here on earth, as to sell the humblest black man.' That remark was worth holding a New England Convention for. To be sure, it was but another statement of the old declaration of Jesus, 'Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me.' Yet it is a bold and fresh form of that old saying, and is deserving all commendation. It is true, and we should all feel its force, that it is no more criminal to sell Jesus himself, than to sell one of his disciples. One word on another remark of our friend Mr. Stetson: he said, concerning the Union, though he was for its dissolution, he did not see how that event could be brought about; so much pro-slavery among us at the North makes it difficult to draw the line. 'However difficult and crooked the line might be,' said Mr. Garrison, 'nevertheless, let it be drawn; and let each one say, 'As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.' Adjourned to 3 P.M. [[short dividing line]] AFTERNOON. MR. GARRISON called the meeting to order, and introduced AARON M. POWELL, who spoke at length, and with great clearness and force, upon the Resolutions touching the Republican party and the position of the Church. MATTHEW R. HULL, a native of Virginia, he was introduced to the Convention. He said that he was an exile from his native State. He could not now visit his aged father there, nor the grave of his mother. He was made an Abolitionist in early life by a tract that a Connecticut pedler gave him, entitle 'The Evidence of God against Slavery;' the first fruits of reading which were, that his own uncle kicked him out of doors because he had said that he thought it was wrong to [[italics]] rob niggers for a living [[/italics]]. He was blessed with a step-mother who caused him to step away from his home, and he went to Indiana, a so-called free State, to find that they had as infamous laws there against the colored man as those of any slave State; and a Methodist Church that cherished in its bosom the sum of all villanies. He must dissent from the criticisms of the last speaker upon the Republican party, for he believed that party had done much good in agitating the Slavery question before the election, although since then their humanity had all oozed out; and he had set out from home to see if he could arouse them to some action and usefulness, but hitherto without success;--the party was losing ground. They were too careful and conservative in their campaign, and did not carry the strength they otherwise would have done, for the people were more radical than their leaders, and were ready for the most radical doctrines. There are those who fear that, if we urge the Abolition question, it will result in disunion. What if it does? He did not care. If it knocks the Union to pieces, it ought to be, and he was ready, for one, to give it a knock. Mr. Hull then went on at length upon the general subject, in a vein of true Western oratory. Mr. May, after making a statement of his attempt to ascertain the true authority of the scurrility in the report of our yesterday's meeting in the Boston [[italics]] Traveller, [[\italics]] which resulted in the 'editor in chief' (Mr. Bowles) admitting it to be his own act, offered the following Resolution:-- Resolved, That the scurrilous and lying report of this Anti-Slavery Convention, given in the Boston [[italics]] Daily Traveller, [[\italics]] the leading Republican paper of this city,) of this (Thursday) morning, in marked and plainly intentional contrast to the manner in which other public meetings are reported in the same paper, shows the real [[italics]] animus [[\italics]] of that journal in regard to the great cause of human freedom, and is deserving of the [[end of page]]
Transcription Notes:
obscured text can be found at: http://fair-use.org/the-liberator/1857/06/05/the-liberator-27-23.pdf
I stopped transcribing at the end of the first paragraph under.NEW ENGLAND A. S. CONVENTION halfway down the second column. TB
The writing of convention in New England A. S. Society Convention with a space in the last word is how it appears on the page.
