The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1839-05-25
213,120
ASSOC
3S,460
1865
93,S75
21O,639
Total
724.S62

The committee have felt the Importance of re-
vealing to the people of the free States the actual
condition OF the slaves, shareholders have extern
sivey succeeded in persuading them that it is bet
ter in fact than in law. The difficulty of the at
tempt is obvious. The gibbets announced by Mr..
Preston in the Senate of the United States, stand
up to deter Observers and to prove that the dispo-
sition to conceal the real character of the system
is not less than the facility with which it may be
effected. Slaveholding hospitality presents still
more formidable obstacle. Men who in a strange
land find themselves lodged fed and fattered with
the most unstnted berality, are little disposed to
inquire at whose expense they are entertained
At the we'll spread table of the shareholders, the
eyes of witnesses are blinded as well as their
mouths stopped Yet the truth may be found by
digging sufficiently deep. The labor of holding
"a grand inquest on the actual condition of the
slaves has been committed to hands most singu-
larly well qualified for the task and the result is
work upon the sub lect which defes incredulity.-
Out of the mouths of Shareholders themselves
they are convicted of treating in the most brutal
manner the millions whom they have made brutes
in law. And to their testimony is added that of a
multitude of persons who have long resided at the
South, with the best opportunities to understand
the working of its peculiar institutions The
committee respectfully entreat the public to exam
inc this mass of testimony, pedging themselves to
set aside any of it which can be proved to be
false. If the great mass of cannot be set aside
slavery must be, or the days of the nation are
numbered and finished Ifitbe true, our country
is wine-press of wrath, and the blood ofoppres-
sion has risen to the horse brides.
1t is with gratitude to God that the committee
refer to the final triumph of truth and justice
over slavery in the British colonies. Divine
Providence seems to have conducted British eman-
cipation with view to furnish the strongest pos
sible refutation of all the theories which conflict
with the duty of immediate abolition. 1t has not
only proved immediate liberation to be safe, but
to be both needless and impracticable
1t has shown that black laborers, so far from be-
coming nuisance by being made free, are con-
sidered as highly valuable or rather absolutely
necessary to the communities in which they re-
side thus teaching us to dispense with all concern
about their colonization. Finally, it has begun to
setus up an example of the white and black races
living together in peace as we'll as freedom, even
where the latter greatly dependencies.
LII did the friends of slavery calculate the con-
sequences, when they essayed by brutal violence
to drive George Thompson from our shores. But
for his agitation from city to city throughout the
United Kingdom the apprentices might still have
groaned under their old yoke with new name
with little prospect that the first of August, 1S40
would find strength enough to shout in the jubi-
lee. To his eloquence and untring ZEAL added
to the self-denying labors of Joseph Surge and
his associates, the world is indebted for this most
blessed of victories.
1t is fortunate for immediatism that the British
Government perversely refused to abolish the sys-
tenn by direct act of Parliament. The act which
they were obliged to pass, and beyond which, by
a small majority, they obstnately refused to GO,
only required of the planters faithful ful6lment
of the conditions of the apprenticeship. Their
refusal to accept such law and preference OF d.