The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1839-02-02

general topic of liberty, which was on the tongues
of ALL and in the hearts of many, that the times de-
clared the general expectation that if our indepen-
dence was ever acknowledged By the British King
and other powers OF Europe, that liberty, universal
liberty under the control of law, was to be the
portion Of every human being in the land. Con-
sistency, decency, self-respect, justice, and the
pleadings of our common humanity all conspired
to make us believe that the grave which we had
dug for the manaces intended for our hands by
England, should hold those which for $50 years
had bound the slave.
The war of the Revolution was over, the last
gun fred against foreign foe, the states formed
their constitutions, with bills of rights attesting
the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence,
full of the most lofty professions in behalf of hui
man rights The confederation of the states, a
rope of sand lasted from 1777 to 1889, twelve
years. This was framed during the midnight of
the Revolution but out of regard to the slavehol
ers, nothing was said about the slave. Let us Sc
cure our own independence first. But in 1774
the first Congress thought of the slave so far as to
forbid the old aforesaid slavetrade after the 31st
December ITS. This resolution was dead let
ter. Nothing said about slavery after, during the
Revolutions all still till the Major General was
to be appointed for the armies of the United States
the North said, our Bunker Hill generals must
stand aside TO oblige the slave province of Virgin
ia, and bring the South heartily into the measures
for the Revolution. Let no one think intend dis
respect to the memory of our immortal country
man by the statement of this fact, far from it. +
Again, when the Declaration of Independence
was to be drawn, the honor must be conferred on
a Southern Shareholder and its composition has,
for its great merits, given glorious Immortality
to its author.
How small matter it would have been for
Congress, at some one of its sessions during the
Revolution, to have declared the slaves free i'm
mediately, that they might be armed in defence of
the country which had made them freemen His
tory abounds in examples of this character, in an
cient and modern times Admitting the PROPOSE
ton for moment, for the sake Of the remark, but
not as a truth,) the Congress of the Revolution
might have, declared them free under the unlimit-
ed war power a nation possesses over the men and
treasure of nation which is fighting for its exis-
tence. This principle must have been familiar to
the old Congress of the Revolution. But suppo-
sing the former masters, after the Revolution had
petitioned Congress for relief or compensation,
how easy to have set off the land now composing
two or three states. But our fathers let these COL
den opportunities pass, for fear of offending the
South. Then came the formation of the Consti-
tuition of 1887, when twenty years were added to
VIC AlllCdu SdNClTuue, the kCOuLD,
and five slaves counted three whites, as the basis
of congressional representation Then was the
time to have insisted on the abolition of slavery,
instead Of yielding, and adding ten fold vigor to
the insatiate hatred against the ebon race What
if three four of those states had refused at first
to enter the Union? Did not two of them do it
after all our coaxing, cringing and miserable ex-
pediency? They would have come in within
three or four years AFTER and without slaves
The other states would have marched forward
to grandeur and greatness, untranmelled by this
awful system. And the very fact that we had
parted on grounds so honorable to u.s. would have
given to the world most glorious exhibition of
our devotedness to the great principl of Justice
and humanity. We should have had God and
all good men on our side, yea, the approval of our
own conscences. We should not have had
generation at the North at this time, one-half of
whom seem TO be debauched in their notions of
right and wrong, in relation to human liberty; as
much, fear as the besotted masters of the South
1t was corrupt agreement of the majority of a
nation with minority, to crush humanity. 1t
was the most guilty compact for twenty years
against the guiltess poor OF injured unofending
Africa.
Suppose we had stood up for God and our con-
sciences, while the STAKEHOLDER had separated and
formed his slave oligarchy, without the aid of
Northern freemen to subdue the instruction of
the slave. The troops and navy of Great Britain
kept the slave of the West Indies in subsection,
and not the planters; and so it has been in this
confederacy, the military force of the North and
free states have restrained and held back the
Southern slave from his liberty. Again, the
slaves, without the clause of surrender in the Con-
stitution, which was another crime of expedeney,
committed against the law of God and our COM
mon humanity by the North, would have fed to
US on the long line of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indi-
ana and Illinois, not to be pursued with southern
vengeance, and met by northern law, northern
justices and constables.
No, if we had withdrawn all connection with
the South, all countenance, and held back the loan
of our non-slayeholding character, as a cloak to
cover up the rottenness of her most loathesome
deformity, the South would long ere this, have
abolished slavery herself from the disgrace it
would have been to her institutions. Suppose
she had cut loose from the joint inheritance pur-
chased by the vaor of the Revolution, because we
would not participate in her crimes she would
then have stood such monument of corruption
and avarice, murder, meanness and feebleness,
that there would not have been nation in Europe
so lost to self respect to have entered into trea
ties with, or acknowledged the independence of