Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1844-05-17
THE FR E Il VI Al .
For the Green Mountain Freeman
LETTER OF HON, W. P. BRIGGS.
Burlington, May Isl, 1914.

of your communication of the Oath of April. 1t
propounds to me a series of questions, several of
which had before been presented to me by the
friends of freedom in this and other States. As
hold no opinions upon matters of public concern
which ! have any motive or wish to conceal,
shall proceed, as well as may be able, to answer
your inquiries in as full manner as the limits of
an ordinary letter will permit.
The most celebrated and philosophical of the
historians of our time, if not of our anguage-our
own Banctoh--has awarded to George Fox and
his followers the Society of Friends, the credit of
being the first to assert the true dignity of human
ity, by teaching to think and act for himself,
and to acknowledge no supremacy in matters of
faith and opinion, except to the God who made
him.
1t was in the midst of this sect, and under the
guidance of parents mbued with its doctrines, that
5t was my lot to be born and nurtured. 1t was
there learned to appreciate and revere the great
truth, first promulgated in the Gospel of Jesus
Christ, ard afterwards solemnly adopted into the
textbook of our political fath the Declaration of
independence, =" that all men are created EQUAL"
In conformity to that doctrine, was | taught the
lesson of hatred and deestation to slavery in eve
ry form. The free air of the Green Mountains.
among which have lived from my birth, has not
weakened the force of those early teachings, and
they remain with me still in all the freshness of
early impressions, but with the superadded sane
ton of reflection and experience.
The course Of events in this country since the
adoption of the Constitution under which we now
live, has proved the very reverse of what was an
tlcpated by the patriot statesmen who rocked the
cradle of our freedom, and guarded with parental
fondncss its infancy and youth. The ark of their
political covenant was wisely based on the virtue
and Intelligence of the people. They foresaw that
with these for our sheet anchors, we could safely
outride the storm which the bgots of the old world
affected to dread from the adoption of the demo-
cratic principle. They argued from the love OF
freedom so universally diffused through the popu-
lar mind, that the eradication of every principle al
war with the doctrines of their glorious Declare.
ton, was as certain to ensue as the day would fol-
low the night They found slavery and the slave
trade entailed upon the colonies by the pseudo
philanthropy of Britain.
on the escutcheon of freedom, and in the full con.
fdence that both would fall together before the
steady progress of national liberty they fixed
limit to the continuance of the abominable traffic
and doubted not, that few years would relieve
the country from such gross inconsistency. Lit
tie did they anticipate that the adaptation of the
cotton plant to the southern soil, & the invention
the cotton gin, would in half century well nigl
destroy the hopes of the patriot and phanthropis
in every quarter of the globe But the lamentabI
fact has now become history. Jealous of despot
ism, and of every thing which would tend to ere
ate Fictitious inequalities between man and man
the trainers of our government prohibited titles @
nobility. They little dreamed that the worship c
the true God would SO soon be deserted for tn
worship of Mammon-for to our shame be it spo
ken, with all our strength of intellect, and all on
advancement in science and the arts, and with on
widespread knowledge of the Bible, the passio
for wealth has usurped the place of those loltie
and purer aspirations which should inspire tn
hearts Of freemen; and Fictitious distinctions fol-
hidden through the medium of political rank, ar
sought and created by the potent agency of tn
" almighty dollar"
This deporable tendency of the American mno
with all its disastrous and degrading consequence
lay at the door of that giant iniquity--Slaver
Nor will this be deemed unj ust, when we refe
that whatever tends to degrade labor, must hegl
ten the contrast between the rich and the poo
and inevitably increase the feverish anxiety ft
wealth, as the only avenue of escape from the flu
filln1ent Of the fiat of Heaven, Gin the sMeat