The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1844-04-18
Moral Sra sion.

Moral SUaslOhs
One Of our exchanges, engaged in the
anti-slavery cause, regrets that we Go no!
con6ne our sentiments and efforts 10 the
sphere of moral principle and suasion.-
We should infer, from his remarks, that
his principal objection to political action,
was not based upon any constitutional i'm.
morality inht ring 10 its nature or exercise.
On the contrary if the blood. bought right
of suffrage had not been perverted into an
engine of crushing wrong; if it had new.
er been proslituted, in this country, to the
narrow policy Of unprincipled ambition;
il it had never been drilled into the serv-
ice of oppression, to turn the bondman's
yoke into iron, and shut out the slave
from the reach of redemption; if, in
word, that high born prerogative had re,
NAMED as pure, as akin to Christian prin-
ciple, as when in sight of our ck-bound
shore, The Pilgrim Fathers assembled on
the deck of the May-fower, and at the
first Balot-box that was ever opened in
the New World, brought their religion,
their great and stern principles of freedom
'nto polite" our friend we are
sure, would deem the suffrage offreemen,
Christians, and patriots to be the giant
hand of moral sentiment. mighty through
God TO the pulling down of strong holds
of oppression-mighty to pluck up these
seated hills of iniquity that are resting up.
on the bosom of humanity; to tear out of
the virgin soil Of this land of the free rank
Upas whose roots and poisonous shade
are insidiously expanding from ocean 10
ocean, carrying its sallow curse to regions
unredeemed from the primeval wilderness
of nature.
But if this moral and political engine
posses such giant capacity for evil, shall
we throw it aside, as being impotent for
good2 Does the engineer on the railroad
or steamboat doubt the retrograde capaci-
ty of his engine because he has sccustom-
ed it 10 dn advance motion! Let Us il
lustrate our friends position in figure
containing all the necessary analog ies.-
On some extended plain in South Carroll.
ma, imagine vast Bastile, whose granite
walls and iron gates surpass old Baby
Ions in height and strength. Suppose
that it had taken the labor OF two cen,ur-
les to erect the Egyptian prison'house;
aud that millions of masons, hewers of
stone and workers in iron and steel, had
been employed in raising the edifce, in
building its dungeons, and forging chains
and manacles for the victims within
Grant that thousand engines of diversi.
fled character and power, and iron bars,
and chains of ponderous links, and imple-
ments of every shape and size, had been
used in quarrying and raising to their
place those colossal blocks of granite, and
forging those huge and hardened CRATES.
The Baslie is finished. lis dungeons
and celIs,and letters are filled with nearly
thFee millions of human beings, born in
our midst. The world is at last arrested al
the sight half revealed through the CRATE:
and loop holes of that awful prison. The
cries, and groans, and dea!h-sighs Of the
captives are waited to the ears of the free
the humane, and the good, on every
morning and evening breeze. They as
sembe by thousands around the walls o
the prison; through the CRATES a million
OF fettered hands, the hands of litlle infant!
and haggard mothers, and hopeless faith
ers-are reaching out imploringly iol
help. The surrounding multitude i,
swelIed 10 number aud swaying to anC
fro with sympathy and indignant emotion
All are moved with one great resolve tc
level the towering wall of the collossa
prison. But with their bare hand they
cannot remove @ stone and they look
about for the means to effect the work.
There stand the great engines, that lifted