Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1845-07-11


rose, it is all evidence bearing the signature of
the Almighty, that no sLaUe breathes its pure air
or treads its free soil; that in it and on it all
men are born FREE AND EQUAL, inherting and
enriching all those "inalienabe rights" laid down
in that Magma Charta of democracy which bears
the broad seal of Virginia in the blood of her
patriots | would say to them, that all the diff
ference in condition and prospects, between Ohio
and Virginia, exists in the difference Of their de-
votion to that sublime dogma Of democracy which
stand at the head of the Declaration of lndepen-
dence; and that if the mother of the Union,
among all the children she has brought up, has
none left to guide her; if her walls are broken
down and her fields laid waste; the music of ma
chinery never breaks the silence of her streams,
and degraded labor has no songs in the night or
the day; if her children fly from her bosom to
regions where honest toll is not the condition of
the slave, it is because she has not been true to
that great doctrine of human rights which she
was the first to procIaim to mankind l would
give them the brotherly hand of every liberty
loving son of toll in New England in pledge that
their hatred Of slavery is the strongest expression
of their love for Virginia; that no malevoltnce
turks at the bottom of this great enterprise of
freedom, in which the moral sentiment of the
world is fast concentrating with an energy which
must soon carry it to that issue which shall be
greeted with acclamations of grace, grace untO
it, from every corner of the world. Brethren,
would say, not an effort in the cause is inspired
by aught else than the very soul of love to you
and your children, The maeyoence of which
we have been suspected, has this extent, no
more: that Emancipation shall be Paradise Re-
gained to Virginia, in all the compass of that
condition.
1t is one Of the chiefest aims of our aspira-
tons e. efforts, not only to promote the emanci-
patton of the slave, but to emancipate the cold
Dominion" from the old Dominion of slavery; to
emancipate her Institutions of!earning g. religion
from an influence that has poisoned their vitali-
tY to emancipate the energies of her people
from that gripping compression which has bent
them to the ground; to emancpate her rivers
and streams, whose currents have been ice-bound
in time of summer, because the mark of the
beast was burnt and burning in the brow of la.
Dor pining on their banks; to emancipate her
soil from the salow disease with which the sweat
of the sIave-falling on its face like aqua f0rtis
has dcvoured its capacity of production; to
emancipate the treasures that lie locked g. guard
ed Ivy huge Cerberus, in her mountains, valleys,
and hill sides, to emancipate nature itself from
that iron prevention which has withheld her hand
from dropping fairness upon every square acre of
territory. If this is malevolence, it is not the
head, nor front, nor end of our offending To
say, that, in rescuing Virginia from slavery, we
would be content with making her what New
England wOad be, with the soil, rivers, and
streams, and natural resources of Virginia; which
with the indomitable genius and energy of free
labor, would enable her to manufacture for a
continent and feed half of its population with the
productions of her soil. Has she annually expa-
triated thousands of her most vigorous sons, who
could not toll where labor is degraded; we void
re-people her borders with her exiIes, who sho'Id
return with songs of JOY on their heads as the
ancient Jews to their beloved Canaan.-Are her
lands lying waste in artificial sterility, we would
resuscitate them to all their original fertility and
cut them up into farms clothed with exhuberant
verdure, and titled by intelligent and virtuous
freemen. "IS one in ta0elUe Of her grOwn mp
pOpulation unabh to read and vrite, we would
dot the whole extent of her domain with school
houses, and supply every hamlet with library
and the means of gratuitous Instruction. Is Vir-
gno declining in political power, and fast losing
her share of influence in the councils of the ma
ton, we would give her far more than she ever
possessed. We would double her represe ntation
in the representatives of freemen in our national
Congress, who should be an honor to the coun-
try. With such and aim and end as this, in the
inception, prosecution, and issue of this great
work Of philanthropy, shall we talk of diSsOtOing
the UniOn?that Union to which the success OF
our efforts must give elements of cohesion strong
err than ten thousand chains of adamant?-
Union, the concentrating nucleus of the hopes
and interests Of the future ages Of humanity
that Union to which the abolition of slavery
would give a moral power that should lift up the
race from its darkness and depression? Dissolu-
| ton of the Union!---What cut in two the Mis-
sissipp, that jugular vein of the New World ,and
sever all the mighty arteries of the Union, and
leave it to bleed to death in hostile segments
both writhing in the cauteries of mutual hatred
Nature itself would repel this profane disruption
of system to whose integrity every stream from
the Sabine to St. Johns, is as necessary as any
vein in the human body,--Dssolve the Union!
run the amputating knife through the child of all
t that the progressive ages of humanity have pro.
duced of freedom and virtue, and that because
one of its members is infected with cutaneous
disease, which not drop of blood less than that
which now circuates in its whole system will re-
move. Does God or mankind require the sacr
fee of this Union this Isaac of the race in which
; all nations should be blessed? And shall Amer
leans lift the knife against it, not as an act o.
faith, but of pusanimous disrust in Godl i
nothing in the natural religion of patriotism
could stay their suicidal arm; let every lover o
his kind pray that the Almighty who arrested the