Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1846-08-27
Massachusetts, State Liberty Address.
E TR A c T..


1t is not easy to fill our minds with an ade-
quate view of the responsibility which attaches
to the act of voting. 1t is by that act chiefly,
that the people govern. When you have given
your vote, you have put the matter out of your
hands; but yet you remain responsible to Ileav-
en- and to Humanity for the consequences of that
vote. This is serious view of the matter, and
it is Just Let those look to it, who made Ty-
Ter President, and enabled him to carry the an
nexation of Texas, all but the last act and to
station the army on the borders Of Mexico,
which has produced the present war. Let those
look to it, whose votes made Polk President, to
carry out SO consistently what his predecessor
had begun. 1t was the votes of freemen that
created those Senators, who made John c. Cal
houn Secretary of State by reclamation. 1t was
by voting that Winthrop was enabled to recant
the declared opposition of Massachusetts to the
deed of annexation, and the war which followed.
And votes placed Briggs in position where he
could enrol our glorious Commonwealth as a vOt
anteer, to display her patriotism in carrying on
this war of invasion and conquest against sis
ter republic. Take care then, fellow citizens,
how you vote. The accumulated public senti-
ment of whole year, like a great balance wheel,
expends its momentum by single act, upon the
operation of our government and the destiny Of
our country, beyond recall See to it, them that
your votes so record your WILL that you will new
er have cause to regret them. The Liberty Par
Ity are clear of the responsibility of these ming
led calamities and crimes, by having given all
their votes in son with their declarations a.
gainst the authors of every one of these meas
ures, and against the party influences under
which these measures have been carried
We shall not insult your understanding by
proceeding to prove that both the annexation of
Texas and the war which has followed it origin
ated with the shareholders, and are the legiti-
mate fruits of slavery Texas was VIGOROUSLY
annexed to strengthen slavery against abolition !;
to create wider market for the homebred slaves,
" the vigntial crop" of Virginia and the older
slave states to furnish a new soil for slave la
Dor as fast as the curse of barrenness spreads
over the present slave territory and above all,
by Bonapartean movement of overseerism, by
the Slave Power, to cripple and confound the
politicians, parties and people of the country,
and produce salutary awe Of their despolc
masters, which may suppress even the utterance
of desire to break away from their usurped do
mnon. How completely they have succeeded
let the craven spirit which now pervades Con-
gress, let the tone even of the Boston press, tell
And the conquests made in this war, to which
you have been summoned by your own Execu-
tive, will doubtless enure to the extension of the
dominion of slavery over all the territory that
may be acquired. Nothing can be more idle
than it is for papers and politicians, themselves
counting and supplcatng the shareholders, to
pratle about prohibiting the further extension of
slavery by the power of the United States, or
the admission of more slave States, as fast as
territories can furnish a scanty population. The
only influential opposition to the extension of
slavery, is that which puts slavery itself upon
the defensive, and drives it to the wall to strug-
gle for its own existence.
The present posture of affairs furnishes over
whemng proof, were it needed, to satisfy every
rejecting mind of the utter incapacity of the
existing old parties, or either Of them, to offer
any efectua resistance to the Entertainments and
usurpations of the Slave Power. When we
speak of these parties, we mean to be under
stood Ct their combined action as organized
parties, marshalled under certain leaders, and
struggling for certain objects in which slavehold-
ers and non-slavehoIders have common inter-
est In both these parties, shareholders rule with
absolute sway, and thus secure the veriicatlon
of Mr., Clay's declaration, that neither of these
parties has any view to the emancipation of the
slaves as a part of its policy.
1t shows, too, in the light of almost a centu-
RVS experience the insufficency of our instltu-
tons to circumscribe this giant evil, or to pro-
tect the liberties of the people against its en-
croachments. From the day when John Ad-
ans told Samuel Adams that it was necessary to
give the South the command in order to secure
their fidelity to the infant revolution and espe-
cially from the adoption of the present consttu-
ton of our Union, the Slave Power has gone on
with steady and continual progress of assump-
ton, now using the Democratic party as its allies
to give it new conquests, and then employing
the conservative influence of the Anti-Demo-
cratic party to secure its acquisitions. The adj
mission of Missouri and the annexation Of Tex
as as Slave States, are but stages in its career OF
usurpation. For ffty-seVen years the friends Of
freedom have maintained an Intellectual struggle
in defence, but have been baffled in every in
stance, have never gained one victory, have been
continually driven back, have given the slave
holders first the balance and then the control
of the Senate, have grown weaker, and more
submissive, and less hopeful, until at length, on