Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1846-08-07
From the Charter OGk-.
The Great Conflict.

Oppression. 1t is now thoroughly up for
decision, and God, we believe, will give us
no rest In this land, till this question is de-
cided. And for many reasons the contest is
one Of the deepest interest.
Estimate the forces engaged. On the one
hand, there has never heen a system of OPP
preston so compact and firmly consolidated,
so well fortified, and capable of such resist
ance to every form Of assault, as this system
of American Slavery. There have been 9TH
er systems of bondage on earth, as extensive,
perhaps as bitter as this but none so deeply
rooted and so firmly knit together-none so
we'll prepared at every point TO beat oil in
vasion. Its growth has been slow and steady,
every step of advance entrenched in law and
custom. 1t has won its way against light
and the awakened spirit Of Freedom, against
religion, conscience and humanity. This is
not Egypt but America, where slavery has
won its way to such powrr-not IN the hi
,teenth. but in the ffty-ninth century Of the
worlds existence not under the congenial
Influence of Roman despctism, but in the
very heart of a republic. Its period Of growth
has been %coeval with our great experiment
in free Institutions. Amid such influences
it has grown up TO these gigantic dimensions,
crushing into property the bodies and souls
of nirh three millions OF Gods human chill
dren-plundering them of every right-strip-
$780, ~
PING them of every defense against the ire
sponsihle ~avarice and lust of cruelty and ca
price of their masters-a system whose whole
character may be seen in this, that it edu-
Gates in Incidence and pride and selfish irri-
table elleminacy one portion of a community,
and then subjects wholly to their will ano-
ther portion, bred to unconditional submits
sion and helpless endurance; a system of
long standing. deep rooted in the very foun-
dations Of society that has built up around
it, age after age, ramparts OF no common
strenqth-a system that has been the nurse
of riot and lawlessness, and assassination-
its symbols, the Whip, the Pistol and the
Knife /!
And now, having pushed itself slowly up
ward, against all these influences, to its pre-
sent greatness, the system Of slavery rests in
proud security. The spirit of freedom in
this freest land on earth, quails beneath its
glance! Our whole nation has been seduc-
ed into compact and covenant of amity with
it, and character and treasure have been pro-
fusely squandered in its behalf. Slavery is
the nation. In the midst of a Christian land
the foremost in bearing the Gospel to every
foreign realm of darkness, slavery has power
TO maintain its own empire Of heathenlSm in
.tfct more urapproachable and more perilous
10 the missionary who should attempt to
penetrate it with the whole gospel, than Chi
ma or Madagascar! We carry our Christian
schools among the Hindoos in spite of their
caste-there is scarce a nook of savagery on
earth, that we cannot penetrate with the Bi-
BILE and the requisite instruction to read il
but not this realm of American heathenism.
In the face of every form of benevolent ac-
ton, slavery shuts her iron doors, and locks
her millions Of deathless souls from the light
Of life! We o~verstcp, in our missionary ope-
rations abroad, all those laws and customs
which stand in the way of the Gospel; but
here is a system that will have its heathen-
ism respected. Our great evangeilzlng
agencies, all must defer to the bidding OF
slavery, and leave its dark prison house I'M
entered.
Thus the Slavedom stands defiant now on
the feld-triumphant over mems native love
of liberty, over the dictates of religion, the
instinct OF Humanity, the claims of selt-ln-
tereSt. A system that can thus despotise over
the strongest principles Of human action, will
yield TO no ordinary opposition. 1t will re-
sist as no other such system ever resisted,
We have seen it resist already with frantic
violence. The adversary is not wont to leave
such fields untought.
On the other hand, contemplate The force,
arrayed against this system. The strength
and resources Of slavery are great. and sh'
has need Of them all for never before wa
she so sternly and sorely beset. She ha'
the spirit of the nineteenth century agains
her. The awakened scorH and indignation
of the world are TO be stemmed Above all
the righteous God, who guides all is agains
her. Humanity is reviving in our country
All that is unfettered in American patriotism
and piety is arraying itself against her. Th
tide of opposition is swelling every day.
A host OF those who first took the field, an
whom God has blessed as the agents /
awakening the land to its guiltand peril iron
this sin, are still firm and unwearied at thel
post. And these are not all. There is
wide spread and increasing sentiment of op
position to slavery growing up in men
minds-in some a mater of mere TASTE or in
stinctive emotion-a dictate Of Nature i
some, in others of conscience, or an impuls
of religion-in many, doubtless, it is a mer
sectional or political impulse, but in man
others a sober cenvictlon of right aud trut
in all it is a spirit, which, however war
and beset with false positions and disturbin
influences, is struggling up toward a free an
full decisive activity against slavery. An
in the South also, within the very empire
slavery, in spite Of all its letters we witne;
a growing opposition there. Thousands
hearts are signing all over the South, an
waiting for the day of their own enlargement
as well as that of the slave. All our doctrine
of republican Freedom are at work against
The stars in their course fight against it,
And for the last few years, il is wonderful
mark how the whole course of events h;
been ordered by Divine Providence to be;
heavily and steadily against this SYSTEM
So uniformly have events been turned in til
way that our faith is complete and unwaye
ing that even this a~lrocious act, by whic
slavery has thrown its bloody chains over
new province, carries it in some hidden co
r%ective, some yet undevclopod secret of 7