Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1847-08-13
Assertion VS.. Fact.


hNNAh -
"The Federal Government was framed by
the most devoted lovers of freedom the world
ever saw, for The purpose If securing Tie bless
lngs IF liberty IN EVERY INnABITANr Of The
Cnicd Si1ies. There were no limitations
no distinctions. fits bcnefccnce was intend
cd to be universal"
Now what are the facts in relation to this
matter. A body Of men acting rs the agents
OF the voters in the thirteen colonies, came
together to adopt a form of governments
they arrogantIy and falsely assumed to speak
on behalf of "ihe people, Some of them
were sIave-claimants, some only slavehold-
ers IN principle, a few of them anti-slavery
men, and the balance Indifferent to the quos-
ZION. They fashioned a Constitution that
was acceptable 10 the Shareholders, and which
was opposed by anti-slavery members be-
cause of its pro.slavcry character. To say
That men whose pecuniuy interests were in
VOWED IN the support of slavery framed a
government for the purpose of destroying the
system, is to talk such sheer nonsense as is
not even allowable under the title Of u legal
fiction.
The Herald must have strange ideas of
what constitutes the character Of ''the most
devoted lovers of freedom the world ever
saw when 1t includes among such, Rut-
ledge and Pinckney, of South Carolina, who
opposed granting Congress the power 10 abol-
lsh the foreign slave trade in 1908, and vari
Gus other Southern members who were as
faithful and true to slavery as any man ever
was 10 freedom. Why without going out of
the ranks of the Herald's own party, we can
Ind in this very town half a dozen men who
are much more devoted lovers Of freedom
not freedom for themselves and their posteri-
ty only, but universal freedom-than were
the members of the Convention which fra
med the T.. S. Constitution.
Verify. the truth we have declared of the
Herald is stranger than the fiction of its ex-
tract.
ooh, what a work is this I! thousands and
tens Of thousands Of immortal souls livinc in
this land of vision, who know little more of
God or heaven than their sable brethren in
the interior of Africa, for whose souls no man
careth, while with the avails of their sweat
and toll the South ern Church has been con-
tribnting her thousands TO send the Bible and
missionaries TO the perishing pagans beyond
the seas. ! have no quarrel with what has
been done for foreign work, we are still in
arrears to foreign pagans but when the bal
ance sheets struck, how ~fearfully will South
ern Christians be in arrears to their OWL
slaves! In this case, at least, charity should
begin at home; and it seems to me that WI
should never forget that the first and great
est claimants on the charity of the Southern
Churches are the slaves of our plantations
There comes up a voice from the cabins o
our rice-fields and cotton-farms, to which We
must listen or meet an awful reckoning al
the bar of God"
The above declaration was made a few
years since by a slaveholding Methodist
Bishop, and is a direct denial of the false as
sertions so frequently coined and circulated
by Northern apologists for slavery, in relation
TO the general religious instruction of the
slaves. The common sense of any ordinary
man ought to be sufficient to teach him that
1t is impossible in the very nature of things,
to give religious instruction TO chattel pro.
perty. Hence we regard all the talk which
we hear about furnishing the slaves with BIZ.
bles, and preachers, and meeting houses, as
emanating either from a mistaken view o.
their condition and easiness of access, Oh
from a desire to play upon the sympathies oil
portion of the religious public without hav-
.ng any good end in view.