Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1848-08-11
WHOLE NO. 1876.


of anneXing territory to the United States.
the laws which create and sustain slavery
are extended over said territory and become
operatives throughout its entire area. lie
asks nothing Of Congress, because he claims
that he already has every thing. Against
this assumption, we most decidedly protest.
And, since the claim has been set up. we in
sist that the Government and the country
shall decisively pass upon il.
IL il be not rebuked, and Congress proceed
las is proposed) to organize territorial govern
menis for Oregon. California, and New-Nlex-
leo without mentioning Slavery. it will he
conidentially assumed thai the ultra South
ern construction has teen taciily acquiesced
in, and slave-holding governors and iud res
will be appointed to give it vitality and force.
10 meet the question promptly, broadly, and
siernly is the only course left the Free States
consistent with honor. Justice or safety.
Let us be distinctly understood. We
earnestly desire peace, conientment and har-
momy. We deplore sectional agitation and
sectional collision. We wonld i%nterpose no
obstacle TO the migration of Southern men or
Shareholders into any of the Territories Of
the Union. We would secure them every
privilege therein which we demand for North
ern men and free laborers. But we never can
consent to the establishment of Slavery there
In, by the laws or under the authority of this
Union. The lessons Of History, the in
stincts Of Patriotism, the %principl Is Of Re-
publicanism. the monitions Of Conscience,
cannot be disregarded by the Free States
without degradation, infamy and a fearful
looking for of judgment. The South must
not demand Of us what we have no right to
grant.
If the Southern men choose to remove their
Slaves to the new Territories. and undertake
10 hold them as the Patriarch Abraham doubt
less retained the servants born in his house
hold by the force of character, by personal
ascendency, by a sense of benefits conferred,
and of greater happiness enjoyed in the de-
pendent than in an independent condition.,
we in,erpose no objection. But if they want
to hold Slaves by the force of law and the
terror Of chastisement-to restrain them by
bayonets and reclaim them by the power of
bloodhounds and shot-guns-they must keep
them where they are.
Why crowd US on this point? Not one
fourth of the arabic surface of the Slave States
has ever yet been cultivated. Why not sub
due a portion OF that remainder before chal-
lenging the North 10 a struggle for the wild
~ravines of the upper Rio Grande and the
parcheu Valleys OF California !
If it were possible to make Mr.. Calhoun
see any thing adverse to the ACKNOWLEDGMENT
of his darling institution, it seems to us thai
there is one view of the subject which woult
stagger him. Bear in mind that there is nj
: objection TO the removal of Southern men
! black or white, to the new Territories; W,
protest only against the assumption that they
carry with them, by mere force of their mi
nT1tnp SnnthnFn Inurc Mr. fn1Iara 80,
sumes that they do; whereupon we press up.
on him the inquiry. What Laics? Those oil
several Slave States forbid under penalty, the
importation of Slaves for sale; those of one
at least, forbid and punish their expectation.
Some of them visit the teaching of a slave to
read with milder, others with more savage
penalties; those of South Carolina recently
doomed to death a young freeman for stealing
from her master a young woman to whom he
was attached. Will this be a portion Of the
law of New Mexico under Mr.. Calhoun's
system of non-interference Will a black
father and mother whose children are m rider
ed before their eyes, be permitted as in the
North TO testify against the white murderer,
or forbidden as in the South? What will be
the penalty of advising persons held as slaves
that their bondage is no longer valid? These
and many such questions must be answered
and their answers will irrefragably prove that
there Is no neutrality, no medium, no such
thing as non-interfeTence between Slavery
and Freedom. One or the other must prevail
in the Western half of our Union, as Con-
gress and the country shall now decide. We
stand for Freedom; Mr.. Calhoun for Slave.
ry. Let there be no paltering, no shutting,
but let each man take his position deliberate.
ly, determinedly, and Heaven smile Oh the
right!