Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1848-02-25
position and Duties of the North with
regard 10 Slavery.
BY ANDREW J. PEABODY.

ICSulu W DiuNOit'
BY ANDREW J. PEABODY.
Ir has been common, both at the South
and the North, to deny not only the duty,
but the right Of Northern men to discuss the
subject of slavery. The attempt has been
made to draw around the Africans in bond
age a line of decentralization, which philan-
thropy, sympathy, nay, not even calm, dis
passionate investigation can cross with I'M
punity. This line, however, we cannot hold
sacred. For the Africans are within the pale
of human brotherhood, which Christianity
has marked for US and the fact, that they
are part and parcel of our own body polite,
certainly cannot render them less our breth-
rem. Nor, on the other hand, can the fact,
that they belong to States which WELD some
OF the attributes OF independent sovereignty,
rightfully exclude them from our sympathy,
unless we have been wrong in sympathizing
with the Greeks and Poles, and with the A.
static tributaries Of Great Britain, with whose
oppressors We surely have as little political
connection as with the Southern States Of
our own Contederacy. Is il said that the
Constitution and laws Of the Union preclude
our action in the premises. and therefore
should suppress our sympathy, or at least
the free utterance of it? We deny that the
Constitution or fundamental laws of the I'm
ion put this subject beyond the reach Of our
political action and, if they did, and it
should still appear that God had placed US
under religious obligations 10 be enslaved.
we cannot for a moment admit that human
compacts or enactments are valid against the
divine law. Is it peremptorily asserted. that
we at the North have no responsibilities or
duties with reference TO slavery! We still
will contend for the right of trying this cues
ton ourselves, inasmuch as the question Of
responsibility or of duty can never be an
severed by others in our stead. We say not
at the outset that it is our right or duty to
act upon this subject; but merely maintain
the right, nay, the duty of inquiry,-of de-
termining, by the free exercise Of our WI
Judgment, whether and how far we at the
North are accountable for the wrongs and
evils of slavery,-whether and how far Prov
idence has entrusted to us the power, and gil
ven to us the means of decisive influence and
action in the cause of emancipation. To put
and answer these inquiries is the object of
the present article.
Our Constitution embraced at the outset IL
" IN NAilhhS l"-
the continuance of the slave-trade for twenty
years, without providing for its abolition even
then rand against this many earnest and fer
vent voices were raised by not a few of the
first and best men in the nation; among
whom we would make honorable mention of
Joshua Anterior, of New Hampshire, (grand-
father of Hon. Charles e.. .4kheriOH,) who OPP
posed the adoption of the Constitution on
this ground alone; for, said he, "lf we rati-
fy the Constitution, we become consenters
TO and partakers in the sin and guilt of this
abomlnable traffic." By the Constitution,
also, a larger than It's due share of represent
tation and influence was secured to the Sou
them States, by reckoning three-ffths of the
slaves in the numbers, on which the appor-
tionment of representatives in Congress is
made,-an arrangement, by which the Sou
thern minority Of the free citizens Of the
country have been fast approaching a MAORI
ty in the representation, and will, # the pro-
cess go on unchecked, soon attain that ma
iority by the increase Of slaves in the extreme
South, and the creation of new slaveholding
states, as in the case of Texas and Florida
There is also an article in the Constitution,
which permits the retaining of fugitive
slaves in the free States, and thus declare;
our territory, what it has often been made, q
hunting ground for slave-drivers. Unde
this article, according to the construction o
our Supreme Judiciary, any citizen Of the
North, (he need not be black; men as whit,
as most of our readers, have been claimed
and seized as slaves at the North may b.
seized and carried into slavery without thu
form of trial, on the mere affidavit of the clal
mant before a justice of the peace. The re
deeming trait in this article is, that it doe
not make it incumbent on the State anthori
ties to act in such cases, and its force ma,
be evaded, (as it has been, to the honor 0
several of the New England States by pre-
hibiting under severe penalties, any of tn
State functionaries from aiding in the arres
or veriication of persons claimed as slaves
and forbidding the use of the jails of the Stat
for the detention of such persons. But sti
the article is a foul blot upon orr Constitl
ton, and a memorial of a sycophancy an
subserviency to the South on the part of Ii
North, which has been as the life-blood
Southern slavery.
by the Constitution, Congress has eXclI
.;ive jurisdiction over the territories belon!
ing to the Union and, south of thirty-eig
and a half degrees of north latitude, Congre:
has sanctioned slavery in all those t%erritorie
Several new slaveholding States have bee
admitted to the Union; and particularly,
1920, Missouri, the question of whose a
mission was made to turn solely on the poi
of slavery, was admitted with liberty to no
slaves, by means Of the infamous detectiC
of Northern members of Congress from Il
true principles of freedom.
Under the authority Of Congress, ais
and by the votes and the scquiescence
Northern Legislators, slavery and the dome
tic slave.trade, in its most revolving feature
are sustained in the District OF Columbia,
which the entire, unrestricted jurisdiction
vested in Congress. There are nowhere
the Union more severe slave-laws than a
sanctioned in that District by act of Co
press. The barbarity of the slave-laws
force there may be judged of from one 81