Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1849-03-15
American Slavery.

To Judge Justly OF the character OF anything,
we must know what it does. "That which
is good, does good; and that which is evil,
evil" And as to daty, Gods designs in
dictate his claims. That which accomplish
es the manifest design of God is right, that
which counteracts it, wrong. Whatever
in its proper tendency and general effect,
produces, secures or extends human welfare
is according to the will Of God and is good;
and our duty is to favor and promote, ac-
cording to our power, that which God fav-
ors and promotes by the general law Of his
providence. ION the other hand, whatever,
in its proper tendency and general effect,
destroys abridges, or renders insecure hui
man welfare, is opposed to Gods will, and
is evil And as whatever accords with the
will of God, in any manifestation of it,
should be done and persisted in, so what.
ever opposes that will should not be done,
and If done, should be abandoned.
Can that, then, be right, be welI-doing-.
can that obey Gods behest, which makes
man slaUe (which dooms him and all
his posterity, in lmitless generations, to
bondage Ito unrequited toll, through life 2
to the will of despot, with no purpose
of his own, and only another's to rule his.
destiny from the cradle TO the gravel.
which makes fear the great motive of his.
life (which forbids his interest in proper.
ty, of every kind, making the hope of to-
morrow no object of to-day, r,'if an object
at all one that the fear of anoher's arbit-
rary and caprcous will makes next to
none (which allows him no country in
government he can hope for protection
none whose government, as judically con-
strued, is not his sworn foe (which denies
him, in childhood, manhood aud old age,
voluntary home, and whatever that full
word imports (which cuts him off from
parentage at his birth (which robs him of
the fixed necessities of his social nature,
abrogatlng domestic relations, and forbid.
ding the comfort and solace of wife or child
rem, whatever may betde him in this rng-
ged world (which makes the body liable,
without distinction of sex, to the resistless,
questionless infections of masters or an
overseers whims and cultivated pass ions
which furnishes the soul, seeking to keep
the mind ever vacant Of its proper nourish-
ment, and to hold its unnamed possessor
but step, the shortest possible fronn the
brute (which takes from him the com mon.
est motives to virtue, and rears on the whole
{, foundation of his nature urgent and lasting
incentives to vice (which makes him
suspected by, and suspicious of those for
whom he is daily driven to toll. and on
whom, for his coarse allowance of proveIlder
he every day depends (which temps him
to proving stealth, and to pilfer, as a viz
tue when not detected from his masters
store, to earnings Of his own unpaid toil?-
which incites him to acquire the Ionged-for
boon offreedom by veturng through the
most merciless dangers or to vindicate his
right to it by the broadcast seal of blood ,
which represses the upward aspirings of his
nature for Immortality, making sensual
world the sphere and boundary of his vi.
sion!-which keeps from his hands the
| Wold of Life, yields to him reluctant,
uncertain, unspiritual sabbath, and all bat
wholly leaves him without hope and with
out God in the world
Can that ruined, empty condition, or the
liability to such ruin and vacuity, by arbi-
trary power of fellow mortal, be right and
good-the manifest design of God in the
formation and endowments of man, a be-
s ing not only mortal but immortal! Can
: that be right and good, be true to God and
l. just to man, which, for no crime against
J, Heaven, no offence to earth but the help
less, immoral color of the skin-perhaps an
+. undistinguishable and only presumed Shade
# -dooms a single individual of our species
to such a combination of outrages on his
e being (which takes even one brother of
our family TO lop and scar, to kill and bury
u his manhood (which, defacing the image
wherein he was created, sinks hirn as near
J. brutality as can make him that contradic.
l. ton to nature, profitable, contented slave
and then proves, by the depth of his forced
degradation, his incapacity to be man
;, his doom of God to be slave
m And if such ruin, or the exposure tc
lie such a ruin of but one man, of but one
" brother, is not right, is displea;sing to God
I; then how wrong, how ofencive to Heaven
81 must be that system which so crashes mil
a lions of human beings at once, and multi
~ plies its millions of victimes along the track
of ages! What words can tell the inhu
III mainly, the atrocity of that doctrine which
IT. from exalted office, Commends such a crime
n to the favor of Christian nations, as the de
'r, liberate counsel and practical wisdom of
Ill great and enlightened Christian republic
he What indignation from all the world is no
he due to the government that puts forth it
strength to protect and extend such barbar
Of ity? Nature abhors it; the age repeIs it
70 and Christianity needs all her meekness t.
"c forgive it.
VI But he who makes man his victim sacri
fees himself Our present subject canno
re dispute this axiom. We must, then, lool
Tor for the character of slavery and the will O
ng God respecting it, beyond, as well as with
in, itself. If that which works evil to tn
slave works evil to the master also, then arr
there two witnesses cited by Providence Il
testify against it and establish its deinuuen
cy. Keeping in memory, then, the iniur
-, done to the slave, let us now examine tha
which it lntllcts on the master, and decid
whether that system accords with thu
will Of God which works evil to all concern
ed
Can, then, that system be good for hin
who is concerned in it, and therefore b
wisely allowed, cherished and ENLARGED
which, giving nearly unlimited irrespons
BILE power over fellow man, body an
soul, for life, makes it necessary, for hir
he who is SO concerned, to be educated to il
strenuous necessities, to its imperious lis
es. and stern excsion of sympathy (which t
maintain an adverse relation and make