The Perrysburg journal. [volume] (Perrysburg, Ohio) 1853-1861, 1854-08-19
A D D RESS
To to the Electors of the Fifth CoDgresSiOn~
81 DISTRICT OF Ohio,

ing of the independent citizens of Lucas
county, convened at Maumee City, on Sat
urday, the lst of July, to address you on the
present momentous crisis in our national
tfIdirs, and invite your active cooperation
N the movement now being made through
out the country, to secure a more perfect
union Of the friends of freedom, we proceed
20 the performance Of the duty assigned US,
Confident that we shall utter no sentiment
md recommend no mode Of action that will
not meet ready response from every unbi-
ased citizen of the district; and desiring
Nnly to speak truthfully and earnestly of the
alarming dangers that now beset US as ma
non, we ardently invite you to candid con-
~ideration of the facts herein presented.
We fear that in an age and country which
loudly boasts of progressive civilization,
nur rulers and representatives are fast COM
mitting US to the propagandism of an insti-
cution, which throughout the whole history
IF mankind has been the badge of barbarism
md despotism.
When our fathers were about making that
declaration, which is regarded as the most
admirable exposition of the rights Of man
hat has ever been published, they hoped that
while it established the freedom Of one race,
it would in a few years exterminate the sla-
very Of the other. Accordingly, Mr.. JefI6r-
son informs US that the original draft of his
immortal declaration contained the follow
ing language:
He has waged a cruel war against huI
man nature itself, violating its most sa-
: cred rights Of life and liberty in the persons
g Of distant people, who never offended
6 him, captivating and carrying them into
slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur
a miserable death in transportation thlth-
er. This piratical warfare, the opprobrl-
um of infdel powers, is the warfare Of the
Christian King of Great Britain determin
. ed to keep open market where men should
g be bought and sold. He has prostituted
his negative by suppressing every leegisla-
g tive attempt to prohibit or to restrain this
- cXecrable commerce. and that this assem-
blage Of horrors might want no fact OF
- distinguished dye, he is now exciting those
g very people to rise in arms among us, and
& to purchase that liberty Of which he has
& deprived them, by numbering the people
& on whom he also obtruded them; thus
paying of former crimes, committed
. against the liberties of one people, with
crimes which he urges them to commit
- against the lives of another
Such sentiments would seem worthy of all
acceptation by humane, just and Christian
men, and fit and proper to be Incorporated
IN u paper, the exordium of which, holds
'' this truth to be elf-evident-that all men
are created equal, and endowed by their Gre
ator with certain inalienable rights, such as.
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"
The trainers of the constitution contem
plated the time when human slavery in these
United States should be- extinct.
The government was organized with vast
concessions on the part Of great majority
II the people, who were hostile to this insti-
'ution. In the senate Of the United States,
ZACH state was allowed two senators. AS
one Of the results of this concession, six
lnillions Of white people at the south have
Lirty senators, while fifteen millions a. the
north have but thirty-two senators. BY con-
ceding five slaves to count as equal to three
freemen as a basis of representation in the
house of representatives, two thirds as many
white citizens of the south send a represent
ative to congress- as it requires at the north.
More than twenty representatives. from the
south are this day in congress, representing
property, only, human chattels. The SUI
IRENE court is SO organized that less than