Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1854-06-03

MIN.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN should feel great re-
pret to stand here now, in any sense, in the place
Of the speaker whose absence has just been apollo
eizcd for did not feel, as our friend Mr. Furnis
has expressed himself that this is not meeting for
speeches. but to takes sides in great moral contro-
yersy and that our only purpose and expectation
here is not to tickle your ears with eloquence but
to tell plain unvarnished tale and to endcayor to
arrest the attention of great nation to the greatest
of all possible wrongs.
You will allow, friends, at any rate, that in the
letter that has Just been read to you, Miss Stone
the well-known advocate Of human rights aud Of
woman's rights at least yindicates herself most
emphatically from the charge Of neglect Of her
home to-day daughter and applause), You will
have II to say, also, and the memory will be inn
pressed upon you by your own disappointment,
that she feels the weight and responsibility of her
domestic relations tenderly and fully those
who are not accustomed to occupy this platform !;
and hereafter, whenever the charge is made against
the champions of this cause, you will at least do
her the justice to recolect that she disappoht
cd you ON such an occasion as this.
Mr.. President, this is indeed marked occasion,
and cannot even commence any remarks upon the
general aspects Of the Anti-Slayery cause until /
have called your attention TO the singular fact, and
one indicative certainly of much of that hope to
which Mr.. Puryis has alluded that we arc met here
for the first time within my memory in the City Of
New York, on an Anniversary Of the American
Ant-Slavcry Society, in church, in building
consecrated exclusively to religious exercises, and
known only as one representing the religious senti-
mcnt. You may not view this us much, but straws
show which way the wind blows. 1t is great
thing that recent events have done for
us when they have stirred SO deeply the
public sentiment, even here in the City
of New York, in this great commercial capital, in
a community whose streets roar with the din of
trade, and whose heart is eaten out with money,
that the An-Slavery cause has not gone backward,
but has gained ground. If you had served seven
teen years, as it has been my fortune to do in so
many great centres of American life, and found the
doors of every religious edifce shut against you,
you would give more Importance to the fact than,
perhaps, you are at present ready to do, that the
doors Of a religious edifce open to us, and
that we meet under the express sanction Of Chris
tianity.
1t is an infdel" society, ladies and gentlemen,
whose anniversary you this day attend it is n
"treasonable society that is met here to-day. You
shall 90 elsewhere, this very week, in this city and
in many other parts of the country, where Anti
Slavery sentiments are uttered you shall go to
Congress and attend the meetings of an efficient
debating Ant-Slayery society in the House of Rep
rcsentatives; but there is character which at
taches to this society. 1t is an infdcl" society
it is a Unreasonable" Ant-Savery society whose
anniversary you countenance by your presence
to-day.
mention these facts at the beginning because We
count these epithets no insult but cling to them as
most fitting characteristic, and we claim of his
tory that she should never overlook them, but that
she should do us the justice to hand them down Il
poserty as our only claim to the gratitude of those
who are to come after us (applause). At a time
when the influential and respectable pulpits of New
York were not willing or did not dare to pray for
the abolition of Slavery; at time when large
classes of respectable and influential men with
hearts in their bosoms could much of author
ity in human laws or much of value in political
institutions that they stopped altering at halfway
line in their hostility to Slavery, and dared not at
tack it when it sheltered itself behind the Constitu
ton of the United States, though we had no other
offering to lay on the altar of human liberty, we
laid this A Willingness to believe that Christian
ity, no matter how dark the hour never could
sanction Slavery-that the New Testament no
matter how many doctors Of divinity stood before
1t, had no line on its pages that could make hu-
man slave, or authorize another to be STAKEHOLDER
that human laws, however venerable, ancient OF
important TO the material interests of society
never ought TO be, never could be binding when
they put fetter on single human being. That
is our creed and, in the few moments that am u
address you, having shown you the length and
breadth Of our offence Intentionally, want to en-
deavor TO prove to you that harsh these sentences
sound, they not unchristian, however infide
they may be to American Christianity; that they
're not disorganiZing, however illegal they may nj
Hnpear that couched under them is the onl,
remedy for the system of American Sla
ni a, Z we have not disturbed the commu
r;tyy by adopting too radical princi
% pss or covered any NJ ore ground than we ought
have done In word wish to prove to you tina
she society which meets he.'e this morning, an(
which you have grsced with youl pfesence' Is ON
shat really believes that there is MT hcpe ior !n'
American slave except in a total reyoi2uor
in the religious institutions Of the eoun
try and total destruction of political arranh
ments Of the land. e
This is Disunion societyi and for one an,
glad and proud 10 confess my creed at moment
like this, dark enough for all politicians, dark
enough for any one who has looked for the success
of the Ant-Slayery cause in the established inst
tutions of the country, for they have failed 1t is
not too much to say, to-day, that Anti'Slavery has
failed. Il commenced with Washington and JEFF
ferson. 1t commenced with the fathers of the re
public. They were Ant-Sayery in the sense Of
their day. They hated the slave trade they
shrunk back from tho basis of tho slave system
itself but they had not utter faith in the safety
Of doing right They could not trust in justice a
the highest expediency. They dared not hunel
boldly on that pathless sea, doing justice TO cacl
human being, confident that when God established
justice. he saw to IL that II would be safety bu
TREY provided little city," itnot litts ono 2