Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1855-11-23
r e P o II T
Select Committee Of the senate.

On so much of the Gouernor. Message as
relates TO the ertenSioa Of sIGcerV end the
,1gh Of a Stare 10 his Frcedom ,chen
brought INTO Free State by has master.
To THE SENATE NOW IN SESSION
The Select Committee to whom was re-
ferred 50 much of the Governors Message as
relates to the extension of slavery and the
right of a slave to his freedom, when brought
into Free State by his master, ask leave to
report
The subject brought 50 iorcbly to the no.
tice of the General Assembly by the Chief
Magistrate OF the State, is one Of great mo-
ment to all it's people, and cannot htiy be
passed over. The General Assembly has in
deed for its Immediate charge the internal
concerns of the State; but its whole duty
does not stop there As u member Of the
Union Vermont has q deep concern in what
ever touches the Nations character power
and life. It's people are a part Of the millions
who owe allegiance to the National Govern
ment, and its power over them is immense,
1t can do them great good. 1t can work
them lrreparable evil,
No one who compares the present relations
Of the National and State Governments with
what they were when tie Constitution Of the
United States was made the supreme law Of
the land, can deny that great change has
taken place in them. At that time the fear
of many statesmen was that the Federal Gov
ernment would prove too weak that the
influence and power OF the State Govern
ments would embarrass and cripple it. None
fear that now, They fear rather, lest the
dearest rights Of the States shall be crushed
out Of existence by its resstless and I'M
scrupulous power The men who believed in
" the right OF all men by birth to enjoy and
defend life and liberty, to acquire and to pos
sess property, to pursue and to obtain happi-
ness and safety rejoced when the Govern
ment Of the Union was inaugurated, for they
believed it would be an impenetrable shield
against every enemy to those inalienable
rights Of man. Already, millions are filled
with dread lest what was intended to be a
shield to protect shall prove to be sword to
destroy them.
To enumerate the causes of this change
would be out of place here. Foremost among
them is the existence and growth of a system
of Slavery in large part Of the Nation-a
system felt to be so glarngly inconsistent
with the great principles and purposes Of the
Constitution, that the statesmen who framed
that instrument Of wonder aud dread to the
chiet nations Of the old world, would not al
low It's hateful nurnc to be found there,
although by implication they ackno" lodged
its being, and reluctantly conceded it's power
in the States, as they then were. The
thought Of its spread and its power, as the
Nation now finds it, entered not into their
remotest conceptions. Nay more, their aim
was to cut off its chief support, and to place
an everlasting barrier to its further extern
sion They considered it as no part Of a po-
litcll system whose vital principle was to be
justice between man and man, and the cqua-
lity OF all men before the law, bat o noisolnt
fungus upon it, which the vigorous life OF
that system would soon cast Of forever Lit
tic thought they how soon the parasite
would draw to its support the life-blood o
the body polite, and return il loaded viii
deadly poison to its remOtest oXtreui'ies.
We enter upon no argument t. show tia
slavery Is an evil wherever il is found
Couuteractions to its wrongs are often loun'
with it but they are not OF it. If any be
. lieye that essential good enters into a system
) which has not justice hut force for it's basis
which denies that liberty, as well az life, i
the brthright of every human hcing,-w
p leave them to their own blindness. Tn
people Of Vermont do not believe so,--thei
, Fathers did not believe so,-neither will thei
children. Neither shall We discuss the bear
ing Of slavery on those who individual.
stand in the relation of master and slave, no
stop to say what the people of those state
= where IL prevails, ought to do in the pre-
misses The moraist and the statesman hay
@ there a broad field for earnest and dispas
C sionate labor, and to them we must leave it
5 There are, however, considerations belongin!
a to the SUBJECT which come appropriated
p within our duty as members Of the Genera