The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1855-03-22
ereigns, clamorous for "popular sovereignty"


ceaied under his tunic to hide the theft It shall
eat and gnaw into their vitals. If all that modern
discovery has revealed concerning it be true, and
the institution Is, as asserted, benefcent in its
character tending to civilization, purity, liberty
education, physical prosperity, and social ad-
vancement; or if, as think, the reverse of all
this is true and its tendencies are toward barba-
rism, debauchery, despotism, ignorance, material
decay, and social Generalization, we of Connec-
tcut and of the other free States do desire to
participate in either its blessings its curses but
to be exempted from any responsibility therefor
AS citizens of the free States, we ask especially
that this District may be purified with thorough
lustration so that the Capital of the nation which
should reflect the national honor, shall cease to
be trodden by slave, and the national flag nc
longer protect Slavery and the slave-trade under
its folds We ask to be released from the infamy
of the traffic in men, women and children, which
is often heraldsd through the city papers, to take
place almost under the shadow of the Capitol
Let this foul blot be wiped off from our national
escutcheon. Let the city bearing the honored
name of the Father of his Country be cleansed oil
the rank offense, and made fit dwelling-place
for the ark of our liberties. Let American citi-
zsns when they visit the Capital of their country
no longer have occasion to take up the indignant
lamentation of the poet
"who can with patience for moment see,
This medley mass of pride and misery,
Ofwhips and charters, manacles and rights,
Ofslaving blacks and democratic whites?
To think that man, thon just and righteous God!
Should stand before Thee with tyrant's rod
Der creatures like himself-with souls from Thee
And yet TO boast OF perfect liberty"
We demand the abolition of Slavery in the ma
tional District not only act of justice to the
enslaved and to the free States which have been
treacherously implicated therein, but also as one
OF the reformatory measures necessary to the vim
dication of our national character before the
world Everywhere the cause of republican gov
eminent is sadly disparaged and stgmatized by
our inconsistency and treachery. American hber-
ty is understood abroad to mean the liberty to
Cypress, the liberty to ensave, the liberty to i'm
brute our fellow-men; and one foreign writer has
even suggested that our national emblem should
be made truly emblematic of our real character,
by picturing the eagle with liberty on his wings,
and with a negro chained and writhing in his
talons, and his hearts blood dripping from his
beak. American Democracy is looked upon as a
huge, one-eyed, gigantic monster modern Poly
phemus-sporting the cap of liberty on his head,
and mounting the p@ans offreedom on his tongue,
while he stalks ruthlessly over men, and treadS
them down as worms. He is sometimes depicted
in foreign cities, according to the reports of
American travellers, standing erect upon the hu-
man auction block, in the act of selling men,
women, and children, to the highest bidders /;
again, with coat of and arms bare whipping nude
backed women and again, with rifle and hounds,
chasing flying fugitive slave over mountain and
moor, whose only crime is, that, like Washington,
he loves liberty too well.
Said Lafayette, a few years before his death:
while l am indulging in my views of Amer
lean prospects and American liberty, il is morti-
flying to be told that in that very country a large
portion of the people are slaves. 1t is a dark
spot on the face of the nation"
At another time, he said, that had he foreseen
tho result he never would have unsheathed his
sword in behalf of country of tyrants and slaves
Says s. S. Abby, in his book entitled A Res
idence and Tour in the United States
T" A view of the national sin of America, after
admiring the natural grandeur of the country,
{ is like discovering the object of worship in the
old temples of Egypt where, after the stranger
had walked bewildered through vistas of superb
architecture, he came at last to the filthy idol
a mounting and obscene ape, playing its pranks
on throne of gold And this is the thing to
be worShiped in America; a mockery and dis
grace of the human character enthroned in the
Z West; nation of slave-drivers, masquerading
{ it with the cap of liberty; Christian people
surprising all the heather tribes of the world
in systematic wickedness free Republic prac-
ticing greater oppression than was ever heard
of in the old king scourged and priest-ridden
despotisms of Europe"
Says an Edinburgh Reviewer, in an article on
" Travellers in America"
every American who loves his country should
dedicate his whole life and every faculty of his
soul to efface the foul blot of Slavery from its
character. If nations rank according to their
wisdom and virtue, what right has the Ameri-
can, scOurger and murderer of slaves, to COM
pare himself with the least and lowest of the
European nations, much less with this great
and humane country, where the greatest lord
dare not lay a finger on the meanest peasant
What is Freedom where all are not free, where
the greatest of Gods blessings is limited, by
impious caprice, to the color of the body? And
these are the men who taunt the English with
their corrupt Parliament with their buying and
selling votes Let the world Judge which is the
more liable to censure-we who, in the midst of
rottenness have torn the manacles off slaves all
over the world, or they, who with their idle
purity and useless perfection, have remained
mute and careless, while groans have echoed
and whips cracked around the very walls of
their Spotless Congress We wish well to Amer
lea we rejoice in her prosperity and are delight
ed to resist the absurd impertinence with which
the character of her people is often treated in
this country. But the existence of Slavery
there is an atrocious crime, with which no
measures can be kept; for which her situation
erty itself distrusted and the boast of it disgust
ing"
| have cited these passages not that they can
afford any satisfaction to national pride or patriot
iSm-they certainly afford me none-but because
they are truthful, and teach us in what estma-
ton we are held abroad, on account of our slave
holding. Every true American, every real patriot
must feel deeply for the honor of his country,
and lament the dark plague-spot which has
L IL "a al, Il.
of an enlightened universe. Oh, sir, this fair
temple of Freedom, with the demon of Slavery
as the presiding divinity enthroned within; this
magnificent altar of liberty, with human victims
for the sacrifice; this asylum for the oppressed of
all other lands and the cruel grave of the rights
and liberties of millions of our own land Jus
tice, humanity, liberty, pratiotism allimplore US
to Danish Slavery from the national Capital, and
everywhere to absolve the Federal Government
from its guilty completely with the system. They
call upon us to denationalze it, and disabuse the
national character of the horrible infamy which
burns and blackens upon its escutcheon from
the perversion Of the freest and best Government
on earth, ordained for the protection of human
rights into tremendous engine for their destruc-
ton. Have we become so callous, so reckless so
lost TO proper selfregard, and "a decent respect
for the opinions Of mankind" as to madly persist
In trampling upon the great and vital principles
of our own Government, and in offering hecatombs
of men upon the altar of American liberty? Shall
we wait for the avenger of blood to teach us the
awful lesson affirmed by all history, that nation
al calamities and ruin are the sure and inevita-
BILE consequences of national injustice and crime
Mr.. President; here might pause; out it may
not be amiss to glance at the subsequent policy
of a Government which signalzed its Inaugural
ton by re-establishing Slavery in the metropolis
Of the nation, and expose its profigacy in pander-
Ing to the viiest despotism beneath the sun.
Although the Constitution of the United States
makes no distinction on account of complexion,
and admits no right or disqualification therefor,
Its administrators have taken it upon themselves,