Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1857-01-16

were secondary to that.
Mr.. Phillips's remarks occupied about an hour,
and at the conclusion the Convention adjourned
to Brlnley Hall, at seven o'clock
EVENING SESSION.
The meeting was called to order by Rev. Mr..
Higginson.
A letter was read from Hon. Geo. R Russell
of Roxbury, and the following
LETTER FROM HON J.. R. GIDDINGs.
WASHINGTON CITY, Jan. Z, 1857.
L. w. HIGGINsoN-Dear Sir. have received
your note inviting me, on behalf of the Commit.
tee OF Arrangements, to attend a Convention in
Worcester on Thursday next, which is expected
to assemble for the purpose of considering the
praehcaohty, the probability, and expectancy, of
separation between the free and slave States
Ihe questions are of a grave character, and
should be well considered. Indeed amid ali that
has been said and written upon the subject of
slavery, for the last6ve years, and the action of
the federal government for its extensiof+.it were
impossible that rejecting men should have failed
70 consider the propriety of continuing the Union
oetMeen~QnF iree and slave States nor is it pos
slble for ua to disguise the fact that slavery and
freedom are opposites, antagonists, and cannot
well exist together.
Our republican fathers, in laying down the es-
sential truths on which they based their hopes of
our nations glory, first stated the right of all
that governments are instituted among men to
secure the enjoyment of those rights and thirdly
they proclaimed further self-evdeut truth, "that
aoheneGer any form of government becomes de-
structure OF these ends, is the right of the people
to alter or abolish IT, and institute ,,eto 0oUeI7,
nae'st, laying ats foundations such principles
and organizing ITS pOlcerS IN Such FORM as to them
ShsaH seem most likely to effect their safety and
happiness
hesitate not to say, that this government has
been SO administered for the last quarter of
century 10 be destructive of the lives the lib
critics, and happiness of portion of the people :;
IN short, it has become destructive of the very
objects for which 1t was established Its influence
and its powers have been exerted to extend the
most barbarous system of human bondage known
to mankind Three distinct and separate aDarS
nave been waged to uphold and maintain the sys.
TEN ct American slavery. More than three hun
dred millions Of dollars have been drawn from the
pockets OF our laboring people, and paid out by
government for that purpose; and more than fUe
htta6rea thousand human oictilnS have been sent
10 premature graves, to uphold and maintain the
interests of an institution which the present ad-
minis ration and its supporters are seeking to ex
tend and eternise. In one OF the wars alluded to
e,9jtty thousand treemen We're sacrificed to this
Moloch OF oppression, and, in day, nearly
three hundred fathers, Mothers and children
were DANGEROUSLY butehefed by our army for no
other crime than attachment to their God given
rights OF liberty an the groans of men and
women, murdered in Kanzas by EMPLOYEES of the
government. have not yet ceased to ring in our
ears.
We have acquired vast territory, and spread
the curse of human bondage over it, we have
erected nine slayeholdiDg States and united them
INTO one federal Union; we have authorized slave.
~ In Utah. New Mexico, and Western Texas
we have authorized a coasIwise commerce in hu-
man flesh, which is carried on under the pro-
lection OF the American flag we have establish
ed slavery and the slave trade in the District of
Columbia, and involved our people of the free
States IN the disgrace, the crime, and the ex.
pense, OF retrieving fGgtives from oppression
Under the fostering love OF this federal govern.
ment, the number of slaves has increased more
than three millions and throughout fifteen
States and their territories bereaved fathers and
mothers mourn the loss of children, torn from
their embrace by brutal shareholders, and broth
ers and sisters separated from each other sigh and
weep IN chains, and millions of hearts are bleed
ing under the accumulated wrongs OF that insti-
tuition.
Our government has long been administered
with the evident intention to overthrow the cb
Jects and purposes of those who founded it.
Even the Union formed by our fathers long
since abandoned, and new Union formed with
foreign shareholders, for the avowed purpose of
extending and peTpetuatng slavery, giving the
single band of one hundred Texan slaves an in
fuence over the national interests of our free
States equal to sixty-one of the intelligent free
men of the North.
Will shareholders, or their serve allies insist
that am bound to revere and cherish this Union
with Texas, as the work of our Republican ia
theirs l repudate the idea. 1t was the work
OF Democratic Shareholders and their minions,
against my efforts and against the efforts of the
friends of liberty, against the Constitutions and
by the sacrifice of the honor and self-respect of
the people of the free States. NY ancestors did
not toll through seven ears OF anxiety and blood
she'd Tor the purpose of subjugating their off
spring to the control of slaveholding foreigners
upon such dIsgraceful terms. To pretend that |
feel attachment love, or veneration, for this new
Union with Texas, would bespeak myself slave.
l MAINTAIN 1t from such emotions. Our
Northern people maintain it very much as the
Hungarians maintain their union with Austria,
for the reason that we do no better. Accord.
ing to the Democratic doctrine, Congress may,
to morrow, repeal the joint resolution of annex
alton, and the Union would be dissolved.
Will the Shareholders or the minions of the
slave powers denounce me for speaking these
truths l bow 10 no such tyranny. The man
who dare not speak his honest con vctions is
already slave, and he who would seal the lips of
freemen, on any subject, is tyrant at heart, with
no just conception of freeman's right Our
Union must be maintained by justice not by
tyranny.
hesitate not to declare, that this federal gov.
eminent has been destructive of the ends for
which it was instituted, and the people now hold
the clear and ndsputable right to alter or abolish
1t, and establish one and that the further
maintenance of il is purely question of policy,
not of duty.
To the provocations enumerated, SouthernStates
men have consequently added threats to dissolve
the Union. 1t is notorious fact, that for thirty
years leading Southern men have cherished the
hope Of forming Southern Confederacy, separ-
ate and independent of the free states recently,
this plan has come into very general favor at the
South. Editors and politicians now announce
their determination to secede from the Union
soon as the Republicans shall obtain control of
the federal government which they generally ex.
pect to take place in 1860. Preparatory to this
event, they collecting arms, establishing mag
azines of powder and m litary supplies strength
ening their defenses, organizing and disciplining
Their militia, and forming associations and COM
binations to effect separation from our free
states. Their presses and statesmen generally
assert also that they will separate from us unless
the influence Of slavery be extended in proportion
as freedom expands, over our territories and new
states and they demand that Utah, with its po-
lygamy and slavery. and concubinage, shall be re-
cived into political iellowship by the descendants
OF the Pilgrims that New England puritan-
ism shall mingle with the heaihensm of Nor.
mon: permitting the b rbarians OF Utah to hold
superior influence in the common govelnm emf,
in proport on to the number of their wives their
slaves, and concubines. They also insist that an
other Union shall be formed with the Spanish
Shareholders of Cuba, giving them superior infiu.
ence aud power in the government, pfoportioned
TO the number of their slaves,
Against their designs, we should exert all our
inhuene. Indeed, the people of that free state
must be disgIaced, who will consent to be thus
transferred to the control of Spanish shareholders
or Of the poygamists OF Utah would maintain
the Unonias n noto Is, because it can be welded