Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1857-03-07
MIR. oIDDINGs 10 MR.. BENTON.

QeltVereu IN new Enginnu anu New 1Ofk, you are
represented as saying; The Constitution of the
United States sets out with the declaration that
SLAVES are property" That view of our Consti-
tuition is certainly TIM %portant. If correct, it should
be understood and admitted by Northern men if
incorrect, it should be promptly met and ex-
posed.
The doctrine that man, bearing the image of
his God, immortal in his hopes and aspirations,
can be transformed into property, changed from
the human to the brute creation, is repugnant to
the judgement OF mankind opposed to the teach
ings of nature and of revelation in direct CON
tradiotion to the intentions and understanding OF
those who founded our government; in conflict
with the convictions and objects of those who
framed our Constitution, and is contradicted in
the most EN- phatic manner by the spirit and letter
OF that instrument.
10 is rspugnant to the Judgment Of m ankind
In no age of the world, in no part of creation. has
n being existed 10 the form of man, with the or
binary intellect possessed by our race, who did
not feel conscious that no other person could have
rightful power over bis life, his liberty, or his
labor. This consciousness was infused into the
soul Of man at his creation, and constitutes one of
the elements of our moral nature. 1t has never
been separated from the soul Of man. Neither
you, nor the most strenuous advocate of Slavery,
ever did, or ever will admit that you can be dis
robed Of your manhood, transferred into q brute
and made the property Of your brother man. You
nre conscious that your lungs are inflated by your
own inspiration your limbs move NJ the instance
of your own will, and not at the instance OF an
other your hands cultivate the earth and gather
Its fruits under guidance of your own judgement,
and if you fail to feed and nourish your body
agreeably to the demands of nature. you die.
When you have obtained food for the nourishmen!
Of your own body, yov will not admit the right of
another to take it from you. You are conscious
that such robbery would be wrong-an ofense
against natural justice. Yet these propositions
are merely selfevident truths, standing parallel
with the absolute right of every man to his own
body and the use of his own limbs.
The South Sea cannibals kill and eat the bodies
of those whom they conquer; but even the New
Zealander denies the right Of others to Stay and
eat him. He is fully conscious Of his right to en-
Joy his own life, liberty and labor; and will shed
his blood in defending those rights. He holds
that "alliance to the power which gave him the
form, requires him to defend the rights of man,
and Sheridan spoke truly when in 1852 he declared
that ''never yet was this truth dismissed from the
human heart never in any time, in any age
never in any cline where rude man had any
social feelings-never was this unextinguishable
truth destroyed from the heart of man, placed as
IL is in the core and centre by his Creator, that
man tcas not made the property Of man"
The doctrine that slaves are property is opposed
10 the teachings Of Nature and of Rccelation.
In our Slave States men are held and treated as
property. The owners attach TO them the incidents
OF property. They regard the whole physical and
moral being Of the slave subservient to the interest
of his owner. They seek to prolong the lives of
their slaves SO far as will be profitable to the
master, and no longer. They drive him SO hard
as to produce death at that period which the own
ers believe most conclusive to their interests. 1t
Is a well ascertained fact that 25 900 murders are
thus committed on Southern plantations annually,
under the excuse that slaves are property. ! need
not say that such ~barbarity is revolving to all the
feelings of our nature.
Sir, | feel deeply panied when | reflect that a
man Of your political intelligence charges our
Federal Constitution with such heathcnish bar
barity.
Nature teaches US that the design and object OF
human existence is to elevate and unfold the ln'
t~ellect, the spirit, the soul of man that the body
is merely the tenement, the habitation of the soul
to be nourished and made healthy in order to rem
der it an agreeable dwelling for the moral being.
Constitutions and laws may direct your body and
limb to obey another man. Shareholders and
pirates may command them to do their bidding,
but they cannot control them until they enslave
your mind, degrade it, shut up the windows OF the
soul, enshroud it in moral darkness, and prevent
its expansion, its elevation, its enjoyment. We
shudder at the contemplation of such violation o!
Natures laws.
Nor is the doctrine less repugnant to revelation.
The Scripture informs us that fine Creator gave to
man dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowl OF
the air, and over the cattle and over all the earth
These are property. The Creator himself drew a
very marked distinction between persons and prop
ertv, and TO human laws or human constitutions
oan obliterate tho line of demarkation which lie
has drawn. Neither pirates nor shareholders, mol
~piratical Legislatures, can transform the image Of
God into that of the brute. True, they may call
men brutes, or declare them property; but they
retain the human form, and the soul, thougt
wronged, dwarfed and im prisoned in the dark
dungeon of Slavery, will burn with immortal de-
sire, and will break from its imprisonment and
leave the owner naught but an offensive, putreiy
ing carcass, that he may retain and use as property
while the man will repair TO the bar of retrlbutive
tustice and make his apDpal nupalust those wl(
attempt to convert immortal beings into brutes.
If there be any mandate of Scripture, OF Chris
tianity, binding on man it is that which commands
us to. do unto others whatsoever we would have
them do unto us - and he who holds his fellow
man as property. while he is himself unwilling t.
be converted into a brute, is an infdel.
l am aware that you will answer that preachers
even doctors of divinity, teach US that men ma,
innocently hold and treat their brethren of tn
same church as properly; that men may right
fully buy and sell the image Of God may withou
guilt sell the Savior in the person of his followers
I reply, that such teachers are not only infdels, Blu
are hypocrites.
TREY are far more d~eprayed than were thost
Algerines who, near the close of the last century,
seized and enslaved our American citizens, anc
held and treated them as property. The civilized
world pronounced them heather, barbarians
pirates unfit for human association. Our nation
sent a navy and army and butchered them with
out mercy, and rescued their victims from bond
age. But you and every other rejecting man vii
admit that those Algerines, bred and educated
under Mohammedan superstition, were less afro
cious and far less guilty than are those Doctors o
Divinity referred to; yet they were worthy o
death, and were slain, while some preachers of oul
land are permitted to live, aud unrestrained they
ondeavor to corrupt our holy religion, by teaching
the most revolving ~infdelity that ever cursed thu
earth.
The doctrine that slaves are property is in direc
contradiction to the understanding and pur
poses of those pho aehiered our NatioaaI hide
pendence.
AT the time Of our Revolution, the rights Of
mankind had long agitated the civilized world
The divine rights Of kings, the division Of man
kind into clauses, with various privileges, had sur
rounded the people of the Old World with institu
tions which had become ~petri6ed with age. Thes'
ideas and doctrines were discarded by our fathers