Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1857-01-24
not permit me to copy it. Let these brief extracts
suffice for specimens Of its tone.
j. X. Giddings writes.


not permit me to copy IL. Let these brief extracts
suffice for specimens Of its tone.
J. r. Giddings writes:
"lhesitate not to say that this Government has
been 80 administered, for the last quarter Of
o century, as to be destructive to the lives, the
liberties and the happiness of a portion of the
people in short, it has become destructive of the
very objects for which it was established. Its in
fuence and it's powers have been exorted to
extend the most barbarous system Of human
bondage known to mankind. Three distinct and
separate wars have been waged to uphold and
maintain the sJ stem of American Slavery, More
than three hundred millions of dollars have been
drawn from the pockets Of our laboring people and
paid out by Government for that purpose, and
more than five hun lred thousand human victims
have been sent to premature graves to uphold and
maintain the interests Of on institution which the
present Administration and it's supporters are
seeking to extend and eternise. In one OF she
wars alluded to eighty thousand freemen were
sacrificed to this Moloch of Oppression, aud in
one day recently three hundred fathers, mothers
and children were 5arbarously butchered by our
army for no other crime than attachment to their
" b'oh iiBhb W hiucrtJ u IL krOuub VI
men and women murdered in Kansas by en-
ployees of our Government, have not yet ceased
to ring in our ears.
eve have acquired vast territory and spread
the Gu rse of human bondage over it; we have
erected nine slaveholding States and received them
into our Federal Union we have authorized
Slavery in Utah, New Mexico ard Western Texas;
we have authorized a coastwise mmer in
human flesh which is now carried on under the
protection of the American flag; we have estab.
lished 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 expense
of returning fugitives from oppression under the
fostering care Of this Federal Government the
number Of slaves has increased more than three
millions, and throughout fifteen States and three
Territories bereaved fathers and mothers mourn
the loss of children torn from their embrace by
brutal slavedealers and brothers and sisters, sep
arated from each other, sigh and weep in chaina /;
and millions of hearts are bleeding under the
accumulated wrongs of that institution" \
81 hesitate not to declare that the Federal Gov
eminent has been destructive of the ends for
which it was instituted, and the people now hold
the clear and indisputable right to alter or abolish
it and establish a new one and that the further
maintenance Of it is purely q question of policy
not of duty"
81 think we should remain in the Union, not for
the purpose of upholding and extending Slavery,
but for the purpose of unfolding and extending
Liberty. If we unite upon. the doctrines put forth
in our Republican platform, our success cannot be
delayed or postponed. II Il n 4 n
81 think our duty and policy unite in urging US
to maintain the Union as ii is, and to reject all
propositions to form new Unions with tho Polyga.
mists of Utah or tho Shareholders of Cuba that
we should be active and energetic in our efforts to
restore the Government to its original position in
favor Of freedom; that we should increase tbs
number Of FREQ States until the Slave Power shall
be dwarfed to an Insignificant portion of our
/ Federal Union that no man shall be elected to
any Office who h~esitatest to exert his political and
moralinfuence to carry out the designs of those
who established our Government that we shall
continue to arouse the public conscience of the
Nation until oppression shall cease to exist out
side of the Slave States We will then say to the
Shareholders of those States "Unbind the heavy
burdens and let the oppressed 60 free,' or if you
prefer to remain, let that Institution perish piN
it. Very respectfully, J.R. GIDDINGS,"
Mr.. Giddings, may remark in speaking of what
Theodore Parker, the other Sunday, il a premedi
tated sermon, called the recent righteous insur
/ %rections,' does not fail to designate the killing O
slaves rs Murder Of the innocents. Several Re
: publican papers, | observed, talked of John Bell
losses, as if the unoffcnding slaves who were muir
|, dered by the mob had been hogs, hardware, Offices
t houses, or other mere property.
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, in a courteous, ably
written letter, s~tatesl that after careful examina
, ton Of the grounds Of the proposition, neither a
a moral, as a social or as 4 political question coul
I give an affirmative answer to the doctrine Of SEP
%aration," and discusses it from each Of these stant
points Thinks that the defects of the Govern
S ment are not so much caused by any error in tn
y instrument as by the vacillaticn and weakness {
t tho great body of freemen who have the power i
y their own hands to correct it and yet refuse to US
0 it. He adds:
Q 81 think the obvious policy is to persevere in re
forming opinion in the Free States--to educat
+ the rising generation in a determined hostility
. the spread of Slavery in America-to infuse som'
thing of the genuine spirit of Liberty into tn
o sill torpid regions of the Middle and Wester
o States, and then to trust to time and to the prov
Is dence of God for a favorable result"
. The Hon. AxAsA WALKER, in a long letter, aft'
> expressing his disgust at "the hypocritical buster
of the public men who, 'cry up the Union and CT
down all who, in the Free States, in any way
manner examine the great qusstion-whether o,
permanent national prosperity and happiness CO
be preserved, while the dead carcase of Slavei
is bound to the living body of Freedoms" after sa
ing that be is "sick of SO much cant about Union,
which is "all feigned or false" and that the poop
10 of Massachusetts,, as he has the best reason
. know, are quite ready to take the ground, prac'
VI cally, that they will have Liberty and Union or
g. Union at ALL" after giving it as his belief tn
20 '~fnothing is so calculated to onslaye the peopl
~stupefy the public conscience, or destroy oil tr
be manhood" as this "abjec,, craven spirit" of Bill