Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1857-09-12
ANNUAL REPORT.

If the report which we present to you of the
manner in which during the past year we have
performed the trust reposed in us, shall appear
meagre in detail and barren in results, the reason
will be obvious to those who will observe the
paucity of the means which have been placed at
our disposal. 1t is not that the soil we are called
to cultivate lacks entirely the elements of lertil.
ity, nor the seed which we are expected to scatter
has been Invested of its ancient power of germin-
alton and qualification but because we have been
left almost wholly without the means necessary to
prepare the one to receive and develop the other.
Let him that readetb, ponder, upon how far his own
responsibilities in this regard have been fulfilled.
So long as tho nation continues divided into
two parties so disproportionate in numbers and
resources as are those which now compose it,
namely the slaves and the abolitionists on the one
hand, with the slave-owners ant. their willing and
unwilling allies of the several political factions COM
prising the slaveh gliding party on the other, there
can be no scantiness of materials from which to
prepare the history of slayeholding aggressions
and conquests, during even the brief period inter
vening between our annual meetings. First Of
these in point of time, though not possessed Of
that especial Importance as an event by many at
tributed to.it, in it's influence upon the anti.slavery
movement was the election and installation OF
James Buchanan as President of the United
States. Selected mainly because of his proven
oLsequiousness to the tyrannous o~ligarchy which
rules, but partly also from his ability to entice
large masses Of the Northern people into a posi-
ton as servile and subservient as his own, since
the faction which opposed him was by their own
/ .ln-:.- .I;,Nov;llv &C tha lalaf thot clovarp
ought not to be interfered with where it exists
under the shield of State sovereignty" the only
importance to be ascribed to his success consists
in the evidence it affords Of the ability and the
purpose of the despotism which overshadows us,
to reward the servility of its creatures in proper
ton to their meanness and serviceableness
Having secured an Executive prepare ed to EN-
ploy all the powers Of the government, in quenine
, opposition to the extension of slavery over sol
coveted for selfish purposes by a people not emily
opposed to interfering with slavery where i
already exists, but swift to pander to the ruling
influence by excluding the man of color iron
sharing i. with them the next step was to NANTES
its Supremacy through the Federal Judiciary
Accordingly the decision in the case of Dire,
Scott was pronounced, in which it was assume,
that ~inasmuch as "for more than a century betor
the adoption of the Constitution the colored rae
y had been regarded as beings of an inferior orde
and altogether unfit to associate with the white
J race either in social or political relations, and g
e far inferior, that they have no rights which tn
a white man was bound to respect, it follows tina
$ negroes are not constituent members OF this SOY
3 e%reignty, and that the Constitution does not recog
nize them as such" These learned and author
lied expounders of the Constitution, hold, it seem'
that that instrument was framed to perpetuate tn
= prejudices which may have existed in cOmmunit
q rather than to secure the rights of man an
perhaps they are not wholly mistaken.
The immediate practical consequences of thi
decision are to be seen in the exclusion of tn
! prescribed race by governmental authority from a
r equal chance in the acquisition of the public land
and even from being employed as menials in tn