Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1858-06-03

cSIs every uule Cucy are akDut 10 enucL u lleW
violence against the oppressed, only have to re-
fer to the bred Scott decision, and the basest,
meanest, most detestable actsof fraud and cru
city are converted into righteousness.
From the Secretary of Site down through .
files of marshalls, judges hilihs, lawyers, to
the conductor of the street fail-car, the word
passes, and the policy is established, and it is |
officially announced, and the judicial dctum is
reverberated and applauded and applied, that
black men have no rights that white men are
bound to respect. The dictran is fast being
welded into chains, into political precedents
sealed and made sure, and snare after snare in
the iron net is woven on by lies, by perversions
of the Constitution and of history, by new meas
ures Of usurpation, unresisted BY presumptuous,
unauthorized Interpretation flaw, till the very
breath of the black man is almost beaten out of
his body, and he is refused tho privilege of ex-
pandng his lungs in Republican atmosphere.
Our judges, cabinet ministers. attorneys, gener
al and local, and secretaries Of State are hunt
ing up examples of old injustice, for presidents
of new villainy. They thus set immortality and
cruelty in the fountains of jtjtice, injecting all
its elements with death, just as vile assassins
poison the wells of their neighbors by throwing
dead dogs into them, Or the earcasses of cats
and skunks.
As God declared in u case fcarfully similar,
they have turned Judgment into gall and worm
wood, and the fruit of Righteousness into hem
lock. They hunt every man sisstArother with a
net. That they may do e|N = ~ both hands
earnestly, the prince asketh and Die judge ask
eth for reward, and the great man he utter
eth his mschievous desire, and SO they wrap it
up. The best of them is as bricr-the most
upright is sharper than thorn hcdge-they
trust in vanity and seek lies-they conceive mis-
chief and bring forth iniquityezathey hatch cock
atrice eggs and weave the SPIDERS web-he
that eatheth of their eggs dieth, and that which
is crushed breaketh out intoT viper. There is
no Judgment in their goings they have made
them crooked paths, speaking oppression, con-
ceivng and uttering from the heart words of
falschood, so that udgmcnt is turned away back
ward, and justice standeth afar off. They are
never 50 happy as when they~conceive absolute
mischief, the dregs of profound social ignorance,
prejudice and depravity, forming mischief by
a law which thenceforth they impose as the su
preme political moral state god. They set up
the sin of slavery as law, enforce 1t by the Con-
sttuton under judicial opinions, to which they
swear allegiance, and if they cannot discover
presidents they make them.
The Secretary of State dares publicly to affirm
that no black man ever received a passport, and
cannot, as a citizen, receive one, and shall not
The bred Scott decision has prepared this lid
for the black mans living sepclchre, and Secre-
tary Cass acts the undertaken for the body and
screws down the coffin wifi an incontrovertiblc
falsehood. Then the Secretary of the Treasury
declares that a free negro cannot receive reg
lister for his own vessel, nor be master of his
own vessel, nor, as such have any title to his
own property by United States marine papers
for by the bred Scott decision he is no citizen,
and can be none, and to be the rightful owner
and master of his own maratine property, q man
must be citizen. As he has none of the rights
of a citizen, any seafaring man may own him,
but he cannot himself be the owner of so much
as plank or nail in his own vessel Then
comes on the heels of this outrage, the United
States Land Commissioner, and from the Gener.
al land Office, with the same despotic authority
under the same internal act, declares that per.
sons of color have no right of purchase and own
ership in the public lands, that privilege alsC
being restricted by positive law to citizens of the
United States, OF those tat intend to become
such-and by the bred Spit decision man with
a colored skin neither nor can become, MOI
can without treason intbd 70 become'a citizen
So, by this decision, and These magisterial inter
pretations and endorsements of it, tho human
being with Il skin not colored like our own i
alienated and expelled from land and sea--s al
exile everywhere, and even on the great high
way of nations no better than log, or snag
or shred Of drifting sea-weed, over which tn
keel of Christian civilization plunges, will
all on board grinning appreciation of the cruel
ty. And certainly, if Gods word be not thun
dered against such crimes, the church and tn
ministry do, by their silence, set the seal Of
Christian appreciation to all this. Our revival
Of religion become accessory to 1t, if fawning
cringing, whining piety, trembling in the fea
of man, refuses to bear testimony against sue
wckedness.
And thus more and more the common hear
and conscience are hardened against all remors
and repentance in such villainy, and each ne1
, administration of the slave power becomes til
} executor of some new and more atrocious schem
7 of fraud aud tyranny, left in trust as legac
| by its predecessor. And men that have KEEP
, silent up to the present. crisis, have had thci
, capacity of dumbness, their grace of silence
thoroughly tried they are indeed dumb dogs
0 thot no provocation is likely to set to barking
. If they have not yet spoken, they will forevc
tIICll DCdOc' W iitI VI WIS NiOhOuiNe
: can be transacted worse than the shapes i
9 which it has already been enthroned and legal
| lied? Would the open revival of the sav
$ trade be any greater atrocity than the decsio
} that Il human being with colored skin, thong
born in this country, and free born, and vi
? der the Government, cannot be Il citizen of tn
United States, and has no rights that white me
t are bound to respect?
4 When this iniquity was, by this declaratio
and decision, publicly inaugerated in the ST
t premc tribunal of national justice when i
e defiance Of Gods appointment and consecratio
t of the iudgmcntssat for himself, this most al
s founding cruelty and ROBBERY were proclaimed t
S the rule of national justice, by which me
n were let loose for all manner of vlllainy again'
= a whole race of human beings, we imagine
v that the pulpit would have spoken out, if
o never had before, in reprobation of an cnorm
d ty in Christian nation so atrocious, sounriya
: led. The Sabbath after thsk yprodigious jud
: cial crime, it seemed as if I've very Bibles woul
: have burst open of their own accord, and thf
@ in living fires the lightning of Gods Wol
: would almost have burned its sentence on IL
n walls, and Missed along the congregations. W
% thought that even men whose lips had bee
l. scaled up to that time would have broken Thu
y silence forever, and directed the thunders of d
: vine truth against such fearful enshrinemel
/. and enforcement of undssembled undisputed il
e humanity and falschood Instead of that the
= was tame and almost unquestionlng acquie
r cence, and the men that did speak out we
7. themselves denounced as mad accusers and +
Q vilers of God,sappointed dignities. Instead
rs denouncing the sin, men, ministers and edito
is denounced the denunciation of itas theg create
IsIn = had -, IN
lie 59th chapter Of Isaiah that judgment was turi
: ed away backward, and justice stood afar O.
ID for truth was fallen in the street and equ
is could not enter. Yea, truth faileth and he TIL
'r departeth from evil maketh himself prey
p and the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him tn
Or there was no Judgment
o. Ic ... Al : al =