Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1853-1862, 1858-07-07
The Reformerss Free Convention.


AN the moral and political diseases which have
afflicted society FOR many years past recently broke
out in violent eruption ct the "Reformsrs Free
Convention" at Rutland, Vermont. That unfor-
tunsie city seems to have been selected asA moral
pest house on this occasion, where all the plaques
that infsst the world have eOngregated together,
that they msy engender some new and more loath-
some leprosv. By sort Of affinity which exists IN
the social as well as the physical world all the forms
Of error and vice have been attracted together to
rsvel and riot in these saturnalia Of sin. Lioen-
oushess scarcely conoealing its hideOus deformties
under the robe Of false and disgusting philosophy;
Superstition, appealing to The worst passions and
propensities Of our nature and linked with the most
degrading vices; IDhdelity, tramPhng upon me
sacred shrines Of religion; Aboitionism lnsolenuy
defying the obligations Of human and divine law
and substituting its infamous doctrines TOR those
eternal truths which the wisdom Of our fathers have
left us for our guidanoe-these are the elements
which mingled in that foul sssemblags OF Pesiienee
and pollution. Whatever men revere as good ana
sacred was rejected and denounced whatever Is
entitled to veneration and respect, was MADE inc
subject Of low and scurrilOus TituPerstlon' Inc
institution of marriage, theChristian religion haah
Law and the constitution were all ridieuied anu re-
viled. Strong minded women mounted the rosirnHl
and boldly asserted that they would not be bound oy
any slavsh ties to the other SEX that marriage was
sservile acknowledgment of mans supremacy and
superiority, and ought to be abolished The doc
trines of Free-Love we're openly svoWed by females
whose education and position in society would lesu
us to expect from them nothing but pure thoughts
and virtuOus sentiments. The authority the Cos
mel was disreearded and resolution passed declar
ipq. "that nothing is true right and nothing If
false or wrong beoausei 1t is sanctioned condemned
nv he BibIe-therefore our Bible is poWerless tC
prove any doctrine to be trus or any practice to Dc
right, anditsbould never bequoted forthst purpose
They announced 'that Slavery is q wrong which
no power in the universe make right; therefore
any law, cons tuition, court or government, any
church. priesthood, creed or Bible, any Christ Of
spy God that by silence or otherwise, authorizes
man to enslsve msn, merits the soOrn and oOntemP
of mankind" But while rejecting the authority
tbeBbe they bow at the fOotstOOl Of the most rldlcu
Ions and degrading superstition, and assert that TIL
phenomena Of what is called modern sprituaism hav
abundsnty demonstrated the fact that an inter
course between embedded and cift
spirits is both possible and actual; that the eonvc
ton Of the possibility and aotuality Of spirit inter
course is opposed to all despOtism, imPurity an'
sensualism, and cOnduces to the inauguration Ofth'
only authority consistent with the human soul a
favorable to sound morality"
The persons who participate in these disgusting
proceedings are men and women OF position and IN
Auence in the communities where they reside They
are in some cases the organs and exPonents o.
public sentiment, the representatives Of the educa
ton and refinement of the society in which they
move They speak more boldly perhaps, the OPin
ions which thousandsin the northern States and ctie
secretly entertain. They tear away the curtain
that conceals the corruptiOns of their social system
from the public eye. They reveal the unseen work
ings of those boosted free institutions, which hes
pharisees are constantly holding up to US in con
trast with the aledged evils Of Slavery They show
Us the rottennes that is fostering beneath the sur
face Of their Wanted prosperity
These dangerous and destructive heresles hAF'
never fourished at the South They cannot live
mon our soil. They Wither for want Of sustenanc'
ii the purer moral atmosphere that surrounds then
here. They vanish, like morning mists IN tn
clearer light Of our social and political philosophy
We have no fens Of moral disease and pestilence' Il
nourish their rank and poisonous growth, no feti'
POOLS Of pollution in whose still and stagnant depth
the germ of these social evils may be engendered.