Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1858-03-20


seven upon cotton plantations; and to supply thei
II places by other victims imported from the slave
\ breeding States. From official documents, it j
estimated that thirty thousand human victims ar
a thus sacrificed annually within the United State
f and Territories.
q In the slave States it is not uncommon to se
advertisements in the public papers Offering
% bounty for the head Of particular slave, who ha
absconded from his master. Even in Ohio, during
u the past year. a Government official deliberately
c murdered al absconding slave, and is yet pro
. tected from the galows by those who administer
the State laws in the county where the murde
was perpetra'ed. Our Federal troops are otter
= employed in the work of numbering those who are
supposed to be fugitive slaves. signal instance
r of this character occurred many years since liz
time of profound peace, General Jackson di
rected our Army to invade Florida, at that time
province of Spain. for the purposeiof numbering
a people who were born free but whose ancestors
had been slaves, and in one day nearly three hun
dred men. women, and children, were barbar
ously and wantonly murdered by American
troops.
This system of murder is encouraged and main
taned by the present Executive, and by all who
support his Administration. They insist that the
people Ola State or Territory may rghtfully enact
laws giving to one man power over the life of his
fellow men who have committed no offence; that
popular sovereignty is not limited 5y Gods higher
law, that 1t extends with property over the life.
human family; that the whites may. with moral
impuni,y, subject the colored people of q State
or Territory to degrading servitude close up the
windows of their souls, shut out Knowledge from
their understanding hold them in ignorance, and
murder them if them if they asseD the rights
viii God has given them.
This inidelity, within the last half century, has
consigned more than a million Of innocent and
| unofeuding victims to untimely graves. The
number is tar greater than has perished under the
inf ielity of France in all past time. But this
,nmparison of American with French infdelity
does great niustice to the latter. In France
the victims sent to the guillotine under pre-
tense that it necessary for the public sdtety
rhev suffered but little: there was no foggng
torture. But American infdelity consigns its vic.
Tins to years of torture and suffering, and finally
to death, for no higher purpose than to gratifJ
the soIdd passions OF their individual oppres.
ors.
These wholesale murders are but the outwork-
ings of that infdelty which denies that God has
endowed all men with the inahenable right to live.
The enactments referred to, and their results,
clearly demonstrate the views of those who sus-
tain them, and aboring in this Hall, and else
where. to extend them over the Territories. and
wherever Congress holds exclusive jurisdiction.
lt is most obvious, that while the present Admin
istraton openly lends its influence to such crimes
every intelligent man who sustains and upbolde
its policy, or fails to oppose it far able, be
comes involved in the guilt of the murders which
it sanctions.
But shall be told u at these enactments are
confined to the slave States, and that CoDgress1
holds no power to repeal or modify them. re
ly that the people and statesmen of our southern
States insist that Shareholders may carry their
slaves. and all privileges which they hold of fog
gng and numbering them under State laws, into
our Territories; and the President, and those who
sustain him. declare that the Constitution extends
and protects these crimes wherever Federal author
H.. Al, 81, ,e
Ter is established by the Federal Constitution;
that neither Congress nor the people of the Ter
ritores have the ri hit to punish those who perpe.
trate such crimes. Not content with this avowal
Of doctrine, however, we are at this time sustain
ing code of laws for the government of this Dis
trct which holds to the blasphemy that men may
become The property of their feow-men-may be
bought and sold like swine. In this, and in other
modes, is the transcendent question o! Christian.
ity, or slaveholding heathenism, made the absorb |
ing political issue in the nation.
But shall be told that the Supreme Court of
the United States have decided that or fathers
did not intend to avow those sefe,ilent truths
which they solemly proclaimed, that they really
held to the doctrines Of slavery wi ich they did
not uvow. Our fathers could more change
the law Of eternal right and wrong than we can
The ord, ,ined will of Heaven has existed through
the eternity of the past and will continue through
all the future. Men may conform to this law but
they never modify it or make it conform to
the human will. Our fathers sought to make no
such modification of the Creators law.
Had such infdelity characterized their action
it would have Imposed no obligation upon the
present generation to sustain this system of mur.
der. They have passed to that tribunal which
will do them justice. They must answer for their
conduct; we must account to God and postsrty
for our own stewardship. and not for theirs. God,
through all his works, in all his laws, by every
revelation to man, has prohibited US from mur-
dering our fellow-beings; and woe to the nation,
to the statesman, the legislator, the despot, the
oligarch, the murderer, who disregards this law
Of the Most HIGH 1 feel humblcd and mortified
when l statesmen, ministers, teachers OF
religion in this land of bibles and Sabbaths and
churches, maintain the doctrine that human au-
thority can repeal this law of Heaven To me, it
is downright blasphemy; derogatory to the char
acter of the Creator and offensive TO the religious
sense of mankind. Yet, this absurdity is the le'
gitimate outworking of that infdelity which de-
MES that God has endowed all men with inaien-
able rights" If lie has endowed our race with {
any right whatever, it surely is the right to live
II this right be denied, no other can be scknowl-
edged. If there be executions to this CENTRAL this
universal proposition, that all men, without res
pect to complexion condition, hold from the
Creator the right to live. who shall determine /
what portion of the community shall be slain
And who may perpetra:e the murders? I? The Ex-
ecutve and his supporters say shat white men
may murder black men. The blacks deny this;
God and Christianity and nature. and all reli'
gious, all just, all moral men, deny it. ,
Yet this denial of the right Of men to live, con.
s,itutes the midest and least offensive phase Of 5
American infdelity. No intelligent person would '
desire to have the life of his body prolonged for :
the purpose of being subjected to physical torture
while his intellect shall be paralyzed his soul en-
shrouded in Ignorance, and his moral nature bru-
talized Therefore the right to enjoy liberty, phys
ical moral civil, and religious, is regarded even
more important than lie. Indeed, it is obvions
that life itself cannot be protected unless the in'
dividual be permitted to support and defend the
physical existence with which God has endowed G
him. c
Religious and rejecting men regard the body as {
merely the temporary habiaton of the spirit. the
soul which constitutes the man; to he occupied !
during its infant state Of existence, and used for
the purpose of developing the mental faculties ex
tending the sphere Of thought and elevasing his !
moral nature, thereby preparing him for higher