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

four millions, the universe would utter roar
of terror and indignation at such crime. But
organize it into a system-make this ROBBERY
and moral assassination a fixture OF law and
policy from generation to generation, and set
up its support as the watchward of o powerful
political party, the test of faithfulness and pat
riotism, and the security of an unlimited COM
mand of the whole patronage of the United
States Government, and forthwith the sanction
and sustaining Of it become the shining virtue
of compromise and expediency, and he is the
dangerous man and the mailman in the commu-
nifty who undertakes to disturb this arrangement
or to agitate the conscience in regard to it
Forthwith it is no longer the sin that is regard
ed with astonishment and horror, but the de-
nunciation of it as sin 1t is no longer the
perpetrators of such crime, and its supporters,
who are to he the objects ST reproach and con-
domination, but those who cause the truth to
bear against the crime-those who call it by
the name with which God has branded it, and
visit it with the reprobation that God has laid
upon it,
And especially the politina world and the
Pharisees of political churches stand i'll horror
of the very bad spirit, the uuchristian split Of
those who denounce this wckedness with the
direct application of the word of God. 1t is
subject which must be excluded from the pulpit,
because it is a sin enthroned in state, political
sin, to be treated only by political quacks, with
political drenches, platforms, cataplasms and
compromises, which the only duty of the church
and the ministry is quietly to endorse and sane
ton, Tor the sake of peace.
The system of Slavery is now at length as
J serted to be the chosen missionary institute of
the Lord Almighty, And admitting it to be
such, we are certainly foremost of all the ma
} tions in carrying forward the great missionary
work. If the appointed work to be done for
the children of the needy is that of branding
and training them as chattels and brute beests
for the market, we have no rivals in this honor.
This 49, in fact, the greatest, vastest, and most
persevering missionary work that we perform.
Our instrumentality in binding down in hope
less bondage the children of four millions of
immortal beings, guilty of a skin not colored
like our own, is our largest instrumentality,
thus far, in the glories of the millennium.
By our laws providing that the slave and its
increase shall be deemed and doomed our person
al chattels forever, we constitute for them mil
lenium of sin and misery. We convert them
into a community, in which it isimpossible that
the fundamental laws of Christianity should be
} recognized and oheyed, or the most commonly
+ acknowledged and most sacred institutions of
r the Christian state be regargcd. The laws of
God for husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons,
daughters, children, cannot be applied, cannot
4 be obeyed, in such community. Husbands
g love your wives" is divine injunction. But
for those most miserable outcasts of humanity,
d the American slaves, there can be no such law,
: but an admontion against it. Gods claims, so
expressed intefere with mans property in man.
Husbands, beware of imagining that you have
any rights, any authority in regard to the chat
: tells you are permitted to live with beware of
, ever so loving them as to be unwilling to sacri-
&, fee them at moments warning, to the avarice,
|, the need, or the passions of your owners. Ye
+ are not permitted to love, but only in subsection
a to the price of the market, the necessities of
+ your master, and the grand rule of your domes-
II tic institution, the slave and its increase.
7, Wives, be obedient to your husbands What
Ii Obedience from chattel to chattel? Wives
y ye are none and this divine law belongs not to
y you, but for the profit of your masters. Your
obedience and your increase belong to them, and
s. to none else.
|, Children, obey your parents. But slaves have
le no children and their children have no parents
ii except only as the bales of cotton have parent
We IN thSgn and the factory where they are shaped
le and bonded for the market These commands
Il and precepts are all and only for the masters
III not the slaves. Slaves have no ties, no affec-
ID tons, no duties, no obligations, no belongings
in but for their owners, whose property they are
Dt and for whom and at their bidding every faculty
" capacity, emotion, must be devoted, occupied
in tasked, improved, sold at the highest premium
L. to the highest bidder whenever, however anC
ly wherever the owners interest requires it.
N And it is not isolated beings that we devote
E,, ,r,t,p t>o data
~ and cruelty, but we create perpetual, unfail
ed ing and selfrcncwiug spirit of this wickedness
d, 1t is not a transitory shower of bisterng drop
~ that we cause to pass over the land, but an Ar
Ne tesan well that we sink of domestic shame ant
misery for future generations. In the Word o
o. God it is sad referring to the glory and bless
n edness of the establishment of righteousness ant
a. freedom us the fundamental fixtures of society
he If thou take away from the midst of thee tn
yoke thou shalt raise up the foundations of man
n, generations. But we, by forthcoming unborn
ed children to the yoke, and preparing it for them
les are securing succession of curses and crimes
lie crimes and curses as the heritage of social state
ed We have no more right to enact by law that tn
| offspring of slaves shall be slaves, than we kav
u.s. to make a law that the offspring of the fire
or whites shall be slaves If such law were pass
he ed in the State of New York, law that tn
tie children of those engaged in manual labor shout
he from their birth, be taken and held as chattel
d. to be bought and sold as the property of thos
he capitalists for whom their parents have been la
be boring, could such law sanction such crime
De- Could it make it any other thing than man
"a stealing? Could it be pleaded that it is nc
Or, man-stealing? What is it when these childre
of grow up?
ng And if they have children, does the fact tina
to- their parents were stolen before them give til
rer sealers of the parents any claim upon the mex
a generation? Does the fact that their parent
I'm were stolen before them take away their right
nd as human beings, and turn the stealing of thel
re- into natural and just claim Of property ?
1T, Nothing can transmit the right of theft no la
,or can sanction it even if we had the right t
IN. steal the parents from themselves, this coul
BILE give no right to steal the children from the pc
DIS, rents and from God This is the deep damnt
to ton of our guilt The offence cries up to hea,
rds en-. By stealing children from their birth, W
3D. are nation of men-stealers, and we renew, pc
for petuate and increase the guilt from generatlo
pc to generation. We perpetuate the sin and IL
ost cruelty upon five times the number that our al
In cestors did, and insure its being perpetuated
ire five times more, and then thank God for the SUI
i've cess of this providental missionary institution
ri The guilt is increasing, but all the while IL
ice conscience in regard to it is diminishing and
tic ing scared. The sin, by being enlarged in su
nor face and in quantity, seems lessened in intensit
her We are more guilty than our fathers in the pra
tice of it, and yet we contrive to make ourselv
es. imagine that we are less guilty and more pio
the than they. The inquiry is moral cancer TIL
inp is eating at the very vitas of our piety, viii
adv the only treatment we tolerate is increased dos
to of chloroform till the whole system is stupef
in under its influence. When new outrage
,ss. committed, we just send to the apothecaries
ty. more laudanum, or swallow, through our Re
to resentatives, Lecompton drench and sweat,
~ suffer Congress to administer an Enylish swi