Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1859-03-12

tional movement of 1850, that we ask your actor
on that petition to-day. We want you to go fur
ther than Vermont does->we want you spectcall!
to enact that any person seized, or in custody il
this Commonwealth, by virtue of any process un
der the so-called Fugitive Slave Act shall be lib
Grated by hdbeas corpus, issuing from the Suprcm
Bench of this Commonwealth. We ask you, II
distinct words, to set at nought the unconsiituton
al enactment.of the Unitei States and will pro
ceed as briefly as possible, to tell you on VIA
ground we place request.
My colleague Mr., TIggnson has asked th'
question, whether this is constitutional request
lie meant constitutional in view Of the United
States Constitution. in the first place, gentlemen
I shall step behind theUnited States Constitution
| remember that you,-Massachu husetts, were
sovereignty before :he United States existed. Mas
sachusets is not to me, whatever it may be to you
a mere bob to the Constitution Of 1887. Massa
chusetts is private corporation, under the great
| National organization. claim more of you than
that You were government in 1880 of that
! living thread take hold. God planted you civ
il society. Our fathers came here to set up gov.
ernmens. They did so and you exist as its rep
resen;atives We do not address you,-the Legis'
lature Of Massachusetts,-as a subordinate Com
mittee of the United States Government. We ad.
dress ycu as the civil society CT Massachusetts,,
planted by the children Of the MayAower and the
Arabella, and existing here to day civil govern
ment. As such, as q civil government, we remind
you of your obligation before God to execute JUS
tice between mar and man. No matter that one
man calls another man his property, and, pointing
to parchment, claims your aid in holding him as
brute we remind you of your own words
all men are born free' and that the sover.
eighty which claims submission, owes projection.
You tell us in reply to that claim, We have feter-
ed our broad sovereignty by agreeing to the Con.
sttution of the United States We deny your
right You tell US, The unlimited sovereignty of
the Old Colony, bound to execute Justice between
man and man, we have put away by the so called
slave clause We deny your capacity to do it.
We assert that you sit here the legislators of
sovereign State. If anybody, either by you or
before you, has agreed to limit that sovereignty
by an unholy compact it is not binding. and you
have no right to regard 1t. Civil government,it is
stated in the preamble of our Constitution, is "a
voluntary association, social compact So it
is; but compacts when they become civil govern
ments, have peculiar character.
| This grdle Of earth which you call Massachu.
setts can have but one such corporation in it,
There may be thousand banks in Massachusetts,;
there may be hundred temperance societies ;
there may be any number of manufacturing cor.
porations they may make their own bylaws, and
established their own fundamental principles but
civil government is necessarily exclusive--there
can be but one within certain space of land
From that flows this principle-every man on
that soil has a certain right and claim in regard
to that civil society. God has placed him there,
or he has exercised his free will in coming there
as he had right to do. We have no right, be.
cause were born tho soil of Massachusetts,
to shut any man out of it. Who gave US any such
right?
If them civil government be corporation nec-
essarily exclusive, certain tampering with the
interests and rights of every man residing on this
soil. then follows the fundamental principle of ju.
rists. that these corporations are bound by the
laws of God, which they have no right to violate
for God has given certain inalineable rights to
each individual of the mass ,and no vote of the ma
jority can take those rights away. They cannot
say to man. as a mere civil corporation may, a
obHh lOi He'huOe, IL S"ui hoioi ocboo doee nos
approve of this provision Of our charter, you need
not come under it; we. whose moral sense says
Aye to it, vii! come upder it you are not oblig
ed to- The majority of Massachusetts are not
comp tent to say to one single man the soil of
the State, We have violated your inaineable
rights, and meant to if you do not like it 60 =
There is q law above this, which says. All your
provisions in this kind Of corporation must be
within the girdle of right! know no authority
but Thomas Paine--except the present Democrat
ic party--that has denied it. In 1871, Thomas
Paine published his Rights of Man. in which bet
lays it down as a fundamental proposition, that
what whole nation chooses to do il has a right
to do. All other jurists have always laiddown the
principle that nation has no right to DO. however
large the majority, that which is uni ust
Now, from that principle, am going to deducc
this A negro stands in this Commonwealth he
has come here. and chooses to reside here. We
have no right to say he shall not God gave him
the right to live and move and choose his resi-
dence, wherever he pleases, This government as
sumes the great prerogative and with it the great
responsibility, of civil society. which says to him
Give up your right to self defence You shall not
ia II back upon your Datural right as q human be
ing We have instituted courts we have ordain.
ed laws we have set up institutions, we call up
on you to surrender your extreme rights as on in
dvidual, and allow yourselves to be protected ac
cording to our Institutions They have right to
say that that is what civil society, as a1 ordi.
nance of God has a right to claim but the cor.
relative duty remains. When you have claimed
your right to say that, thu burden rests upon you
efficiently to protect tina, man. whose hands you
tie, whose moral and natural rights, as IN indi.
vidual, you fetter. This is the responsibility
which civil society assumes by virtue of its con-
stitution and nature. II undertakes to protect
each individual to the utmost. and to do him jus
tice, no matter how small the right which is vio
ated--no matter how great the peril which protect
ing him iucurs.