Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1860-07-07

From The Principal.
POLITICAL ETHICS TIE tNDEPEN-
DENT,

i w. p' C1
nented upon an editorial of Tie Independent,
headed "the Nominations at Chicago" just before
the Convention at that place. We understood that
journal as maintaining the sentiment that it now
avows explicitly, and defends confidently, in the
article that follows. We copy it entire from The
Independent of May "a, that our readers may see
both sidesj whether the readers of The Ladepen-
dent, with its ample size and corresponding price,
are permitted the same privilege or no.
PERJURY AS A QUALIFICATION FOR THE PRESIDENCY.
"The Constitution of the United States (Art. 2,
sec. l. provides that before entering upon the exc
cution of his Office, the President elect of the
United States shall take the following oath;
81 do s~olemnly swear that I will faithfully
execute the Office of President of the United
States; and will, to the best Of my ability, preserve,
protect, and defend the Constitution Of the United
States"
"see. 8 Of the same article, defining the duties
of the President, says: "He shall take care that
the laDs are faithfully erecuted,"
zone Of these laws is the Fugitive-Slave Law;
and if any case should arise under that law calling
for executive interference, the President would be
bound by his oath to execute the law. No such
case, however, might nrise under the whole period
of a Presidential administration. If such a case
should arise, a good and true man, hating slavery,
and believing the Fugitive-Sla7e Law TO be unjust
If not unconstitutional might nevertheless execute
it in good faith, rather than vacate an Office in
which he could comm and urge the repeal
OF the law, rather than resign the government into
the hands of the slave power, or introduce despo-
D tism or anarchy by refusing to execute a law
( which he has no power to annul. But this is quite
another thing from volunteering to approve the
s Fugitive Slave Law, and arguing its constitutional
ity and expediency. The former is simply a yield
8 ing to thu necessity of ones official position and
8 oath; the latter reveals a disposition to magnify
< into . virtue what every good man should shrink
from even as n necessity. The one shrinks from
doing an act which he disapproves; the other vol
%unteers to do the same act because he approves it.
. A distinction so obvious as this, one would think
y must be recognized among the very ''principia"
of political ethics. And yet some who profess to
t apply the moral law to political action, seem to
think that a Willingness to perjure oneself by re-
! fusing 10 execute an obnoxious law after having
+. sworn to stake care that the laws be faithfully
executed would be the highest moral q~ualifca-
o ton for the Presidency; and that a usurpatiOn Of
t power transforming the President into an absolute
: Dictator, would be a righteous act if only done in
$ the namo Of freedom! Happily such notions
r have as little influence in the sphere of politics
d as they have sanction in that of morals"
This is explicit. The good and .rue'' mngis-
s trate may do "evil, that good may ~come,"-nay,
rather, that q supposed greater evil may be pre-
o vented! He may execute an enactment that he
"believes to be unjust, if not UNCONSTITUTIONAL
h rather than ''resign the Government into the
"a hands of the slave power, or introduce d~espotism
n or anarchy by refusing" &c. And this comes
from The Independent, a professedly orthodox and
anti-slavery journal, designed to represent the
progressive portion of the Evangelical Congrega'
tionalists, a journal that lectures The Tribune on
it's low political ethics, the old Nassau Street Tract
Society, on its silence respecting slavery, The
Observer for its subservieEcy to the lower law Of
the slayehOlders-and Mr.. Garrison for ~in6delity
in discrediting or doubling the plenary inspiration
of portions of the Scriptures.
Now, in The name of consistent orthodoxy and
anti-slavery, in the name of Congregationalism
Theoretical, historical and practically, in the nam
of evangelical religion, in the name Of the Holy
Is Scriptures az the word of GOD, we take issue with
The Independent on this point, affirming its senti
IL ments to be ~heretical, anti. evangelical, anti-ortho
dox. anti-scriptural, anti-congregationGl, anti-abo
u lition. anti-christiau. They are so, because they
are unjust, unmerciful, prosecuting, inhuman, a
war with the first principles of civil AMI religious
freedom, for which our Puritan fathers cohtended
E for which they were imprisoned and exiled, will
which the Church Independency or Congregation
alism of the Pertains were identified, in which
they had their definition and their origin.
We but repeat the unanimous utterances Of tn,
most venerated religious teachers and writer's il
Christendom, the most widely accredited and tim
honored authorities in the sciences OF j~urisprud
ence, civil government and law, in the civilized
world, when we affirm that chattel slaveholdinI
is a sin against God, a crime against man; forbid
den alike, by the law of nature and the Book o
revelation, a practice which no circumstances cal
justify, no enactmen;s can l~egalize, according Il
the maxims, that "~statutes against fundamental
/ morality are void" that "wha is invalid from the
beginning, cannot be made valid by length Of time
that "the reasonableness Of law is The soul Of law
il that Facts of Parliament contrary to reason, are
void" that "the law Of nature, being coeval with
mankind, and dictated by God himself, is, o.
course, superior in obligation to any other"
we but re-echo the common sentiment OF td'
n civilized world, including the decent portion o
ly the community in which we live. when we char
ID acterize the Slave Code as barbarous, ibhuman
unjust, unchristian, (which The Independent vii
not deny and when we specify tae Fugitive Ac
of 1850. as among The most barbarous, inhuman
unjust, unchristian enactments Of that Code, ant
is one at which human nature. d~epraved and perver
n ted as it IL, instinctively r%eyolts, an act SO %airosiou