Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1860-04-21
THE UNION.

In a government, said to be formed to secure
the blessings of liberty to ourselves, establish JUS
ustice and ensure tranquility, and whose only
true basis can rest on the consent Of the governed,
it is a great duty to have opinions, yet a greater
duty to utter them. Imperfect as the constitution
may be, if it is allowed anything like Just con.
struction, it secures to each the liberty of speech.
and protects them, in the free utterance Of their
honest convictions. Yet union lovers, to save tSe
union, have given that up, have iguobly surren-
dered the great right of free speech, and are gulp-
hing down the poisinous anodynes of union-sla.
very, and returning thanks to their lords and
masters, for the great privilege of being allowed
to agonize over that stencil in tho nostrils of eUery
freeman, and breath blessings, and heap eulogies
on the great idol, which is q more fearful curse OH
the north than any tax on tea, any colonial oppres.
sion, or any crowned usurpation could be.
The union, what DO you pay for it? In the
first place it costs a sacrifice Of the spirit Of the
constitution land of state rights. The union cleaves
down the right Of trial by jury, and laughs a
low demoniacal laugh if you ask q writ of Habeas
Corpus, to wrest some poor sable brother from the
hyenas Of slavery that hunt him to the remotest
corner of your land. 1t dooms Hyatt to rot in a
cheerless cell in the leprous air of Washington,
unless he be dOubly false to God; it breaks down
the great writ of personal Ieplevin, which our
fathers paid for in blood, and permits Executive
feet to stride haugblily over the most sacred rights
of the people.
Slavery reaches her bloody arms, over the
graves of your fathers, and kidnaps men. She
san0a ont her hired lonpAo and ,o1nptoo, d.,
to hunt ~fugitives under the very shadow of Bun
ker Hill, and carries them away captive from be.
meath the spires, and steeples Of the great city OF
Boston. While you faunt the flag of the union
in one hand, you keep the other on the throat OF
your tawny brother, and hold him until the
powers that be, can drag him back to the seething
hell of American Slavery. Yes, you pay all this
for the union, and then thank the south that they
have not cast you out, and cut you of on account
Of any lack of discharge Of duty. You see your
neighbors torn from their homes and sold, and
quiet, peaceable persons banished from their
schools and mills, and churches; you see free
speech, and personal liberty tram pied down by
the strongly marshalled h osts of OPPRESSION, all
for the glorious privilege, of remaining'iu a-uuion
with the blood of four million Of slaves,
and made stronger by the martyr blood of every one
who believes that resistance to tyrants is obedi
ence to God"
But this is a union for the protection of white
men; aye, of white men 1t was left for mod.
ern orators, who bray for union, tojget down low
enough to seek to evade by such a mean bubble,
the real issue which is pressing upon the nation.
Our fathers forgot the slave, in their anxiety to
close a long and terrible war, In their 10y that
they were free from the power of the British lion,
they forgot the poor Africans, the little children
of the nations, and made a guilty compromise on
the slave question; but they were not mean enough
to steal the superscription of the god-head from
tho brow of the colored man.
All this political and moral abasement, you lay
as an Offering upon the altar of the union. You
execute the bred Scott decision, thus shaming the
conduct of Nero and J%effries; you hunt down and
carry back, him that has fed from the Egypt OF
bondage; you give up the decency of the pulpit
and the honesty of the church; see free lom Of
speech and action crushed: and compel men to
curb their own free thoughts that come up like
ocean surges, all to save the union.
Virginia, has just stretched her skeleton claws
over the tomb OF Washington, and the soil of Mt.
Vernon, and dragged to the scaffold some most no
BILE men, and compelled you to stand with uncOv-
cred heads, and see her strangle seven great ap-
ostleS, and high priests of liberty, for doing just
what Warren and Washington did, for finging
themselves into q den Of despots, and going to
help the weak against the strong. This is what the
union costs; and yet you, whose honor and man
hood have been sacrificed, whose love of freedom
has been outraged by the constant demands Of
slavery, seem ready and anxious to longer remain
on your knees, and wear your manacles and fet
ters, and to shout hallelujah, when man is trod
den down by the millions who walk over tn
crushed and fallen, to build higher the human
hecstombs, which are offered to Americas God
the Federal Union. ELIZA j. S. G.
The BIBLE AND SLAVERY.-Divines and many