The Lansing state Republican. [volume] (Lansing, Mich.) 1855-1874, 1860-04-10

er, transforms those into despots and these int
enemies. Indeed, l uembe for my country
when reflect that God is just; that His justice
cannot sleep forever. Nothing is more certainly
written in the book of fate, than that these pso
pie are to be free What a stupendous, what ar
incomprehensible machine is man, who can en-
dure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, and
death itself, in vindication of his own liberty,
and the ne 1t moment be deaf TO all those motives
whose power supported him through his trials,
and intiict on his felow-men a bondage, one hour
of which is fraught with more misery than ages
OF that which he rose in rebellion 10 oppose
When the measures Of their tears shall be full
when their groans shall have involved heaven
itself in darkness, doubtless a God of justice will
awaken to their distress, and, by diffusing light
and Gberality among their oppressors, or, at
length, by His exterminating thunder, manifest
His attention to the things of this world, and
that they are not left TO the guidance of blind
fatality"
Dare you, now, believe these sentiments
Would you suffer press in the Southern
States to publish them? Would you al.
low man, except under pain Of death, to
read them in the ears of yonr slaves
And must l be expatriated and disfran.
chised because | merelv re-echo them ?
Sir, these principles were born in the shock
of the Revolution, and we're baptized in the
blood of your fathers and mine on the bat
tie fields of the North and South In the
light of go universal sentiment of univer-
sal liberty among the patriot trainers of the
Constitution, will you say that the Decla
ration of Independence is but "glittering
generality When the pillars of the Re.
public shall have crumbled in the dust
when her Libraries shall have been sacked
and burned when free press and free
speech shall be dragged, as Hector, at the
chariot wheels of slave oligarchy; when
the traditions of the battle.felds of arms
and opinions of the Revolution shall be
forgotten by an unworthy posterity, then
tell them that the great Bill of Rights for
all mankind was but glittering generality.
No, sir; our fathers threw it out, not as
wandering comet, to dazzle for moment
by its brilliant coruscations, but as sun,
far above the mists and exhalatiOns of ava.
.iO1 aud power, TO shine upon and for all,
to the remotest generations.
Such sentiments were repeated by your
great men in Virginia in 1885. shortly af.
ter the slave insurrection at Southampton,
when over sixty of your white persons were
slain. They were then in convention, dis.
cussing the question of emancipation; and
when all the horrors of a servile war were
fresh in their memories, your statesmen
proposed to remedy the evil, not by the
penitentiary and gallows, but by applying
the principle of universal liberty. Such
were the opinions of Moore, Rives. Powell,
Preston. Randolph, Marshall, and a hos,
of others.
Mcdowell said:
"You may close upon his mind every avenue
to knowledge, aud cloud it over with artificial
night-yoke him to your labor as an OK. You
may do this, and the idea that he was born to be
free will survive it ALL it is allied to his hope Of
immortality; it is the etherai part of his nature
which oppression cannot reach it is a torch Ii,
up in his soul by the hand of the Deity, and new
er meant 10 be extinguished by the hand of man
If gentlemen do not see feel this evil of slave
} ry whilst the Federal Union lasts, they will sec
and feel it when it is gone. We cannot correct
the march of time, nor stop the current O
events"
Among the number who thus spoke wa.
Charles j. Faulkner, who lately has avoweC
: so much of dlsunion, and has been dul,
rewarded by an appointment at the hands O
this slavery. controlled Administration. Tn,
disunionist Faulkner is worthy foreign
appointment while tho disunionists Phil
lips and Garrison would only be worthy 0
stripes and imprisonment. Disunion 70
slavery or for freedom are quite differen
things. Mr.. Faulkner, on the Goth day Q
January, 1882, speaking of emancipation
said
81 shall reckon it among the proudest inc
dents of my life, that have contributed nv fee
= BILE aid to forward a revolution so grand and pa
: triotic in its results. The people demand it,
I have raised my voice for emancipation. Sir, ia
my lands vify our country; carry the swor
> Of determination through our own defenceles
villages; but spare US, implore you, spare u
the curse of slavery. that btterest drop from tn
a chalice OF the destroying angel"
: This he said while the soil Of Vireini
9 was yet moist with the blood of his murder
. ed countrymen. He further added:
l. "Saves are held not by any law Of natur
not by any patent from God. Sir, am grat6e
Q to perceive that no gentleman has yet risen
e this hall the avowed advocate of slavery tt
y day has gone by when such a voice could be Ii
II tened to with patience or forbearance.'
l. Men of Virginia, can you believe th:
. such opinions were uttered in the Old D.
minion scarce thirty years ago? Now, tal
~ down Helper; place them side by side, an
4 determine which is the more treasonab
!. and incendiary. How can you crest
;, nights while such sentiments are slumbe
- ing in the debates and archives Of 20,
"a Commonwealth Get some country squi
n to pronounce judgment and then comm
j. them to the flames
b. Formerly, the courts of nearly all 20,
"a States, held that slavery was merely rig
b. existing BY positive law Of municipal cha
70 acter. without foundation in the law of n
- ture.
=, Congress, guided by the prevailing Sc
,e timent of the nation. exercised its pow
! Z over free territory by prohibiting SLAYER
~ This was the universal action of Congre
N unless it was restrained by the act of pu
m chase or cession. In the territory ceded
No ne the General Government by the Carolir
n. and Georgia, those States, in ceding, EXPIRE
ly did SO on the condition that Congr,
should not prohibit slavery therein. The
=. States. which had but recently been disc'
nv nv sing the national Constitution. were p