Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1870-02-10

was detained by the death of friend,
but he sent the following highly inter
esting letter, which, after a song by the
Hutchinsons, was read by Mrs. Liver
more
MIR. GARRIsoN's LETTER.
BOSTON, Feb. 1, 1870.
To tie President Of tie Congention -
My disappointment at not being present
to take part in the doings of the State
Convention, to be held tomorrow at Mont
pelier, in behalf of suffrage for the wo-
men of Vermont, will be quite as great as
that which my absence can possibly create
on the part of any who may be in attend
ance. But am suddenly detained by a
case of bereavement, which l feel very
tenderly, and by the funeral obsequies
connected herewith, which L am press
| ingly urged to attend, in which for va
rious considerations feel obligated to
participate, but which are also to be held
| tomorrow.
Happily, in itself considered, my pres
ence at the Convention is of the smallest
possible consequence; for, with such
gifted and persuasive advocates as Mrs.
Howe, Mrs. Livermore and Mrs. Stone, Ito
say nothing of others,) to vindicate the
rights of their sex, know of no man,
however able or eloquent, whose voice
can add anything to what will fall from
their lips in regard to clesrness of state
ment, force of reasoning, or power of
speech. Nevertheless, 1 send my written
testimony, which I might considerably ex-
pand if were able to occupy the platform
in person.
Opr naoIorats Of Tn MI
the rights of man upon a universal basis !;
takes them out of the arena of doubt or
denial, for " self-evident truths" admit of
no skepticism or controversy; stamps them
as inalienable; make their security the
primary duty of government; asserts
that governments derive their just pow
ers from tie consent Of the gO0erned and
maintains both the right and the duty of
the people to alter or abolish any form of
government becoming destructive of these
ends, land to institute new government,
laying its foundations on such principles,
and organizing its powers in such form,
| as to them shall seem most likely to effect
| their safety and happiness"
But it is one thing to preach, and an
other to practice. 1t is easy to enunciate
abstract propositions that lay the AK at
the root of all forms of tyranny but it is
not quite so easy to carry them out. The
inconsistencies and paradoxes of human
nature in all ages, have been truly aston
ishing; but these were never more strik-
ingly exemplifed than in this instance.
At least one-half of the signers of that de-
claration were the owners of slaves, whose
letters were riveted so tightly that not
even revolutionary violence could sunder
" cty To- ha To-
surviving signer was Charles Carroll of
Carrolton, who completed almost a CEN
fury, but who chung to his slaves more
tenaciously than to life itself, leaving
more than thousand of them to be in
herited as so many cattle and swine.
Even the author of the Declaration of In
dependence, Thomas Jefferson was slave
holder and continued such to the end of
his days, leaving all his victims in hopeless
servitude. Well might he exclaim, "What
an incomprehensible machine is man who
can endure toll, famine, stripes, imprison-
ment, and death itself in vindication of
his own liberty and the next moment be
deaf to all those motives whose power
supported him through his trial, and in
fiict on his fellow man a bondage, one
hour of which is fraught with more misery
than ages of that which he rose in rebel
lion to oppose !" At that very time there
were in the colonies, chiefly at the South,
not less than half million bondmen
without any recognized genealogy or ma
tivity, driven to unrequited toll under the
lash, legally held as goods and chattels,
and liable to every conceivable indignity,
wrong and outrage.
Of course, a people who could wage a
seven years war for their own freedom
and independence, in utter disregard of
the tears and groans of those whom they
were holding in an iron thraldom, could
not be expected, in accomplishing their
object, to form government under which
it would be unlawful to hold slaves for
the first step downward makes the second
one comparatively easy. We know what
followed, and how it was done. A con.
stitution was adopted, allowing the prose-
cution of the foreign slave trade for the
term of twenty-one years and the domes-
tic slave-trade indefinitely providing a
three-ffths slave representation in Con-
gress, and the restoration of fugitive
slaves to their masters; and throwing a
national safeguard around the slave sys-
tenn by pledging the whole naval and
military power of the government to sup
press domestic instruction.
In view of such shocking recreancy to
the cause of human liberty, and such a
mockery of the principles of popular gov
eminent, well might heaven be indignant
and the earth stand aghast. No marvel
that, for period of seventy years, our
democratic pretensions were jest and a
by-word throughout all Europe. That
was where we stood, as constitutionally
organized, from 1887 till the day of our
national visitation in 1861, when a just
GOD laid judgment to the line, and
righteousness to the plummet; and the
hail swept away our refuge Of lies, and
the waters overlooked our hiding-place.
Then the pillars of our so-called temple
of liberty, one after another, began to fall;