Year: 1860




age NJ traffic was ever wicked or more
SnrFcusablc-in principle and in oil the details OF
Me bortid business il has long been considered
too shocking to be endured by civilized communi.
ties. On the formation Of this government, the
slave trade was formally prohibited by Hlause in
the constitution. This fact in our national history
is exceedingly croditable, but whatever honor
enured to the nation through the virtue of the ia.
thers, is rapidly being lost through the degenora-
cy Of their sons.


So startling a decaderce in morals almost cx.
scesds belief. It seems mIro like fiction than fact
that we who, in the very constitution Of our gov
ernment, have all along pronounced the slave trade
piracy should now be its warm supporters. Bot
90 il is and however reluctant we may be to cred
it the monstrous fact, cannot deny it. 1t 5e.
comes us to look into the causes which have
brought about this strange state Of things and re.
produced 10 the middle of the nineteeEth century,
one of the most stupendous crimes of the dark
ages. Among the more immediate agencies that
have conduced to this effect is,


l. The dom site slave trade. In onr opinion
the domestic slave trade is net particle better
than the foreign. If ii wrong to import slaves
from Africa it is wrong to import them irom



Sr sense nor justice, in for idding the people Of
Georgia,to Luy slaves in Congo, and allowing them
to buy them in Maryland Everybody could see
that such prohibition was arbitrary and as the
constitution ignored the principle of justice OR
failed to apply it mprGhensively, it was right
that the states concerned in the slave trGde should
practically disregard the injunction. If slaves
conceded to be properly, the slave states had
an inalienable right to buy them wherever they
could and the convention that framed the stiu
tion, had no right to interfere with this original
and indeieas;be right, belonging equally to every
member of the federal compact. We may set it
down as an established truth that the two branch
es of the slave trade exist together, and nation
can tolerate onN without having the other.


Q The next cause ia not simply Llunder, like
the foreign, but general decline of the spirit Of
liberty 1t is not to be con ncealed that the WI Jie
nation has souk into ignorance md Indifference
on the great vial question Of freedom. We hard.
Is understand our own nstitu IONS, and have be-
come incapable Of administering tbs laws made
for US 10y free men. The Declaration Of Indepcnd-
ence the very alphabet of the revolution, is
thc standing eer of Young America and Il large
share of oar people have no toierabie conception
OF the political doctrines embodied in that immor.
tai instrument. Nor is this Ignorance By any
means confined to the lower classes it prevail,
every here especially in Congress, aud in the
federal Judiciary Oar fugitive slave laws and ouI
Dred Scott decsione, tell the story Of our aeGener
acy We have forgotten the first principles Of our
national existence, and hence We haze gone back
w the crimes which preceded that existence, but
were abolished by the advent Of freedom. Had
not the sentiment of justice become fatally weak,
had we not lost all vigorous and decent diScrimin-
alton. touching those fundamental rights which
underlie the whole structure of our political sys-
TEN. there could not have been return to gross
an outrage a, the African slave trade. Our con-
dition, however is but renewed illustration of an
oil truh-'The dog has returned 80 his vomit,
and the SOW that was washed to her wallowiug in
the mire,' The nation needs political regeneration
fresh baptism of the spirit of Seventy Six, and
useleas we have it, speedy ruin awaits us. With
slavery must come not only the slave trade, both
foreign and domestic. but every other species Of
tyranny.


8. The tone of religious instruction. and the
state of the Churches have had much to do with
This matter The pulpit has blundered most
egregiOusy. Men standing up in Gods name,
and pretending to be cmbassad for Christ, have
repeated the crime Of Judas and sold their
Lord in the person Of the bondman for money
money paid to them by the nefarious dealer in
human fesh We do not mean to say that this
bargaining has always been ia form, we only
assert that substantially the betrayal and the price
have existed, and do exist in the case of every
South-side Adams, as really as they did in their
.Tudos Isoa ri 4 All ott fn
vindcate slavery from the Bible, and all apologies
for the aecursed crime, whether made by priest OF
layman, are essentially infdel-the very maddest
form of a crusade against that system Of benevo'
lence, which teaches tina. man was made to be
man and not chatte. The Church having con-
descended to tolerate the monstrous heresy that
slavery is of God. has become an actual participant
Of the crime Instead of opening the foodgates
OF wrath upon the abomina:ion ch hristau ministers
are expected to ac the surest prop of the state
in its internal designs against the slave. To this
hour, the abused, insulted religion of Christ is
made the strongest, cruelist bond that the slave.
holder con fix upon his victim But for this utter
failure Of the Church to accomplish its mission, by
wrenching every slave from his masters hand, the
state would probably have continued to walk in
the light Of it's great examplars of the revolution
ary period Had religion been allowed to perform
its kindly missioa, our judges and statesmen
might perhaps have understood the simple records
of the past and our revolutionary literature would
not have been as it now is, to them a sealed
book.


A. Defective religious instruction and waning
political sentiments, have induced peculiar mar
rowness of feeling. that welcomes return of the
slave trade. We are not only claiming America
for Americans, but for white men. This illibosal-
Ivy is not mere caprice or a whim, it is a crimes
iorif we deny man his freedom because of his