CHAP. IV. 1844. Protest of a sin against God, and ought to be immediately abandoned; and, therefore, this objection falls to the ground. Is the Society to adopt only that course of action which shall at all times obtain an unanimous vote? Then it can make no progress, for its reformative power is lost. There may, there must, be unanimity of sentiment in regard to the principles of our enterprise; but in the application of those principles to existing religious and political institutions, similar unanimity is not to be expected, nor required as a condition of membership-and the minority of this year may be the majority of the next. "2. It is objected, that it is the adoption of a creed. No more than the declaration, that 'the American churches are the Ante, p. 29. bulwarks of slavery'; that the Whig and Democratic parties ought to be abandoned as pro-slavery; that no abolitionist can consistently support a pro-slavery clergyman, or continue in Christian fellowship with a pro-slavery church, or vote for Henry Clay or Martin Van Buren. No more than a thousand similar opinions which have been expressed, from time to time, by anti-slavery societies and at anti-slavery meetings, in all parts of the free States. Are these opinions to be stifled because all who belong to those societies, or who profess to be abolitionists, are not ready for their adoption? And because a majority feel bound to utter them, is it for the minority to complain that such utterance is a trespass on their rights of conscience? Have the majority no such rights?—and when they are called upon to suppress their convictions of duty, to gratify the minority, do not the latter interfere with the rights of conscience? Is not the argument as broad as it is long'? But, the truth is, no proscription is implied or intended; nothing invidious is meant. The majority may err, and the minority may be in the right, in regard to particular propositions or modes of action; but this does not alter the platform on which both parties stand; and where there is honesty of purpose, in due season experience will prove whose views are most worthy of unanimous approval. Besides, what is the creed that is objected to? It is all summed up in a single sentence:-‘NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS!' How would it read:— 'Union with tyrants, for the preservation and extension of liberty !' What fellowship has light with darkness? and how can Christ and Belial belong to the same government, and coöperate together for the promotion of righteousness in the earth? "5. The minority 'regard the proposition [of disunion] as impracticable.' If the people of the United States are free agents, then what they have done they can undo.1 They have 'made a covenant with death'- that covenant they can abrogate. With hell they are at agreement' from it they can withdraw their countenance. The proposition may be, and really is, impracticable to those who feel unwilling or unable to support it; but not to those who hail it as eternal truth, as the true anti-slavery issue, as the ground of safety and success - and who, by their deeds, are resolved to show that it is a duty which can be easily performed in the strength of conscious rectitude. The objection that it is 'impracticable' may only mean that, in the opinion of the protestants, no considerable portion of the people can ever be persuaded to adopt it. We conceive that our obligation to do a righteous act is not at all dependent on the question whether we shall succeed in carrying the multitude with us. Of one thing we are sure, that we may not innocently go with them to do evil. Broad is the road that leads to death, and many there be that walk therein. Some of our friends who look on this revolutionary step as 'impracticable' were as strongly persuaded, at the formation of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, that the doctrine of immediate and unconditional emancipation was futile, 'intolerant, and presumptuous'; but they were not long in discovering their mistake, and they rectified it with penitent and grateful hearts. So we trust it will prove in the present case. When 1 Wm. H. Channing wrote to Mr. Garrison from New York on May 12, 1844 (Lib. 14: [83]): "The Confederation was adopted by the 'People of the United States.' And when this bond was found insufficient, the 'People of the United States' it was who assented to, ratified, and established the Constitution as the Supreme Law. The adoption of the Constitution did not make us a Nation. We as a Nation adopted the Constitution. This is a most important point. The 'People of the United States,' by a Sovereign Right, under God, established this Constitution; the 'People of the United States,' by the same Sovereign Right, having found that this Constitution, in place of 'securing a more perfect Union, and establishing justice,' &c., has broken our Union, and established injustice, &c. (vide Preamble to the Constitution), can pass on from that Constitution, thus proved imperfect, to a higher and better one, as they did from the Confederacy. AND THE END IN VIEW SHALL STILL BE UNION, NOT DISUNION. This is not schismatic, nor treacherous, nor nullifying; it is legitimate, and right, and reasonable. In demanding that the 'People of the United States' be faithful to their professed principles, they [the abolitionists] assume a Positive position, and throw the odium of mere Negation and Opposition upon the Slaveholder. The Rectitude of this is plain, and the Policy of it is equally so. It puts the Slaveholder in his true place as the Disunionist; it exposes to the world that the only actual disturbing element in our Union is our injustice to our colored brethren." Protest of D. L. Child, E. G. Loring, J. Southwick, J. S. Gibbons, etc. D. L. Child, E. G. Loring; ante, I: 279. 1844. CHAP. IV. the doctrine of teetotalism was first advocated, to all but a clear-sighted, adventurous few it seemed utterly chimerical. How is it now regarded? Now, it seems to us that the doctrines referred to are not more consonant with reason and duty than that which requires freemen to have 'NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS." Protest of Child, Lor wick, Gib bons, etc. "6. The protestants 'regard the proposition as calculated to ing, South- impair the character and influence of the Society.' The American Anti-Slavery Society has never had any character, except for fanaticism; and never can have any, safely, until the trumpet of jubilee sounds throughout the land. Our prophecy is, that while the new position which it has assumed will subject the Society to fresh contumely and derision, for a time, posterity will regard it with special admiration and gratitude; and universal tyranny shall feel it as a blow struck by the hand of omnipotence. The 'influence' of the Society has been just in proportion to its faith in God, its fidelity to its principles, its readiness to be without reputation. We believe it now occupies the highest defensible ground against the enemy. Protest of T. Earle and "7. It is objected, that this is 'precisely the course which all the crafty advocates of slavery would wish us to pursue.' This A. Buffum. is empty assertion and the facts that have already transpired prove it to be equally fallacious. What rage and consternation were excited in Congress on the presentation of the famous Ante, p. 46. Haverhill petition for a peaceful dissolution of the Union! How Protest of Earle and Buffum. did'the crafty advocates of slavery' gnaw their tongues for pain, and cry out, as did kindred spirits of old, that they were tormented before their time! How did it extort the confession from the lips of Southern Senators and Representatives, that a dissolution of the Union would be a dissolution of slavery! How effectually has it silenced Southern bluster, and humbled Southern audacity, in regard to a separation! And now that the American Anti-Slavery Society calls for secession now that a host of the foremost and most unflinching advocates of emancipation are ready to sound the tocsin of disunion -now that the motto on the anti-slavery banner is, 'NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS!'—is it to be credited that they who quailed before the solitary petition from Haverhill, signed by some thirty individuals, will now rejoice and take courage? 'O, most lame and impotent conclusion!' But let time determine this. "9. It is in opposition to the evident doctrine of the constitution of the Society.' But that constitution provides for the use of all moral and legal means for the overthrow of slavery; and these are embodied in the doctrine of secession from the Government.1 CHAP. IV. 1844. Protest of 349. "11. It is urged that the ground of disunion is an attack upon the conscientious convictions of the minority, of the same character as that which is said to have been formerly attempted by new organizationists, but repudiated by this Society - they having proposed to decide that it was the moral duty of every abolitionist in the country to go to the polls and vote for public officers, and the present measure being a decision that it is the duty of all abolitionists to abstain from such voting.' Here we have a comparison of cases, but there is no analogy between them. The fact is, that, though James G. Birney and a few others advocated the moral duty of voting, the question was never presented to the American A. S. Society for its consideration. The division in 1840 took place in consequence of Abby Kelley being placed on a business committee, and the refusal of Ante, 2:348, the Society to put a padlock on the lips of any of its members who might feel moved to speak in behalf of the suffering and the dumb.' Besides, the ground assumed by Birney and his abettors was, not simply that voting was an anti-slavery duty, but that it should be recognized as a religious obligation at all times, and this bloody and atheistical government as having a divine origin and approval! This creed they wanted abolitionists to swallow before they should be allowed to occupy the anti-slavery platform as those in 'regular standing.' It was justly regarded by the bone and muscle of our enterprise as a proscriptive and unjustifiable measure, resorted to evidently for an evil purpose, and urged out of no regard for the onward march of emancipation, as the sequel has fully proved. It is now charged, as an equally heinous offence, that the Society has decided that it is the duty of all abolitionists to abstain from voting.' True-voting to sustain a blood-cemented Union and a pro-slavery Constitution—but not true in regard to the abstract question of voting, or of the form of government which is in harmony with the will of God and the freedom of the human mind. A wide difference. 1 Mrs. Chapman patly recalled the passage in the Declaration of Sentiments of 1833 (ante, 1 : 411), in which Mr. Garrison, after having described the pro-slavery obligations of the North under the Constitution — in other words, having characterized the Union-concluded: "This relation to slavery is criminal, and full of danger: IT MUST BE BROKEN UP" (Lib. 14 : 171). Protest of Protest of "13. It is argued, that 'if voting under the Constitution be a criminal participation in slavery, the paying of taxes under it is equally so.' Without stopping to show that there is a fallacy in this argument, we reply, that, in the common use and understanding of the terms, no seceder will ever again pay taxes to the Government while it upholds slavery. He may consent peaceably to yield up what is demanded of him, but not without remonstrance, and only as he would give up his purse to a highwayman. He will not recognize it as a lawful tax — he will not pay it as a tax- but will denounce it as robbery and oppression. "17. The last objection urged by the protestants is, that 'it proposes to dissolve the American Union, and our membership of it, before having petitioned for a change of the objectionable features of the American Constitution.' Of what avail is it to petition when the right of petition is denied and trampled in the dust? What is it but to mock us to say, when we are treated as outlaws, and slavery reigns over the land, that we have not gone through certain worthless forms before declaring that we will not any longer 'walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful ’? It is enough that the Government is powerless to protect us nay, that it gives us up to destruction — nay, more, that it keeps in chains, as beasts of burden, three millions of the people. As Gen. 19:17. the angels said to Lot, 'Escape for thy life! — look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain: escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed!' so are we to 'come out' and be sepIsa. 26:13. arate, in the spirit of heavenly allegiance exclaiming, 'O Lord our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us; but by thee only will we make mention of thy name.' How appliIsa. 8:11-14. cable the language of Isaiah to the present emergency! — ' For the Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying, Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid. Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread; and he shall be for a sanctuary.' "We have thus examined every objection brought by the protestants against the action of the Parent Society, as far as our narrow limits will permit - with what success, our readers must decide. The more we weigh this matter, the stronger grows our conviction that the true issue is now made, that abolitionists should take a revolutionary position, and that |