RESOLUTIONS FOR A CONVENTION.
"Nay, and thou'lt mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou."--HAMLET.
I.
_Resolved_, That the continued practice of wild geese to visit the South
for the winter, flying over free soil--Concord, Lexington, Bunker Hill,
Faneuil Hall,--on their way to the land of despotism, cannot be too
loudly deplored by all the friends of freedom in the North; and that the
laws of nature are evidently imperfect in not yielding to the known
anti-slavery sentiments of this great Northern people so far as to make
the instincts of said geese conform to our most sacred antipathies and
detestations.
II.
_Resolved_, That the abolitionists of Maine, and of the British
Provinces, resident near the summer haunts of said geese, be requested
to consider whether measures may not be adopted whereby anti-slavery
tracts, and card-pictures illustrating the atrocious cruelties of
slavery, and appeals to the consciences of the South, or at least
instructions to the colored people as to their right and duty to assert
their liberty, may not be fastened to these birds of passage, to make
them apostles of liberty; so that while they continue to disregard the
bleeding cause of humanity, their very cackle may be converted into lays
of freedom.
III.
Whereas we read in the Revelation a description of the wall of heaven as
having "on the South three gates," a number equal to that assigned to
the North,
_Resolved_, That this description being in total disregard of the great
modern anti-slavery movement, the book which contains it cannot have
been divinely inspired; and that a true anti-slavery Bible would have
represented those pro-slavery gates as shut, with the inscription over
them: Enter from the North.
IV.
_Resolved_, That the great abolitionist who represents himself in his
speeches as baptizing his dogs, in just ridicule of the baptism of
chattel slaves, is worthy, with his dogs, of a place in the heavens
among the constellations; and that anti-slavery astronomers be requested
to make a Southern constellation for them somewhere near the head of The
Serpent, as rivals to "_Canes Venatici_," which pro-slavery astronomers
no doubt designed, in blasphemous profanation of the heavens, to
represent their bloodhounds hunting fugitive slaves, placing it in
disgusting proximity to our own Northern _Ursa Major_. And the friends
of the slave are hereby invited to make that new constellation their
cynosure, vowing by it, and anti-slavery lovers arranging their
matrimonial engagements, if possible, so as to plight their troth only
when it is in the ascendant.
V.
_Resolved_, That we shall hail it as a sign of progress and an omen for
good, when anti-slavery women, with the sensibility which belongs to
their sex, shall become so interpenetrated with the sentiments of
freedom, that they can distinguish by the sense of taste the oyster
grown in James River, Richmond, Virginia, and handled by the toil-worn
slave, from that which grew on free soil.
VI.
_Resolved_, That our noble anti-slavery poets be requested to compose
sonnets addressed to the whippoorwill, appealing to that sorrowful-tuned
bird by our associations with his name, and by his own historic
relationship to the victims of oppression, to desert the South and to
frequent our woods and pastures in greater numbers, that the
sensibilities of our people may be continually touched by his notes and
his name, so suggestive of the monstrous lash which rules over one half
of this great nation. And the anti-slavery members of the Legislature
are hereby requested to seek legislative enactments whereby the
whippoorwill may be further domiciliated at the North, and be provided
with protection during the winter season.
VII.
_Resolved_, That bobolinks, blue jays, orioles, martins, and swallows,
who visit the rice-fields of the South, and live upon the unrequited
toil of four millions of our fellow-men, should not, upon their return,
be viewed with favor by the friends of equal rights at the North, but
should be destroyed by sportsmen as a sacrifice to outraged humanity.
And no true anti-slavery taxidermist will, in our judgment, be found
willing to stuff the skin of one of those mean and traitorous birds for
any public or private ornithological show-case.
VIII.
_Resolved_, That one subject of great interest, well suited to occupy
the attention of Massachusetts freemen and friends of liberty the
current year, is this: Whether the great whips in Dock Square, Boston,
which stand professedly as signs before the doors of whip-makers' shops,
but are in the very sight of Faneuil Hall, shall be allowed to remain
within that sacred precinct of liberty; and that we tender our thanks to
those who are investigating the question whether the whips were not
originally placed, and are not now maintained, there by the slave-power,
in mockery of our Northern hatred of oppression.
IX.
_Resolved_, That, if it be true that the steel pen which signed the bill
for the removal of a Judge of Probate for doing an accursed duty as U.S.
Commissioner, was taken from the Council Chamber and is now in the
possession of one who has driven it into the edge of his chamber-door
casement, and every night hangs his watch upon it, at the head of his
bed, with the infatuated notion that thereby, through some "most fine
spirit of sense," the tick of a death-watch will disturb the political
dreams of our Massachusetts rulers, we hereby declare that this is most
chimerical and visionary, and that the great party of freedom in
Massachusetts need not feel the slightest apprehension that our rulers
have the least misgivings as to the morality of their conduct in the
removal of said officer, nor that they fear political retribution for
that deed; nor do we believe that the death-watch will ever tick in the
ear of freedom in Massachusetts.
X.
_Resolved_, That in the acquiescence of many at the North in the entire
justice of a universal massacre, by the slaves, of their masters,
including women and children, we recognize a state of preparedness for
the proscription and banishment of all who do not come up to the high
abolition standard; but that in carrying out that project, we ought
first to seek the reclamation of the victims, and therefore that due
inquiry ought to be made concerning the most effective modes of
persuasion, as, for example, thumb-screws, racks, wheels, scorpions,
water-dropping for the head, bags of snakes, tweezers, and steel-pointed
beds, it being apparent that our agony for the slave cannot be satisfied
except by his liberation, or by the forcible subjection to us of all who
oppose it. And we do hereby request all the friends of freedom now
travelling in despotic countries to make inquiry as to the most approved
methods of persuading the mind by appeals to it through the
sensibilities of the flesh, and to be prepared with this information
against the time when the sublime march of abolition philanthropy shall
arrive at the limits of forbearance with all the Northern advocates of
oppression.
XI.
Whereas no one who holds slaves can be a Christian; and whereas Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob were slave-holders, Abraham himself having owned more
slaves than any Southerner; and whereas a synonyme of heaven, in the New
Testament, is "Abraham's bosom;" and whereas no true friend of freedom
can consistently have Christian communion with slave-holders,
_Resolved_, That we look with deep interest to the introduction among us
of the principles of the Hindoo philosophy and religion (including the
transmigration of souls), through tentative articles in our magazines;
by which there is opening to us a way of escape from that heaven one
exponent of which is, to lie in the bosom of a slave-holder.
XII.
And in conclusion,
_Be it Resolved_, That Bunker Hill was since Mount Sinai, that Faneuil
Hall is far in advance of the Tabernacle in the Wilderness; and that our
anti-slavery literature is immeasurably beyond epistles to Philemon and
other inspired pro-slavery tracts.