There was a time, fellow citizens, when the above address would have
included the PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES. But, alas! the freedom of
the press, freedom of speech, and the right of petition, are now
hated and dreaded by our Southern citizens, as hostile to the
perpetuity of human bondage; while, by their political influence in
the Federal Government, they have induced numbers at the North to
unite with them in their sacrilegious crusade against these
inestimable privileges.
On the 28th January last, the House of Representatives, on motion of
Mr. Johnson, from Maryland, made it a standing RULE of the House
that "no petition, memorial, resolution, or other paper, praying the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, or any State or
Territory of the United States, in which it now exists, SHALL BE
RECEIVED BY THE HOUSE, OR ENTERTAINED IN ANY WAY WHATEVER."
Thus has the RIGHT OF PETITION been immolated in the very Temple of
Liberty, and offered up, a propitiatory sacrifice to the demon of
slavery. Never before has an outrage so unblushingly profligate been
perpetrated upon the Federal Constitution. Yet, while we mourn the
degeneracy which this transaction evinces, we behold, in its
attending circumstances, joyful omens of the triumph which awaits
our struggle with the hateful power that now perverts the General
Government into an engine of cruelty and loathsome oppression.
Before we congratulate you on these omens, let us recall to your
recollection the steps by which the enemies of human rights have
advanced to their present rash and insolent defiance of moral and
constitutional obligation.
In 1831, a newspaper was established in Boston, for the purpose of
disseminating facts and arguments in favor of the duty and policy of
immediate emancipation. The Legislature of Georgia, with all the
recklessness of despotism, passed a law, offering a reward of $5000,
for the abduction of the Editor, and his delivery in Georgia. As
there was no law, by which a citizen of Massachusetts could be tried
in Georgia, for expressing his opinions in the capital of his own
State, this reward was intended as the price of BLOOD. Do you start
at the suggestion? Remember the several sums of $25,000, of $50,000,
and of $100,000, offered in Southern papers for kidnapping certain
abolitionists. Remember the horrible inflictions by Southern Lynch
clubs. Remember the declaration, in the United States Senate, by the
brazen-fronted Preston, that, should an abolitionist be caught in
Carolina, he would be HANGED. But, as the Slaveholders could not
destroy the lives of the Abolitionists, they determined to murder
their characters. Hence, the President of the United States was
induced, in his Message of 1835, to Congress, to charge them with
plotting the massacre of the Southern planters; and even to stultify
himself, by affirming that, for this purpose, they were engaged in
sending, by _mail_, inflammatory appeals to the _slaves_--sending
papers to men who could not read them, and by a conveyance through
which they could not receive them! He well knew that the papers
alluded to were appeals on the immorality of converting men, women,
and children, into beasts of burden, and were sent to the masters,
for _their_ consideration. The masters in Charleston, dreading the
moral influence of these appeals on the conscience of the
slaveholding community, forced the Post Office, and made a bonfire
of the papers. The Post Master General, with the sanction of the
President, also hastened to their relief, and, in violation of oaths,
and laws, and the constitution, established ten thousand censors of
the press, each one of whom was authorized to abstract from the mail
every paper which _he_ might think too favorable to the rights of man.
For more than twenty years, petitions have been presented to Congress,
for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. The right
to present them, and the power of Congress to grant their prayer,
were, until recently, unquestioned. But the rapid multiplication of
these petitions alarmed the slaveholders, and, knowing that they
tended to keep alive at the North, an interest in the slave, they
deemed it good policy to discourage and, if possible, suppress all
such applications. Hence Mr. Pinckney's famous resolution, in 1836,
declaring, "that all petitions, or papers, relating _in any way, or
to any extent_ whatever to the _subject of slavery_, shall, without
being printed or referred, be laid on the table; and no further
action, whatever shall be had thereon!"
The peculiar atrocity of this resolution was, that it not merely
trampled upon the rights of the petitioners, but took from each
member of the House his undoubted privilege, as a legislator of the
District, to introduce any proposition he might think proper, for the
protection of the slaves. In every Slave State there are laws
affording, at least, some nominal protection to these unhappy beings;
but, according to this resolution, slaves might be flayed alive in
the streets of Washington, and no representative of the people could
offer even a resolution for inquiry. And this vile outrage upon
constitutional liberty was avowedly perpetrated "to repress agitation,
to allay excitement, and re-establish harmony and tranquillity among
the various sections of the Union!!"
But this strange opiate did not produce the stupefying effects
anticipated from it. In 1836, the petitioners were only 37,000--the
next session they numbered 110,000. Mr. Hawes, of Ky., now essayed
to restore tranquillity, by gagging the uneasy multitude; but, alas!
at the next Congress, more than 300,000 petitioners carried new
terror to the hearts of the slaveholders. The next anodyne was
prescribed by Mr. Patton, of Va., but its effect was to rouse from
their stupor some of the Northern Legislatures, and to induce them
to denounce his remedy as "a usurpation of power, a violation of the
Constitution, subversive of the fundamental principles of the
government, and at war with the prerogatives of the people."[105] It
was now supposed that the people most be drugged by a _northern_ man,
and _Atherton_ was found a fit instrument for this vile purpose; but
the dose proved only the more nauseous and exciting from the foul
hands by which it was administered.
[Footnote 105: Resolutions of Massachusetts and Connecticut, April and
May, 1838.]
In these various outrages, although all action on the petitions was
prohibited, the papers themselves were received and laid on the table,
and _therefore_ it was contended, that the right of petition had
been preserved inviolate. But the slaveholders, maddened by the
failure of all their devices, and fearing the influence which the
mere sight of thousands and tens of thousands of petitions in behalf
of liberty, would exert, and, taking advantage of the approaching
presidential election to operate upon the selfishness of some
northern members, have succeeded in crushing the right of petition
itself.
That you may be the more sensible, fellow citizens, of the exceeding
profligacy of the late RULE and of its palpable violation of both the
spirit and the letter of the Constitution, which those who voted for
it had sworn to support, suffer us to recall to your recollection a
few historical facts.
The framers of the Federal Constitution supposed the right of
petition too firmly established in the habits and affections of the
people, to need a constitutional guarantee. Their omission to notice
it, roused the jealousy of some of the State conventions, called to
pass upon the constitution. The _Virginia_ convention proposed,
as an amendment, "that every _freeman_ has a right to petition,
or apply to the Legislature, for a redress of grievances." And this
amendment, with others, was ordered to be forwarded to the different
States, for their consideration. The Conventions of North Carolina,
New York, and Rhode Island, were held subsequently, and, of course,
had before them the Virginia amendment. The North Carolina Convention
adopted a declaration of rights, embracing the very words of the
proposed amendment; and this declaration was ordered to be submitted
to Congress, before that State would enter the Union. The Conventions
of New York and of Rhode Island incorporated in their _certificates
of ratification_, the assertion that "Every _person_ has a right to
petition or apply to the legislature for a redress of
grievances"--using the Virginia phraseology, merely substituting the
word _person_ for _freeman_, thus claiming the right of petition even
for slaves; while Virginia and North Carolina confined it to freemen.
The first Congress, assembled under the Constitution, gave effect to
the wishes thus emphatically expressed, by proposing, as an amendment,
that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or _abridging_
the freedom of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and _to petition Government_ for a redress of grievances."
This amendment was duly ratified by the States, and when members of
Congress swear to support the Constitution of the United States,
they are as much bound by their oath to refrain from abridging the
right of petition, as they are to fulfil any other constitutional
obligation. And will the slaveholders and their abettors, dare to
maintain that they have not foresworn themselves, because they have
abridged the right of the people to petition for a redress of
grievances, by a RULE of the House, and not by a _law_? If so, they
may by a RULE require every member, on taking his seat, to subscribe
the creed of a particular church, and then call their Maker to
witness that they are guiltless of making a _law_ "respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
The right to petition is one thing, and the disposition of a petition
after it is received, is another. But the new rule makes no
disposition of the petitions; it PROHIBITS THEIR RECEPTION; they may
not be brought into the legislative chamber. Hundreds of thousands
of the people are debarred all access to their representatives, for
the purpose of offering them a prayer.
It is said that the manifold abominations perpetrated in the District
are no grievances to the petitioners, and _therefore_ they have no
right to ask for their removal. But the right guaranteed by the
Constitution, is a right to ask for the redress of _grievances_,
whether personal, social, or moral. And who, except a slaveholder,
will dare to contend that it is no grievance that our agents, our
representatives, our servants, in our name and by our authority,
enact laws erecting and licensing markets in the Capital of the
Republic, for the sale of human beings, and converting free men into
slaves, for no other crime, than that of being too poor to pay
United States' officers the JAIL FEES accruing from an iniquitous
imprisonment?
Again, it is pretended that the objects prayed for, are palpably
unconstitutional, and that _therefore_ the petitions ought not to be
received. And by what authority are the people deprived of their
right to petition for any object which a majority of either
House of Congress, for the time being, may please to regard as
unconstitutional? If this usurpation be submitted to, it will not be
confined to abolition petitions. It is well known that most of the
slaveholders _now_ insist, that all protecting duties are
unconstitutional, and that on account of the tariff the Union was
nearly rent by the very men who are now horrified by the danger to
which it is exposed by these _petitions_! Should our Northern
Manufacturers again presume to ask Congress to protect them from
foreign competition, the Southern members will find a precedent,
sanctioned by Northern votes, for a rule that "no petition, memorial,
resolution, or other paper, praying for the IMPOSITION OF DUTIES FOR
THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF MANUFACTURES, shall be received by the House,
or entertained in any way whatever."
It does indeed, require Southern arrogance, to maintain that,
although Congress is invested by the Constitution with "exclusive
jurisdiction, in all cases whatsoever," over the District of Columbia,
yet that it would be so palpably unconstitutional to abolish the
slave-trade, and to emancipate the slaves in the District, that
petitions for these objects ought not to be received. Yet this is
asserted in that very House, on whose minutes is recorded a
resolution, in 1816, appointing a committee, with power to send for
persons and papers, "to inquire into the existence of an inhuman and
illegal traffic in slaves, carried on, in and through the District
of Columbia, and report whether any, and what means are necessary
for putting a stop to the same:" and another, in 1829, instructing
the Committee on the District of Columbia to inquire into the
expediency of providing by law, "for the gradual abolition of
slavery in the District."
In the very first Congress assembled under the Federal Constitution,
petitions were presented, asking its interposition for the
mitigation of the evils, and final abolition of the African
slave-trade, and also praying it, as far as it possessed the power,
to take measures for the abolition of slavery. These petitions
excited the wrath and indignation of many of the slave-holding
members, yet no one thought of refusing to receive them. They were
referred to a select committee, at the instance of Mr. Madison,
himself, who "entered into a critical review of the circumstances
respecting the adoption of the Constitution, and the ideas upon the
limitation of the powers of Congress to interfere in the regulation
of the commerce of slaves, and showed that they undoubtedly were not
precluded from interposing in their importation; and generally to
regulate the mode in which every species of business shall be
transacted. He adverted to the western country, and the Cession of
Georgia, in which Congress have certainly the power to _regulate the
subject of slavery_; which shows that gentlemen are mistaken in
supposing, that Congress cannot constitutionally interfere in the
business, in any degree, whatever. He was in favor of committing the
petition, and justified the measure by repeated precedents in the
proceedings of the House."--_U.S. Gazette, 17th Feb._, 1790.
Here we find one of the earliest and ablest expounders of the
Constitution, maintaining the power of Congress to "regulate the
subject of slavery" in the national territories, and urging the
reference of abolition petitions to a special committee.
The committee made a report; for which, after a long debate, was
substituted a declaration, by the House, that Congress could not
abolish the slave trade prior to the year 1808, but had a right so
to regulate it as to provide for the humane treatment of the slaves
on the passage; and that Congress could not interfere in the
emancipation or treatment of slaves in the _States_.
This declaration gave entire satisfaction, and no farther abolition
petitions were presented, till after the District of Columbia had
been placed under the "exclusive jurisdiction" of the General
Government.
You all remember, fellow citizens, the wide-spread excitement which
a few years since prevailed on the subject of SUNDAY MAILS. Instead
of attempting to quiet the agitation, by outraging the rights of the
petitioners, Congress referred the petitions to a committee, and
made no attempt to stifle discussion.
Why, then, we ask, with such authorities and precedents before them,
do the slaveholders in Congress, regardless of their oaths, strive to
gag the friends of freedom, under _pretence_ of allaying agitation?
Because conscience does make cowards of them all--because they know
the accursed system they are upholding will not bear the
light--because they fear, if these petitions are discussed, the
abominations of the American slave trade, the secrets of the
prison-houses in Washington and Alexandria, and the horrors of the
human shambles licensed by the authority of Congress, will be
exposed to the score and indignation of the civilized world.
Unquestionably the late RULE surpasses, in its profligate contempt of
constitutional obligation, any act in the annals of the Federal
Government. As such it might well strike every patriot with dismay,
were it not that attending circumstances teach us that it is the
expiring effort of desperation. When we reflect on the past
subserviency of our northern representatives to the mandates of the
slaveholders, we may well raise, on the present occasion, the shout
of triumph, and hail the vote on the recent RULE as the pledge of a
glorious victory. Suffer us to recall to your recollection the
majorities by which the successive attempts to crush the right of
petition and the freedom of debate have been carried.
Pinckney's Gag was passed May, 1836, by a majority of 51
Hawes's Jan. 1837, 58
Patton's Dec. 1837, 48
Atherton's Dec. 1838, 48
JOHNSON's Jan. 1840, 6
Surely, when we find the majority against us reduced from 58 to
6, we need no new incentive to perseverance.
Another circumstance which marks the progress of constitutional
liberty, is the gradual diminution in the number of our northern
_serviles_. The votes from the free States in favor of the several
gags were as follows:--
For Pinckney's 62
For Hawes's 70
For Patton's 52
For Atherton's 49
For JOHNSON's 28
There is also another cheering fact connected with the passage of
the RULE which deserves to be noticed. Heretofore the slaveholders
have uniformly, by enforcing the previous question, imposed their
several gags by a silent vote. On the present occasion they were
twice baffled in their efforts to stifle debate, and were, for days
together, compelled to listen to speeches on a subject which they
have so often declared should not be discussed.
A base strife for southern votes has hitherto, to no small extent,
enlisted both the political parties at the north in the service of
the slaveholders. The late unwonted independence of northern
politicians, and the deference paid by them to the wishes of their
own constituents, in preference to those of their southern colleagues,
indicates the advance of public opinion. No less than 49 northern
members of the administration party voted for the Atherton gag,
while only 27 dared to record their names in favor of Johnson's; and
of the representation of SIX States, _every vote_ was given _against_
the rule, without distinction of party. The tone in which opposite
political journals denounce the late outrage may warn the
slaveholders that they will not much longer hold the north in bonds.
The leading administration paper in the city of New York regards the
RULE with "utter abhorrence;" while the official paper of the
opposition, edited by the state printer, trusts that the names of
the recreant northerners who voted for it may be "handed down to
eternal infamy and execration."
The advocates of abolition are no longer consigned to unmitigated
contempt and obloquy. Passing by the various living illustrations of
our remark, we appeal for our proofs to the dead. The late WILLIAM
LEGGETT, the editor of a Democratic Journal in the city of New York,
was denounced, in 1835, by the "Democratic Republican General
Committee," for his abolition doctrines. Far from faltering in his
course, on account of the censure of his own party, he exclaimed,
with a presentiment almost amounting to prophecy, "The stream of
public opinion now sets against us, but it is about to turn, and the
regurgitation will be tremendous. Proud in that day may well be the
man who can float in triumph on the first refluent wave, swept
onward by the deluge which he himself, in advance of his fellows,
had largely shared in occasioning. Such be my fate; and, living or
dying, it will in some measure be mine. I have written my name in
ineffaceable letters on the abolition record." And he did live to
behold the first swelling of the refluent wave. The denounced
abolitionist was honored by a democratic President with a diplomatic
mission; and since his death, the resolution condemning him has been
EXPUNGED from the minutes of the democratic committee.
Of the many victims of the recent awful calamity in our waters, what
name has been most frequently uttered by the pulpit and the press in
the accents of lamentation and panegyric? On whose tomb have freedom,
philanthropy, and letters been invoked to strew their funeral wreaths?
All who have heard of the loss of the Lexington are familiar with
the name of CHARLES FOLLEN. And who was he? One of the men
officially denounced by President Jackson as a gang of miscreants,
plotting insurrection and murder--and, recently, a member of the
Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society.
Let us then, fellow citizens, in view of all these things, thank God
and take courage. We are now contending, not merely for the
emancipation of our unhappy fellow men, kept in bondage under the
authority of our own representatives--not merely for the overthrow
of the human shambles erected by Congress on the national
domain--but also for the preservation of those great constitutional
rights which were acquired by our fathers, and are now assailed by
the slaveholders and their northern auxiliaries. That you may
remember these auxiliaries and avoid giving them new opportunities
of betraying your rights, we annex a list of their dishonored names.
The following twenty-eight members from the Free States voted in the
affirmative on the recent GAG RULE.