Proceedings
of the
CONVENTION
OF
RADICAL POLITICAL ABOLITIONISTS,
HELD AT SYRACUSE, N. Y.,
JUNE 26TH, 27TH, AND 28TH, 1855.
SLAVERY AN OUTLAW—AND FORBIDDEN BY THE CONSTITUTION,
WHICH PROVIDES FOR ITS ABOLITION.
NEW-YORK:
PUBLISHED BY THE CENTRAL ABOLITION BOARD,
48 BEEKMAN STREET.
1855.
-1-
John J. Zuille, Printer
131 Canal Street, N. Y.
-2-
CALL
FOR A
CONVENTION AT SYRACUSE.
To the Radical Political Abolitionists:
WE are few but we are not, therefore, to cease from our work. Work for a good cause, be that cause popular or unpopular, must be work to the end.
Our undertaking, as Radical Political Abolitionists, is to remove slavery from the national territories by means of our national political power, and to remove it from the States also, by means of the same power, whenever the States shall themselves refuse to remove it. For the success of this undertaking, we must depend, under God, upon ourselves. Of all the political parties, there is but one to give us countenance—and that one [the Liberty Party] is, in point of numbers, quite insignificant.
The Whig and Democratic and Know-Nothing parties are each made up of slaveholders, as well as non-slaveholders; and hence, the condition of their continued existence is, that they shall not attack slavery. Members there are, of each of these parties, who are opposed to slavery. But for any one of these parties to assail slavery would be to dissolve itself.
The Free-Soil or Independent Democratic party is, we cheerfully admit, an anti-slavery party. Nevertheless, it denies the right of the Federal Government to touch slavery in the States; and, sad to say, it admits the constitutional authority of every slaveholder to claim every State Government for his slave-catcher.
| Ed. Note: Only a year after the 1854 founding of the Republican Party, it is not yet worth mentioning! not until page 48. Unexpected success at doing what these Conventioneers wanted, abolition of slavery, was, however, coming right around the corner! |
The American Anti-Slavery Society, or Garrison Party, like our-
-3-
selves, labors, within the limits of moral suasion, to abolish slavery; but, unlike ourselves, it employs no political power to this end. What is still worse, it seeks to separate the free States from the slave States, and to leave the slave States, so far as concerns the political power of the free States, at perfect liberty to continue their oppression and torture of the black man.
The Liberty Party is the only political party in the land, that insists on the right and duty to wield the political power of the nation for the overthrow of every part and parcel of American Slavery. That little party not only claims that there is no law for slavery, and can be no law for that most sweeping of all piracies, but that the Federal Constitution demands the abolition of all American Slavery, State or national.
Ed. Note: James Birney, the Liberty Party's 1840 candidate, won 7,000 votes in 1840, and 62,300 votes in 1844.
Gerrit Smith was its candidate in 1848, 1852, 1856, and 1860.
Both Birney and Smith wrote against slavery. See
Birney's The American Churches: The Bulwarks of American Slavery (1840), third edition (1842)
Smith's Letter of Gerrit Smith to Hon. Henry Clay (1839)
Smith's Letter to the Liberty Party of New Hampshire (18March 1848)
Smith's Letter to Senator Charles Sumner (5 Feb 1866)
For background on slavers' depraved behavior, see Rev. William Goodell, Slavery and Anti-Slavery (New York: William Harned Pub, 1852), p 27 Ed. Note. |
Circumstanced as we are, brethren, is it not our duty to come together, for the purpose of enlightening each other’s minds, and cheering each other’s hearts, and strengthening each other’s hands? We believe that it is, and hence we take the liberty to propose that a Convention of Radical Political Abolitionists of all parts of the country be held at Syracuse, N. Y., on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, the 26th, 27th, and 28th days of next June.
We think it especially important, that the Convention be attended by all, who are accustomed to lecture in behalf of our principles, and by all who are disposed to embark in such lecturing. The occasion will be a very favorable one for rendering themselves more able and more useful in this department of labor. Nearly twenty years ago, a Convention of Anti-Slavery Lecturers was held in the City of New York, with very good effect.
It is to be hoped that measures will be adopted at the proposed meeting for obtaining means to sustain lecturers, and to extend the circulation of periodicals devoted to our cause.
| LEWIS TAPPAN, | | W. E. WHITING,
| WILLIAM GOODELL, | | JAMES MOCUNE SMITH,
| GERRIT SMITH, | | GEORGE WHIPPLE,
| S. S. JOCELYN, | | FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
| April 4, 1855. | | | | | | |
-4-
DECLARATION
THE Convention of Radical Political Abolitionists, assembled at Syracuse, in the State of New York, on the 26th, 27th, and 28th days of June, A. D. 1855, improve [take] the opportunity to declare to the nation and to the world their convictions concerning
| American Slavery,
its relations to the American people and Government,
the responsibilities resting upon them,
the principles by which they should be governed,
and the measures they are morally bound to employ for the deliverance of their country,
and the liberation of the enslaved. |
We believe slaveholding to be an unsurpassed crime, and we hold it to be the sacred duty of civil government to suppress crime. We conceive slaveholding to be the annihilation of human rights, and we hold it to be the grand end and mission of civil government to protect human rights. Nay, more, we hold that the [a] government which annihilates instead of protecting human rights, should be known, not as civil government, but only as a conspiracy, a usurpation.
Ed. Note: Note other abolitionists expressing this concept in terms including "original grant" terms:
Rev. James Rankin, Letters (1823), p 100
Rev. Theo. D. Weld, Bible Against Slavery (1837), pp 28-30
Charles Sumner, Addresses on War (1845), p 46
James Birney, Bulwarks (1840), p 29
Lysander Spooner, Unconstitutionality of Slavery (1845), p 14
Rev. Parker Pillsbury, Forlorn Hope (1847), p 8
Rev. John Fee, Non-Fellowship (1849), p 6
Rev. John G. Fee, Sinfulness of Slavery (1851), p 10
Rev. John Fee, Anti-Slavery Manual (1851), p 116
Edward C. Rogers, Slavery Illegality (1855), p 46
Rev. Parker Pillsbury, Acts (1883), p 365.
People cannot rightfully delegate to others, authority that they themselves lack, e.g., to enslave; an 'agent' cannot have more power than his 'principal'; a 'principal' cannot delegate to his 'agent' more power than the 'principal' has.
See also anti-tyranny rescue doctrine writers.
|
We accordingly declare and maintain that there can be no legitimate civil government, rightfully claiming support and allegiance as such, that is not authorized, nay, that is not morally and politically bound to prohibit and to suppress slaveholding. The responsibilities of civil government in this country, rest, primarily, upon the people, by whom their own forms of government are instituted, and who, at the ballot-box, provide for their administration in conformity with their wishes.
| Ed. Note: See repeated reference to winning at the "ballot-box," pages 7, 22, 35, 36, 43, 45,
49, 55. |
If the Federal Government, by the Constitution, is not competent to this task, then it is incompetent to be a civil gov-
-5-
erment at all, or to secure the objects [purposes] set forth in the Constitution itself [in the Preamble]. It can neither “form a more perfect union,” nor “establish justice,” nor “insure domestic tranquillity,” nor “provide for the common defense,” nor “promote the general welfare,” nor “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”
But we deny that our [Founding] fathers ever attempted [established] such an absurdity as that of instituting a civil government without power to protect the natural rights of its subjects; a government "to establish justice" and "secure the blessings of liberty" without powers adequate to the suppression of slaveholding.
We challenge [deny] the proof [slaver claims that the Founding Fathers were hypocrites, i.e.,]
| that when they [the Founding Fathers] declared it self-evident that all men are created equal, they intended a portion of them to be slaves;
that when they were publicly proclaiming inalienable rights, they were secretly plotting unparalleled wrongs;
that when they “appealed to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of their intentions,” they were acting the part of base hypocrites;
that when they professed “to establish justice,” they bound themselves to support the grossest injustice;
that [when] under pretense of securing the blessings of liberty, they entered into a compact for the support of slavery! |
Their [the Founding Fathers'] language in the Constitution indicates nothing of the kind, but the opposite; and there is no proof that their intentions were in conflict with their language. We deem it, therefore, right and proper to construe the Constitution as it reads, and not as the slaveholders pretend that it means.
And by such a construction, the Constitution requires the Federal Government to abolish slavery in all the States.
| Ed. Note: The Founding Fathers
were anti-slavery, says Alvan Stewart, Speech on SlaveryUnconstitutionality (New York: Finch & Weed, 1845), p 42
were not hypocrites, says George Mellen, Unconstitutionalityof Slavery (Boston: Saxton & Pierce, 1841), pp 29-30
retained English anti-slavery legal doctrine in the Constitution,says Sen. Charles Sumner, The Barbarism of Slavery(Washington, D.C.: 1860), p 224. |
More than all this, we maintain that if it could be proved (as it can not be) that our fathers mentally intended to protect slavery, while their words, in the Constitution, required its suppression, we should still hold ourselves at liberty and under obligations to use the Constitution according to its righteous language, and against their unrighteous intentions.
If men [people] use language for dishonest purposes, and with dishonest intentions, it becomes the duty of honest men who may succeed them, and to whom their written instruments are committed, to defeat such dishonest purposes and intentions if they can, by interpreting the language according to its natural and just meaning. Every enlightened and upright jurist will thus
-6-
decide; and the decision commits to the Federal Government a Constitution that binds it to suppress slavery.
We deny that the Constitution could have contained any valid recognition of slavery, because there was never any legalized slavery in this country, to be the subject of such recognition. We deny that slavery can be legalized by any conceivable process whatever.
And, aside from this, we affirm that, according to the rules and maxims, even of slaveholding jurisprudence, and of the Supreme Court of the United States, there never has been any legalized slavery in this country. On this point we are ready to produce abundant testimony from eminent slaveholding jurists and statesmen themselves. And the whole history of slavery and of the slave trade proves the statement to be truthful.
We affirm that the general structure of the Federal Constitution, as well as its particular provisions, preclude the legal existence of slavery, forbid the States to maintain it, provide for the liberation of the enslaved, and authorize and require, at the hand of the Federal Government, its suppression. The powers conferred on the Federal Government by the Constitution are amply adequate to this object. And we deny that the exercise of those powers, for the suppression of slavery, would be any infringement of constitutional State rights, or of any of the "reserved rights" of the States or of the people.
With these views of the Constitution of our country, we feel ourselves prepared for an aggressive [assertive], not a merely defensive contest with the slave power. We take our position accordingly, and ask our fellow citizens to do the same.
We sue [ask] for no needless amendments of the Constitution, requiring the concurrence of three fourths of the States. Properly construed, it already gives us all we need.
We attempt no dissolution of the Union. The Constitution makes no provision for it, and nothing short of a revolution could effectuate it. We consent to no dissolution that would leave the slave in his chains.
We demand the constitutional deliverance of the slave, and of the whole country, North and South, a deliverance by the peaceful ballot-box, and within the power of the non-slaveholders of the United States.
We seek not to console or to delude ourselves or others with mere idle efforts to prevent the further extension of Slavery, while admitting its constitutional right
-7-
to continue it where it exists. We will consent to no compromise with the deceiver, that keeps no faith with his dupes—no compromise with pollution and crime. We yield not one inch for one moment, nor on any conditions, to the control of the demon over any portion of our country, or over a single human being over whom floats our national flag. We are Americans, knowing no North and no South, no slaves and no slave States.
We are not only Americans, but men, and demand that, irrespective of race or complexion, all men shall be free. Believing, as we firmly do, that the time to maintain, to fortify, and to render effective this high and commanding ground has fully come, and that the occupancy of any lower ground would invite further aggressions and insure final defeat, we resolutely take our stand on the platform already defined.
Our political activities must meet the demands of our convictions. We can consent to nothing less.
With our ideas of the nature of civil government, of our constitutional powers, of our corresponding responsibilities as republican citizens; with our views of the common brotherhood of the human race and of the equal rights of our fellow countrymen in bonds, the position we have here taken rises high above any mere calculations of expedients, of availabilities, or of exigencies, however pressing and portentous.
The ground we occupy is, to us, holy ground; the ground of the true and of the right; the ground marked out by the instincts of our moral natures, by our relations to our fellow men, by our allegiance to the common Father of all, by the Divine law of loving our neighbor as ourselves.
We feel that our prayers to Heaven for the security of our liberties—for the liberties of the non-slaveholding states, or of any portion of our free territory—would be impious and offensive to a just God, the impartial Parent of all men, if in the act of offering such prayers, and of putting forth our own efforts to that end, we should consent to leave any portion of our fellow countrymen in bondage, entitled as they are, by the organic and supreme law of the land, to the same freedom and protection with ourselves.
The moral government of God over the nations, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and as illustrated in the page of universal history, forbids us to cherish any expectation of secur
-8-
ing permanently our own liberties, or the liberties of any portion of the nation to which we belong, by any process short of securing the liberties of each and all.
| Ed. Note: See, e.g.,
John Lord Somers, et al., Judgment of Whole Kingdoms and Nations: Concerning the Rights, Power, and Prerogative of Kings, and the Rights, Priviledges, and Properties of the People, Shewing the Nature of Government in General, Both from God and Man, An Account of the British Government, and the Rights and Priviledges of the People in the Time of the Saxons and Since the Conquest; The Prophets and Ancient Jews Strangers to Absolute Passive Obedience; A Large Account of the Revolution; Several Declarations in Queen Elizabeth's Time (London: T. Harrison, 1710), multiply cited earlier in 1855 by abolitionist writer Edward C. Rogers, Slavery Illegality in All Ages and Nations (Boston: Bela Marsh, 1855), pp 12, 46 and 68-71
See also Grenville Sharpe, The Law of Retribution, or, A Serious Warning to Great Britain and her Colonies Founded on Unquestionable Examples of God's Temporal Vengeance Against Tyrants, Slave-holders, and Oppressors: The Examples are Selected from Predictions in the Old Testament, of National Judgements, Which (Being Compared with their Actual Accomplishment) Demonstrate "the sure word of prophecy," as well as the Immediate Interposition of Divine Providence, to Recompence Impenitent Nations According to Their Works (London: W. Richardson, 1776). |
The foundation principles of civil government and of civil law, confirm us in the same belief. The past and passing history of our own country, and of the pending struggle between despotism and freedom, testifies to the same truth, and assures us that there is no rational ground to expect the deliverance of our country, but by a strict adherence to the great principles upon which our measures are founded.
To those principles and measures we cling, as to the sheet-anchor of American liberty, and we call on all the friends of humanity, of the slave, of free institutions, of pure religion, and of our common country, to come up to the rescue, and cast in their lot with us, in this great struggle.
"Sink or swim, survive or perish," we are resolved to go forward. Our panoply is the truth. Our confidence is in Him who is the refuge of the oppressed, and in whose hands are the destinies of all.
-9-
EXPOSITION
of the
CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
TO ABOLISH AMERICAN SLAVERY.
The convention of "Radical Political Abolitionists" assembled at Syracuse, N. Y., on the 26th, 27th, and 28th days of June, 1855, submit to their fellow citizens the following outline of their views of the illegality and unconstitutionality of American Slavery, and of the constitutional duty of the Federal Government to abolish it, in all the States.
WHAT IS MEANT BY THE ILLEGALITY OF SLAVERY.
When we say that slavery is illegal, we mean not merely that it is morally wrong, wicked, or sinful, in the sight of God, but that it is likewise unlawful, by the established principles of human jurisprudence, just as murder, arson, robbery, theft, and assault and battery, are unlawful, and that there is no more valid law for [favoring] the one than there is for the other. We mean that slaveholding is illegal, as other criminal practices are illegal. We affirm that there is no legislation in any of the States that makes it legal. We maintain that, even without any legislation against slavery, it is now the right and duty of the Courts of Justice to liberate any slave who may bring a suit for his or her freedom.
WHY SLAVERY IS ILLEGAL.
We affirm its illegality on two general grounds: First, Slavery can not possibly be legalized. Second, If it could be, it
-10-
never has been, and is not now, legalized in this country. The ground first mentioned is that of an universal and immutable principle: the second is that of history, and of existing local fact.
FIRST, Slavery can not possibly be legalized. In its very nature it is incapable of legalization. The standard writers on common law affirm the impossibility of legalizing slavery, even by positive municipal law. They declare the right to liberty to be inalienable, and that statutes against fundamental morality are void.*
The nature of civil government and of civil law, as defined by all standard writers on those subjects, proves it impossible to legalize slavery.†
"To secure" man’s inalienable rights, "governments are instituted among men." And consequently they can have no lawful authority to violate the rights which they exist only to protect. The protection of human rights necessarily involves the prohibition and suppression of slaveholding. Having no legal authority to violate men’s natural rights, governments can delegate no such authority to others.
The powers of civil government are limited. But they would be unlimited, if they could have the authority and the power to legalize the enslavement of their subjects. All the declarations ever made (and they have abounded in all civilized nations and ages) that all men are created equal, that all men are entitled to personal liberty, and that governments are for the protection of rights‡ are so many declarations that slavery is incapable of legalization. All the venerated definitions of law go to the same point.
“Whatever is just,” says [Marcus Tullius] Cicero [106 B.C. - 43 B.C.], “is also the true law, nor can this true law be abrogated by any written enactments.”
“Municipal law,” says [Sir William] Blackstone [1723-1780], “is properly defined to be a rule of civil conduct, prescribed by the supreme power in a state, commanding what is RIGHT, and prohibiting what is WRONG.”
“Political law,” says Witherspoon, “is the authority of any society stamped upon moral duty.” And, according to Jacobs Law Dictionary, “Law” is
________________________
|
* Coke, Fortescue, Blackstone, etc.
† Moses, Cicero, Justinian, Coke, Fortescue, Lyttleton, Blackstone, Jacob, (Law Dictionary,) Hobart, Noyes, Wood, Hampden, Witherspoon, Vattel, Hooker, etc.
‡ See Letters on Slavery, by O. S. Freeman; containing quotations from Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, and other renowned men of antiquity and of subsequent ages. |
-11-
"the rule and bond of mens’ actions, or it is a rule for the well-government of civil society, to give to every man that which doth BELONG to him."
In short, the entire science of civil government and civil law will have to be revised and revolutionized before slavery can be made legal.
SECOND, But, if it were possible to legalize slavery, it is historically certain that it never has been legalized in this country. No statutes have been enacted that could have legalized it—none that have even pretended to do so. To this point we have the testimony of the prominent slaveholding statesmen and jurists of America.
The late John C. Calhoun, of South-Carolina*; Judge Matthews of Louisiana†; Senator Mason, of Virginia; Mr. Baylys, Representative in Congress from the same State‡; Senator Douglas, of Illinois; Mr. Toombs, of Georgia§; Gen. Stringfellow, of Missouri; with Hon. S. C. Brooks and John McQueen, of South-Carolina, William Smith, of Virginia, and Thomas L. Clingman, of North-Carolina ||, (Members of Congress,) and Southern editors generally, affirm that slavery grew up in the American Colonies without any positive enactments creating or authorizing it—that nothing of that character is known to the legislation of this country—although statutes have been framed to regulate what was assumed to have had a previous legal existence.
And yet [moreover] it is admitted by the Southern Courts that slavery is contrary to natural right and to common law,
________________________
* Reply to T. H. Benton, 1849.
† American Slave Code, pp. 266-268. "No legislative act of the colonies can be found in relation to it." —Wheeler's Law of Slavery, pp. 8, 9.
‡ Mr. Mason objected to a jury trial for fugitives on the ground that such a process would require that "proof shall be brought forward that slavery is established by existing laws"; and, said he, "it is impossible to comply with the requisition, for no such law can be produced." Goodell’s Slavery and Anti-Slavery [1852], pp. 570, 571.
§ Debates in Congress on the Nebraska Bill. Determined to carry slavery into Kansas and Nebraska without any statutory enactments creating it, they were driven to the necessity of declaring the truth that it had been introduced into all the slave States without statute.
|| These gentlemen assume the present legality of slavery in Kansas "without any positive [enacted, written] law." And they say "The veriest school-boy must know—as a matter of history — that, although slavery existed in all the old States, in not one of them was a law ever enacted to establish it." New York Daily Tribune, Jan. 17, 1855.
| Ed. Note: Abraham Lincoln had said likewise in his Peoria Speech (16 Oct 1854), p 221, echoing Samuel Hopkins, D.D., Dialogue (Norwich: J.P. Spooner, 1776). |
|
-12-
and can only exist by the force of local, municipal, positive law. On this ground, the Southern Courts have liberated slaves who had been carried by consent of their masters beyond the limits of the local jurisdiction where they had been held as slaves.*
The Supreme Court of the United States (in the case of Prigg vs. Pennsylvania, 16 Peters [[41 US 539 [611]; 10 L Ed 1060, 1087 (January 1842)]) declared that "the state of slavery is a mere municipal regulation, founded upon and limited to the verge of the territorial [jurisdiction's] laws. This was fully recognised in Somerset's Case . . .]" Putting these two statements together, the matter-of-fact illegality of American slavery is seen at a glance.
HISTORICAL OUTLINE.
The whole history of slavery and of the slave trade in England and her American Colonies shows that slavery has never been legalized.
The "permit" of Queen Elizabeth to John Hawkins, to carry Africans to the Colonies, forbade their transportation without their own free consent. But he took them away by brute force, and, therefore, in violation of the conditions of the permit under which he pretended to act.†
| Ed. Note: The rule that one must follow the conditions of one's permit is a long-standing one, upheld in a long line of case law. “Conditions precedent are facts and events, occurring subsequently to the making of a valid contract, that must exist or occur before there is a right to immediate performance, before there is a breach of contract duty, and before the usual judicial remedies are available.” Ross v Harding, 64 Wn.2d 231, 236, 391 P.2d 526 (1964).
See also other conditions precedent cases including but not limited to the following:
Siemering v Siemering, 95 Wis 2d 111, 115; 288 NW2d 881, 883 (Wis App, 1980). The “condition precedent not having been met, the action was never commenced.”
New Orleans v Texas & P Ry Co, 171 US 312; 18 S Ct 875, 883; 14 L Ed 178 (1898) (“the obligation [permit] is suspended until” compliance)
Evans v Platte Valley Pub Power & Irrig'n Dist, 144 Neb 368; 13 NW2d 401, 402 (1944) (action not allowed when “conditioned upon the act or will of a third person”)
Rollins v Rayhill, 200 Okla 192; 191 P2d 934, 937 (1948) (“that the effect of upholding the conditon” does not “defeat” a supposed “right” since it is “conditional”, till met, “negatives the existence of” same)
Wellsville Oil Co v Miller, 243 US 6, 11; 37 S Ct 362; 61 L Ed 559 (1917)
(subject to “approval” but got “express disapproval, had prevented the power from taking being”).
Langley v Rodriguez, 122 Cal 580; 55 P 406 (1898) (“a promise made without any intention of performing it . . . one of the forms of actual fraud”)
Buckman v Hill Military Academy, 190 Or 154; 223 P2d 172, 172 (1950) (“the party guilty of the first breach” “cannot maintain an action against the other for a subsequent failure”) |
All the subsequent acts of parliament "regulating the trade to Africa," particularly the act of 23 George II., chiefly relied upon by the slave traders, forbade, under heavy penalties, the carrying away of Africans by any act of "fraud, force, or violence."‡
But the whole history of the traffic [slave trade] proves it to have been prosecuted in open and direct violation of these prohibitions. So that the matter-of-fact African slave trade never was legalized. This was proved by William Pitt, in the British Parliament, and this led to the abolition of the slave trade.§
When the slaves were landed in the Colonies and sold to the planters, there were no English or colonial statutes authorizing the procedure. Had there been any, they would have been of
________________________
* American Slave Code, pp. 261-264; Wheeler's Law of Slavery, 340-346; 348, 349, 335; Story's Conflict of Laws, 92-97;
8 Louisiana Reports, 475; 2 Marshall’s Kentucky Rep., 461; Martin's Lou. Rep., 401; Walker's Miss. Rep., 36.
Ed. Note: The respective precedents above-cited are as follows:
Marie Louise v Marot, et al, 8 La (Curry) 475 (June 1835)
unknown
Lunsford v Coquillon, 14 Martin 401 (Louisiana, May 1824)
[cited by S. P. Chase, Brief, 1837]
Harry v Decker, 1 Miss (1 Walker) 36, 42-43 (1818) ("Slavery is condemned by reason and the laws of nature. It exists, and can only exist, through municipal regulations, and in matters of doubt, is it not an unquestioned rule, that courts must lean 'in favorem vitæ et libertatis.' . . . How should the Court decide . . .? I presume it would be in favor of liberty.")
In the Harry v Decker case, "[t]he issues . . . were identical to those . . . in Dred Scott." That Mississippi Supreme Court decision "generally evidenced a sophisticated, sensitive appreciation of natural rights and the eminent dangers of state-ordained slavery [so had] granted the slaves [in that case] freedom."—Michael P. Mills, "Slave Law in Mississippi from 1817-1861: Constitutions, Codes and Cases," 71 Mississippi Law J (#1) 153-239 (Fall 2001), p 179.
See also Lysander Spooner, Unconstitutionality of Slavery (Boston: Bela Marsh, 1845), p 200, quoting that precedent: "Is it not an unquestioned rule that, in matters of doubt, courts must lean in favorem vitæ et libertatis?" (in favor of life and liberty)
Edward C. Rogers, Slavery Illegality in All Ages and Nations (Boston: Bela Marsh, 1855), p 104 (“slavery is condemned by reason and the law of nature”).
|
† Clarkson's History, p. 30; Edwards History of West-Indies, vol. 2, pp. 43, 44; Goodell's Slavery and Anti-Slavery, p. 6.
‡ Spooner's Unconstitutionality of Slavery, pp. 29-35.
§ Clarkson's History, p. 314; Goodell's Slavery and Anti-Slavery, p. 65. |
-13-
no valid force, because contrary to the British constitution and the English common law. This appears from the decision of Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, who, on this ground, liberated the slave Somerset, and declared slavery illegal in England, in the year 1772, four years before our Declaration of Independence. The same decision, though never enforced [complied with] in the colonies, was legally binding upon them, as Granville Sharpe publicly maintained:*
Ed. Note: The Somerset decision impacted the United States "because the precedent had become part of American common law."—William M. Wiecek, "Somerset's Case," Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, Leonard W. Levy and Kenneth L. Karst, eds. (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2000), Vol 5, pp 2451-2452. The decision was enforcing one of the British Constitution 'rights of Englishmen,' which was to not be enslaved. The Founding Fathers carried over this right into the Constitution.
Saying likewise, that slavery was always contrary to common law, thus illegal and unconstitutional in America, were other, additional authors:
Gerrit Smith, Letter of Gerrit Smith to Hon. Henry Clay (New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 21 March 1839), p 19;
Alvan Stewart, Legal Argument For the Deliverance of 4,000 Persons from Bondage (New York: Finch & Weed, 21-22 May 1845), p 19;
Rep. Horace Mann, Slavery and the Slave-Trade . . . (23 February 1849), pp 27-32;
Abraham Lincoln, "Speech at Peoria" (16 Oct 1854), p 221; and
Edward C. Rogers, Slavery Illegality in All Ages and Nations (Boston: Bela Marsh, 1855), pp 82-83. |
The colonial charters, moreover, restricted the colonial legislatures from passing any laws contrary to the common law of England, which forbids slavery.†
And finally, there were no colonial enactments, up to the hour of the Declaration of Independence, that even undertook to legalize slavery, and there have been no such State enactments since.
The Declaration of Independence would have abolished slavery if it [slavery] had had any previous legal existence. Add to this, the Constitutions of all the original States, formed soon after the Declaration of independence, were incompatible with slavery. And so was the common law. On these grounds, the Courts in Massachusetts, without any legislative enactment on the subject, decided that slavery was illegal.‡ And slavery in all the other States stood precisely on the same basis.
No one charges upon [accuses] the old "Articles of Confederation" any recognition of slavery. And no one supposes that the Federal Constitution originated it, or gave to it any legal validity which it did not possess before. The absolute illegality of slavery, at the time the Federal Constitution was adopted, is hence as certain as any legal fact of history can be, and no one pretends that it has acquired any additional legality since that time. This fact we have deemed an important one to be affirmed in the Constitution of our Abolition Society, as a foundation of our distinctive measures. We have, therefore, affirmed further that
________________________
* Stuart's Memoir of Sharpe; Clarkson's History; Slavery and Anti-Slavery, chap. vi [pp 44-52].
† Vide Spooner [Unconstitutionality of Slavery (1845), pp 21-31].
‡ Pickering's Reports, pp. 209, 210; Kent's Commentary, p. 252; Washburn's Jud. Hist. Mass. p. 202; Dr. Jonathan Edwards' Sermon, Sept. 15, 1791. See Goodell's Slavery and Anti-Slavery, pp. 111, 112.
Ed. Note: “Pickering's Reports” refers to the case of Commonwealth v Aves, 35 Mass (18 Pick) 193 (27 Aug 1836), in context.
“Kent's Commentary” refers to James Kent, Commentary on the American Law, Vol II, 5th ed (1844).
“Washburn” refers to Emory Washburn, Sketches of the Judicial History of Massachusetts from 1630 to the Revolution in 1775 (Boston: Charles C. Little & James Brown, 1840), in context.
|
|
-14-
"SLAVEHOLDING IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL"
It is a violation of the Constitution. It can not legally exist under the Constitution, which does not sanction nor even tolerate its existence.
If slavery be illegal it is unconstitutional, of course. If it was illegal when the Constitution was adopted, then the Constitution can contain no legal recognition of it—no binding compromise with it. The Constitution could not have recognized as legal what did not legally exist—could not have formed any valid compromise with it.
Slavery is unconstitutional because it is irreconcilably opposed to the declared objects [purposes] of the Constitution, namely, "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." These grand objects [purposes] of the Constitution can never be secured so long as slavery is permitted to exist in the nation.
SLAVERY IS FORBIDDEN BY THE CONSTITUTION.
The Constitution [Fifth Amendment] forbids slavery by declaring that "no person shall be deprived of liberty without due process of law." The phrase "due process of law," means indictment and trial by jury for some alleged crime, and verdict and sentence in open court. For this definition we have the authority of Lord Coke, Judge Story,* and Justice Bronston†. And by the two latter this definition is expressly applied to this clause of the Constitution of the United States.
| Ed. Note: Amendment V says that "No person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of the law . . . ." This was redundantly repeated in the Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1, saying "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . . ." |
No one will pretend that any slave in the United States ever lost his liberty by this process, or that "due process of law" could ever reduce any man to slavery, though it may deprive him of liberty by imprisonment for crime. This provision of the Constitution is an Amendment which, like the codicil to a will, over-rides, dis-
________________________
* Story’s Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, in which he cites the definition of Lord Coke.
| Ed. Note: Referring to Lord Edward Coke (1552-1634), Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, 1606-1613, and the King's Bench, 1613-1616. |
† Hill's Reports, iv. 146. Vide Gerrit Smith’s speech in Congress on the Nebraska Bill. |
-15-
places, and abrogates whatever in the original instrument might have been inconsistent with it.
In another "Amendment" [the Fourth] the Constitution forbids slavery by providing that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons," etc., etc., "shall not be violated."
THE CONSTITUTION FORBIDS THE STATES TO MAINTAIN SLAVERY.
It does this by providing that "No State shall pass any bills of attainder or laws impairing the obligations of contracts"; nor "grant any titles of nobility." [Article I §§ 9 - 10]. Slavery is an "attainder" because it "attaints the blood," and imposes disabilities on the child, on account of the condition of the parent. It establishes an order of nobility by that same process, and by conferring hereditary or transferable powers of subjugation and control upon one class or order of men over another class, [unconstitutionally made] their [supposed] hereditary inferiors and subjects. It [slavery] not merely impairs but annihilates the power of making contracts.
THE CONSTITUTION PROVIDES FOR LIBERATION.
The Constitution [ Article I § 9] not only forbids slavery but provides for the liberation of every slave, by declaring that "the writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended in time of peace." "It is this writ," (says [Edward] Christian, the annotator of Blackstone,) "which makes slavery impossible in England." Its proper application [meaning, enforcement] would make slavery impossible here.
"The object [purpose] of the writ," (says Blackstone,) "is to bring the body of the person who has been restrained of liberty" into Court, "who shall determine whether the cause of his commitment [detention] be just and thereupon to do, as JUSTICE shall appertain." (16 Charles I. c. 10. Blackstone’s Com., B. I. 135.)
"It [the writ] is to be directed to the person detaining another, and commanding him to produce the body [person] of the prisoner [accused, person affected], with the day and cause of his capture and detention," etc., "to do, submit to, and receive whatsoever the judge or court awarding the writ shall consider in that behalf." (Blackstone, B. I., 131.)
This writ, according to Blackstone, was designed to carry out,
-16-
more perfectly [i.e., to enforce], the provision of Magna Charta, that no man should be deprived of liberty "unless it be by legal indictment, or the process of common law"; which includes trial by jury.
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS POWER TO ABOLISH SLAVERY.
It has this power just as clearly as it has power to secure the declared objects of the instrument that gave it existence for the very purpose of securing them the power "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." The power to do either [any] one of these six things includes ample power to abolish slavery.
Congress has power to declare war and make peace. Slavery is an outrage on the slaves, and they are necessarily [inherently] enemies to the nation that permits it. Congress, therefore, has power to make peace with the slaves by restoring to them their rights. John Quincy Adams affirmed the right of Congress to abolish slavery as a means of defense in time of war.
| Ed. Note: Indeed, “denial of [fundamental rights] would, upon principles of public law, be just cause of war.”—Mitchell v Wells, 37 Miss 235, 282 (1859) (dissent by J. Handy).
“This [allowing rights denial via slavery, unconstitutional detentions] was allowing a state of war de jure in the body politic, which could not be prevented from becoming a war de facto to the destruction of the commonwealth [society].”—Edward C. Rogers, Slavery Illegality (1855), p 9.
“The very act [of enslaving] was a declaration of war upon human [kind].”—Rev. Beriah Green, The Chattel Principle (1839), p 18.
Clearly “a forced system of labour endangers the peace.”—Frederick Douglass, Unconstitutionality of Slavery (London: William Tweedie, Pub, 1860), p 11. |
But until slavery is abolished, we are continually exposed to a state of war. And the same principle affirmed by Mr. Adams would warrant abolition as a means of preserving peace or of being prepared for war.
"Congress has power to provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States. But this can not be done without abolishing slavery.
"Congress shall have power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization." [Article 1, § 8.] To "naturalize" a man is to change his condition from that of an alien to that of a free citizen. Under this clause Congress may determine whether or no the slaves are already free citizens. If they are, it can declare them to be so. If they are not, it can naturalize them, and make them such.
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS CONSTITUTIONALLY
[DUTY] BOUND TO ABOLISH SLAVERY.
The Constitution binds the Federal Government to abolish slavery in binding it to secure its own declared objects, (as al-
-17-
ready enumerated,) and in bringing the Federal Government into existence for this very end [purpose]. If the Government is not bound to do this, it is bound to do nothing in support of the Constitution, or for the benefit of the people.
The Constitution provides, that "The United States SHALL guarantee to EVERY State in this Union a republican form of government." This makes it the duty of Congress to see to it that every State maintains republican institutions. But what is a republic? The Constitution itself in its preamble and in the provisions already quoted, furnishes the definition.
“It is essential to” a republican government “that it be derived from the great body of . . . society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, OR a favored class of it.” (Madison, in No. 39 of the Federalist [ ¶ 4].)
This was written for the especial object of persuading the people to adopt the Constitution, by convincing them that it provided a republican government.
“The true foundation of republican government is the equal rights of every citizen in his person and property, and in their management.” (Jefferson.)
And Mr. Jefferson frequently calls the slaves citizens.*
STATE RIGHTS AND FEDERAL POWER.
Whatever the rights of the States may be, they can not include nor sanctify State wrongs. The States have reserved no right to violate the inalienable rights for the protection of which both the State and National Governments were organized. They have no right to do that which the Federal Constitution, ratified by them, expressly forbids them to do.
However limited the powers of the Federal Government may be, they are not restricted from doing that which pertains essentially, in the nature of things, to all civil government, namely, to protect the personal liberty of its subjects. Such a re-
________________________
|
* With what execration should the statesman be loaded, who, permitting one half of the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patriææ of the other. For if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other than that in which he is born to live and labor for another. etc. Notes on Virginia [1787].
|
-18-
striction would render it no civil government at all. The Federal Government is not restricted from the proper exercise of the powers expressly conferred upon it, nor from doing the service which the Constitution expressly requires it to do.
"The Constitution and laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof," etc., etc., "shall be THE SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND, and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. (Art. VI. Clause 2.)
We see this principle professedly acted upon, to enforce unconstitutional enactments, (in favor of slavery,) and it is time to use it to enforce constitutional laws for the protection of liberty.
| Ed. Note: Gerrit Smith later said the Thirteenth Amendment: “I never liked [it]. It implies or, at least, seems to imply, that the [original] Constitution did not forbid the greatest of crimes—whereas by the canon of legal interpretation (,and no other was admissible,) it did [already] forbid it. I should [would] have preferred an Amendment, that simply disallows a Pro-Slavery interpretation of an already Anti-Slavery Constitution.”—Letter to Senator Charles Sumner (5 February 1866). |
"Congress shall have power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof." (Art. I., Sect., 8, Clause 18.)
"INTENTIONS" AND "UNDERSTANDINGS."
In the Virginia Convention that ratified the Constitution, Patrick Henry, (a member of the Federal Convention,) said that Congress, by the Constitution, "had power to pronounce all slaves free." "There is," said he, "no ambiguous implication or logical deduction. The paper speaks to the point. They have the power in clear and unequivocal terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it."
In the same Convention, Gov. Randolph said: "They insist that the abolition of slavery will result from this Constitution. I hope there is no one here who will advance an objection so dishonorable to Virginia. I hope that at the moment they are securing the rights of their citizens, an objection will not be stated that those unfortunate men now held in bondage BY THE OPERATION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT, may be made FREE."
With this "understanding" the Constitution was ratified by Virginia.
General Wilson, another member of the Federal Convention, from Pennsylvania, assured the people of that State that the Constitution "laid a foundation for banishing slavery out of this country."
-19-
WHAT SLAVEHOLDERS CLAIM.
The clauses commonly quoted in favor of the claims of the slaveholders, do not warrant those claims. And if they did, they could not nullify or abrogate the preceding ones.
The clause concerning "persons held to service and labor in one State, under the laws thereof, and escaping to another" —and providing that they "shall be delivered up to the person to whom such service or labor may be due," can not apply to slaves. It does not describe their condition. Being held as "chattels personal," they [slaves] are not recognized as "persons" [in slave states]. "Slaves can make no contract"; and, therefore, nothing can be "due" from them. There are no laws holding them to "service or labor" in any of the slave States, nor any laws that establish or legalize slavery. The use of the word "service" instead of "servitude," proves that this clause can not apply to slaves, but only to "free persons"; for this distinction, by the testimony of Mr. Madison, had been made by the Convention itself, in respect to the meaning of these two words
"Art. I., Sec. 2. On motion of Mr. Randolph, the word 'servitude' was struck out, and the word 'service' unanimously inserted; the former being thought to express the condition of slaves, and the latter the obligations of free persons. (Madison Papers, vol. iii. p. 1569.)
So that this clause can not apply to slaves, but only to apprentices, free laborers, and contractors who had agreed, for a consideration [typically, advance pay or funds] received, to perform service or labor.
| Ed. Note: For details refuting the so-called "fugitive slave" clause, see, e.g.,
Lysander Spooner, Unconstitutionality of Slavery (Boston: Bela Marsh, 1845), pp 73-81 and 247-270, and
Robert Rantoul, Jr., The Fugitive Slave Law (Lynn, MA: 3 April 1851), pp 9 and 12-14. |
The phrase"free persons," in the clause concerning the apportionment of representatives and direct taxes, has been construed as having been used in contradistinction from aliens, not slaves. High authorities for this construction are cited by Mr. [Lysander] Spooner [1808-1887].
Ed. Note: In his Unconstitutionality of Slavery (Boston: Bela Marsh, 1845), pp 73-81 and 247-270.
See also Robert Rantoul, Jr., The Fugitive Slave Law (Lynn, MA: 3 April 1851), pp 7-8 |
The clause concerning the migration or importation of certain persons previous to 1808, and commonly applied to the African slave trade, is also susceptible of a different interpretation, as has often been shown. But if this was a "compromise" with slavery, it has long since, by its own limitation, expired, and there is no good reason why the plain and explicit powers vested in the Federal Government should not now be exercised for the abolition of slavery.
-20-
MODES OF ABOLISHING SLAVERY.
There are many ways by which the Federal Government, in strict accordance with the Constitution, may abolish slavery. Either department of the Government, by itself may do much, if not all, that would be necessary to secure that result.
| Ed. Note: The modern term is not "departments" but "branches," as in, the three branches of government, executive, legislative, and judicial. |
The judiciary department [branch] is amply competent to the task, in the absence of any legislation whatever. Any one of the Federal Courts has power to issue the writ of habeas corpus to any slave that may demand it. Nay, the judges are under the most solemn constitutional obligations to do so. And when the slave and his master are brought into Court, they are [duty] bound to "determine whether the cause of his (the slaves) commitment (detention in slavery) be just, and thereupon do as JUSTICE shall appertain."
In doing this they would follow the illustrious precedents of the Courts of Massachusetts and of Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, in the case of Somerset; a decision which immortalized his name, and shed a lustre of unfading glory on the jurisprudence of his country.*
If the [U.S.] Judiciary fails to do this, the Legislature should provide for it by special enactment [meaning, by law].
The same power [Congress] that establishes the present Federal Courts may, if necessary, establish Federal Courts in every county or town in the Union, and the same authority that appoints the present judges may appoint proper judges in all those Courts. (See Art. II., Sect. 2, and Art. III., Sect. 1.)
| Ed. Note: Slavers were interfering within the states on behalf of slavery, using federal U.S. Attorneys and judges, to cram slavery down the throats of Northerners. Abolitionists were in essence saying, let's have them instead enforce the State Constitutions, the
Federal Constitution and Bill of Rights within the states, foreseeably, Southern states, thus end slavery pursuant to the precedents such as the Somerset and so many others. |
The President, in the exercise of his appointing power, may appoint to office any slave whom he deems qualified to discharge its duties; and he is bound, by his oath of office, to treat slavery as illegal and unconstitutional in all his official
acts. This covers a wide field.
Congress is bound to do the same, and in its organization of the militia, its supervision of the post-offices and the transportation of the mails, to know nothing of slavery or of distinc-
________________________
|
* The effects of this decision are thus celebrated by Cowper:
"Slaves can not breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free
They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
That’s noble, and bespeaks a nation proud
And jealous of the blessing."
|
-21-
tions of color.
It [the federal Government] is bound to "guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government" that shall displace slavery; by just such measures as it would employ, if a State should establish an "order of nobility" in any other form, or substitute a hereditary monarchy for a representative government.
Congress, by a declaratory enactment, may pronounce all the slaves citizens, and, as such, entitled to the protection of the Federal Government. Congress, in the same manner, if need be, may declare the fact of the case as it exists—that slavery is illegal and in violation of the Constitution. Or it may, by appropriate enactments, provide for the naturalization of the slaves and their consequent protection. It may then provide for an apportionment of representation in accordance with the constitutional provision, properly construed, enumerating "three fifths" of the aliens, as in contradistinction from "free persons," or "all other persons."
The entire subject is within the legitimate action of the Federal Government, which has been so long wielded [under “Slave Power" domination] for the support of slavery. And the people of the Free States, at the ballot-box, can provide for an administration that will, in some way, rid the nation of its great national iniquity.
| Ed. Note: For background on the U.S. Constitution and other rules of law, see our overview site. Many references are cited there. The author doing in one volume the longest and most comprehensive analysis of the pertinent legal principles and clauses in the federal and state Constitutions is
Lysander Spooner, Unconstitutionality of Slavery (Boston: Bela Marsh, 1845).
Enforcing any of the pertinent clauses in the U. S. Constitution was sufficient to have ended slavery immediately by Federal Government action. Consider likewise via enforcing the various State Constitutions. |
This is the enterprise to which we invite the friends of liberty in America. We urge its vigorous prosecution as a solemn duty to God, to our country, to the slave, and to mankind. God holds nations responsible for national sins. He holds the
people of all nations responsible for the execution of justice by their national governments.
And under republican governments, where the people elect their own rulers, there can be no shadow of excuse for their neglect of this duty.
-22-
ADDRESS
of the
CONVENTION OF "RADICAL POLITICAL ABOLITIONISTS,'
ASSEMBLED AT SYRACUSE IN THE STATE OF NEW-YORK,
ON THE 26TH, 27TH, AND 28TH DAYS OF JUNE, A.D. 1855.
To the People of the United States:
FELLOW CITIZENS: —Referring YOU to our "DECLARATION" [pp 5-9, supra], which defines our position, objects, and measures, and also to our "Exposition of the Constitutional Duty of the Federal Government to abolish American Slavery" [pp 10-22, supra], we are desirous of presenting to you, more fully, some considerations which, we think, should persuade you to enlist with us, in our enterprise.
SECURITY OF PERSONAL LIBERTY.
Our object is, primarily and directly, the immediate liberation of three millions and a half of our enslaved fellow men and fellow country men, "Native Americans" [Ed. Note: meaning citizens], entitled, by the Constitution and laws of their country to the same rights and liberties which we, ourselves, claim and exercise; the same that you, fellow citizens—all of you who are not held as slaves—demand and enjoy.
And, allow us to add, that, so far as the vaunted safeguards of our National Declarations, National and State Constitutions, Bills of Rights, positive law and common law are concerned, there is not a man of you who has any better or any other security, to-day, for personal liberty, or protection from enslavement, than those that entitle to instant liberation every slave in the land.
-23-
What our free institutions provide for one, they provide for all. What they provide not for all, they provide for none.
There is not, at this moment, the man of wealth, of learning, of refinement, of high social position, of exalted rank, of official station, in all these United States, from the day-laborer to the President, who can boast for himself his wife, or his children, any legal exemption from slavery, or any legal means of release from enslavement by kidnappers, that is not, in law and equity, equally available for any and every slave in the land.
If Ex-President [Millard] Fillmore [1850-1853], himself who signed the Fugitive Slave Bill, should be kidnaped and dragged before a United States Commissioner, under that bill, he could appeal for protection to no National or State authorities, no National or State documents, constitutions or laws, the impartial and legal application of which, would be less available for ANTHONY BURNS, than for him!
Ed. Note: Referring to that then widely known fugitive slave case. Burns was accused of being a fugitive slave on 24 May 1854. Refusing him a trial, the federal government cynically barricaded him inside a Boston federal courthouse. Rescue effort was made under the slogan, "resistance to tyrants is obedience to God," by abolitionists including Thomas Wentworth Higginson (later a colonel in the Union Army), but unsuccessfully. Only one Deputy U.S. Marshal was killed in the rescue attempt.
The Slave Power dominated President, Franklin Pierce (1853-1857), sent marines, cavalary and artillery, and a government ship, to forcibly send Burns to Virginia on 2 June 1854.
The abolitionists who had attempted rescue were indicted! by a federal grand jury manipulated by the area U.S. Attorney. The indictments were later dropped as it was realized that no jury would convict them!
For more background, see, e.g.,
Tilden G. Edelstein, Strange Enthusiasm: A Life of Thomas Wentworth Higginson (New Haven: 1968), pp 155-161
Stanley W. Campbell, The Slave Catchers: Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Laws 1850-1860 (New York, 1970), pp 124-132
Jane H. Pease and William H. Pease, The Fugitive Slave Law and Anthony Burns (Philadelphia, 1975)
Philip S. Foner, History of Black Americans from the Compromise of 1850 to the End of the Civil War (Westport, Conn.: 1983), pp 69-77. |
Could he [Ex. President Fillmore] point to the National Declaration that "all men are created equal—that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" So could Burns.
Could he plead that "to secure these rights, Governments" (especially the American Governments, State and National) "are instituted among men?" So could Burns.
Could he plead his right to liberty under the irrepealable law of nature—the Common Law? So could Burns.
Could he affirm that there were no positive [written] laws enslaving him? So could Burns.
Could he demand, under the Constitution of the United States, the privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus? So could Burns.
Could he demand with that writ, and under that Constitution, a trial by jury, and "due process of law"? So could Burns.
Could he claim, in such a trial, that the Judge should "determine whether the
cause of his commitment be JUST, and thereupon do, as JUSTICE shall appertain"?* So could Burns.
At every point, the claims of Mr. Fillmore and Mr. Burns would run parallel. And what Messrs. Fillmore and turns might claim, as defenses of liberty, might be claimed by every slave in the land, whether a fugitive, or on the plantation where he was born.
________________________
|
* Habeas Corpus Act, 16 Charles I. c. 10. Blackstone B. I., 135.
|
-24-
We understand—of course we do—that Mr. Fillmore and other gentlemen of his standing, have no personal fears of enslavement. But we know, too, that the safeguards of personal liberty are for the weak, the obscure, the defenseless; and still further, that no people, not prepared to become slaves, will long submit to the indignity of occupying the same level with slaves, in respect to the legal security of their rights to personal liberty. Our fathers would not endure a three-penny tax on tea, because it involved the principle of usurpation. Will their sons endure legal liability to chattel enslavement? Will they acknowledge this to be their condition? They must, and do, virtually acknowledge it, if they admit that any human being in the country is in this condition!
If; then, it be now asked, why the slave, with all these legal and constitutional safeguards, finds no relief by them—the answer is, that the pro-slavery construction of the Constitution—the pretense that it [slavery] is legal, is constitutional, and that the Federal Government has no power to render the Constitutional safeguards of personal liberty effectual for the security of its subjects —has caused all the mischief; and in doing it, has also placed in the same legal predicament, the personal security of every citizen of the United States!
| Ed. Note: A similar misinterpretation is prevalent with respect to protecting people from TTS. Many people seem to think that there is somehow a "right" to smoke—to spew toxic chemicals—thus that the government is wrong to legislate such protection. Thousands of years of law and precedents are thus disregarded! |
It is a construction [an interpretation, mis-interpretation] that annihilates the
Federal Government, except as an overseer, whip in hand, in the employ of the slaveholders. This humiliation of the Federal Government comes of necessity from the dogma [myth] that it can not protect its subjects from enslavers’ dogma [myth] that, of itself, exalts the power of enslavers above the power of the NATION.
Thus exalted, what shall prevent it, fellow citizens, from doing its will and pleasure with your rights, as well as with the rights of its colored victims? If the Government can not protect them, how, or by what constitutional provisions, can it protect you? Nearly twenty years ago, it was predicted by a slaveholding Governor,* that within twenty-five years, the mass of the laboring population of the North—"bleached or unbleached" [white or black]—would be enslaved. If all our great national safeguards of liberty are to be pronounced worthless, for lack
________________________
* Governor [George] McDuffie of South-Carolina. Message to Legislature, 1836.
| Ed. Note: For background on white slavery, see, e.g., William I. Bowditch, Esq., White Slavery in the United States (New York, N.Y.: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1855). |
|
-25-
of any constitutional power of the nation to make them effectual, what shall prevent the fulfilment of the prediction?
STATE RIGHTS.
Is the remedy to be found in "State Rights"? What becomes of State Rights, if the Constitution ratified by the States, and declared by them to be the supreme law of the land affords and allows no personal protection for the citizens of whom "the State" must be composed? What IS a State without free citizens? Or, what is it, with only citizens whose liberty is at the mercy of kidnappers?
Bear in mind, if you please, that, so far as law and government are concerned, you are at the mercy of kidnappers, every man of you, unless the National Government can protect all its subjects from enslavement. What protection can your State Government afford you that it could not afford to Hubbard or Hoare, to Jerry or Burns?
For, bear in mind, further, that the same interpretation of the Constitution that denies to the Federal Government the power to protect the personal rights of its subjects, denies also to the STATE Governments the right to protect the personal rights of their subjects!
Why is it supposed that the Federal Government has no power to protect the personal rights of its subjects? Simply because it is supposed that the Constitution recognizes the legal and constitutional right of slaveholding. And why is it supposed that the State Governments have no power to protect the personal rights of their subjects? It is for precisely the same reason.
Ed. Note: The same myth exists concerning Toxic Tobacco Smoke (TTS), and the pretense that there is a “right to smoke,” to spew toxic chemicals, the modern parallel lie to the then lie, a “right to enslave,” no matter how many people are harmed or killed.
These myth exist despite centuries of precedents against both (a) slavery and (b) nuisances and poisoning. |
The theory that the FEDERAL Government has no constitutional right to protect its subjects from enslavement, must first be exploded, before there can be the recognition of any "STATE RIGHTS," even for the protection of personal liberty.
| Ed. Note: Reference that era's Northern states' personal liberty laws granting accused slaves the right to a jury trial. |
How egregious, then, is the mistake of those who imagine themselves champions of "State rights" when they deny to the Federal Government the constitutional right of Liberating the slaves!
You see, then, fellow citizens, that this enterprise for the liberation of our enslaved countrymen becomes, in its effects, a great national question---the question of national freedom or national enslavement--the question whether we have any State
-26-
or National Government that can secure our own freedom.
It becomes also a personal question—a family question. It comes home to the firesides and bosoms of each one of us, who call ourselves freemen, or who claim the legal security of our children and wives. If one man, or woman, under our national flag, on American soil, may be enslaved, another may be—ALL may be.*
Where then is personal security? Where is national freedom? Where are our "free institutions"? Of what use to us are our State or National Governments? If they can not secure our personal liberty, how can they protect our rights of property, or any other rights?
Our object, then, secondarily, yet even more comprehensively, is the security of NATIONAL liberty, of YOUR liberties and OUR OWN, along with the liberties of THE ENSLAVED. If we regard our Constitutions and laws as being of any value to us, as defenses of our rights, it becomes us to preserve them, in the only way in which Constitutions and laws ever can be preserved, and that is by the impartial use and application of them for the protection of all.
If we are indeed living under a National Government, and under State Governments that can not protect us, it is high time that the discovery were made. But if the National Government can protect us, it can deliver the enslaved. It then becomes our duty to wield that government by our votes, for their liberation, and in doing it, to preserve, by vigorous and healthful exercise, the constitutional powers of legal protection essential to our own position, as republican freemen.
CIVIL GOVERNMENT AND ITS RESPONSIBILITIES.
Civil government inheres in civil society. It is the control which every State or Nation is bound, by the law of social humanity (the law of God and of Nature) to maintain and to exercise over each one of its members, for the equal protection of all in their just rights. "Law is the rule or bond of men’s
________________________
|
* In confirmation, we have the case of William Phillips, a free white citizen of Kansas, a lawyer, accused of no crime, who was seized by Missourian brigands, insulted, forced away, sold at auction as a slave, and actually taken off by the purchaser, beyond the reach or knowledge of his friends, though he afterwards escaped.
|
-27-
actions, or it is a rule for the well government of society, to give to every man that which doth belong to him.*
With these definitions [high moral principles] our National institutions and documents correspond.
They declare it "self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men."
They affirm that our National Government was ordained "to establish justice," and "secure the blessings of liberty."
The provisions of the Constitution are adapted to these ends [goals, purposes]. We have a Constitution and a government that thus recognize the obligation and claim the rightful authority of wielding the powers of civil government to secure human rights by the administration of justice.
All the governments of the civilized world, under whatever forms, claim the same authority, and profess to make the administration of justice their grand end and aim. And these professions lie at the basis of their claims to obedience, support and veneration.
Throughout the Holy Scriptures the Supreme Judge of the world is represented as requiring all nations and their rulers to
"execute justice between a man and his neighbor" [Jeremiah 7:5],
to "deliver him that is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor [Jeremiah 21:12],"
to "proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof [Leviticus 25:10. Cf. Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18]. No nation or government under heaven was ever exempted from these obligations, and the page of universal history is filled with the records of Providential retributions upon rulers and people for their neglect to discharge them.
| Ed. Note: See, e.g.,
John Lord Somers, et al., Judgment of Whole Kingdoms and Nations: Concerning the Rights, Power, and Prerogative of Kings, and the Rights, Priviledges, and Properties of the People, Shewing the Nature of Government in General, Both from God and Man, An Account of the British Government, and the Rights and Priviledges of the People in the Time of the Saxons and Since the Conquest; The Prophets and Ancient Jews Strangers to Absolute Passive Obedience; A Large Account of the Revolution; Several Declarations in Queen Elizabeth's Time (London: T. Harrison, 1710), multiply cited earlier in 1855 by abolitionist writer Edward C. Rogers, Slavery Illegality in All Ages and Nations (Boston: Bela Marsh, 1855), pp 12, 46 and 68-71
See also Grenville Sharpe, The Law of Retribution, or, A Serious Warning to Great Britain and her Colonies Founded on Unquestionable Examples of God's Temporal Vengeance Against Tyrants, Slave-holders, and Oppressors: The Examples are Selected from Predictions in the Old Testament, of National Judgements, Which (Being Compared with their Actual Accomplishment) Demonstrate "the sure word of prophecy," as well as the Immediate Interposition of Divine Providence, to Recompence Impenitent Nations According to Their Works (London: W. Richardson, 1776).
Note summary of this viewpoint by abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. God does not tolerate unrepented of sin indefinitely; the bottom line is, "Love God and man in his image or He will kill you!" See Truman Nelson (History Writer), Documents of Upheaval: Selections from William Lloyd Garrison's THE LIBERATOR, 1831-1865 (NY: Hill and Wang, 1966), p xviii. |
We need spend no time in exposing the impious and puerile [pro-slavery] pretense that the structure [and limitations including the Ninth and Tenth amendments] of our own National Government is so very skillful [inept] and peculiar [powerless] as to have evaded this universal law of social humanity, enstamped upon it by the Creator himself and enforced, by terrible penalties, hitherto.
Were there any validity in that excuse, all peoples and rulers might escape the obligations resting on them to protect human rights, by copying the [supposedly pro-slavery] institutions of republican America! Instead of having furnished model institutions for a world's liberation, our [Founding] fathers might then have patented the first successful inven-
________________________
|
* Jacob's Law Dictionary.
|
-28-
tion for securing, with impunity, a world’s enslavement. Our National documents, on the face of them, repudiate the absurd theory, and the more closely they are examined, the more unfounded do all such pretenses appear.
FACTS IN ILLUSTRATION.
The history and present condition of our own country illustrate the responsibilities and retributions to which we have referred, and prove that this nation has not escaped, by any peculiar structure of its institutions, from the operation of universal laws. With ample powers for the protection of human liberty, with loud boasts of our unprecedented facilities for that work, we have, as a nation, allowed ourselves to neglect our first duty in that direction, the liberation of the enslaved.
Our National Declaration and Constitution have thus become a dead letter. They have so long been rusting in idleness that their original powers are denied, their object forgotten, their machinery misunderstood, covered over with rubbish, and buried deep out of sight. If any thing is to be done for their recovery, preservation and use, it must be done speedily. The [pro-slavery] pretense that they are not adequate to the liberation of the enslaved, has, of necessity, produced the impression that they are not adequate to the protection of the free. The rights of free citizens of the United States, are, accordingly, trampled under foot.
Said we not, truly, that the National Government that can not liberate the enslaved, can not protect the liberties of the free? Consider the facts.
Our seamen and other citizens enter the slave States. They are seized and imprisoned for no crime. Our State Governments seek legal redress in the Courts of the slave States.
Their agents are summarily ejected and sent home.
| Ed. Note: See details on one such incident, the Samuel Hoar case, cited by Sen. Charles Sumner, LL.D., The Barbarism of Slavery (Washington, DC: 4 June 1860), pp 193-196. |
And the Federal Government that can not liberate the enslaved, can not protect the free. Of course it can not do the one, if it can not do the other—for the Constitution knows nothing of race or complexion—knows nothing of masters and slaves.
If it can protect one, it can protect all. If it can not protect all, it can protect none. If it must tolerate slavery, it must tolerate the lawless outrages in which slavery essentially con-
-29-
sists, which constitute its life-blood, in which it had its origin, and by which, alone, it has always been sustained.
The Federal power that could protect Hoare and Hubbard, would be equally competent, on Northern or on Southern soil, to protect Jerry and Burns. The Habeas Corpus, and "due process of law," with their jury trial, if available for the one, may be made equally available for the other. The Slave Power, and the Federal Administrations that do its bidding, understand this, and take their course accordingly.
Another class of cases illustrates the same truth. A citizen of Wisconsin sojourns in Louisiana, as he has a constitutional right to do. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.*
But what are the privileges and immunities to which this citizen is entitled? May he freely exercise his religion? Not if his religion enjoins deeds of mercy to those who most need them.
To the door of this Christian citizen there come the weary, the houseless, the homeless, the famishing. He receives and nourishes them as the representatives of his Saviour, who has said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me." †
Ed. Note: Contrary to myth, the South is not the "Bible Belt," but is ultra anti-Bible. See background on the South's anti-religion record:
See, e.g.,
Parker Pillsbury, Forlorn Church (Boston, 1847), p 21 (few Christians in the South even by 1843)
Charles Sumner, The Barbarism of Slavery (Wash-ington: 1860), pp 151-155 (poor education and libraries),
157-159 (illiteracy), and 180-183 (rampant criminality)
Christianity had not even been preached in the Deep South until after 1695, says Edward C. Rogers, Slavery Illegality (Boston, 1855), p 78.
And, "verily, three fourths of all the Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians, in eleven states of the Union, are of the devil."—Rev. James H. Smylie (1836), quoted by Rev. Stephen Foster, Brotherhood of Thieves (1843), pp 14-15.
The bottom line is: The "Bible Belt" was not Christian.
As the next paragraph shows, the South would arrest you for practicing Christianity!
|
For no other offense [than following the above Bible principle], this peaceful Christian citizen, on the eve of returning home to Wisconsin, is intercepted, seized, condemned, and sentenced to imprisonment for twenty years, among felons. He is a citizen of the United States. Can the Government of his country protect him? No! not unless it may liberate the enslaved!
It has, and can have, only one remedy for the slave and for his protector. The case of PARDON DAVIS is, in principle, the case of Walker, of Paine, of Thompson, of Work, of Burr, of Torrey, of Chaplin, of Drayton, of Sayres, and we know not how many others, in whose persons the rights of the free people of the North have been placed on precisely the same footing with the rights of the slaves. The protection of the Federal Government can not be extended to the one BECAUSE it can not be extended to the other.
And this is not all. The Federal Government, instead of being the protector of its free citizens, becomes itself directly and actively, a violator of their most sacred religious rights.
________________________
-30-
And this, too, comes from the dogma [myth] that the Federal Government may tolerate slaveholding. It is absurd to expect or to demand its neutrality, which is as impossible as the neutrality of the individual citizen; nay, more so, for the Government is constantly compelled to act, one way or the other, treating slavery either as legal or as illegal, protecting it, or refusing it protection.
The national tolerance of slavery becomes, of necessity, the national protection of slavery. If it is not to be treated as criminal, it is to be treated as innocent. And innocency is to be protected by government, of course. If slaveholding is not a crime to be suppressed, it is a natural right, as it is now claimed to be. And it is the business of government to protect natural rights.*
The infamous Fugitive Slave Bill is a reproduction, on the soil of Massachusetts, New-York, and Ohio, of the most diabolical features of the slave code, and that, too, under the Federal authority. Louisiana incarcerates Pardon Davis of Wisconsin, for showing mercy to the poor [p 30, supra], in Louisiana.
The ["Slave Power" dominated] National Government goes beyond this. It incarcerates Sherman M. Booth, of Wisconsin, in his own State, for the same offense.
| Ed. Note: See the court case in which Mr. Booth opposed being harassed in this manner: Marshal Ableman v Sherman M. Booth, 59 US 479; 15 L Ed 465 (9 May 1856). This fugitive slave case accessory to tobacco farmer activity ended in a pro-slavery decision! Slavers, tobacco pushers, were indeed allowed to punish people for objecting to their atrocities by aiding fugitives pursuant to Bible principles, p 30, supra. |
It [the Federal Government] imposes fines on Rush R. Sloan of Ohio, for acting as counsel for an alleged fugitive slave, on the free soil of Ohio. Men are beginning to see and feel, that this is not much longer to be borne, unless slavery be allowed to overspread the whole country.
But there is something behind all this, that should likewise be seen and felt; and that is, that this in-
________________________
|
* I believe that involuntary servitude, as it exists in different States of this Confeder-acy [U.S.], is recognized by the Constitution. I believe that it stands like any other admitted right; and that the States where it exists are entitled to efficient remedies to enforce the constitutional provisions. I hold that the laws of 1850, commonly
called the Compromise Measures, are strictly constitutional, and to be unhesitatingly carried into effect. I believe that the constituted authorities of this republic are bound to regard the rights of the South in this respect, as they would view any other legal and constitutional right, and that the laws to enforce them should be respected and obeyed, not with reluctance encouraged by abstract opinions as to their propriety in a different state of society, but cheerfully, and according to the decisions of the tribunal to which their exposition belongs. Such have been, and are, my convictions, and upon them I shall act. I fervently hope that the question is at rest; and that no sectional or ambitious, or fanatical excitement may again threaten the durability of our institutions, or obscure the light of our prosperity. President Pierce’s Inaugural Address, Senate, March 4, 1853. (See Congressional Globe, vol xxvi. p. 244.)
|
-31-
tolerable despotism of the Federal Government arises necessarily from the theory of the Constitution that denies the power and duty of the Federal Government to suppress slaveholding.
If slavery is to be allowed in the nation, the slaveholder is to be recognised by the nation as having the rights of a slaveholder—the right of property in his slave. The business of government is to protect rights.
Ed. Note: The same occurs with Toxic Tobacco Smoke (TTS) issues. Pushers and their accessories such as media editors and pundits do say that (a) such poisonings of people are legal, so
(b) government must protect poisoners from their victims!
The opposite is of course true: Tobacco poisonings violate both civil law and criminal law, just as slavery did. |
And if the State Governments fail to protect the rights of slaveholders, by restoring their stray property, the Federal Government must provide that protection. Philosophically and historically, this is the genesis [origin] of the Fugitive Slave bill. From the premises the conclusion legitimately follows, and no special pleading will ever turn it aside.
It will be in vain for the friends of liberty [anti-slavery activists] to denounce Fugitive Slave Bills, so long as they hold the [pro-slavery] theories of the Constitution that render them inevitable. The most that they can reasonably expect to do, in their present position, is to abate some of the more offensive features of the nuisance, and thus reconcile the people to the subversion of their liberties!
Fugitive Slave Bills are an outrage, because slavery is an outrage. They are unconstitutional mainly because slavery is unconstitutional. They are to be trampled under foot as unlawful, because slavery is to be trampled under foot as unlawful. The National Government is to repeal them by the National suppression of slavery.
The religious liberties of Christians who piously shelter the poor and the needy [Matthew 25:40, p 30 supra], and who demand the right of furnishing all their fellow citizens with Bibles [contrary to the South's Bible-ban], and preaching to them the word of life, are to be restored by the same enactment that proclaims liberty to the captives. [Leviticus 25:10, p 28, supra] Thus was the British Government compelled to protect Christian missionaries in Jamaica, by the liberation of the enslaved in that island.
Another illustration we have in the lawless Missourian conquest of Kansas, a territory consecrated to freedom. The nation imagined that, by its Missouri compromise, it had neutralized God’s law of moral cause and effect, by which a nation permitting the oppression of any portion of its inhabitants, inevitably becomes itself enslaved—a law more resistless than the laws of gravitation, of mechanism, or of animal life. Heavy bodies descending, may be intercepted by obstacles arresting their descent. The best machines, by unforeseen accidents, may
-32-
fail of their accustomed accomplishment. The laws of life, though violated, may assert their original dominion. All mere physical laws are limited in their control.
Not so with moral laws. When did a nation ever persist in tolerating the enslavement of any portion of its members, and yet retain its freedom? On what page of the world's history is the phenomenon recorded? Has it been dug up from the ruins of Nineveh, of Babylon, of Balbec, of Tyre? Has it been found in the secret chambers of the pyramids? Or embalmed in the tombs of the Pharaohs? Shall we search for it in the archives of Samaria? Of Judea? Of Greece? Of Rome?
In what nation was “the stream of general liberty found to flow unpolluted through the mire of partial bondage”? What “people, habituated to lord it over others”—or to see their equal brethren lorded over, did not “in time, become base enough to let others lord it over them”?*
Americans are, no doubt, a shrewd people, a brave people, a strong people, when sustained by "self-evident truths"—but they become blind, servile, and weak, as other people, when they allow themselves to act as if self-evident truths were falsehoods.
The Missouri Compromise worked out its legitimate [immoral and anti-freedom] results, as was foreseen and foretold from the beginning. When the slave power had secured all south of the stipulated line, it demanded a foothold north of it. The feeble [pre-1820's Northern] virtue that had yielded [surrendered] a part of the country [above and west of Kansas] to slavery [in 1820], inspired no awe, as the defender of freedom in the remaining part. The event justified the anticipation. Northern liberty was betrayed by Northern [political] leadership, a Northern President, Northern votes.
Recent events in Kansas are revealing to seeing eyes, the great truth on which we are insisting; namely, that the liberties of the white and of the colored people of the North and of the South, must stand or fall together. Freedom in Kansas must be secured by liberation in Missouri, and in all the slave States.
| Ed. Note: For background on these Kansas events, see, e.g.,
Phillips, William Addison (1824-1893), The Conquest of Kansas by Missouri and Her Allies: A History of the Troubles in Kansas, From the Passage of the Organic Act Until the Close of July, 1856 (Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Co, 1856) (PDF)
Sen. Charles Sumner, LL.D., Full Text of "The Crime Against Kansas" (1856) and "The Crime Against Kansas: The Apologies for the Crime; The True Remedy" (19-20 May 1856)
Sen. Charles Sumner, LL.D., The Barbarism of Slavery (Washington, DC: 4 June 1860), pp 120-121
William Goodell,
The Kansas Struggle, of 1856, in Congress, and in the Presidential Campaign:
Suggestions for the Future (New York: American Abolition Society, 1857).
Kansas State Library Bibliography |
Virginia is litigating the question whether New-York has a constitutional right to be a free State and exclude slavery. She intends, if needful, to carry the question to the Supreme Court, and have it decided by slaveholders. The real ques-
________________________
|
* Win. Pinckney, of Maryland[one of the U.S.'s Founding Fathers].
|
-33-
tion, however, is, whether Virginians have a constitutional right to hold men as property. If they have—not otherwise—Virginia comes into Court with a strong claim, which will not easily be set aside.
| Ed. Note: This refers to the then ongoing lawsuit of People ex rel. Napoleon v Jonathan Lemmon, 5 Sand SCR 681; 7 N Y Super 681 (12 Nov 1852) aff'd 26 Barb 270, 287-289 (Dec 1857). In that case involving a Virginia slave brought by his master into New York, the New York courts were enforcing the "there is no legal slavery" concept. Virginia of course objected! The New York courts would again rule against slavery when the final ruling was issued years later affirming the lower court decisions, at 20 NY 562; 1860 WL 7815 (March 1860). See also p 46, infra |
Virginia, as a slave-breeding State, might be supposed to have an interest adverse to the opening of the African slave trade, under authority of the Federal Government, as is proposed. Yet Virginia has just elected a Governor [Henry A. Wise], whose electioneering appeals, on the stump and from the press, have been marked with the earnest advocacy of that measure, equivalent to a denial of the right of the free States to exclude slavery and slave-trading.
Here, again, the true issue is whether slavery is to be protected or suppressed by the Federal Government. If not suppressed it must be protected, and the law of human progress (in good, or in evil) favors the anticipations of Mr. Wise.
THE NEW ISSUES.
The tactics of the Slave Power have |
This site reprints the Proceedings of the Radical [Pro-Constitution] Abolitionist Convention, June 1855. This site is one in a series of pre-Civil War abolitionist writings, making available now little known or forgotten information.