The Anti Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4 by American Anti Slavery Society

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THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER PART 1 OF 4

BY The American Anti-Slavery Society

1836

No. 1. To the People of the United States; or, To Such Americans
As Value Their Rights, and Dare to Maintain Them.

No. 2. Appeal to the Christian Women of the South.

No. 2. Appeal to the Christian Women of the South. Revised and
Corrected.

No. 3. Letter of Gerrit Smith to Rev. James Smylie, of the State
of Mississippi.

No. 4. The Bible Against Slavery. An Inquiry Into the
Patriarchal and Mosaic Systems on the Subject of Human Rights.

No. 4. The Bible Against Slavery. An Inquiry Into the
Patriarchal and Mosaic Systems on the Subject of Human Rights.
Third Edition--Revised.

No. 4. The Bible Against Slavery. An Inquiry Into the
Patriarchal and Mosaic Systems on the Subject of Human Rights.
Fourth Edition--Enlarged.

No. 5. Power of Congress Over the District of Columbia.

No. 5. Power of Congress Over the District of Columbia. With
Additions by the Author.

THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER

VOL. I. AUGUST, 1836. NO. 1.

TO THE

PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES;

OR, TO SUCH AMERICANS AS VALUE THEIR RIGHTS, AND

DARE TO MAINTAIN THEM.

FELLOW COUNTRYMEN!

A crisis has arrived, in which rights the most important which civil
society can acknowledge, and which have been acknowledged by our
Constitution and laws, in terms the most explicit which language can
afford, are set at nought by men, whom your favor has invested with a
brief authority. By what standard is your liberty of conscience, of
speech, and of the press, now measured? Is it by those glorious charters
you have inherited from your fathers, and which your present rulers have
called Heaven to witness, they would preserve inviolate? Alas! another
standard has been devised, and if we would know what rights are conceded
to us by our own servants, we must consult the COMPACT by which the
South engages on certain conditions to give its trade and votes to
Northern men. All rights not allowed by this compact, we now hold by
sufferance, and our Governors and Legislatures avow their readiness to
deprive us of them, whenever in their opinion, legislation on the
subject shall be "necessary[A]." This compact is not indeed published to
the world, under the hands and seals of the contracting parties, but it
is set forth in official messages,--in resolutions of the State and
National Legislatures--in the proceedings of popular meetings, and in
acts of lawless violence. The temples of the Almighty have been sacked,
because the worshipers did not conform their consciences to the
compact[B]. Ministers of the gospel have been dragged as criminals from
the altar to the bar, because they taught the people from the Bible,
doctrines proscribed by the compact[C]. Hundreds of free citizens,
peaceably assembled to express their sentiments, have, because such an
expression was forbidden by the compact, been forcibly dispersed, and
the chief actor in this invasion on the freedom of speech, instead of
being punished for a breach of the peace, was rewarded for his fidelity
to the compact with an office of high trust and honor[D].

[Footnote A: See the Messages of the Governors of New-York and
Connecticut, the resolutions of the New-York Legislature, and the bill
introduced into the Legislature of Rhode Island.]

[Footnote B: Churches in New-York attacked by the mob in 1834.]

[Footnote C: See two cases within the last twelve months in New
Hampshire.]

[Footnote D: Samuel Beardsley, Esq. the leader of the Utica riot, was
shortly afterwards appointed Attorney General of the state of New-York.]

* * * * *

POSTAGE--This Periodical contains one sheet, postage under 100 miles, is
1 1-2 cents over 100 miles, 2 1-2 cents.

"The freedom of the press--the palladium of liberty," was once a
household proverb. Now, a printing office[A] is entered by ruffians, and
its types scattered in the highway, because disobedient to the compact.
A Grand Jury, sworn to "present all things truly as they come to their
knowledge," refuse to indict the offenders; and a senator in Congress
rises in his place, and appeals to the outrage in the printing office,
and the conduct of the Grand Jury as evidence of the good faith with
which the people of the state of New York were resolved to observe the
compact[B].

[Footnote A: Office of the Utica Standard and Democrat newspaper.]

[Footnote B: See speech of the Hon. Silas Wright in the U.S. Senate of
Feb. 1836.]

The Executive Magistrate of the American Union, unmindful of his
obligation to execute the laws for the equal benefit of his fellow
citizens, has sanctioned a censorship of the press, by which papers
incompatible with the compact are excluded from the southern mails, and
he has officially advised Congress to do by law, although in violation
of the Constitution, what he had himself virtually done already in
despite of both. The invitation has indeed been rejected, but by the
Senate of the United States only, after a portentous struggle--a
struggle which distinctly exhibited the _political_ conditions of the
compact, as well as the fidelity with which those conditions are
observed by a northern candidate for the Presidency. While in compliance
with these conditions, a powerful minority in the Senate were forging
fetters for the PRESS, the House of Representatives were employed in
breaking down the right of PETITION. On the 26th May last, the following
resolution, reported by a committee was adopted by the House, viz.

"Resolved, that all Petitions, Memorials, Resolutions and
Propositions relating in any way, or to any extent whatever, to
the subject of Slavery, shall without being either printed or
referred, be laid on the table, and that no further action
whatever shall be had thereon." Yeas, 117. Nays, 68.

Bear with us, fellow countrymen, while we call your attention to the
outrage on your rights, the contempt of personal obligations and the
hardened cruelty involved in this detestable resolution. Condemn us not
for the harshness of our language, before you hear our justification. We
shall speak only the truth, but we shall speak it as freemen.

The right of petition is founded in the very institution of civil
government, and has from time immemorial been acknowledged as among the
unquestionable privileges of our English ancestors. This right springs
from the great truth that government is established for the benefit of
the governed; and it forms the medium by which the people acquaint their
rulers with their wants and their grievances. So accustomed were the
Americans to the exercise of this right, even during their subjection to
the British crown, that, on the formation of the Federal Constitution,
the Convention not conceiving that it could be endangered, made no
provision for its security. But in the very first Congress that
assembled under the new Government, the omission was repaired. It was
thought some case might possibly occur, in which this right might prove
troublesome to a dominant faction, who would endeavor to stifle it. An
amendment was therefore proposed and adopted, by which Congress is
restrained from making any law abridging "the right of the People,
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of
grievances." Had it not been for this prudent jealousy of our Fathers,
instead of the resolution I have transcribed, we should have had a LAW,
visiting with pains and penalties, all who dared to petition the Federal
Government, in behalf of the victims of oppression, held in bondage by
its authority. The present resolution cannot indeed consign such
petitioners to the prison or the scaffold, but it makes the right to
petition a congressional boon, to be granted or withheld at pleasure,
and in the present case effectually withholds it, by tendering it
nugatory.

Petitions are to inform the Government of the wishes of the people, and
by calling forth the action of the Legislature, to inform the
constituents how far their wishes are respected by their
representatives. The information thus mutually given and received is
essential to a faithful and enlightened exercise of the right of
legislation on the one hand, and of suffrage on the other. But the
resolution we are considering, provides that no petition in relation to
slavery, shall be printed for the information of the members, nor
referred to a committee to ascertain the truth of its statements; nor
shall any vote be taken, in regard to it, by which the People may learn
the sentiments of their representatives.

If Congress may thus dispose of petitions on one subject, they may make
the same disposition of petitions on any and every other subject. Our
representatives are bound by oath, not to pass any law abridging the
right of petition, but if this resolution is constitutional, they may
order every petition to be delivered to their door-keeper, and by him to
be committed to the flames; for why preserve petitions on which _no
action can be had_? Had the resolution been directed to petitions for an
object palpably unconstitutional, it would still have been without
excuse. The construction of the Constitution is a matter of opinion, and
every citizen has a right to express that opinion in a petition, or
otherwise.

But this usurpation is aggravated by the almost universal admission that
Congress does possess the constitutional power to legislate on the
subject of slavery in the District of Columbia and the Territories. No
wonder that a distinguished statesman refused to sanction the right of
the House to pass such a resolution by even voting against it[A]. The
men who perpetrated this outrage had sworn to support the Constitution,
and will they hereafter plead at the bar of their Maker, that they had
kept their oath, because they had abridged the right of petition _by a
resolution_, and not by law!

[Footnote A: Mr. J.Q. Adams, on his name being called, refused to vote,
saying, "the resolution is in direct violation of the Constitution of
the United States, and the privileges of the members of this House."]

This resolution not only violates the rights of the people, but it
nullifies the privileges and obligations of their representatives. It is
an undoubted right and duty of every member of Congress to propose any
measure within the limits of the Constitution, which he believes is
required by the interests of his constituents and the welfare of his
country. Now mark the base surrender of this right--the wicked
dereliction of this duty. All "resolutions and propositions" relating
"in _any way_ or to _any extent_ whatever to the subject of slavery,"
shall be laid on the table, and "no further action _whatever_ shall be
had thereon." What a spectacle has been presented to the American
people!--one hundred and seventeen members of Congress relinquishing
their own rights, cancelling their own solemn obligations, forcibly
depriving the other members of their legislative privileges, abolishing
the freedom of debate, condemning the right of petition, and prohibiting
present and future legislation on a most important and constitutional
subject, by a rule of order!

In 1820, the New-York Legislature instructed the representatives from
that state in Congress, to insist on making "the prohibition of slavery
an indispensable condition of admission" of certain territories into the
union. In 1828, the Legislature of Pennsylvania instructed the
Pennsylvania members of Congress, to vote for the abolition of slavery
in the district of Columbia. In vain hereafter shall a representative
present the instructions of his constituents, or the injunctions of a
sovereign state. No question shall be taken, or any motion he may offer,
in _any way_, or to _any extent_, relating to slavery!

Search the annals of legislation, and you will find no precedent for
such a profligate act of tyranny, exercised by a majority over their
fellow legislators, nor for such an impudent contempt of the rights of
the people.

But this resolution is no less barbarous than it is profligate and
impudent. Remember, fellow countrymen! that the decree has gone forth,
that there shall be no legislation by Congress, _in any way_, or to _any
extent whatever_, on the subject of slavery. Now call to mind, that
Congress is the local and only legislature of the District of Columbia,
which is placed by the Constitution under its "exclusive jurisdiction
_in all cases whatsoever_." In this District, there are thousands of
human beings divested of the rights of humanity, and subjected to a
negotiable despotism; and Congress is the only power that can extend the
shield of law to protect them from cruelty and abuse; and that shield,
it is now resolved, shall not be extended in any way, or to any extent!
But this is not all. The District has become the great slave-market of
North America, and the port of Alexandria is the Guinea of our proud
republic, whence "cargoes of despair" are continually departing[A].

[Footnote A: One dealer, John Armfield, advertises in the National
Intelligencer of the 10th of February last, that he has three vessels in
the trade, and they will leave the port of Alexandria on the first and
fifteenth of each month.]

In the city which bears the name of the Father of his country, dealers
in human flesh receive licenses for the vile traffic, at four hundred
dollars each per annum; and the gazettes of the Capital have their
columns polluted with the advertisements of these men, offering cash for
children and youth, who, torn from their parents and families, are to
wear out their existence on the plantations of the south.[A] For the
safe keeping of these children and youth, till they are shipped for the
Mississippi, private pens and prisons are provided, and the UNITED
STATES' JAIL used when required. The laws of the District in relation to
slaves and free negroes are of the most abominable and iniquitous
character. Any free citizen with a dark skin, may be arrested on
pretence of being a fugitive slave, and committed to the UNITED STATES'
PRISON, and unless within a certain number of days he proves his
freedom, while immured within its walls, he is, under authority of
Congress, sold as a slave for life. Do you ask why? Let the blood mantle
in your cheeks, while we give you the answer of the LAW--"to pay his
jail fees!!"

[Footnote A: Twelve hundred negroes are thus advertised for in the
National Intelligencer of the 28th of March last. The negroes wanted are
generally from the age of ten or twelve years to twenty-five, and of
both sexes.]

On the 11th of January, 1827, the Committee for the District of
Columbia, (themselves slaveholders) introduced a bill providing that the
jail fees should hereafter be a county charge. The bill did not pass;
and by the late resolution, a statute unparalleled for injustice and
atrocity by any mandate of European despotism, is to be like the law of
the Medes and Persians, that altereth not, since no proposition for its
repeal or modification can be entertained.

The Grand Jury of Alexandria presented the slave trade of that place, as
"disgraceful to our character as citizens of a free government," and as
"a grievance demanding legislative redress;" that is, the interposition
of Congress--but one hundred and seventeen men have decided that there
shall be "no action whatever" by Congress in relation to slavery.

In March, 1816, John Randolph submitted the following resolution to the
House of Representatives: "_Resolved_, That a Committee be appointed to
inquire into the existence of an _inhuman_ and illegal traffic of
slaves, carried on in and through the District of Columbia, and to
report whether any, and what measures are necessary for putting a stop
to the same." The COMPACT had not then been formed and the resolution
_was adopted_. Such a resolution would _now_ "be laid on the table," and
treated with silent contempt.

In 1828, eleven hundred inhabitants of the District presented a petition
to Congress, complaining of the "DOMESTIC SLAVE-TRADE" as a grievance
disgraceful in its character, and "even more demoralizing its influence"
than the foreign traffic. The petition concluded as follows: "The people
of this District have within themselves no means of legislative redress,
and we therefore appeal to your Honorable body as the _only one_ vested
by the American Constitution with power to relieve us." No more shall
such appeals be made to the national council. What matters it, that the
people of the District are annoyed by the human shambles opened among
them? What matters it, that Congress is "the only body vested by the
American Constitution with power to relieve" them? The compact requires
that no action shall be had on _any_ petition relating to slavery.

The horse or the ox may be protected in the District, by act of
Congress, from the cruelty of its owner; but MAN, created in the image
of God, shall, if his complexion be dark, be abandoned to every outrage.
The negro may be bound alive to the stake in front of the Capitol, as
well as in the streets of St. Louis--his shrieks may resound through the
representative hall--and the stench of his burning body may enter the
nostrils of the law-givers--but no vote may rebuke the abomination--no
law forbid its repetition.

The representatives of the nation may regulate the traffic in sheep and
swine, within the ten miles square; but the SLAVERS of the District may
be laden to suffocation with human cattle--the horrors of the middle
passage may be transcended at the wharves of Alexandria; but Congress
may not limit the size of the cargoes, or provide for the due feeding
and watering the animals composing them!--The District of Columbia is
henceforth to be the only spot on the face of the globe, subjected to a
civilized and Christian police, in which avarice and malice may with
legal impunity inflict on humanity whatever sufferings ingenuity can
devise, or depravity desire.

And this accumulation of wickedness, cruelty and baseness, is to render
the seat of the federal government the scoff of tyrants and the reproach
of freemen FOREVER! On the 9th of January 1829, the House of
Representatives passed the following vote. "_Resolved_, that the
committee of the District of Columbia be instructed to inquire into the
expediency of providing by law, for the gradual abolition of Slavery in
the District, in such manner that no individual shall be injured
thereby." Never again while the present rule of order is in force, can
similar instructions be given to a committee--never again shall even an
inquiry be made into the expediency of abolishing slavery and the
slave-trade in the District. What stronger evidence can we have, of the
growing and spreading corruption caused by slavery, than that one
hundred and seventeen republican legislators professed believers in
Christianity--many of them from the North, aye even from the land of the
Pilgrims, should strive to render such curses PERPETUAL!

The flagitiousness of this resolution is aggravated if possible by the
arbitrary means by which its adoption was secured. No representative of
the People was permitted to lift up his voice against it--to plead the
commands of the Constitution which is violated--his own privileges and
duties which it contemned--the rights of his constituents on which it
trampled--the chains of justice and humanity which it impiously
outraged. Its advocates were afraid and ashamed to discuss it, and
forbidding debate, they perpetrated in silence the most atrocious act
that has ever disgraced an American Legislature[A]. And was no reason
whatever, it may be asked, assigned for this bold invasion of our
rights, this insult to the sympathies of our common nature?
Yes--connected with the resolution was a preamble explaining its OBJECT.
Read it, fellow countrymen, and be equally astonished at the impudence
of your rulers in avowing such an object, and at their folly in adopting
such an expedient to effect it. The lips of a free people are to be
sealed by insult and injury!

[Footnote A: A debate was allowed on a motion to re-commit the report,
for the purpose of preparing a resolution that Congress has no
constitutional power to interfere with slavery in the District of
Columbia; but when the sense of the House was to be taken on the
resolution reported by the committees, all debate was prevented by the
previous question.]

"Whereas, it is extremely important and desirable that the AGITATION on
this subject should be finally ARRESTED, for the purpose of restoring
_tranquillity_ to the public mind, your committee respectfully recommend
the following resolution."

ORDER REIGNS IN WARSAW, were the terms in which the triumph of Russia
over the liberties of Poland was announced to the world. When the right
of petition shall be broken down--when no whisper shalt be heard in
Congress in behalf of human rights--when the press shall be muzzled, and
the freedom of speech destroyed by gag-laws, then will the slaveholders
announce, that TRANQUILLITY IS RESTORED TO THE PUBLIC MIND!

Fellow countrymen! is such the tranquillity you desire--is such the
heritage you would leave to your children? Suffer not the present
outrage, by effecting its avowed object, to invite farther aggressions
on your rights. The chairman of the committee boasted that the number of
petitioners the present session, for the abolition of slavery in the
District, was _only_ thirty-four thousand! Let us resolve, we beseech
you, that at the next session the number shall be A MILLION. Perhaps our
one hundred and seventeen representatives will then abandon in despair
their present dangerous and unconstitutional expedient for tranquilizing
the public mind.

The purpose of this address, is not to urge upon you our own views of
the sinfulness of slavery, and the safety of its immediate abolition;
but to call your attention to the conduct of your rulers. Let no one
think for a moment, that because he is not an abolitionist, his
liberties are not and will not be invaded. _We_ have no rights, distinct
from the rights of the whole people. Calumny, falsehood, and popular
violence, have been employed in vain, to tranquilize abolitionists. It
is now proposed to soothe them, by despoiling them of their
Constitutional rights; but they cannot be despoiled _alone_. The right
of petition and the freedom of debate are as sacred and valuable to
those who dissent from our opinions, as they are to ourselves. Can the
Constitution at the same time secure liberty to you, and expose us to
oppression--give you freedom of speech, and lock our lips--respect your
right of petition, and treat ours with contempt? No, fellow
countrymen!--we must be all free, or all slaves together. We implore
you, then, by all the obligations of interest, of patriotism, and of
religion--by the remembrance of your Fathers--by your love for your
children, to unite with us in maintaining our common, and till lately,
our unquestioned political rights.

We ask you as men to insist that your servants acting as the local
legislators of the District of Columbia, shall respect the common rights
and decencies of humanity.--We ask you as freemen, not to permit your
constitutional privileges to be trifled with, by those who have sworn to
maintain them.--We ask you as Christian men, to remember that by
sanctioning the sinful acts of your agents, you yourselves assume their
guilt.

We have no candidates to recommend to your favor--we ask not your
support for any political party; but we do ask you to give your
suffrages hereafter only to such men as you have reason to believe will
not sacrifice your rights, and their own obligations, and the claims of
mercy and the commands of God, to an iniquitous and mercenary COMPACT.
If we cannot have northern Presidents and other officers of the general
government except in exchange for freedom of conscience, of speech, of
the press and of legislation, then let all the appointments at
Washington be given to the South. If slaveholders will not trade with
us, unless we consent to be slaves ourselves, then let us leave their
money, and their sugar, and their cotton, to perish with them.

Fellow countrymen! we wish, we recommend no action whatever,
inconsistent with the laws and constitutions of our country, or the
precepts of our common religion, but we beseech you to join with us in
resolving, that while we will respect the rights of others, we will at
every hazard maintain our own.

_In behalf of the American Anti-Slavery Society._

ARTHUR TAPPAN, \

WM. JAY, \

JNO. RANKIN, \

LEWIS TAPPAN, \

S.S. JOCELYN, \

S.E. CORNISH, | _Executive Committee_.

JOSHUA LEAVITT, /

ABRAHAM L. COX, /

AMOS A. PHELPS, /

LA ROY SUNDERLAND, /

THEO. S. WRIGHT, /

ELIZUR WRIGHT, JR. /

* * * * *

Published by the American Anti-Slavery Society, corner of Spruce and
Nassau Streets.