Syracuse University Library
Special Collections Research Center
Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

Samuel Lewis, Cincinnati : Peterboro, July, 15th, 1851.

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874.

Digital Edition.

This digitization project was supported by Regional Bibliographic Databases and Interlibrary Resources Sharing Program funds, awarded by the New York State Library.

Call number: Smith 469

PETERBORO, July 15th, 1851.

SAMUEL LEWIS, Cincinnati,

MY DEAR SIR,

I see, that you are at work to build up a new political party. It is a pity, that you are. For the Liberty Party still exists: - and what need have wise and good men of any other?

But you tell me, that the antislavery men must be got together: - and that they cannot be got together on so high a platform, as that of the Liberty Party: - and that, therefore, a lower one must be constructed for them.

How prone are we to worship King Numbers rather than King Truth! I admit, that it will be no easy work to get the mass of the antislavery men together on so high ground, as that chosen by the Liberty Party. But, surely, it is infinitely better, that they be scattered, than that they be collected on any lower ground. Positions below those of the Liberty Party are falsehoods. And what, I pray, can be gained for the cause of truth by committing men to falsehoods? Beyond a doubt, the fewer, who are thus committed, the better.

Your writings, show, that you regard the Liberty Party, as hopelessly intolerant and obstinate. But this comes from your misapprehensions of it. A National Liberty Party Convention is to be held in Buffalo 17th and 18th September next for the purpose of nominating candidates for President and Vice President. Do come to it. You can then learn what the Liberty Party is. The Convention will, probably, put forth an Address. What will be its character I, of course, cannot affirm. Suppose it should be of the character of the following Address, I would acquiesce in it: - and I greatly mistake my noble friend Samuel Lewis, if he would not also.

I see, that some distinguished antislavery men, including yourself, call for a National Convention at Cleveland, the week following that at Buffalo. Now, if it is not immodest for a single individual to take it upon himself to do so, I would propose - 1st. that you and they, who sympathize with you in this call, come to the Buffalo Convention. 2d. that, assembled there, we all undertake to harmonize with each other in such positions, as are taken in the following Address, and to bind ourselves together in a never-to-be-dissolved Liberty Party. 3d. that, having accomplished this unspeakably important and desirable object, we all meet, the following week, in Cleveland for the purpose of ratifying the proceedings of our Buffalo Convention. Now, could we do all this, we should set the Liberty Ball well a rolling; and give the candidates, whom we select at Buffalo, a good start on their way to victory.

With great regard, your friend,

GERRIT SMITH.

ADDRESS.

To the voters of the United States:

You are divided into two classes. One of them is composed of the handful, who insist, that CivilGovernment shall be altogether just, and shall be so, without delay. The mass of the voters make up the other class and, although they disagree among themselves as to the true character and duties of Civil Government, there are, nevertheless, none of them, who require Civil Government to be entirely and immediately just. Some of them are in favor of its dealing justly with a portion, or portions, but not with all of its citizens. Some of them desire justice for all - but it is a prospective, instead of a present, justice. And others care not to have justice done, either now or hereafter, to any or to all.

The Liberty Party is identified with the former class. To the latter belong all the other political parties. The Liberty Party demands the correction, and the immediate correction, of all political abuses. But the proudest merit of the other parties is their compromise policy, in which one evil is tolerated, or even confirmed, for the sake of conciliating power to abolish another; and in which it is sought to secure some rights by the guilty means of sacrificing others.

We wish it to be distinctly understood, that we claim that every voter, who is honestly intent on realizing the idea of an every way and immediately righteous Civil Government, is a member of the Liberty Party; - and that we claim this, whether he does, or does not, admit such membership - and even whether he is, or is not, conscious of such membership - and, that we claim it, moreover, even if he is enrolled in the Whig Party, or in the Democratic Party, or in a Free Soil Party. We, also, wish it to be as distinctly understood, that, wherever there is a voter, who does not welcome and promote this true idea of Civil Government, he is not, in our esteem, a member of the Liberty Party. He may favor this and that reform, and the arraying of Government against this and that evil: - nevertheless, he is not a member of the Liberty Party.

Far are we from claiming, that the members of the Liberty Party do all agree with each other, as to all the specific duties of Government. They are all agreed with each other, that Government should be just - impartially and fully, now and forever, just. But they do not agree what it is, in every instance, that justice calls for. One believes, and another disbelieves, that it is the duty of Government to have Tariffs. One holds, that Government is in, and another, that it is out of, its true office, when educating the youth of the State. One believes, that Government should build rail-roads and canals, and another, that it should not. Nevertheless, they are all equally members of the Liberty Party. They become such by virtue of their common purpose to have Government just: and they continue such in spite of any, or all, of their honest differences of judgement in carrying out this purpose.

Let it not be said, that the language we have here used is such, as to admit any and every claim to membership in the Liberty Party. No claim to such membership can be respected, unless it is accompanied by sufficient evidence of its sincerity. For instance, he cannot be regarded as contending for impartial and universal justice at the hands of Civil Government, who would not have government shield its subjects from slavery. What cares he for justice - what knows he of justice - who can consent to have his fellow man become the victim of the most atrocious piracy and the most sweeping, desolating robbery? How can he be numbered with the friends of righteous Civil government, who is willing to have him, who is made "but little lower than the angels," reduced to a marketable commodity and to a classification with dumb beasts? It is true, that such an one may fall in with, and zealously espouse, many of the claims of justice: - nevertheless with him justice is a mere policy, instead of a principle - slippery expediency, instead of immutable obligation. No person can be a member of the Liberty Party, who admits, that there is any law, or any plea, under which a freeman may be converted into a slave - a man into a chattel - immortality into a thing, It is true, that the few, who have, of late, acted with the Liberty Party, do all hold with the highly intellectual Lysander Spooner and with other writers, that, according to the well settled and universally received canon of interpretation, an antislavery, instead of a proslavery, construction is the only one, that can possibly be given to the Federal Constitution. But they frankly admit, that, were there parts of this instrument in favor of slavery, they would hold those parts to be void. Provisions for slavery, even if found in Constitutional law, are entitled to no respect, and create no obligation. A law to enslave God Himself would be an absurdity no greater than is a law to enslave beings made in the image of God. And a law for chasing God through His universe would be no more mad, and blasphemous, and void than is the Fugitive Slave Law.

Much pleasure is felt, because that strong and true man, Frederick Douglass, has recently subscribed to the antislavery interpretation of the Constitution, and because he has recently come before the public in a Liberty Party

[2]

Newspaper. Which, from its ability and soundness, and from its being edited by a fugitive slave, is worthy of fifty thousand subscribers. But, it is a mistaken impression, that he has become a member of the Liberty Party; in virtue of his having come to believe in the antislavery interpretation of the Constitution. He might not have come to this belief, and, yet, he might have been a member of the Liberty Party. Membership in that Party involves the greater thing of denying that slavery is capable of legalization: - and, for a long time, Frederick Douglass has not lacked this greater thing.

We said, that no person can belong to the Liberty Party, who admits, that men can be legally reduced to slavery. We go on to say, that no person care belong to it, who admits, that, by means of parchments and papers, men can be justly deprived of their right to the soil - that, by such means, they, whom God has placed upon the earth, can be justly held to be trespassers upon it. The right of men to the soil is as natural, inherent, and absolute, as their right to the light and the air: and he, who justifies the robbing of men of their land can no more be a member of the Liberty Party than he, who justifies the robbing of them of their liberty.

Nor can he belong to the Liberty Party, who would have Government license the traffic in intoxicating drinks for it is not a just and merciful, but a palpably unjust and merciless Government, which authorizes this body and soul destroying traffic. It is idle to claim, that he is a lover of justice, who approves of this traffic.

You see, then, that we do not recognize a man to be a member of the Liberty Party, if he but professes to entertain the doctrine, that Government should be just. He must, also, illustrate, in various ways, his intelligent apprehension and hearty espousal of the doctrine. All he may say in behalf of the doctrine is but prating or hypocrisy, if, on such plain questions, as slavery; land-monopoly, and rum-selling, he takes the side of injustice.

And because we admit, that men may be honestly and earnestly aiming to make Civil Government just, who, nevertheless, do, on some important points, differ from us: - or, in other words, because we admit that, notwithstanding such difference, they may be members of the Liberty Party: - let it not be inferred, that we are willing to compromise at those points, or to make light of them.

The great majority of the members of the Liberty Party are opposed to tariffs. Now, were they to admit, that Mr. Giddings, and Mr. Palfrey, and Mr. Mann are, notwithstanding their adherence to tariffs, members of the Liberty Party, they would, nevertheless, not be at peace with these gentlemen on the subject of tariffs. So far from it, they would not cease to remonstrate with them, until they had converted them to free trade. And, by the way, this conversion would not be long delayed, were these gentlemen to attend our Conventions, and to breathe the spirit, and to feel themselves to be members, of a party, which recognizes the one brotherhood of all men, and allows its sympathies to travel as freely across State and National, as across County and Town, lines. We add, that, so long as these gentlemen deny the right to buy and sell freely; such members of the Liberty Party, as hold it to be a God-given, inborn, and priceless right, will be, more or less, reluctant to vote for them.

Again, the mass of the members of the Liberty Party are very decided in their opposition to proslavery ecclesiastical connexions. Now, should they admit, that Judge Jay belongs to the Liberty Party, it must, nevertheless, not be inferred from such admission, that they overlook the wrong, which he does to himself and to all mankind, by his continued connexion with a proslavery Church. They would not cease to disturb his peace on this point; until he had relieved himself of this gross inconsistency with his pure and beautiful character: - and much as they might desire to vote for him, it would be hard for them to do so during his church-fellowship with masses of men-thieves. We add, that the mingling of Judge Jay with uncompromising reformers would deliver him of his error, as such mingling would deliver Messrs. Giddings, Palfrey, and Mann of theirs.

What, too, if General Smith of New York and General Carey of Ohio, who have done such good service to the cause of temperance, should be so true to the idea of a just Civil Government, as to entitle themselves to a place in the Liberty Party? - it, by no means, follows, that this Party, the great majority of whose members dread the influence and the tendencies of secret societies; would, therefore, be reconciled to the connexion of these gentlemen with such societies, and would vote none the less freely for them on account of this connexion. By the way, the atmosphere of true reformers is found to be as remedial upon secret society gentlemen, as upon other errorists.

In the light of what we have said, how unlike is the Liberty Party to the ether political parties!

Whigs vote for the man of their party. Democrats do likewise. Now, the man of their party is not he, who holds these or those doctrines; but he, who sticks to his party. The great majority of Whigs and Democrats inquire not, and care not, whether their candidate is for, or against, slavery; for, or against, land-monopoly; for or against war, or indeed for, or against, any thing but his party. In truth, the policy of both the Whig and Democratic parties is to keep the public ignorant of the opinions and character of their candidate - and all this to the end, that his election may be thereby promoted. Hence, they are opposed to the questioning of their candidate by others. Hence, too, they ask him no questions themselves. We cannot say, that theirs is a case, to use Bible language, of tasking no questions for conscience sake"; - for who suspects them of having a conscience? It is for the election's sake, that they ask no questions.

There are two Free Soil parties. The Liberty Party is almost as unlike to them, as it is to the Whig and Democratic parties. One of these Free Soil parties will vote for a proslavery man, if he is only against land-monopoly; and the other will vote for a land-monopolist, if he is only against slavery.

There are Temperance political parties also. It is true, that they are local and ephemeral. But, we are often threatened with the organization of a State, and even of a National Temperance party. And what is the policy of these Temperance parties? It is to vote for the candidate, who is against rum-selling, notwithstanding he may be a warman, or a land-monopolist, or a slave holder - and even though he may be all these.

The Liberty Party does not expect to attract to itself men, who feel themselves to be at home in the Whig and Democratic parties. These parties are ever striving to be, or to keep, in the majority, simply because they love power and place; - and not because they would use power and place to right what is wrong. They are not reformatory parties. But both of the Free Soil parties are. Moreover, there are vast numbers of Temperance reformers and other reformers, who are more or less loosely connected with the Whig and Democratic parties. Now, why do not these reform parties merge themselves in the Liberty Party? - and why do not these reformers become members of it? For the most part, they reply to us, by misrepresenting, caricaturing, and ridiculing the character and purpose of the Liberty Party. They speak contemptuously of it, as "the omnibus party"; and they sneer at it, as "the party of nine teen articles". We admit, that, we are "the omnibus party", if our aim to go for all political truth makes us such. But, why should we be reproached for this aim? And we admit, that we are "the party of nineteen articles", if our honest endeavor to reform all political evils entitles us to such designation. But, why should this endeavor be stigmatized? And, by the way, would it not be less unreasonable to call us "the party of nineteen hundred articles", than "the party of nineteen articles"? For, surely, there are nearer nineteen hundred, than nineteen, political evils to be remedied.

There is, however; another and a more serious reply made by these reform parties and reform individuals, when we invite them to join us. It is, that the true policy is to undertake one good thing at a time. But, in what order the good things shall be undertaken is a point, on which they are not agreed. Some of them say, that the good thing, which should be first undertaken, is the abolition of slavery. Others, that it is the abolition of land-monopoly. Others, the abolition of dram-shops. Others, the abolition of war. Others, the abolition of tariffs. And others, that thegood thing, which should be first undertaken, is the abolition of the political wrongs suffered by woman. It follows, therefore, that these reform parties are wider apart from each other, and that these reform individuals are wider apart from each other, than they are from the Liberty Party. For, whilst these one idea classes oppose the favorite object of each other; the Liberty Party espouses all these favorite objects. Is it denied, that they are guilty of this opposition?

[3]

But, surely, land-reformers oppose anti-slavery, and oppose it most effectually, when they vote for a pro-slavery man; and, surely, the antislavery man makes his most effectual opposition to land-reform, when he votes for a land-monopolist. We return, however, from this digression to examine this boasted policy of undertaking one good thing at a time.

Were one individual in the habit of slandering, striking, and robbing another, none would be so foolish and so wicked, as to advise the offender to leave two of these, bad habits untouched, until he had conquered the other. Still less would they be so foolish and so wicked, as to advise him to be positively strengthening these two bad habits, whilst he is subduing the other. Now, the American body politic has its criminal habits also, as is witnessed by its crimes against the enslaved, and its crimes against the landless, and its crimes against oppressed woman, and its crimes against those who are involved in the wretchedness of the rum-traffic, and its crimes against other classes. And wherein is it less foolish and wicked to advise it to cease from these criminal habits, one at a time, instead of simultaneously, than it would be to offer similar advice in the case of the supposed individual? And why, any more than in such case, is it fit advice to the American body politic to be positively strengthening all its other bad habits, whilst at work to break up one? Such, however, is the virtual advice of those, who would have us vote for a slaveholder, if only he is a, land reformer, and of those, who would have us vote for a land-monopolist, if only he is opposed to slavery. For, by voting in this wise, we should, whilst helping the landless to their rights, be making stronger the bands of the slave, and stronger our habit of oppressing him; or, whilst breaking the bands of the slave, we should be aiding to perpetuate the curse of land-monopoly, and to strengthen our habit of wronging the landless.

But, after all, can one wrong be broken up, by sustaining; or even whilst sustaining, other wrongs? This policy of righting one wrong, whilst positively upholding, or even passively permitting, other wrongs, is as delusive, as it is criminal. Wrongs are associated with each other, and live in each other: and if one is cut off, avid the others are spared, the survivors will reproduce it, whenever the Spirit of Evil shall have occasion to invoke its reproduction. They, who vote for the land-monopolist, and thus strengthen land-monopoly; and they, who vote for the rum-seller, and thus strengthen rum-selling, are thereby doing more to continue slavery than all they can possibly be doing for its peaceful discontinuance. Moreover, if, under such efforts as theirs, slavery should disappear, it may, nevertheless, be only for a season. The crimes, which they retain, and cherish, and invigorate, will be sure to recal it, whenever there shall again be a longing for it in the depravity of the human heart, and a place for it in a false structure of society. If British philanthropy is so unsound and one-sided, as to banish slavery, and yet cling to the other cruel forms of British oppression, these, which remain, will be continually inviting the return of their missing companion - and the missing companion will be sure to return, whenever room shall be prepared for this specific abomination.

Among those, who hold, that Government should do only one good thing at a time, and that it may do many bad things, whilst it is doing the one good thing, are christians - christians, too, who say, that Civil Government is a Divine ordination. Indeed, most christians say, that it is. But, alas, how very small a proportion of them seem really to believe it! All christians hold, that, in every other department, men are bound to cease, and to cease immediately, from all wrong doing. But nearly - all christians hold, that, in the department of Civil Government, men may continue in wrong doing, and continue in it for an indefinite period. Is it strange, then, that out of the churches, as well as in the churches, the standard of political morality should be infinitely lower than the standard of Christian morality? Oppression, wretchedness, ruin, abound in the earth, because of the perversions of Civil Government. But, how can it ever be recovered from these perversions, so long as christians exempt it from amenability to the Christian code? A man practises robberies. He is detected and exposed. His brethren in the church are shocked. They discipline, and expel him. If, however, the same man, instead of perpetrating private robberies, had, in the capacity of a civil ruler, perpetrated public robberies - robberies, too, far worse in their nature, as well as upon a far more extended scale - his church - brethren, so far from censuring, denouncing, and punishing him, would have stood ready to re-elect him. What a scandal in the eyes of all would it not be for a church-member to chase down his fellow man, and rob him of his purse! Nevertheless, the church-brethren of this same robber would find no fault with him for helping enact a law for chasing down his fellow-men, and robbing them of themselves, and reducing them to perpetual slavery. Truly, truly, Civil Government must continue to be the mightiest engine of oppression and the most desolating of all curses, so long as christians - so long, as they, who insist, that God shall be served every where else - expect nothing better, demand nothing better, seek nothing better, than Devil-service in the province of Civil Government. But, what a blessing would Civil Government be to this world, which is now so wretched without such blessing, were christians to re-stamp it with its Divine character, and to recal it to its Divine principles - to its Heaven-intended uses - to the whole of its beneficent and beautiful office! No longer, then, would America be a land of oppression and wo; but, on the contrary, of liberty and joy. At this transformation of our Government and our country does the Liberty Party aim. Its aim will be realized; its purpose accomplished, whenever christians shall cease to oppose this Party, and shall delight to bring themselves within its enclosure. We add, that not only is it true, that the abounding wrongs and miseries of earth are owing to the perversions of Civil Government more than to any other cause; but that never, until she shall call Civil Government into her service, or, in other words, never until she shall christianize it, and, still more emphatically, never until her disciples shall desist from unchristianizing and demoralizing it, can christianity spread her triumphs over the earth, and fill it "with the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." The fact that christians have, with few exceptions, consented to put Civil Government into the hands of Satan, explains, more than all things else call explain, the failure to bring this world to Christ. Let Satan be permitted to wield Civil Government, and Satan is an overmatch for the Savior. But, blessed be God!, this is not permitted by true christianity. True christianity makes no such concession of power to her Adversary. True Civil Government is not the enemy, and can never be turned into the enemy, of true christianity. They are inseparable friends. They are identical with each other.

Fellow citizens, which of the political parties of our country should good men join? Is it not that, whose motto is: "fulfil all righteousness?" Can they be innocent, and join parties, which, not only tolerate, but justify and practise unrighteousness? - and which even avow, and boastfully act upon, the principle, that Civil Government is, at the best, but a compromise between good and evil, between justice and injustice? The Liberty Party would deliver the slave; relieve woman of her civil disabilities; have every man's right in the soil acknowledged; and, also, every man's right to buy and sell freely in all the markets of the world. It would, in short, have every political truth practically admitted, and fully honored. But, how is it with the other political parties? They cannot so much as conceive the possibility of an every way just and impartial administration of Government. They ridicule it as utopian and chimerical. They denounce it as absurd and impossible.

In what more we have to say; we will confine ourselves to slavery - that greatest of all crimes. They, who are willing to wield the right of suffrage for the abolition of this evil, are far more numerous than they, who are willing to wield it for the abolition of any other evil. These enemies of slavery number more than half a million. How important is it, therefore, that they be united in their political action! Should our Liberty Party candidates for President and Vice President be voted for by all of them, slavery would never again breathe freely. The quaking monster would read, in unmistakable letters, his certain and speedy doom.

A special and earnest effort is making, at this time, to unite the votes of the antislavery men against slavery. But, besides, that it is not practicable, it would be utterly vain, if it were practicable, to unite them on any lower ground than that occupied by the Liberty Party. That American slavery will come to a speedy end no enlightened person can doubt. There is, however, too much reason to fear, that it will be a bloody end. Abolitionists are laboring for its peaceful end. But, to accomplish this object will require a vast amount of moral influence. American slavery has struck its roots so deep, and it is so inwoven with the political, ecclesiastical, commercial, and social interests and habits of the whole country, that mighty, indeed, must be the moral influence necessary to its peaceful overthrow. To such an influence they certainly cannot contribute, who are not willing to take as high ground, as that; on which the

[4]

Liberty Party stands. Such "Fee Soilers'', as disdain the came of abolitionists, cannot contribute to it. Men, who are antislavery, but not enough so to hinder them from being bound up in proslavery religious and political parties, cannot contribute to it. Nor can they contribute to it, who, instead of having a heart to identify themselves with a party, which is identified with righteous Civil Government, are at home in parties, that sustain, find plead the right to sustain, and even the necessity of sustaining, unrighteous Civil Government.

Now, to acquire the amount of moral influence needful to the bloodless termination of American slavery, there must first be a regeneration of the public sentiment on the subject of Civil Government. The doctrine must first be exploded, that "All's fair in politics", and that Government has, for some reason or other, a dispensation from the requirements of justice, and that even christians are not to exact, nor to expect, that Government shall be any better than infidel.

It is a common remark, that no people are better than their laws. In other words, no people are better than their Government. If the people will suffer their Government, and help their Government, run down into Devilism, then they will run down into Devilism along with it. We stare at the Daniel Websters, and Daniel S. Dickinsons, and Moses Stuarts and Gardiner Springs: and we are astonished, that there can be such monsters in an enlightened part of christendom and in the noon of the nineteenth century. But, we ought to know, that the corrupt state of public sentiment, which has begotten these monsters, is owing largely to the building up of a Godless Government by the people and to the reflex influence of that Godless Government upon the people. Had Government been what it should be just and beneficent - these monsters had still been men. But, now, are they fiends. A fiend is he, who, like Daniel Webster, can exult in the thought, that the poor; trembling, fugitive slave shall be caught, and replunged into the horrors of slavery. A fiend is he, who, like Daniel S. Dickinson, would rather see all the free colored people of this Nation and all their friends reduced to slavery, than have what he calls the glory of any one of the States "even dimmed in its lustre." And fiends are the Stuarts and Springs, who can chime in with the Websters and Dickinsons. And fiends would you all be ready to call these politicians and priests, were you all, as are the fugitive slaves, the objects of their contempt and malignity.

We are not unaware, that the language we have just now used will shock the public sense. But that public sense, which is so far debauched by slavery, as to have sunk down into reconciliation with it, is not our guide. On the contrary, we are seeking to arouse and inform it. We are not unaware, that, owing to the popular misapprehension of the true office of the civil ruler, such creatures, as Webster and Dickinson, are called statesmen. But, we cannot know them as statesmen. Job, who was evidently the chief civil ruler in his community, was a statesman. He had the character, and did the work, of a statesman. It is recorded of him, that he "delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him, that had none to help him"; that he "was a father to the poor"; and that he "brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth". Josiah, too, was a statesman; - a statesman after God's own heart; - for God says of him: "He judged the cause of the poor and needy: then it was well with him: - was not this to know me?" Such as Job and Josiah we gladly acknowledge to be statesmen; and the opposites of these true and great-souled men will be called any thing else than statesmen, when just views of Civil Government shall have come to obtain. Were such views now prevalent in this land (,they will be - the good time's coming,) the rights of the least black baby in all the South would be held as sacred, and would be defended as promptly and as fully, as the rights of the wealthiest and proudest oppressor. We are not unaware, too, that the Springs and Stuarts are called ministers of Christ. But, if they, who are in favor of chasing down and enslaving the poor, are ministers of Christ, then are Christ and His ministers all monsters. But, "we have not so learned Christ". Christ has no ministers, except among the humane, and tender-hearted, and pitiful. We add, that no healthful progress is to be made, either in the Church or in the State, until the Websters and Dickinsons and Springs and Stuarts shall be hurled down by a regenerated public sentiment from the high places, which they have usurped, to the low places, which belong to such essentially low persons. We call them essentially low persons: - for surely, surely, if there are such in all God's universe, it is they, who run down and rob, or rally others to run down and rob,not of his last garment only, but even of himself also, some poor, innocent, weak brother; whose poverty, and innocence, and weakness tempt to the outrage. The Maker of men foresaw the capability of some to descend to this lowest deep of meanness; and hence His command: "Rob not the poor, because he is poor."

We spoke of the need of degrading to their true level the base men, who have attained to the high places of earth. For whoever may be the occupants of these high places, they are wont to be regarded by the men of their generation as the model-men. But, if the model-men are knavish and brutal, how can it fail, that knavery and brutality shall be among the popular characteristics? The admirer will partake of the character of the admired: and the people will, to no small extent, be molded by the influences, which flow down from those, whom they have sat up.

We conclude this Address by expressing our pleasure in the fact, that, however much the antislavery men of the country differ in outer respects, they are all agreed, that the first political blow to be struck at slavery is to detach the Federal Government from the slave-power. And they are all agreed too, that if this blow is faithfully struck, it will prove a death-blow.

The Federal Government was ordained "to secure the blessings of liberty". Now, whether it has, or has not, direct power over slavery in the States, such slavery would have fallen long ago, had not this Government declined from the cause of freedom, and lent itself to sustain - and extend slavery. This Government has gone on perpetrating one crime after another against liberty, and rendering one service after another to slavery, until it has, at last, fully identified itself with slavery, and made slavery a National institution, and converted the whole country into a hunting ground for human prey, the hounds for which are furnished at the National expense. Is this an exaggerated description of the state of things - induced by the proslavery perversions of the powers of the Federal Government? It is not. Nay, the truth permits us to add, that, in all republican America, there is not one man, nor one woman, nor one child, who is not liable to be arrested and tried by authority of the General Government upon the charge of being a slave; - and tried, too, in a way as summary and tyrannical, as slaveholders' contempt for human rights could desire and devise.

The first work, then, as we have already said, is to disengage the Federal Government from the service of the slave-power, and to make it again, as it was made at the first, the servant of freedom. And, now, God helping us, we will not suffer the flag of that Government to protect slavery either by land or by sea. And, now, God helping us, we will not suffer the law of slavery to be acknowledged in any department of that Government. It shall be unknown in the Halls of Congress. The President shall be a stranger to it. And the Federal Judge, who recognizes it, be he in Massachusetts or South Carolina, shall be impeached.

But, we shall not be content with divorcing the Federal Government from slavery. It has shown such a tendency to do evil, that its power to do evil must be greatly reduced. Its Executive must no longer have the selection of twenty thousand office-holders. Nearly all these must be elected directly by the people. Not a Custom-House officer trust be appointed by the Executive; and the people of every town and city must have the choosing of their postmasters.

It is not, however, merely because of the glaring abuse of its authority, and of the base and infamous surrender of itself to slaveholders, that this great reduction of its power has become necessary. The democratic principle calls for it. The direct election by the people of the officers and servants of the people is the right of the people. Moreover, the predictions of the wise and good, when the Federal Government was organized, that it would prove to be too feeble, time has falsified. It has proved to be too strong. The absorption of State Authority by Federal, instead of Federal by State authority, is the continual danger - the continual tendency. There will, however, be no such danger and tendency, when the Federal Executive shall have last, to the proposed extent, that immense appointing power, by which it has corrupted the people, and corrupted itself.

We have, now, glanced at the first political antislavery work, which is to be done. The doing of that work will open the way to what follows. We are sure, that slavery will be abolished, because we are sure, that God is for its abolition. We are sure, that the agency of the Liberty Party in accomplishing its abolition is important, because we are sure, that God is for this Party. He is for none of the parties whose foolish and wicked philosophy prompts them to exalt one class and crush another; to redress the wrongs of some, and to leave the wrongs of others unredressed; to seek to establish justice in one direction, whilst permitting and perpetrating the foulest injustice in another. But, is for that party, which identifies itself with universal justice, and demands for all the equal rights of all. That party is the Liberty Party. It will grow. As yet, it is so small, as scarcely to have been heard of beyond very narrow limits. It will grow fast, when good men shall generally have come to hear of it, and to know what it is. There are such men in every party - and they will yet come to it from every party. In speaking of the success of a certain King in gathering a great party for the truth and the God of truth, the Bible says. "And he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, and the strangers with them out of Ephraim and Manasseh and out of Simeon: - for they fell to him in abundance, when they saw, that the Lord his God was with him."

God forbid, that our confidence of success should be in ourselves. We are but a handful, whilst our enemies are millions: - and, to human appearance, the difficulties of our work border upon impossibilities. Nevertheless, if we are the conscious servants of God, we can say with Zerubbabel: "Who art thou, O great mountain? - thou shalt become a plain". Nevertheless, if we have faith in God, we can say with Asa: "Lord, it is nothing with Thee to help, whether with many or with them, that have no power: help us O Lord our God; for we rest on Thee, and in Thy name we go against this multitude".