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WILLIAM BREWSTER, 1 EDITORS,
SAN. G. WHITTAKER,
*cicct Vottrp.
From Godcy's Lady's Book, 1841
WOMAN.
HY REV. 0. 0. M'CLEAIC
The heart of woman, like the diamond, has
light treasur'd in it. There, a ray serene
of If eaven's own sunshine evermore hath been,
And tho' each star ofhope and joy may pass
Away in darkness, from life's stormy sky,
If man but rightly keep that heart he'll and
St% eet gleams of consolation there enshrined,
Thai: will again illume his spirit's eye,
And thro' all time, and trial, and distress,
Beam on him with a constant blessedness.
Oh 1 did he always love her as he should,
She never would forget him. Did he strew
Nothing but thornless flowers of kindness thro'
His 'Household ways' her happy spirit would
Gather from them love's honey, like the bee,
And hive it in the cell of Memory ;
In after years to bo his manna food,
When worn and faint in sorrow's solitude.
OUR COUNTRY'S TROUBLES.
A SEE ON
Preached in the Church of the Epiphany,
SUNDAY EVENING JUNE 29, 1856.
REV. DUDLEY A. TYXG.
-....e...-
4 . Whether one member suffer, all the members i
nu(liv' 11;91 it ; or one member be honored, all
the mein ?Voice with it."-1 C.. xii., 26.
It is a mooted question how far a Chris
tian pulpit may and ought to be enlisted in
the consideration of current events, and
the disco: sion of questions of public inter
est. It is undoubtedly a great evil when
the teachers of religion forsake their ap
propriate themes to mingle in all the heat
ed controversies of the day. Nothing can
be more calculated to break down the influ
ence of the ministry, and to rear up insup ,
erable barriers of angry prejudice azainst
the message of mercy which it is its chief
business to declare. But may there not
also be an oppositkextreme ? May then,
not be silence when great principles are at
stake? May not great wrongs go unchal
lenged of the pulpit till there be supposed
nothing in them inconsistent with religion?
May not the dread of offence be carried so
far as to put the pulpit in bondage ? And
may not the refusal to take sides in great
questions of public opinion, result in the
gospel's being supposed to have nothing to
do with the affairs of society, and in con
tempt en all hands for the ministry for
fear of speaking out? Ministers have the
same interest in society and its institutions
as other citizens; perhaps more so; for
their happiness is peculiarly bound up in
the right influence of religious and moral
principles upon the community. Society
can suffer in no member without a true;
hearted Christian ministry's suffering with
it.
Religion itself, moreover, is often vitally
affected by events transpiring in social and
political life. Evil principles may be at
work in the social system, whose ultimate
tendency is to destroy the practical influ.
enco of Christianity over the conduct of
men, and to undermine the foundations of
their faith. Is the pulpit to keep silence
until the adversaries of the faith, having
completely_ invested it with intrenchments
in public custom and opinion, are boldly
demanding its surrender! Ifuman nature
is an unit. Its many interests are but one
body. And the sufferings of any one of
its members are felt its the vital organs.--
Questions of social and political economy
as well as of moral prine iplo, may be the
media of deadly wounds to the religious
life. In fact, Christianity enters into eve
ry interest of man. And as Christians and
Christian ministers we are interested in ev
erything that concerns humanity. We
ca.iiiet disconnect our religion from the de
tails of our common life. It affects or is
affected by them all. "they are many
members, yet but one body. And the eye
cannot say unto the hand, I have no need
of thee, nor again, the hand to the feet,' I
have no need of you." "And whether
one member suffer, all the members suffer
with it ; or one member be honored, all
the members rejoice with it." Owing to
the close interchange of sympathy and in
fluence, the events of the day mays assume
a deep religious significance. The same
events which in one aspect agitate com
mercial interests, and in another convulse
the political circle, may in yet another be
fraught with stirring interest for the relig
ious community. Anti while they awaken
great contention on the plane of social or
political lite, they may also, from the high
er standpoint of thb Christian patriot, bo
seen to affect the dearest rights and inter
eats of men, and to endanger great princi
ples to the support of which the pulpit is
bound. At such times the Christian min
.stry may be criminal if it does not speak
out boldly in behalf of right, carefully ay.
oiding, indeed, the arousing of those pas
which belong to the lower aspect of
events, but fearlessly and dispassionately
directing public sentiment by the higher
principles of divine revelation.
It seems to me that we have now reach
ed such a time. Events are transpiring
which bear most momentously on all our
rights as men and duties as Christians. All
that is most dear and valuable to us as citi
zens is put in jeopardy. The principles
and influence of Christianity, which first
founded our institutions can aloim preserve
them to us it their integrity in the present
crisis. And I claim the right as a Chris
tian mtnistdr to declare what I believe to
be important truth, and to do my part small
as it may be, towards the settlement of the
difficulties which encompass us.
I claim a patient hearing, and a candid
comparison with the principles of the Bi
ble. If lam wrong, lam open to convic
tion ; if I am right, the declaration of the
truth will bring the responsibility of walk
ing by its light. With this prefatory state.
ment let me call your attention—
1. To the EVILS to be deplored.
For the first time in the history of this
country, it is the Scene of civil war. Ar
med mon, in battle array, are marching on
its roil, and carrying with them all the hor
rors of hostile invasion. Towns are sack
ed, houses pillaged, property plundered
and destroyed, women and children driven
in terror from their homes, and •men shot
down by their own doors ! Society is in
confusion, public security at an end, peace
tul industry interrupted, and a thriving ter
ritory reduced to a state of nature, where
the only protection is that of force, and the
household cannot lie down at night with
out fear of the assassin. Families are dri
ven out from lands which they have tilled,
and houses which they have built, and
warned to leave the country or be hung.—
Fields lie unsown, and crops tire left un
ploughed, because armed marauders have
stolen the farmer's horses and killed his ox
en, and obliged him to skulk in secret for
fear of his life, or join bodies of his neigh
bors who have armed in defence of their
homes and families. All the horrors which
existed when invading armies marched
with blood and desolation on our soil ; all
the suffering which drenched our frontiers
when the war-whoop of the savage amused
the sleeping household for the tomahawk
and the faggot, are now renewed in unhap
py Kansas. Hardly a day passes without
bringing telegraphic news of some now
outrage, so dreadful that wo can scarce re
alize its possibility, or arouse oarselves to
feel as the occasion demands. And who
ore the authors of all these outrages on A
merican citizens ? Not the savage Indian
nor the foreign invader, but their own
countyymed, citizens of our own free and
happy land, imbruing their hands in broth
ers' blood ! And what is the crime for
which their brethren are thus subjected to
t nvasion and violence? Merely difference
'cf opinion. Merely assertion of their
right to think, speak, write, and act nom
, d'alg to th air own conscience and interests
in forming the institutions of a Territory
into which the capital and population of the
country where invited by a solemn act, of
the Federal Government. On the 30th of
May, 1854, the territory of Kansas was
thrown open to settlers by act of Congress,
and the privilege of determining the char
acter of its institutions accorded to those
who should become residents of its soil.—
Attracted by this opening for industry - and
enterprise. largo numbers of perms from
all sectiqns of the country emigrated to the
Territory, and soon made its prairies smile
with cultivation and dotted its surface with
towns and villages. Never country open
ed with brighter prospects. But how soon
was this bright morn overcast. On the
29th of November, 1854, the infant Terri
tory was to elect a delegate to appear and
speak in its behalf in the National Con
gress. On that day more than ono thous-
and armed men from an adjoining State in
vaded the Territory, drove judges and le
gal voters from the polls, and by fraudulent
ballots elected a man of their• own. On
the 30th of March, 1855, the inhabitants
of Kansas were to have elected their Ter
ritorial Legislature. Moro than four titou
sand armed men from the same State again
invaded the Territory, took possession of
the poll; and elected their own candidates
some of them residents of their own State.
The recent investigations of the Congres
sional Committee have proved that of five
thousand five hundred votes cast on that
day less than one thousand were of actual
residents of the Territory. Surely it was
bad enough to see a Legislature imposed
on them by force and fraud: But what
sort of laws did they pass? Hear, and ask
yourselves whether wo live in the 19th
century, and in a free and Christian rep
ublic. They re-enacted in a mass all the
slave laws of Missouri, merely adding that
wherever the word 'Stale' occurs in them
" LIBERTY AND UNION, NOW AND FOREVER, ONE AND INSEPARABLE. "
_ - - -
HUNTINGDON, PA., WEDNESDAY, JULY 16, 1856.
it shall be construed to mean "Territory."
They made the non-admission of the right
to hold slaves in the Territory a disquali
fication for sitting as Juror. They enact
ed that to say that persons have not a right
to hold slaves in that Territory should be
punished with two years imprisonment at
hard labor. That writing, printing or cir
culating any thing against slavery should
be punished with five years imprisonment
at hard labor. That the harboring of fu
gitive slaves should be punished with five
years' imprisonment at hard labor. That
assistingslaves to escape should be pun
ished with death. That assisting slaves to
escape from any Terrttory.and take refuge
in that Territory, should be punished with
death. That the printing or circulating
of publications calculated to incite slaves
to insurrection, should be punished with
death. To secure these laws perpetuity,
they enacted that all who do not swear to
support the Fugitive Slave Lax should be
disqualified us voters, but that any one
might vote who will pay *l.OO and swear
to uphold the Fugitive Slave Law and the
Nebraska bill. And, still further to guard
against all contingencies, they appointed
non-residents to town and county offices
for six years ahead.
Thus, by ono stroke of combined fraud
and force, the great question of social rights
whose settlement had been pledged to the
citizens themselves, were decided by an In
vading army, whose agents established sin.-
very against the wishes of the people, dis
franchise all who oppose it, open the polls
to all pro-slavery non-residents, and shut
up all who speak, write, print or circulate
anything against it with long imprisonment
at hard labor. What has become of the
rights of American citizens I Tells of o
bedience to law ! Would you, would any
American, obey such laws so imposed ?
Where were the spirit of our Revolutiona
ry fathers if such oppression could be sub
mitted to ? Where is our republican gov
ernment if such right can be taken away ?
But what was done in opposition? There
. woo no Maned - s cot ttsturr wita/
assumed authority. The people of Kan
sas simply denied the legality ofthe enact
ments and the obligation of obedience, and
the falling back on inherent rights, went
through the preliminaries of a State or
ganization, and applied to Congress for re
lief. That relief has not been yet afforded
And what has since transpired? A ihird
fourth, and fifth armed invasion has taken
place, each with increased aggravation of
outrage. Pillage and plunder and murder
have increased from day to day. Largo
bodies of armed men Irons distant and ad
joining States are in the Territory, with no
attempt at becoming settlers, without means
of honest support, living by the pillage of
those who differ from themselves in senti
ment, and perpetrating cruelties unknown
even in war. Government troops have
been used to overawe all attempts at resis
tance, and moved about so as to expose un
protected towns to violence. A fourfold
process of oppression has been used to ru
in and drive out those whose only crime is
the claiming of rights guaranteed them by
the very. law which invited them to Kan
sas. First, innumerable indictments for
imaginary crimes are made out by a cor
rupt judiciary against all free State men of
influence, while the worst of crimes by men
of opposite politics have gone unnoticed.
Secondly, armed hordes of ruffians, under
pretence of maintaining 'law and order,"
patrol the cowry, committing all the out
rages which have been described. Third
ly, the U. S. dragoons are made use of by
the local authorities to suppress any ris
ings for self-defence, and kept out of the
way when attacks are to be made. And
lastly, "Vigilance Committees" are appoin
ted to drive off, with threats of Lynch law,
all those who by the other methods have
not been subdued. All this has been go
ing on far months. And recent accounts
announce that the sufferers themselves are
driven by desperation to armed defence and
the hostile bands are now watching each
other, and meeting in deadly conflict. Civ
il war is begun. And where is it to end,
sinless it can be suppressed at once in the
place of its birth ? Let it not be said that
we have tie interest in this matter. Dis
tant and feeble as site may be, Kansas is a
member of our body politic. The same
lifeblood which nourishes our own cominu
nity flows through her. And the wounds
and anguish which she endures are felt to
the remotest parts of the Republic. Ties
of friendship and of blood unite her suf
fering children to all sections of our coun
try. And were these wanting, a common
nationality binds them inone body to us all
and the great heart of humanity enfolds
them in its sympathies. "Whether one
member suffer, all the members sidliir witlt
it ; or one member be honored, all the
mentbcrs rejoice tvi' it it."
At the same time that these events have !fortune they may work out blesssiigs to the
been transpiring, another scene has been subject race, and admission of mercy for
enacted which has inflicted a still deeper' themsclves. To apologizefor an involute
wound on the honor and peace of our court. ! tary evil is one thing. To strive to extend
try. A member of the Senate of the U- and perpetuate it is another. We may re
nited States, a man honored equally for his goad the former with the truest charity.—
virtues and his attainments has been striek. list as freemen and Christians what must
en down and beaten by a member of Con. I we say of the latter
gross till his blood stained the flow of the But why are Southern men so madly re-
Senate, for words spoken in debate. It solved that Kansas shall be thrown open
matters not what were the words which to slavery ? Is it because, they desire
gave offence, though it may well be sup- themselves to be residents of the country ?
posed that language unchallenged at the.: Very few of them have such an idea. But
time, by a body whose majority were in it will give them, first, an increase ofpoli•
opposition to the speaker, did nut trans- tical power' It will wheel another State
gross the ordinary limits of parliamentary i into the phalanx, and give them two more
debate. It matters not what were the Senatorial votes for that control of the Go.
words, nor who the speaker, nor who the vernment which the far swifter progress
assailant. It was a principle which was of the free States has taken from them in
stricken down. And the principle is one the House of Representatives. Few among
of the pillars of our free institution us have reflected on the political power gi-
Without the right of freedom of speech, yen by slavery to the few. 'Three fifths
neither our liberties nor our religion are , of all the slaves are counted in with the
secure. If the bludgeon is to be the ru- whites as the basis of representation, large.
ling power in our country, where will be ly increasing the political importance of
our boasted freedom and national Christi- 1 the white person at the South over the
anity ? If the flag of our country and the ! while person at the North. Of the whites,
symbols of her liberty cannot protect the large numbers are either disfranchised by
members of her government within the a property qnalification, or aro completely
walls of her Capitol, in the discharge of under the control of their wealthier neigh
their official duty, what is to become of our hors. Political honors and influence are
republic ? With the freedom of the press ; confined to a few. In the whole sixteen
overthrown in Kansas, and the freedom of slave•holding Stems there are less than
the Senate nssniled in Washington, howl 100,000 persons owning more then ten
long before the freedom of the pulpit shall I slaves each. How many of these are de
be also at the mercy ofa popular majority ! sirous of deserting their plantations and
or n reckless and excitable bully ? There emigrating to Kansas ? But these are the
is not a legislator, or an editor, or a clergy- persons who control the policy of the six.
man in the country, whose right to advo. tern States, and by their influence at home
cute what he conscientiously believes, nor ' and at the North have controlled the poll.
a citizen whose right to representation of I ey and monopolized the honors of the Gen
his sentiments, has not been ['smiled in I oral Government. is it to be wondered
the blows which laid the eloquem Sumner that they should make such desperate ef
senseless on the Senate chamber. But the farm to extend so disproportionate an im
act itself is not so ominous bet evil as its penance ? And as it grows sn it will
endorsement. To hear it defended and I grow until this whole land of liberty shall
eulogized throughout the whole section be made tributary to the porPetuation of
I represented by the asshssin, by public as• human bondage. •
sem bles giving votes of thanWitul , Tl t e aDjaktiAjyncnt of slaver, in Kansas
iquity, by the preen alniost unanimously ; will give them, secondly, a new market for I
holding it up as worthy of imitation, and slaves. 'floe pecuniary value of slavery
by fellow representatives who screen the arises not from the productiveness of slave
offender from punishment, may well make labor. It costs much and produces little
one feel sadly apprehensive for our country. wastes largely and wears out the soil it
It indicates that we are becoming u nwor- cultivates. Left to itself, it impoverishes,
thy of our heritage, and that the sentiment in the long run, both land and ow ner. and
of justice and right has rotted away in the would gradually work out its own extermi
foundation of government. Alas for our nation. But slave•breeding compensates
country, when the makers of her laws fur the expensiveness of slave-labor. To
dare not speak in defence of what they breed human being for sale, to rear humor
deem human right, or must go armed with tal souls that they may be driven to market
deadly weapons for protection in the dis• and soh) to the highest bidder, is a profits.
chargeof their duty! God forbid that the ble business. Families and. estates aro
ministers of religion should refuse to speak maintained by such breeding and sale, of
in reprobation of the evil. ten of blood relations. To keep up the
11. But let us look, secondly, at the inn- price the market must be extended. New
polling principle of - these outrages. They
have all one imptese, the aggressive spir
it of slavery. Let it he noted and tenant.-
tiered that all thew wrong 4 grow out of a
determination to e.rtind the area of hu
man bondage. 1f %y are armed hordes
now traversing Kansas with pillage and
murder Simply that they may extend
over it the blight of slavery. Why are
men illegally arrested, robbed driven from
home, hunted like beasts, or shot down in
the fields? Simply because they desire to
save their home and family from the bliyht
of slavery, liley are they denied the pro-
tection of a government whose pride it is
to protect its citizens to the farthest verge
of the habitable globe? Merely because
they will not submit talon, and fraud to
be cursed with slavery. Ti'hy was Sumner
assailed and beaten in the Senate? Mere
ly
b cultic he spoke too pointedly and plain
ly for their deliverance Awn the attempted
curse of slavery. The sole impulse of all
these on! rages is the desire to extend slave
ry. The sole crime of the sufferers is the
invincible desire to Grime. The blood of
a Senator has stained thefloor of the Sen.
ale chamber, the blood of her citizens has
been poured out like water on the virgin
soil of Kansas, merely that it may be made
a land of bondage: The whole South is
aroused and poursfitrth invading armies,
and the whole influence and power of the
Federal Government arc employed to aid
them, merely because the artual residents
of Kansas, in the exercise of the rights
guaranteed them by the law which opened
the territory to settlers, are largely d ter
mined that it shall be free. Ignoble con
test ! Where slavery is ht it remain. Let
it be apologisedjor and Mitigated as it can.
1 am not one of those who would attack the
Southfor the inheritance of perplexity and
shame which Northern cupidity:was
ajoint agent in introducing. Let
them mourn over the embarrassments and
evils if their lot, and strive to discharge
their duty as Christian masters to the peo
ple they have found dependent and in servi
tud,•. Thus out of their birthright of mit.
States and Territories must have their vir
gin soil:thrown open to slavery, and as their
lands become impoverished, join the slave-
breeding States in the ceaseless cry of the
horse-leech and her daughters. Kantas is
now invaded and outraged merely that it
may bo made a land of bondage, and
that for the increase of a political power in.
imical to our free institutions, and a stimulus
to the breeding or human being for sale.
And what is the pretence under which
these evil deeds are covered up, and the
acquiescence of the country in them is
sought? It is the equal right of men of all
sve tions of the country to go with their pro
perty into the national territory. It is said
that to deny the
. right of slave-holders to
cat ry their property there is to destroy the
equality of our citizens. As this the grand
plea, which is designed to, and to some ex
tent dues, impose on the public mind for ex
cuse of all these enormities, it is essential
that they should be examined. Let it be
observed then, in the first place, that the
claimed right of carrying one's identical
property with him in removal, is au absurd
ity. Ilow much property is there in na
ture that cannot be removed. Who could
remove his farm, or his fishery, or his wa
ter-power Yet who ever thought of de
claiming against the injustice of Nature
o..nd Providence, because he could not take
them to Kansas? The proceeds of the sale
he can take. And has anybody ever deni
ed to the slave-holder the tight to take to
Kansas the proceeds of the sale of his slave
as well as the proceeds of the sale of his
plantation? Secondly, the right of pro
perty in human beings is not a natural
but merely the result of local laws. Out
side the jurisdiction of those laws, the right
does not exist. There aro States where
lotteries are allowed by law. A lottery
interest is the property of its holder.—
Because lotteries are proscribed in Kan
sas, or elsewhere, has the lottery-holder
cause to cotnplain of the overthrow of
his constitutional rights ? i •
Shall Kansas be invaded awl drenched
in bland because i/o inbahltimis will not
pass the local laws which in other Slates
have made lotteries property? Wills as
much reason as because they will not esta
blish property in human flesh an blood.
The property whichresultsfrom local laws
can be sold where those local laws have
made it valuable, and its proceeds taken
wherever the owner may please. find is
the Union to be convulsed, a peaceful Ter
ritory mal° the scene of war, and balm.
trims citizens robbed and murdered. Be
cause some hot-headed individual has
resolved that instead of taking his thou
sand dollars to Kansas in gold or silver,
he will take it in the shape of a lottery
office or a trother man ? Let the flimsy
pretext be understood. If the right of
holding human beings as property re
sults merely from local law, it is limi
ted by the law which created it. If it
be a natural right, it is ns indefeasible
in Pennsylvania as it is in Kansas. And
this will be the final issue.
But thirdly, it seemsto be entirely for
gotten that there are rights on the other
side. It is a fundamental principle in law
that one man•must not, by his property,
injure that of his neighbors. The welfare !
of the one must give way to the welfare of i
the many. Now if one man has property
in a fellow, there are thousands who have
more undoubted property in the mselves, if
one claims the right of making the bodily
labor of his fellow subserve his own com•
fort and advantage, there are thousands of
others who claim a divine and indefeasi
ble right to make their own good arms a
vailable to their own support and advance
ment. And these two rights conflict—
For slave-labor and free-labor are opposed
to each other. Slavery degrades bodily
labor. It makes a man's bodily strength'
lland manual skill less availing for his own
profit and elevation. It thus diminishes
and takes away his inherent property in
' himself. It lessens his pecuniary reward,
and shuts up the door of promotion. The
question is, therefore, between the right of
one mon to the muscles of his neighbor
, 1ind 2 .60 , 440.11541k0mi00d0 4o !La 1.11,
efit of their own muscles. It is whether
one man is to leave his slave behind hiM,
or whether a thousand white citizens arc
to be enslaved if they go. The rights of
all our laboring classes, ten thousand to
one slave-holder, are invaded in the at
' tempt at the violent subjugation of Kansas.
Moreover, there are many methods of re
munerative labor of more intellectual char
acte r that are available only in a free coin
triunity. In fact, there is scarcely a de
partment of ingenuity or power, which the
history and present state of our country
do not show to be circumscribed and de
preciated by the presence of slavery.—
The intellectual, literary and inventive, as
well as the bodily powers of man become
less available for individual and special
prosperity. Every man, therefore, who
is not himself a sla-e-holder, is interested
for himself his:children, his relatives and
friends in the exclusion of slavery. His
property and their property in their own
minds and bodies is depreciated by the in
troduction of slave-labor. The inaliena
ble rights which God himself has given to
him and them are arrayed against the
merely local and transferrable, not to nay
disputable, right of the slave-holder. The
suffering in Kansas. the suffering of Sum
ner. is not in resistance of human right,
but it is martyrdom in defence of the rights
of the many against the aggression of a
few. And the question is not whether
there shall be maintained the rights of a
few thousand slave-holders, but whether
shall be maintained the rights of millions
of freemen.
111. But, thirdly, let us not lose sight
of the divine agency in all the troubles
which have come upon us. We are
taught in Holy Scripture that the provi
dence of God overrules the actions of men
no less thlm the operations of nature.—
Every human agent is to the Lord only as
the saw in the hand of him that shaketh
it. No man can have any power at nll
against the object of his hatred or oppres
sion, except it bo given him from above.
"Man proposes, but God disposes." And
theretore when theie is evil in a city or a
country, we are to look above the human
instrumentalities, and humble ourselves
under the Itnnd of God, and inquire why
He hath dealt so grievously with us. Es
pecially is this the case in public calami
ties. For as bodies politic have no exis
tent e in the world to come, their judgment
and recompense, unlike thnt of individu
als, can take place only in this world.—
The question which we ought to ask our
selves, therefore, is, "Wherefore hath the ,
Lord dealt thus with His servants ?" Ma
ny are our national offences. But there
is ever a correspondence between the of
fence and its punishment. And we aro to
search out the sins and errors for which
this special vi,itation has been sent,
- 110
VOL. XXI. NO. 29,
Doubtless, one sin for which we are suf
fering is the base spirit of truckling and
pandoring to sectional interests and preju
dices, which has for so many years char
acterized the prime movers of our politi
cal machinery. Politics indeed have been
a mere trade, conducted without honesty
or principle for selfish aggrandizement.—
Vainly do we lock for patriotism in the
wire-working of our political parties. The
whole government is adtninistered upon
the principle of the division of the spoils.
There has been no prejudice so opposed
to the spirit of our institutions, no section
al interest so degrading, that political lead
ers, low and high, were not willing to sell
themselves to it for votes. There has
been no combination of parties too incon
sistent, unprincipled and corrupt to be en
tered into for the sake of office and the psti,
lie tnoncy. In particluar, the leading pot
itical parties have for years been conduc
ted its rivalry of subservience to the inter
ests of slavery. The interests of the na
tion have been disregarded and sacrificed
in disgraceful nnderbidding for the slave
holding vote. There was no deep so low
for one party to descend into, that some
, •lower deep still opening wide" was not
discovered by the other. For more than
1 a generation has this system of self-abase•
meet been going on. No wonder that
those who have been the objects of this so
licitation should have been educated into
the idea tha• the whole government of the
country should be conducted for the bene
fit e i f n sl s ver unhapp t y ho c c o a u s n e tr , y vit i h s
i tna. Especially
now suffering Iron Sauthern violence,
it has been brought on us by that long and
increasing self-abasement of Northern pol
ic pec l i f a a o lly r
is this
our present agitations. A new scene of
commotion had been settled by new con
cessions, to which for the sake of peace
all parties had assented. 'llse whole land
was nt rest and quiet. Slavery was de_
mending nothing more, and its opponents
. had made up their minds to acquiesce its
the settlement, when, for pure party pur
pose b
andpersonal aggrandizement, the
tune-honored
artier of freedom was over
thrown as a new bid in the auction which
has sacrificed the domain of the nation for
the slave holding vote. Let the authors
of the iniquity be nameless here, as they
deserve to be in the annals of the Repub
lic. Insane and unprincipled ambition is
the enures, of all the agitation and tur
moil and bloodshed•which has been rend
ing the land asunder. The whole people
have witnessed so tamely the successive
betrayals of their interests, and voted so
docilely on.the issues they presented, that
hope had been conceived of their unlimited
submission. The sectional jealousies
which it has stirred up anew, and the at-
tempt to secure, by violence, what slavery
understood to be offered it by the measure,
is its natural consequence, and the provi
dential punishment of the nation for the
iniquity which it sanctioned and encour
aged.
Another political sin for which the na
tion is thus suffering, is the neglect of po
litical duty by respectable citizens. We
have boasted touch of our political rights ;
but we have been sadly unmindful of our
political duties. How large a proportion
of the most respectable and influential of
our citizens have wholly abstained from
the.notnination and election of our rulers.
The whole business of nominations has
been liven up to caucases. chiefly compo
sed of the ambitious and vile. Assemblies
in which no respectable person could ap
pear have brought out candidates of their
own for inferior offices, and conventions of
interested men have long wrangled out
the nomination to higher posts of thoso
to lithos° election they could pin their
hopes of office to be acquired or retained.
All honesty and all patriotism have quite
disappeared from our political system.—
Politics have become a trade so low that
few respectable mei. dare touch it. Not
an election can be carried without money,
and bargaining and rum. And in conse
quence not a bill can be carried thro' our
national legislature without bribes. Yet
orderly and respectable citizens see these
iniquities without troubling themselves for
their correction. Absorbed• in their own
business and comfort, they care not to
whom. And yet they boast of their politi
cal rights, But God has given no right
without obligation of use. The right of
self government involves the duty of self,
government, the duty of selecting and elec
ting the rulers of our people. This sacred
duty, due to ourselves, mankind and God,
has been wofully neglected, and, there
fore, God has turned our neglect to our
punishment, and chastised us with misrule
and civil war.
Kindred and consequential to these lute
been another sin—the entire divorce of the
whole system of polities from the four of