Part 1 (1/2)
The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus.
by American Anti-Slavery Society.
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 Const.i.tution 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 wors.h.i.+pers 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 a.s.sembled 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 Hamps.h.i.+re.]
[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 censors.h.i.+p 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 Const.i.tution, 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 PEt.i.tION. On the 26th May last, the following resolution, reported by a committee was adopted by the House, viz.
”Resolved, that all Pet.i.tions, 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 pet.i.tion is founded in the very inst.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution, the Convention not conceiving that it could be endangered, made no provision for its security. But in the very first Congress that a.s.sembled 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 a.s.semble, and to pet.i.tion 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 pet.i.tion the Federal Government, in behalf of the victims of oppression, held in bondage by its authority. The present resolution cannot indeed consign such pet.i.tioners to the prison or the scaffold, but it makes the right to pet.i.tion a congressional boon, to be granted or withheld at pleasure, and in the present case effectually withholds it, by tendering it nugatory.
Pet.i.tions are to inform the Government of the wishes of the people, and by calling forth the action of the Legislature, to inform the const.i.tuents 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 pet.i.tion 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 pet.i.tions on one subject, they may make the same disposition of pet.i.tions on any and every other subject. Our representatives are bound by oath, not to pa.s.s any law abridging the right of pet.i.tion, but if this resolution is const.i.tutional, they may order every pet.i.tion to be delivered to their door-keeper, and by him to be committed to the flames; for why preserve pet.i.tions on which _no action can be had_? Had the resolution been directed to pet.i.tions for an object palpably unconst.i.tutional, it would still have been without excuse. The construction of the Const.i.tution is a matter of opinion, and every citizen has a right to express that opinion in a pet.i.tion, or otherwise.
But this usurpation is aggravated by the almost universal admission that Congress does possess the const.i.tutional 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 pa.s.s such a resolution by even voting against it[A]. The men who perpetrated this outrage had sworn to support the Const.i.tution, and will they hereafter plead at the bar of their Maker, that they had kept their oath, because they had abridged the right of pet.i.tion _by a resolution_, and not by law!