OHIO ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION. 109 kings;" it will not pass over the flaw, the fatal defect in the title of a state, that under the specious name of a republic uses the authority of the law and the sword of justice, to seal and secure the oppression of more than one-sixth of its inhabitants. The world has heard the tocsin of truth, and is awaking. Man is felt to be man, whether European prejudice frown upon him on account of his station, or American prejudice because of his color. Europe, which had rekindled the extinguished lamp of liberty at the altar of our revolutions still nourishes the holy fire; England goes before us as a torch-bearer, leading the way to the liberation of mankind. The despotism which our forefathers could not bear in their native country, is expiring, and the sword of justice in her reformed hands, has applied its exterminating edge to slavery. Shall the United States, the free United States, which could not bear the bonds of a King, cradle the bondage which a king is abolishing? Shall a republic be less free than a monarchy? Shall we, in the vigor and buoyancy of our manhood, be less energetic in righteousness than a kingdom in its age? You to whom the destinies of this country are committed, Americans, patriots in public and private life, on you it depends to prove, whether your liberty is the fruit of your determined choice or of a fortunate accident. If you are republicans, not by birth only, but from principle, then let the avenues, all the avenues of light and liberty, of truth and love, be opened wide to every soul within the nation-that the bitterest curse of millions may no longer be, that they were born and bred in "the land of the free and the home of the brave." OHIO ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION. Declaration of Sentiment. The undersigned, citizens of the state of Ohio, having assembled in convention for the purpose of organizing a State Anti-Slavery Society, avail themselves of the opportunity thus afforded, to make an exposition of their sentiments upon the subject of slavery, and the means which they deem necessary for its removal. 1st. We believe slavery to be a sin-always, everywhere, and only, sin—sin, in itself, apart from its occasional rigors incidental to its administration, and from all those perils, liabilities and positive inflictions, to which its victims are continually exposed-sin, in the nature of the act which creates it, and in the elements which constitute it-sin, because it converts persons into things, makes men property, God's image merchandise; because it forbids men to use themselves for the advancement of their own well-being, and turns them into mere instruments, to be used by others, solely for the benefit of the users; because it constitutes one man the owner of the body, soul and spirit of other men gives him power and permission to make his own pecuniary profit the great end of their being, thus striking them out of existence as beings possessing rights and susceptibilities of happiness, and forcing them to exist merely as appendages to his own existence. In other words, because slavery holds and uses men, as mere means for the accomplishment of ends, of which ends their own interests are not a part-thus annihilating the sacred and eternal distinction between a person and a thing-a distinction proclaimed an axiom by all human consciousness-a distinction created by God, crowned with glory and honor in the attributes of intelligence, morality, accountability and immortal existence, and commended to the homage of universal mind by the concurrent testimony of nature, conscience, providence and revelation, by the blood of atonement and the sanctions of eternity. This distinction, authenticated by the seal of Deity, and in its own nature effaceless and immutable, slavery contemns, disannuls, and tramples under foot. This is its fundamental element-its vital, constituent principle that which makes it a sin in itself, under whatever modification existing. All the incidental effects of the system flow spontaneously from this fountain head. The constant exposure of slaves to outrage, and the actual inflictions which they experience in innumerable forms, all result legitimately from this principle assumed in the theory, and embodied in the practice of slaveholding. What is that but a sin, which sinks to the level of brutes, beings ranked and registered by God a little lower than the angels-wrests from their rightful owners the legacies bequeathed them-inalienable birthright endowments exchanged for no equivalent, unsurrendered by volition and unforfeited by crime-breaks open the sanctuary of human rights, and makes its sacred things common plunder-driving to the shambles Jehovah's image, herded with four-footed beasts and creeping things, and bartering for vile dust the purchase of a Redeemer's blood, and the living members of his body? What is that but a sin, which derides the sanctity with which God has invested domestic relationsannihilates marriage-makes void parental authority-nullifies filial obligationinvites the violation of chastity, by denying it legal protection, thus bidding godspeed to lust as it riots at noonday, glorying in the immunities of law? What is that but a sin, which stamps as crime obedience to the command, "Search the scriptures"-repeals the law of love-abrogates the golden rule exacts labor without recompense-authorizes the forcible sunderings of kindred, and cuts off for ever from the pursuit of happiness? What is that but a sin, which embargoes the acquisition of knowledge by the terror of penalties-eclipses intellect-stifles the native instincts of the heart-precipitates in death damps the upward aspirations of the spirit-startles its victims with present perils-peoples the future with apprehended horrors-palsies the moral sense, whelms hope in despair, and kills the soul? 2d. The influence of slavery upon slaveholders and the slave states, are an abiding sense of insecurity and dread; the press cowering under a censorship; freedom of speech struck dumb by proscription; a standing army of patrols to awe down insurrection; the mechanic arts and all vigorous enterprise crushed under an incubus; a thriftless agriculture, smiting the land with barrenness and decay; industry held up to scorn; idleness a badge of dignity; profligacy no barrier to favor; lust emboldened by impunity; concubinage encouraged by premium, the high price of the mixed race operating as a bounty upon amalgamation; prodigality, in lavishing upon the rich the plundered earnings of the poor, accounted high-souled generosity; revenge regarded as the refinement of honor; aristocracy entitled republicanism, and despotism chivalry; sympathy deadened by scenes of cruelty rendered familiar; female amiableness transformed into fury by habits of despotic sway; conscience smothered by its own unheeded monitions; manhood effeminated by loose-reined indulgence, and a pervading degeneracy of morals and manners, resulting from a state of society where power has no restraint, and the weak have none to succor. 3d. Slavery has framed and incorporated into the very structure of society, a system of antagonist relations, fomenting jealousies between different sections, distracting our public councils with the conflict of warring interests, weakening our national energies, and imminently jeoparding our national existence. It has desecrated our federal city, smitten with its leprosy, our national temple, turned its sacred courts into human shambles, and provided seats for them that sell men. It is at war with the genius of our government, and divides it against itself. It scoffs at our national Declaration, brands us with hypocrisy before the nations, paralyzes the power of our free institutions at home, makes them a hissing and a by-word abroad, and shouts our shame in the ears of the world. 4th. What are the blessings that slavery has conferred upon the Church, in return for its Christian baptism and its hearty welcome to the communion of the saints? It revokes the command of her Lord-"Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."-It builds anew, and sanctifies, the heathen barrier of caste, and while her prayers and her alms traverse oceans to find heathen in the ends of the earth, it shuts up her bowels against the heathen at her own door, and of her own creation; and, as if to make the Church the derision of scoffers, it grants her special indulgence to make heathen at home for her own benefit, provided, by way of penance, she contributes a tithe of the profit for the conversion of heathen abroad. It makes her sacrifices a vain oblation, her Redeemer the minister of sin, terrible things in righteousness the answer to her prayers, and canopies the heavens above her with portents of coming judgments, which now for a long time linger not. It accounts her shepherds blameless as they traffic in the lambs of the flock, while OHIO ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION. 111 round about Zion, lamentation and wailing mingle with her songs, the daughters of Jerusalem weeping for their children, and refusing to be comforted because they are not. This is slavery-slavery as it exists to-day, sheltered under the wings of our national eagle, republican law its protector, republican equality its advocate, republican morality its patron, freedom its body guard, the Church its city of refuge, and the sanctuary of God and the very horns of the altar its inviolable asylum. Against this whole system, in itself and in its appendages, in its intrinsic principles and in its external relations, we do with one accord, in the name of humanity and eternal right, record our utter detestation, and enter our solemn protest. Slavery being sin, we maintain that it is the duty of all who perpetrate it, immediately to cease; in other words, that immediate emancipation is the sacred right of the slaves, and the imperative duty of their masters. By immediate emancipation, we do not mean that the slaves shall be deprived of employment, and turned loose to roam as vagabonds. We do not mean that they shall immediately be put in possession of all political privileges, any more than foreigners before naturalization, or native citizens not qualified to vote; nor that they shall be expelled from their native country as the price and condition of their freedom. But we do mean that, instead of being under the unlimited control of a few irresponsible masters, they shall receive the protection of law; that they shall be employed as free laborers, fairly compensated and protected in their earnings; that they shall have secured to them the right to obtain secular and religious knowl edge, and to worship God according to his word. We maintain that the slaves belong to themselves; that they have a right to their own bodies and minds, and to their own earnings; that husbands have a right to their wives, and wives to their husbands; that parents have a right to their children, and children to their parents; and that he who plunders them of these rights commits high-handed robbery, and is sacredly bound at once and utterly to cease. We maintain that every master ought immediately to stop buying and selling men, women and children-immediately to stop holding and using them as property -immediately to stop robbing them of inalienable rights which they have never forfeited. In a word, we say to the master, it is your duty to emancipate your slave immediately, that is, to stop taking away from the slave those things which belong to him, and to leave him unmolested in the possession of his body and soul, his earnings, his wife and his children, as you are in the possession of your body and soul, your earnings, your wife and children. PLAN OF OPERATION. We shall seek to effect the destruction of slavery, not by exciting discontent in the minds of the slaves, not by instigating outrage, not by the physical force of the free states, not by the interference of congress with state rights; but we shall seek to effect its overthrow by ceaseless proclamation of the truth upon the whole subject by urging upon slaveholders, and the entire community, the flagrant enormity of slavery as a sin against God and man-by demonstrating the safety of immediate emancipation to the persons and property of the masters, to the interests of the slaves and the welfare of the community-from the laws of mind, the history of emancipation, and the indissoluble connexion between duty and safety-by presenting facts, arguments, and the results of experiment, establishing the superiority of free over slave labor, and the pecuniary advantages of emancipation to the master-by correcting the public sentiment of the free states, which now sustains and sanctions the system-by concentrating its rectified power upon the conscience of the slaveholder -by promoting the observance of the monthly concert of prayer for the abolition of slavery throughout the world, that by a union of faith and works, we may bring our tithes into the storehouse, and prove therewith the "God of the oppressed." ROBERT STEWART, WILLIAM KEYS, ELIZUR WRIGHT, JR. Committee. ROBERT J. BRECKENRIDGE. What, then, is slavery? for the question relates to the action of certain principles on it, and to its probable and proper results; what is slavery as it exists among us? We reply, it is that condition enforced by the laws of one-half the states of this confederacy, in which one portion of the community, called masters, is allowed such power over another portion called slaves; as, 1. To deprive them of the entire earnings of their own labor, except only so much as is necessary to continue labor itself, by continuing healthful existence, thus committing clear robbery ; 2. To reduce them to the necessity of universal concubinage, by denying to them the civil rights of marriage; thus breaking up the dearest relations of life, and encouraging universal prostitution; 3. To deprive them of the means and opportunities of moral and intellectual culture, in many states making it a high penal offence to teach them to read; thus perpetuating whatever of evil there is that proceeds from ignorance; 4. To set up between parents and their children an authority higher than the impulse of nature and the laws of God; which breaks up the authority of the father over his own offspring, and at pleasure separates the mother at a returnless distance from her child; thus abrogating the clearest laws of nature: thus outraging all decency and justice, and degrading and oppressing thousands upon thousands of beings created like themselves in the image of the Most High God! This is slavery as it is daily exhibited in every slave state. This is that "dreadful but unavoidable necessity," for which you may hear so many mouths uttering excuses, in all parts of the land. And is it really so? If indeed it be; if that "necessity" which tolerates this condition be really "unavoidable," in any such sense, that we are constrained for one moment, to put off the course of conduct which shall most certainly and most effectually subvert a system which is utterly indefensible on every correct human principle, and utterly abhorrent from every law of God,-then, indeed, let ICHABOD be graven in letters of terrific light upon our country! For God can no more sanction such perpetual wrong, than he can cease to be faithful to his own throne. He who is higher than the highest, will, in His own good time and way, break the rod of the oppressor and let all the oppressed go free. He has indeed commanded servants to be obedient to their masters; and it is their bounden duty to be so. We ask not now, what the servants were, nor who the masters were. It is enough that all masters are commanded to "give unto their servants that which is just and equal;" and to what feature of slavery may that description apply? Just and equal! what care I, whether my pockets are picked, or the proceeds of my labor are taken from me? What matters it whether my horse is stolen, or the value of him in my labor be taken FRANCIS WAYLAND-ALONZO POtter. 113 from me? Do we talk of violating the rights of masters, and depriving them of their property in their slaves? And will some one tell us, if there be any thing in which a man has, or can have, so perfect a right of property, as in his own limbs, bones, and sinews? Out upon such folly! The man who cannot see that involuntary domestic slavery, as it exists among us, is founded upon the principle of taking by force that which is another's, has simply no moral sense. We utter but the common sentiment of mankind when we say, none ever continue slaves a moment after they are conscious of their ability to retrieve their freedom. The constant tendency for fifty years has been to accumulate the black population upon the southern states; already in some of them the blacks exceed the whites, and in most of them increased above the increase of the whites in the same states, with a ratio that is absolutely startling; [the annual increase in the United States is sixty thousand;] the slave population could bring into action a larger proportion of efficient men, perfectly inured to hardships, to the climate, and privations, than any other population in the world; and they have in distant sections, and on various occasions, manifested already a desperate purpose to shake off the yoke. In such an event we ask not any heart to decide where would human sympathy and earthly glory stand; we ask not in the fearful words of Jefferson, what attribute of Jehovah would allow him to take part with us; we ask only-and the answer settles the argument-which is like to be the stronger side? Nature, and reason, and religion unite in their hostility to this system of folly and crime. How it will end, time only can reveal; but the light of heaven is not clearer than that it must end.-African Repository, Jan. 1834. FRANCIS WAYLAND. Its effects must be disastrous upon the morals of both parties. By presenting objects on whom passion can be satisfied without resistance and without redress, it cultivates in the master, pride, anger, cruelty. selfishness, and licentiousness. By accustoming the slave to subject his moral principles to the will of another, it tends to abolish in him all moral distinction, and thus fosters in him, lying, deceit, hypocrisy, dishonesty, and a willingness to yield himself up to minister to the appetite of his master.-Moral Science. ALONZO POTTER. Brethren, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. This is the argument on which I would rely, in asking your charity this evening. The neglected and ill-fated race for whom I plead, |