Anne Warren Weston

“ Yes, humiliating as is the fact, of twenty thousand adult abolitionists in the State of Massachusetts, not seven thousand have yet even ASKED their legislature to do what it can, for the overthrow of that system of abominations, which is professedly the abhorrence of their souls! Friends of the slave, is this right?—Is this abolitionism?— Is this 'remembering them that are in bonds, as bound with them?' Are you to be content with this? ”

“ The Declaration of American Independence, says— 'That to secure these rights [those of 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'] governments are instituted among men, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government,' &c. ”

“ Besides these, there is a multitude of abolitionists in the State, who are not members of any society. So that, upon the most moderate calculation, there are, in this State, at least 20,000 adults, who are immediate abolitionists, and therefore, upon this estimate, instead of fifteen thousand petitioners to the State Legislature, on the above subjects, there ought to have been, before this, at least TWENTY-THOUSAND;— and if there had been, who does not know that the Legislature would at once speak the voice of immediatism on each and all of the topics named? ”