Various

“ One of the strongest reasons that should induce us to exert every power for the suppression of slavery, is the indelible disgrace it brings upon our country. A people, enjoying the utmost limit of rational liberty, who proudly claim the name and rights of freemen, tolerate in their very bosom the most unnatural and cruel bondage. This glaring inconsistency, in part, justifies the sneers which the advocates of arbitrary power are continually casting on the boasted liberality of our political institutions. ”

“ We rejoice with you that our national Government has had the wisdom and humanity, to embrace the first constitutional opportunity afforded, to pass a law which entirely prohibits our citizens from foreign traffic in human flesh. We hope our hearts are not without sentiments of sincere gratitude to the great disposer of events for that signal blessing. But we have to sympathize with nearly a million of human beings who are subject to the bonds of slavery within the United States, we have yet to mourn over this dishonour of our country. ”

“ Is it not an incongruous exhibition to ourselves, as well as to foreigners who may visit the seat of the government of the nation, whose distinguishing characteristic is its devotion to freedom, whose constitution proclaims that all men are born free, to behold, on the one hand, the representatives of the people, asserting, with impassioned eloquence, the unalienable rights of man; and, on the other, to see our fellow men, children of the same Almighty Father, heirs like ourselves of immortality, doomed, for a difference of complexion, themselves and their posterity, to hopeless bondage? ”

“ It is, on the contrary, one of the utmost magnitude and importance. To remove the foul blot which now stains our country, to break the chains with which so many of our degraded fellow creatures are fettered, and to qualify them for the station for which a beneficent Creator designed them, are labours requiring the vigorous endeavours of every friend to mankind throughout the world. We, therefore, earnestly entreat that the cause may not be suffered to slumber in your hands, but that every favorable opportunity may be eagerly embraced of promoting the work of gradual emancipation. ”

“ How many thousands of miserable wretches yet languish in slavery, in these United States, to whom the light of morn, which should awaken all nature alike to harmony and joy, affords, perhaps, no other consolation save the solitary certainty, that one day more is taken from the long period of their sufferings—This is not all—In vain do you liberate the Africans, while you neglect to furnish him with the means of properly providing for himself, and of becoming an useful member of the community. ”

“ While we have nine hundred thousand slaves in our country—while we have the strongest evidence that new importations will take place—while the abominable practice of kidnapping exists to an alarming and most sorrowful extent—while we have reason to believe that hundreds of vessels sail annually from our shores to traffic in the blood of our fellow-men—and while we feel, acknowledge, and deplore, that the cause of emancipation has many strenuous, powerful, and unwearied opponents in every quarter of the union—Can this be the time to remit our effort? ”

“ Not to all men is it given to be great as the world counts greatness. Each of us, however, may have a task which, if well done, may leave its impress upon the life of the community in which we live. These, although obscure, efforts of the talented and persevering are the monuments which silently mark the progress of the race. Remy Ollier was one of these obscure personalities; but yet, a man whose career made such contributions to the life of Mauritius that he is regarded by its people as one of the great figures in its political history. ”

“ While against the oppressor, we plead the cause of the oppressed—While we invite the unhappy slave to a patient and Christian submission to his condition—and urge on his legalized master a humane exercise of his power—While we feel ourselves bound, by all honourable and lawful means, to protect those whom the laws have enfranchised, from being again dragged into slavery—let us not forget how much depends on the careful instruction of all who are free. ”

“ We confidently trust, that when the storms, by which the world is at present agitated, shall have subsided, the light of truth will break through the dark gloom of oppression—cruelty and injustice will not only hear, but obey, the voice of reason and religion; and in these United States the practice of the people will be conformable to their declaration—"That all men are born equally free, and have an unalienable right to Liberty." ”

“ We cannot conceive that there is any other cause sufficiently operative to paralyze the energies of a people so magnanimous, to neutralize the blessings of Providence included in the gift of a land so happy in its soil, its climate, its minerals and its waters; and to annul the manifold advantages of our republican system and geographical position. If Virginia has already fallen from her high estate, and if we have assigned a true cause for her fall, it is with the utmost anxiety that we look to the future to the fatal termination of the scene. ”

“ Must, then, the enormous sums required to pay for, to transport, and to establish in a foreign land, all the slaves in the United States, as their masters may be willing to part with them, be taxed on the good people of the United States, or be obtained by loans, swelling the public debt to a size pregnant with evils next in degree to those of slavery itself? ”

“ So that upon the whole, your committee are of opinion, that slavery is fearfully on the increase, and that every effort is making, by many of those interested in its continuance, to multiply its victims and extend its influence. This state of things calls loudly on every friend of his country, on every friend of man, to use every effort in his power, to arrest the torrent of misery and crime. ”

“ We owe to that injured race, an immense debt, which the liberation of their bodies alone would not liquidate. It has been the policy of the slaveholder to keep the man whom he has doomed to interminable servitude, in the lowest state of mental degradation: to withhold from him as much as possible the means of improving the talents which nature has given him. ”

“ When we contemplate the odious nature and the immense magnitude of the evil which you have associated to oppose, and the inestimable importance of the objects which you are seeking to obtain, we cannot forbear to urge unremitted exertions, in pursuing the great ends before you. We are persuaded you will not neglect any just means in your power, which may tend to advance, either directly, or indirectly, the cause of equal liberty;—And it gives us pleasure also to express our persuasion, that, in this pursuit, much is still in your power. ”

“ Such being the case, we beseech you, by your duty to that Almighty Being who controls the destinies of nations, to strive to mitigate and limit an evil, so universally acknowledged and deplored. And may you, from so doing, reap a satisfaction, beyond any to be derived from possessing the fruits of the industry of thousands—the satisfaction of having been governed, in your conduct, by the principles of reason, humanity, and religion! ”

“ Shall one man lead a life of thraldom, because his skin has darkened under a hotter sun? Shall he be the perpetual servant of his fellow man, because deficiency of intellectual power, naturally resulting from a want of education and opportunity, have given him less keenness of perception, disqualified him to stand forth the vindicator of the oppressed, to assert his rights, and demand redress for his injuries? ”

“ It is an insult to the intelligence of men who have seriously considered history to say that colonization was so built upon national sentiment as to have a direct bearing on the preservation of the Union when the colonizationists differed widely among themselves in the very beginning and finally divided just as the abolitionists, who at one time had also a national standing, in that most anti-slavery societies were once found in the South. ”

“ A dungeon, the horrors of which has called forth deep emotions of regret from all who are permitted to see the misery and wretchedness of its inmates, and particularly the tears and great agitation of a benevolent aged stranger, who, in visiting this country, which has always professed "That all men are by nature, and of right ought to be free," was surprised and shocked to find in the precincts of one of the most professedly enlightened and patriotic cities in the Union, a storehouse of human flesh! ”

“ That your memorialists being citizens of this free republic, and feeling in a high degree thankful for the favours and protection of its benign government, are solicitous, in common with all the advocates of true liberty, that its benefits should be extended to the whole human family—that all mankind might be permitted to enjoy peaceably, the full fruition of national rights, and the great blessings of heaven, while here on earth, the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." ”

“ It is a truth generally acknowledged, that Slavery is an evil, not only by those whom principle, or education have taught to proscribe the practice, but by men of reflection, even in the very vortex of slavery. To condemn then, what few, if any, will presume to defend is rendered unnecessary; and the ingenuity of the philanthropist would be more judiciously exercised in devising a practicable remedy for this deep-rooted disease, than in heaping reproaches upon these, who, by the conduct of their ancestors, are placed in the condition of masters of slaves. ”

“ The constitutional provision, therefore, must mean that no agency of the State, or of the officers or agents by whom its powers are exerted, shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Whoever, by virtue of public position under a State government, deprives another of property, life, or liberty without due process of law, or denies or takes away the equal protection of the laws, violates the constitutional inhibitions; and, as he acts under the name and for the State, and is clothed with the State power, his act is that of the State. ”

“ Was nothing more intended than to forbid one man from owning another as property? Was it the purpose of the nation simply to destroy the institution and then remit the race, theretofore held in bondage, to the several States for such protection, in their civil rights, necessarily growing out of their freedom, as those States in their discretion might choose to provide? ”

“ We entreat you, therefore, by your regard for justice and the rights of man—by your religion, and the welfare of our common country—by your respect for yourselves and for the honour of your constituents, not to suffer the present session to elapse, without a recorded vote, which shall be your witness to posterity, that, if the exclusive territory of the national government remains to be polluted by the footsteps of a slave, it is because your exertions in the cause of liberty have been unavailing. ”

“ The migration, moreover, has, on the whole, demonstrated to a large part of the better elements of the South that the Negro has not been getting a square deal; that in dealing with him rough methods will not work; and that if the South would have the Negro remain there, "the conditions under which he lives must be kindlier, the collective attitude of the white people toward him friendlier, and that equal opportunities with the whites for his prosperity, enjoyment of life, and the education of his children, must be assured him, not grudgingly, but gladly and abundantly." ”

“ With feelings of sorrow and regret, we learn that the horrid trade to Africa for slaves is still continued by many of our fellow citizens. The hearts of those who can contemplate this subject without emotion must indeed be destitute of every sentiment of tenderness. It seems scarcely possible that men accustomed to the enjoyment of liberty, and partaking of the blessings of a free government should so far disregard the rights of humanity as to engage in so diabolical a commerce. ”

“ But higher motives to justice and humanity towards our fellow-creatures remain yet to be mentioned.
Domestic slavery is repugnant to the principles of Christianity. It prostrates every benevolent and just principle of action in the human heart. It is rebellion against the authority of a common FATHER. It is a practical denial of the extent and efficacy of the death of a common SAVIOUR. It is an usurpation of the prerogative of the GREAT SOVEREIGN of the universe, who has solemnly claimed an exclusive property in the souls of men. ”

“ How can we expect to hold our Negro labor when we are not paying decent living wages? Have we any right to abuse the Negro for moving to the Northern states where he is tempted by high wages when we are not paying him his worth at home?... Then, too, the Negro is not being given a square deal in the matter of education. In a majority of our rural districts especially the schools for Negro children are miserable makeshifts, the teacher often more ignorant than the pupils, little or nothing allowed for their support, and the children derive no benefits whatever.... ”

“ More than half a century has elapsed since the representatives of the American States, in Congress assembled, declared to the world, as "self-evident truths: that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But that Congress, one of the greatest and most dignified bodies the world ever beheld having but limited jurisdiction, were unable to do more than to proclaim these truths, as the basis of the government they were about to establish. ”

“ If the few persons who are already settled there, desire to retain their fellow creatures in bondage, let the example of the superior productiveness of free labor be set before their eyes, and let Congress avail itself of the happy opportunity to elevate the Territory itself to a pinnacle of prosperity, while it supports our national character, in the preservation of human rights and consistent justice. ”