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Western Liberty Convention

Western Liberty Convention image Western Liberty Convention image
Parent Issue
Day
7
Month
July
Year
1845
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

We continuo in our paper of to-jay, the proccedings of the Cincinnati Convention, presuming thnt nll our readsrs will be deeply intcresied in their perufal. Evening fSession, June. 11 th. Jno. M. VVjlls, of Pittsburgh, allressed the meeling. Uesaid the one gand ob ject, principie and end of thoLiberty Party, is todivorce the General'Government from all connexion with Slavery: - to inake it a Southern institiitioi instead of a nationul institution as it isnow, and must be while the General Golernmeut leans itself to its protection and support.Noolher political parly has or cm carry ouí theso principies, becausè they bolh rely on the co-operation andigupport of slaveliolders continuing and evpecting to continue such. The leadmg men of tho Whig party have only advocated the righl of yelition. No one of them have ever contended openly fur the carrying out of one lead'ing principie of the Liberty Pui tv. Oor object must be to bm'ld up a power ïö the Nortb, which sliall be as much dreaded as theslave power of the South. And we can do it. In several States we liavealroady the balance of political power in the freo States. We can soon obtain the bahince of power in all the free States, and when we have done that, one of the largc political partios must subscribe one fundamental doctrine of the Liberty party, to wil: the entire divorce of the General Government f rom all connection vith Slavery.The moment this is done, the necessiy oí a Liberty party ceases. All we vishis the accomplishment of our object, and the party which shall give us this estroys the necessity of ourlonger existence. And it is thus equally the interest of both VVhig and Democratie parties to raisc the standard oí Emancipation. After Mr. Willshad concluded and the audience had been roused and delighted by an Emancipation song, Mr. Needliam of Kenlucky, was loudly called for and carne forward.Mr. President, I am but a plain man. - My business is not making speeches. I have come up from a slave State to this Convention, as one willing to do all I conitutionally can lo extírpate slavery from fhesoil. As sudi añone I hstened carefully to to the readitvg of the Report read to us to-day; and if ihat Report is an exponent of the principies of the Liborty party, I am persuaded that thousands throughout Kentucky and the Scuth, are with it to-day. The people of iCentutky are grossly misinformed as to the irtentions of Abolitionists, if that Report represente them aright.Last winter, in a coarse of lectures before the Mercantile Ltbrary Associntion in Louisville. a gentliman from Ohio, atlempted in one of the lectures, a formal justification of slaverjr. II is lecture was not noticed by the public press as others of lhc course had nniformly been. I asked the reason why, and was lold by the editor, who had written the critiques, that he must have condemned the lecture if he had noticed it all; and as the aulhor of it was a stranger invited to the city, he chose lo let it pass in silence. The Methodist Conventian which has divided the M. E. Church, was by no means universally popular in Kentucky. The house was not morethan one-half or two-thirds full when Dr. Bascom's famous document was read. But four members in the Upper Methodist Episcopal Church of Louisville, on a vote taken previous to the Convention, were in favor of división.A Convention of lay members istalked of; and instcad of settling the matter, the late Convention has only fairly commenced ihe agitation throughout the State. It is saïd that slavery is represented to be worse than it really is. Sir, In 1844 a Methodist prcaeher, with regular license and certificate, was placed in Louisville jail - he preached in the jail sermons which would have done credit to any white preacher of the town - he kept a Jittle memorandum in his pocket in which he marked the number of persons hopefully converted under his preaching. I represented his case to the leading Methodists in Louisville, and showed them a copy of his papers which I had laken. Not one of them visiled Mm in his yrison.He said he forgave tliose wlio had imprisoned him nnd were about to sell hirn. He was sold down the river, vvhich was the last I saw of hirn. There is another incident illustrating the character of our slavery, which I will menlion, which also occurred in Louisville in 1844. When the sexton went to open a grave yard for a funeral one morning, he found a slavc mother digging a grave there for her little infant which lay by her side shroudless and cofftnless - absolutely a naked corpse upon the ground. The mistress of thal motjier had sent her to bury her child, refusing to buy grave clothes or a coífinU - Sir. this is Slavery in Kenluckyü When Mr. Npedham had conchidedhis vcry sensible refriarles, Mr. Clark sang the song of "The Blind Bcy," by Mrs. Bailey, Judge Stevens of ïnjianabeing onlled, came forward and spoke with great originalily and force. M r. President, I should be a dead man certaïnly, ifl could stand before this audience without intense emotion, I vas one of three brothren who projected this conventiun in this city about a year ngo. I carne humbly to it, expecting possibly to meet my three brethren, and behold this uniltitude. Sir, I atn u-oud lo have any ugnncy in assemblingthte concourse, and sharing in the.good it will achieve. We are now a separate moral and political orgamzation. We ahall ever continue so. The other parlies may come tous, but we cannot go to them. They are destined to become one simple chemical substance, fused into ono by the Liberty principie. Sir, ] am amazed to look back and see how we have been fighting in thcold parlies about things which, but for slaveryf would have no cxktonce. jTo seo a speaker all day upon the stum holding up a bit ofcotton, contending tliat two cents duly was too rnuch, that one and a half was enough.Sir, the only difficulty is the hosiility and competition betvveen {ree and slave labors. Take awaylhat, and a comtnittee could settle a tariffin two hou rs,v hiel would be good enough, and the people would easily alter it to their liking if not. But for slavery there would be but one interest in the country, and every thing that parties have split upon would be taken out of the way. Sir, let us know but two classes of men in Church and State: the friends of slavery and its enemies. We are asked how slavery is to be abolished? Sir, I will teil you. We must reach the abolition of slavery over the dead bodies of boih the old political parties: not slain by violence, butdestroyed by the overthrow of thcir principies, the only thing which holds them together and gives them party existence. As long as thosö parties exist,so long will slavery find a shelter under their folds.In the second place, we must reach the abolition of slavery through the doors of 20,000 churches. 1 do not mean that we must destroy them, sothat thcy wil! cease to be churches; but that we must bring them on to the side of Jesus Chrfst, instead of that of slavery. All this we musí do by teaching the trutli, and correcting the errors of the people. But we are told that our plan is seditiousand factious - that we are agitators - }es, agitators. VVell, Christ was called en agitator, What makes agitation wrong is that it is error and not truth which agítales. Theonly question whether our agitation, like that produced by Christ and hisapostles, is justifiable and necessary, is whether what we teach is the truth; and it is the truth- God knows! "But we shall divide the Church!" Sir, división implies separation, and what shall we separate? Wliy, the sin of slaveholding from Christianity. God send how soon that división may come. We are told, too, that we shall divide the Ünion - that we are disunionists. Now, sir, I urn for the Union - but I say if the only Union we can have wilh the South, in church and state, is to be and must be cemenled by the blood of three millions of my brethron, I say in God's name let it go down. I am for no union the bond of which is open crime. - No church can or will be recognized for Christ in the great day, which is cemented together by blood. The doom of Sodom and Gomorrah will be more tolerable in that day than theirs. But we are told to remedy all our evils at home beforc touching slavery. Doctor, cure yourself.Sir, if we must wait till no injustico exists among men before we touch .slavery, we shall nevcr touch it. Is that wiiat they want? But our black laws in the free States which they ask us to repeal before touchng slavery, are a mere sequeM - a tail - a following thing to slavery itself. When slavery is destroyed, these laws which are a mere consequence of slavery, will fnil with it. Destroy the tree and you kill the branches. Judge Stevens' addi'ess produced a profound impressio, and was rcceived with applause Sam. Lewis then carne forward, and spoke under an excitement through ill health, which diminished alittle the effect of one of the most powerful appeals to the underslanding and heart of men. He said: I beseech my audience to settle the question, whether they are not personally guilly for the cruel inflictions of slavery. I Iately attempted to show some of my fellow cilizens, that they were irnplicated in the guilt of thistem. They gathered uround, and told me to prove my prcmises, andthcy would admit my conclusión! - lf they were guilty, they must repent. WelJ , sir, look at slavery in the District of Columbia. Slavery on the plantation is bad enough - with its mothers driven tocarry fbeir infants tothe field by thefirst dawn, and worked all day under the lash suckling them at intervals. But the District slavery ia infinitely worse There is not on God's green earth, a spot so withered, and darkened, and blighted, and disgraced by slavery us that samo district, where, for $400, and under laws enacted by our oVvn servants, brutes in human form buy their licensesto trade n blood. Now, when we ask our Congrcss to repeal those laws which it has made, crealing and supporting sla"ery and the slave trade there, we aretold that some reservationsin the deedsof cession from Mary. land and Virginia, make it unconstitutional to repeal thoss laws. Sir, 1 dehy, and will back my denial - I deny the existenco ofany such rcservation whateveV But when we urge the sin of slavñry upon the people, and eshort them to eend V man to jrepeal those Iavs,the cry is raised, "Ah haí you are mixing religión with polir es." Well, sir, if religión is not good in polMes, I ask in the name of all the value oí religión - where ;s it good? I know that they toll us of the miseries of the heathen, and ask us to relieve them. Oh! the heaihen live in asavago state- their ibod, custottjs, manners, all sa vage. But, sir, the heathen has often onc thing our slaves have not - he hasliberty! Now I ask how it happens thai we may use our religión to aid and relieve foreign heath-ens while the samo men who represent their claims to us, have neither prayors nor tcars lor our heathen at home! %-.áfcThey may picture the social and civil wrongs of distant heathcn, and ask our aid to redress thcm; but the moment we seek to apply the same principias to similar objoets at home. "Oh tlmt is mixïng religión with politics!" [Mr. Lewis then slated somc facts of slavery in the District of Columbia - of slave-men,sold anddragged senseless from their families under laws which our representativos have enacted, and" still sustain.] "Oh," he continued, "what name of guilt shall we liud to stamp the authors of such deeds?" Oh, Sir, the true authors of those crucllies are the men who make and support the laws' under and according to which they are perpet rated. We! we! are the authors, till we use our utmost to put anend (o them. Mix religión with politics!! May God forbid 1 should ever have a religión wbich will forsake me at the polls. 1 know the American heart from tho Atlantic shore to the rivers of tho far west. Give me for the cause of righteousness the simple honest beating of that heart, and I will not part with il for all the land holds beside. Yes sir, thnt heart pulse shall yet heave the temples of despotism from their foundations, and erect a temple to Amcricnn Liberty, whose shaft shall pierce the sky. Mr. Lewis sat down amid loud and long continued applause. He was followed by Mr. Clark In one of the most touching and plaintive airs which ever bore words to the human ear. The piece he sung was Montgomery's "Poor Wayfaring Men of Grief," altered and enlarged. The crodwed audience then dispersed at a late hour.Tltursday Montiig, O o' doek. Cunvcntion met pursuaut td adjournment . The President remarkcd, i had hcretoforo beon our custoni to open our meeting wilh piaycr - invoking tlic blessing of God on our deliberations; - and he lioped ihis ciiatoin would not be unobserved on the present occasion. Rov, Mr. Fee of Kentucky then mado a very appropri.uc and rnpressivo prayer. The chairman announccd the first business in order to be the report of the Committcc on the Mi8i8sipp Vailey Liberty Aesociation, which, however, was laid over for the present. On motion of E. Smith, W. H. Craig oí Virginia, was appointcd one of tlie Vice Prcaiclcnts. Mr Jackson of Massadiusctts, who was very gcnerally called for, tlicn took the stand, and made a very excellent, business-liko nnd practical speech, which will be more fully reported hcreafter.Mr. Chase callcd up ihc resol utions reported by tlic Commiltee. He stated a doubt sectiied to exibt whether tbcy had yesicrday been adopicd or only accepted by tbc Convention.-- The Chair decided thcy had not been adopted. Mr. Harrington moved to aincnd thc íourtli resolutioh by striking out the Inner claiise, the purporf of whicli was a dtsclaimcr of any imeiïtion to Imerfcrc by unconstitutional Icgislatioii witli tlic domeslic policy of the Siates. Aicr considerable discussion on Mr. Harringiona ameridtnent, which was participatcd in by Mr. Ilanington, Mr. Chase, Mr. Wille and otlicrs. thu air.cndnicnt was ptit and lost and the rccolution adoptcd al must unanimously. Reso'iuion five adoptcd. Undoi debnte the si.th rcsoultion - nfter be'ífíg discusscd by Mr. Codding of Ulinois, Kcv, Ldward Snith of Pittsbnrgh, Rev. Mr. Lücjoy of Illinoie. Mr. Clark of Penn8ylvanio Win. fiirnsy of Cincinnati - Rccommitted. Ileeolution eevcntb - Cariied. Ite8olution üiglnli.- That no nomination of candidatos for President and Vicc President bc made muil tbc fall of 1847 or the spring of 1848. Mr. Gümcr of Brown cotmty, moved tbc indi fiuitc poKtponcnient, whicli was lost. The queation recurrin on tbc rcsolution, it was amendcd and adopicd. Re8olution ninc.- Recommittcd. Rcsoluiion ten. - Deelaring imprisonment for uiding 8lavoe to escape unjust, especially denouncing ;he cruel imprisonment of Capt. Jonathan. Walker, a citizen of Masaachusetts.

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Subjects
Signal of Liberty
Old News