The Anti-Slavery Examiner Volume IV Part 14

The feeling of the community towards these people, and the contempt with which they are treated, are indicated by the following notice, lately published by the proprietors of a menagerie, in New York.

"The proprietors wish it to be understood, that people of color are not permitted to enter, _except when in attendance upon children and families_." For two shillings, any white scavenger would be freely admitted, and so would negroes, provided they came in a capacity that marked their dependence--their presence is offensive, _only_ when they come as independent spectators, gratifying a laudable curiosity.

Even death, the great leveller, is not permitted to obliterate, among Christians, the distinction of caste, or to rescue the lifeless form of the colored man from the insults of his white brethren. In the porch of a Presbyterian Church, in Philadelphia, in 1837, was suspended a card, containing the form of a deed, to be given to purchasers of lots in a certain burial ground, and to enhance the value of the property, and to entice buyers, the following clause was inserted, "No person of _color_, nor any one who has been the subject of _execution_, shall be interred in said lot."

Our colored fellow-citizens, like others, are occasionally called to pa.s.s from one place to another; and in doing so are compelled to submit to innumerable hardships and indignities. They are frequently denied seats in our stage coaches; and although admitted upon the _decks_ of our steam boats, are almost universally excluded from the cabins. Even women have been forced, in cold weather, to pa.s.s the night upon deck, and in one instance the wife of a colored clergyman lost her life in consequence of such an exposure.

The contempt poured upon these people by our laws, our churches, our seminaries, our professions, naturally invokes upon their heads the fierce wrath of vulgar malignity. In order to exhibit the actual condition of this portion of our population, we will here insert some _samples_ of the outrages to which they are subjected, taken from the ordinary public journals.

In an account of the New York riots of 1834, the _Commercial Advertiser_ says--"About twenty poor African (native American) families, have had their all destroyed, and have neither bed, clothing, nor food remaining. Their houses are completely eviscerated, their furniture a wreck, and the ruined and disconsolate tenants of the devoted houses are reduced to the necessity of applying to the corporation for bread."

The example set in New York was zealously followed in Philadelphia.

"Some arrangement, it appears, existed between the mob and the white inhabitants, as the dwelling houses of the latter, contiguous to the residences of the blacks, were illuminated and left undisturbed, while the huts of the negroes were singled out with unerring certainty. The furniture found in these houses was generally broken up and destroyed--beds ripped open and their contents scattered in the streets.... The number of houses a.s.sailed was not less than twenty. In one house there was a _corpse, which was thrown from the coffin, and in another a dead infant was taken out of the bed, and cast on the floor, the mother being at the same time barbarously treated_."--_Philadelphia Gazette_.

"No case is reported of an attack having been _invited_ or _provoked_ by the residents of the dwellings a.s.sailed or destroyed. The extent of the depredations committed on the _three_ evenings of riot and outrage can only be judged of by the number of houses damaged or destroyed. So far as ascertained, this amounts to FORTY-FIVE. One of the houses a.s.saulted was occupied by an unfortunate cripple--who, unable to fly from the fury of the mob, was so beaten by some of the ruffians, that he has since died in consequence of the bruises and wounds inflicted ... For the last two days the Jersey steam boats have been loaded with numbers of the colored population, who, fearful their lives were not safe in this, determined to seek refuge in another State. On the Jersey side, tents were erected, and the negroes have taken up a temporary residence, until a prospect shall be offered for their perpetual location in some place of security and liberty."--_National Gazette_.

The facts we have now exhibited, abundantly prove the extreme cruelty and sinfulness of that prejudice against color which we are impiously told is an ORDINATION OF PROVIDENCE. Colonizationists, a.s.suming the prejudice to be natural and invincible, propose to remove its victims beyond its influence. Abolitionists, on the contrary, remembering with the Psalmist, that "It is HE that hath made us, and not we ourselves," believe that the benevolent Father of us all requires us to treat with justice and kindness every portion of the human family, notwithstanding any particular organization he has been pleased to impress upon them. Instead, therefore, of gratifying and fostering this prejudice, by continually banishing from our country those against whom it is directed, Abolitionists are anxious to destroy the prejudice itself; feeling, to use the language of another, that--"It is time to recognize in the humblest portions of society, partakers of our nature with all its high prerogatives and awful destinies--time to remember that our distinctions are _exterior_ and evanescent, our resemblance real and permanent--that all is transient but what is moral and spiritual--that the only graces we can carry with us into another world, are graces of divine implantation, and that amid the rude incrustations of poverty and ignorance there lurks an imperishable jewel--a SOUL, susceptible of the highest spiritual beauty, destined, perhaps, to adorn the celestial abodes, and to shine for ever in the mediatorial diadem of the Son of G.o.d--_Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones_."

No. 13.

THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER.

CAN ABOLITIONISTS VOTE OR TAKE OFFICE UNDER THE UNITED STATES CONSt.i.tUTION?

"The preservation, propagation, and perpetuation of slavery is the vital and animating spirit of the National Government."

NEW YORK: AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, 142 Na.s.sAU STREET

1815.

INTRODUCTION.

The American Anti-Slavery Society, at its Annual Meeting in May, 1844, adopted the following Resolution:

_Resolved_, That secession from the present United States government is the duty of every abolitionist; since no one can take office, or throw a vote for another to hold office, under the United States Const.i.tution, without violating his anti-slavery principles, and rendering himself an abettor of the slaveholder in his sin.

The pa.s.sage of this Resolution has caused two charges to be brought against the Society: _First_, that it is a _no-government_ body, and that the whole doctrine of non-resistance is endorsed by this vote:--and _secondly_, that the Society transcended its proper sphere and const.i.tutional powers by taking such a step.

The logic which infers that because a man thinks the Federal Government bad, he must necessarily think _all_ government so, has at least, the merit and the charm of novelty. There is a spice of arrogance just perceptible, in the conclusion that the Const.i.tution of these United States is so perfect, that one who dislikes it could never be satisfied with any form of government whatever!

Were O'Connell and his fellow Catholics non-resistants, because for two hundred years they submitted to exclusion from the House of Lords and the House of Commons, rather than qualify themselves for a seat by an oath abjuring the Pope? Were the _non-juring_ Bishops of England non-resistants, when they went down to the grave without taking their seats in the House of Lords, rather than take an oath denying the Stuarts and to support the House of Hanover? Both might have purchased power at the price of one annual falsehood. There are some in this country who do not seem to think that price at all unreasonable. It were a rare compliment indeed to the non-resistants, if every exhibition of rigid principle on the part of an individual is to make the world suspect him of leaning towards their faith.

The Society is not opposed to government, but only to _this_ Government based upon and acting for slavery.

With regard to the second charge, of exceeding its proper limits and trespa.s.sing on the rights of the minority, it is enough to say, that the object of the American Anti-Slavery Society is the "entire abolition of slavery in the United States." Of course it is its duty to find out all the sources of pro-slavery influence in the land. It is its right, it is its duty to try every inst.i.tution in the land, no matter how venerable, or sacred, by the touchstone of anti-slavery principle; and if it finds any one false, to proclaim that fact to the world, with more or less of energy, according to its importance in society. It has tried the Const.i.tution, and p.r.o.nounced it unsound.

No member's conscience need be injured--The qualification for membership remains the same, "the belief that slave-holding is a heinous crime"--No new test has been set up--But the majority of the Society, for the time being, faithful to its duty of trying every inst.i.tution by the light of the present day--of uttering its opinion on every pa.s.sing event that touches the slave's welfare, has seen it to be duty to sound forth its warning,

NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS.

No one who did not vote for the Resolution is responsible for it. No one is asked to quit our platform. We, the majority, only ask him to extend to our opinions the same toleration that we extend to him, and agreeing to differ on this point, work together where we can. We proscribe no man for difference of opinion.

It is said, that having refused in 1840, to say that a man _ought to vote_, on the ground that such a resolution would be tyrannical and intolerant, the Society is manifestly inconsistent now in taking upon itself to say that no abolitionist _can_ consistently vote. But the inconsistency is only apparent and not real.

There may he a thousand reasons why a particular individual ought not to do an act, though the act be innocent in itself. It would be tyranny therefore in a society which can properly take notice of but one subject, slavery, to promulgate the doctrine that all its members ought to do any particular act, as for instance, to vote, to give money, to lecture, to pet.i.tion, or the like. The particular circ.u.mstances and opinions of each one must regulate his actions.

All we have a right to ask is, that he do for the slave's cause as much as he does for any other of equal importance. But when an act is wrong, it is no intolerance to say to the whole world that it ought _not to be done_. After the abolitionist has granted that slavery is wrong, we have the right to judge him by his own principles, and arraign him for inconsistency that, so believing, he helps the slaveholder by his oath.

The following pages have been hastily thrown together in explanation of the vote above recited. They make no pretension to a full argument of the topic. I hope that in a short time I shall get leisure sufficient to present to our opponents, unless some one does it for me, a full statement of the reasons which have led us to this step.

I am aware that we non-voters are rather singular. But history, from the earliest Christians downwards, is full of instances of men who refused all connection with government, and all the influence which office could bestow, rather than deny their principles, or aid in doing wrong. Yet I never heard them called either idiots or over-scrupulous. Sir Thomas More need never have mounted the scaffold, had he only consented to take the oath of supremacy. He had only to tell a lie with solemnity, as we are asked to do, and he might not only have saved his life, but, as the trimmers of his day would have told him, doubled his influence. Pitt resigned his place as Prime Minister of England, rather than break faith with the Catholics of Ireland. Should I not resign a petty ballot rather than break faith with the slave? But I was specially glad to find a distinct recognition of the principle upon which we have acted, applied to a different point, in the life of that Patriarch of the Anti-Slavery enterprise, Granville Sharpe. It is in a late number of the Edinburgh Review. While an underclerk in the War Office, he sympathized with our fathers in their struggle for independence.

"Orders reached his office to ship munitions of war to the revolted colonies. If his hand had entered the account of such a cargo, it would have contracted in his eyes the stain of innocent blood. To avoid this pollution, he resigned his place and his means of subsistence at a period of life when be could no longer hope to find any other lucrative employment." As the thoughtful clerk of the War Office takes his hat down from the peg where it has used to hang for twenty years, methinks I hear one of our opponents cry out, "Friend Sharpe, you are absurdly scrupulous." "You may innocently aid Government in doing wrong," adds another. While Liberty Party yelps at his heels, "My dear Sir, you are quite losing your influence!"

And indeed it is melancholy to reflect how, from that moment the mighty underclerk of the War Office(!) dwindled into the mere Granville Sharpe of history! the man of whom Mansfield and Hargrave were content to learn law, and Wilberforce, philanthropy.

One friend proposes to vote for men who shall be pledged not to take office unless the oath to the Const.i.tution is dispensed with, and who shall then go on to perform in their offices only such duties as we, their const.i.tuents, approve. He cites, in support of his view, the election of O'Connell to the House of Commons, in 1828, I believe, just one year before the "Oath of Supremacy," which was the objectionable one to the Catholics, was dispensed with. Now, if we stood in the same circ.u.mstances as the Catholics did in 1828, the example would be in point. When the public mind is thoroughly revolutionized, and ready for the change, when the billow has reached its height and begins to crest into foam, then such a measure may bring matters to a crisis. But let us first go through, in patience, as O'Connell did, our twenty years of agitation.

Waiving all other objections, this plan seems to me mere playing at politics, and an entire waste of effort.

It loses our high position as moral reformers; it subjects us to all that malignant opposition and suspicion of motives which attend the array of parties; and while thus closing up our access to the national conscience, it wastes in fruitless caucussing and party tactics, the time and the effort which should have been directed to efficient agitation.

The history of our Union is lesson enough, for every candid mind, of the fatal effects of every, the least, compromise with evil. The experience of the fifty years pa.s.sed under it, shows us the slaves trebling in numbers;--slaveholders monopolizing the offices and dictating the policy of the Government;--prost.i.tuting the strength and influence of the Nation to the support of slavery here and elsewhere;--trampling on the rights of the free States, and making the courts of the country their tools. To continue this disastrous alliance longer is madness. The trial of fifty years only proves that it is impossible for free and slave States to unite on any terms, without all becoming partners in the guilt and responsible for the sin of slavery. Why prolong the experiment? Let every honest man join in the outcry of the American Anti-Slavery Society,

NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS.

WENDELL PHILLIPS.

_Boston, Jan_. 15, 1845.

THE NO-VOTING THEORY.

"G.o.d never made a CITIZEN, and no one will escape as a man, from the sins which he commits as a citizen."

Can an abolitionist consistently take office, or vote, under the Const.i.tution of the United States?

1st. What is an abolitionist?

One who thinks slaveholding a sin in all circ.u.mstances, and desires its abolition. Of course such an one cannot consistently aid another in holding his slave;--in other words, I cannot innocently aid a man in doing that which I think wrong. No amount of fancied good will justify me in joining another in doing wrong, unless I adopt the principle "of doing evil that good may come."