XIX. That we recommend the introduction nation into two parts-the Northern and the into all treaties hereafter to be negotiated be- Southern-of which the principles should be tween the United States and foreign nations, Slavery and Anti-Slavery. Five years ago, of some provision for the amicable settlement what seemed more unlikely than that the of difficulties by a resort to decisive arbitration. nation should be divided into strictly sectional XX. That the Free Democratic party is not parties as it is now? The Whigs were runorganized to aid either the Whig or Democratic ning up their bids for slaveholding support wing of the great Slave Compromise party of with a desperation which showed that they the nation, but to defeat them both; and that had abandoned any other hope of success. repudiating and renouncing both, as hope- Daniel Webster had abandoned all hope of a lessly corrupt, and utterly unworthy of confi- North, and had flung himself and all he had dence, the purpose of the Free Democracy is at the feet of the slave-masters, as his last and to take possession of the Federal Government, only chance for the eminence he sighed for. and administer it for the better protection of They spurned him away, to be sure, and sent the rights and interests of the whole people. him broken-hearted into his grave; but they appointed both the candidates and elected the one they loved the best. XXI. That we inscribe on our banner, Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men, and under it will fight on and fight ever, until a triumphant victory shall reward our exertions. XXII. That upon this platform the Convention presents to the American people, as a candidate for the office of President of the United States, John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, and as a candidate for the office of Vice President of the United States, George W. Julian, of Indiana, and earnestly commends them to the support of all freemen and parties. For the Anti-Slavery Platform of 1852, see "Republican Platform." Abolitionists and Republicans. EXTRACTS FROM Letters, SpeecheS, AND RE SOLVES OF. "THE ABOLITIONISTS AS PROPHETS.-Whoever has been an attentive reader of antislavery literature and journalism for the last fifteen or twenty years, cannot but have been struck with the spirit of prophecy that runs through it all. To be sure, the Abolitionists may be said to belong to that large class of prophets who help to bring about the accomplishment of their own predictions. But it is a proof that they have known what they wanted, and also how best to bring it about. They have had a clear vision from the beginning of the way in which they were to walk, and of the work which they had to do. They acted on certain fixed principles, basing their measures on the nature of things and the nature of man; and, as their principles were eternally right, and their views of man and his ways founded on reason and experience, and as their speculations and their practice had no taint of selfishness in them, it was almost inevitable that they should see clearly and act sagaciously. Only, they have not seen half that was to come to pass, and the times were hidden from them, so that they are astonished at the haste with which the procession of events hurries past, in spite of the second-sight which discerned their coming shadows in the distant future. "Among the many predictions which they have uttered, or rather the many statements they have made, as to what must come to pass, the one which, five or six years ago, seemed the wildest, was the necessary division of the "The idea of a Northern party, of a party which should not extend its ramifications into the Southern States, was regarded as something worse than a chimera, as a positive imagining of the death of the republic, as a positive misprision of treason. What a change has come over the dreams of the people since then! The Whig party, five years ago in power, and with a reasonable prospect of maintaining it, now dispersed, is demolished and ground to powder. Their very name has vanished from the face of the earth-or exists only as a mockery and a laughing-stock. The Abolitionists foresaw that this must come to pass; but they did not dream of its accomplishing itself so soon." That the national parties should sooner or later divide on the only real matter of dispute existing in the country, was inevitable." 66 "But the lines are now drawn, and the hosts are encamped over against each other. The attempt to keep up a delusive alliance with natural enemies has been abandoned. "The Abolitionists have been telling these things in the ears of the people for a quarter of a century. They have had a double part in what has come to pass, both by preparing the minds of the people of the North, and by compelling the people of the South to the very atrocities which have startled the North into attention. Nothing but the madness which ushers in destruction and the pride which goeth before a fall, on the part of the slaveholders, could have roused the sluggish North from its comfortable dreams of wealth, and made it put itself even into a posture of resistance." "The North is in a state of excitement, temporary perhaps, but real for the time, and the widening lines of division between the North and South are growing deep and distinct. "It is long since this paper took the ground that the first thing, though by no means the only thing, needful was the formation of sectional parties-of parties distinctly Northern and Southern, and of necessity, slavery and anti-slavery. We rejoice that our eyes behold the day of that beginning of the end. Not that we have any very exalted hopes from the success of the Republican party, even if we considered its success a very likely thing. All that it purposes to itself is to keep slavery out of Kansas, provided the actual settlers there do not want to have it in. This is a very small platform for a great party to stand upon, it must be owned; and in rejoicing to see it, we certainly are grateful for very moderate mercies. But it is not the platform that is significant-it is not the point nominally at issue that is the material thing. The position is everything. It is the attitude that is expressive and encouraging. It is the entire separation of the party from all southern alliance, and from all possibility of slaveholding help, that gives it its encouraging aspect, and makes it, with all its shortenings, a thing to thank God for. We need hardly say that we do not look upon this new party as one that should supersede the anti-slavery movement. It has sprung from that movement, and whatever of strength and hope it has lies in the anti-slavery feeling of the Northern mind. It is vain that servile menpleasers seek to separate this effect from its anti-slavery origin. The slaveholders stamp it with its real character, and describe it better than it likes to do itself. It is true that the differing sagacities of the Slaveholders and the Abolitionists both discern that this must be the ultimate result."-From the New York National Anti-Slavery Standard, June 21, 1856. Debate in the New England Anti-Slavery Convention, on the 29th of May, 1856. Mr. William Lloyd Garrison said :— "I come now to the Republican party; and while I do not forget its actual position under the Constitution and within the Union, I am constrained to differ in judgment from some of my respected friends here about the comparative merits of that party. I think that they do not always accord to it all that justice demands; that they overlook the necessary formation of such a party as the result of our moral agitation; and I marvel that they do not see that to quarrel with it, to the extent they are doing, is to quarrel with cause and effect with the work of our own hands. "Mrs. Foster.-I admit that the party is our own progeny; but, as every child needs a great deal of reproof and constant effort to bring it up in the way it should go, this party, which is the necessary offspring of our efforts, needs constant admonition and rebuke; and, God giving me strength, I will not spare it an hour until it is fully educated, reformed, and brought up to the high position of truth and duty. [Applause.] "Mr. Foster.-Do you believe they can suc eeed? "I cannot, therefore, agree with such of our friends here as regard it as the worst or most dangerous party with which our movement has to contend. In its attitude toward the slave power, in the amount of conscience and humanity to be found in it, in its direct effort to baffle the designs of the slave oligarchy respecting the territories of the country, it is a far better party than either of the others, and to that extent it is a sign of progress which we have no cause to lament. I have said again and again, that in proportion to the growth of disunionism will be the growth of Republicanism or Free-Soilism. I think if you will examine the map of Massachusetts, for example, you will find this to hold true, with singular uniformity: that in those places where there are the most Abolitionists who have disfranchised themselves for conscience and the slave's sake, the heaviest vote is thrown for the Free-Soil ticket. This is as inevitable as the law of gravitation. The greater includes the less. If we should begin our work over again, and try the same experiment ten thousand times over, we should have the same result in the formation of the same party. Why, then, should any one speak in a tone of despondency, or feel that our cause is in imminent danger of being wrecked? Is this to take a philosophical view of the subject? Such then, is my judgment of the Republican party." -- Although I am not one of that class of men who cry for the perpetuation of the Union, though I am willing in a certain state of circumstances to led it slide,' I have no fear for its perpetuation. But let me say, if the chief object of the people of this country be to maintain and propagate chattel property in man, in other words, human slavery, this Union cannot and ought not to stand."Speech of Mr. Speaker Banks.* On the 16th of January, 1855, the Rev. Mr. Beecher said, in a lecture in New York, on the subject of cutting the North from the South: 66 'All attempts at evasion, at adjourning, at concealing and compromising, are in vain. The reason of our long agitation is, not that restless Abolitionists are abroad, that ministers will meddle with improper themes, that parties are disregardful of their country's interest. These are symptoms only, not the disease; the effects, not the causes. "Two great powers that will not live together are in our midst, and tugging at each other's throats. They will search each other out, though you separate them a hundred "Mr. Garrison.-Certainly not! But that times. And if by an insane blindness you is not the question. They believe that they shall contrive to put off the issue, and send can. They laugh at my incredulity because this unsettled dispute down to your children, I do not believe it. I think that, ere long, it will go down, gathering volume and strength they will be satisfied that I am right, and that at every step, to waste and desolate their herit they have been deluded; in which case, I age. Let it be settled now. Clear the place. expect then to hear them cry, 'Excelsior-come Bring in the champions. Let them put their up higher!' and to see many of them take their position under the banner of disunion. Mr. Banks disclaims this sentiment. lances in rest for the charge. Sound the tion in the North, and he defended the new trumpet, and God save the right!” At a public meeting held in his church, to promote emigration to Kansas, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher made the following remarks, as we find them in the report of the New York Evening Post: "He believed that the Sharp rifle was truly moral agency, and there was more moral power in one of those instruments, so far as the slaveholders of Kansas were concerned, than in a hundred Bibles. You might just as well, said he, read the Bible to buffaloes as to those fellows who follow Atchison and Stringfellow; but they have a supreme respect for the logic that is embodied in Sharp's rifles. The Bible is addressed to the conscience; but when you address it to them it has no effectthere is no conscience there. Though he was a peace man, he had the greatest regard for Sharp's rifles, and for that pluck that induced those New England men to use them. In such issues, under such circumstances, he was decidedly in favor of such instrumentalities. General Scott had said it was difficult to get the New England men into a quarrel, but when they are waked up and have the law on their side, they are the ugliest customers in the world." "The object to be accomplished is this: That the free states shall take possession of the government by their united votes. Minor interests and old party affiliations and prejudices must be forgotten. We have the power in number; our strength is in union."-Simon Brown, Massachusetts Free-Soil Candidate for Lieutenant Governor. movement,' which he said was born of Puritan This new party should be judged, like others, blood, and was against despotism of all kinds. by its fruits. It had elected a champion of freedom to the United States Senate for four years, to fill the place of a man who was false to freedom, and not true to slavery. For him self, he could say that, so long as life dwelt in his bosom, so long would he fight for liberty and against slavery. In conclusion, he expressed the hope that soon the time might come when the sun should not rise on a master, nor set on a slave.”—Mr. Burlingame. 'I will not stop to inquire whether or not the act is constitutional. If it is not, it ought to be. I view the act as the faithful expression of the moral sentiment of the people of Massachusetts."-Mayor Chapin of Worces ter. land, France, and Spain, may take this slaveryThen my most fervent prayer is that Engaccursed nation into their special consideration; and when the time arrives for the streets of the cities of this land of the free and home of the brave' to run with blood to the horses' bridles, if the writer of this be living there will be one heart to rejoice at the retributive justice of Heaven."—Mr. W. O. Duval. "If the Angel Gabriel had done what their fathers did, he would be a scoundrel for it. Their fathers placed within the Constitution a provision for the rendition of fugitive slaves, and therein did a wicked thing. It would have been no more wrong for George the "If asked to state specially what he would Third to put chains on George Washington do, he would answer: First, repeal the Ne- than it was for George Washington to put braska bill; second, repeal the fugitive slave chains on the limbs of his slaves. Their law; third, abolish slavery in the District of fathers had undoubtedly believed that they Columbia; fourth, abolish the inter-state slave- had made a government which would work trade; next, he would declare that slavery beautifully, and that in a few years slavery should not spread to one inch of the territory would be extinct. But in that they were of the Union; he would then put the govern- deceived. The government was running as it ment actually and perpetually on the side of was made to run, and it could not be made to freedom-by which he meant that a bright-run otherwise; so the Republicans might not eyed boy in Massachusetts should have as good a chance for promotion in the Navy as a boy of one of the first families in Virginia. He would have our foreign consuls take side with the noble Kossuth, and against that butcher Bedini. He would have judges who believe in a higher law, and an anti-slavery constitution, an anti-slavery Bible, and an anti-slavery God! Having thus denationalized slavery, he would not menace it in the states where it exists; but would say to the states, It is your local institution-hug it to your bosom until it destroys you. But he would say, You must let our freedom alone. [Applause.] If you but touch the hem of the garinent of freedom we will trample you to the earth. [Loud applause.] This is the only condition of repose, and it must come to this. He was encouraged by the recent elec boast of what they would do if they had the government as it was in the days of Washington and Jefferson. It was said in the good book that the Lord sitteth on a high throne, and that all mankind are as grasshoppers before him. He expected that that included Congress and the President, and the Supreme Court, and the Church. [Laughter.] Where slavery and freedom are put in the one nation there must be a fight-there must be an explosion, just as if fire and powder were brought together. There never was an hour when this blasphemous and infamous government should be made, and now the hour was to be prayed for when that disgrace to humanity should be dashed to pieces for ever." Rev. Andrew T. Foss of N. H. at the American Anti-Slavery Society meeting at New Fork, May 13, 1857. "If Kansas were saved from oppression | in favor of the fugitive slave bill. I never while the Carolinas were under the heel voted for a man who favored it, knowing such of the slaveholder, it would be said God is a liar.' They had to strike off every chain from every Southern slave. To do that the sum proposed to be raised was insignificant. Nevertheless, she hoped that those persons present would be induced to double their subscriptions and contributions this year, which is the best year for their labor."-Abby Kelly Foster at the American Anti-Slavery Society meeting, May 13, 1857. to be his views, and I must very much change before I ever do. I never, by word, act, or vote, favored its passage, and I am an advocate of its essential modification, or in lieu thereof, its unconditional repeal. Returning from Canada last June, I read in the cars that there was a petition for its repeal at the Exchange news room, and, on my arrival, before even going to my place of business, I hastened to the Exchange, and signed the petition."Hon. Henry J. Gardner. "So long as this blood-stained Union existed it out of their own nature. Let them suppose York on the 1st day of August, 1855:— "They demanded justice for the slave at any price of constitution, of Union, of country. This was the principle of the anti-slavery association. It was it which urged their next demand-the immediate emancipation of the slave for the same reason as they would demand of a person pursuing a vicious course of drunkenness, gambling, or debauchery, that he should desist from it at once, at any cost of physical pain. Immediate emancipation presented no financial or political difficulty. He believed that this Union effectually prevented them from advancing in the least degree the work of the slave's redemption. Disunion is a spiritual process. It must be begun, ended, and potentially completed in the mind before it is commenced as a fact. They could break from it internally with no greater convulsion than would arise from passing from one state of temper to another. The breaking off from the savage idea of money-making would be a step leading to disunion. Let such an internal disunion be effected, and the dissolution of the states would follow as a it impossible from the beginning for liberty "The issue is this: God Almighty has made matter of course. God be thanked, said he, and slavery to mingle together, or a union to this internal disunion already exists. [Slight be founded between abolitionists and slaveapplause.] The Northern people were begin-holders-between those who oppress and those ning to see that the South was divided from them by its system of labor and by its ideas of who are oppressed. This Union is a lie; the American Union is a sham, an imposture, a human rights. They wanted to make that gulf of division deeper. They wanted it to be covenant with death, an agreement with hell, understood that there could be no union be- and it is our business to call for a dissolution. tween light and darkness. They must cherish Let that Union be accursed wherein three a conviction which could not live and breathe millions and a half of slaves can be driven to in the same atmosphere with the slaveholders. unrequited toil by their masters. If they would abolish the ignorance and "I will continue to experiment no longergloom in which the crime of slavery shadows it is all madness. Let the slaveholding Union itself, they must withdraw from it. and slavery will go with the Union down temper of malignity or animosity toward the into the dust. If the Church is against disslaveholders need this be done. As to the union, and not on the side of the slave, then I Ford Union' they all knew it was but a popronounce it as of the devil. litical catchword."-Rev. O. B. Frothingham of N. J. at the American Anti-Slavery Society meeting, New York, May 13, 1857. In no go, "Were the same charge made against yourself, it could not be more groundless than it is against me. The power of language does not permit me to express the utter loathing I have for the conduct attributed to me. Far sooner would I be the poor quivering wretch on the road again to the agony of bondage, than a volunteer guard to aid in his return. He who invented the charge grossly slandered me; they who repeat it, or believe it, do not know me. "It is not true that I am, or have ever been, thieves and adulterers, and give to the winds "I say let us cease striking hands with the rallying cry, 'no union with slaveholders, socially or religiously, and up with the flag of disunion."" The following extracts are taken from a letter addressed by the Hon. J. R. Giddings, of the House of Representatives, to an antifugitive slave law meeting held at Palmyra, Ohio, in 1850: "The fugitive slave law commands us to participate in arresting and sending victims to this Southern immolation by torture a thousand times more cruel than ordinary as sassination. I would be as willing to handle is familiar to my readers; but the recollection the scourge to sink the thong into his quivering flesh, and to tear from him the life which God has given him-as to seize him and hand him over to his tormentors, with the full knowledge and conviction that they will do it. Nor is the crime of the slave-catcher less in the sight of God and good men than is the guilt of him who consummates the outrage by this final sacrifice of the victim. "Yet we are told we must obey this law, and perpetuate these crimes, until a slave-ridden Congress shall see fit to reclaim us from such sin against God by repealing the law. Whether it be right to obey God rather than man, judge ye.' From my innermost soul, I abhor, detest, and repudiate this law. I despise the human being who would obey it, if such a being has existence. I should regard such a man as a moral nuisance, contaminating the air of freedom, and would kick him from my door should he attempt to enter my dwelling. "The authors of this law may take from me my substance, may imprison me, or take my life; but they have not the power to degrade me, by compelling me to commit such transcendent crimes against my fellow man and against God's law. "I rejoice exceedingly that the people of the free states comprehend and appreciate this insult to every freeman at the North. Public feeling is aroused; popular indignation is speaking trumpet-tongued to those servants of the people who dared thus degrade the American character by constituting us the catchpoles of Southern slave-hunters." The Columbus (Ohio) State Journal, Rep., contains the following extract, taken from a Washington letter, dated the 5th of December, 1856: "On the 1st of December, at a very full meeting of the members opposed to the extension of slavery, the following resolution was offered by Mr. Giddings, and adopted without a dissenting voice: 66 Resolved, That we will support no man for Speaker who is not pledged to carry out the parliamentary law by giving to each proposed measure ordered by the House to be committed a majority of such special committee, and to organize the standing committees of the House by placing on each a majority of the friends of freedom, and who are favorable to making reports on all petitions committed to them." The Hon. J. R. Giddings, in a letter to the Ashtabula (Ohio) Sentinel, dated Washington, December 6, 1855 (a letter which he subsequently admitted to be his on the floor of the House), thus spoke of the above meeting and its resolve:- is, perhaps, more vividly impressed on my own mind than that of any other man living. I will not, however, trust my pen nor my language to express the emotions which I then experienced. "Our friends now appeared to feel that we had found a common sentiment and a common principle on which we could rally. Hope seemed to cheer them, and a firmer purpose to unite appeared to pervade the minds of all present." "Why, sir, I never saw a panting fugitive speeding his way to a land of freedom, that an involuntary invocation did not burst from my lips, that God would aid him in his flight! Such are the feelings of every man in our free states, whose heart has not become hardened in iniquity. I do not confine this virtue to Republicans, nor to Anti-Slavery men; I speak of all men, of all parties, in all Christian communities. Northern Democrats feel it; they ordinarily bow to this higher law of their natures, and they only prove recreant to the law of the Most High,' when they regard the interests of the Democratic party as superior to God's law and the rights of mankind. "Gentlemen will bear with me when I assure them and the President that I have seen as many as nine fugitives dining at one time in my own house-fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, parents, and children. When they came to my door, hungry and faint, cold and but partially clad, I did not turn round to consult the Fugitive Law, nor to ask the President what I should do. I knew the constitution of obeyed the divine mandate, to feed the hungry my country, and would not violate it. I and clothe the naked. I fed them. I clothed them, gave them money for their journey, and sent them on their way rejoicing. I obeyed God rather than the President. I obeyed my of my moral being, the commands of Heaven, conscience, the dictates of my heart, the law and, I will add, of the constitution of my country; for no man of intelligence ever believed that the framers of that instrument intended to involve their descendants of the free states in any act that should violate the teachings of the Most High, by seizing a fellow-being, and returning him to the hell of slavery. If that be treason, make the most of it. know if the gentleman would not have gone "Mr. BENNETT, of Mississippi. I want to one step further? "Mr. GIDDINGS. Yes, sir; I would have gone one step further. I would have driven the slave-catcher who dared pursue them from my premises. I would have kicked him from my door-yard, if he had made his appearance there; or, had he attempted to enter my dwelling, I would have stricken him down upon the threshold of my door. "I do not speak these things to give the President unhappiness. I mention them to show the people of our free states the rights |