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No. 13. 
 
 ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER. 
 
 Hliili; 
 
 CAN 
 
 ^y, 
 
 /) 
 
 ABOLITIONISTS" 
 
 VOTE OR TAKE OFFICE UNDER 
 
 UNITED STATES 
 
 CONSTITUTION? 
 
 "The preservation, propagation, and perpetuation of slavery is the vital and 
 animating spirit of the National Government." J. Q. Adams. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, 
 
 142 Nassau Street. 
 
 1845. 
 
 
CONGRESS 
 ; ftR/AL RECORD 
 
 J SEP 8^ 
 
 
 
\~- 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The American Ami-Slavery Society, at its Annual Meeting 
 in May, 1844, adopted the following Resolution : 
 
 Resolved, That secession from the present United States gov- 
 ernment 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 Constitution, without violating his anti-slavery principles, 
 and rendering himself an abettor of the slaveholder in his sin. 
 
 The passage 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 constitutional 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 Constitution 
 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 them- 
 
selves for a seat by an oath abjuring the Pope? Were the non- 
 juring Bisliops of England non-resistants, when they went down 
 to tlie grave without taking their seats in the House of Lords, 
 ratiier 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 tliis country 
 who do not seem to think that price at all unreasonable. It were 
 a rare compliment indeed to the non-resistants, if eve y 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 
 (lovernmeut based upon and acting for slavery. 
 
 With regard to the "second charge, of exceeding its proper 
 limits and trespassing 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 riglit, it is its duty to try every institution in 
 the land, no matter how venerable, or sacred, by the touch- 
 stone of anti-slavery principle; and if it finds any one false, to 
 proclaim that fact to tiie world, with more or less of energy, ac- 
 cording to its im|)ortance in society. It has tried the Constitution, 
 and pronounced 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 lime being, faithful to its duty of 
 trying every institution by the light of the present day — of utter- 
 ing its opinion on every passing event that touches the slave's 
 welfare, has seen it to be duty to sound forth its warning. 
 
 No Union with Slavkholders. 
 
 No one who did not vole for ihe Resolution is responsible for 
 it. No one is asked to (piit our platform. We, the majority, only 
 ask hlin to extend to o\w opinions the same toleration that we extend 
 to him, and agreeing to diller on this point, work together where 
 we can. Wc j)roscribe no man for diderence of opinion. 
 
It is said, that having refused ii 1840, to sry 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 apjDarent and not real. 
 
 There may be 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 petition, or the like. The particular 
 circ imstances and opinions of each one nust 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 
 koi\ght not to be done. After the abolitionist has granted that sla- 
 very is wrong, we have the right to judge him by his own princi- 
 ples, and arraign him for inconsistency that, so believing, he helps 
 the slaveholder by his oath. 
 
 The following pages have been hastily thrown together in ex- 
 planation of the vote above recited. They make no pretension 
 to a full argument of tiie topic. I hope that in a short time I 
 shall get leisure suffi ient to present to our op| onents, 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 INIore 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 Kngland, 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 difierent point, in the life of that Patriarch of 
 the Anti-Slavery enterprise, Granville Sharpe. It is in a late 
 nunnber 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 he 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 Constitution is dispensed with, 
 and who shall then go on to perform in their offices only such 
 duties as we, their constituents, 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 Suprema- 
 cy," which was the objectionable one to the Catholics, was dis- 
 pensed with. Now, if we stood in the same circumstances 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. 
 ]Jut let us first go through, in patience, as O'Connell did, our 
 twenty years of agitation. Waiving all other objections, this plan 
 seems to mo mere playing at politics, and an entire waste of eflort. 
 
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 tac- 
 tics, 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 passed under it, shows us the 
 slaves trebling in numbers ; — slaveholders monopolizing the offices 
 and dictating the policy of the Government ; — prostituting the 
 strength and influence of the Nation to the support of slavery here 
 and elsewhere ; — trampling on the rights of tlie 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 responsi- 
 ble 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. 
 
 " God never made a citizen, and no one will escape as a man, from the sina 
 which he commits aa a citizen." 
 
 Can an abolitionist consistently take office, or vote, under the 
 Constitution of the United States ? 
 
 1st. What is an abolitionist ? 
 
 One who thinks slaveholding a sin in all circumstances, and 
 desires its abolition. Of course such an one cannot consistently 
 aid another in holding his slave ;— in other words, I cannot inno- 
 cently aid a man in doing that which 1 think wrong. No amount 
 of fancied good will justify me in joining another in doing wrong, 
 unless 1 adopt the principle "of doing evil that good may come." 
 
 2d. What do taking office and voting under the Constitution 
 imply ? 
 
 The President swears " to execute the office of president," 
 and " to preserve, protect, an<i defend the Constitution of the Uni- 
 ted States. " The judges *' to discharge the duties incumbent upon 
 them agreeably to the constitution and laws of the United States." 
 
 All executive, legislative, and judicial officers, both of the sev- 
 eral States and of the General Government, before entering on the 
 performance of their official duties, are bound to take an oath or 
 affirmation, <' io support the Constitution of the United States.'' This 
 is what every office-holder expressly promises in so many icords. 
 It is a contract between him and the ichole nation. The voter, 
 who, by voting, sends his fellow citizen into office as his repre- 
 sentative, knowing beforehand that the taking of this oath is the 
 2 
 
10 
 
 first duty his agent will have to perform, does by his vote, request 
 and authorize liim to take It. He therefore, by voting, imphedly 
 engage* to support the Constitution. Wl.at one does by his agent 
 he does himself. Of course no honest man will authorize and 
 request another to do an act which he thinks it wrong to do him- 
 self ! Every voter, therefore, is bound to see, before voting, 
 whether he could himself honestly swear to support the con- 
 stitution. Now what does this oath of office-holders relate to 
 and imply.' " It applies," says Chief Justice Marshall, "in an 
 especial manner, to their conduct in their official character." 
 Judge Story, in his Commentaries on the Constitution, speaks of 
 it as " a solemn obligation to the due execution of the trusts re- 
 posed in them, and to support the Constitution." It is universally 
 considered throughout the country, by common men and by the 
 courts, as a promise to do what the Constitution bids, and to avoid 
 what it forbids. It was in the spirit of this oath, under which he 
 spake, that Daniel Webster said in New York, " The Constitu- 
 tion gave it (slavery) solemn guaranties. To the full extent 
 of these guaranties we are all bound by the Constitution. All the 
 stipulations contained in the Constitution in favor of the slavehold- 
 ing States ought to be fulfilled ; and so far as depends on me, shall 
 be fulfilled, in the fulness of tiieir spirit and to the exactness of 
 their letter." 
 
 It is more than an oath of allegiance ; more than a mere prom- 
 ise that we will not resist the laws. For it is an engagement to 
 "support them"; as an officer of government, to carry them into 
 effect. Without such a promise on the part of its functionaries, 
 how could government exist ? It is more than the expression of 
 that obligation which rests on all peaceable citizens to submit to 
 laws, even though they will not actively support them. For it is 
 the promise which the judge makes, that he will actually do the 
 business of the comts; which the shcrilF assumes, tliat he will ac- 
 tuallv execute the laws. 
 
 Let it bo remarket], tiiai it is an oath to support the Con- 
 stitution — that is, the. whole of it ; there arc no exceptions. 
 And let it l)e remembered, tiiat by it each ouc makes a contract 
 with the whole nation^ that he will do certain acts. 
 
11 
 
 3d. "What is the Constitution which each voter tlius engages 
 to support ? 
 
 It contains the following clauses : 
 
 Art. 1, Sect. 2. Representatives and direct taxes shall be 
 apportioned among the several vStates, which may be included 
 within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which 
 shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free per- 
 sons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and 
 exc iding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons. 
 
 Art. 1, Sect. 8. Congress shall have power ... to sup- 
 press insurrections. 
 
 Art. 4, Sec. 2. No person, held to service or labor in one 
 State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in con- 
 sequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such 
 service or labor ; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party 
 to whom such service or labor may be due. 
 
 Art. 4, Sect. 4. The United States shall guarantee to every 
 State in this Union a republican form of government ; and shall 
 protect each of them against invasion ; and, on application of the 
 legislature, or of the executive, (when the legislature cannot be 
 convened) against domestic violence. 
 
 The first of these clauses, relating to representation, gives to 
 10,000 inhabitants of Carolina equal weight in the government with 
 40,000 inhabitants of Massachusetts, provided they are rich enough 
 to hold 50,000 slaves : — and accordingly confers on a slaveholding 
 community additional political power for every slave held among 
 them, thus tempting them to continue to uphold the system : 
 
 Its result has been, in the language of John Quincy Adams, 
 " to make the preservation, propagation, and perpetuation of sla- 
 very the vital and animating spirit of the National Government ;" 
 and again, to enable " a knot of slaveholders to give the law and 
 prescribe the policy of the country." So that "since 1830 sla- 
 very, slaveholding, slavebreeding, and slavetrading have formed the 
 whole foundation of the policy of the Federal Government." The 
 second and the last articles relating to insurrection and domestic vio- 
 lence, perfectly innocent in themselves — yet being made with the 
 fact directly in view that slavery exists among us, do deliberately 
 pledge the whole national force against the unhappy slave if he 
 imitate our fathers and resist oppression — thus making us partners 
 in the guilt of sustaining slavery : the third is a promise, on the 
 
12 
 
 part of the whole North, to return fugitive slaves to their masters ; 
 a deed which God's law expressly condemns, and which every 
 nohle feeling of our nature repudiates with loathing and contempt. 
 These are the clauses which the aholiiionist, by voting or 
 taking office, engages to uphold. While he considers slaveholding 
 to be sin, he still rewards the master with additional political power 
 for every additional slave that he can purchase. Thinking slavehold- 
 ing to be sin, he pledges to the master the aid of the whole army and 
 navy of the nation to reduce his slave again to chains, should he 
 at any time succeed a moment in throwing them off. Thinking 
 slaveholding to be sin, he goes on, year after year, appointing by 
 his vote judges and marshals to aid in hunting up the fugitives, and 
 seeing that they are delivered back to those who claim them ! 
 How beautifully consistent are his principles and his promises ! 
 
 OBJECTIONS. 
 
 OBJECTION I. 
 
 Allowing that the clause relating to representation and that re- 
 lating to insurrections are immoral, it is contended that the article 
 which orders the return of fugitive slaves was not meant to apply 
 to slaves, but has been misconstrued and misap,)!ied! 
 
 Answer. The meaning of the other two clauses, settled as it 
 has been by the unbroken practice and cheerful acquiescence of 
 the Government and people, no one has attempted to deny. 
 This also has the same length of practice, and the same acqui- 
 escence, to sliow that it relates to slaves. No one deni 's that 
 the Government and Courts have so construed it, and that the 
 great body of the people have freely concurred in and supported 
 this construction. And further, "The ^^adison Papers" (con- 
 taining the debates of those who framed the Constitution, at the 
 time it was made) settle beyond all doubt wiiat meaning the 
 framers intended to convey. 
 
 Ijook at the following extracts from those Papers: 
 
 Tiicsdaif, ^rigust 98//i, 1787. 
 I\Ir. HiilliT and i\fr. I'iiickncy inovnl to rciniiro "fuirilivo slaves nnd 
 BPrvuiits to Ik.' drlivercd up likn criiiiiiiids." 
 
13 
 
 Mr. Wilson. This would oblige the Executive of the State to do it, at 
 the public expense. 
 
 IMr. Shernian saw no more propriety in the public seizing and surren- 
 dering a slave or servant, than a horse. 
 
 Mr. Butler withdrew his pro})osition, in order that some particular pro- 
 vision might be made, apart from this article. 
 
 Article 15, as amended, was then agreed to, nem. con. — Madison papers, 
 pp. 1447-8. 
 
 Wednesday, August 29, 1787. 
 
 Mr. Butler moved to insert after Article 15, "If any person bound to 
 service or labor in any of the United States, sliall escape into another 
 State, he or she shall not be discharged from such service or labor, in 
 consequence of any regulations subsisting in the State to which they es- 
 cape, but shall be delivered up to the person justly claiming their service 
 or labor," — which was agreed to, nem. con. — p. 1450. 
 
 And again, after the wording of the above article had been 
 slightly changed, and the clause newly numbered, as in the present 
 Constitution, we find another stateinent most clearly showing to 
 what subject the whole was intended to refer: 
 
 Sahirday, September 15, 1787. 
 Article 4, Section 2, (the third paragraph,) the term "legally" was 
 struck out ; and the words, " under the laws thereof," inserted after the 
 word " State," in compliance with the wish of some who thought the term 
 legal equivocal, and favoring the idea that slavery was legal in a moral 
 view. — p. 1589. 
 
 Is it not hence evident that slavery was the subject referred 
 to by the whole article.'' 
 
 The debates of the Convention held in the several States to 
 ratify the Constitution, at the same time show clearly what mean- 
 ing it was thought the framers had conveyed: — In Virginia Mr. 
 Madison said, 
 
 Another clause secures to us that property which we now possess. At 
 present, if any slave elopes to any of those States where slaves are free, 
 he becomes emancipated by their laws. For the laws of the States are 
 uncharitable to one another in this respect. But in this Constitution, 
 "no person held to service, or labor, in one State, under the laws tiiereof, 
 esca])ing into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation 
 therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered 
 up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." 
 This clause was expressly inserted to enable owners of slaves to reclaim 
 them. This is a better security than any that now exists. 
 
 Patrick Henry, in reply observed. 
 
 The clause which had been adduced by the gentleman was no more 
 than this — that a runaway negro could be taken up in Maryland or New 
 York. 
 
14 
 
 Governor Randolph said, 
 
 But aiiotlier clause of the Constitution proves the absurdity of the sup- 
 position. The words of the clause are, "No person held to service or 
 Jabor in one State," &.c. Every one knows that slaves are held to service 
 and labor. If a citizen of this State, in cousequence of this clause, can 
 take his runaway slave in Maryland, &c 
 
 General Pinckney in South Carolina Convention observed, 
 
 " We have obtained a rijrht to recover our slaves, in whatever part of 
 America they may toke refuge, which is a right we had not belbre." 
 
 In North Carolina, Mr. Iredell 
 
 Begged leave to exf)lain the reason of this clause. In some of the North- 
 ern States, they have emancipated all their slaves. If any of our slaves, 
 said he, go there aiid remain there a certain time, they would, by the 
 present laws, be entitled to their freedom, so that their masters could not 
 get them again. This would be extremely j)rcjudicial to the inhabitants 
 of the Southern States, and to prevent it, this clause is inserted in the 
 Constitution. Though the word slave be not mentioned, this is the mean- 
 ing of it. The Northern delegates, owing to their particular scruples on 
 the subject of slavery, did not choose the word slave to be mentioned. 
 
 But even if two clauses are immoral that is enougli for our pur- 
 pose, and shews that no honest man should engage to uphold them. 
 Wiio has the right to construe and expound the laws.'^ Of course 
 the Courts of the Nation. The Constitution provides (Article 3, 
 Section 2,) tiiat the Supreme Court shall be the final and only 
 interpreter of its meaning. What says the Supreme Court.'* 
 That this clause does relate to slaves, and order their return. All 
 the other courts concur in this opinion. But, say some, the 
 courts are corrupt on this question. Let us appeal to the people. 
 Nine hundred and ninty-nine out of every thousand answer, that 
 the courts have construed it rightly, and almost as many cheerfully 
 support it. If the imanimous, concurrent, unbroken practice of 
 every department of the Government, judicial, legislative, and 
 executive, and the acquiescence of the people for fifiy years, do 
 not prove which is tlie true construction, then how and where can 
 such a question ever he settled? If the people and the courts of 
 the land do not know Avhat llicy tlicinselves mean, who has au- 
 thority to settle their nicaiiiiig for iheiu? 
 
 If the Constitution is not \\\\;\[ history, unbroken practice, and 
 the courts prove that our lathers intended to make it, and what 
 too, their descendants, this nation say they did make it, and agree 
 to uphold, — who sliall decide what tlie Constitution is.'' 
 
15 
 
 This is the sense then in which the Nation understand that the 
 promise is made to them. The Nation understand that the judge 
 pledges himself to return fugitive slaves. The judge knows this 
 when he takes the oath. And Paley expresses the opinion of all 
 writers on morals, as well as the conviction of all honest men, 
 when he says, " that a promise is binding in that sense in which 
 the promiser thought at the time that the other party understood 
 it." 
 
 OBJECTION II. 
 
 A promise to do an immoral act is not binding: therefore an 
 oath to support the Constitution of the United States, does not 
 bind one to support any provisions of that instrument which are 
 repugnant to his ideas of right. And an abolitionist, thinking it 
 wrong to return slaves, may as an office-holder, innocently and 
 properly take an oath to support a Constitution which commands 
 such return. 
 
 Answer. Observe that this objection allows the Constitution 
 to be pro-slavery, and admits that there are clauses in it which no 
 abolitionist ought to carry out or support. 
 
 And observe, further, that we all agree, that a bad promise is 
 better broken than kept — that every abolitionist, who has before 
 now taken the oath to the Constitution, is bound to break it, and 
 disobey the pro-slavery clauses of that instrument. So far there 
 is no difference between us. But the point in dispute now is, 
 whether a man, having found out that certain requirements of the 
 Constitution are wrong, can, after tliat, innocently swear to sup- 
 port and obey tliem, all the lohile meanin'^ not to do so. 
 
 Now I contend that such loose construction of our promises is 
 contrary alike to honor, to fair dealing, and to trutiifulness — that it 
 tends to destroy utterly that confidence between man and man 
 which binds society together, and leads, in matters of government, 
 to absolute tyranny. 
 
 The Constitution is a series of contracts made by each indi- 
 vidual with every other of the fourteen millions. A man's oath 
 is evidence of his assent to this contract. If I offer a man the 
 copy of an agreement, and he, after reading, swears to perform it, 
 have I not a right to infer from his oath that he assents to the 
 
16 
 
 rightfulness of the articles of that paper ? What more solemn 
 form of expresshig his assent could he select ? A man's oath 
 expresses his conviction of the rightfulness of the actions he 
 promises to do, as well as his determination to do them. If this 
 be not so, I can have no trust in any man's word. He may take 
 my money, promise to do what I wish in return, and yet, keeping 
 my money, tell me, on the morrow, that he shall not keep his 
 promise, and never meant to, because the act, his conscience tells 
 him, is wrong. Who would trust property to such men, or such 
 maxims in the common aflairs of life ? Shall we not be as honest 
 in the Senate House as on 'Change ? The North makes a con- 
 tract with the South by which she receives certain benefits, and 
 agrees to render certain services. The benefits she carefully 
 keeps — but the services she refuses to render, because immoral 
 contracts are not binding ! Is this fair dealing ? It is the rule 
 alike of law and common sense, that if we are not able, from any 
 cause, to furnish the article we have agreed to, we ought to re- 
 turn the pay we have received. If power is put into our hands 
 on certain conditions, and we find ourselves unable to comply with 
 those conditions, we ought to surrender the power back to those 
 who gave it. 
 
 Immoral laws are doubtless void, and should not be obeyed. 
 But the question is here, whether one knowing a law to be im- 
 moral, may innocently promise to obey it in order to get into office? 
 The people have settled the conditions on which one may take 
 office. The first is, that he assent to their Constitution. Is 
 it honest to accept power with the intention at the time of not 
 keeping the conditions? — The rightfulness of those conditions is 
 not here the question. 
 
 OBJECTION III. 
 
 I swear to support the Constitution, as / understand it. Cer- 
 tain parts of it, in my opinion, contradict others and arc therefore 
 void. 
 
 Answi'.k. Will any one lake the title deed of his house and 
 carry it to the man he bought of, and let him keep the covenants 
 of that i)aper as he says " he understands them?" Do we not all 
 recognize the justice of having some third, disinterested jjarty to 
 
17 
 
 judge between two disputants about the meaning of contracts? 
 Who ever heard of a contract of which eacli party was at hberty 
 to keep as much as he thought proper? 
 
 As in all other contracts, so in that of the Constitution, there 
 is a power provided to affix the proper construction to the instru- 
 ment, and that construction both parties are bound to abide by, or 
 repudiate the whole contract. That power is the Supreme Court "^ 
 of tlie United States. 
 
 Do we seek the common sense, practical view of this question? 
 Go to tlie Exchange and ask any broker how many dollars he will 
 trust any man with, who avows his right to make promises with the 
 design, at the time, of breaking some parts, and not feeling called 
 upon to state which those parts will be? 
 
 Do you seek the moral view of the point, which philosophers 
 have taken? Paley says, " A promise is binding in that sense in 
 which the promiser thought at the time of making that the other 
 party understood it." Is there any doubt what meaning the great ' 
 body of the American people attach to the Constitution and the 
 official oath ? They are that party to whom the promise is made. . 
 
 But, say some, our lives are notice to the whole people what 
 meaning we attach to the oath, and we will protest when we swear, 
 that we do not include in our oath the pro-slavery clauses. You 
 may as well utter the protest now, as when you are swearing — or 
 at home, equally as w^ell as within the Slate House. For no such 
 protest can be of any avail. The Chief Justice stands up to ad- 
 minister to me the oath of some office, no matter which. " Sir," 
 say I, " I must take that oath with a qualification, excludirg cer- 
 tain clauses." His reply will be, " Sir, I have no discretion in 
 this matter. I am here merely to administer a prescribed form of 
 oath. If you assent to it, you are qualified for your station. If 
 you do not, you cannot enter. I have no authority given me to 
 listen to exceptions. I am a servant — the people are my mas- 
 ters — here is what they require that you support, not this or that 
 part of the Constitution, but ' the Constitution^^ that is, the tr/ic/e." 
 
 Baffled here, I turn to the people. I publish my opinions in 
 
 newspapers. I proclaim them at conventions, I spread them 
 
 through the country on the wings of a thousand presses. Does 
 
 this avail me? Yes, says Liberty party, if after this, men choose 
 
 3 
 
18 
 
 to vote for you, it is evident they mean you shall take the oath as 
 you have given notice that you understand It. 
 
 Well, the voters in Boston, with this understanding, elect me 
 to Congress, and I proceed to Washington. But here arises a 
 diiiiculty, — my constituents at iiome have assented — but when I 
 get to Congress, I find I am not the representative of Boston 
 only, but of the whole country. The interests of Carolina are 
 committed to my hands as well as those of Massachusetts ; I find 
 that the contract I made by my oath was not with Boston, but 
 with the whole nation. It is the nation that gives me the power 
 to declare war and make peace — to lay taxes on cotton, and con- 
 trol the commerce of New Orleans. The nation prescribed the 
 conditions in 1789, when the Constitution was settled, and though 
 Boston may be willing to accept me on other terms, Carolina is 
 not willing. Boston has accepted my protest, and says, " Take 
 office." Carolina says, " The oath you swear is sworn tome, as 
 well as to the rest — 1 demand the whole bond." In other words, 
 when I have made my protest, what evidence is there that the na- 
 tion, the other party to the contract, assents to it.' There can be 
 none until that nation amends its Constitution. Massachusetts 
 when she accepted tliat Constitution, bound herself to send only 
 such men as could swear to return slaves. If by an underhand 
 compromise with some of her citizens, she sends persons of other 
 sentiments, she is perjured, and any one who goes on such an er- 
 rand is a partner in the perjury. Massachusetts has no right to 
 assent to my protest — she has no right to send representatives, 
 except on certain conditions. She cannot vary those conditions, 
 without leave from those whose interests are to be aflected by the 
 change, that is, the whole nation. Those conditions are written 
 down in the Constitution. Do she and South Carolina differ, as 
 to the meaning.'' The Court will decide for them. 
 
 But, says the objector, do you mean to say that I swear to sup- 
 port the Constitution, not as I understand it, but as some judge 
 understands it? Yes, I do — otherwise there is no such thing as law. 
 This right of i)rivate judgment, for which he contends, exists in 
 religion — but not in (lovernincnt. Law is a rule prescribed. 
 The party prescribing nxist have the right to construe his own 
 rule, otlierwise there would bi- as niauy laws as there are individ- 
 
19 
 
 ual consciences. Statutes would be but recommendations if every 
 man was at liberty to understand and obey them as he thought 
 proper. But I need not argue this. The absurdity of a Govern- 
 ment that has no right to govern — and of laws which have no fixed 
 meaning — but which each man construes to mean what he pleases 
 and obeys accordingly — must be evident to every one. 
 
 What more power did the most despotic of the English Stuarts 
 ask, than the right, after having sworn to laws, to break such as 
 their consciences disapproved? It is the essence of tyranny. 
 
 What is the Constitution of the United States.'^ In good old 
 fashioned times we thought we knew, when we had read it and 
 listened to the court's exposition. But we have improved upon 
 that. The Liberty party man says, it is for him " what he under- 
 stands it." John C. Calhoun, of course, has the same right, and 
 instead of " Liberty regulated by law," we have liberty regulated 
 by fourteen millions of understandings ! 
 
 The Liberty party man takes office on conditions, which, he 
 says, are not binding upon him. He gives us notice that he shall 
 use the power as he thinks right, without any regard to these condi- 
 tions of his oath. Well, if this is law, it is good for all. John 
 C. Calhoun can of course take office with the same broad liberty, 
 and swear to support the Constitution "as he understands it." 
 He has told us often what that " understanding " is — " to sustain 
 Slavery." Of course having made this public, if, after that, Car- 
 olina sends him, according to Liberty party logic, it is evidence 
 that INIassachusetts assents to his " understanding," and accepts 
 his oath with that meaning ! Why I thought I had fathomed the 
 pro-slavery depths of the Constitution when I read over all its 
 wicked clauses — but that is skimming only the surface, if the Con- 
 stitution allows every man, to whom it commits power to use it, as 
 he chooses to " understand " the conditions, and not as the nation 
 understands them. If with this right. Abolitionists may take office 
 and help Liberty, we must remember that by the same rule, slave- 
 holders may take office and lawfully use all their power to help 
 Slavery. If this be so, how absurd to keep crying out of this and 
 the other thing it is "unconstitutional." 
 
 Away with such logic! If we have a Constitution, let us re- 
 member Jefferson's advice, and not make it " waste paper by 
 
20 
 
 construction." The man who tampers thus with the sacred obli- 
 gation of an oath, — swears, and Jesuit like, keeps " reserved 
 meanings " in his own breast, — does more harm to society by 
 loosening the foundations of morals, than he would do good, did 
 his one falsehood free every slave from the Potomac to the Del 
 Norte. 
 
 OBJECTION IV. 
 
 " The oath does not mean that I will positively do what I 
 swear to do, but only that I will do it, or siibmil to the penalty tlie 
 law awards. If my actions in office don't suit the nation, let them 
 impeach me." 
 
 Answer. That is, John Tyler may, without consulting Con- 
 gress, plunge us into war with Mexico — incur fifty millions ot 
 public debt — lose a hundred thousand lives — and the sufficient rec- 
 ompense to this nation will be to impeach John Tyler, Esq., and 
 send him home to his slaves! These are the wise safeguards of 
 Constitutional liberty! He has faithfully kept it " as he under- 
 stands it." What is a Russian slave.'' One who holds life, prop- 
 erly, and all, at tiie mercy of the Czar's idea of right. Does not 
 this description of the power every officer has here, under our 
 Constitution, reduce x\mericans to the same condition? 
 
 But, is it true that the bearing of the penalty is an excuse for 
 breach of our official oaths? 
 
 The Judge who, in questions of divorce, has trifled with the 
 sanctity of the marriage tic — who, in matters of property has de- 
 cided unjustly, and taken bribes — in capital cases has so dealt judg- 
 ment as to send innocent men to the gallows — may cry out, " If you 
 don't like me, impeach me." But will impeachment restore the dead 
 to life, or the husband to his defamed wife? Would the community 
 consider his submission to impeachment as equivalent to the keep- 
 ing of his oath of office, and thenceforward view him as an honest, 
 truth-speaking, unperjured man? It is idle to suppose so. Yet 
 the interests committed to some of our officeholders' keeping, are 
 more iniporiant often than even those which a .ludge controls. 
 And vc must remember that men's ideas of right always difTcr. 
 To admit such a principle into the construction of oaths, if it ena- 
 ble one man to do much good, will enable scoundrels who creep 
 
21 
 
 into office to do much harm, "according to their consciences." 
 But yet the rule, if it be admitted, must be universal. Liberty- 
 becomes, then, matter of accident. 
 
 OBJECTION V. 
 
 I shall resign whenever a case occurs that requires me to aid in 
 returning a fugitive slave. 
 
 Answer. " The office-holder has promised active obedience 
 to the Constitution in every exigency which it has contemplated 
 and sought to provide for. If he promised, not meaning to per- 
 form in certain cases, is he not doubly dishonest ? dishonest to 
 liis own conscience in promising to do wrong, and to his fellow- 
 citizens in purposing from the first to break his oath, as he knew 
 they understood it ? If he had sworn, not regarding anything as 
 immoral which he bound himself to do, and afterwards found in 
 the oath something against his conscience of which he was not at 
 first aware, or if by change of views he had come to deem sinful 
 what before lie thought right, then doubtless, by promptly resign- 
 ing, he might escape guik. But is not the case different, when 
 among the acts promised are some known at the time to be 
 morally wrong ? ' It is a sin to swear unto sin,' says the poet, 
 although it be, as he truly adds, ' a greater sin to keep the sinful 
 oath.'" 
 
 The captain has no right to ])ut to sea, and resign when the 
 storm comes. Besides what supports a wicked government more 
 than good men taking office under it, even though they secretly 
 determine not to carry out all its provisions? The slave balancing 
 in his lonely hovel the chance of escape, knows nothing of your 
 secret reservations, your future intentions. He sees only the 
 swarming millions at the North ostensibly sworn to restore him to 
 his master, if he escape a little way. Perchance it is your false 
 oath, which you don't mean to keep, that makes him turn from 
 the attempt in despair. He knows you only — the world knows 
 only by your actions, not your intentions, and those side with his 
 master. The prayer whicli he lifts to Heaven, in his despair, 
 njjujbers you rightly among his oppressors. 
 
23 
 
 OBJECTION VI. 
 
 / I shall only take such an ofllce as hrings me into no connectioD 
 with slavery. 
 
 Answer. Government is a whole ; unless each in his circle 
 aids his next neighbor, the machine will stand still. The Senator 
 does not himself return the fugitive slave, but he appoints the 
 / Marshal, whose duty it is to do so. The State representative 
 does not himself appoint the Judge who signs the warrant for the- 
 slave's recapture, but he chooses the United States Senator who 
 does appoint that Judge. The elector does not himself order out 
 the militia to resist " domestic violence," but he elects the Presi- 
 dent, whose duty requires, that a case occurring, he should do so. 
 To suppose that each of these may do that part of his duty that 
 suits him, and leave the rest undone, is practical anarchy. It is 
 bringing ourselves precisely to that state which the Hebrew de- 
 scribes. " In those days there was no king in Israel, but each man 
 did what was right in his own eyes.' This is all consistent in us,, 
 who hold that man is to do right, even if anarchy follows. How 
 absurd to set up such a scheme, and miscall it a g-overnment^ — 
 where nobody governs, but everybody does as he pleases. 
 
 OBJECTION VII. 
 
 As men and all their works are imperfect, we may innocently 
 " support a Government which, along with many blessings, assists 
 in the perpetration of some wrong." 
 
 Answer. As nobody disputes that we may rightly assist the 
 worst CJovernmenl in doing good, provided we can do so without 
 at tiie same lime aiding it in the wrong it perpetrates, this must 
 mean, of course, that it is right to aid and obey a CJovernment in 
 doing n'rong^ if we think that, on tiic whole, the Government 
 eflecls more good than harm. Otherwise the whole argument is 
 irrelevant, for this is the point in dispute ; since every office of 
 any consequence under the United States Constitution lias some 
 immediate connection with Slavery. Let us sec to what lengths 
 this j)rinciple will carry one. Herod's servants, then, were right 
 in slaying every child in Bethlehem, from two years old and under. 
 
23 
 
 provided ihey thought Herod's Government, on the whole, more 
 a blessing than a curse to Judea ! The soldiers of Charles II. 
 were justified in shooting the Covenanters on the muirs of Scot- 
 land, if they- thought his rule was better, on the whole, for Eng- 
 land, than anarchy ! According to this theory, the moment the 
 magic wand of Government touches our vices, they start up into 
 virtues ! But has Government any peculiar character or privilege 
 in this respect ? Oh, no — Government is only an association of 
 individuals, and the same rules of morality which govern my con- 
 duct in relation to a thousand men, ougiit to regulate my con- 
 duct to any one. Therefore, I may innocently aid a man in doing 
 wrong, if I think that, on the whole, he has more virtues than 
 vices. If he gives bread to the hungry six days in the week, I 
 may rightly help him, on the seventh, in forging bank notes, or 
 murdering his father ! The principle goes this length, and every 
 length, or it cannot be proved to exist at all. It ends at last, prac- 
 tically, in the old maxim, that the subject and the soldier have no 
 right to keep any conscience, but have only to obey the rulers 
 they serve : for there are few, if any, Governments this side of 
 Satan's, which could not, in some sense, be said to do more good 
 than harm. Now I candidly confess, that I had rather be covered 
 all over with inconsistencies, in the struggle to keep my hands clean, 
 than settle quietly down on such a principle as this. It is supposing 
 that we may — 
 
 "To do a great right, do a little wrong;" 
 
 a rule, which the master poet of human nature has rebuked. It 
 is doing evil that good may come — a doctrine, of which an Apos- 
 tle has pronounced the condemnation. 
 
 And let it be remembered that in dealing with the question of 
 slavery, we are not dealing with extreme cases. Slavery is no 
 minute evil which lynx-eyed suspicion has ferreted out. Every 
 sixth man is a slave. The ermine of justice is stained. The 
 national banner clings to the flag-staff heavy with blood. " The 
 preservation of slavery," says our oldest and ablest statesman, " is 
 the vital and animating spirit of the National Government." 
 
 Surely if it be true that a man may justifiably stand connected 
 widi a government in which he sees some slight evils — still it is 
 
24 
 
 also true, even then, that governments may sin so atrociously, so 
 enormously, may make evil so much liie purpose of their being, as 
 to render it the duty of honest men to wash their hands of ihem. 
 
 I may give money to a friend whose life has some things in it 
 which 1 do not fully approve — but when his nights are passed in 
 the brothel, and his days in drunkenness, when he uses his talents 
 to seduce others, and his gold to pave their road to ruin, surely 
 the case is changed. 
 
 I may perhaps sacrifice health by staying awhile in a room 
 rather overheated, but 1 shall certainly see it to be my duty to 
 rush out, when the whole house is in full blaze. 
 
 OBJECTION VIII. 
 
 y God intended that society and governments should exist. We 
 therefore are bound to support them. He has conferred upon us 
 tlie rights of citizenship in this country, and we cannot escape from 
 the responsibility of exercising them. God made us citizens. 
 
 Answer. This reminds me of an old story I have heard. 
 When the Legislature were asked to set off a portion of the town 
 of Dorchester and call it South Boston, the old minister of the 
 town is said to have objected, saying, " God made it Dorchester, 
 and Dorchester it ought to be." 
 / God made us social beings, it is true, but society is not neces- 
 sarily the Constitution of the United Stales ! Because God 
 meant some form of government should exist, does not at all prove 
 / that we are justified in supporting a wicked one. Man confers 
 the rights and regulates the duties of citizenship. God never 
 made a citizen, and no one will escape, as a man, from the sins 
 he commits as a citizen. This is the first time that it has ever 
 been held an excuse for sin that wc "went with the multitude to 
 do evil ! " 
 
 Certainly we can be under no such responsibility to become 
 and remain citizens, as will excuse us from the sinful acts which as 
 such citizens we are called to commit. Does God make obliga- 
 tory on his creature the support of institutions which require him 
 to do acts in themselves wrong? To suppose so, were to con- 
 found all the rules of (^od's moral kingdom. 
 
 President Wayland has lately been illustrating, and giving his 
 
25 
 
 testimony to the principle, that a combination of men cannot 
 change the moral character of an act, which is in itself sinful — 
 that the law of morals is binding the same on communities, corpo- 
 rations, &c. as on individuals. 
 
 After describing slavery, and saying that to hold a man in such 
 a state is wrong — he goes on: 
 
 " I will offer but one more supposition. Suppose that any number, for 
 instance one half of the families in our neighborhood, should by law en- 
 act that the weaker half should be slaves, that we would exercise over 
 them the authority of masters, prohiliit by law their instruction, and con- 
 cert among ourselves means for holding them permanently in their })res- 
 ent situation. In what manner would this alter the moral aspect of the 
 case ? 
 
 A law in this case is merely a determination of one party, in which all 
 unite, to hold the other party in bondage ; and a compact by which the 
 whole party bind themselves to assist every individual of themselves to 
 subdue all resistance from the other party, and guaranteeing to each other 
 that exercise of this power over the weaker party which they now possess. 
 
 Now I cannot see that this in any respect changes the nature of the 
 parties. They remain, as before, human beings, possessing the same in- 
 tellectual and moral nature, holding the same relations to each otlier and 
 to God, and still under the same unchangeable law. Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor as thyself. By the act of holding a man in bondage, this law is 
 violated. Wrong is done, moral evil is committed. In the former case it 
 ■was done by the individual ; now it is done by the individual and the so- 
 ciety. Before, the individual was responsible oidy for his own wrong ; 
 now he is responsible both for his own, and also, as a member of the so- 
 ciety, for all the wrong which the society binds itself to uphold and render 
 perpetual. 
 
 The Scriptures frequently allude to the fact, that wrong done by law, 
 that is by society, is amenable to the same retribution as wrong done by 
 the individual. Thus, Psalm 94 : 20—23. 'Shall the throne of iniquity 
 have fellowship with them which Iranie mischief by a law, and gather 
 themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the 
 innocent blood? But the Lord is my defence ; and my God is the rock 
 of my refuge. And he shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall 
 cut them off in their own wickedness ; yea, the Lord our God shall cut 
 them off.' So also Isaiah 10: 1 — 4, 'Wo unto them that decree unright- 
 eous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have jirescribed,' Sic. 
 Besides, persecution tor the sake of religious opinion is always peri)elra- 
 ted by law ; but this in no manner affects its moral character. 
 
 There is, however, one point of difference, which arises from the fact 
 that this wrong has been established by law. It becomes a social wrong. 
 Ti»e individual, or those who preceded him, may have surrendered their 
 individual right over it to the society. In this case it may happen that 
 the individual cannot act as he might act, if the law had not been made. 
 In this case the evil can only be eradicated by changing the opinions of 
 the society, and inducing them to abolish the law. It will however be 
 apparent that this, as I said before, does not change the relation of th(; 
 parties either to each other or to God. The wrong exists as befVirc. The 
 individual act is wrong. The law which protects it is wrong. 'J'he whole 
 society, in putting the law into execution, is wrong. Before, otdy the in- 
 
26 
 
 dividual, now, the whole society, becomes the wrong doer, and for that 
 wrong, both the individuals and the society are held responsible in the 
 eight of God." 
 
 If such " individual act is wrong," the man who knowingly 
 does it is surely a sinner. Does God, through society, require 
 men to sin.-* 
 
 OBJECTION IX. 
 
 If not being non-resistants, we concede to mankind the right to 
 frame Governments, which must, from the very nature of man, be 
 more or less evil, the right or duty to support them, when framed, 
 necessarily follows. 
 
 Answer. I do not think it follows at all. Mankind, that is, 
 ' any number of them, have a right to set up such forms of worship 
 as they see fit, but when they have done so, does it necessarily 
 / follow that I am in duty bound to support any one of them, whe- 
 ther I approve it or not? Government is precisely like any other 
 voluntary association of individuals — a temperance or anti-slavery 
 society, a bank or railroad corporation. I join it, or not, as duty 
 / dictates. If a temperance society exists in the village where I 
 am, that love for my race which bids me seek its highest good, 
 commands me to join it. So if a Govoi-nment is formed in the 
 land where I»live, the same feeling bids me to support it, if I inno- 
 cently can. This is the whole length of my duty to Government. 
 From the necessity of the case, and that constitution of things 
 which God has ordained, it follows that in any specified district, 
 the majority must rule — hence results the duty of the minority to 
 submit. But we must carefully preserve the distinction between 
 submission and obedience — between submission and sxipport. ]f 
 the majority set up an immoral (ioverniiient, I obey those laws 
 which seem to me good, because they are good — and I submit to 
 all the penalties which my disobedience of the rest brings on me. 
 This is alike tlie dictate of common sense, and the command of 
 Christianity. And it must be tlie true doctrine, since any other 
 obliges me to obey the majority if they command me to commit 
 murder, a rule which even the tory Blackstone has denied. Of 
 course lor me to do anything 1 deem wrong, is the same, in qual- 
 ity, as to commit murder. 
 
27 
 
 OBJECTION X. 
 
 But it is said, your theory results in good men leaving govern- 
 ment to the dishonest and wicked. 
 
 Answer. Well, if to sustain government we must sacrifice 
 honesty, government could not be in a more appropriate place, 
 than in the hands of dishonest men. 
 
 But it by no means follows, that if I go out of government, I 
 leave nothing but dishonest men behind. An act may be sin to 
 me, which another may sincerely think right — and if so, let him 
 do it, till he changes his mind. I leave government in the hands 
 of those whom I do not think as clear-sighted as myself, but not 
 necessarily in the hands of the dishonest. Whether it be so in 
 this country now, is not, at present, the question, but whether it 
 would be so necessarily, in all cases. The real question is, what 
 is the duty of those who presume to think that God has given them 
 clearer views of duty than the bulk of those among whom they 
 live? 
 
 Don't think us conceited in supposing ourselves a little more 
 enlightened than our neighbors. It is no great thing after all to 
 be a little better than a lynching — mobocratic — slaveholding — 
 debt-repudiating community. 
 
 What then is the duty of such men? Doubtless to do all they 
 can to extend to others the light they enjoy. 
 
 Will they best do so by compromising their principles? by let- 
 ting their political life give the lie to their life of reform? Who 
 will have the most influence, he whose life is consistent, or he 
 who says one thing to-day, and swears another thing to-morrow — 
 who looks one way and rows another ? My object is to let men 
 understand me, and I submit that the body of the Roman people 
 understood better, and felt more earnestly, the struggle between 
 the people and the princes, when the little band of democrats left 
 the city and encamped on Mons Sacer, outside^ than while they 
 remained mixed up and voting with their masters, shoulder to 
 shoulder. Dissolution is our Mons Sacer — God grant that it may 
 become equally famous in the world's history as the spot where 
 the right triumphed. 
 
28 
 
 It is foolish to suppose that the position of such men, divested 
 of the glare of ofiicial distinction, has no weight with the people. 
 If it were so, I am still bound to remember that I was not sent into 
 the world to have injluence, but to do my duty according to my 
 own conscience. But it is not so. People do know an honest 
 man when they see him. (I allow that this is so rare an event 
 now-a-days, as almost to justify one in supposing they might 
 have forgotten how he looked.) They will give a man credit, 
 when his life is one manly testimony to the truthfulness of his 
 lips. Even Liberty party, blind as she is, has light enough to 
 see that " Consistency is the jewel, the everything of such a cause 
 as ours." The position of a non-voter, in a land where the ballot 
 is so much idolized, kindles in every beholder's bosom something 
 of the warm sympathy which waits on the persecuted, carries with 
 it all the weight of a disinterested testimony to truth, and pricks 
 each voter's conscience with an uneasy doubt, whether after all 
 voting is right. There is constantly a Mordecai in the gate. 
 
 I admit that we should strive to have a political influence — for 
 with politics is boimd uyi much of the w;clfare of the people. But 
 this objection supposes that the ballot box is die only means of 
 political influence. Now it is a good thing tliat every man should 
 have the right to vote. But it is by no means necessary that eve- 
 ry man should actually vote, in order to influence his times. We 
 by no means necessarily desert our social duty when we refuse to 
 take oflice, or to confer it. Lafayette did better service to the 
 cause of French liberty when he retired to Lagrange and refused 
 to acknowledge Napoleon, than he could have done had he stood, 
 for years, at the tyrant's right hand. From the silence of that 
 chamber there went forth a voice — from the darkness of that re- 
 treat there burst forth a light; feeble indeed at first, like the sti'ug- 
 gling beams of the morning, but destined like them to brighten into 
 perfect day. 
 
 This objection, that we non-voters shall lose all our influence, 
 confounds the broad tlisiinclion hclwccn influence imd power. In- 
 Jluence every honest man must and will have, in exact proportion 
 to his honesty and ability. dod always annexes influence to 
 worth. The world, however unwilling, can never get free from 
 llie influence of such a man. 'J'his influence the possession of 
 oflice cannot give, nor the want of it take away. I'or the cxcr- 
 
29 
 
 cise of such influence as this, man is responsible. Power we buy 
 of our fellow men at a certain price. Before making the bargain 
 it is our duty to see that we do not pay "too dear for our whistle." 
 He who buys it at the price of truth and honor, buys only weak- 
 ness — and sins beside. 
 
 Of those who go to the utmost verge of honesty in order to 
 reach the seats of worldly power, and baiter a pure conscience 
 for a weighty name, it may be well said with old Fuller, " They 
 need to have steady heads who can dive into these gulfs of policy, 
 and come out with a safe conscience." 
 
 OBJECTION XI. 
 
 This withdrawing from government is pharisaical — " Shall we, 
 * weak, sinful men,' " one says, " perhaps even more sinful than the 
 slaveholder, cry out. No Union with Slaveholders } " Such a 
 course is wanting in brotherly kindness. 
 
 Answer. Because we refuse to aid a wrong-doer in his sin, 
 we by no means proclaim, or assume, that we think our ichole 
 character better than his. It is neither pharisaical to have opin- 
 ions, nor presumptuous to guide our lives by them. If I have 
 joined with others in doing wrong, is it either presumptuous or 
 unkind, when my eyes are opened, to refuse to go any further 
 with them in their career of guilt .'' Does love to the thief require 
 me to help him in stealing ? Yet diis is all we refuse to do. We 
 will extend to the slaveholder all the courtesy he will allow. If 
 he is hungry, we will feed him ; if he is in want, both hands shall 
 be stretched out for his aid. We will give him full credit for all 
 the good that he does, and our deep sympathy in all the tempta- 
 tions under whose strength he falls. But to help him in his sin, 
 to remain partners with him in the slave-trade, is more than he has 
 a right to ask. He would be a strange preacher who should set 
 out to reform his circle by joining in all their sins ! It is a prin- 
 ciple similar to that which the tipsy Duke of Norfolk acted on, 
 when seeing a drunken friend in the gutter, he cried out, " My 
 dear fellow, I can't help you out, but I'll do better, I'll lie down 
 by your side." 
 
30 
 
 OBJECTION XII. 
 
 But consider, the abstaining from all share in Government will 
 leave bad men to have everything their own way — admit Texas — 
 extend slavery, &:c. &c. 
 
 Answer. That is no matter of mine. God, the great con- 
 servative power of the Universe, when he established the right, 
 saw to it that it should always be the safest and best. He never 
 laid upon a poor finite worm the staggering load of following out 
 into infinity the complex results of his actions. We may rest on 
 the bosom of Infinite Wisdom, confident that it is enough for us 
 to do justice, he will see to it that happiness results. 
 
 OBJECTION XIII. 
 
 But the same conscientious objection against promising your 
 support to government, ought to lead you to avoid actually giving 
 .' your support to it by paying taxes or sueing in the courts. 
 
 Answer. This is what logicians call a rcduclio ad absur- 
 dum: an attempt to prove our principle unsound by showing that, 
 fairly carried out, it leads to an absurdity. But granting all it asks, 
 it does not saddle us with any absurdity at all. It is perfectly 
 y possible to live without petitioning, sueing, or holding stocks. 
 Thousands in this country have lived, died, and been buried, 
 without doing either. And does it load us with any absurdity to 
 prove that we shall be obliged to do from principle, what the ma- 
 jority of our fellow-citizens do from choice? We lawyers may 
 think it is an absurdity to say a man can't sue, for, like the Apos- 
 tle at Ephesus, it touches our " craft," but that don't go far to 
 prove it. Then, as to taxes, doubtless many cases might be im- 
 agined, when every one would allow it to be our duty to re- 
 sist the slightest taxation, did Christianity allow it, with " war to 
 the hilt." If such cases may ever arise, why may not this be 
 one? 
 
 Until I become an Irishman, no one will ever convince me 
 that I ought to vote, by |)ro\ing tliat 1 ought not to pay taxes! 
 
31 
 
 Suppose all these difficulties do really encompass us, it will not 
 be the first time that the doing of one moral duty has revealed a 
 dozen others which we never tliought of. Tiie child has climbed 
 the hill over his native village, which he thought the end of the 
 world, and lo! there are mountains beyond! He won't remedy 
 the matter by creeping back to his cradle and disbelieving in moun- 
 tains! 
 
 But then, is there any such inconsistency in non-voters sue- 
 ing and paying taxes? 
 
 Look at it. A. and B. have agreed on certain laws, and ap- 
 pointed C. to execute them. A. owes me, who am no parly to 
 the contract, a just debt, which his laws oblige him to pay. Do 
 T acknowledge the rightfulness of his relation to B. and C. by 
 asking C. to use the power given him, in my behalf? It appears 
 to me that I do not. I may surely ask A. to pay me my debt — 
 why not then ask the keeper, whom he has appointed over him- 
 self, to make him do so? 
 
 I am a prisoner among pirates. The mate is abusing me in 
 some way contrary to their laws. Do I recognize the rightfulness 
 of the Captain's authority, by asking him to use the power the 
 mate has consented to give him, to protect me? It seems to me 
 that I do not necessarily endorse the means by which a man has 
 acquired money or power, when I ask him to use either in my 
 behalf. 
 
 An alien does not recognize the rightfulness of a government by 
 living under it. It has always been held that an English subject 
 may swear allegiance to an usurper and yet not be guilty of treason 
 to the true king. Because he may innocently acknowledge the 
 king de facto (the king in deed^) without assuming him to be king 
 de jure (king by right.) The distinction itself is as old as the 
 time of Edward the First. The principle is equally applicable to 
 suits. It has been universally acted on and allowed. The Cath- 
 olic, who shrank from acknowledging the heretical Government 
 of England, always, I believe, sued in her courts. 
 
 Who could convince a common man, that by sueing in Con- 
 stantinople or Timbuctoo, he does an act which makes him re- 
 sponsible for the character of those governments ? 
 
 Then, as for taxes. It is only our voluntary acts for wliich we 
 
32 
 
 / are responsible. And when did government ever trust tax-paying 
 to the voluntary good will of its subjects? When it does so, I, 
 for one, will refuse to pay. 
 '' When did any sane man conclude that our Saviour's voluntary 
 payment of a tax acknowledged the rightfulness of Rome's au- 
 thority over Judea? 
 
 " The States," says Chief .Justice Marshall, "have only not 
 to elect Senators, and this government expires without a struggle." 
 Every November, then, we crtalt the government anew. Now, 
 what "instinct" will tell a common-sense man, that the act of a 
 sovereign, — voting — which creates a wicked government, is, es- 
 sentially the same as the submission of a subject, — tax-paymg, 
 an act done without our consent. It should be remembered, that 
 we vote as sovereigns, — we pay taxes as subjects. Who supposes 
 that the humble tax-payer of Austria, who does not, perhaps, know 
 in what name the charier of his bondage runs, is responsible for 
 the doings of Metternich? And what sane man likens his position 
 to that of the voting sovereign of the United States.? My innocent 
 acts may, through others' malice, result in evil. In that case, it will 
 be lor my best judgment to determine whether to continue or cease 
 them. They are not thereby rendered essentially sinful. For 
 instance, I walk out on Sabbath morning. The priest over the 
 way will exclaim, " Sabbath-breaker," and the infidel will delude 
 his followers, by telling them I have no regard for Christianity. 
 Still, it will be for me to settle which, in present circumstances^ 
 is best, — to remain in, and not be misconstrued, or to go out and 
 bear a testimony against the superstitious keeping of the day. 
 Piflcrent circumstances will dictate dilTcrent action on such a 
 point. 
 / 1 may often be the occasion of evil when 1 am not responsible 
 for it. Many innocent acts occasion evil, and in such case all 1 
 am bound to ask myself before doing such innocent act, is, " Shall 
 I occasion, on the wliolr, more harm or good." There are many 
 cases where doing a duty even, we shall occasion evil and sin in 
 others. 'J'o save a slaveholder from drowning, when we know he 
 lias made a will freeing his slaves, would put oil", perhaps forever, 
 llieir emancipation, but of course that is not my fault. This mak- 
 ing a man responsible for all the evil his acts, incidentally, without 
 
33 
 
 his will, occasion, reminds me of that principle of Turkish law 
 which Dr. Clarke mentions, in his travels, and which they call 
 "homicide by an intermediate cause." The case he relates is this: 
 A young man in love poisoned himself, because the girl's father re- 
 fused his consent to the marriage. The Cadi sentenced the father 
 to pay a fine of ^80, saying "if you had not had a daughter, this 
 young man had not loved ; if he had not loved, he had never been 
 disappointed ; if not disappointed, he would never have taken 
 poison." It was the same Cadi possibly, who sentenced the 
 island of Samos to pay for the wrecking of a vessel, on the prin- 
 ciple that " if the island had not been in the way, the vessel would 
 never have been wrecked !" 
 
 Then of taxes on imports. Buying and selling, and carrying 
 from country to country, is good and innocent. But government, 
 if I trade here, will take occasion to squeeze money out of me. 
 Very well. I shall deliberate whether I will cease trading, and 
 deprive them of the opportunity, or go on and use my wealth to 
 reform them, 'Tis a question of expediency, not of right, which 
 my judgment, not my conscience, must settle. An act of mine, 
 innocent in itself, and done from right motives, no after act of an- 
 other's can make a sin. To import, is rightful. After-taxation, 
 against my consent, cannot make it wrong. Neither am I obliged 
 to smuggle, in order to avoid it. I include in these remarks, all 
 taxes, whether on property, or imports, or railroads. 
 
 A chemist, hundreds of years ago, finds out how to temper 
 steel. The art is useful for making knives, lancets, and machin- 
 ery. But he knows that the bad will abuse it by making swords 
 and daggers. Is he responsible ? Certainly not. 
 
 Similar to this is trading in America, — knowing government 
 will thus have an opportunity to increase its revenue. 
 
 But suppose the chemist to see two men fighting, one has the 
 other down, — to the first our chemist presents a finely tempered 
 dagger. 
 
 Such is voting under the United States Constitution — appoint- 
 ing an officer to help the oppressor. 
 
 The difierenco between voting and tax-paying is simply this : 
 I may do an act right in itself, though I know some evil will re- 
 sult. Paul was bound to preach the gospel to the Jews, though 
 5 
 
34 
 
 he knew some of them would thereby be led to add to their sins 
 by cursing and mobbing him. 
 
 So I may locate property in Philadelphia, trade there, and ride 
 on its railroads, though I know government will, without my con- 
 sent, thereby enrich itself. Other things being equal, of course I 
 shall not allow it the opportunity. But the advantages and good 
 results of my doing so, may be such as would make it my duty 
 there to live and trade, even subject to such an evil. 
 
 But on the other hand, I may not do an act wrong in itself to 
 secure any amount of fancied good. 
 
 Now, appointing a man by my vote to a pro-slavery office, 
 (and such is every one under the United States Constitution,) is 
 wrong in itself, and no other good deeds which such oflicer may 
 do, will justify an abolitionist in so appointing him. 
 
 Let it not be said, that this reasoning will apply to voting — that 
 voting is the right of every human being, (which I grant only for 
 the sake of argument,) and innocent in itself. 
 
 Voting under our Conslitnlion is appointing a man to swear to 
 protect, and actually to protect slavery. Now, appointing agents 
 generally is the right of every man, and innocent in itself, but ap- 
 pointing an agent to commit a murder is sin. 
 
 J trade, and government taxes me ; do I authorize it ? No. 
 
 I vote, and the marshal whom my agent appoints, returns a 
 slave to South Carolina. Do I authorize it ? Yes. I knew it 
 would be his sworn duty, when I voted ; and I assented to it, by 
 voting under the Constitution which makes it his duty. If I trade, 
 it is said, 1 may foresee that government will be hcli)ed bv the 
 taxes I pay, therefore I ought not to trade. But I do not trade 
 for the purpose of paying taxes ! And if [ am to be charged with 
 all the foreseeli results of my actions, then CJarrison is responsible 
 for the Boston mob ! 
 
 The reason why T am responsible for the pro-slavery act of a 
 United States officer, for whom I have voted, is this : J must be 
 supposed to have intended that which my agent is bound by his 
 contract with me (that is, his oath of office) to do. 
 
 Allow me to request our opposers to keep distinctly in view 
 the precise jioint in debati;. This is not whether Massachusetts 
 can rightfully trade and make treaties with South Carolina, although 
 
35 
 
 she knows that such a course will result in strengthening a wrong- 
 doer. Such are most of the cases which they consider parallel to 
 ours, and for permitting which they charge us with inconsistency. 
 But the question really is, whether Massachusetts can join hands 
 and strength with South Carolina, for the express and avowed 
 purpose of sustaining Slavery. This she does in the Constitution. 
 For he who swears to support an instrument of twelve clauses, 
 swears to support one as well as another, — and though one only 
 be immoral, — still he swears to do an immoral act. Now, my 
 conviction is, " which fire will not burn out of me," that to return 
 fugitive slaves is sin — to promise so to do, and not do it, is, if 
 possible, baser still ; and that any conjunction of circumstances 
 which makes either necessary, is of the Devil, and not of God. 
 
 OBJECTION XIV. 
 
 Duty requires of a non-voter to quit the country, and go where 
 his taxes will not help to build up slavery. 
 
 Answer. God gave me my birth here. Because bad men 
 about me " play such tricks before high Heaven, as make the 
 angels weep," does it oblige me to quit ? I have as good right 
 here as they. If they choose to leave, let them — I shall remain. 
 'Twould be a pretty thing, indeed, if, as often as I found myself 
 next door to a bad man, who would bring up his children to steal 
 my apples and break my windows, I were obliged to take the 
 temptation away by cutting down all my apple trees and moving 
 my house further west, into the wilderness. This would be, in 
 good John Wesley's phrase, " giving up all the good tunes to the 
 devil," with a witness. 
 
 OBJECTION XV. 
 
 " Society has the right to prescribe the terms, upon the ex- 
 pressed or implied agreement to comply with which a person may 
 reside within its limits." 
 
 Answer. This principle 1 utterly deny. All that Society 
 has a right to demand is peaceful submission to its exactions : — 
 
36 
 
 consent they liave neither the power nor the right to exact or to 
 imply. Twenty men hve on a lone island. Nineteen set up a 
 government and say, every man who lives there shall worship idols. 
 The twentieth submits to all their laws, but refuses to commit 
 idolatry. Have they the right to say, " Do so, or quit ;" or, to 
 say, " If you stay, we will consider you as impliedly worshipping 
 idols ?" Doubtless they have the power, but the majority have 
 no rights, except those which justice sanctions. Will the objec- 
 tor show me the justice of his principle ? I was born here. I 
 ask no man's permission to remain. All that any man or body of 
 men have a right to infer from my staying here, is that, in doing 
 this innocent act, I think, that on the whole, I am effecting more 
 good than harm. Lawyers say, I cannot find this right laid down 
 in the books. That will not trouble me. Some old play has a 
 character in it who never ties his neckcloth without a warrant from 
 ISIr. Justice Overdo. I claim no relationship to that very scrupu- 
 lous individual. 
 
 OBJECTION XVI. 
 
 ^ These clauses, to which you refer, are inconsistent with the 
 Preamble of the Constitution, which describes it as made " to es- 
 tablish justice " and "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves 
 and our posterity:" And as, when two clauses of the same instru- 
 ment are inconsistent, one must yield and be held void — we hold 
 these three clauses void. 
 
 Ans^ver. a specific clause is not to be held void on account 
 of general terms, such as those of the preamble. It is rather to 
 be taken as an exception, allowed and admitted at the time, to 
 those general terms. 
 
 Again. You say ihey are inconsistent. But the Courts and 
 the People do not think so. Now they, being the majority, settle 
 '^ the law. The (picstion then is, whether the law being settled, — 
 and according to your belief settled immorally, — you will volunteer 
 your services to execute it and carry it into eflecl.'' This you do 
 by becoming an oniccholder. It seems to me this question can 
 receive but one answer from honest men. 
 
37 
 
 LAST OF ALL, THE OBJECTOR CRIES OUT, 
 
 The Constitution may be amended, and I shall vote to have it 
 changed. 
 
 Answer. But at present it is necessary to swear to support 
 it as it is. What the Constitution may become, a century hence, 
 we know not ; we speak of it as it is, and repudiate it as it is. -^ 
 How long may one promise to do evil, in hope some time or 
 other to get the power to do good .'' We will not brand the Consti- 
 tution of the United States as pro-slavery, after — it had ceased to 
 be so ! This objection reminds me of Miss Martineau's story 
 of the little boy, who hurt himself, and sat crying on the sidewalk. 
 " Don't cry !" said a friend, " it won't hurt you tomorrow." — 
 " Well then," said the child, " I won't cry tomorrow." 
 
 We come then, it seems to me, back to our original conclusion: 
 that the man who swears to support the Constitution, swears to 
 support the whole of it, pro-slavery clauses and all, — that he 
 swears to support it as it is, not as it hereafter may become, — that 
 he swears to support it in the sense given to it by the Courts and 
 the Nation, not as he chooses to understand It, — and that the 
 Courts and the Nation expect such an one in office to do his share 
 toward the suppression of slave, as well as other, insurrections, and 
 to aid the return of fugitive slaves. After an abolitionist has taken 
 such an oath, or by his vole sent another to take it for him, I do 
 not see how he can look his own principles in the face. 
 
 Thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou lie ? 
 
 We who call upon the slaveholder to do right, no matter what 
 the consequences or the cost, are certainly bound to look well to 
 our own example. At least we can hardly expect to win the 
 master to do justice by setting him an example of perjury. It is 
 almost an insult in an abolitionist, while not willing to sacrifice even 
 a petty ballot for his principles, to demand of the slaveholder that 
 he give up wealth, home, old prejudices and social position at their 
 call. 
 
EXTRACTS FROM J. Q. ADAMS. 
 
 The benefits of the Constitution of the United States, were the 
 restoration of credit and reputation, to the country — the revival 
 of commerce, navigation, and ship buikling — the acquisition of the 
 means of discharging the debts of the Revolution, and the protec- 
 tion and encouragement of the infant and drooping manufactures 
 of the country. All this, however, as is now well ascertained, 
 was insufficient to propitiate the rulers of the Southern States to 
 the adoption of the Constitution. What they specially Avanted 
 was protection. Protection from the powcrlul and savage tiibcs 
 of Indians within their borders, and who were harassing them 
 with the most terrible of wars — and protection from their own ne- 
 groes — protection from their insurrections — protection from their 
 escape — protection even to the trade by which they were brought 
 into this country — protection, shall I not blush to say, protection 
 to the very bondage by which they were held. Yes! it cannot be 
 denied — the slaveholding lords of the South prescribed, as a con- 
 dition of their assent to the Constitution, three special provisions 
 to secure the perpetuity of their dominion over their slaves. The 
 first was the inununity tor twenty years of preserving the African 
 slave-trade; the second was the stipulation to surrender fugitive 
 slaves — an engagement positively ])rohibited by the laws of God, 
 delivered from Sinai; and thirdly, the exaction, fatal to the prin- 
 ciples of popular representation, of a representation for slaves — 
 for articles of merchandise, under the name of persons. * * * 
 
 In outward show, it is a representation of persons in bondage; 
 in fact, it is a representation of their masters, — the oppressor rep- 
 resenting the oppressed. — Is it in the compass of human imagina- 
 tion to devise a more perfect exemplification of the art of 
 committing the lamb to the tender custody of the wolf t — The 
 representative is thus constituted, not the friend, agent and trustee 
 of the person whom he rc()rcsents, but the most inveterate of his 
 foes. * * To call government thus constituted a democracy, is to 
 insult the undeistaiiding of mankind. * * It is doubly tainted with 
 the infection of riches and of slavery. There is no 7iamc in the 
 l(iii<rua;:;e of national jurisprudence that can dcjinc it — no model in 
 \\ni records of ancient history, or in the political theories of Aris- 
 totle, with which it can be likened. * * Here is one class of men, 
 consisting f)f not more tiian one-foitieth part of the whole people, 
 not more than f>ne-tliirti(th pait of the iiee population, exclusively 
 devoted to their j)ersonal interests identified with their own as 
 slaveholders of the same associated wealth, and wielding by their 
 votes, upon every question of government or of jmblic policy, 
 two-fillhs of the whole power of the House. In the Senate of the 
 Union, the ])r<q)ortion of the slaveholding power is yet greater. * * 
 Its operation upon the government of the nation is, to establish an 
 
39 
 
 artificial majority in the slave representation over that of the free 
 people, in the American Congress, and thereby to make the 
 PRESERVATION, PROPAGATION, AND PERPETUATION 
 OF SLAVERY THE VITAL AND ANIMATING SPIRIT OF 
 THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.— The result is seen in the 
 fact that, at this day, the President of the United .States, the Pres- 
 ident of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, 
 and five out of nine of the Judges of the Supreme Judicial Courts 
 of the United States, are not only citizens of slaveholding States, 
 but individual slaveholders themselves. So are, and constantly 
 have been, with scarcely an exception, all the members of both 
 Houses of Congress from the slaveholding States; and so are, in 
 immensely disproportionate numbers, the commanding officers of 
 the army and navy; the officers of the customs; the registers and 
 receivers of the land offices, and the post-masters throughout the 
 slaveholding States. * * * 
 
 Fellow-citizens, — with a body of men thus composed, for legis- 
 lators and executors of the laws, what will, what must be, what 
 has been your legislation ? The numbei's of freemen constituting 
 your nation are much greater than those of the slaveholding States, 
 bond and free. You have at least three-fifths of the whole popu- 
 lation of the Union. Your inffuence on the legislation and the 
 administration of the Government ought to be in the proportion of 
 three to two. But how stands the fact ? Besides the legitimate por- 
 tion of influence exercised by the slaveholding States by the measure 
 of their numbers, here is an intrusive influence in every depart- 
 ment, by a representation, nominally of persons, but really of prop- 
 erty, ostensibly of slaves, but effectively of their masters, overbalan- 
 cing your superiority of numbers, adding two-fifths of supplementary 
 power to the two-fifths fairly secured to them by the compact, 
 CONTROLLING AND OVERRULING THE W^HOLE AC- 
 TION OF YOUR GOVERNMENT AT HOME AND A- 
 BROAD, and warping it to the sordid private interest and oppress- 
 ive policy of 300,000 owners of slaves. * * * 
 
 In the Articles of Confederation, there was no guaranty for 
 the property of the slaveholder — no double representation of him 
 in the Federal councils — no power of taxation — no stipulation for 
 the recovery of fugitive slaves. But when the powers of govern- 
 ment came to be delegated to the Union, the South — that is, South 
 Carolina and Georgia — refused their subscri})tion to the parch- 
 ment, till it should be saturated with the infection of slavery, 
 which no fumigation could purify, no quarantine could extinguish. 
 The freemen of the North gave way, and the deadly venom of 
 slavery was infused into the Constitution of freedom. Its first 
 consequence has been to invert the first principle of Democracy, 
 that the will of the majority shall rule the land. By means of tlie 
 double representation, the minoritv command the wliolc, and a 
 KNOT OF SLAVEHOLDERS 'GIVP: THE LAW AND 
 PRESCRIBE THE POLICY OF THE COUNTRY. 
 
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