The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4 eBook

American Anti-Slavery Society
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,269 pages of information about The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4.

The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4 eBook

American Anti-Slavery Society
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,269 pages of information about The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4.
sister States; if that power will be controlled by law, each can exercise and enjoy the full benefits secured by their own laws; and this is all we ask.  If we hold up slavery to the view of an impartial public as it is, and if such view creates astonishment and indignation, surely we are not to be charged as libellers.  A State institution ought to be considered the pride, not the shame of the State; and if we falsify such institutions, the disgrace is ours, not theirs.  If slavery, however, is a blemish, a blot, an eating cancer in the body politic, it is not our fault if, by holding it up, others should see in the mirror of truth its deformity, and shrink back from the view.  We have not, and we intend not, to use any weapons against slavery, but the moral power of truth and the force of public opinion.  If we enter the slave States, and tamper with the slave contrary to law, punish us, we deserve it; and if a slaveholder is found in a free State, and is guilty of a breach of the law there, he also ought to be punished.  These petitioners, as far as I understand them, disclaim all right to enter a slave State for the purpose of intercourse with the slave.  It is the master whom they wish to address; and they ask and ought to receive protection from the laws, as they are willing to be judged by the laws.  We invite into the arena of public discussion in our State the slaveholder; we are willing to hear his reasons and facts in favor of slavery, or against abolitionists:  we do not fear his errors while we are ourselves free to combat them.  The angry feelings which in some degree exist between the citizens of the free and slaveholding States, on account of slavery, are, in many cases, properly chargeable to those who defend and support slavery.  Attempts are almost daily making to force the execution of slave laws in the free States; at least, their power and principles:  and no term is too reproachful to be applied to those who resist such acts, and contend for the rights secured to every man under their own laws.  We are often reminded that we ought to take color as evidence of property in a human being.  We do not believe in such evidence, nor do we believe that a man can justly be made property by human laws.  We acknowledge, however, that a man, not a thing may be held to service or labor under the laws of a State, and, if he escape into another State, he ought to be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such labor or service may be due; that this delivery ought to be in pursuance of the laws of the State where such person is found, and not by virtue of any act of Congress.

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The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.