Three millions of the American people are crushed under the American Union!  They are held as slaves—­trafficked as merchandise—­registered as goods and chattels!  The government gives them no protection—­the government is their enemy—­the government keeps them in chains!  There they lie bleeding—­we are prostrate by their side—­in their sorrows and sufferings we participate—­their stripes are inflicted on our bodies, their shackles are fastened to our limbs, their cause is ours!  The Union which grinds them to the dust rests upon us, and with them we will struggle to overthrow it!  The Constitution, which subjects them to hopeless bondage, is one that we cannot swear to support!  Our motto is, “NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS,” either religious or political.  They are the fiercest enemies of mankind, and the bitterest foes of God!  We separate from them not in anger, not in malice, not for a selfish purpose, not to do them an injury, not to cease warning, exhorting, reproving them for their crimes, not to leave the perishing bondman to his fate—­O no!  But to clear our skirts of innocent blood—­to give the oppressor no countenance—­to signify our abhorrence of injustice and cruelty—­to testify against an ungodly compact—­to cease striking hands with thieves and consenting with adulterers—­to make no compromise with tyranny—­to walk worthily of our high profession—­to increase our moral power over the nation—­to obey God and vindicate the gospel of His Son—­to hasten the downfall of slavery in America, and throughout the world!

We are not acting under a blind impulse.  We have carefully counted the cost of this warfare, and are prepared to meet its consequences.  It will subject us to reproach, persecution, infamy—­it will prove a fiery ordeal to all who shall pass through it—­it may cost us our lives.  We shall be ridiculed as fools, scorned as visionaries, branded as disorganizers, reviled as madmen, threatened and perhaps punished as traitors.  But we shall bide our time.  Whether safety or peril, whether victory or defeat, whether life or death be ours, believing that our feet are planted on an eternal foundation, that our position is sublime and glorious, that our faith in God is rational and steadfast, that we have exceeding great and precious promises on which to rely, THAT WE ARE IN THE RIGHT, we shall not falter nor be dismayed, “though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea,”—­though our ranks be thinned to the number of “three hundred men.”  Freemen! are you ready for the conflict?  Come what may, will you sever the chain that binds you to a slaveholding government, and declare your independence?  Up, then, with the banner of revolution!  Not to shed blood—­not to injure the person or estate of any oppressor—­not by force and arms to resist any law—­not to countenance a servile insurrection—­not to wield any carnal weapons!  No—­ours must be a bloodless strife, excepting our blood be shed—­for we aim, as did Christ our leader, not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them—­to overcome evil with good—­to conquer through suffering for righteousness’ sake—­to set the captive free by the potency of truth!