It is pleaded that the Constitution provides for its own amendment; and we ought to use the elective franchise to effect this object.  True, there is such a proviso; but, until the amendment be made, that instrument is binding as it stands.  Is it not to violate every moral instinct, and to sacrifice principle to expediency, to argue that we may swear to steal, oppress and murder by wholesale, because it may be necessary to do so only for the time being, and because there is some remote probability that the instrument which requires that we should be robbers, oppressors and murderers, may at some future day be amended in these particulars?  Let us not palter with our consciences in this manner—­let us not deny that the compact was conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity—­let us not be so dishonest, even to promote a good object, as to interpret the Constitution in a manner utterly at variance with the intentions and arrangements of the contracting parties; but, confessing the guilt of the nation, acknowledging the dreadful specifications in the bond, washing our hands in the waters of repentance from all further participation in this criminal alliance, and resolving that we will sustain none other than a free and righteous government, let us glory in the name of revolutionists, unfurl the banner of disunion, and consecrate our talents and means to the overthrow of all that is tyrannical in the land,—­to the establishment of all that is free, just, true and holy,—­to the triumph of universal love and peace.

If, in utter disregard of the historical facts which have been cited, it is still asserted, that the Constitution needs no amendment to make it a free instrument, adapted to all the exigencies of a free people, and was never intended to give any strength or countenance to the slave system—­the indignant spirit of insulted Liberty replies:—­“What though the assertion be true?  Of what avail is a mere piece of parchment?  In itself, though it be written all over with words of truth and freedom—­though its provisions be as impartial and just as words can express, or the imagination paint—­though it be as pure as the gospel, and breathe only the spirit of Heaven—­it is powerless; it has no executive vitality; it is a lifeless corpse, even though beautiful in death.  I am famishing for lack of bread!  How is my appetite relieved by holding up to my gaze a painted loaf?  I am manacled, wounded, bleeding dying!  What consolation is it to know, that they who are seeking to destroy my life, profess in words to be my friends?” If the liberties of the people have been betrayed—­if judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off, and truth has fallen in the streets, and equality cannot enter—­if the princes of the land are roaring lions, the judges evening wolves, the people light and treacherous persons, the priests covered with pollution—­if we are living under a frightful despotism, which scoffs at all constitutional