The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus eBook

American Anti-Slavery Society
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 3,526 pages of information about The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus.

The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus eBook

American Anti-Slavery Society
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 3,526 pages of information about The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus.

[Footnote B:  Churches in New-York attacked by the mob in 1834.]

[Footnote C:  See two cases within the last twelve months in New Hampshire.]

[Footnote D:  Samuel Beardsley, Esq. the leader of the Utica riot, was shortly afterwards appointed Attorney General of the state of New-York.]

* * * * *

Postage—­This Periodical contains one sheet, postage under 100 miles, is 1 1-2 cents over 100 miles, 2 1-2 cents.

“The freedom of the press—­the palladium of liberty,” was once a household proverb.  Now, a printing office[A] is entered by ruffians, and its types scattered in the highway, because disobedient to the compact.  A Grand Jury, sworn to “present all things truly as they come to their knowledge,” refuse to indict the offenders; and a senator in Congress rises in his place, and appeals to the outrage in the printing office, and the conduct of the Grand Jury as evidence of the good faith with which the people of the state of New York were resolved to observe the compact[B].

[Footnote A:  Office of the Utica Standard and Democrat newspaper.]

[Footnote B:  See speech of the Hon. Silas Wright in the U.S.  Senate of Feb. 1836.]

The Executive Magistrate of the American Union, unmindful of his obligation to execute the laws for the equal benefit of his fellow citizens, has sanctioned a censorship of the press, by which papers incompatible with the compact are excluded from the southern mails, and he has officially advised Congress to do by law, although in violation of the Constitution, what he had himself virtually done already in despite of both.  The invitation has indeed been rejected, but by the Senate of the United States only, after a portentous struggle—­a struggle which distinctly exhibited the political conditions of the compact, as well as the fidelity with which those conditions are observed by a northern candidate for the Presidency.  While in compliance with these conditions, a powerful minority in the Senate were forging fetters for the press, the House of Representatives were employed in breaking down the right of petition.  On the 26th May last, the following resolution, reported by a committee was adopted by the House, viz.

“Resolved, that all Petitions, Memorials, Resolutions and Propositions relating in any way, or to any extent whatever, to the subject of Slavery, shall without being either printed or referred, be laid on the table, and that no further action whatever shall be had thereon.”  Yeas, 117.  Nays, 68.

Bear with us, fellow countrymen, while we call your attention to the outrage on your rights, the contempt of personal obligations and the hardened cruelty involved in this detestable resolution.  Condemn us not for the harshness of our language, before you hear our justification.  We shall speak only the truth, but we shall speak it as freemen.

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The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.