priest and Levite indifference, while the slave is perishing for want of help? They complain of our leaders. But we admit no leaders-we are brethren in this cause, working shoulder to shoulder. But if they will have it that there are leaders, and they dislike the direction in which they draw, let them buckle on the harness and give us a better lead; we shall not hesitate to follow, if they lead in the way of emancipation. If they know where all our errors lie, are they not the very men to correct them? Whence, then, this carping about men and measures? What sort of an apology will it be at the day of judgment, for having refused to open their mouths for the dumb, that they did not like the style in which the abolitionists plead their cause? Thus much for our moral machinery. Let us now take a peep at the political, which is involved in the fifth and sixth measures,-the ballot-box and petition. Against both of these, the demagogue and party politician will, no doubt, be ready to cry aloud. But, with God's blessing, we will, in a few years, make them cry the other side of their mouths. That cry is, to my mind, proof positive that the measures are sound and well applied. Snakes do not hiss, unless you disturb their repose. Nor would these gentlemen, unless they saw a probability of their downy seats being upset by the antislavery car, give themselves much trouble about our measures. They need not be alarmed; we have a large and gallant car, which will afford them all ample accommodation, if they will only come on board and become antislavery passengers. Petition and the ballot-box are the hands on the great public clock, to show the anti-slavery time of day. Just so far as our moral measures prepare the nation for emancipation, men will be elected and Legislatures petitioned for this purpose; and when the people are but once ready to vote for such men as will go for emancipation, and to instruct them accordingly, the work will be done, and not before. It is not intended to organize a third political party. That would be suicidal to our cause. Abolitionists are but a small minority, and such organization would only ensure defeat. But the other parties are so nearly equal, that they have a strong balance of political power in nearly all the free states. This power they are as much bound to reserve for the slave as they are bound to be abolitionists. Like all other power and blessings, it is bestowed on them by God, and they are accountable to Him for the manner in which it is applied. If, by carrying it to the polls, they can emancipate the slave, and they refuse to do so, by that refusal they just as much connive at slaveholding, as they would at arson by passing a house, seeing the incendiary apply the torch, and refusing to sound the alarm. Let them look well to this subject. Mr. Van Buren has sworn to uphold this system by his veto power. Let abolitionists tell his party and the Whigs, if they expect anti-slavery votes, they must put up candidates for the presidency who are not slaveholders nor the slaveholder's sworn minions, but high-minded men, known to be the friends of emancipation, and ready to do all in their power to promote it. Let them pursue the same course with regard to every representative for whom they are called upon to vote; and, in less than three years, the District of Columbia and Territory of Florida will be freed from this polluting institution. How else can they expect ever to complete their designs? The day of miracles is past; ours are all representative governments, every member of which is statedly chosen by the people, knowing that he holds his office only at the pleasure and by the permission of the people, and that he must retire whenever they say the word. Such a man they have only to instruct or petition, to be heard and obliged. I know, indeed, they sometimes talk big about not being bound by the will of their constituents, but some how or other they generally act as their constituents desire. And we care very little how they talk, if we can be sure of right action. Many timid people appear to be alarmed that the abolitionists avow themselves disposed to have any thing to do with political matters; not so much on account of the measures being faulty themselves, as the fear that in consequence of adopting them the abolitionists may be charged by their enemies with ambition. Our cause, they think, should be carried forward only by moral means. True, it should be, so far as to make men abolitionists. But suppose every body in this nation were abolitionists but twenty thousand slaveholders, and these were of such a character that you could no more persuade them to emancipate the victims of their avarice, lust, and cruelty, than you could the enemy of mankind to become a saint. What would you do? The hammer of divine truth would rebound from their hearts like that of a blacksmith from his anvil. I could easily manage them on my plan. Let abolitionists be elected representatives in all the Southern Legislatures, and they would purge their land of slavery as quickly and effectually, as did Hercules the Augean stable. But without this, I do not know how you could liberate the victims of their wickedness. In the capitol of our nation, a few men hold about six thousand more in the condition of beasts-and that little spot is the slave-mart of the whole South. Some of these men you may persuade to emancipate their slaves. How will you emancipate the remainder? Congress can do the work any day they choose; and they will choose to do it, when they know they cannot hold their seats on any other condition; and this fact they can easily be taught by the ballot-box and petitions. But without these measures on the part of abolitionists, it is in vain to expect any such result. Sir, we have had a little experiment on the tendency of these measures in Massachusetts. Two years ago last winter, the Southern states sent on their edicts to our Legislature, demanding the enactment of penal laws to gag us on the subject of slavery, and prevent the organization of anti-slavery societies. Our governor, in his message, intimated, that we were liable to be indicted at common law as disturbers of the peace. A committee was appointed by the Legislature to consider and report on the subject, who, out of courtesy, permitted the abolitionists, at their own earnest desire, to come forward and show cause-if any there was-why they should not be condemned; but finally did not permit them to speak, because some of them were not sufficiently suppliant to square with the chairman's notion of anti-slavery propriety. After giving the subject that profound attention which its importance demanded, he made his best bow to the slaveholder, and delivered the abolitionists over to the sovereign mob. His report and resolutions were, however, never taken up nor acted upon. The old farseeing politicians knew too much of the spirit of Massachusetts to burn their fingers in a fire kindled and fed by slaveholders. They were aware that, how little soever of anti-slavery, or how much of hatred to abolitionists, there might be among the people, there was too much self-respect to bow the knee to the dark spirit of slavery," and they very prudently let the report lie on the table, where it "still lieth." The slaveholders, disappointed and chagrined at the result of their commands, did not repeat them the following year, and the citizens concluded to try their hand at the game. They circulated petitions, signed, and sent them in with many thousand signatures. A committee was now appointed to consider and report upon them, but with the design, as I was assured, of reporting that it would be inexpedient to legislate on the subject. But petition and the ballot-box are powerful arguments, and generally go further to convince politicians, than the ablest made speeches or written communications; and before the committee were ready to report, the former had accumulated in such numbers upon their hands, they saw it would not answer to adopt quite so summary a course, the subject matter of the petition began to look much less objectionable-even to wear the appearance of reason. The abolitionists did not now have to crave permission to come forward and show cause why they ought not to be condemned; but a day was fixed by the committee, and they were notified, and invited to come and speak to the questions embraced in the petitions. They came-the committee adjourned day after day, and nearly all the Legislature sat with them, or in the same hall, gave them a most patient, candid, and manly hearing; petitions continued to thicken upon them, till they became satisfied there would be no risk in taking a manly stand against slavery, and. instead of reporting that it was inexpedient to legislate on the subject, they offered a noble string of resolutions, which astonished the friends of them no less than the enemies. When they came into the House for action, the issue made up between the two political parties was, which should go strongest against slavery-and they passed by an almost unanimous vote. When sent to the Senate for concurrence, the same strife arose there, and that body not only adopted the ones passed by the House, but hitched on three more of a much stronger and more decided character. Owing to the alarm raised by the pro-slavery presses, which had formerly set the mobs upon the abolitionists-the House was frightened from concurring with those added by the Senate. The people not only sustained them, but on the following year, to a very wide extent, proposed questions to the candidates for their suffrage. When the Legislature convened they sent in a still larger number of petitions than formerly, and obtained every thing they asked for but one word, and that was immediate, in the resolution demanding the abolition of slavery. Such have been the results of our measures in Massachusetts; and such will be their result in Congress, and in every state in this nation when applied with the same efficiency. Do you discover in them any imprudence, forocity, or anti-christianity? Are they not well calculated to produce the end at which we aim? Is it possible to carry our principles into practice without them? If then the opponent be as much an abolitionist and opposed to slavery as you, let him show his principles by his practice, remembering that the tree is known by its fruits. EXERCISES OF THE THIRD DAY. THIS morning was devoted to discussion, as announced on the morning of the preceding day. The subject was the broad one of Slavery and its Remedy, and as an evidence of the deep interest which it awakened, the Hall was crowded earlier and with even a larger audience than at the former meetings. The speakers were Alvan Stewart, Edward C. Pritchett, Elder Frederick Plummer, William H. Burleigh, and Alanson St. Clair. Only two of them, however, have been able to furnish us with a sketch of their remarks. Previous to the discussion, the following letter from WALTER FORWARD, of Pittsburgh, was read, and also the letter from Dr. SLEIGH, published on page 73.* PITTSBURGH, May 10, 1838. Respected Friends,—I find it impossible to be with you at the Pennsylvania Hall on Tuesday next-a circumstance which I very much regret. It would have afforded me the highest gratification to comply with your wishes, had it been practicable so to do. The right of free discussion, and the right of petitioning those who may be in authority for the redress of grievances, are among the most sacred of all rights, and any attempt to cripple or abridge them must be met by a determined and indignant resistance. However partial I may be to the scheme of Colonization, I am none the less inflexible in the resolution, never to submit to any attempt, under whatever plausible pretext, to subdue the spirit of free discussion, or to render the servants of the people inaccessible to their complaints. I am with much respect, your friend, Messrs. Samuel Webb, and Wm. H. Scott.-Committee. SPEECH OF E. C. PRITCHETT. E. C. PRITCHETT said, that the subject of discussion was certainly wide enough-Slavery, Liberty, Colonization, Abolition; on each head, so much might be said, that it was difficult to select merely what might serve for immediate use. He would proceed, however, at hap-hazard, to utter something on each point, not by way of instruction, but in the hope of eliciting some of that sympathy which at once refreshes and strengthens the utterer and the hearer of free thought. It was needless to say any thing about freedom, after * It may not be improper here to state that the FORUM was appropriated to the use of the Managers, the Orators, and strangers from a distance invited upon it by the Managers; all the rest of the saloon was freely given up to the public, to occupy in such way as they might think proper, without any direction as to the manner in which the audience should arrange theinselves. From a mistaken motive, however, and before the Managers entered the Hall, three colored men were invited, by a person from the country who was not even a stockholder, to take their seats on the forum. One of these was well known to us as an intelligent, worthy man; the other two were strangers. All three were requested to leave the forum, as they were neither Managers, Orators, nor invited by the Managers, and we could not vary our regulations in their favor, especially while a number of our stockholders were then standing below unable to procure seats. The same course would have been pursued had they been white men, what had been proclaimed by him who so appropriately commenced the dedication of this Temple of Free Discussion and Pennsylvania Principles, by an oration on Liberty. Most splendid was that eulogium, or rather that exposition of liberty--and the unadorned exposition of her character is her own best praise; for "of all things that have beauty, liberty is most comely to man," as says Milton, and as the Most High taught the apostle to believe when he announced, as the chosen type of Jesus' Religion, Liberty," the glorious Liberty of the sons of God." But, sir, I was disappointed, when the orator, after so skilful an exhibition of the blessings of Liberty, said he might hesitate to turn over his hand, to secure his freedom immediately to the slave, for fear of the blessing being an injury to the recipient. Sir, I am so fully convinced of the truth of the former part of the honorable gentleman's oration, that I should, or ought to be willing, for the attainment of so blessed a consummation, to turn over my hand, though, as a penalty for the deed, my arm should forthwith be burnt to the shoulder-socket. As dearly as I love liberty, impartial liberty, for others as for myself, so cordially do I hate slavery-and is such hatred, perfect, determined, deadly hate, unchristian? No,-and the pulses of this audience throb the echo "no!" For I am not speaking to fools-and the Scriptures announce as the climacteric folly of the fool, that "he abhorreth not evil." And is not slavery, to quote its self-contradicting apologist, Rev. President Fisk, "evil, evil only, and evil continually?" It is the general contradiction of all truth and right and love. It scorns the maxims of political economy, runs counter to every fact and doctrine of ethics or intellectual philosophy, works havoc with every arrangement of social order and charity, spurns the commandments which were uttered amid the thunders of Sinai, rushes madly on the thick bosses of Jehovah's buckler, belies prophecy, and gnashes its teeth at the promises of the gospel. From the uttermost vastness of infinity to the most trivial truisms of every day life, it is ever more a wrong and a lie. While its portentous shadow blackens eternity with gloom, the common rules of grammar cry out against it. Every child, who cons his Murray or Gould at school, has learnt that a personal and compound personal pronoun must agree in person-that good grammar requires me to say "I myself" and "you yourself"-but slavery is an interminably reiterated fracture of Priscian's head. Its first principle is, that the slave shall not say "I myself," but" I yourself, massa." If we may parody the old song, "When ilka mon shall hae his ain, Now, sir, I would turn over my hand to have good grammar allowed throughout the Union. Here some of our friends, whose regard for freedom is more curious than useful, may tell us that they are as much opposed to slavery as any one,but the slaves should be sent home to Africa, the land of their fathers. In other words, they think the colored Americans should not be allowed to speak English grammatically outside of Africa. There are sundry objections to this plan of colonization. In the first place, it is impossible-in twenty years the Colonization Society has transported but one-twentieth of one year's increase of the slave population. This first objection, one would think, were enough-but, perchance, the friends of this plan may say that though "'tis not in mortals to command success, they will do more, they will deserve it." Will they allow us to hint that they will no more deserve, than they will command success. Their most sweet voices are frequently heard proclaiming as a collateral good to be attained, second only in import |