never be. The only mode then in which we wish to have the work accomplished is that which alone is feasible, namely, by the power of God and of the truth. Let Christians see that slavery is sin and renounce it. Let the public conscience be enlightened and quickened. Let the energy of the gospel of love be felt. Let the glorious efficacy of religion in promoting human happiness and protecting human rights be really seen; and the developement would honor God, and his truth inconceivably. This object aloneapart from the accessions which would be made directly to human happiness, would be worthy of a great religious enterprise. To honor God as the God of the oppressed, and his truth as the salvation of our race, the great antidote for every evil and curse which men bring on themselves and on each other, would be a glorious achievement. For such a developement of God and of his truth, the world has long waited in vain. "The whole creation has been groaning and travailing in pain together for it until now."

But deliverance is at hand. God's kingdom shall at length come, and Satan's throne shall fall. That power by which the prince of darkness has so long chained down the millions of Africa in bondage, physical and moral, must cease.— The sons of Ethiopia are soon to shake off their manacles, and stretch forth their freed hands to God. And the oppressor too shall come bending to the Saviour's feet, and his hard heart shall melt before the cross for his sins against his despised brother. His pride of power, and avarice and selfishness cannot stand before the subduing power of Jesus. As truly as Jehovah lives, the nations are giving to his Son, and his truth and grace shall bow their hearts, abolish their sins and soften their spirits into the sweet simplicity and tenderness of the gospel. Then slavery will have ceased. Its last groan will be over-its last tear will have fallen-its last bitter cup will have been dashed forever. O what a Jubilee! But I may not give vent to the feelings of my heart. Yet one thing I must say. To the friends of the oppressed throughout the nation, if my voice could reach I would cry. Be men of God and mighty in prayer, and the cause of God will triumph. Make this a great religious enterprise-make it such in spirit, in argument, in appealmake it such in all your measures and operations, and you cannot fail of success. So Jehovah will be with you-yea, he himself will be your strength and victory.

THE CONSTITUTION.

BY N. P. ROGERS, ESQ.

AMONG the lions in the way of the "progress" of northern pro-slavery towards the desirable overthrow of our republican slaveholding, one of the grimest, most roariousgrowling and dismaying is the GLORIOUS CONSTITUTION. You cannot advance in direction of the castle of this pet-monster of the republic-slavery-even to reconnoitre, from a distance, its "sublime mysteries," but your ears are assailed from every quarter, with cries of, "Compact"-" Pledges to our Southern brethren"-" Guaranty of their peculiar institutions"-"The great compromise." By the way, we of the North, have nothing to do with slavery-absolutely nothing at all-it is a southern affair wholly-we have nothing (compact) to do (guaranty) with slavery (compromise.) Why do you come here to accuse us (have pledged ourselves) who are opposed to Slavery, &c. &c. But the absurdities, which grow on every bush, by the anti-abolition wayside, must not tempt us from our brief purpose-to write a rambling, post haste notice of the constitutionality of United States' Slavery. We draw bow at the uncouth monster at venture-currente, volante, no pausing to sight, no solicitous adjustment of shaft to bow-string as if the beast might be missed. Our light arrow must hit him "stretched out many a rood"--and that between joints of his gaping and unguarding harness.-Imprimis then. Is the Constitution of these Federate States pro-slavery? So they say, and that it barricades it about with impregnable and perpetual barriers. If it be so-if it sanctions the oppression of the colored people of this country, directly or indirectly ever so remotely,-why it is the most nefarious document ever perpetrated by the hand of human depravity. And those revolutionary fathers of ours-if they did (as their hopeful descendants unblushingly avow) enter into solemn league and covenant to enslave the innocent colored people, were, we indignantly proclaim, the most ferocious miscreants that have profaned the earth since Cain! What! They-reeking hot from a revolution, kindled for universal liberty-inalienable--the in

defeasible birthright and incident to every body under the round cope of heaven, a right so grossly self-evident that they would not argue it but with the naked bayonet, they -the daring hypocrites, when God had given them victory for the justice of their principles-sealed with the blood of the colored as well as the colorless man,-with Te Deum on their breaths, assemble deliberately and solemnly and enslave their fellow men !-Are these the ancestors we bluster about 4th July's! Then indeed "has our ignoble blood "crept through" at least one generation of SCOUNDRELS. Why a charter so diabolical should have been writ out in man's blood and on human parchments, and executed amidst accursed incantations around the "charmed pot." A Constitution, by republicans, for the enslavement of men! An Algerine Divan would not have been caught at it. There is but one imaginable assemblage that would be "up to it," a pandemonium, styled, instead of a convention,and even with Satan himself and his despairing peers, it would have raised a laugh to see men attempt it on the earth-a league to subject man to the boundless caprice of his fallen fellow! Oh! it would have transcended all their expectations of depraved human service-it were a piece of supererogation disgusting to their extremity of wickedness. But it is contended that our ancestors did it. It is possible they conceived it in their hearts. Why else did they not demand the abolition of slavery as the sine-quanon condition of confederation? And why did they expressly protect the infernal slave trade from the interference of their own Congress? Ah! they were embarrassed and the South would not unite. But were they not embarassed when Great Britain would not unite? They plunged to the neck in revolution for an abstract right. They waged war to the knife against a mere nominal oppression. But it was for their own white selves. Rights were not so "abstract" but they could fight for them when they were their own. But when the life and soul of their unoffending and most deserving colored brothers were at stake-why, forsooth, they were embarrassed and must "compromise!" But they did not succeed in reducing their compromise to writing. If they conceived it in their treachery, they did not get it down upon the deed; God did not vouchsafe them the art to do it. They were after securing their own

personal liberties and it was utterly past all their scholarcraft to pen the security and leave the colored man a slave. The written Constitution is a warrantee deed of universal liberty, equal and absolute freedom to every mortal man who comes within its outmost protection and territorial limit. Slavery is unconstitutional. It has been perpetuated in defiance of the old charter every moment since its adoption. A flying consideration or two in support of this fanaticism-premising that we harbor not a spark of care to convince a solitary republican. So we can help summon the stupid public attention to the nobile par, Slavery and The Constitution, we care not how the public holds-constitutional or unconstitutional-the sight is one the nation cannot bear.

Will they travel beyond the deed for intents and purposes? If they do, we point them to that "flourishing" piece of "rhetoric," the famous "Declaration," and to the state Bills of Rights, as indications of the quo animo of the times-concomitant or precedent acts these, and anti-slavery to ultraism. But we hold them to the deed. To this the Declaration was the preliminary "flourish." Let us see how the sages followed it up. First, the preamble. We may gather some inklings of their intent from the preamble—some means of conjecturing their purpose. "We, the people,”— not five sixths, but the whole-the people. And what goes to make the constituent parts of that we call people? a pointed nose? a thin, termagant lip? a larger curling of the hair? a pallid complexion, unburned by the vertical sun? We call on pro-slavery for a definition of people. order to form a more perfect union." Union of what? Fire and water? wolf and sheep? fox and poultry? Union! Slavery is as big with discord as a volcano is of combustibility and eructation. But patience--and look a little fur ther. "To establish justice." Not come to the slavery yet. Henry Clay, in a slaveholding speech before a Colonization Society, seems to justify it. The American Union* thinks it has discovered that it is, as it were, a "wrong." But further, "to secure domestic tranquility," among the masters? "What makes the mother hug her infant closer to her breast as she hears the midnight bell at Richmond,"

*The nom de guerre of Colonizationists, in and about Boston.-ED.

"In

cried the mad Randolph, as he disclosed the tranquilizing influences of negro insurrections. Domestic tranquility! The war whoop, as the old settlers used to tell, scared the frontier mothers as, sharp and quick, it "broke the sleep of the cradle." But what is dread of Indians to the dismay of the heartless woman of the South, when she hears the alarm of a slave rising? What imagination can conceive the consternation of the planter? It scares him like the bursting scenes of the judgment day, which it images forth to his guilty, coward soul. It cannot be the master's tranquility— but peace among the sovereign states and the sections of the Union. How naturally it springs from the deadly collisions of free and slave interests, habits, feelings and labor !— Surely slavery is a tranquility-breeder among the states and sections ! "To provide for the common defence." What defence does a pro-slavery Constitution afford the colored millions of the country-or are they not a portion of the commonalty. Is the constitutional enslavement of one sixth of the people "common defence?" Defence against what? Colored people have become quite common in the land, but slavery is no defence to them. Defence against foreign enemies perhaps. Gen. Hayne regards slavery as the very essence of national military strength. It leaves the white chivalry at leisure to hunt and fight, while agriculture is kept up at home by the slave. The soundness of this will not here be questioned. But "to promote the general welfare," viz. oppressing, degrading, treading under foot, unmanning, unsouling, imbruting, transforming, dismounting of soul and spirit, extinguishing-we want words! here is an unlooked-for and unprovided-for occasion of words of terrible significancy! Slavery demands a nomenclature for her own use! "General welfare!" General to a frightful extent. Let the slave speak as to the welfare. So general has the system come to work, that it will augment itself to its own and the nation's catastrophe, unless antislavery makes haste to the rescue. But we come to it at length. The genius of thraldom at last speaks out for itself, "And secure," mark the phrase, "the blessings of LIBERTY to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution." 'Liberty to be sure,' cries pro-slavery, 'but for whom, not for the nigger, but for "ourselves and our posterity."-strongly, by implication, excluding the black folks