The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus

THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER

BY The American Anti-Slavery Society

1836






    No.  1. To the People of the United States; or, To Such Americans
            As Value Their Rights, and Dare to Maintain Them.

    No.  2. Appeal to the Christian Women of the South.

    No.  2. Appeal to the Christian Women of the South. Revised and
            Corrected.

    No.  3. Letter of Gerrit Smith to Rev. James Smylie, of the State
            of Mississippi.

    No.  4. The Bible Against Slavery. An Inquiry Into the
            Patriarchal and Mosaic Systems on the Subject of Human
            Rights.

    No.  4. The Bible Against Slavery. An Inquiry Into the
            Patriarchal and Mosaic Systems on the Subject of
            Human Rights. Third Edition--Revised.

    No.  4. The Bible Against Slavery. An Inquiry Into the
            Patriarchal and Mosaic Systems on the Subject of Human
            Rights. Fourth Edition--Enlarged.

    No.  5. Power of Congress Over the District of Columbia.

    No.  5. Power of Congress Over the District of Columbia. With
            Additions by the Author.

    No.  5. Power of Congress Over the District of Columbia. Fourth
            Edition.

    No.  6. NARRATIVE OF JAMES WILLIAMS, AN AMERICAN SLAVE.

    No.  7. EMANCIPATION IN THE WEST INDIES.

    No.  8. CORRESPONDENCE, BETWEEN THE HON. F.H. ELMORE, ONE OF THE
            SOUTH CAROLINA DELEGATION IN CONGRESS, AND JAMES G.
            BIRNEY, ONE OF THE SECRETARIES OF THE AMERICAN
            ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.

    No.  9. LETTER OF GERRIT SMITH, TO HON. HENRY CLAY.

    No. 10. EMANCIPATION In The WEST INDIES, IN 1838.

            THE CHATTEL PRINCIPLE THE ABHORRENCE OF JESUS CHRIST AND
            THE APOSTLES; OR NO REFUGE FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY IN THE NEW
            TESTAMENT. 1839.

    No. 10. American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand
            Witnesses.

    No. 10. Speech of Hon. Thomas Morris, of Ohio, in Reply to the
            Speech of the Hon. Henry Clay.

    No. 11. The Constitution A Pro-Slavery Compact Or Selections
            From the Madison Papers, &c.

    No. 11. The Constitution A Pro-Slavery Compact Or Selections
            From the Madison Papers, &c. Second Edition,
            Enlarged.

    No. 12. Chattel Principle The Abhorrence of Jesus Christ
            and the Apostles; Or No Refuge for American Slavery
            in the New Testament.

            On the Condition of the Free People of Color in the
            United States.

    No. 13. Can Abolitionists Vote or Take Office Under the United
            States Constitution?

            Address to the Friends of Constitutional Liberty, on the
            Violation by the United States House of Representatives
            of the Right of Petition at the Executive Committee of
            the American Anti-Slavery Society.




THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER



VOL. I. AUGUST, 1836. NO. 1.



TO THE

PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES;

OR, TO SUCH AMERICANS AS VALUE THEIR RIGHTS, AND

DARE TO MAINTAIN THEM.


FELLOW COUNTRYMEN!

A crisis has arrived, in which rights the most important which civil
society can acknowledge, and which have been acknowledged by our
Constitution and laws, in terms the most explicit which language can
afford, are set at nought by men, whom your favor has invested with a
brief authority. By what standard is your liberty of conscience, of
speech, and of the press, now measured? Is it by those glorious charters
you have inherited from your fathers, and which your present rulers have
called Heaven to witness, they would preserve inviolate? Alas! another
standard has been devised, and if we would know what rights are conceded
to us by our own servants, we must consult the COMPACT by which the
South engages on certain conditions to give its trade and votes to
Northern men. All rights not allowed by this compact, we now hold by
sufferance, and our Governors and Legislatures avow their readiness to
deprive us of them, whenever in their opinion, legislation on the
subject shall be "necessary[A]." This compact is not indeed published to
the world, under the hands and seals of the contracting parties, but it
is set forth in official messages,--in resolutions of the State and
National Legislatures--in the proceedings of popular meetings, and in
acts of lawless violence. The temples of the Almighty have been sacked,
because the worshipers did not conform their consciences to the
compact[B]. Ministers of the gospel have been dragged as criminals from
the altar to the bar, because they taught the people from the Bible,
doctrines proscribed by the compact[C]. Hundreds of free citizens,
peaceably assembled to express their sentiments, have, because such an
expression was forbidden by the compact, been forcibly dispersed, and
the chief actor in this invasion on the freedom of spe