Civil government is necessary to the preservation, prosperity and safety of society. In some important sense, “the powers that be, are ordained of God.” It does not appear that the Creator has established any specific form of government, but the genius of christianity is evidently democratic. The leading objects of government are defined to be “the punishment of evil doers and the praise of them that do well.” When a government fails to protect and encourage the good and to punish evil doers,—when it becomes a mighty engine of oppression, the object of its institution is frustrated.

In the United States the voters are responsible for the character of the government. The people are the sovereign rulers. The ballot box controls legislation. If our country is badly governed it is the people’s fault.

The free white people of America are responsible for the existence of American slavery. They could at the ballot box break every yoke. They have the power to release more than three millions of slaves and thereby make heaven and earth rejoice!

A weighty responsibility, therefore, rests upon voters in relation to slavery. If it continue, it will be because they shall will it, and express that will at the ballot box. He who votes for a representative that is pledged to sustain slavery, becomes responsible for that representative’s acts on the slavery question. The responsibility cannot be shifted or dodged. Representatives consult the will of their constituents and act as they wish them to act. They are only the people’s agents, the echo of the people’s voice.

In the light of these facts how can a christian vote for a slaveholder or a friend of slavery? How can he, by his vote, say that slavery shall be perpetual? Every pulsation of a christian’s heart beats in harmony with liberty; he could not have slaves in his own hands. How then can he, how dare he, by his vote, chain them and deliver them over to the slave driver? It is mean and wicked for a strong man to beat a weak one, but it is equally as mean and wicked to hold the weak man so that the strong one may beat him at his leisure and with ease. So it is bad to own a slave and tax his sinews, sweat and blood, to beat and bruise him, but it is equally wrong to hold the slave while the southern slaveholder does the same thing. Hence, he who votes for pro-slavery representatives, votes for slavery and all its swarms of evils, and is indirectly a slaveholder himself.

Let it be distinctly understood, then, that political power has been entrusted to the christian people of America by the God of nations, who holds them responsible for its proper exercise; and that acting politically is a serious business, affecting the interests directly, in this country, of twenty millions of freemen, and more than three millions of slaves; and also affecting indirectly, the interests of the whole human family.

If the supporters of slavery continue to control the policy of the American government; to trample under foot the “higher law;” to render the Declaration of Independence a nullity; to denationalize liberty; to nationalize slavery and perpetuate and extend it; and thus to belie all our professions of Democracy, and render this government a Godless tyrant, delighting in crushed hopes and hearts—then the whole human race may weep. That our government has been progressing toward this terrible consummation for the last thirty years is but too evident.

The Declaration of Independence is a sound anti-slavery document. It does not regard the right of all men to liberty as an unsettled opinion or a question to be proved by abstruse argument, but pronounces it a “SELF EVIDENT TRUTH.”

The Constitution in form if not in fact, pretty fully embodies the sentiments of the Declaration. The word slave is not found in it, and it was kept out not accidentally, but purposely. The framers of the Constitution carefully guarded that instrument against any endorsement of slavery. In the convention which formed the Constitution, Gov. Morris of Pennsylvania said, “He never would concur in upholding domestic slavery. It was a nefarious institution.” Mr. Getry, of Massachusetts, in the same convention said, “we had nothing to do with the conduct of the States as to slavery, but we ought to be very careful not to give any sanction to it.” The idea that there could be property in man was carefully excluded from the Constitution. It was about to be foisted into that instrument by the adoption of a report of a committee fixing a tax on importations. But Mr. Sherman was against “acknowledging men to be property, by taxing them as such under the character of slaves.” Madison “thought it wrong to admit in the constitution the idea that there could be property in man.” But if the idea of property in man was carefully excluded from the Constitution, then it is clear that chattel slavery is not in form recognized, much less established by that instrument.

It is evident that the framers of the Constitution expected the speedy abolition of slavery; and hence, while providing in fact though not in form, for its continuance under the constitution, by virtue of local State laws, they so framed that instrument that it would not countenance slavery or deny the glorious doctrines of the immortal Declaration, which contained what Mr. Sumner calls “the national heart, the national soul, the national will, and the national voice.”[23]

Washington said “That it was among his first wishes to see some plan adopted, by which slavery may be abolished by law.”

Adams regarded slavery as “a sacrilegious breach of trust.”

Hamilton considered slaves, “though free by the law of God, held in slavery by the laws of men.”

Jefferson said that the “abolition of domestic slavery was the greatest object of desire.”

Patrick Henry said—“I will not, I cannot justify it.”

Benj. Franklin, when 84 years of age, came up before Congress with a petition from the “Abolition Society of Pennsylvania, praying that body to countenance the restoration of liberty to those unhappy men, who alone, in this land of freedom are degraded into perpetual bondage, and who, amidst the general joy of surrounding freemen are groaning in servile subjection.” This petition besought Congress to “step to the VERY VERGE of the power vested in them for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow men.”

These facts afford conclusive evidence, that the founders of the American Republic did not intend to fasten upon the object of their toils, perils and sacrifices, a monster which would speedily eat out its virtue, destroy its vitality and overthrow it forever.

But the policy of the government has been reversed. Millions of acres of territory have been purchased and annexed to make room for slavery, which has become a great national pet—the god before whom aspiring politicians must kneel and worship as a condition of political elevation.

The President of the United States and his Cabinet, the Supreme Court, and both Houses of Congress are all under the control of the Slaveocracy. No man can be a President of the United States unless he bows the knee and swears upon the altar of this modern Baal. Zeal for the infamous Fugitive Slave Law is now a particular test of political orthodoxy. A Congressman who advocates the principles of Washington, Franklin and Jefferson is considered as standing outside of any “healthy organization” and is not deemed worthy of a place on the most insignificant Congressional committee. Our government has been thoroughly changed from an anti-slavery to a pro-slavery government.

In view of these facts how important that the concentrated moral and political power of every American christian be brought to the rescue of our great Republic from the sin and shame of its present position.

Christians, in the States where slavery exists, are under obligations to use their whole political and moral power to bring about the speedy repeal of the entire slave code. That code is a miserable barbarism and should be swept away forever from the statutes of Christian States. My christian brethren in Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, are you prepared to use all the power, moral and political, with which you are entrusted, as you shall answer to God, for the emancipation of your suffering fellow citizens? Your political influence must tell somewhere! Remember that.

Christians in the free States are obliged to do what is in their power for the repeal of all laws which bear upon the colored man because he is a colored man. The word “white” ought to be erased from the statutes of all christian States. All “black laws” are anti-democratic, anti-christian, and not only insult and annoy, but discourage the colored man and obstruct his progress in the path of improvement.—Christian brethren of the free States, you have not done your duty toward your colored brother. You have sustained laws which gall his neck as a heavy yoke. You have treated him as an alien and an enemy. Will you henceforth do him justice, as you shall answer to God?

Christian citizens of all the States are directly responsible for the existence of slavery in the District of Columbia, and they should not be content until that foul pollution is wiped away from the Capital of our country. Slavery at Washington is especially a national disgrace, a blistering shame, a satire upon our professions.

When the foreign minister or visitor comes to our country, and goes to Washington, he sees in the streets, at the hotels, and everywhere, a poor, stupid, oppressed people, whose very speech and looks betray their ignorance and servility. Ah! Is this American freedom? Equality? Republicanism? Upon inquiry, he finds that one-seventh of all the people are in this state of servile wretchedness.

And when a member of Congress from a free State goes to the proud Capital of his country, he beholds passing by the tall and splendid buildings of the government, droves of men, women and children, chained together,—some sullenly indifferent to their fate—others weeping as if their hearts would break.—Who are these? American citizens!

Men, as white as some members of Congress, and women as fair as their wives and as virtuous as their daughters, are cried off at auction to the highest bidder, in Washington!

There our senators and representatives sit and legislate, in sight of the slave prison, and slave market—in hearing of the clanking of chains, and coffles,—and of the wail of slave mothers, weeping for their children, because they are

They are also responsible for the extension of slavery into territory now free. If they go not to the utmost verge of their power to save the Lord’s free earth from the overspreading and blighting curse of slavery, they cannot but be execrated by an enlightened posterity.

But more than all this. A christian is a citizen of the world, and hence is required to employ the whole force of his moral and political power for the extirpation of slavery from every State in the Union, and from every country on the globe. The influence of an intelligent, active christian citizen is worldwide. He cannot be the dupe or tool of any party; he is never shackled by party organizations; he does not commit the keeping of his conscience to political leaders. He sincerely loves God, believes the Bible, and loves his fellow-men, because they are men. Prejudice, caste, and all other relics of barbarism, he has thrown away. He talks, votes and prays for universal liberty and righteousness. In the pulpit, in the shop, on the farm, anywhere, everywhere the whole weight of his influence is thrown against slavery in the territories, in the District of Columbia, in the States, and against it wherever it exists in the world. As he seeks for the physical, intellectual and moral improvement and happiness of all men, he must desire intensely the speedy extirpation of slavery from the earth.

Christian voter, when you approach the ballot box, think of the three millions of bondmen who are holding up their hands “all manacled and bleeding,” pleading to you for deliverance!