to violate every moral
instinct, and to sacrifice principle to expediency, to argue that we
may swear to steal, oppress and murder by wholesale, because it may be
necessary to do so only for the time being, and because there is some
remote probability that the instrument which requires that we should
be robbers, oppressors and murderers, may at some future day be
amended in these particulars? Let us not palter with our consciences
in this manner--let us not deny that the compact was conceived in sin
and brought forth in iniquity--let us not be so dishonest, even to
promote a good object, as to interpret the Constitution in a manner
utterly at variance with the intentions and arrangements of the
contracting parties; but, confessing the guilt of the nation,
acknowledging the dreadful specifications in the bond, washing our
hands in the waters of repentance from all further participation in
this criminal alliance, and resolving that we will sustain none other
than a free and righteous government, let us glory in the name of
revolutionists, unfurl the banner of disunion, and consecrate our
talents and means to the overthrow of all that is tyrannical in the
land,--to the establishment of all that is free, just, true and
holy,--to the triumph of universal love and peace.

If, in utter disregard of the historical facts which have been cited,
it is still asserted, that the Constitution needs no amendment to make
it a free instrument, adapted to all the exigencies of a free people,
and was never intended to give any strength or countenance to the
slave system--the indignant spirit of insulted Liberty replies:--"What
though the assertion be true? Of what avail is a mere piece of
parchment? In itself, though it be written all over with words of
truth and freedom--though its provisions be as impartial and just as
words can express, or the imagination paint--though it be as pure as
the gospel, and breathe only the spirit of Heaven--it is powerless; it
has no executive vitality; it is a lifeless corpse, even though
beautiful in death. I am famishing for lack of bread! How is my
appetite relieved by holding up to my gaze a painted loaf? I am
manacled, wounded, bleeding, dying! What consolation is it to know,
that they who are seeking to destroy my life, profess in words to be
my friends?" If the liberties of the people have been betrayed--if
judgement is turned away backward and justice standeth afar off, and
truth has fallen in the