above address would have
included the PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES. But, alas! the freedom of
the press, freedom of speech, and the right of petition, are now
hated and dreaded by our Southern citizens, as hostile to the
perpetuity of human bondage; while, by their political influence in
the Federal Government, they have induced numbers at the North to
unite with them in their sacrilegious crusade against these
inestimable privileges.

On the 28th January last, the House of Representatives, on motion of
Mr. Johnson, from Maryland, made it a standing RULE of the House
that "no petition, memorial, resolution, or other paper, praying the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, or any State or
Territory of the United States, in which it now exists, SHALL BE
RECEIVED BY THE HOUSE, OR ENTERTAINED IN ANY WAY WHATEVER."

Thus has the RIGHT OF PETITION been immolated in the very Temple of
Liberty, and offered up, a propitiatory sacrifice to the demon of
slavery. Never before has an outrage so unblushingly profligate been
perpetrated upon the Federal Constitution. Yet, while we mourn the
degeneracy which this transaction evinces, we behold, in its
attending circumstances, joyful omens of the triumph which awaits
our struggle with the hateful power that now perverts the General
Government into an engine of cruelty and loathsome oppression.

Before we congratulate you on these omens, let us recall to your
recollection the steps by which the enemies of human rights have
advanced to their present rash and insolent defiance of moral and
constitutional obligation.

In 1831, a newspaper was established in Boston, for the purpose of
disseminating facts and arguments in favor of the duty and policy of
immediate emancipation. The Legislature of Georgia, with all the
recklessness of despotism, passed a law, offering a reward of $5000,
for the abduction of the Editor, and his delivery in Georgia. As
there was no law, by which a citizen of Massachusetts could be tried
in Georgia, for expressing his opinions in the capital of his own
State, this reward was intended as the price of BLOOD. Do you start
at the suggestion? Remember the several sums of $25,000, of $50,000,
and of $100,000, offered in Southern papers for kidnapping certain
abolitionists. Remember the horrible inflictions by Southern Lynch
clubs. Remember the declaration, in the United States Senate, by the
brazen-fronted Preston, that, should an abolitionist be caught