Our Presidents and how we make them

by Alexander K. McClure

Resolved, That the Liberty party has not been organized merely for the overthrow of slavery. Its first decided effort must indeed be directed against slaveholding as the grossest and most revolting manifestation of despotism, but it will also carry out the principle of equal rights into all its practical consequences and applications, and support every just measure conducive to individual and social freedom.

Resolved, That the Liberty party is not a sectional party, but a national party; was not originated in a desire to accomplish a single object, but in a comprehensive regard to the great interests of the whole country; is not a new party nor a third party, but is the party of 1776, reviving the principles of that memorable era, and striving to carry them into practical application.

Resolved, That it was understood in the times of the Declaration and the Constitution that the existence of slavery in some of the States was in derogation of the principles of American liberty, and a deep stain upon the character of the country and the implied faith of the States; and the nation was pledged that slavery should never be extended beyond its then existing limits, but should be gradually, and yet at no distant day, wholly abolished by State authority.

Resolved, That the faith of the States and the nation thus pledged was most nobly redeemed by the voluntary abolition of slavery in several of the States, and by the adoption of the ordinance of 1787 for the government of the territory northwest of the river Ohio, then the only territory in the United States, and consequently the only territory subject in this respect to the control of Congress, by which ordinance slavery was forever excluded from the vast regions which now compose the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and the Territory of Wisconsin, and an incapacity to bear up any other than free men was impressed on the soil itself.

Resolved, That the faith of the States and nation thus pledged has been shamefully violated by the omission on the part of many of the States to take any measures whatever for the abolition of slavery within their respective limits; by the continuance of slavery in the District of Columbia and in the Territories of Louisiana and Florida; by the legislation of Congress; by the protection afforded by national legislation and negotiation to slaveholding in American vessels, on the high seas, employed in the coastwise slave traffic; and by the extension of slavery far beyond its original limits, by acts of Congress admitting new Slave States into the Union.

Resolved, That the fundamental truth of the Declaration of Independence, that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, was made the fundamental law of our National Government by that amendment of the Constitution which declares that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

Resolved, That we recognize as sound the doctrine maintained by slaveholding jurists, that slavery is against natural rights and strictly local, and that its existence and continuance rest on no other support than State legislation, and not on any authority of Congress.

Resolved, That the General Government has, under the Constitution, no power to establish or continue slavery anywhere, and therefore that all treaties and acts of Congress establishing, continuing, or favoring slavery in the District of Columbia, in the Territory of Florida, or on the high seas, are unconstitutional, and all attempts to hold men as property within the limits of exclusive national jurisdiction ought to be prohibited by law.

Resolved, That the provisions of the Constitution of the United States, which confer extraordinary political powers on the owners of slaves, and thereby constituting the two hundred and fifty thousand slaveholders in the Slave States a privileged aristocracy, and the provision for the reclamation of fugitive slaves from service, are anti-republican in their character, dangerous to the liberties of the people, and ought to be abrogated.

Resolved, That the practical operation of the second of these provisions is seen in the enactment of the Act of Congress respecting persons escaping from their masters, which act, if the construction given to it by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Prigg v. Pennsylvania be correct, nullifies the habeas corpus acts of all the States, takes away the whole legal security of personal freedom, and ought therefore to be immediately repealed.