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
“Gone, gone, sold and gone.”
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!
[CHAPTER XV.]
Abolition of Slavery.
IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION.
“Long has thy night of sorrow been,
Without a star to cheer the scene.