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1 Abolition Documents: Principles and Measures: Declaration of the Convention of Radical Political Abolitionists, at Syracuse, June 26th, 27th, and 28th, 1855 1 (1856)

handle is hein.slavery/prmsrpa0001 and id is 1 raw text is: ABOLITION DOCUMENTS. A WU.VBE.R O.E. PRINCIPLES AND MEASURES. Declaration of the Convention of Radical Political Abolitionists, at Syracuse, June 26th, 27th, and 28th, 1855. WE believe slaveholding to be an unsur- passed crime; and we hold it to be the sacred duty of civil government to suppress crime. We conceive slaveholding to be the annihi- lation of human rights, and we hold it to be the grand end and mission of civil govern- ment to protect human rights; nay, more, we hold that the government which annihi- lates, instead of protecting human rights, should be known not as civil government, but only as a conspiracy-an usurpation. We accordingly declare and maintain that there can be no legitimate civil government, rightfully claiming support and allegiance as such, that is not authorized, nay, that is not morally and politically bound, to prohibit and to suppress slaveholding. The responsi- bilities of civil government in this country rest, primarily, upon the people, by whom their own forms of government are insti- tuted, and who, at the ballot-box, provide for their administration in conformity with their wishes. If the Federal Government, by the Con- stitution, is incompetent to this task, then it is incompetent to be a civil government at all, or to secure the objects set forth in the Constitution itself. It can neither form a more perfect union, nor establish justice, nor insure domestic tranquillity, nor pro- vide for the common defense, nor pro- mote the general welfare, nor secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. But we deny that our fathers ever at- tempted such an absurdity as that of insti- tuting-a civil government without power to protect the natural rights of its subjects-a government to establish justice, and se- cure the blessings of liberty, without powers adequate to the suppression of slaveholding. We challenge the proof that when they de- clared it self-evident that all men are created ,qual, they intended a portion of them to be slaves; that when they were publicly pro- claiming inalienable rights, they were secretly plotting unparalleled wrongs; that when they appealed to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of their intentions, they were acting the put of base hypocrites; that when they proposed to establish jus- tice, they bound themselves to support the grossest injustice; that under pretense of securing the blessings of liberty, they en- tered into a compact for the support of slav- ery ! Their language in the Constitution indicates nothing of the kind, but the oppo- site; and there is no proof that their inten- tions were in conflict with their language. We deem it, therefore, right and proper to construe the Constitution as it reads, and not as the slaveholders pretend that it means. And, by such a construction, the Constitu- tion requires the Federal Government to abolish slavery in all the States. More than all this, we maintain that if it could be proved (as it can not be) that our fathers mentally intended to protect slavery, while their words, in the Constitution, re- quired its suppression, we should still hold ourselves at liberty, and under obligations, to use the Constitution according to its right- eous language, and against their unrighteous intentions. If men use language for dis- honest purposes, and with dishonest inten- tions, it becomes the duty of honest men who may succeed them, and to whom their written instruments are committed, to defeat such dishonest purposes and intentions, If they can, by interpreting the language ac- cording to its natural and just meaning. Every enlightened and upright jurist will thus decide; and the decision commits to the Federal Government a Constitution that binds it to suppress slavery. We deny that the Constitution could have contained any valid recognition of slavery, because there was never any legalized slavery in this country to be the subject of such re- cognition. We deny that slavery can be le- galized by any conceivable process whatever. And, aside from this, we affirm that, accord- ing to the rules and maxims, even of slave- holding jurisprudence, and of the Supreme Court of the United States, there never has been any legalized slavery in this country. On this point, we are ready to produce abundant testimony from eminent slavehold- ing jurists and statesmen themselves. And the whole history of slavery and the slave

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