The Liberator (newspaper)/September 18, 1857/Western Anti-Slavery Society

Western Anti-Slavery Society.

The anniversary of the Western Anti-Slavery Society, held at Alliance, (Ohio,) on the 5th and 6th inst., appears to have been equally spirited and radical in its proceedings, and unusually well attended. The receipts of the Society, for the past year, including the balance in the treasury at the last anniversary, amounted to $2,382.49; the expenditures to $2,379.06. Among the speakers were Parker Pillsbury, Stephen S. and Abby K. Foster, Andrew T. Foss, C. L. Remond, Sarah Remond, Lucy N. Coleman, Richard Glazier, William F. Parker, Benjamin S. Jones, Marius R. Robinson, A. Pryne, and Prof. Hartshorn. The following were the series of Resolutions submitted for discussion by the business committee:—

Series No. 1.

1. Resolved, That the daring and determined aggression of the Slave Power, increasing in frequency as well as atrocity, and yet rousing no spirit of resistance on the part of the North, but rather a more willing and craven submission to and complicity in the curse and crime of slavery, adds new motive to us as Abolitionists, to continue with never tiring nor abated earnestness our onset upon it, under the only war-cry worthy the conflict, ‘No Union with Slaveholders.’

2. Resolved, That it is of the highest importance to guard against the mistake of supposing opposition to the extension of slavery, or to the Fugitive Slave Law, or the Dred Scott Decision, or any other incident of the slave institution, as necessarily opposition to the system itself; inasmuch as we often see all this connected with real devotion to slavery where it is, and most idolatrous attachment to the Union, on which alone it must depend for its existence.

3. Resolved, That it is now fully time to regard all political action under the Union and Constitution as essentially pro-slavery, however specious its professions to the contrary; and especially would we regard the Republican party, that makes its continual declarations of fidelity to slavery where it is, as a peace-offering to the slaveholders for opposing it where it is not, whether in Kansas or elsewhere, as the worst foe to be encountered by the friends of freedom and humanity.

4. Resolved, That in the declarations and doings of Senator Wilson of Massachusetts, Senator Hale of New Hampshire, and Gov. Chase of Ohio, to say nothing of N. P. Banks and other most prominent leaders in the Republican party, there is a recklessness of principle, and a bending to the unhallowed behests of slavery and despotism, to rebuke which, as it deserves, is utterly beyond the power of human language.

Series No. 2.

1. Resolved, That the recent developments in the more popular and powerful denominations of the American Church have been such as fully to justify our former severest reprehension and condemnation of it, and to demand a renewal of our testimony against it. Especially has the action of the Methodist Conferences North and the American Tract Society been such as most clearly to demonstrate, that all their pretended hostility to slavery has been a base and hypocritical pretence only, to preserve the peace without promoting the purity of these organizations, or hastening in the least possible degree the abolition of slavery.

2. Resolved, That in the New York Independent, in Rev. Dr. Cheever, in Henry Ward Beecher, and others like them, we recognize not the bold, manly, apostolic energy and power to rebuke sin, such as the times demand, but a craven, compromising succumbing spirit, which, while it utters many stern denunciations of slave-breeding and slaveholding priests and professors of religion, dares not or does not separate from them, as from more unpopular but not more guilty pirates or robbers on sea and land.

3. Resolved, That, holding such a position, they inevitably make themselves more dangerous opponents to pure and undefiled religion than those who openly and daringly defend the slave system, with all its abominations, from the Bible as well as the Constitution, and from Abraham and Paul as well as from Jefferson and Washington.

Series No. 3.

1. Resolved, That we hold the doctrine of ‘Compensation to the slaveholders for Emancipation,’ under any circumstances, as both unjust and immoral in the highest degree; but especially do we regard the Constitution of the ‘Compensation Society,’ recently organized at Cleveland, with particular abhorrence, for the following among other reasons:

1. Because it wholly ignores the sin and guilt of slavery, the only appropriate, remedy for which is deep repentance and humiliation, on the part of the guilty.

2. It makes no distinction whatever between losses sustained in surrendering a lawful and laudable calling, and abandoning the most unhallowed piracy and robbery the world has ever beheld.

3. It takes no cognizance of the fact that the North, and white labor every where, have been the principal sufferers by the perpetration of the crime; greater by far than all the ill-gotten gains of the slaveholder could ever compensate; and,

4. It proposes neither Pay nor Pity, neither Compensation nor Compassion to the poor slaves, for all their long-endured agonies and toils; but instead, turns them forth helpless, homeless and still hated, upon a community that has crushed and plundered them from generation to generation.

2. Resolved, That fidelity to the cause of freedom and justice to the slave demand that we brand such a scheme as most iniquitous and cruel, tending far more to prolong and extend than to exterminate the system, and worthy only of a conclave of oppressors and tyrants.

3. Resolved, That the time has fully come, when the friends of freedom, who believe in the necessity of a government of force, and who are now acting in the Federal Government, might render essential aid to the Anti-Slavery cause by organizing political parties outside of the present national confederacy—parties which shall pledge their candidates to ignore the Federal Government, and make their respective States free and independent sovereignties.

All the Resolutions were adopted, excepting the last, which was presented and advocated by Mr. Foster, but strongly negatived by the meeting.

The Bugle says the number present was larger than last year—good delegations having come from Western Pennsylvania, and from various parts of Ohio. The spirit of compromise seemed quite at a discount.