Introduction

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LIBERTY PARTY, founded November 13, 1839, Warsaw, New York, abolitionist political party, merged with the Free Soil Party in 1848. Newspaper: Liberty Party Paper, published by John Thomas in Syracuse, New York; the Emancipator, in Massachusetts; the Liberty Press and Albany Patriot, in upstate New York; the Philanthropist, in Ohio; Western Citizen, in Chicago; Free Labor Advocate, in Indiana; Liberty Standard, in Maine; American Freeman, in Wisconsin; New Jersey Freeman and Signal of Liberty, in Michigan. There were sixty Liberty Party newspapers. James Birney was the presidential candidate for the Liberty Party.

(Blue, 2005, pp. ix, 2, 4, 5, 9, 16, 23-35, 49-50, 52, 53, 63, 66, 67, 91, 97-101, 116-118, 144, 163, 214, 218, 236, 265, 267; Dumond, 1961, pp. 285-286, 291, 295-304; Filler, 1960, pp. 145, 152, 155, 176, 178, 181, 213; Goodell, 1855; Harrold, 1995, pp. 10, 41, 55-57, 59, 91, 127, 131, 134-141, 174n10; Mabee, 1970, pp. 40, 56, 72, 227, 228, 246, 247, 252, 387n5; Mitchell, 2007, pp. 4, 6-16, 25-29, 31, 44-48, 50, 51, 53, 54, 56, 74, 71, 98, 139, 167, 188, 196, 212, 215, 216, 225, 245, 254n; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 46, 48, 50, 57, 132, 185, 189, 298, 514, 522; Sernett, 2002, pp. 105, 112-125; Sorin, 1971, pp. 18, 21, 22, 27, 35, 31n, 38, 47, 60, 70, 77, 80, 106, 126, 130, 133; Willey, 1897; Wilson, 1872, Vol. 1, pp. 545-555, Vol. 2, pp. 109-113; Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York; Johnson, The History of the Liberty Party; Smith, Theodore Clark, The Liberty and Free Soil Parties in the Northwest, New York, 1897)

Chapter: “The Liberty Party,” by Henry Wilson, in History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, 1872.

The early Abolitionists were pledged to the removal of slavery by political as well as moral agencies. Their modes of political action, however, were undefined. Some contemplated it' through existing political organizations, others through the formation of a new party. Mr. Garrison, as early as 1834, advocated the organization of a" Christian party in politics"; and two years later Professor Follen suggested the idea of a. new, progressive Democratic party, of which the abolition of s1avery should be a fundamental principle. William Goodell, Alvan Stewart, Myron Holley, James G. Birney, Joshua Leavitt, Gerrit Smith, and other eminent Abolitionists, early and persistently urged political action, and the formation of a party that should make the abolition of slavery a paramount issue.

Antislavery men first exemplified the principle of political action by questioning candidates for public office. Though their questions were generally treated with neglect, their numbers so increased that they were able, in some localities, to effect resu1ts. In 1838, in the great contest in New York, William H. Seward and Luther Bradish, Whig candidates for governor and lieutenant-governor, gave respectful answers to their questions, while the Democratic candidates refused to answer at all. The answers of Mr. Bradish were satisfactory; those of Mr. Seward were but partially so, and their majorities were unquestionably increased by the abolition votes they received. At this election, Millard Fillmore, who was a candidate for Congress, was also questioned and gave satisfactory replies; and he received the antislavery vote. In after years, however, he forgot the pledges he then gave, and disappointed the hopes he then excited.''

Among the questioned candidates of those days was Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts. He had vindicated in Congress the right of petition with signal zeal and ability; and, when plied with questions, he framed' his reply so as to meet even the exacting demands of John G. Whittier. But, like Mr. Fillmore, he failed to remember the pledges he was then so prompt to give; and, a few years later, he was found ready to use the' patronage of the Federal government "to· crush out the spirit of Abolitionism" in his native State.

In the Middlesex district of the same State, Nathan Brooks and William Parmenter were candidates for Congress. Mr. Parmenter, the Democratic candidate, was known to be unsound and unreliable on the antislavery issue. Mr. Brooks, the Whig candidate, though known by his personal friends to be in sympathy with his questioners, declined to answer, from conscientious scruples about giving such pledges. His wife, a lady of culture, was then and, continued to be an earnest and self-sacrificing Abolitionist; one of that class of antislavery women to whose early labors the cause was so largely indebted. But the Abolitionists, firmly adhering to their policy, refused, without such pledges, to give him their votes, and he was defeated.

The plan of questioning candidates in its practical workings not proving satisfactory, a distinct political organization was demanded by some of the Abolitionists. At a meeting of the New York State Antislavery Society, held at Utica, in September, 1838, a series of resolutions, setting forth with distinctness the principles of political action, and pledging the society to vote for no candidate unpledged to antislavery measures; was adopted. These resolutions were drawn by William Goodell, and reported by the business committee, at the head of which was Myron Holley. They were not intended to commit the Abolitionists of New York to the formation of a new political party; but they enunciated principles of action to which, in the then existing state of political parties, it was difficult to adhere without such an organization.

At the sixth anniversary meeting of the American Antislavery Society, in May, 1839, a committee was appointed to call a national convention to discuss the principles and measures of the antislavery enterprise. This convention assembled at Albany on the last of July. The convention was not largely attended, nor did its result fully satisfy those who desired a distinct political organization. It issued an address, however, in which it was asserted that the Slave Power was waging a deliberate and determined war against the liberties of the free States; that the political power of slavery could only be met by political action; and that slavery must be driven out and dethroned from the stronghold in which it was so firmly intrenched by the ballot-box. In September an antislavery county convention was held at Rochester, New York. A few months before the meeting of that convention, Myron Holley, a resident of that city, had established the "Freeman," in which he had advocated political action with such earnestness and ability that he has been regarded, by common consent, the founder of the Liberty party.

Mr. Holley was a gentleman of superior attainments. He had held a leading position in the politics of Western New York as a supporter of De Witt Clinton, and was a canal commissioner during a considerable portion of the time in which the Erie Canal was in process of construction. He was a ripe scholar, a ready writer, an impressive speaker, and an urbane gentleman, of graceful manners and commanding presence. A bold thinker, and of large forecast, he clearly saw that slavery was to be put down either by the ballot-box or by the cartridge-box, or perhaps by both. He was for hastening without delay a resort to the former, in order that the stern appeal to the latter might if possible be averted. It was under such a leader that the convention adopted a series of resolutions and an address, in which the necessity of distinct political action was recognized, and the duty enjoined.

In the month of January, 1840, the New York State Antislavery Society held a convention in Genesee County. Mr. Holley, Gerrit Smith, and other Abolitionists, favorable to political action, were present. It was resolved to issue a call for a national antislavery convention, to be held on the 1st of April at Albany. This convention was called to discuss “the question of an independent nomination of abolition candidates for the two highest offices in our national government; and, if thought expedient, to make such nominations for the friends of freedom to support at the next election.''

The executive committee of the national society took no action in relation to this movement of the New York society; but the board of managers of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society issued an address to the Abolitionists of the United States, in which they took exceptions to the manner in which the convention had been called, and the designs of those who called it. In this address the organization of a distinctive political party was declared to be in violation of the wishes of the great body of the Abolitionists, as had been shown by the unanimous votes of the State societies of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The silence of the executive committee of the national society, and the advocacy of the “Emancipator," its organ, were both sharply criticised. They thus closed their address: “For the honor and purity of our enterprise, we trust that the Abolitionists of the several States will refuse to give any countenance to the proposed convention at Albany. Let their verdict be recorded against it as unauthorized, unnecessary, and premature. Let the meeting be insignificant and local, and thus rendered harmless."

The convention assembled at the time and place designated, Six States only were represented. Of its one hundred and twenty-one delegates, one hundred and four were from the State of New York. Alvan Stewart was made president. He was an early Abolitionist, having witnessed and realized, while visiting the South, in 1816; the cruelties, corruptions, and crimes necessarily involved in the system of chattel slavery. He was sincere and tender-hearted. The cruelties of the system seemed to affect him more than its crimes; and he would paint its horrors in language that none who listened to him could ever forget. One that well knew this remarkable man who rendered such effective service to the antislavery cause in its days of weakness and trial, thus describes him: “His conceptions were grand, his sweep of thought majestic, his language unique, his illustrations graphic, and his knowledge varied and minute." He had been a Whig, and one of the favorite orators of the party. A good lawyer, a clear-sighted politician, accustomed to deal with practical affairs, he early saw the necessity of assaulting slavery as a political evil by the use of the ballot. He came to that convention to aid, if possible, in giving form and shape to that idea.

Though small in numbers and somewhat local in its composition, its members were conscientious, earnest, and determined. After full debate and deliberate consideration, it was resolved by the small majority of eleven votes to present candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency. For the former James G. Birney was selected, and for the latter Thomas Earle of Pennsylvania.

Born in Kentucky, reared and educated under the slave system, Mr. Birney was a hereditary owner of slaves. He embraced the antislavery reform from the deepest convictions of its justice, and gave freedom to his own slaves from the purest motives. He sacrificed property, political preferment, social standing, home and kindred, that he might serve a cause that could give him neither fortune nor favor. A gentleman with dignity of manner and varied culture, a sound lawyer, remarkably well versed in constitutional and international law, he wrote and spoke with grace and vigor. He was a prudent counsellor, and inclined to moderate action. Conciliatory in tone and manner, he was firm and fearless in maintaining his convictions of right. Thoroughly comprehending the vitality of the slave system and the tenacity of slaveholders, he foresaw and predicted the terrible convulsions into which the Slave Power would plunge the country. He believed that the exercise of the elective franchise was binding upon all. To possess and not to use the right to vote he declared to be “inconsistent with the duty of Abolitionists under the Constitution."

Mr. Earle was a native of Massachusetts, of Quaker ancestry and sentiments. A. law student under John Sergeant of Philadelphia, and editor and author of several papers and books, he occupied quite a prominent public position in his adopted city and State. Though acting with the Democratic Party, he was an active member of the old Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Laboring for twenty years for constitutional reform in his State, he was a prominent member of the convention called for that purpose, of which, says Whittier, he was the “recognized author and originator." In that convention, his political friends proposed “white suffrage” as the 'basis of representation; but, though by so doing he sacrificed all hopes of political preferment, he took and firmly maintained the doctrine of human rights, without distinction of color or race.

Such were the men selected by the Liberty party as its candidates, as it entered the arena of national politics, and for the first time solicited the suffrages of the humane and liberty-loving for the highest offices of the government. Its vote, however, was but small. Of the two million and a half of the votes cast at that election, its candidates received less than seven thousand.

But small as was the vote, the friends of this new mode of action were encouraged. Soon after the election the national committee of correspondence issued an address to the friends of the oppressed in the United States. It was written by Alvan Stewart, and bore the marks of his enthusiastic and hopeful spirit. It congratulated the friends of the slave that humanity, as a new element in political action, had been found; that the voice of stern justice was beginning to speak from a new place; and that the power to overthrow slavery had been discovered in “the terse literature of the ballot-box."

The Liberty party received-into its ranks, in 1841, an important accession in the person of Salmon P. Chase. Mr. Chase had, as early as 1837, acted as counsel for a woman claimed as a fugitive slave, and also for James G. Birney, who had been indicted for the offence of harboring a slave. In very elaborate arguments he had maintained that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was unwarranted by the Constitution of the United States; that Congress had no power to impose any duties in fugitive-slave cases upon State magistrates; and that slavery was local, and depended on State law for existence. Like several other antislavery men in Ohio he had voted for General Harrison. But the course of Mr. Tyler had convinced him that the cause of emancipation had little to hope from the Whigs, whose action was modified, if not controlled, by their slaveholding members at the South. He united with others in calling an antislavery State convention, in December, 1841, at Columbus. It was strong in numbers, talent, and character. Samuel Lewis presided, and Leicester King, a gentleman of large influence, was nominated for governor. An address, written and reported by Mr. Chase, and unanimously adopted by the convention, was issued. It was a full exposition of the powers and duties of the people, and of the principles and purposes of the Liberty party. It was, perhaps, the best presentation of the subject that had then been made. No previous paper had so clearly defined the province of political action, its limitations and prospective results. It was extensively circulated, and exerted considerable influence in giving cohesion and impulse to the new organization.

Other conventions, State, county, and district, were held. The men and presses that had inaugurated this mode of effort exhibited activity and zeal, accessions were made, and the party steadily increased. Among these conventions was one held in Peterboro, New York, in January, 1842. It issued an address to the slaves of the United States, written by Gerrit Smith. In justification of this act it was proclaimed that the slave has the right '"to all the words of consolation, encouragement, and advice-which his fellow-men can convey to him." Slaves were specially enjoined to use no violence, and to cherish no vindictive feelings towards their oppressors. They were urged to pray to Him who hears the sighing of the prisoner to grant them speedy deliverance, and never let bribes, menaces, or sufferings obtain their consent to violate God's law. They were told, however, to have no conscience against the inexpressibly wicked law which forbade them to read, and that the slave who had learned to read " has already conquered half the difficulty in getting to Canada, and the slave who has learned to read the Bible has learned the way to heaven." They were cheered by the declaration that the decree of God had gone forth that slavery should continue to be “tortured even unto death," and that their redemption drew nigh. They were counselled to seek liberty by flight, and assured that the Abolitionist knows no more grateful employment than that of carrying the escaping slave to Canada.

A national convention of the Liberty party was held at Buffalo in August, 1843. There were nearly a thousand delegates, every free State but New Hampshire being represented. It was a convention of character and integrity, embracing among its leaders men of large ability and influence. This was freely accorded by those who did not belong to it by either association or sympathy. Says Stephen S. Foster, who was present, though not a member: “It was in my judgment the most earnest; devoted, patriotic, and practically intelligent political body which has ever met on this continent." A committee was appointed to report a series of resolutions embodying the principles and policy of the party. An unsuccessful effort was made in this committee, supported by Mr. Chase and opposed by Mr. Goodell, to postpone the nominations till the spring of next year. This committee reported a platform in which were clearly enunciated the purposes of the organization. An effort was made in the committee by John Pierpont, but successfully opposed there by Mr. Chase, to report a declaration “to regard and treat the third clause of the Constitution, whenever applied to the case of a fugitive slave, as utterly null and void; and consequently as forming no part of the Constitution of the United States whenever we are called upon or sworn to support it." Failing in the committee, he introduced it into the convention with the startling question: “Shall we obey the dead fathers or the living God?” The convention responded to his appeal, and adopted the resolution by a decisive majority.

The convention nominated for President James G. Birney, then residing in Michigan, and for Vice-President Thomas Morris of Ohio. With its platform and candidates the Liberty party went into the canvass of 1844 with zeal and energy. A series of local and State conventions was held, at which its platform and candidates were earnestly commended for the suffrages of the country. Among these conventions was one in Philadelphia on the 22nd of February, 1844. It appointed a committee, of which Professor Charles D. Cleaveland of that city was chairman, to prepare an address to the country. This address from the graceful and eloquent pen of its chairman was an admirable presentation of the principles and purposes of the party. It was largely circulated. Thus supported the Liberty party cast more than sixty thousand votes, had the balance of power in the States of New York and Michigan, and held in its hands the fate of that memorable contest.

Though the immediate annexation of Texas followed at once the election of Mr. Polk, the leaders of the Liberty party felt justified in their course of action, and still continued their appeals to the people to join their organization and sustain their line of policy. In the spring of 1845 a convention of the party, designed to embrace all who were in favor of continuing its uncompromising warfare against the usurpations of the Slave Power, and who were determined to use all constitutional and honorable means to effect the extinction of slavery in their respective States, and its reduction to its constitutional limits in the United States, was called to meet at Cincinnati, and was held on the 11th and 12th of June, about two thousand persons being present. It was strong in character as well as in numbers. It issued an address written by Salmon P. Chase, in which the evils of slavery and the crimes of the Slave Power were presented with great comprehensiveness and eloquence. The conditions of ultimate triumph were declared to be “unswerving fidelity to our principles; unalterable determination to carry these principles to the ballot-box at every election; inflexible and unanimous support of those and only those who are true to these principles." Recognizing the moral as well as political character of the struggle in which they were enlisted, and confident of the favor of God, the address said: "We are resolved to go forward, knowing that our cause is just, trusting in God. We ask you to go forward with us, invoking his blessing who sent his Son to redeem mankind. With him are the issues of all events. He can and he will disappoint all the devices of oppression. He can, and we trust he will, make our instrumentality efficient for the redemption of our land from slavery, and for the fulfilment of our fathers' pledge in behalf of freedom, before him and before the world."

In October a convention of the friends of freedom in the Eastern and Middle States was held in Boston. An address was issued appealing to the people by every consideration of religion, humanity, and patriotism to exert all their powers for the overthrow of slavery. “Your homes and your altars," it said,” your honor and good name, are at stake. The slave in his prison stretches his manacled hand towards you, imploring your aid. A cloud of witnesses surround you. The oppressed millions of Europe beseech you to remove from their pathway to freedom the reproach and stumbling-block of democratic slavery. From the damp depths of dungeons, from the stake and the scaffold, where the martyrs of liberty have sealed their testimony with their blood, solemn and awful voices call upon you to make the dead letter of your republicanism a living truth. Join with us, then, fellow-citizens. Slavery is mighty; but it can be overthrown. In the name of God and humanity let us bring the mighty ballot-box of a kingless people to bear upon it."

Mr. Chase and other leading men of the party confidently expected large accessions to their ranks as the result of these conventions and from that sense of outrage and injury, felt by large numbers at the North, inflicted by the Texas scheme. They were, however, disappointed; for the Liberty party contained within itself the seeds, if not of its own dissolution, at least of dissensions and divisions, and there were marked differences of sentiment on other subjects, growing out of former political and ecclesiastical connections, which could not but reveal themselves in their new relations.

These differences manifested themselves in a very marked degree in a State convention in New York during the same summer. Among the leading points of these differences was their divergence of views upon the Constitution of the United States; some regarding it an antislavery instrument, and some maintaining the exactly opposite opinion. Before the disruption of the American Antislavery Society the former view had been entertained by some, from which they deduced the conclusion that slavery was unconstitutional as well as morally wrong. In 1844 Mr. Goodell had published a work entitled, “Views of American Constitutional Law in its Bearings upon American Slavery." It had a large circulation and exerted considerable influence. Soon after its publication Lysander Spooner, a lawyer of Boston, published the "Unconstitutionality of Slavery." It was a work of decided ability and acuteness, and, though by many deemed fallacious in its reasonings and conclusions, exerted no small influence upon the popular mind, large numbers of the Liberty party accepting its positions. These causes soon began in a clear and unmistakable manner to reveal their presence, by the diverse modes of action and policies to which they gave rise. Of course these divided counsels and inharmonious efforts hindered the growth of the party and greatly diminished its influence.

Source: Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Vol. 1. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1872, 545-555.


Chapter: “Antislavery Organizations,” by Henry Wilson, in History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, 1872.

In June, 1845, a State convention was held at Port Byron, in New York. An address was presented, not only setting forth the unconstitutionality of slavery, but, perhaps in deference to the very general criticism that Abolitionists were men of " one idea," stating and elaborating somewhat fully the different objects government should have in view, and some of the more prominent measures that should receive its attention and support. This address, though read and printed, was not adopted. Many, however, of the Liberty party accepted its sentiments, and held a convention in June, 1847, at Macedon, in the same State. The convention nominated Gerrit Smith for President and Elihu Burritt for the Vice-Presidency, separated from the party, took the name of Liberty League, and issued an address to the people.

In October of the same year a national convention of the Liberty party was held at Buffalo. Several members of the Liberty League attended, and sought the indorsement of the convention for the candidates they had just put in nomination, but without success; John P. Hale of New Hampshire and Leicester King of Ohio receiving the nomination. This action was not taken without opposition, though the dissatisfaction was mostly confined to the State of New York. It was regarded as an abandonment of principle to go outside for a candidate, and to select one who had never identified himself or acted with the party; and Chase, Matthews, Lewis, Leavitt, and Dr. Bailey were severely censured for their course.

But this controversy between the two wings of the Liberty party, which resulted in the formation of the Liberty League, militated in no degree against either the earnestness or the honesty of the men who took opposite sides on the questions at issue. It only indicated the different methods suggested to different minds in their endeavor to solve a most difficult, not to say an insoluble problem. Neither hit upon the plan that actually secured the desired result, or that even gave promise of at least immediate success. Nothing now appears why slavery would not to-day be lording it over the land with increasing vigor, had not the South in its madness appealed to arms, and cut with its own sword the Gordian knot which others were vainly attempting to untie.

As distinguished from the other wing, it may be said that the members of the Liberty League were less practical, more disposed to adhere to theories, and more fearful of sacrificing principle to policy. Like the members of the “old organization” and the French doctrinaires, they seemed to have more confidence in the power of abstract right, and less in the doctrine of expediency. They calculated largely on the power of truth, and on the belief that God is the “majority." Their watchword was: "Duty is ours, results are God's."

On the other side, the men who advised and aided in putting Mr. Hale in nomination had less faith in the policy, safety, or duty of simply adhering to the proclamation of abstract ideas, however correct or forcibly expressed. They saw that, in the presence and in spite of all the arguments, appeals, and fierce invectives of the able and eloquent writers and orators of either the "old organization" or of the Liberty League, the Slave Power was marching on, with relentless purpose and increasing audacity, from victory to victory, until it appeared that, unless it could be checked, Mr. Calhoun's theory would be reduced to practice and the Constitution would carry slavery wherever it went, and slavery would be no longer sectional, but national. Texas had been annexed, vast territory had been acquired; and the question was now upon them: " Shall this territory be free or slave?" And their past bitter experience had shown that something more than appeals to reason, conscience, and the plighted faith of the fathers was necessary to prevent the final consummation for which all these previous steps had been taken. In settling that question they saw that votes were more potent than words; that an organized and growing party would prove more efficient than any amount of protest and earnest entreaty. To strengthen this purpose, such men as Chase, Leavitt, Whittier, William Jackson, and Dr. Bailey saw that there were hundreds of thousands, in both the Whig and Democratic parties, who were deeply dissatisfied with the state of affairs and the immediate prospect before them, and were anxiously looking for some practical scheme, some common ground on which they could make a stand in resistance to these· aggressions. They hoped much, too, from such men as Dix, Hale, Niles, King, and Wilmot among the Democrats; Giddings, Palfrey, Seward, Mann, and Root among the Whigs; much from the Barnburners in New York and the "conscience" Whigs in Massachusetts. They judged, and the event has proved that they judged wisely, that by narrowing the platform, even if it did not contain all that the most advanced Abolitionists desired, if such, men and their followers could be drawn from the Whig and Democratic parties, and be thus arrayed in a compact and vigorous organization against the Slave Power, there would be great gain. Though they could not exactly forecast the end of such a movement, they felt that it was a step in the right direction, and that, when taken, it would disclose still further the path of duty and place them in a position to go forward therein.

But the Liberty League and dissatisfied members of the Liberty party were not idle. Meeting in convention at Auburn in January, 1848, they called a national convention to meet in Buffalo in June. John Curtis of Ohio presided, and Gerrit Smith was chairman of the Committee on the Address and Resolutions. The committee reported two addresses, --one to the colored people of the free States and one to the people of the United States. In them they censured severely the action of the Liberty party for what they denounced as recreancy to the principles of the party. The colored people were told that it was the " perfection of treachery to the slave " to vote for a slaveholder, or for one who thinks that a slaveholder is fit for civil office; that it was the religious indorsement of slavery that kept it in countenance; and that it was "better, infinitely better for your poor, lashed, bleeding, and chained brothers and sisters that you should never see the inside of a church nor the inside of a Bible, than that you should by your proslavery connections sanctify their enslavement."

Speeches of great earnestness and directness were made by Beriah Green, Frederick Douglass, Gerrit Smith, Henry Highland Garnett, Elizur Wright, and George Bradburn. Mr. Green maintained that when the nation indorses slavery “the most marked inconsistencies creep out of the same lips, the flattest contradictions fall from the same tongues." Civil governments, he said, should be the reflection from the throne of God. To assert the claims of justice, to define and defend rights, to cherish and express a world-embracing philanthropy, to promote the general welfare, to afford counsel and protection, are “the appropriate objects of civil government." "God gave civil government," remarked Mr. Smith, “I had wellnigh said, to be on terms of companionship with the poor. Certain it is that he gave it chiefly for the purpose of protecting the rights of those who are too poor, ignorant, and weak to protect themselves. With their definition of civil government and the purposes for which it was instituted and with their knowledge of what slavery was, such endorsement could, not but seem not only unconstitutional, but inconsistent with and subversive of government itself. "Anti-Slavery men said Mr. Smith,” should identify themselves with the slave, and be willing to be hated and despised; they should not be ashamed to do what slaveholders call slave-stealing. It was not “vulgar," he contended,” low, or mean;" to help slaves to escape from the clutches of their oppressor. '''As I live and as God lives," he continued,” there is net on earth a more honorable employment. There is not in all the world a more honorable tombstone than that on which the slaveholder would inscribe, 'Here lies a slave-stealer.'"

The convention, much against his own avowed wishes nominated Mr. Smith for the Presidency. Mr. Burritt having declined the nomination of the Liberty League for the Vice­ Presidency, C. C. Foot of Michigan was selected as the candidate.

Source: Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Vol. 2. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1872, 109-113.

Sources:

Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Vol. 1. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1872, 545-555.

Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Vol. 2. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1872, 109-113.