beneath her withering power. It is idle-it is criminal to hope for the restoration of peace on any other condition. Why, not to speak of other outrages which the south has practised on the rights and persons of northern men who can read the simple and honest account which Amos Dresser gives of his sufferings at the hands of slave-holders, and still flatter himself with the belief that the north can again shake hands with slavery? If the church members and church elders, who sat in mock judgment on that young man's case, could be impelled by the infernal spirit of slavery, to such lawless, ruffian violence; how can any reasonable hope remain, that while the south remains under the malign influences of slavery, its general demeanor toward the north can be even tolerable? The head and front of Dresser's offending, was his connexion with an Anti-Slavery Society in a distant state and for this he was subjected by professors, and titled professors too, of the meek and peaceful religion of Jesus, to corporal punishment-public, disgraceful, severe.

Who shall be mustered on our side for this great battle? Not the many. The many never come to such a side as ours, until attracted to it by palpable and unequivocal signs of its triumph. Nor do we need the many. A chosen few are all we need. Nor do we desire those who are skilful in the use of carnal weapons. For such weapons we have no Truth and love are inscribed on our banners, and "by these we conquer." There is no room in our ranks for the politician, who, to secure the votes of the south, would consent that American slavery

use.

be perpetual. There is no room in them for the commercial man, who, to secure the trade of the south, is ready to applaud the institution of slavery, and to leave his countrymen-his brethren—their children, and children's children-subjected to its tender mercies, throughout all future time. We have no room, no work for such. We want men who stand on the rock of Christian principles; men who will speak, and write, and act with invincible honesty and firmness; men who will vindicate the right of discussion, knowing that it is derived from God; and who, knowing this, will vindicate it against all the threats and arts of demagogues, and money worshippers, and in the face of mobs, and of death. There is room in our ranks for the old and decrepit, as well as the young and vigorous. The hands that are tremulous with years, are the best hands to grasp the sword of the spirit. The aged servants of God best know how "to move the arm which moves the world." Our work, in a word, is the work of God; and they are the best suited to it who are most accustomed to do his work.

No. IX.

SPEECH OF ALVAN STEWART, ESQ.,

DELIVERED BEFORE THE STATE ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION AT THE

CITY OF UTICA, OCTOBER 21, 1835.

Alvan Stewart, Esq. of Utica rose and said, that with the consent of the Convention, he would trespass a few minutes on the time of this numerous and honourable body, and made, in substance, the following speech:

Mr. S. said, this was the first Convention which had ever assembled in the United States under such a remarkable state of facts as those which seem to distinguish this from all public bodies of men who have ever met in this land before. For the last forty days. at least three hundred of the public presses have daily poured a continued shower of abuse upon the callers and the call for this Convention, characterized by a spirit of vengeance and violence, knowing and proposing nothing but the bitterness of invective, and the cruelty of bloody persecution. He said our enemies have sent their slanders against us, whis. pering across the diameter of the globe, telling the haughty and sneering minions of Absolutism, on the other side of the world, that the sons of the pil grims had proved recreant to their lofty lineage, unfaithful to their high destiny, untrue to the last hopes, of man.

Said Mr. S. Is it true that the philanthropy which warms our hearts into action, for the suffering slave, can exile our patriotism, and prepare our souls for the most heaven-daring guilt? Is it true, because we feel for bleeding humanity, that it makes us eruel? Can pity produce it? Can love beget hate? Can an affectionate respect and kind feeling for all of the human beings whom Providence has cast in these twenty-four states, be evidence that we wish to cut the throats of two millions and a half of our white neighbours, friends, brethren and countrymen? Does a generous regard for the injured slave imply hatred for the master? If so, the converse of the proposition must be true, that to love the master

implies hatred to the slave. Neither proposition is true; yet the enemies of this Convention have acted toward us as though these propositions had the assurance of certainty, as we have on a clear day at twelve o'clock at noon that the sun shines on the world.

Said Mr. S., We have been proclaimed traitors to our own dear native land, because we love its inhabitants. Our humanity is treason, our philanthropy is incendiarism, our pity for the convulsive yearnings of down-trodden man is fanaticism. Our treason is the treason of Franklin and Jay; our incendiarism is that of Clarkson and Wilberforce; our fanaticism is the fanaticism of Earl Grey and Lord Brougham, and the majority of the wisest heads in proud Old England; our sentiments are those expressed by William Wirt, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson.

Our creed is to be found in the two great witnesses of God's revealed will to man-the Old and New Testaments. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitutions of our country, and the laws passed under them, we make the rule of our conduct, in imparting our sentiments to others on the subject of slavery.

Mr. S. said, The enemies of our noble sentiments and elevated intentions, have resorted to the old beaten track of misrepresentation, and by adding to our code views never promulgated, by charging us with intentions never harboured, with expectations never cherished, and as remote from the mind of an abolitionist as infidelity is from the conscience of

piety; as meanness is from generosity, as bigotry is from charity, as truth from falsehood, as freedom from slavery. They would fain make us unfit for this world.

Mr. S. said, We are not judged by evidence, by our own declarations, either what we have said or done, but by acts which our wily adversaries prophesy we will do, or commit, in some future period of time; and thus they lift the curtain, which shuts from all mortal eyes (but prophets') the great unbounded future, and by looking down the vale of time, they behold us engaged in the diabolical and blood-thirsty work of getting laws passed to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and the slave territories, and in this way knocking the fetters from the bondman, which our adversaries call treason calculated to dissolve the union.

What union? I doubt not you may see some of these union patriots here to-day, who would take your life and mine, and that of every member of this. Convention, and in so doing think they had done their master a service, and lift up their hands for eternal and unmitigated slavery to every coloured man, woman, and child in the United States, and throw into the same pile all who differed with them in sentiment, to promote the interest of their master. These are the patriotic unionists, who secretly wish; to dissolve the union, by letting the great cancer grow on the neck of the union, without attempting its cure or removal. These are the friends of the union, who are willing to see 2,500,000 men, women, and children sacrificed to the demon of slavery.