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My creed.
In order that no man, or body of men, may be injured or misrepresented by unfair presentations or perversions of my creed, or induced to peruse the pages that follow, under false impressions or pretences, I will here briefly state my political, or rather my revolutionary Faith:
I am a Republican--and something more.
I am inflexibly opposed to the extension of slavery; but equally do I oppose the doctrine of its protection in States where it already exists.
Non-intervention and protection are practically synonymous.
Let slavery alone, and it lives a century.
Fight it, and it dies.
Any weapons will kill it, if kept ever active: fire or water — bayonets or bullion — the soldier's arm or the writer's pen. To prevent its extension merely, will never destroy it. If it is right that slavery should exist in
Georgia, it is equally right to extend it into
Kansas.
If the inter-state traffic in human beings is right, equally just is the demand for re-opening the slave trade.
I am an Emancipationist — and something more.
I believe slavery to be a curse, which it is desirable to speedily abolish.
But to Gradual Emancipation I am resolutely antagonistic.
For I regard property in man as robbery of man ; and I am not willing that our robbers should give notes on time — for freedom and justice at thirty days, or thirty years, or any other period: rather let them be smitten
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down where they stand, and the rights that they have wrested from their slaves, be wrested — if necessary — with bloodshed and violence, with the torch and the rifle, from them.
I am an American-and something more.
I think it wrong to give to foreigners the rights that we deny to native-born
Americans.
I think it wrong and tyrannical for one class of persons — sometimes citizens of foreign birth — to vote for, disfranchise, whip, sell, buy, breed for market, and otherwise degrade the colored natives of our Southern soil.
I regard the decision of
Judge Taney, and his brethren, as not infamous only, but insulting to our national character.
I would extend to all
Americans, without distinction of color or creed, the inalienable birthright of whistling
Yankee Doodle, and hurrahing, with heart-felt emphasis, on the Fourth of July, and after every presidential election-unless
Buchanan is again a successful candidate.
I am an Abolitionist-and something more.
I am in favor, not only of
abolishing the Curse, but of making
reparation for the Crime.
Not an Abolitionist only, but a Reparationist.
The negroes, I hold, have not merely the inalienable right to be free, but the legal right of compensation for their hitherto unrequited services to the
South.
I more than agree with the
Disunion Abolitionists.
They are in favor of a free Northern Republic.
So am I.
But as to boundary lines we differ.
While they would fix the
Southern boundary of their free Republic at the dividing line between
Ohio and
Kentucky,
Virginia, and the
Keystone State, I would wash it with the warm waters of the
Gulf of Mexico. “But what shall we do with the slaves?”
Make free men of them.
“And with the slaveholding class?”
Abolish them.
“And with the Legrees of the plantations?”
Them, annihilate!
Drive them into the sea, as
Christ once drove the swine; or chase them into the dismal swamps and black morasses of the
South.
“Anywhere — anywhere — out of the world!”
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I am a Peace-Man — and something more.
I would fight and kill for the sake of peace.
Now, slavery is a state of perpetual war.
I am a Non-Resistant — and something more.
I would slay every man who attempted to resist the liberation of the slave.
I am a Democrat--and nothing more.
I believe in humanity and human rights.
I recognize nothing as so sacred on earth.
Rather than consent to the infringement of the most insignificant or seemingly unimportant of human rights, let races be swept from the face of the earth — let nations be dismembered — let dynasties be dethroned — let laws and governments, religions and reputations be cast out and trodden under feet of men!
This is my creed.
For myself, I am an earnest man. If you think proper, now, to accompany me — come on; if not,
au revoir--and may the
Lord have mercy on your soul!
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