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What is slavery?
Addressed to the Liberty Party Convention at New Bedford in September, 1843.
I have just received your kind invitation to attend the meeting of the Liberty Party in New Bedford on the 2d of next month.
Believe me, it is with no ordinary feelings of regret that I find myself under the necessity of foregoing the pleasure of meeting with you on that occasion.
But I need not say to you, and through you to the convention, that you have my hearty sympathy.
I am with the Liberty Party because it is the only party in the country which is striving openly and honestly to reduce to practice the great truths which lie at the foundation of our republic: all men created equal, endowed with rights inalienable; the security of these rights the only just object of government; the right of the people to alter or modify government until this great object is attained.
Precious and glorious truths!
Sacred in the sight of their Divine Author, grateful and beneficent to suffering humanity, essential elements of that ultimate and universal government of which God is laying the strong and wide foundations, turning and overturning, until He whose right it is shall rule.
The voice which calls upon us to sustain them is the voice of God.
In the eloquent language of the lamented Myron Holley, the man