Cazenovia, July 3, 1849
1. Resolved, That we recognize the broadest
principles of democracy and the right, irrespective of sex, or color, or
character, to participate in the selection of civil rulers.
Passed unanimously.
2. Resolved, That when we admit that our hope of the
establishment of righteous civil governments on the earth is in the prevalence
of Christianity, we, of course, do not mean that spurious, or that mistaken
Christianity, which upholds unrighteous civil governments, and which votes
civil offices into the hands of anti-abolitionists, and land-monopolists, and
other enemies of human rights.
Passed unanimously.
3. Resolved, That by our love of righteous civil
government, of God and of man, we are bound to frown upon the public missionary
associations of the world; — nearly all their politically voting members voting
on the side of the diabolical conspiracies which have, in all nations, usurped
the place and name of civil government—and such conspiracies being the
preeminent hindrance to the establishment of righteous civil government, and to
the spread of human salvation and blessedness.
Passed with but one dissenting voice.
4. Resolved, That the government which will not, or
cannot, protect the lives and property of its subjects from the traffic in
intoxicating drinks, is utterly unworthy of the name of civil government.
Passed unanimously.
5. Resolved, That it may be better to resort to
revolution, than to submit to a government which compels its subjects to pay
the debts of their ancestors.
Passed unanimously.
6. Resolved, That while we allow government to draw
on posterity for the expense of wars, it is idle to hope that there will not be
wars.
Passed unanimously.
7. Resolved, That no just nation need lay its account
with being ever involved in war; and, hence, that no just nation can have any
excuse or plea, whatever, for wasting the earnings of its subjects upon
fortifications and standing armies and navies.
Passed unanimously.
8. Resolved, That the Federal Constitution clearly
requires the abolition of every part of American slavery; and that the
Phillipses, and Quinceys, and Garrisons, and Douglasses, who throw away this
staff of anti-slavery accomplishment, and chime in with the popular cry, that
the constitution is pro-slavery, do, thereby, notwithstanding their
anti-slavery hearts, make themselves practically and effectively pro-slavery.
Passed unanimously.
9. Resolved, That law is for the protection, not
for the destruction of rights; and that slavery, therefore, inasmuch as
it is the preeminent destroyer of right, is (constitutions, statutes, and
judicial decisions to the contrary notwithstanding) utterly incapable of
legalization.
10. Resolved, That whether men cry “no political
union with slaveholders,” or “no political union with gamblers,” or “no political
union with drunkards,” they do, in each case, proceed upon the absurd
supposition, that, instead of being necessarily identified with the whole body
politic in which their lot is cast, they are at liberty to choose their
partners in it, and to dissolve their national or state tie with this
slaveholder in Massachusetts, or that gambler in Pennsylvania, or that drunkard
in Virginia.
Passed unanimously.
11. Resolved, That land-monopoly is to be warred
against, not only because it is the most wide-spread of all oppressions, but
because it is preeminently fruitful of other forms of oppression.
Passed unanimously.
12. Resolved, That the governments which deny to
their subjects the liberty to buy and sell freely in all the markets of the
world, are guilty of invading a natural and a precious right.
Passed unanimously.
13. Resolved, That government will never be
administered honestly and economically, until its expenses are defrayed by
direct taxes; and that said taxes, to be justly assessed, must be assessed
according to the ability of the payers, rather than according to their
property.
Passed unanimously.
14. Resolved, That not only is it true, that the
member of a proslavery church is untrusty on the subject of slavery, but that,
(considering how, with rare exceptions, sectarians yield to their strong
temptations to sacrifice truth and humanity on the altar of sect) it is also
true, that the member of a sectarian church is not to be fully relied on for
unswerving fidelity to the cause of righteousness.
Passed unanimously.
15. Resolved, That the genius both of Republicanism
and Christianity forbids concealment, and that secret societies, therefore, do
not only not promote either, but do hinder and endanger both.
Passed unanimously.
16. Resolved, That our only hope of the Whig and
Democratic parties — parties so long wedded to slavery and other stupendous
wrongs — is in their breaking up and ruin.
Passed unanimously.
17. Resolved, That, whilst we rejoice in the faithful
testimonies and efficient labors of the Free Soil Party, against the extension
of slavery, it must, nevertheless, be a poor, unnatural, absurd, inhuman,
anti-republican, unchristian party, until it array itself against the existence
as well as against the extension of slavery.
Passed unanimously.
18. Resolved, That the Liberty Party, though reduced
in numbers, is not reduced in principles or usefulness — nor in the confidence,
that its honest and earnest endeavors for a righteous civil government, will
yet be crowned with triumph.
Passed unanimously.
19. Resolved, That, whilst we respect the motives of
those who propose to supply the slaves with the Bible, we, nevertheless, can
have no sympathy with an undertaking which, inasmuch as it implies the
pernicious falsehood that the slave enjoys the right of property and the right
to read, goes to relieve slavery, in the public mind, of more than half its
horrors and more than half its odium.
Passed, but not unanimously.
20. Resolved, That, instead of sending Bibles among
the slaves, we had infinitely better adopt the suggestion in the memorable
Liberty-Party Address to the slaves, and supply them with pocket-compasses,
and, moreover, if individual or private self-defence be ever justifiable, and
on their part ever expedient, with pocket-pistols also — to the end, that, by
such helps, they may reach a land where they can both own the Bible and learn
to read it.
Passed, but not unanimously.
21.
Resolved, That we welcome the appearance of the
book, entitled, “
The
Democracy of Christianity;” and that we should rejoice to see every member
of the Liberty Party supplying himself with a copy of it.
Whereas, Lysander Spooner, of Massachusetts, that man
of honest heart and acute and profound intellect, has published a perfectly
conclusive legal argument against the constitutionality of slavery:
22. Resolved, therefore, that we warmly recommend to
the friends of freedom, in this and other States, to supply, within the coming
six months, each lawyer in their respective counties with a copy of said
argument.
Passed unanimously.
23. Resolved, That we recommend that a National
Liberty Party Convention be held in the city of Syracuse, on the 3d and 4th
days of July, 1850, for the purpose of nominating candidates for President and
Vice President, and of adopting other measures in behalf of the cause of
righteous civil government.
Passed unanimously.
24. Resolved, That a State Liberty Party Convention
be held in the village of Cortland, on the first Wednesday of next September,
for nominating State officers, and for other business.
Passed unanimously.
25. Resolved, That, not only with our Irish brother
and our Italian brother, under their heavy and galling loads of civil and
ecclesiastical despotism, do we sympathize, but, also, with our fellow-men
everywhere — for, everywhere, in our priest, and demagogue, and despot ridden
world, are our fellow-men suffering under civil or ecclesiastical despotism, or
both; and nowhere in it is enjoyed the priceless and two-fold blessing of
Christian democracy in the State, and Democratic Christianity in the Church.
Passed unanimously.
26. Resolved, That unwillingness to use the products
of slave labor is a beautiful and effective testimony against slavery.
Passed unanimously.
Whereas, we rejoice to see the first number of the “Liberty
Party Paper”—a paper which, we doubt not, will faithfully represent, and ably
inculcate the principles of the Liberty Party:
27. Resolved, therefore, that we call on all the
members of the Liberty Party to regard it as their first duty to that party, to
subscribe for, and endeavor to induce others to subscribe for, this paper.
Passed unanimously.
28. Resolved, That we hear with profound sorrow, of
the very severe, if not indeed entirely hopeless, sickness of our honored and
beloved James G. Birney — a man who, for his wisdom, integrity, high and heroic
bearing, deserves a distinguished place in the regards of his fellow-men.
Passed by a unanimous standing vote.
29. Resolved, That we honor the memory of Alvan
Stewart, who, for so many years employed his remarkably original and vigorous
powers in promoting the cause of liberty and the cause of temperance.
Passed unanimously by a standing vote.
Samuel Wells, Pres.
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A.
KINGSBURY
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}
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} V. Pres.
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J.
C. HARRINGTON
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S. R. Ward
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}
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} Sec’s
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W. W. Chapman
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}
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SOURCES: Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith:
A Biography, p. 187-91
