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The Gag

The Gag image
Parent Issue
Day
5
Month
January
Year
1842
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

It will be seen, by the proceedings of Congress, that the temporary Gag is likely to become permanent. The slaveholders and their abettors have a majority of six or eight in the House. Concerning this Gag, so soon adopted, we notice the following things. 1. The 25 members of the House who come there to represent slave properly, hold the balance of power in the nation, and gag the whole people on whatsoever subject they please. 2..This gag was moved by W. C. Johnson, a very prominent Ieader of the Whigs, the very party that was "most favorable to libertv." 3. That 97 Whigs and Democrats voted for its adoption, and established it, so that the responsibility of its existence rests on both parties. The same remark is true of all the Gags. Both parties supported them, and thereby demonstrated, not only that they were governed by the Slave Power, but that they were also ready to sacrifice the liberty of the whole Northern people for the purpose of obtaining the aid of slaveholders in their political projects. 4. That if slavery did not exist, gags would not be needed, thought of, or advocated by any body. 5. That this system of trampling on the rights of the Northern people, which has been thus persevered in by both parties for years, will, if continued, ultimately add largely to the number and influence of the Liberty party. Let both parties come out avowedly pro-slavery and anti-liberty, (and they are fast approaching such a result,) and the growth of the Liberty party will be proportionately accelerated. The farther we can become separated from any pro-slavery allies, the better. 6. That the adoption of a gag at this late day, by both parties, demonstrates the wisdom of our course, in making separate nominations. How utterly futile is all dependence on on the two great political parties! - Morrow of Ohio, and Stuart of Illinois, were both elected by the votes of abolitionists, because they were supposed to be more favorable to liberty than their opponents.- The first thing they did was to vote away he rights of their constituents! How long will freemen suffer themselves to be fooled in this way? 7. It was promised, previous to the late Presidential election, that if the Whigs should come into power, there would be an end of gags. Free discussion should the order of the day. Now we find a prominent Whig leader in high standing with all his party, renewing the odious proposition, the moment he could get an opportunity to stand up on the floor of the House. How safe our liberties must be in the hands of such "Whigs of '76!" 8. While we are thus gagged in Congress, our principies at the North and South, are steadily progressing with the mass of the people. Their progress is seen in their influence in the churches, in judicial decisions, in legislative acts, in the diffusion of antislavery truths, and in the increase of liberty votes. Lastly, we are well assured that whatever immediate reverses may meet them, the friends of liberty will infallibly hold on to the end of their course. They are enlisted for life, and are made of sterner stuff than to yield to trifling obstacles. They have hitherto faced down an unrighteous public opinion, and they will not be looked out of countenance by every coxcomb politician who may chance to oppose himself to their course. If they find they have calculated on having made a greater advance than what facts demonstrate to be the case, they will be found once more applying themselves to the task, with a firmness which knows no change, and an energy that puts forth efforts in proportion to the obstacles to be overcome.