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loving freedom, are to shape the destinies of this great Republic, to protect the injured and to check the triumph of daring wickedness over helpless innocence. The execrable and murderous sentiment, for the first time since the world began, finds judicial sanction in a national Court, "That colored men have no rights which white men are bound to respect." This heretofore unheard of outrageous edict is a foul stain on our nation's fame which you alone can efface.
We have forborn to make reference to the invasion of State rights and the nationalizing of slavery which this decision involves. But we call upon you, by your affection for your children, by your love for your country, by your own virtues, by the majority and greatness of the American name by all that is sacred and dear to you and yours, to deliver the country and the sons of the compatriots of your fathers from the consequences legitimate to this ill conditioned decision—deliver them from becoming the prey of violence, usurpation and cruelty. We know you cannot so stultify yourselves as to believe that our fathers committed the unpardonable sin of risking their lives, their all to obtain their country's freedom, and when secured, voted to destroy their own citizenship by voting (as vote they did) to adopt a constitution that excluded them. No: it is either a wilful or an ignorant error of the Court—fatal error; and the remedy is with the people.
We desire that you treat this Court as you treated it when it affirmed the validity and Constitutionality of the "Alien and Sedition Acts,"—as you treated the same Court when it pronounced Constitutional the Bank of the United States.
We ask you to rebuke the meanness that would accept the office of Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States at the hands of a liberal and confiding people, and then so pervert and prostitute that high and responsible office (for responsible to the people he is who accepts it,) that it became (to use the words of one of the dissenting Judges) "an exponent of the individual political opinions of the members of this court."
We ask you to remedy this evil, to efface this foul blot, to counteract its direful consequences, as it affects both you and us, that it may be truly said that this government is, in every branch of it, a government of the people, or be content to abandon your proudest boast, which is that the purple rule. This principle that the people rule must be preserved—must be maintained and upheld as a lending fundamental idea, a living truth: it must be defended at all hazards; it must be preserved in all its fullness all the extent of its utmost signification it need not, indeed, be upheld as a mere abstraction, but as a commanding reality. This we submit believing that if you are true to yourselves you cannot but be true to us.
All of which is respectfully submitted.
ISAIAH C. WEAR, GEROGE W. GOINES.
E. D. BASSETT, JOHN C. BOWERS,
WILLIAM T. CATTO
On motion the meeting then adjourned.
FRANKLIN TURNER, President.
JACOB C. WHITE, Sec`y.
A funny sort of meeting followed close on to this one. It was announced that C.L. REMOND, ROB'T PURVIS, and others, would speak at Israel Church on the Dred Scott case and other outrages to which the colored people are subject under the Constitution; and to give the finishing touch, it was further avowed that LUCRETIA MOTT, JAMES M. McKIM (!)
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