March 8, 1850
Here is a letter to Taylor, signed by Francis Jackson, President, and Edmund Quincy, Secretary, of the Mass. Anti-Slavery Society. It had been intended that the letter was to have been presented to him during his last autumn tour of the North. Circumstance prevented his contemplated visit, and the letter was not delivered, so is here it is made public. Here are some excerpts: “You are the chief magistrate of a nation claiming to be free, republican, Christian. The office ceases to deserve respect, when the people desecrate it by the election of a tyrant to fill it. …aside from your deep participation in a war unsurpassed for the enormity of its object, you are holding in slavery, for your sole benefit and as absolute property, men, women and children , created in the image of God, and born with an inalienable right to liberty. …..It is said that you are a honest man. This cannot be true, as you are daily plundering those whom you are driving to unrequited toil under the lash of brutal drivers…..As President of the United State, aid the cause of universal emancipation by liberating all your slaves….”
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