the freedom of speech destroyed by gag-laws, then will the slaveholders
announce, that TRANQUILLITY IS RESTORED TO THE PUBLIC MIND!

Fellow countrymen! is such the tranquillity you desire--is such the
heritage you would leave to your children? Suffer not the present
outrage, by effecting its avowed object, to invite farther aggressions
on your rights. The chairman of the committee boasted that the number of
petitioners the present session, for the abolition of slavery in the
District, was _only_ thirty-four thousand! Let us resolve, we beseech
you, that at the next session the number shall be A MILLION. Perhaps our
one hundred and seventeen representatives will then abandon in despair
their present dangerous and unconstitutional expedient for tranquilizing
the public mind.

The purpose of this address, is not to urge upon you our own views of
the sinfulness of slavery, and the safety of its immediate abolition;
but to call your attention to the conduct of your rulers. Let no one
think for a moment, that because he is not an abolitionist, his
liberties are not and will not be invaded. _We_ have no rights, distinct
from the rights of the whole people. Calumny, falsehood, and popular
violence, have been employed in vain, to tranquilize abolitionists. It
is now proposed to soothe them, by despoiling them of their
Constitutional rights; but they cannot be despoiled _alone_. The right
of petition and the freedom of debate are as sacred and valuable to
those who dissent from our opinions, as they are to ourselves. Can the
Constitution at the same time secure liberty to you, and expose us to
oppression--give you freedom of speech, and lock our lips--respect your
right of petition, and treat ours with contempt? No, fellow
countrymen!--we must be all free, or all slaves together. We implore
you, then, by all the obligations of interest, of patriotism, and of