religion--by the remembrance of your Fathers--by your love for your
children, to unite with us in maintaining our common, and till lately,
our unquestioned political rights.

We ask you as men to insist that your servants acting as the local
legislators of the District of Columbia, shall respect the common rights
and decencies of humanity.--We ask you as freemen, not to permit your
constitutional privileges to be trifled with, by those who have sworn to
maintain them.--We ask you as Christian men, to remember that by
sanctioning the sinful acts of your agents, you yourselves assume their
guilt.

We have no candidates to recommend to your favor--we ask not your
support for any political party; but we do ask you to give your
suffrages hereafter only to such men as you have reason to believe will
not sacrifice your rights, and their own obligations, and the claims of
mercy and the commands of God, to an iniquitous and mercenary COMPACT.
If we cannot have northern Presidents and other officers of the general
government except in exchange for freedom of conscience, of speech, of
the press and of legislation, then let all the appointments at
Washington be given to the South. If slaveholders will not trade with
us, unless we consent to be slaves ourselves, then let us leave their
money, and their sugar, and their cotton, to perish with them.

Fellow countrymen! we wish, we recommend no action whatever,
inconsistent with the laws and constitutions of our country, or the
precepts of our common religion, but we beseech you to join with us in
resolving, that while we will respect the rights of others, we will at
every hazard maintain our own.