The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 4 of 4American Anti-Slavery Society
Philosophy
The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 4 of 4
American Anti-Slavery Society
Antislavery movements -- United States -- Periodicals; Slavery -- United States -- Periodicals
[Footnote 100: From this remark the revised constitution of New York
is _nominally_ an exception; colored citizens, possessing a _freehold_
worth two hundred and fifty dollars, being allowed to vote; while
suffrage is extended to _white_ citizens without any property
qualification.]
2. DENIAL OF THE RIGHT OF LOCOMOTION.
It is in vain that the Constitution of the United States expressly
guarantees to "the citizens of each State, all the privileges and
immunities of citizens in the several States:"--It is in vain that
the Supreme Court of the United States has solemnly decided that this
clause confers on every citizen of one State the right to "pass
through, or reside in any other State for the purposes of trade,
agriculture, professional pursuits, or _otherwise_." It is in vain
that "the members of the several State legislatures" are required to
"be bound by oath or affirmation to support" the constitution
conferring this very guarantee. Constitutions, and judicial decisions,
and religious obligations are alike outraged by our State enactments
against people of color. There is scarcely a slave State in which a
citizen of New York, with a dark skin, may visit a dying child
without subjecting himself to legal penalties. But in the slave
States we look for cruelty; we expect the rights of humanity and the
laws of the land to be sacrificed on the altar of slavery. In the
free States we had reason to hope for a greater deference to decency
and morality. Yet even in these States we behold the effects of a
miasma wafted from the South. The Connecticut Black Act, prohibiting,
under heavy penalties, the instruction of any colored person from
another State, is well known. It is one of the encouraging signs of
the times, that public opinion has recently compelled the repeal of
this detestable law. But among all the free States, OHIO stands
pre-eminent for the wickedness of her statutes against this class of
our population. These statutes are not merely infamous outrages on
every principle of justice and humanity, but are gross and palpable
violations of the State constitution, and manifest an absence of
moral sentiment in the Ohio legislature as deplorable as it is
alarming. We speak the language, not of passion, but of sober
conviction; and for the truth of this language we appeal, first, to
the Statutes themselves, and then to the consciences of our readers.
We shall have occasion to notice these laws under the several
divisions of our subject to which they belong; at present we ask
attention to the one intended to prevent the colored citizens of
other States from removing into Ohio. By the constitution of New York,
the colored inhabitants are expressly recognized as "citizens." Let
us suppose then a New York freeholder and voter of this class,
confiding in the guarantee given by the Federal constitution removes
into Ohio. No matter how much property he takes with him; no matter
what attestations he produces to the purity of his character, he is
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