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Gift of Hon. J. F. 13 uckingham, of Cambridge. (20 th, 21st repts.)

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REPORT.

THE Board of Managers of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society present themselves this year to their constituents for the Twentieth time, to render an account of their ministry. For the period of twentyone years that this Society has been in existence, we think that we can claim for it the praise of undeviating, unswerving devotion to the object for which it was created. With all its imperfections of performance, all its shortcomings and errors, it has done a great work, the precursor only of greater yet to come. From this Society have sprung the American Anti-Slavery Society and all its numerous auxiliaries. It was the first organized body, in America, that attacked Slavery on the principle of its inherent sinfulness, and enforced the consequent duty of Immediate Emancipation. It found the nation in a state of lethargy as to the condition and rights of their enslaved countrymen; it has aroused it to an earnestness of conflict on one side and the other, which can never cease but in the victory of Freedom. All the events of an historical character which have marked the annals of the last twenty years may be distinctly traced to the agitation which this Society set first on foot in this country. The enemies of Impartial Freedom have been forced to throw aside their disguises and to stand forth the open defenders of Slavery upon its merits. The politics of the country have been compelled to take openly the course into which our institutions were contrived secretly to direct them. Freedom and Slavery have been brought face to face in single combat, with the world for spectators. And though the first successes may appear to have been found crowning the worser side, we have no fear for the issue of the conflict. Of this battle the events of the last year have made most important parts;—perhaps the most important in their meaning and

in their issues of any that have as yet marked the combat. We must pray your indulgence for the scanty justice which our time and space will permit us to do to them.

CONGRESS.

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The Thirty-First Congress, which died a natural death on the Fourth of March last, distinguished itself above all its predecessors by the abandoned profligacy of its subservience to the Slave Power. Its deeds, which justly entitle it to the epithet bestowed by one of its admirers, (Mr. RUFUS CHOATE) of "the Congress of Compromises,' we recorded at length in our last Report. The expiring session of 1850-51 was remarkable for a silence as expressive and more ominous than all the loud-mouthed excitement of the longer session. Silence was the Order of the Day. Slavery was a tabooed subject. Every petition for the Repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law, or for any other matter leading to a reöpening of the Slavery question, was promptly laid on the table. But its presence was all the more vividly felt for this attempt to close the eyes of the nation to it. The newspapers at the capital and throughout the land never resounded more loudly with the question than during this very season of silence. Even in Congress, itself, it would at times compel a reluctant hearing. Mr. GIDDINGS in the House and Mr. HALE in the Senate made occasions to utter hated truths in unwilling ears. The plan which that wily Slaveholder, Mr. CLAY, initiated for the removal of the Free Colored People to Africa, under the disguise of an armament of war-steamers for the Suppression of the African Slave Trade, gave Mr. HALE an opportunity of exposing the inconsistency of love of Slavery in America and hatred of the trade from which it sprung in Africa. The members of Congress felt themselves so insecure in their fidelity to the Union they had saved, that they prepared and signed a Pledge of Total Abstinence from Speech on this subject and of withholding support from any Presidential Candidates who did not accept the Gospel of Compromise. After this season of rest from the Pro-Slavery orgies of the preceding session, this Evil Congress gave up the ghost in those convulsions of debauchery and ruffianism that have marked the ending of so many of its predecessors. It would be a bold thing, perhaps, to affirm that none to come can surpass its infamy, (for who can calculate the possibilities of American wickedness?) but it is safe to say that it has

bettered the example of any that has gone before it. The Congress that admitted Texas, even that which declared war with Mexico, must hide their diminished heads in the presence of this newer and more gigantic culprit. Of the seed that they planted and watered their late successor has reaped the harvest and poured its poisonous growth into our bosoms. They robbed Mexico of broad provinces and steeped her soil with the blood of thousands in the process, but this latest born of time has shown the designs worse than robbery towards which the Nation thus stalked through crime and gore. It is true one golden remnant was saved out of the maw of all-devouring, still insatiate Slavery; but it was only at the cost of giving to Texas a territory equal to New England for the purposes of Slavery and Ten Millions of money to help her in the infernal propagandism.

Slavery being thus excluded from California by the character of the population its golden sands had drawn thither, by the act of the inhabitants themselves, through no favor or goodwill of Congress or the Government, the balance was to be made to preponderate in some way on the side towards Slavery. So New Mexico and Utah were left without any protection against its incursions, but with every opportunity and facility for it to enter in and possess the land. In the face of the array of geographical impossibilities which Mr. WEBSTER had conjured up to darken counsel and perplex the minds of men, we hear accounts of the actual emigration of masters and Slaves into those territories, and the violent probability that both, and the almost unquestionable certainty that one, will ere long demand admission to the Union as a Slave State. And as if these concessions were not enough, this Evil Congress cast the Fugitive Slave Bill as a makeweight into the scale, as stern Brennus did his sword, more as an insult to the vanquished than for the actual difference it would make in the result. Not satisfied with carving a new Slave State out of Texas, as a counterpoise to California and holding the door open by force for Slavery to take possession of the other two Territories, if it see good, it takes away from ⚫ the North the trial by jury in cases of personal liberty, appoints dependent officers of the Courts to perform functions from which Hale or Mansfield might have shrunk, so fearful are the responsibilities and so vital are the interests involved, bribes them to decide adverse to liberty, and compels all the good people of the nation to be art and part of this national scheme of kidnapping under penalty of fine and imprisonment. These are some of the acts which will make the Thirty-First Congress infamously memorable to the latest posterity.

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