This comes out of a Pennsylvania trial of those who had resisted enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. I found this in the December 18, 1851 National Era, one of the black nationa newspapers of the time:
He said the gentleman had mistaken the temper and misunderstood the character and position of our people, when he indulged in his long and severe lecture upon them. He said we were not situated like citizens of the South. We felt secure in our homes, and could turn out in defence of our country, to resist an enemy, or suppress an insurrection, leaving the protection of our homes and firesides to the women, without apprehending any danger from a domestic and a servile adversary. We were not compelled to forbid the reading of the Bible by any of our people, or to forbid their instruction in letters. We had no laws to authorize one man to beat another immoderately, or to whip women. We had no laws to forbid the wearing swords as dangerous weapons, or to prohibit the sale of powder and ball to any man, of any color, or of any extraction. We permitted every one to have arms, to bear arms, and to use arms, with the proper limits of legal propriety; we had public schools for the general instruction of the people, where the child of the poor man stands on an equal footing with the child of the rich; every man's home is held sacred, and is secure, and the rights and duties of the domestic relations are guarded and enforced by the law, and maintained with all the moral sanctions of a correct public opinion.The Democrats haven't quite reached the point of forbidding the reading of the Bible (yet), but their contempt for teaching anything based on that book is pretty clear. And they certainly have their position about guns pretty well staked out--and in the same position that they took back then.
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