Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-02-22 00:00:00

THE NORTHERN TIMES,-TIJESDAY; FEBRUARY 22, 1859

YOUNG AMERICA ON
SLAVERY.

(After reading Thos. Collie Grattan's " Civilised America.")

As absence from England will prevent me
from accepting a courteous invitation to deliver a
lecture in Staffordshire, on Slavery, will you per-
mit me to avail myself of the columns of your
liberal journal to express a few unfledged
thoughts on a subject that every English author
misrepresents, and American gets blackballed for
the moment the two countries are discussed at your
social board.

The NORTHERN TIMES invites comment on any
question of importance, and has the reputation of
being impartial ; in fact, friendly to American inte-
rests—hence I am led to believe that a-few facts, a
few suggestions, a few good-natured remarks, that
Might be passed over an English dinner-table, ,will
be as interesting to your readers as the Dinner
question, the War question, the Social Evil
question, or the question of Reform.
That the Anti-slavery_party do not understand
the queslion which they . discuss---that they are
ignorant of the workings of the peculiar institu-
tion---that their education has Warped their judg-
mnet---that their pet theme has become threadbare
---that their emancipation schemes have all been
failures —that their platform is based on theory
instead of practice—that they have played
so long on a harp of a thousand strings, they be-
lieve in the picture which their imagination:has
excited—that their cherished plans have not suc-
ceeded.; all these are among the facts one ob-
serves in reading the Times, or perusing their
more recent proclamations and manifestos. No
one doubts their honesty—no one breathes a
whisper against their desire to benefit mankind
no one thinks for . moment but that they mean
all they say. Yet all their arguments float upon
the surface, which is naturally the case, when for
two generations. they have only heard one side of
the. question.

I do not propose to take it up as an American
or an Englishman, but as a Cosmopolitnn,
omitting nationalities, so that I may deal with it
purely in an academic way, and in perfect goad
nature.

No one will deny the feeling that exists in
England towards America, arising out of the
incendianary documents that periodically issue
from Exeter Hall. Thousands of Englishmen
would feel differently towards us were it not for
the continual fanning of a flame that should have
gone out long ago. Answer me this—What, good
has the Uncle Tom Cabin party accomplished ?
Have they loosened the bonds of the slave ?
Have they benifited the condition of the negro,
either at home or abroad? Has their philan-
throphy succeeded ? The Times says not.
Thousands of Englishmen endorse the opinion of
their leader, Still a few enthusiaststs in high
places continue to ignore America, simply, because
of the four millons of slaves, which England
placed on our plantations.
When we remember the meetings held by the
negropolists, the inflamatory speeches delivered,
pamphlets printed, books published ; when we
listen to the sweeping comments made against the
Southern states; the hot arguments and severe

denunciations hurled at theTSouthern planters.
When I see the best sentiments of a great nation
twisted and warped by thirty years of negro-
mania, by the negropolist causing little
children to grow up with the same ideas as their
fathers. It would: seem to me that 'tis time to
reflect and see if Americans deserve all this obloquy.

Slavery is no new institution. It is as old as the
world of the geologists. All ages have owned
their slaves. Examine the archives of time.
Chaos before Cosmos—Then the lower animals.
Thor. man. -concentrating someining non. all, Uul,
created in the image of his Creator. Man required
society. Society must have laws. Laws consti-
tute goverment.. Hence government is civil law,
controlling property, liberty, life. This was the
primitive state. The people elect governors, the
most intellectual are chiefs. First it was physical
courage, then mental energy, superiority. Hence
slavery. You find it in every age. From Chaldea
it went to Egypt, to Arabia, to all Eastern lands,
and finally all over the world. I found them every-
where in my. travels, but under different names.
In Homer's day all war prisoners in Greece were
slaves. The Lacedcemonian youth were trained,
were taught to trap them, to . deceive them, and
then to butcher them. Think of 3,000 being
murdered at one time by the brave young
Spartans, merely as a matter of amusement ;
and yet notice how Latin and Greek authors dWell
upon the manliness of the ancients. Think of
Alexander,. when trazing Thebes, some 335 years
before Our era,' selling the whole population into
abject slavery I Think of chaining slaves to a
great man's mansion, to give admittance to the
guests that came to his banquet ; and this in much-
lauded ancient Rome. Imagine Lord Palmerston's
guests at Cambridge House ushered in by slaves
in chains, as in the olden time ! Why, one-of the
laws of the XII. Tables was, that insolvent debtors
were seized and bound into slavery till they
worked out their debt ; and C. Pollio threw the
slaves that gave him offence into his fish-pond, to
fatten his lamphreys ; and this only forty-two
years before _Christ ! Twelve years before that,
Coreitiug left 4,116 slaves, in his will, to his heir.
This was in the days of the Romans—the bar-
barous, yet history-exaggerated civilised Romans !
But let us not trust to profane historians : take
sacred writers. Read the Bible, and • observe the
bondsmen—the laws that regulated their sale and
purchase. Notice the numbers 'owned by Abraham,
by Isaac, by Jacob. Moses, too, had so Many, he
made laws to guide the slaVekiWner. What were
the bondsmen and bon dsmaids of the ancients but
slaves ? Dr. Wayland says that the Hebrews
held slaves since the conquest of Canaan. Abraham
owned one thousand. Even Whitefield did not
call it a sin. Read 25th Levitieus—:read 21st
Exodus —where the slave is called money—"where
'his master shall bore his ear through with an awl,
and 1w shall own him for ever." Polygamy,
divorce, murder, incest, the Bible-precepts forbade,
but placed no ban on slavery. .1 find riti law againSt
it in the Scriptures. Even Moses delivered up a
fugitive slave ; but it does not follow that I ad-
vocate it. The. fact is, men in our day would.
be hung for what then hardly occasioned a rebuke.
" Servants- obey your masters," was the Divine
Law, and St. Paul endorsed it.

The Old Testament approved of it—the New
gives no word or sign against it—but , laws regu-
lating it are recorde in both. St. Paul had time
to give directions about the cut of a coat, or to
say polite words to King Agrippa, but nowhere
records, anything against slavery.
One would suppose that slavery is purely of
American origin, if trained by the modern philan-
thropists, but it seems to be a plant of very ancient
growth. But pass by the barbarous days : come
back to Christian England. `Saxon Alfred made
laws as to sale of slaves ; and it is well
known that in Saxon. and Norman times the
children of the English peasantry were sold in

the Bristol market like cattle for exportation !
Some went to Ireland, some to Scotland. Wat
Tyler's rebellion, in 1381, arose from serfdom.
Edward VI. branded V on the breast of any one
who lived idle for three days, and. the buyer owned
him for two years as his slave. He could oblige
him to work by beating and chaining him ; let him
absent himself for a fortnight, and, with a brand
upon his cheeks ,he• was made a slave for ever !
His neck, his leg,ur his arm could be circled with
rings of iron; and these were SaxenEngland's laws!
Even in 1547 a runaway apprentice became by
_statute a slave. have jotted down these facts
for the benefit of the rising generation, to show
them: that Americans, bad asthey are Tepresented,
did mo:i;, at least, originate slavery..
In scontinued,)

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF LORDS.-MONDAY

Earl Grey made some comment on the subject of the
lonian Islands, in replying to which
The Earl of Derby stated that the appointed Lord High
Commissioner (Sir H. Storks) had already arrived in
Corfu, from which Island Mr. Gladstone had already
taken his departure. The right hon. gentleman migh
be expected in England on Saturday next.
The further discussion of the subject was in consequence
postponed till Tuesday, the Ist of March.
The house then adjourned at 5.30, p.m.