Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-03-31 00:00:00

YOUNG AMERICA ON
SLAVERY.

(After re aLng Thos. Colley Grattan's "Civilised America.")

NUMBER EIGHTEEN.

The letter signed " A Briton," in Monday's
NORTHERN TIMES, contains no handle to 'take hold
of. I see nothing therein that has not beam answered
in " Young America's" former articlPs.
England direeny abolished slavery, 'lute inditvectly

she elicourages it.

" The pond that, when stirred, does muddy appear,
Had mud at the ityttoin when still and. dear."

Lord Mselbourne, one of the Ministers, said, the
night 'the Emancipation Bill was pus-bed, if he
could have had his own way, he would 'have let it
alone. He knew that " relieving a man of his
crates would rot cure the gout."
Sdnie Spanish proverb hs.s said that —" To return
evil.for good. is devilish ; to return ,good for good
is human-; -but to return good for evil is Godlike."
Will the negro-pho-bian take the hint ?
I have ret.d somewhere of a traveller in Devonshire,
+who, wishing to rest his horse at an inn he saw in
the distance, entered the lane, ad after riding on
for sometime was surprised to find himself no
nearer, --the continued, however, but could but notice
the .sauteness of the trees, the familiar look of the
hedges‘as he trotted on; the lortger he rode the further
appeared the inn. No one but himself was on the
roads yet :he saw the print of horses feet. He
examined more closely as the foot marks increased,
and,was astonished to find that the tracks were
matte by his own horse!! He had entered those '
famous lanes in Devonshire, which, like the maze
of Cardinal Wolsey at Hampton Court, allured him
corkinually over the same ground, always moving,
but ; never meeting the gaol. The Anti-Slavery
party during my life 'time have been on the same
wild-goose. chase--=always in a Maze—always in the
Devonshire lanes —always crying wolf—but with eyes
in the back of their heids—and ears ever closed—could
neither see the true State of the case, nor listen to the
voice of reason. The snow ball of abolition was no
bigger than an apple when they commenced to roll
it; butnow they cannot see over it—or through it—or
around it. They .are in a Maze. What is the use of
having a minute hand on the clock, when the
hour hand is gone—or what is worse still—when
there is no pendulufa?
" As an ape is-the more hideous for its resem-
blance to a .man, •so is superstition for its resem-
blance to religion "—or false philanthropy for its
resemblance to -true benevolence.

The tendency of the human mind to exaggerate
has been forcibly shewn on this slave question.
Always rowing against the flood—never thinking
of the ebb—the abolitionists at last find their theo-
retical craft high and dry.
Forgetting that mortification follows inflammation
—and amputation succeeds mortification—they
naturally feel 'disgusted to see themselves standing
like a chicken 'on the snowbank, on one leg ! One
grain of wheat in -their quarter of chaff would be a
relief; but like the missionary in China and India,
they are continually waiting, like Micawber, for
something to turn up.
The old proverb saith—"lf each would sweep
before his own -door we should have a clean street."
Be ye consistent ; 'look at home ; balance your own
books. The emancipate-at-any-price party pass any
number of appropriations in their aristocratic parlia-
ment, but forget-to vote for the mutiny bill.
They remind me of the resolutions of the Irish
committee :

Resolved —That we have a new jail.
Resolved—That the new jail be erected where the old
jail now stands.
Resolved—That the old jail be not removed till the new
jail is, built!
They are continually pouring water into a rat-hole.
Jefferson's declaration clause contains the text for
all their preachers. Here is a letter, at hand to-day,
addressed to " Young America." .
As Thomas Jefferson once said on a certain occasion, that
" errors of opinion must be tolerated, whilst truth and
reason are left to combat with it;" so with regard to

negro-slavery. It therefore becomes the duty of every lover
of his country's honour to see to it, that the Jeffersonian
principles should be the only tests by which intelligent
philanthropists and Christians can discuss this question,
so as to bring our beloved country (the United States)
back to the fundamental principles of the Declaration of
Independence, viz. : "That all men are created equal.; that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable
rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness." Then, sir, immediate and unconditional
emancipation shall, as a sequence, become the right of the
stave, and the duty of the master.
My ostensible object in writing you this note, is to pro-
pose to you the following questions for public discussion,
time and place to be arranged hereafter :-
ols the negro a ?If a man, should any invidious
distinction exist, whether in Church or State, to divest him
of social, civil, and religious liberty ?"
My mlmory furnishes me with a quotation or two
from the same Free and Equal statesman "—page
112, Tucker's Life of Jefferson—" That the elder son

could have no claim, in reason, to twice as much as
his brothers or sisters, unless he could eat twice

at muck, or do double work." He believed in all
children of honest parents, being " Free and Equal."
He went farther, and believed in all churches being

"Free and Equal," and initiated laws, and carried
them, in order to make them so. When visiting
John Adams (the American Minister) in London, in
1786, he was presented at Court, when George 111.
did not directly insult him, but treated him with
great coolness. Writing home at that time, he said,
6' En;ryland s /cared is deep-rooted and
.cordial, and
nothing is -wanting with her but the power to wipe
.us, and the land We live in, out of existence." Again,
he says—

American reputation in Europe is not such as to be
flattering t 3 its citizens. Two circumstances are particu-
larly objected to US —the non-payint,,,it of our debts, and the
want of energy in our, overnment. They discourage a con-
nection with us. I own it to be my opinion, that good will
arise front the destruction of our credit. You observe he had
also "Yree and _Equal" views on finanCial affairs.
His residence abroad seems to have given him
"Flee and _Equal" opinions on European politics
as well. Page 240, same author :
"If all the Sovereigns of Europe were to set themselves

to work to emancipate the minds of their subjects from
their present ignorance, and prejudices, a thousand years will
not place them on that high, ground on which our common
people are now setting out. Ours could not have been so
fairly placed under the control of the common sense of the
people, had they not been separated from their parent
stock, and kept from contamination, either from one or the
other people of the old world, by the intervention of so wide
an ocean!'
Writing from France '(page 282) just before the
French Revolution, he said :
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time