Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-01-28 00:00:00

suspicion of mixed motives, or charge him with

any desire to serve the objects of self-interest,
avarice or ambition. But for all that, he is
treated with every mark of contumely, as a fire-
brand in the State, as a mean and dangerous con-
spirator, as a man unfit to be reasoned with, and
to be answered by the gag or the thumb-screw.
Resistance to such eccentric and disturbing cha-
racters is engaged in as a sort of holy war, and
as involving the highest interests of the American
Constitution and people. We should like to
know if it be consistent with the boasted freedom
which is the symbol of the American name, that
such gross and complete attempts should be made
to control the license of opinion, as those which
signalise and disgrace American history on this
subject! The other day, a gentleman supposed
to be too much tainted with the love of freedom
and with weak attachment to the rights of
humanity, appeared to be also suspected of a
wish to occupy the Speaker's chair in that house
of virtue and dignity (!) the House of Represen-
tatives. It is thought consistent with this same
dignity, that such person should be stigmatised
as himself only fit for the slavery which, in the
case of his fellow-creatures, he had had the
temerity to condemn ; and one of the angry and
upright legislators of a " free republic," gloated
with a savage joy over the wish that the anti-
slaver were himself one of his (the legislator's)
wretched victims, and subject to the full license
of his miserable tyranny !

We who cannot well understand the nature of
that passion for freedom which is supposed to
inspire the members of a modern republic, were
inclined to wonder at the bold and consolidated
views of the recent Maryland petition. That
document was useful as a very instructive com-
ment upon that actual character of slavery with
which America is identified, and which alone the
discerning philanthropist makes the object of his
active opposition. The scheme of wholesale abo-
lition, such as some unwise visionaries seem to
recommend, is a suggestion useless, because
asking too much, and dangerous if even there
were a prospect of its accomplishment. But the
condition of the slave may be ameliorated; things
may be put into a course where they will gradu-
ally tend to abolition ; the intellect and morals
and manners of the slave may be cultivated, until
they contract in time a fitness for freedom ; a
capability of exercising it with probity, and of
enjoying it with virtue. Now it is this which
the slave-owning South directs all its efforts to
crush in the outset. It is the system of slavery,
with all its accompaniments and effects, that they
desire to see consolidated and rendered perma-
nent. It is the sentiment of humanity and free-
dom which they trample under foot, when it
might interfere with their own selfish interests.
The argument that slavery is a necessary evil, is
in their mouths a pretence, and merely covers
the real savagery of their motives.
The American willingness, then, to accept and
adopt slavery with all its necessary horrors as a
source and instrument of trade ; together with
the attempted tyranny over the expressions of
opinion among the citizens of a free state—these
things joined to a loud attachment to liberty,
suggest a grave doubt as to the character of the
Anglo-Saxon sentiment of freedom. In the first
place, this sentiment is apparently unable to keep
its ground before the selfish greed of profit ; and
in the second place, before the strong will of the
majority. The general advantage in the case of
popular tyranny over imperial tyranny being just
this ; that the coercive power residing in the
former is more diffused and less ascertainable,
while in the latter it is consolidated and always
at hand to enforce the dictates and caprices of
the single will that directs it.