Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-03-19 00:00:00

whatever may be stated is sure to be carped at, and

where there is so much sensitiveness, so much sore-
ness, upon the subject, evidently, arising from an
inward consciousness of its iniquity, that there is
not patience to endure its calm consideration. For,
as Mr. GRATTAN again observes, " the fact itself is
there in glaring evidence, blazing like a pillar of
light upon the sky, and showing all earth the way
to the iniquity, if not the means for its extinctions"
—means, however, the very suggestion of which in-
variably makes the slave-holders wrathf'zil and
desperate.

And how forcibly is one not reminded of what,
in such slap-dash style, the wild and freakish

genus Columbine, ycleped " Young America," is ever
and anon throwing off, either in apology for, or in
,defence of, this great human wrong, when our author
says, that it is "the tu quopie, the argument of con-

scions discomfiture, that is eternally adopted by those

Americans who would defend the institution of

slavery, in opposition to the remonstrances of
English writers and speakers." His remarks to

this effect are so forcible, so incontrovertible, that we
copy them in extenso :
That poor workwomen:are basely:treated by their em-
ployers, that ruffians cruelly beat their wives, that wives
and mothers poison their husbands and children, that our
peasantry are uneducated, and our manufacturing classes
immoral, are all undeniable and melancholy facts. The
artificial state of society in England, the inequality of
fortunes, the superabundance of population, the short-
sighted pride of aristocracy, the avarice of wealthy manu-
facturers, the sectarian virulence of portions of the clergy
of all creeds, the subserviency of many among the gentry
and the middle classes of the domineering great—these are
among the causes of evils which are admitted and deplored.
Parliament is busily employed for their redress. Our most
eloquent authors and speakers wage an unceasing war
against the prevalence of those abuses in our social system.
Numberless societies exist for their amelioration. Funds
to a large amount are subscribed to carry out the various
projects of improvement. No body of men of any influence,
no individuals of either sex, venture to palliate the existence
of these ills ; nor does any one object to the interference of
foreigners, whether exerted in England or elsewhere, in
pointing out, or devising• remedies for, our abounding
defects. But were those blots upon our boasted greatness
ten times more disfiguring than they are, were our priests
more bigotted, our peers more haughty, our commoners
more cringing, our parliament less active ; did the semp-
stresses work their worn fingers still closer to the bone, or
sordid mill-owners drive their operatives still faster to
exhaustion, or were all the vices inherent in our nature, and
inseparable from civilisation a thousand fold greater than
they are among us, could all that combination justify
slavery in America ? Could southern slaveholders be
acquitted at the bar of public justice for maintaining, or
cotton buyers at the north for defending it ?• Or should
Englishmen be debarred from publicly denouncing what
they all abhor ? The fact is that it cannot be defended
nor palliated ; and what is worse, there is but small chance
of its being soon remedied, and none that I can see of its
being finally abolished. Admitting all this, we in England
would be quite satisfied if Americans admitted it as well.
If a bold and straightforward sentiment of anti-slavery
existed in the United States, if what is undeniable as a fact
was avowed to be an abomination, and if means were
adopted to abate it ever so insufficient, or with results ever
so remote, the reproaches of Europe would cease, sarcasm be
still, and America be cordially met and co-operated with on
the broad road of philanthropy. But as long as the country
which boasts of liberty cherishes slavery in its very heart,
as long as the states which are really free fraternise with
those that hold bondage as a privilege and make man an
article of barter and sale, as long as the spinners of cotton
make common cause with those who grow it, and while
both combine to crush the generous few who fight the battle
of emancipation, so long will the voice of the Old World be
raised against those obnoxious portions of the New.
And, more than all this, as he further shows,
even admitting that the colour of the skin were so
degrading a badge of inferiority of race as to justify
enslavement, yet when in two or three generations,
through intermarriage, or otherwise, it has become
so weakened as to be almost entirely effaced, —"when
amalgamation has done its work, and the struggle of
white against black has been so triumphant that no
visible trace of the latter is left; when the complexion
is clear, the features symmetrical, the form graceful,
the individual a model of female beauty. What
possible excuse is left for the law that condemns such
a being to chains and stripes, to private indignity
and public sale ? The predominance of, colour is,
beyond denial, white ; the distinction of race decided;
and no perceptible tinge of African descent. Yet
this fair, accomplished, educated woman is legally
a chattel—liable to be seized wherever found,
and sold in the public slave mart." Surely
nothing can justify slavery in such a case as
this, the fact of which cuts away from under, their
feet all the plausible arguments of its advocates, or
its apologists, grounded on a pretended inferiority of
the negro race.
But, in fact, the whole thing is an abomination and
a curse, disguise it, or excuse it, as they may.
The testimony alike of humanity and Christianity
must ever be aiainst its first vicious principle, that
which is its essence,—the holding property in man ;
keeping men, women, and children in servile and
demoralising bondage; using persons as things,
rational human beings as reasonless and soulless
chattels,—and all this in the service of the mammon
of unrighteousness,—to say nothing of the perpetual
illustration it so forcibly affords, in all its details, of
the only too reasonable and truthful lament of the
philanthrophic poet, that
" Man's inhumanity to man '
Makes countless thousands mourn."