Edwardsville spectator. [volume] (Edwardsville, Ill.) 1819-1826, 1823-05-31

In our paper of the 18th inst. we published
an extract from a,discourse, delivered at Ply
mouth, Dec. %, 1920, in commemoration of
the first settlement Of Ncw-England, by the
Hon. DANIEL WEBSTER, at present Repre-
sentative i'll Congress from the state of Massa-
chusetts. The extract related exclusively to
the SUBJECT of African slavery; in which, Mr..
Webster.so powerfully demonstrated its inius-
tee; so eloquently portrayed its horrors SO
feelingly called on every good citizen to CO.
operate with the laws of man, and the Justice
OF Heaven, to suppress it; so pathetically in
voked the ministers of judicial justice to exc
cute the utmost severity of the laws against it,
and the ministers Of religion to proclaim its de-
nunciations of such disgraceful crime, and
add its sanctions to the authority of those hui
man laws, that, we had supposed, the extract
could not fail to be gratifying, and highly ac-
ceptable to every just, humane, philanthropic.
and christian man in the world. We had no
idea that such sentiments, which must be adj
mitted to be equally honorable to the head and
heart of any man, could have provoked the
violent, illiberal, and unjust attack which the
Illinois Republican has thought proper to make
upon that gentleman.
That our readers in other states, as well as
this, may see what measures are resorted to,
for the purpose ofintroducing slavery into this
state, we hasten to lay before them, the attack
referred to, upon Mr.. Webster, by Theophilus
". Smith, Esq formerly resident of New
York, member of the late legislature of this
state, who voted for the resolution in favor of
convention, and who is now co-editor of
the Republican, which is warmly enlisted in
the support of that measure.
Referring to the extract which we publish
ed, Mr.. Smith says:
"Does the editor ofthe Spectator recollect
who this Hon. Daniel Webster is Does he not
know, that he is one of those federal gentle
men, who devoid of every principle of patriot
ism, of every feeling of devotion to the land
Of their birth, and every honorable attach
ment to their country, conceived and embo-
died the HARTFORD CONVENTION; We
are at loss to conceive a character more
detestable, than the one represented, by an
eminent modern poet, in the following lines:
selves there the wretch with soul SO dead,
Who never to himself hath said
This is my own, my native land"
Had this portrait, been intended for one of
these Hartford gentry, it could not have been
more appropriate.
The maledictions of every good man, in
every civilized country, always follow the
traitor; and in what other light, let us ask,
can the actors, aiders and abbettors of the
Hartford Convention, be considered BY every
American. A band of men, who while the
nation was engaged, in perilous contest,
with one Of the most powerful nations of Eu-
rope-while our cities and coasts were rava-
ged by an unrelenting foe, our women and
children made the objects of brutal violence,
and while our citizens of every age, on our
frontier, and even prisoners taken BY the enc
my, were suffering under the tomahawk and
scalping knife Of the merciless Indians, could
eooly and deliberately form plan for waging
= civil war, and shedding oceans of human
blood; who were ready to turn their bayonets
against their country, and plunge them into the
hearts Of their countrymen-perhaps their
brothers Or children; nay, who had engen.