Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1845-02-28

rican.
Bred among slaves, regarded them with in
difference; seeing no departure from morals or
economical progress in the tenure The eman-
cpation movement about 1880, affected me as it
did most persons at the time; and | felt some
new and pleasing emotions springng up in my
bosom, when had resolved, in common with my
lamented brother, to liberatc my slaves | au-
thorized him to put my name to the Emancipation
Society formed about that time in Mercer coun-
ty. In the same year | went on to Yale College,
in free State. was not blind, and therefore
saw people living there luXuriously, On a soil,
which here would have been deemed the high
road to famine and the almshouse. A city of ten
OF fifteen thousand inhabitants rose up in the
morning, passed through all the busy strife ofthe
days and laid down again at night, in quiet and
security, and not a single police officer was any
where to be seen. There were more than five
hundred young men congregated from all chimes,
of various habits and tempcraments, in the quick
blood Of youth, and a-conquering passion, and
there not found in all the city, so far as the
public were aware, a single woman so fallen, as
to demand a less price for her love, than honora-
bic marriage. gray haired Judge of seventy
years and more, in life time of service, had
pronounced sentence of death upon but five Grim
mails in whole State, and three of these were
brought down to ruin by incompetence | had
been taught to regard Connecticut as a land of
wooden nutmcgs and leather pumpkin seed-yet
there was a land of sterlity without paupers, and
people where no man was TO be found who
could not write his name, and read Ills laws
and his Bible. These were strange things:
but fur more strange passing strange will it
be, Kentuckans if you should come to the
same conclusion to which was compelled, that
liberty, religion and education were the cause of
these things, and the true foundation of individu-
al happiness and national glory. In 1886 | in
troduced a common school bill into the House
of Representatives of Kentucky; it was lost In
1888 had the pleasure of voting for the PREF
ent common school law, in common with great
majority Of my compcer5. Before 1910, was
convinced that universal education in slave
State was impossblel Whilst | now write, the
eight hundred thousand dollars set aside, from
the proceeds oft the sales of the public lands, for
common schools, surrephtiousIy appropriated to
internal Improvements, confirm my conclusion
There is not single cent in the great common
wealth of Kentucky, appropriated to the educa-
ton Of her people G. a. Wlckint, III con
vention Of teachers in 1910, at Frankfort, said
If slavery and common schools be incompatible,
| say let slavery perish The sentiment was
met with tremendous applause--Nlen Of Kentuc-
ky what say you! Time has proved that they
are incompatbe-not single slave State has
succeeded, from the beginning, in the general
education of her citizens. Gov, Hammond Of
South Carolina, says in his message to the Legis-
lature-'Tbc free school system is failure-its
failure is owing to the fact that it does not suit
l. our people or cur government Experience and
5 reason have long since proclaimed the same un-
5 welcome fact
Whilst Mr.. Mr. WickHfe was specializing |
was acting. By aid of the law 1898, | hoped
ultimately to emancipate the State from ignor-
ance poverty and crime Kentucky called up
on all her sons by the glorious memories of the
: past, by all the fond hopes ofthe future, to resist
those who, by the repeal Of that law and retro
d grade movement, would sink her into the ever
during night and lower deep Of perpetual slave
u ry The time had at last come when | was to
i play the selfish time server for office and tempo
/ rdry elevation, planting myself upon the eter
nal principles of truth, justice and reason, look
c ing to conscience, to posterity and to God, to
Il fall proudly IN their cause. What Though be
u Ftmatc or an enthusiast in holding that slave
l. ry is contrary to the Declaration of American In
1t dependencies the Constitution Cfthe United States
the common law of cur English inheritance; and
in violation Of the laws OF nature Of God-the eff
= fecs of it are beyond all controversy; the monu-
e mental hand Of time has written them in charac-
n tiers of horrible distincmess; turning the dewv
c heavens into brass, and scathing the green earth
IS with serility and decay. The whole South cries
+ out with anguish against this and that measure
e OF national injury; implores and denounces in
k alternate puerility makes and unmakes presi-
r dents; enacts and repeats laws with petuIance and
n recklessness, more worthy Of manly indignation,
IA than the pitiabe lorbearance Of the North Yet
T. no relief comes to the sinking patient, her n.y.
L pocondraca Illusions are not dspelled she cam
he not, she will not see that slavery, nothing but
sc slavery is the cause Of her ruin Her fields re-
le lapse into primitive sterility; her population
Vi waists away; manufactures reccde from the IN
l. ected border trade langulshes; decay trenches
+ upon her meagre accumuatons of taste or utility;
a. gaunt famine stalks into the shattered portals of
n the homestead; the hearthstone invaded by
n more relentless intruder than the officer of the
IL law; and the castle that may stand before the
u sword falls by this slow, secret and resises en-
to envy the blood of the body petite is frozen at
g the core; atrcphy paralysis all its limbs; suen
'e despair begins to display itself upon the care
to worn faces Of men, the heavens and the earth
)r cry aIoud--the eternal laws Of happiness and
g. istence have been trampled under foot; and yet,
n with more pitiabe infatuation the South still
at clngs to slavery.
c The competition of unrequted service slave
lg Labor, dooms the Iaboring white millions of these
OF States to poverty; poverty gives them over to ig