Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1846-12-18

EF0RMERS--- CONSERVATISM
Some persons, through fear Of loss of re-
putation, are prevented from acting honestly
and consistently in reference to the question
of emancipation.
Such love to be respected even by men,
thieves, or rather TO have their good word,
and with false notions Of responsibility, they
consider it as humiliation to become idenii-
fed with the slave and to give evidence of
feeling for those in bonds as bound with them.
Approbious epithets are applied to slaves in
this country-they are called ''niggers," and
that is enough to make the man who prizes
his standing among men-thieves more than
he values the true and the right, and who
makes christianity a secondary matter of i'm
portance, shrink from becoming identified
with the slave by standing on his side array
ed against the oppressor. Thomas L. Ha-
mer, a leading member of the Democratic
party, told us that he liked the objects of the
Liberty party so far as it contemplated the
protection of Northern labor and Northern in
%tcrests, but he did not like this ''nigger bu-
slness." We mentioned this expression of
Mr.. Hamer to S. p. Chase, a leader of Lii
berty party, and he replied that he did not
like so much Of it. Some of the leaders of
the Liberty party have been so much inAu-
enced by public sentiment, that they have
bowed to the prejudices of the multitude and
have declared tLat ~ mae H. ;otauaz.- r a.
them men they were advocating, not the
claims of the slave. AND the people have
been told that they could join the Liberty
party and vote the Liberty ticket without be-
ing abolitionists, that they had interests at
stake that were t~rampled upon by the slave
power, that to protect these interests they
must join the Liberty party. Thus those
who wish to be popular with wrong doors,
become the slaves of a corrupt public senti-
ment rather than lose cast by acting the man
ly part in defense of the opinions of others.
The tyrant public sentiment is even more
powerful in the slave states than in the nomi-
nally free. Cassius NJ. Clay once said that
''the limbs of the apparent slave are fcttered
with iron, but the living and immortal spirit
of the master wears more calling and insult
ferable chains.'
"And thus they plod in sluggish misery,
Rottlng from sire to son, from age to age,
Proud of their trampled nature, and SO die,
Bequeathing their hereditary rage
To the new race of Unborn slaves, who ware
War for their chains, and rather than be free.
Bleed gladiator-likC, and still engage
Within the same arena, where they see
Their fellows fall before like leaves of the
same tree"
The influence that goes forth from the slave
states moulds, to a very great extent, the pub
lie sentiment OF this country. The slave
states and those institutions in the free states
under the domination of shareholders, are the
manufacturers of that sentiment.
Slavery being itself a disgraceful condition,
the disgrace OF the condition attaches itself
to the occupation of the slave; hence, be-
cause the slaves are laborers, labor is render
ed disreputable, and all who do labor are re-
garded by Shareholders as s~ervile and mean,
and none are looked npon with more con-
tempt than white laborers, and as far as the
influence of a slaveholding public sentiment
extends, those who obey tie great primal law
of labor, and seat their bread in the sweat of
their face" or, in other words, honestly earn
their living, instead of Preying upon others,
are regarded as less reputable than those who
manage to live without labor.
But among shareholders, not only is the
white laborer of the South who has 10 COM
pete upon the spot with the laboring slaves,
regarded with contempt, but the white labor
ers OF the North are so regarded also.
In the South, the most contemptuous cpl
thets applied to the laboring whites, are such
as ''slave,'' ''white %slave,'' ''white mule"
and the slaves themselves are taught to call
them ''mean white folks" Not only have
we heard the white laborers of the South call
ed by the planters white slaves, but we have
also heard the white laborers, the farmer, the
mechanic and the manufacturer Of the North,
spoken of in the same lerms. And among
the slave states, it is in the older settled ones,
that the %servility of the laborer, and the dis
reputableness of labor has its greatest inlu-
ence upon society, its manners, habits and
morals.
There the person having in his possession
the greatest number Of slaves, is deemed the