Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1847-07-02
Application of the GAG.

Professor NJ Cllntock, OF Dickinson Col
lege, has been publishing in the New York
Christian Advocate and Journal a series of
articles on the subject of Slavery. ~ those
who know the Professor we need not say
that his communications, so far as published,
bear the impress Of sound scholarship, indie
pendent thought and a Christian temper
He avowed in plain bat courteous language "A
thorough hostility to Slavery, and labored 10
show that it is the duty of the Christian
Church in the United States TO direct its in
%fuence, as q Church, for the extirpation of
the system. In his opening article he con-
tessed, although not himself an Aboliiionist,
that 1t was mainly owing to Abolition efforts
that the public attention had been awakened
and concentrated upon the subject. This was
certainly creditable 10 his candor, if not 10
his intelligence-to his heart, if not 10 his
head.
The appearance Of such a series Of articles
in the Advocate excited surprise in some
quarters, in view of the well known fact that
The senior Editor was a Southerner, and that
the paper had been somewhat notorious for
lis advocacy of precisely opposite views. 1t
was thought by many that the withdrawal by
the South from the Methods: Church had
worked a favorable change in the policy, if
not in the principles of the Northern lnem-
bers, and that henceforth the subject of Sla-
very would be discussed with frankness and
Independence. The Advocate, however, still
circulates quite extensively at the South, and
it now appears that in that part of the coun-
try the Professors articles, working on the
morbid sensibility' of the people, have cre-
ated SO much excitement and alarm. that the
Editors, in compliance with earnest entrea-
tIes,' and vehement demonstrations, have
been 'compelled by every consideration of
duty to discontinue their publication The
assurance that the Editors do no agree in sem
timent with Professor M'Clintock, but re-
gard Abolitionism as wholly evil and mis-
chievous, were not sufficient to quiet the
agitated nerves of those over-sensitive apollo
gists for Slavery nothing would satisfy
them short Of a refusal to publish anything
farther from his pen; and 10! the Editors,
with becoming humility, have yielded to
their imperious demands Thus does Sla-
very crack its long whip over the heads of
Northern Editors, e~Xacting a %servile compli-
ance with its demands, in the same spirit
with which it drives its black v~asslls TO their
unrequitcd toll.
We make no apology for the errors and ex-
travagances of the Abolitionists but the sen.
sitiveness Of the South as thus exhibited goes
far to convince us that the confessions of
Professor M'Clintock are tell to be rue
Those who have demanded that a gag be put
in his mouth couM not have been so dread
fully frightened by a falsehood. We have
read somewhere that it is those whose deeds
are evil who love darkness rather than light,
while the righteous are bold as a lion and
all experience teaches us that men conscious
of rectitude in a good cause are ncrer offend
ed at seeing their opinions subjected to the
ordeal of free discussions. Professor M'Clin-
lock's opinion that the Abolitionists, with
all their faults, had been the instrument of
arousing the conscience of the Nation; if UNI
founded, surely ought not to have made such
a rumpus. Those who are accustomed 10
ascrlbe the extreme sensitiveness of the
South and her growing tenacity in behalf of
Slavery merely TO the untoward influence of
AbolilioniSm in awakening jealousies which
would otherwise have died out under the OPP
Grafton of natural causes, are extremely ger
dant, betraying "A simplicity like that which
discovered in 'Tinderton steeple' the cause
Of the ebb and flow of the tide.-NeW York
Tribune.