The Delaware abolitionist. (Wilmington, Del.) 1847-18??, 1848-01-01

wanting in humanity. When individuals are
engaged in wrong-doing they are mot always
able to see their faults to the full extent unless
they make use of the eyes of those whosare
not guilty of the same shortcomings. They
snay so far stultify themselves so as TO be in
the daily commission of deeds, that would, when
exposed to view, excite the moral indignation
of those, who, not being in the commission of
the same in kind. would be enabled to see them
in their true light. The same law applies to
communities. We, on this side the Atlantic,
can clearly see the injustice of England in the
oppression of the irish in the grinding of the
faces OF her own poor, and in the various
wrongs in which she violates the great law Of
right; while our eyes are closed to our own
infrmitles in expressing one-sixth part of our
own popnlation,- in waging disastrous war
for the purpose of gaining large field for the
exercise OF unlimited authority and numerous
other infractions of the same Divine law. The
subject matter of the paragraph quoted above,
is an illustration of the fact. Our neighbors of
Pennsylvania, not having laws similar in their
operation to our own In some respects, can
clearly see the great wrong we are committing
In the mode of administering what goes under
the manner of Justice. We would view the
matter in the same light were we cireumstanced
as they. 1t is the existence of slavery, with
all its brutalizing tendencies that blinds us to
the enormity or the wrong of,infictng corpore-
al punishment for violations of the laws, and
for selling man into bondage for the exercis-
ing of one of the highest faculties of the soul :,
--benevolence. What, but such system
could blind any people to the nature of the act
OF selling woman for stealing the amount of
twenty five cents9 We do not advocate SCREEN
ing the criminal from Justice.
Ii any commit wrong against the community,
let them be punished: let the punishment be
adequate to the crime; but in Gods name let
our statutes be no longer disgraced by'these re-
iiGi q lle p7ls d
of either whites or blacks forfthe infraction of
law. And with regard to Burris, his case is
one of peculiar hardship. We have been in
formed, that so far from being concerned IN
aiding the slave to escape as charged, and Tor
which he is sentenced to be-sod for fourteen
wears, he was engaged at the time in removing
his family from Pennsylvania 10 some place in
Delaware. The whole evidence produced
against him on his trial appears to be confess
sion, as the witness averred that he had given
few. cents to a colored woman, unknown to
him, 10 enable her to procure something to
eat. Is it crime TO be punished to admin
lister to the wants of.the necessitiousT Legis-
lators may multiply statutes, they may increase
penalties, but they can neuer, NEVER, by such
means, destroy the right to bestow charity. 1t
is a sacred Gift, the exercise of which is as
binding upon all men as if there were no statu-
tory prohibition. 1T is law of our being i'm
planted by an over-ruling Power, to bestow
charity, to disobey which is attended with a
heavier penalty than man can infict upon his
brother. 1t is superior in obligation to human
law as the Creator is superior to the creature.
For the honor of human nature, for the credit
of our State, we hope we may no longer be dis
graced by such statutes than sufficient for our
next leois stature to repeal them. b.