The southern press. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-10-18
THE sOiITH ERN PRESS.
From the Savannah Georgian.
The Fugitive Slave BiII.

ING uSltItC OloSO Dill
Our readers will be interested in the account
of the late transactions at Syracuse which we
to-day publish. The history of the outbreak,
written by friend of the lawless parties, is
doubtless as favorable to them as facts would
authorize. Yet what record does it contain
Read it.. And then recall the Christiana tragedy,
the news of which had scarcely traversed the
country, before it was followed by this which
we now publish. And such is the working OF
the only Southern measure of the " glorious"
Compromises compromise, the support of
which it seems has made the fortunes of it,
Southern supporters--securing to one the guber-
Material chair of Georgia, to another that OF
Mississippi-to all great glory and high public
favor. The compromisers sacrificed all else and
obtained this Fugitive Till, under the admirable
working of which masters are killed while slaves
escape; agents attempting to make it available
are arrested, and subjected to all sorts of insults
and indignities.
One thing, of which We are assured upon
good authority, is worthy Of remark 1t is the
high character which the two communities, where
these outbreaks occurred, have sustained. for
morality and religious principles. Says one Of
our exchanges:
aIf we were asked to name the place in all
this Union where crimes against person and
ag inst property were most rare; where res
pect for order and subo dination to the moral as
we'll ~ penal sanctions of the law We're most
uliver-ai, and where deeds of violence of every
kind received the least countenance from the
people, we might well have hestated in our de-
Il ion, between the village Of Christiana in
Pennsylvania and the city of Syracuse Both
are secluded places, exposed to few or none Of
the irritating excitements of large cities, inhabi
ted by homogeneous population, of rural and
quiet habits, contented with their employments
prosperous and happy. We might well have
doubted in which Of those two places it would
have been most difficult to provoke any act of
violence against public officer"
Is there not here food for reflection? This is
the very symptom which has long since con
WINGED US that the anti.savery NAL dy is hope
lessly ircurabe Were the uoteries of abolition
1--WE mean not the politicians who trade in fanat
cism,) base and unprincipled, low and degraded.
we should have little TO fearfr I'm their hostility
Public opinion, or ut worst civil power, might
crush them. But this Is not the fact. The strong
holds of abolition are not the ci les, with the vice
which generally characterize cities; they are the
rural districts, with their sober, serious, moral,
and religious population. II is among this class
that anti-slavery fanaticism is running wild and
rampant And sad to say, the little " conserva-
tisn" which remains in the North, is found in her
commercial marts, and is kept alive by the profits
of Southern trade. Northern anti.abolition
mobs, when they do occur, are usually composed
Of the rabble Of the towns and cities. On the
other hand, find a community in the hirelng
States remarkable for quiet, dec~rum, industri-
Gus habits and religious devotion, and the proba-
biity is, that there will be found, not perhaps
anti.slayery clamor, but anti slavery feeling in
its worst ard deepest intensity. These are the
u>eniw hate slavery becasss-t thy bslieve IL
sinful An they are men whose opinions,
denunciation will not change, and whose preju-
dices penal laws will not eradicate. Thor
oughIy opposed to the execution Of the Fugi.
tive slave law, every example of its forcibe exc
cution only intensifes their hate towards the
law, and the Institution which il was designed 10
protect.
What then is 10 prevent the recurrence among
such people, Of exactly such ontraees, as hose
which have lately been committed! Nothing.
The only hope Of enforcing this law, without an
expense of time, money and peace more valuable
than the slaves which will be captured, is 10 be
found in change, thorough and radical, Of the
principles and convictions Of the Northern people
in relation to slavery Is there any probability
Of such change! None whatever. For the very
conservatives Of the North are by their teachings
and preschings, strengthening the feeling from
which hostility to the fugitive bill springs
These men admit and proclaim the evils and
sinfulness Of slavery, but say that while the law
exists il must be enforced. Their nearer differ
iron them rs 10 their conclusion, believing that
if an institution be sinful. in maintaining Il, lin
any wise) they make themselves sinners. Aye,
on the contrary, these pretended conservative
would content themselves with 80 low a code Of
m rails MS the Bible. and taking that as authority,
assert that slavery is sanctioned by God himself
then we might expect such change In North.
sm feeling as would permit the enforcement OF
Southern rights. Without this change, OF WHICH
there is no more probability than Of the change
Of the Eiheepians skin or Of the leopard's spots,
the Fugitive slave law must remain, ~ IL Is, q
dead law. And such il will remain-utterly
worthless 10 the South.
Vet this law Is the browning glory OF the
without which even the federalists
admits that the South would have had cause Of
complaint!