The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-03-24

is not In accordance with the Constitution OF
the United States rs recognized by the repre-
sentatives of the States and the people Of the
United States, and sanctioned by tbs Executive,
as we'll as the judges OF our highest tribunals,
all of whom are sworn to support that Constitu-
ton before they are admitted to the exercise OF
their functions! Is it on the authority OF that
" eminent Judge William Jay" late ofthe county
court of Westchester! 1t mny be well for them
to learn that this gentleman is not held altogether
infallible here, although among orthodox Mus
selmen he would undoubtedly be considered in
spired. A great majority of Americans do not.
however, pay such respect to those oracles, and
usually think they are best disposed of by being
placed in IA strait-wastcoat. The "emipeng
Judge" won't do sir. The people of the United
States whom you have honored with your expo
sition of the feelings of common humanity"
and the principles of the Constitution, are not
toned to mistake madness for inspiration,
or assertion for argument They have an idea
that Cong ess is rather better qualified to ex-
pound the Constitution than this eminent
Judge" or the meeting in" Brtol street church"
in the good city of Aud Reekie."
But this remarkable meeting does not stop
bore, Reverend Sir. 1t does not content itself
with defining the feelings of common humanity,
and expounding their Constitution for the be-
nighted people of the United States 1t goes
much beyond this. 1t employs the most ex
citing and infammatory language to stimulate
them to an opposition to this law. 1t does moi
in 80 many words incite the runaway negroes to
use the bowie knife and revolver or the anati
cal whteman to initiate the law abiding peop'
of Boston in an open opposition to its execution
but by arrogating to itself the sanction of Go,
and the precepts of the Saviour Of mank
in support Of it's principles, it not only jusi
| fes, but enforces every species Of violence a.
| bloodshed in resisting this law. While verbal
recommending the people of the United State
to abe peaceable and lawful" in their endeavorst
accomplish the repeal of this law, it places be
fore them duties and obligations, which if i'm
perative, will justify every species of violence
and atrocity, under pretence Of asserting the
rights of the fugitive slave. 1t administers
fuel to fires that already threaten to consume
us; it incites fanatcism to new and more
strenuous exertions, it arrays the different
members Of this once happy confederacy, hther-
to united in bonds of iraternal brotherhood, in
deadly, irreconclabe opposition, and prepares the
way for bloody struggle between whiteman
and whiteman, and uhiteman and blackman, in
the attainments of an object equally mpractica-
Bile, equally fatal to all parties if it could be ac-
complished.
You, sir, are minister Of the gospel of peace
and having assumed the privilege of admonishing
the people of the United States, on subject
with which you have no business to interfere
must not, therefore, take it hard il /, in the
of my country, avail myself Of the sanction Of
your example. Let me exho!t, the meeting at
the Bristol street church, and their reverend
mouth-piece, to turn little of their attention to
people nearer home, and for whose morals and
happiness they are somewhat more responsible
than you and those you represent, are for those
of the people of the United States. Let me ex-
hort you, as you hope to escape the fate of those
to whom it was said, Woe unto ye scribes and
pharisees-HY for ye compass sea
and land to find objects for your pretended sym
patty, while your own countrymen and neigh
bors are left to starve by inches, perish in the
midst of corruption and depravity. Every day
we the people Of the United States" to whom
you have addressed your lessons of humanity,
read from your own books and your own news
! papers, how the inhabitants of the Highlands of
Scotland are suffering every privation that can
wiring the soul Of man how the operators and Ia
borers in your manufactures and on your farms
can scarcely, by the exercise of the most faithful
labor and the most rigid economy, keep them
selves and their families alive; how in your
sister Ireland there il, to use the memorable
words of Burke, I" a nation in beggary-a whole
people lifting up their hands for bread !" how in
your sister England, the operatives are daily
lapsing into the slough of despondency and
misery, while the tenants of the farms, that once
happy rural population, are throwing up their
leases and abandoning their homes, because they
no longer have the means ofpnying their rentsaud
taxes, and keeping soul and body together how
in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow,
and all those places where laborng men CEN
gregate, Illicit connexions are every day be-
coming more common and bastards so numerous
that at least one-balf the children are illegiti-
mate how excess or suffering and prvation have
generated an unchrstian and nhuman selfish
ness, dissolved all feeling Of good neighborhood,
and severed the holy ties of parents and chill
dren insomuch that ono can M lon oar Ia III dou,n
on their offspring as the support of their age nor
the other up to the father for comfort and sup
port; and how in all the great cities of the
united kingdom, as is proved by undoubted tes-
timony, thousands of young women are driven
to prostitution, not from idleness or vicious pro-
pensites, but because with all their labors they
cannot enrn their daily bread.
Let me tell you, sir-you, and those in whose
behalf you address the people of the United
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