The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1851-10-02
PHILADELPHIA CORRESPONDENTS
THE cHRIsTTANA TRAGEDY.

THE CIiRlSTIANA TRAGEDY.
PHILADELPHIA Pa. Sept. %. 1851
How rich, how poor, how abiect how ana.
gust this Republic of ours must appear 10 an
observer high enough up and far enough off 10
see it as it is and feel it as il deseryes!' Attbis
moment of all the nations of the earth we are
in the grandest attitude. Every day adds,to
our power and glory and the hopes Of The
WIDE world turn to us for an omen of success
Nay, it is even beginning to be felt that our Al.
rect interposition is the ultimate reliance of
European freedom; that the tyrannies of the
Old World are to be defeated on their last battle
field by the arms of the New that the sword
of Washington, which struck the first success
tul blow for Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,
must win the last victory of the heroic faith !,
tor one believe that we are worthy because we
are able to achieve the civil and religious lib
erty of the world and that it is our destiny to
effect it. Yet this nation, this whole nation.
with such prophecy upon it, is at this mo-
swearing, praying preaching, arguing theright
of warlke incursions, by armed SHAREHOLDERS
and their train of human bloodhounds upon
the bordering free States, in pursuit of a few
wretched fugitives from chattel bondage And
straining the precedents of feudalsm, and re-
fning and alternating the logic of despotism
to construe the despair of the crushed wretches
into treason, and the natural sympathies of hu-
mainly into an aiding and abetting of the public
enemy Political prohigacy is adding the very
maximum of its meanness and malignity: and
| the pusilanimities of mind and heart which be-
long to cruelty and cowardice are the ruling
'entiments of the day. Not a doctrine of the
| demon system of masterdom and vassalage
which ever disgraced the common law Of
absolutism, but is evoked from the ruins Of
| that old Bastile for the service of the mod
ern oppression now struggling among us for its
very life
| A few semi-savages victims of MARYLAND in
situations escape into the free State of Penn
sylvania, and their wholly savage masters, with
| rufian bailiifs and deadly arms follow them to
| fight out the war begun in Africa by the first
OF the pirate captors Just AZ the Far-ups and
Far-dopns meet in battle array upon our canal
and railroad lines, and renew their Old World
barbarsms to the horror of our New World
civihzation--with all the difference of dignity
| however, that there is between the motive of
blind passion, which makes no account of life
and the base ayarice which hunts solely for the
market value of its human prey Nothing will
satisfy our Southern brethren Just now but
the privilege of the chase with all it's revolving
| incidents daily enacted within our borders and
we are required besides, to play foresters point
ers and settlers of the game
If that is the bargain it is a hard one Fit
is only an implication, or a contingency sprung
upon us beyond our apprehension of the en-
gagement, and made every day more and more
impossible to us, in the mere wantonness of ar
rogance we mast be excused. Law and logic
are not even matches for human nature and
their enforcement will be the DEVILS death be-
fore the demonstration can be quite worked
out The world has destiny as well rs con-
tract duties to fulfil; and it must get along.
Not only ideas and institutions have chang
ed, however sanctioned, but temples and towers
have tumbled into dust and empires been over
turned, with all their burden of interests and
\ their whole anparatus of force; and the ss~ses
sDa syranse Who rssisted humanity's progress
lie fossllized IN the history Of the epoch in their
solemn scarecrow uglness, the jest and scyn
of better day.
1t is very idle to talk of the omnipotence and
lnfallbility of parliaments, and the inyiolable
sacredness of municipal laws in this age 1t
touches no mans conscience Liberty has
scourged Absolntism from the temple, and
Truth and Right are the authorities of the new
time. Not saint in the calendar, civil or sa-
cred, but has won his title to human worship by
greatly violating the laws enacted by the pow
ers that be !" and the minds Of men have the
framing ana the warranty of at least eighteen
hundred and fifty years of resistance to the re-
quirements OF despotism. The doctrine which
Justnes national revolutions arises out of the
supremacy OF reason and conscience over all
enactments, whether by Kings, as supreme. or
by Governors or Majorities or their Bepresent-
auyes, worthy or worthless. law that builds
itself upon lie, and sets itself for the mainte-
nance OF wrong, must look to such brute force
rs 1T can command for all its success. Mems
hearts loathe it mems souls abhor it every
thing In 1t that makes them fit to live and ready
TO die bids them spurn it. Their outraged hui
mainly vlndicates itself Manhood finds itself
greater than institutions and independent of
them; pointing to the desecrated temple and
the usurping State it says Pull these down,
leave not one stone upon another, and in three
days will raise them again, new and holy
Ireasons and rebelliOns high and petty. con
structive and absolute, are inventions refugees
OF wrong, and necessary only to the defence of
despotism, or order, if you please This may
lie across the pathway of truth and right but
their impeachment is nothing to the forward
march Of manhood, with its great heart fully
set upon its rights and duties
| Look at this Christiana Tragedy. Thirty or
forty negroes who receive no protection from
the Government for whom not a law of the
statute-book has one careful provision, and
who, therefore, owe not the reciprocal allegi-
ance, having choice, clear of all obligations,
to abide the consequences Of an appeal to force
rather than accept those of submission, stand
out with their lives for their liberty as hunted
beast would do, and rs hunted man, treated
as beast, may surely do, when it is his choice
among the chances; and, straghtway the
United States of America are in jeopardy of
Their existence! All! is it so! Can slave at
bay shake the model nation Of the earth with
fear Is a single atom Of Gods truth terrible,
to the world in arms! Can the right make u
self felt through the nation, when asserted only
by the poorest outlaw in his naked resistance
to his pursuersl And shall we not exult IN
the Power and Providence ever present that
makes the rebuke Of the meanest creature tie
has made awful to the wrongdoer on his
throne --
If this riot had happened, with five times the
loss OF life, in mob in Philadelphia it would
have been an affair for the police of the dis
trict and an item in the penny newspapers
only; for then it would have been but COM
mon crime and I'm everyday mischief; a con
fict of wrongs of evil example, indeed, bu.
nothing in it 70 challenge the organic mischief
Of our civil system. But at Cbristiana, as al
Bunker Hill and the Garden Of Gethsemsne,
oppression in the form of law, and win an inc
claims Of established authority, met 'he ever
lasting right in open conflicts ana men NEAR
-. - - .sT,ay came with ~bandn