Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1851-02-25
where are We !

Where are we? And what are we? Has old
Massachusetts, by some miracle oil geographical
transmission been sent over to Austria Has some
malignant Prospero with his magic wand in his hand
transformed our people into serfs courts of JUS
tice into star chambers and the creatures OF our bal
lots into our tyrant-masters Has the air bubble OF
republcanism which has danced in our vision since
the days of our grandfathers and which we have
been satisfied with as the Summum 6onun OF dem
ocratic freedom burst at last And do we now be-
hold the barrenness of that triumph which sees
US in seventy years robbed of our habeGS corpus, IN
solenty deprived of the trial by jury and threatened
with fire and sword if we dare to maintain the free
dom of our native soil These are grave startling
questions; questions Of serious import; questions
which the aspects and exigencies of the times put to
every man in the Old Bay State with determined
emphasis. 1t seems as if the panorama Of American
history has completed cycle, and had began new
epoch with renewal of the very incidents, princi-
pies and practices, which seventy years ago placed
our grandfathers foot to foot and front to front with
despotsm, arrayed in regal authority, and supported
by bewigged and gowned lie which took the name
Of ldac, and by the military instruments of its wrath
and hatred which took the name of order. In Bos
ton, where Benjamin Franklin was born, where
Hancock and Adams lived and labored, where Pres
colt and Warren confronted tyranny and aggression,
and round which the yeoman of old Massachusetts
assembled to teach General Gage the law of liberty;
men are seized with the sanction of republican
executive, upon false pretences, that they may be
stript of their freedom, as the women of Hungary
were strpt of their garments when scourged in the
market place of Pesth by Haynau; and free citizens
of Boston are as brutaly and insolently denied the
right Of verbal defence, the sanity Baxter,
that father of n-Conformists, by Jeies of unen-
viable memory.
Why is this? Whence is this state of things ,
1t was not to consummate such a ptiable sham of
republicanism, that grandfatherS suffered eight
weary years of war, and took counsel together
through many hours of tribuation and anxiety, and
hope, and fear, and care. 1t not to present to
US straw-stuffed efgy of freedom, that they walk
ed with bleeding feet over the ice-bound paths of
Tarrytown, and embodied in written laws the prnci-
pies of the declaration of Independence. 1t was
teach the world to be free.
But the self-sacrl6cing virtue that inspired the
COIonistS Of England to brave every danger and
despise every toll that contravened the eternal prin-
cipes of liberty, has been stifed in the breasts Of
their sons, and in the Capitol of the United States
has been nursed and nurtured a treason that now
seeks the overthrow ofRepublicanism and the SUI
premacy of rampant, tyrannous, save-hoIding,
Slavery extending, slave-makng oligarchy. Why
have citizens Of Massachusetts been seized and
held upon pretences that would scarcely serve
as pretexts of arrest to the diabolca instruments
the Spanish inquisition? Just because this self
constituted ollgarchy command it. Why has Bos-
ton been threatened and Massachusetts nsulted bv
proclamation which smells of the throne, which
breathes wrath and menace, and which orders into
our midst force which dare not come into collision
with the people of Republic save as a reasonable
force? Its because this government of the ballot
oox forgets that it $50, and in the madness of its
momentary life assumes the regal scepre and the
Haynauan lash
ne sons Of our Revolutionary fathers have be-
trayed the past, and have departed from the princ-
pies of their sires to hug in their bosoms that Ioatb
some abandoned Slave power which like canker
is eating out the core Of liberties, and insult.
ing us with blood-hounds and slave-hunters. The
clank of mancles, and the click OF rifles upon the
graves Of our ancestors. 1t is because the whole
government has trampled on the Constitution and
'treasonably become an organized despotism, self
styled Republican, that our citizens are dragged
from their houses upon false preences and that our
Commonwealth is insulted by military dictation.
Let us now put these questions seriously to our
Selves and ponder over them, whether do we tend
aud what shall be the issues We ares tending to-
wards new day of liberty, depend on it brethren,
We are marching towards higher ideal Of repub-
licansm, and perfect freedom will be the issue. =
But we must be resolu.e, calm and energetic. for we
have to stde and extinguish in the ulness Of free
principles this oligarchy that Expresses and insults
us, before we can be free