The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1852-06-10
For the National Era.

sorry not to be able to plead its brevty. The
most important points are still unnoticed
For the National Era
A week or two ago, a correspondent of the
Inquirer quoted, from 1aifs Magazine, the
American maxim of the day. AZ there rem
dered:
I" There's nothing new, and there's nothing true amt
| rs no mdtter''
If the bare expression of such maxim
brings shudder, it is time it were expressed ;
and, though this slang version is offensive, as
vice in rags, and will find favor only in the
street another, rs nice and coy as infdel
| "rhetOric" can make it, comes from the high
places Of the land The same Inquirer con-
tanned both versions; and they Jared, in their
different garbs, as elsewhere: did they not!
| Ii is true, that even pulpit orator, who de-
scends to Union meetings" should be treated
| as kindly and fairly as another man. II he has
been misrepresented, let us be foremost to right
him; and, if he is trying to rise again, assist
him. But, if merely seeking to Justify his fall
we can only withdraw in silence. Good faith
towards other men requires that we have no
part in peryerting their moral sense. In the
insertion of the defence of that most famous
"Union Speech 2or it's author different course
is pursued Moreover, the defence itself was
not made in corner, but before large asso-
citation and was but the dismal close of long
series of efforts, which anti-slavery men have
not forgotten. 1t is time that these savings
and doings fro such high ecclesiastical quar-
tiers were examined.
Prominent in the defence is the indignant
denial by the author, that he ever said he
would 20 save the Union, send his relatives
into slavery. "This is what | said, both in my
speech and lecture: i would CONSENT
What does this mean! No one ever understood
that he was ready to be the catchpoll. IL his
| relatives were to ask his consent it might mean
something; but if the State with all it's array
of troops, cannon, bayonets, were to get his
consent it would be something considerably
like sending, imagine. Or is it that his iudg-
ment would consent" l. too, if we must
come to such terrible bravado would consent
| that my brother, my sister, my mother, should
60 into the dungeon, or into the slave pen, az
to death at the stake; but how--as maiefdctors
as SidUesl No, thank God, not for forty thou
sand Unions. Neither would Dr. Dewey
Why need he treat us in this way? The con-
temptation of a brother or sister suffering
dying, under the stripes and woes Of slavery,
he could bear, no doubt, as well as another ;
for he well knows that when the hour for
beastly degradation should come, as come it
would, when required to renounce their hui
manity, and act the part of the brutes that
perish, he well knows that then death would
be imperiously summoned to their release
They could not be Slaves. God has saved them
by thousand deiences too strong for slavery,
too strong for the cowardly fears of villains, or
for death. 1t is worse than idle it is dishonest,
to apply the term slaves" to victims such as
these. Suppose them to be outawed, and
thrust among pirates, and thieves and prosti-
tutes-what then? Ii would be their lofty
and privileged exemption, their safety which
could alone make the contemplation of such
fate possible. But all suppose they were not
safe-suppose that, all defenceless they would
be bent or broken into crime, or could be trod-
den down into slavery we should have been
spared all this talk about "consenting;n and
if he chooses to say that he 'can only wonder
that any man should think it extravagant or
ridiculous" we must in charity turn away
Furthermore, he denies that he spoke of his
mother in this connection, but only of his
brother, his SON. But why? Because of the
vulgar irreverence of the thing, as a matter
of taste; and this is well He gives no other
reason for the distinction and none other could
he give, except that the very rabble would boot
with derision thanks to the name of mother
and its power over those untutOred instincts,
which would dispel all his sophstry with cut
ting scorn In the dreadful trial at sitting
natural affection, mother son." brother
| all stand on the same ground-the greater the
| victim, the greater the deed But If he says:
Nay rs for thH one, would not consent AS
he is Doctor of Divinity and as we are bound
to believe these titles have not become so empty
in the popular estimation Us to make their con-
tinued imposition shameful however roughly
may have been cured ofmy own admiration) =
1t IL pertinent to inquire, submissively,. if he
would not consent that his mother should be
sent to the slave pen by what new code of
Christian ethics he should consent that mine,
or any other mans mother, should he sent to
such doom When should consent to any
such thing, should expect to be accursed, and
| am not Doctor of Divinity.
contrary to the maxim first quoted there as
one new thing, at last--conscience decried by
drylnes. Oh, evil days! Once men were
warned against sitting or even tampering with
their conscience; and q fierce and lifelong
struggle 1t was, between their passions and
guilty compliance and this inexorable monitor
within Now they are parned against their
conscience! And an easy time we are like to
have oft When we can so serve the Lord as
10 please the Devil, it must be the good time
coming, and at hand The slave law, that
must stand; and conscience, if il cannot stoop
to assist IN sending mothers into slavery, if it
cannot outrage the sentiments of all man.
kind" if it cannot do that at which my tears
would start and my blood boil with indignation
and pity" why, il is an unsafe suidel Let him
80 ON teaching this doctrine; he has his re-
ward-not so the Inquirer
Out OF long passage, the only Ineligible
notion which can be got is, that for W "thercs
nothing true" no inner eye to see truth, but
only dangerous instinct no still voice to
speak it no authority and, we may Us we'll add,
no God, flor ! can have no faith in God
which is the work of my hands or Of another
mans handcraft Conscience is illuminated
and charged with all the awful crime, wrath,
and malice, Of ages. He does, indeed, profess
that he has guide which he dubs " the ,eision,