Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1853-01-08
From the n. Y. Tribune.
Slarery'S Attitude for 1873,

itiutlNdA uNNcItn'to VI our country were au-
verse to Human Slavery--that is, to its abstract
justice, and consequently to its expansion and
r perpetuity. The Statesmen and Heroes who won
our Independence were all in sentiment hostile
to Slavery, and the immortal Preamble to the
Declaration was in their mouth no mockery, no
cant, no hypocracy, but living and precious
: truth. Hence the Proviso of the Continental
Congress which excluded Slavery forever from
the Territory North West of the Ohio-hence
the provision in the Constitution that Congress
should have power to prohibit the African Slave
Trade from and after lSOS hence tho attitude
Of the Free States in 1919 and tho better fen.
lures of the Missouri Compromise That Sla-
vpy was essentially, desirable or justiGable was
never pretended by the leaders of opinion
Throughout the purer days of our Republic.
The Age of Annexation, however, has wit
messed radical and by no means favorable
change. Slavery is now commended, not nero
ly in its Southern strongholds, but by the more
brazen ofits Northern scrvitors, as a good thing
in itsclf-not a calamity inflicted on US by Great
Britain, which VIC must have time to be safely
rid of-but blessing to be priced, and diffuscd,
and made etarnnl. Thus The Richmond Eram-
ii'er, in an Editorial article on the "ATectionate
and Christian Appeal Of many thousands of
the Women of England" respecting Slavery,
thus delivers itself:
"Thc Countess Dowagcrs will produce no
other sensation in America than that momcn-
tary irritation which follows a display of impo.
tent impertincnce, and it is only worthy of our
notice az an illustration of the temper of the
world toward the labor law of these States.-
All the earth unite to accuse, dcnoucc. and
misreprescnt us. High and low, far and near.
tho face OF Humanity is set against Slavery
Can the institution support this weight of con-
dcmnationi Certainly, nothing that is morally
wrong or unjust, nothing that violates natural |
law, could hope possibly to support it. But as
we believe, on long study of the subject, that
Slavery violates no natural or moral law, no
correct sentiment or rational principle that it
is thing good, right, and uscfol in itsclC-we do
think that it will survive all the abuse of all
the world, and that tho prejudice now prevalent
against it will disappear before the enlargement
of knowledge and the sober settlement of hu-
man opinion.
"All this outcry is based on two assertions
that we appropriate the labor Of the slaves
without their consent, and that We give them
no opportunity to rise into a higher grade of
civilization. But VIC do tho same thing to
horses, and none complain. 1t will be said that
horses arc incapable of higher civilization
than the condition they are in, and that they
are better off when they are the slaves of men
than when they run wild, uncarcd for, and use
less in the woods and deserts. Why not apply
the same just remarks to the slavery Of negroes
to white men;
"The only reason given why we should not
do So is the assumption that the negro race is
capable of rising to a higher point of intelli-
gcnce and usefulness in n state of freedom than
in a state of bondage so tho white race If this
assumption could be proven true, the moral |
question would be decided for over. One set
Of men have no right to keep another set of |
men down, by force or law, to a grade of moral !
excellence and intellectual power lower and !
more confined than that OF which they arc ca
of the white race by another would be moral |
wrong. But the assumption that the negro |
race can ever rise to point of civilization high !
or than that it attains in Slavery to white men, |
is incapable of proof. We have their history |
for three or four thousand years, in every quar-
ter Of the globe, under all conceivable crcum-
stances, and under every climate. Yet never |
in single instance has negro nation originated
civilization, never retained civilization when |
given them, even eristed in n state of civili-
cation sayo when occupying the position of |
bondsmen in the midst of a white nation
often, under such a diversity of attendant cir |
cumstanccs, and remaining unchanged
BILE as the nature of fire and water has
done during this immense laps of time-we
say it is only rational for us to recognize it as
the effect of some elementary principle-some
law. 1t becomes only rational to recognize
slavery rs the most civilized condition of the
negro race, and the support of that institution
the duty of the white race.
/" Believing that negro slavery not only vio-
lates no law of morality or nature, as the world
thinks it does, but that it has this deep, certain,
sure foundation in the fitness and utility of
things, VIC also believe that II will outlast the
Christianity of the Countess Dowagers, the
intrgucs Of Presidential candidatcs-ay, out
last this Union ITSELF We believe that when
the voice of reason and true fact once slowly
penctrates the present hubbub of passion, that
t.eattcr will become silent, and that all the world
vii! admit tho usefulness and proprety Ne
gro Slavery with an unanimity not less complete
than that with which it is now denounced"
Here we have the true Slavery Platform
tho ono on which the institution must stnnd. if