Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1853-01-20
Meanness.

Under this lsead the Greenfield Mass J
Republic speaks of the recent prescription
of Senator Hale from the Senate Commit
tee, as follows:
The dignified body called the Senate of
the United States, has in it some members
who are Interestingly anxious to convert il
into Spanish Inquisiticn, and to exhibit
themselves as a set of intoerant Monks,
who would broil man like dead turkey,
for the objectionable offence of differing
from them in opinion The bitterness of
the pettifoggcr, the meanness of the dema-
gogue, and the intolerance Of the bigot,
will, like vermin on the stately tree, crawl
into high places; and, when there. they
wither whatever is noble, beautiful and
grand, as the vermin blast and destroy the
foliage which was the ornament of the tree
So there are men of contracted, housing,
groveling, crawling souls in the U. S. SEN
ate, who would sooner burn the Capitol
than forgive difference of opinion; and
who know just enough to glory in the ex-
hbilion of their contemplate malignity and
desiitution of soul, just as clown does in
playing off his monkey tricks. The more he
casts off his manhood, and sinks a,to the
monkey, the more he glories. So they, the
more they degrade themselves into mere
tools of Despotism, and traitors to Free
dom, the more they exult They have late
ly made new display of their sickening
meanness, in refusing to give John P. Hale
place upon any of the Committees of the
| M Com,r,l L..
year. True. We believe, he declined any
Committee post, but he knew it was de-
creed by the party lords to obstracize him,
and he requested to be excused, az a means
of partly evading the intended slight. Mr..
Hale had more pluck than that. He was
disposed to let the meanness stick out its
whole length, and make those guilty of it,
as much like hodge hogs as they chose to
make themselves, knowing full well that
their miserable shu fling 10 Slavery would
not harm him, while it would be a thorn to
them. We are glad he cast the entire re-
sponsibility upon them, aud suffered them
to enact the consumate degradation which,
| if they did not covet, they consented to-
We are sorry, indeed, that the Senate con-
tans such set of Serfs to the Slavehold
ers; but since it does, the people had let
ter know it, and nobody can better proclaim
the fact than the neutrality-suspicious. of Des-
polsm themselves.
A poet somewhere, in speaking of mean
man, exclaims:
Open your bosoms, spread out your ishes wide.
| And let in manhood "
But alas he never dreamed, wide as his
fancy roamed, of men who had no boso,ns
-men made up Of mere cabbage heads,
andsdough, dried in a Southern sun,
ill expansion was impossible, without death
He had not seen American Pro-Savery
Senators, whose restitution of manhood so
far exceeds his Imagination as to furnish an
other striking illustration of the ofi.quoted
remark, that truth is stranger than fiction"
This attempt at an insult 20 Mr.. Hale,
and the dignity and gen,IemanIy bearing
with which he met il, will only give him a
firmer hold on the affections of the phian-
thropic and generous hearted Of our land,
and through him, will tend to promote the
interests of Freedom, Despots, as is said
of hogs in swimming, often cut their own
Threats with their own claws.