Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-06-12
For the Spy.
Governor Washburn and the Citizen
SOldierS.


Governor Washburn and the Citizen
SOldierS.
AS personal, but not political friend Of
our Chief Magistrate, we fondly hoped that
no occasion would arise during his term of
Office, that would test his Anti Slavery. That
hope was vain. The test has come and passed,
and now that the vein of wind and tempest
has swept by, let us see what golden ore, the
upturned earth has disclosed, or what fossil
imprints of ideas or actions, come also to
light, in their rocky hardness.
Thus we examine Gov Washburn's adj
dress to the Independent Cadets, at their sup
per in Boston.
And first, was it holiday occasion for a
festive supper, when liberty, if not dead in
Massachusetts, was in mortal agony While
the sad events of that said week were APP
preaching their " bitter end" was it a time
for congratulatory toasts and drinking of
healths
We make no allusion to certain Roman
emperor, and certain violin; we know thai the
Independent Cadets are good and worthy citi-
zens, as the average goes, but the scene was a
piece of dilettantism more fitting the city
cester County Governor.
If the company must have met, and taken
counsel together, the meeting should have
been in quiet gravity, as one of pall-bearers at
a funeral, and the parting silent and still, af-
ter the performance Of a painful duty.
His Excellency, i'll his address, anxiously
wipes off the stain upon his official honor, in
CURED by the cheers given him at the Free
dom meetings in Boston. This is unnecessa-
ry. No Anti-Slavery man or woman i'll the
State, we are sure, suspected the Governor of
counselling a forcible resistance to law" or
sympathising with those who did. No one
su posed him ready for revolution. All knew
that he would feel bound, both officially and
individually, to fulfil the whole letter of
the law, but the hope was, that he would
make use of no "higher law as was done
in the case Of Simms, to over ride the State
laws. The expectation was, that if Burns
could be rescued as Shadrach had been, without
the official responsibility of the Governor, he
would be happy to avail himself of Franklin
Pierce's school boy blunder, in sending his
requisition to the Mayor of Boston, and
"wash his hands . of the whole matter. So
far. the sympathes of the Chief Magistrate
were counted on, and it is to be regretted that
he repudiates. But we viii not give the adj
dress censure, only, there; are two paragraphs
for which we are grateful.
We quote the following I" Shall the people
of Massachusetts look for protection in the
hour of danger, to the hired stranger, or to
such troops as have paraded here and through
the Commonwealth o-days - We are glad to
see that the Puritan blood stirred at the
measured tread Of the tools of a centralized
tyranny.
The other sentiments, we approve, is the
clear statement that the Fugitive Slave bill
was responsible for the exciting scenes of the
week.
Not the mad abolitionists, Parker, Philips
& Co., not even the brave revolutionists of
Friday evening, but the Fugitive Slave bill.
One word of the great prowess Of the militia
ry force.
How was it that seven thousand soldiers did
keep the peace - with fifty thousand NAL
contents Was it owing to their stronger
arms. or drawer hearts 1t was because they
were armed in behalf of the law, and the peo-
pie Of Massachusetts are not ready for revolu-
ton, goaded and high wrought as they are.
Had they been, the whole machinery would
have vanished as dissolving view.
We do not say that our people will ever be
ready for revolution, We are not hopeful, we
| fear rather, that they will concede and SUBJ
nit, until tho hills of Berkshire, the fair val
| ley of the Connecticut, and the Free Soil of
| Worcester, shall be darkened over with the
! black cloud of the South
| We do not threaten Governors or Mayors,
Or others who feebly oppose the aggressions of
| Slavery, with the retrlbutions OF the future,
we believe they take the safe and prudent side,
| but be ii safe, prudent and worldly-wis we
do say, before God aud man, that it as torong.
'