Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1854-02-09
BENRY WARD EEECuER's LETTER.

Henry Ward Beccher has Published re-
| ply to John Mitchcl's Aippant defence of slay-
cry. lie says -
Crowd those two portraits upon one can
vass-it you can. Please let Moses sleep,
and come back from your retreat behind the
dust OF 1000 years, to reconcile John Mitchell
holding parey with kings and autocrats.with
John Mitchell tiogging saves through rice
swamp, or along tee rows Of cotton on his
/ plantation
The public wish to k1ow how it happens
even it slavery rim be defended, that the de-
fence OF it should DC 40 coagenial task to
Mr.. Mitchc.. Th2tc aic some necessary tasks
that honorable ma DO not Ike to perform
Ii capital punishment be allowed, some one
must BE- the hangnan. IF the guiilotno
must stand, some poor catiif must assist It's
functions. But what should We tank, if
those very men that had spent their lives in
endeavors to abolish the galIows, and put
away the barbarous rafting guilIotine, should
rush into the first vacancy, and parade with
vociIerous pride their elevation to the dignity
of hangman or an cXc;utloncr! There are
men enough to do the dirty work of slavery
Inch born upon level with their tasks
We did not OK 1c.t to sec 4 great relormer-a
champion OF Human Rights, after an iIlustri-
Gus circumnaviga ton o. the globe as a mar
tyr for freedom, using his first hours of lib
erty in rubbing down TIE stiff AMI spawned
limbs of slavery. some ether man surely
might have been found for such function.
But we cannot continue in this painful
strain. The fall Of such man as John Nit
chel has been thought to be, cannot excite on
ly indignation. Tne.c is pity, too. There
is strong and generous uprising in every
heart, protesting that it shall not be, We
instinciivcly feel that ii is u drcam--onc of
those dreams OF impossible dishonor, that
sometimes torment good men; and We stand
waiting for it to break, and the visionary
horror to fly away back to the limbo of muir
ky folly, whence it issued.
o, SIR had all this that has happened pas
sed in dream, would you not have walked,
bathol in sweat, to say, shuddering, What
a horrid nightmare has been astride of my
soul God save me from even such visions
of wrong!' That which you would thus feel,
we do feel for you. That which you would
thus calculate to God, men speak to each 9TH
er. tell you no news, sir, when say that
you have fallen down in the sight of the COM
munity, from the place OF champion of
Liberty to the scrvile office of creeping all
the days of your life on your belly tor sav-
cry.
Once you stood like some great oak, whose
wide circumference ,sss- lifted mp above all
the pastures, the glory OF all beholders, and a
covert for thousand timid singing BIRDS
Now you lie at full length on the ground,with
mighty ruptured roots, ragged and upturned
to heaven with broken bough and despoiled
leaves Never again shall llusbandmen pre-
dict spring from your swelling buds. Never
again shall Gods singing birds of liberty come
down through all the heavenly air, to rest
themselves on your waving top! Fallen! Up
rooted Doomed to the axe and the hearth
cannot hide from myself that there yet
remains for you dismal age, desolatc aud
cherries solitude Of intrmities. Time, that
would have carried you onward, garlanded
with achievements worthy OF man living
for men, and surrounded by the genial spirits
of loving hearts, now will drift you to a po-
lar solitude, without love, or sympathy, or
pity, or honor. You will sweep coldly on
upon dark current, like an ever rolling ice
berg, that rolling and resembling ever so
much, gains no rest by changing place.
But there is future beyond this, even on
earth. There is time promised, and already
dawning, in which the human family shall be
one great Brotherhood, and Love shall be the
law of man. In that golden age there shall
be research made for all the names that, since
the world began, have wrought and suffered
for the good of thu kind. There will be
memorable resurrection of forgotten names.
From the obscurity into which Despotism has
flung all who dared to defy it, from the shades
and darkness of oblivion by which oppressors
would cover down the memory of all who
proclaimed human right and human liberty,
they will come forth shining like the sun, and
none be forgotten that labored to bring to
pass the worlds freedom! In that day while