The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1854-10-05

number to twenty-one. A pretty fair contri
button 20 American Literature, for one news
paper.
SLAVERY THE CORNER STONE OF FREEDOM
The advocates of Slavery are fond of quo
ting passage from speech of the celebrated
Edmund Burke, loot of New Hampshire,) in
which he speaks of the high spirit and jealous
love of freedom which he assumes TO be char.
acteristic of shareholders. 1t is as follows:
"Thereis however, circumstance attending
these colonies which, in my opinion, fully coun-
terbalances this difference, and makes the spir-
it of liberty still more high and naughty than
in those to the northward. 1t is, that in Vir
ginis and the Carolnas they have vast null
titude of slaves. Where this is the case, in any
part of the world, those who are free are by far
the most proud and jealous of their freedom
Freedom is to them not only an enjoyment, but
a kind of rank and privilege. Not seeing there
that freedom, as in countries where IL is com.
mon blessing and as broad and general as the
air, may be united with much abject toll, with
great misery, and with all the exterior of servi-
tude, liberty looks among them like something
that is more noble and liberal do not mean,
sir, to commend the superior morality of this
sentiment, which has at least as much pride as
virtue in it; but | cannot alter the nature OF
man. The fact is so; and these people of the
Southern colonies are much more strongly, and
with higher and more stubborn spirit, attach
ed to liberty, than those to the Northward.
I "Such were all the ancient commonwealth
| such were our Gothic ancestors such In our
days were the Poles; such will be all masters OF
slaves who are not slaves themselves. In such
a people the haughtiness of domination com,
bines with the spirit of freedom fortifes it, and
renders it invincible."
In the first place, this was not the fact. The
spirit of Liberty was not higher in the South
prior to, or during the Revolution, than at the
| North. Let any one read the Life of Wash
ington," by Judge Marshall, Virgnian, and
no cannot fail to perceive that the love of Lib
erty was inherent in the Puritan nature of the
New Englander, while it was only spasmodic
in the Virginian. One is amazed, in reading
the early history of Massachusetts, and her
sister Colonies of New England, to witness the
logged resolution with which they resisted
the tyranny of the mother country and it is
surprising that they were not exterminsted
for their contumacy. Their resistance to EGG
lish tyranny began within twenty years of
their landing on Plymouth Rock, and was
rarely over RENTED when the occasion called
for it, up to the period of the Revolution. Vir-
ginia, on the contrary, was thoroughly imbued
with the nonresident principles which were
prevalent in the Cavalier party in the reigns
of Charles | and III. Her colonial career
makes a sorry figure on the page of history,
as told by her own Marshall.
In saying this, we mean to detract nothing
from the true honor and renown of Virginia.
Her great and good men of the Revolutionary
period have shed imperishable renown, not
only on Virginia, but on America, and on the
Anglo-Saxon race. They were shareholders
by the accident of birth, but they were the
proclaimers and defenders of universal free
dom from choice The spirit of true Liberty
was prevalent in the South in their dey, but
it is no longer 30. 1t has been crushed OUT
and the empire of Absolutism, as it was taught
by Archbishop Lsud, and as it is practiced in
France and Austria, has taken it's place. In
the days of Washington, Henry, and Jefferson,
Slavery was of secondary consequence. 1t was
universally regarded as an evil, " foul blot"
a disgrace to the South The spirit Of Free
dom was then superior to it, and the minds of
Southern men at that period were truly free.
They consequently had room to expand and
Virginians became great and noble men
champions of Freedom and loving it the
moro from daily observing the whitening curse
of Slavery. But how changed! Darkness
has resumed its sway over the Old Dominion.
All intellectual vigor and noble manhood have
been extinguished, and not son is left her
who deserves a comparison with a host of her
| Revolutionary sires. Genius siokens and
fancy dies" wherever American Slavery is
permitted to spread its baleful influence.
There can be no philosophy, no poetry, no true
eloquenoe, where Slavery in all its crushing
power reigns. The great men whose names
give lustre to the South were trained up at q
period when the mind was free
In the Revolutionary period, and for many
years after, although the South had Slavery,
her sons enjoyed freedom of thought. Even
Mr.. Calhoun owes his intellectual vigor to this
| freedom and it is probable that if Slavery had
have been as overshadowing in influence, in
his boyhood, as he made it and left it, he too
might have been o driveller, mere sophist AS
it is, his name will fade out of the public
memory sooner than that of any man who bore
| any comparison with him in intellectual DOW.
er. He said nothing and did nothing to cause
his name to be cherished in the hearts of men
He labored for the benefit of class-a small
class--at the expense of the masses of men
There could consequently be nothing generous
noble or just, in his sentiments or principles
nothing that touches the heart or exalts the
mind; and it is for this reason that his pub
lished works have fallen into universal neglect
Even the slaveholding class have too much
human sympathy to he pleased with that
which is partial, selfish, and unjust and they
too, neglect the writings of their great cham.
pion, while their wives and daughters are in.
dignant at the wrongs of Uncle Tom, or drop,
ping generous tear over the graves of little
Eva and her father.
So far from the spirit of Shareholders being
freer than that of other men, the very reverse
is becoming true; and they are now almost as
much enslaved as their negroes Not one Of
them now dares to utter such sentiments az
Washington, Henry, Jefferson, and Madison
habitually uttered. There are parts of tie
South in which the largest STAKEHOLDER would
subject himself to a coat of tar and feathers
for uttering such anathemas against Slavery
as Mr. jefferson put into his Notes on Virginia
Every man south of Mason and Dixon's line