Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-06-13
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~'y Ai"o SO'AC buSN w VIZ VIII
dition of slave,-William Batchclder slum-
bers in an ignoble grave -four citizens of
Massachusetts lie incarcerated in Boston jail,
charged with the commission of capital
crime, and eight other citizens walk the
streets under heavy bonds, and charge of
felony. Massachusetts is dishonored and dis
graced; her people have lost much of their
respect for law land the air is filled with the in
dignant murmurs of her justly aroused peo-
pie, of every party, color, sect, and con-
dition,
Of the loss of time and money consequent
upon the suspension of business, we Will say
nothing here, for the catalogue of evils result
ing from the rendition of the last fugitive
slave claimed in Massachusetts, under the in
human law of 1850, is already dreadful
enough, and further details will add nothing
to its terrible significance, or avail in the
slightest degree to heighten the horrid aspect
of the picture. 1t is enough to known that
our beloved Commonwealth, which in days
past was the pride of the sold thirteen" the
blood of whose sons was poured out upon
every battle field of the country, in the cause
of Liberty, whose sages were wisest in coun-
Gil, and whose heroes were bravest in action,
whose presses were faithful sentinels upon the
watchtower of freedom, and whose preachers
were the pioneers of the cause of Liberty and
human rights, has fallen from her ancient
fame. The sons and grandsons of the men
who bore the heat and burden of the day
along the highways from Concord and Lex
ington, to Boston, in April l775, and who
confronted the well trained legions of des-
pot, on the summit of Breeds hill until the
last charge of powder was exhausted and
then with dubbed muskets, continued the
fight, that Liberty might be the inheritance of
their descendants; in these later times, turn
out with alacrity in their holiday attire, to
assist in the kidnapping of single slave, and
in the 5broad light of day, drive him at the
point of the bayonet down State street, to the
end of Long wharf, thence to be transported
to hopeless servitude, in vessel belonging TO
that navy, to which Perry, Jones, and Deca-
tur gave renown by their heroic deeds.
Brave militia men of Boston how would
your fathers have blushed to see you engaged
in such ignoble service! Polite and polished
MI. Mayor, what would the 'sselect men, of
the Boston Of old time have thought of your
servile proclamation of martial law, that vir-
ginia might steal man in your streets. Pat
riotc John Hancock, when the war of the
Revolution was over, did it ever occur to you
that any successor of yours would sit in the
Gubernatorial chair, who had not the courage
to see that writ, issuing from the Courts of
State, made sovereign, by your labors and
sacrifices, should be served, when the freedom
or enslavement of fellow man was pending;
man guilty of no crime but a love of lib
ert
The contrast Of Times present with times
past is not very fattering to us, as people of
an independent State, and we forbear to follow
it farther. We are the slaves and vassals of
the South, and we have been made SO by the
servile, money getting, cotton spinning COM
promise-making citizens of our own State,
and the other States of New England and the
North. The South is not so much to blame
for the abject condition in which we find our
selves to-day, as are we, ourselves. Our
Representative men, have striyen only to
represent Massachusetts trade and Massachu-
sets manufactures; not Massachusetts, ideas
and Massachusetts principles They have
sometimes made beautiful speeches, in Con-
gress, and in Faneuil Hall, but they have
done no manly deeds. The conseryativesm
of Boston, which poured into Faneuil Hall,
in 1886, to propose .sresistance unto blood =
against specie circular, issued by the Secre-
tary OF the Treasury, the purport of which
was that the merchants should pay in bullion
the dues of the Government; at the Post
Office and Custom House, did not experience
a throb of emotion when Fillmore signed the
hellish bill of 1850.
When our venerable Commissioners to
South Carolina was kicked out of Charleston,
the men who sent him there were only little
sorry; they did not dare to demand for him
the rights of Massachusetts, citizen. under
the constitution of the Union. The straight
laced, hollow hearted, hide-bound conserva-
tism of Massachusetts, never yet permitted
her, as State, to resent an insult, or seek
redress for wrong, farther than to urge the
Federal Government to pay her some borrowed
money. If Louisiana smote her upon one
cheek, by the seizure, Imprisonment and sale
of her free citizens, she only protested, that
was all and sent others to be seized, impris-
oned, and sold in the same way. When
South Carolina kicked her, she only passed
few resolutions, applied cotton, " the sover-
eignest thing on earth," to the bruise, and
that was the end of it.
When Daniel Webster sold her into the
hands of the Philistines of the South, to
purchase popularity for himself, the men who
should have resented the indignity, gave nine
cheers for him in State street, upon his first
entrance into Massachusetts afterwards. and
treated him to Champagne supper at the
Revere House.
Step by step, through Missouri COMPROMISES,
Florida purchases, Texas Annexations, Utah
and New Mexico organizations, claw Of God
protection" sophistries, and fugitive slave
b LIS, down to Nebraska and Kansas iniquities
OF the present time, has the South kept on, in
It's persistent course of aggression, conquest
and wrong. Massachusetts and the North
have turned deaf ears to the cries of warning.
Absorbed in money nettinn hnr ,,oo,,lo. 49,.