Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-07-27
RICAN SLAVERY.
TO THE EDITORS OF NEWSPAPERS
IN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.


GENTLEMEN, Detected, astonished, dis
tressed, and all but Departing, after the peru
raj of the Boston newspapers relative to the
capture of Anthony Burns, the fugitive slave,
in your city, take up my pen, at the simple
impulse of duty, and in the feeble hope that
you may not be unir terested i'll learning show
it strikes strange
KNOWN to few in your great Republic,
may be permitted to introduce myself as one
of the warmes friends to perpetual brother
hood between New and Old England, as an
earnest adnirer of the founders of American
Independence, as one who venerates the he
role Pilgrim Fathers as a lover of Popular
Education, of Voluntary Religion, of Tenn
perance, Of Representative Government, and
Of freedom. l am not Republican, and l
do not approve of all your institutions; but
from my heart l sympathize with the spirit of
progress which is carrying on the United
States to a foremost place among tho nations,
and wish you all prosperity.
WIrH no shadow of prejudice. then, still
less of unfriendliness, and far removed from
all the passions of American party, ask you
to listen to the impressions produced on an
Euglishman--I may confidently saw OH all
Englishman-by the events which have late
ly agitated your city, and still more by the
passing of the Nebraska Bill in Congress-
Honorable and good men cannot be indifferent
to the opinion OF whole Christian nation.-
Wise men cannot but admit that the Judgment
of dsinterested parties is entitled to some re-
spect.
IT is, then, Gentlemen, with pain and as
constituent not to be expressed, that the best
friends Of the United States in England, have
seen Boston on the brink of revolution, and
Congress torn with desperate strife, -the first,
on occas ion of sending back fugitive slave O
bondage, and the second in enacting law
which gives up the past centre of North Am
erica to be the domain OF Slavery. That such
causes should have produced such consequent
ces has not surprised us but that such causes
could exist III a land of democratic liberty, of
| Christian institutions, of general educ lton,
and a free press, is only to be eledited on ir-
resistable evidence.
ENGLIsHMEN are not so uni ust as to forget
that the institution of Slavery existed in the
| United Provinces before they became the Uni
| ted States. Nor are they so unrehecting as to
| be blind to the enormous difficulties which
| must attend the removal of such an institu-
ton. They can understand the struggle OF
| interested planters, accustomed to regard their
/ slaves as property, and as indispensable to tho
| cultivation of their estates. They can appre-
! ciate the forbearance which Free State may
| feel even towards Slave State, linked with il
| in great political coniederacy. But they
would have thought that an evil SO crying and
| wrong so hagraat as Slavery, must ere this
! have been extingushed, under the influence
! ofthat spirit which tore comparatively slight
| yoke from the neck Of your fathers and still
more of those principles which have covered
| your land with the means of Christian ordi-
nances. 1t has been SO with u.s. and with
| several European nations, and we hoped il
! would have been so with you. Our Colonial
| Slavery withered before the advance of Chris
tianity. 1t only required that the facts should
be known to poo lie who priced freedom l
themselves, and who acknowledged the just,
merciful, and loving spirit Of the Gospel, to
become perfectly untenable. Ne.ther the peo-
pie nor the Parliament could endure it. AS
| you know, they bought the freedom of all the
slaves in the British colonies. at the price OF o
hundred millions of dollars. We therefore
| looked for an equal, if not a mole rapid and
/ splendid, triumph of justice among you. II
seemed as if, by mora NECESSITY, justice must
continually be gaining ground upon injustice,
AS II the cause Of right must by an innate
force mount over all obstacles. and destroy the
cause OF oppression. Your noble Declaration
of Independence appeared, like the pillar OF
fire aud cloud between the Israelites end
Egyptians, to smile upon the sons of freedom,
aud to trown darkly upon the oppressor. You