The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1854-01-26
4" THE CITIZEN

We reprint portion of the Citizens article
copied into the Era few days ago, for the
purpose of few additional comments:
eve are not Abolitionists-no more Alb
olitionists than Moses, or Socrates, or jesus
Christ. We deny that it is a crime, or q
wrong, or even petcad,llo, to hold slaves, te
buy slaves, to sell slaves, to keep slaves Il
their work by fogging or other needful coer
| ciOn.
"'By your silence says Mr.. Haughton, 'yor
will become participator in their wrongs.
But we will not be silent when occasion call,
for speech; and, as for being par.icipator il
the wrongs, soe, for our part, aDish ace had
good plantation areli stocked NTH healthy
IN alabama. There, now-is Mr.. Haughtor
content?
"What right has he to call upon Mr. Mitchell
the moment he sets his foot in America, to be-
gin crusade for q cause which, as Mr.
Haughton knows, was always dstsstefnl to
him in Ireland? Are we Jonah, that we
should do this thing-that we should take up
whether we will or not) MIR Haughton's outcry
against Nineveh. that great city, Have we
escaped out of the whales belly for this?
These remarks are said to have been writ
ten by Mr. Mitchell, co-edtor of the paper, one
of the Irish patriots who have recently escaped
from exile in Van Dieman's Land, and found
refuge in this country. That they are flip
pant, vulgar, and inhuman, even well-bred
Shareholders admit They stamp his preten
sions to patriotism and love of liberty, with n.y.
pocrisy. All his defamation in Ireland
against oppression, was the offspring of selfish
ness, not principle.
When man resists Tyranny attempted
against himself he simply does his duty; he
deserves no moro praise for his conduct than
one who tries to save himself from drowning,
or burning, or starving. He acts from an in
stinct of selfpreservation. When he unites
with others in resistance against Tyranny
weighing them all down, the same instinct is
at work, but other motives are superadded-
such as fondness for excitement, envy of supe-
riority, ambition for distinction, indignation
against injustice, sympathy with associates in
adversely. ALI of these may be operative, and
the result of the mixed forces is, what is Or
dinarily called patriotism, which approaches
pure selfshness, or noble disinteressedness, just
as the selfish OF the social motives may have
the ascendency.
The highest form of Patriotism is that in
which its resistance to Tyranny is dictated and
regulated, not 80 much by sense of personal
grievance as by a serse of stern justice-where
the patriot demands equal rights and equal
laws, not, chiefly, because he is to be the gain
or, but because Justice demands their recogni.
ton, and his countrymen and mankind are to
be benefited This was the Patriotism, in an
honorable degree, of many of the Revolution
airy Fathers of this country, who, when they
asserted their independence of Great Britain on
the fundamental ground of natural rights, saw
the inconsistency of Slavery, and instituted at
once system of policy for its limitation and
extinction. This was the patriotism, to GER
tain extent of the French People, when they
dothroned Louis Philippe and established a Re-
public in the hour of their own enfranchise-
ment, they gave freedom to their colonists, who
had been suffering under worse Despotism
than that which afflicted them.
This is not the patriotism of the "Citisen"
editor. 1t has no element of humanity in it,
The fact that he shamelessly sanctions sys-
tenn which strips human beings of every polit-
cal right, subjects them to perpetual social
degradation, and leaves them not single
natural right save that Of life and even that
without adequate legal security; and that, &C.
cording to his own account, he would if he
could, become an actual participator in the
Despotism created by such a system, demon
strates conclusively, that his opposition, in Ire
land, to British supremacy, was simply strife
for the mastery. 1t is impossible that such a
man can believe in the doctrine of Natural
Rights, in Humanity, in Democracy. He can
not be Just man, a sincere hater of oppres-
sion, friend of mankind. Let him be assured
that he has brought his brutality and bias
phemy to the wrong market. Intelligent Slave
holders generally make no parade of devotion
to Slavery but plead for it az under existing
circumstances, the only relation in which two
different races can co-exist; and those who are
designated as their special friends at the North,
wish them simply to remain undisturbed by dis
cussion and protest. The passion aroused by this
brawler for liberty in Ireland, for fogging ne
groes in America, win nauseate both classes.
per, devoted to the Compromises, and opposed
to Abolitionism, says of the 'Citizsn" article
"This is bad beginning for a man who
claims to have suffered 80 largely in the cause
of human freedom. 1t is q bad exhibition of
taste. This hippant and irreverent use of the
Reaeemers name savors Of blasphemy, and
this free talk about buying and selling and
fogging slaves argues against the editors
e L. IL.
matter of principle We ore as far as most
men from being abolitionsts. We are for
giving the Constitution full scope, end carry
ing out, frankly and perfectly, all its prOvis-
ions, and fulfilling its guarantees to the letter
but when we see the Patriot Mitchell as q
matter of choice, advocating the buying and
selling and the fogging of slaves, and hear
him regret that he has not the ability to en-
gage In the traffic, we cannot but think the
title conferred upon him is an utter misnomer,
and that it would be more truthful to call him
mitchell the demagogue,' or the tyrant."
No less disguised are the foreign Democrats
among US. "Le Republican," a French jour
nal published in New York, rebukes him sharp
ly, and prints long letter to Mr.. Mitchell,
from ALEXANDRA HoLINsKY, reproducing him
with his shameless inconsistency, and denounc-
ing his sentiments, as anti Christian, anti
Catholic, and anti Democratic, as mortifying
to the Liberalsts of the Old World, as they are
to Democrats of divers nations" in New York
A word as to the department of strangers in
relation to this Question Of Slavery. We can
easily understand why a foreigner coming to
settle among us, whatever devotion to Freedom
he may have shown in foreign struggles, may
shrink from taking any active or prominent