Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1855-08-03


cided slave literature Of the South, which
; proposes to take up slavery as its staple and
celebrate it under the patronage of all the
nine MUSES., as the choice blessing the spirit
uol condition, the very gem Of perfectly
organized society TO offer it homage and
honor in all the forms of literature and Art.
as the very Minerva herself Of the NEW
ArnENs.
Slavery held no such relation to ancient
literature. Slaves arc often spoke Of incl
dentally and historically. but slavery very
rarely, and when it is, there is manifested
anything but admiration or affection towards
1t. 1t was not considered an institution to
he reloiccd IN by the masters The common
feeling was rather that Of Nirginians not
long since, that it is the heaviest calamity
which has ever befalen the human race
Tho Romans had Il proyerb Tof,dcD, 1850,
hostDs quoi scrros. Il man has rs many enc
mics AS lac has slaves. And this was CON
stantly verified everywhere in the ancient
world, Remember, says Seneca writing to a
friend, 80 how many have perished by do
nestle violence either secret or omen. and
you will perceive that's as many have fallen by
the wrath Of slaves a of kings" It was not
considered blessing to the slave There Is
nothing said of the sure mercies Of slavery.
i he slave was supposed rather to lie under
the anger Of the Deity, as some people still
THINK yet not 50 as to extenuate the Injustice
oi the enslaver The South. fits now litera-
| turn il M r., bo ,L,yy
well to its censorship of the press, as, in
deed, 1t apparently intends to. The language
oi Homer would not be quite congruous with
the new idea ''what day man may be-
comes slave omniscient Jove takes half his
manhood from him. But the following
comes decidedly ''wthin the range of the
statutes. ''The people of Chios first among
the Greeks made use Of purchased slaves, as
lheopompus relates in the 18th Book of his
History. Theopomnus indeed so
relates. But m my opinion the Deity was
offended with the Chans On account Of tins
thing' For a long time afterwards, they
were defeated in war and expelled from their
country by reason Of lin consequence of hay
ing) their slaves. Nicolaus, and poseidonius
Doth assert that the Chians, being reduced to
the state Of servitude by Mithridates of Can
padocia, were delivered over in chains 10 their
o'rH Slaces, to be transported to Colchis-
thus the Deity most undeniably manifested
his dlspleasure against those who first made
use OF purchased slaves, at time when the
many were their own servants and performed
their own labor. Not to say that thence
originated the proyerb ChiJs purchased a
"'aster.' Is not such Language insulting to
the whole South I" Is such an author fit to
berut into the hands Of young southern
planters, bound to rejoice in their own in
stltutions as their fathers did
The SUBJECT of property in slaves :, saws
Plato, "is attended with difficulty on every
hand that there is great difference Of opin-
Ion among the Greeks in regard to the differ
ent kinds of slavery that he is doubtful
what to determine concerning it that man
Is very ugly y,unaccommodating domestic AM
"dI'a most unmanageable kind of possession.
that tins is shown by the practical working
OF slavery, the freyt,,nt and hajttual insur-
rections, the calalnities Of cities having many
slaves OF common language, the thievlnrs
and plunderings Of all sorts, and that he
is very much in doubt in regard to the whole
subject This will hardly do for a State in
which slavery is to be the sun of the system.
and the slave is to be the staple of litera-
ture and Art
Aristotle too Is rather noncommittal.
though he may perhaps pass the South Caro-
INA ,ensors' lie thinks there may be such
thing as natural slave, that is, there nav
be men who are fit only to be tools and in
struments of others, but that we know no
way to determine who they are that the
law which dooms captives taken in war to
slavery is unjust. because 1t often happens
that those not natural slaves are thereby
subjected to slavery that the fact that the
slave is Barbarian and not Greek, is not
suihclent' that hereditary slavery is not the
thlng-ior though nature aims to propagate
good from good and bad from bad, she very
often fails, that even by personal examination
1t is not easy to determine what a man is in
tellectually capable Of; but that only where
the relation between masters and slave is
natural, is it good where il exists by mere
td'o and force 1t is Jad. Others however, he
says, think that slavery is always contrdryt 10
nature that by Inc one man may be free and
another a slave, but that by nature there is
no difference that slavery therefore is ua-
JHSt because it is mere force Even this is
far from orthodox for though the ground
principle is good-that there are natural
slaves-it utterly fails in practice. This is
a point which needs much more elaboration,
as Mr.. Wise says-because the constant dan
ger, and often the certainty, Of robbing men,
not natural slaves ,at once 'of half their man.
hood, (Homer might have said nine-tenths
Of itl and so Of being guilty of the greatest
possible injustice, might it not awaken in
some unsophisticated schoolboy conscicnces of
unHtShcd masters, improper questions aud
qusstionings inconsistent with the end of
thar education This, after all, is almost
as bad as northern school books Young
southern planters ought prudently to be
kept clear of such doubtful disputations
In the lighter literature of the ancients the
Educators will find nothing of the
essential staple long or short, to assist
them, except it may he now and then in the
form of ridicule, or running through it, as
in Seneca, mingled tone of pity and indig-
nation at the unhappy destiny Of slaves
1t is true there are some moving stories of
remarkable sclf-sacrihcing taithfulness ex-
hibted by slaves, modifying a little the gem
eral ancient feeling that they were all the
natural enemies of their masters There is
also good deal of admiration very naturally
at such stories as the following
stories, however, not specially calculated to
awaken the love of slavery. "A large num-
ber of slaves, who were in a state of insur-
rection. being cantured. wore condemned to