The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1855-09-13

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face to face and foot to foot together. so
one or both of them, the hour has come.
Stringfellow and his horde of vagabonds repre-
sent one principle, and the true Kansas emf
grant the other.
"Now, we earth-worms are dull enough, blu
we have learned some things. We are not al
together as they who lived before the food
Ounces as we are, six thousand years have no
passed, without beating two or three truth
through our thick skulls. And if there be an,
one fact absolutely demonstrated to the human
mind, written on the original constitution o
the race, attested by the leviathan carcasses o
a hundred wrecked empires that strew tn,
shores of time, inscribed in bloody letters OF
the annals of every century, and confirmed b,
the earliest and most universal instincts of al
that bear our human form and are baptized
/ into our common human nature, it is, that ma
tons, which depend entirely on slaves for la
Dor, are irretrievably lost. have only to stat,
the fact, not argue it. 1t is proverb, ak
iom. Slavery has few sincere and intelligen
defenders and very few they are, even where i
! is most deeply rooted. These men even ad
NIT the fact l have stated; but they refer it
cause to the abuses of system in itself natu
raj and necessary. But mankind at large hol(
a different opinion. In their eyes, Slavery ha
always ruined nations, because its foundation
are not in nature. That unnatural and IRE
sponsible usurpation, which would chain thu
chainless, which congresses the incompressi
BILE soul into the limits of an animal, and which
yokes the awful energies of planning, plot
ting, passionate, powerful beast, to will as ca
PRECIOUS and falible as its own, must always
end in failure, and will avenge itself terribly
and inevitably on its champions. The gigantic
lie, the tremendous wrong, may flourish fol-
ages, and seem eternal but Nature, quietly Of
violently. restores the old equilibrium at last
and involves victors and victims in a common
catastrophe These are child's lessons. Ev
cry schooboy knows that it was Slavery which
proved on the beautiful form of Greece, as
slugs eat out the hearts of roses. We do moi
need Mr. Bancroft's brilliant essay on Roman
Slavery, to tell us that it was it's deadly virus
more fatal than the factions and civil wars i
caused, more dreadful than the horsehoof Of
Goth or Hun or Visigoth it invited, which laiG
the empire of Rome in ruins. Other less
known examples are no less decisive. pass
them by.
"This country is the child of an idea. That
idea is found in the first sentence of the State
Paper which split us off from the British En-
pire. That sentence made America. The alb
solute equality before the law of all that bear
the human form. Equality not of gifts, Oh
strength, or stature, or beauty but equality
designed by the Supreme Being to compensate
for all other equalities-equality of rights
The equal and indestructible rights, for every
son of woman, of free life, free thoughts, free
speech, free labor, free affections, free worship
In SO far as the nation drinks this idea, she
tastes the fountain of Youth. In so far as she
denies it, she begins to perish.
81 need not say that this fundamental thought
which gave us instant national life, as if by q
fiat of creative will, struck African Slavery with
a paralysis. 1t did not die. l know why, but
have not time to tell you now. But all its
aftergrowth has been a disease; the growth oil
an excrescence, not healthy plant; of a tumor
and not a natural organ. Our fathers thought
that the Federal Constitution had given it a
death blow. Jefferson thought that the Ordi
nance of 1877 had dug its grave. The men
| of 1903 believed that the destruction of the
slave trade had dried its fountains, and insured
its speedy end The result has Knocked them
all. A half century has rolled by; and now,
in 1855, incarnate in Stringfelow, it is roaring
and roaming, like loose wild beast, through
the Young Dominion of the West seeking
/ what it may devour.
~ tell you, Flint, that Slavery in Kansas asks
no compromises, and gives and takes no quar-
/ ter. 1t wields no blunted lance. 1t holds the
same language to all comers-'I will devour
you, or De mySeH ueVOuIeO! hdnSHS, Ne
braska, the free States, the Federal Govern
ment, North America, the Tropic Islands, the
Continent-it must have them ALL or die. And
that, before God, hold to be the present con-
dition of its life. The calm eye of the civilized
world is on it. 1t feels it, and grows mad.
Only impotence half sublime, colossal ruff
fanism, superhuman swagger, can keep its
courage up"
"You are as good as an entire Abolition
Convention" said /, smiling, for the gusto which
Bison poured into these last sentences reminded
me of the Tabernacle.
ain its present attitude" continued he not
minding my interruption, "Slavery in Kansas
is Ancient Pistol all over; but its bullyism has
been more successful Instead of Freedom
making Stringfellow eat the leek, Stringfellow
has made Freedom eat the leek. People here
affect to despise Stringfellow. / don't. l like
his audacity. 1 half tremble at his power. Why,
Flint, Stringfellow is the real ruler of America.
At this hour, he is President Congress, the Ju-
dietary, and the Army. He is moulding to
himself the civilization of this whole generation
Is this to go on?
Stringfellow is Slavery tabernacled in flesh
brute force in human form. In its origin, Sla-
very is brute force-no more, no less. A ruffian
meets a weak woman, seizes her by the throat,
and chokes her into working for him. Her
children become also his slaves. That is Sla-
very, and the whole of it. Ages after, Dvines
trace it to the Bible, and learned lawyers say
amen"
"Bson, have heard that before. You are
stealing -
~ know it; and yet / break no command.
ment. Thou shalt not steal does not apply
to truth. This, say, is Stringfellow, and the
whole of him and now, let me ask you candid
ly, as Southerner, (your father, you say, was
one,) if, with such teachers as Stringfellow, the
free States can shut their eyes to what Slavery
is and seeks. Now, Flint, you know this man
the truth. If they calumniate them, we will
suspend Judgment. When their merits are
telegraphed, will revise my thought. At pres
ent, l take them as the press describes them.
And, as described, what is this Stringfellow,
who has Kansas under his foot? Pure, unadul-
terated ruffianism. Tom Hyer founding a
State, and giving it strictly professional nur-
ture A Short-boy Pilgrim Father. The ami
NAL who rules Kansas is, to speak politely, a
cross between the hog and the hyena and tell
YOU that this cannot last. Unless somebody goes
there at once and controls things, and unless
the millions of Young America arouse" here
Bison's voice stirred the blood like the notes
of Clarion, {" and take this Stringfelow and his
pack by the nape of the neck, and end this
reign Of terror, and announce, in tones that
may be heard through earth, that among those
woods all the races of the world shall at least
then there is no longer Government here, but
in its place the old Anarch, Force, gorged with
blood and bones.
al look to the Kansas emigrant for all this.
He is surrounded by a cloud of Witnesses His
means NAV be scantv, his hut Door, his COM