Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1855-07-07
HISTORICAL.


Freeman Boston: Bela Marsh, ID Franklin
Street. 1855.
The publishers have our thanks For n copy OF
this pamphlet. 1t is written with yigor, and EN-
bodies many important historical facts. Our read
ers will be interested in those which follow.
Nations before us have run the race of saveholing
and have reaped the inevitable fruits Of their IL
justice, as, without repentance we are destined 10
do. The writer says;
There was a time when ancient Rome recognized
the equality of all men in her fundamental pin.
ciples of social compact. Had she held by these,
and maintained them by rigid virtue-evcn had
the penalties been as severe as they are said to
have been-Rome would have remained firm and
mistaken through all the fierce onsets of barbai Ous
tribes But a few ambitious men blew the trump
Of conquest marshaled the spirits Of the people
from peaceful labors into freebooting bands, and
on they rushed upon the nations. The conqucror
returned with spOils, with long professions Of mis-
cradle captives and these were sold into perpetual
bondage Every new conquest crowded the mar
kets with thousands Of slaves. So numerous at
one time had they become, that men were sold for
less than dollar per head.
| 1t is awful as well as instructive to mark the
results of this horrid system of barbarity-to OBJ
serve how the Almighty Judge, by an inevitable
law turned the whole weight Of this curse, the
Romans were heaping upon wretched foreigners,
upon their own heads. As the slaves increased,
! free labor was destroyed and became disgrace
Every Roman citizen who had the means, pur-
chased the right of becoming a tyrant by purchas4
ing slave. Efcmnacy seized upon the once vir-
tuous and industrious workers. Those who had
been most successful in foreign robbery, and were
the most arttul now commenced system of rob-
berry at home. The wealthicr citizens secured
supremacy OF power. The great body of the
citizens who had cultivated their own plots of
ground were unable to bear up under the burthen
| OF playing gentleman and having their small
patches cultivated by slaves. What every man
had once effected by his own industry, it now re-
quired two or three slaves to effect. To work him
self was 10 place himself in the condition Of a
slave. For honor he was therefore obliged to sell
both his lands and his slaves, which the rich man
aged to obtain for song. As the poorer citizen
turned his energies 10 other sources for lyeli-
hood where there was less disgrace alas he was
soon met with the same dread images of slavery
and death. Slaves slaves!! slaves III lie saw
everywhere. Every where and every moment
they haunted his visions. They were always de
vouring the last crumbs of his furnishing children
Thousands Of these once industrious citizens be
came beggared; thousands became petty criminals
lof all shades. There was no honorable calling
but in the army or in civil Offices, and these were
controlled by the wealthy nabobs The bcggarcd
Roman still boasted of his freedom, though rob-
bed of all but the name. Equality was destroyed
and liberty had become mockory.
| What tale does Tacitus tell in these few lines
"After the conquest of Asia, the whole state OF
our affairs was turned upside down nothiHg Of
tie ancient integrity Of on fathers tcas LEFT amongst
US; all men cast away that former equality which
had been observed" And this he repeats with
mourntul emphasis. MonteSquieu, who devoted
his life to the study of the laws Of al nations, and
a great portion of it to the study OF the Roman
system, attributes the downfall Of the Republic tp
the influence of slavery; and in his learned work
on the Spirit of Laws, with his eyes upon the sad
examples of slavery in the Grecian and Roman
Republics, he says In demOcracies, ocheTe they are
all upon an equatHy, Siareyy is contrary 10 tile
spirit Of tie constitution; it only contributes to
give power and luxury to some of the citizens
which they ought not to have" And again, al
ludlng directly to the system of Roman despotsm
which came to exist in consequence of slavery,
and which was exercised in the name of law
and ORDER as you now carry it out in the Republic
Of America, he says: "NO tyranny can have q
seyerer effect than that which is exercised under
the appearance of laws Of and with the plausible
colors of justice" Plato had made almost the
same expression in respect to the tyranncal course
Cf civil power iii the name of law and order. 1.-The
most pleto injustice" said he, sis to seem just
not being So" 1t is hence that Montesquieu
speaking of the claw" or act ''Of slavery" says
IN is contrary to tie Fundamental principles Of al
societies."
Rome, like Greece, violated the great social law
in allowing slavery. She made war upon the spi
rit of her own constitution as a republic-as Il de
mocracy. The citizens became petty tyrants
Wealth seized Il e supreme control. Free labo
was annihilated. The whole nation became en-
shaved. And when all had become mendcan
treemen, bloated tyrants, and miserable slaves
Caesar found no distractions in establishing des
pots throne. 1.-The country" says Plutarcl
'swarmed with numerous company Of barbarou
slaves, whom the rich men employed in cutivatin
their ground which they had acquired by dispos
tha 10 AZ
crushed the hearts of the citizens. Poor and dcs
psed they refused to enlist in the armies to de
tend their robbers and themselves "nOr did they
says Plutarch, "take any care of the education c
their children" Thus, ignorance, imbecility, vag
abondism, loathsomc vice. and universal ruin, io
f lowed in the train of Roman slavery. Yet yo
point to the Romans in justification Of this moths
of desolatiOn-refer to it as blessing to be fos
tered by the Republic of America. If you ha
gone to Polybus, he would have told you tina
none but unprincipled and beastly men in soci
ETY. assume the mastery over their fellows, as 1t
, among bulls, bears, and cocks" Had you gon'
to Cicero, and the most eminent OF the Roma
lawyers, they would have told you that slavery wa
, at war with the fundamental principles of the Re
man nation and the grand"lalo Of ndtuTe,by whtch
men are born Free" They would have told you tina
the Law Of Nature" which is "the law of a
nations, forbids one man to pursue his advantag
at the expense of another" And Cicero woul
have told you in particular, heather as you ma
call him, that this claw of nature'-ths fund.-
mental principle of all societies Of men as well a
every individual man-"is universally bindln
! upon all men )" that you are mot allowed to n
trench it in any part, nor to alter it, much less
: abolish it !" that it was obligatory upon Rome an
= upon Athens !" that it "is the same to-day, to-mo
row, and is eternal and inyarable, because Got
. who is its author, and has published it himself
always the sole master and sovereign Of mankind
u that 'whoeyer violates it, renOunces his own nj
ture, divests himself of humanity, and will
vigorously punished for his disobedence."
/. Thus, in Rome the Higher Law" which yo
e affect to despise, and call in ridicule Babel bull
l. ing" was regarded as the Fundamental and abs
= lutte law Of thu nation by the highest legal antho
y tiles Nor was it allowed by the best Roma
Is minds that any decree of the Senate, counter
n this higher law was obligatory upon the peopl
I. There was a class Of pettifoggsrs in that age,
there is now. who sophisticated the subject OF 10y
and tried to make unr ghteouf legislation reaso