Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1855-09-20
From the National Anti-Slavery Standard
THE CHARACTER OF THE NORTHERN
EMIGRATION TO KANSAS.

The presses of the slave States, of which it
may be said with strict truth that they print
and publish, either under fear of Lynch law,
or under the inspiration Of its spirit, have
stgmatized our fellow citizens, who have no.
bly, volunteered to pioneer freedom into Kan
sas, as crime-poluted and paupers." We
refer more particularly to the Richmond En-
qairer, but the calumny has gone the rounds
Of the slave newspapers.
From what VIC know of our mel ghbors and
our acquaintance who have gone to Kansas,
and all that we have heard and read of others,
we feel confident that more baseless and H.
bellous assertion could not be made. This
emigration is as pure as that of the Pilgrims
or the Hugucnots, and more dsinterested than
either.
But admitting, for arguments sake, that
the assertion were true, would it not be highly
commendablc in these men and women to
arouse themselves, in the face of brutal and
murderous threats and outrages to this effort
for independence and new life What
better could they do for themselves, their
families or their country, that to start afresh
on virgin SOIL remote from painful recollec-
tons and depressing influences In all ages
colonization has received its greatest impulses
from the necessities, suferings and often des-
pair of those who have achieved it. Even
criminals Of deep dye, have been more ra.
tioually employed in laying the foundation Of
new States than of dangling idly in the air,
which Votaire justly called the poorest use
that could be made of them. They obtain in
new settlements the consolation of true demo.
cIatic equality, the encouragement of sympa.
thy, and the purifying and strengthening in.
fluences of conscious independence Hence
respectable communities and great States have
grown out of penal colonies, and men and
women who " left their country for their coun
trys good" have made good country fol-
themselves.
For example, Virginia, magma mater
magma virum, the mother of nearly every one
Of those States which propagate the maliciou,
libel to which we allude, and which would be
arlstocratic and inhuman even if it were no,
false, was the receptacle of a population trans.
ported from the mother country as comm.
tatlon for hanging and other terriable punish.
ments OF felony. 1t would seem as If the
most desperate Of those felons had got the
e''xir OF life, had now gathered in Missouri
and appointed the most accomplished of their
gang to the Legislature of Kansas. A lively
impression of tho foregoing historical fact i,
conveyed in passage of Detoe, author Of
Robinson Crusoe, who was nearly contempt.
r,ary with the commencement of the system oil
deportation and precisely contemporary with
cribes -
We arrived at York River, in Virginia, and
coming to our plautation we were received by my
husbands mother, with all the tenderness and
affection that could be expressed. My mother
was mighty good-natured woman, and used to
divert me with abundance Of stories about the
country and the people. She often told me that
the greatest part Of the inhabitants Of that colony
were Of two sorts. First, such as were brought