Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1855-12-22
NEGRO AND IRISH IMMIGRATION.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 does not seem
to answer all the expectations entertained Of it by
Mr.. Mason and the people of Virginia. The very
first business undertaken by the Virginia Legisla-
ture, now in session after an interval of two years,
appears to have been to appoint a committee to
devise ways and means of stopping the drain which
the underground railroad is producing npoK the
laboring population of that State. Violence, ter
ror and threats of death are the weak expcdients
of tyranny; and the Committee, copying alter one
of the acts of the late sham Legislature of Kan
sas, has introduced a bill furnishing with death all
who aid and abet in the escape Of slaves.
We doubt very much, however, whether any
system Of legislation or police will be effectual 10
put a stop to that course of emigration which gives
so much ANNOYANCE to the Virginia slave-traders.
OF the slaves raised to be sold South,a great many
viii run away North, and nothing in the world,
we im9gine, can prevent it. 1t is a great mistake
on the part Of our brethren of Virginia to ascribe
this emigrating spirit, as they seem to do, to the
en%ticement and stimulation ofAbolitiOn emissaries
That which has given of LITE so active an impulse
to the emigrating spirit is not covert suggestions
nor individual indictments. Even if travelling Abo-
lition emissaries were as thick rs the excited i'm
agination Of Virginia fancies them to be, such un-
derhand suggestions and indictments must be con-
fined in their operation to a very few persons.
The emigration n~orthward now going on from
Virginia, springs from exactly the same causes
with the emigration from Ireland to America; and
as that has, so thesNirginia emigration will be
likely to 60 on with increasing energy, till a few
years hence it may reach a point quite beyond
anything now complained Of; nor indeed d. we
imagine that any laws or other contriyances can
check it till the fire begins to die out for want Of
material. The negroes, like the Irish, find them
selves very uncomfortable at home. Hard work,
no wages, and the frequent use OF the cowhide,
make them uneasy. These the negroes realize
to be disagreeable things, without the necessity of
any Abolition emissary to put the idea into their
heads. They have heard too, like the Irish, of a
free country, where wages are high, where one man
in the eye of the law at least, is just as good as
another, and where that Virginia distinction of
persons into the two great classes of cowh;ders
and cowhided, is totally unknown. Neither the
negroes nor the Irish are particularly well inform
ed about the geography or social condition of for
eign parts; but the idea of a land of promise, or
city of refuge, is so c~ongenial to suffering humani-
ty, that its existence being once suggested, the no.
ton of it diffuses itself from heart to heart, and
mind to mind in an almost miraculous manner
The slave population throughout the entire Sonth
are now perfectly aware Of the existence Of such a
land; and it is the aspiration of every suffering
soul among them, Of every enterprising. coura-
geous, noble-spirited mar, woman and child among
them to make their escape TO that land. Every
motive which ever operated upon the Irish to emf