Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1856-10-16
To the Editor Of the Belmont Chronicle:

= | 1outs, RespeCtlully,
REV. MICHAEL OLlVETTI.
To the Editor Of the Belmont Chronicle:
Travellers in the Southern States have
expressed their surprise at the strong preju
dices of the grea: masses of the people
against fhe inhabitants of the Free States
while no such prejudces are discoverable ir
the masses of the Northern States against
the people of the South. A late sermon de.
! livered at Washing on, District { f Columbia
BY the Rev. n. D. Conway, said to be q
member OF one of the first families of Vir.
ginia, contains these passages: "Living in
the midst of Slavery, l have ever felt that
it was dishonest and wrong that the North
ern men should not know how we are train
ed to despise Yankees as worse than any,
thing else; how it is nearly proverb that
there is no gentleman North of Mason's and
Dixon's lins." "Slavery takes naturally to
bludgeons or pistols-Freedom should as
naturally take to reason, truth of thought,
speech and act, and that courage, not ami
nal, which can bravely stand Tor God and
right, and be shot down il that is the thing
to be DONE" IL make no appeal to Slavery
to bring US peace, would be a hypocrite
to do So" As well appeal to the fang of
the serpent not to strike as to- that poison
GUS fang of hell, human slavery, not to send,
by any means it can command, its deadly
virus into the fresh young blood of Freedom.
Why should we expect this monster to
change its instincts! Can the leopard
change its spots! Is there anything in
compatible in buying and selling men and
women in Gods image, and violating the
most sacred contracts! Is it wonderful that
tearing babes from their mothers, husbands
from their wives, in the South, becomes in
Kansas murder, robbery and arson? that
oppression and brutality toward the weak
and helpless in Carolina, becomes dastarGly
and cowaidly assassination of the unfore-
warned in Washington!
The sanction of the act against Sumner
by the South makes the word Union a satire,
and virtually says to half the men of this
land, 'there is no poin. of honor between
us. The lowest white Southerner must be
forewarned and challenged, or the assailant
loses caste forever; but you Northerners
shall be beat as we beat dogs: we do not
forewarn.our dogs when we bed: them."-
"Slavery's roots are in the lowest basement
of mans nature-its trunk has been igno-
rance and degeneration to white and black,
sixty thousand white adults of Virginia to-
day cannot read or write, its blossoms have
been slave. auctions, slave-burnings. Ne
braska Bills, Missouri Rnffianism. Congress
SIGNAL Ruffianism, and Fugitive Slave hunts.
These are it's blossoms; what the fruit shall
be God only knows. 1t is this system
which you men of the Free States have con-
tinually invited to triumph and riot, and
thought that it would treat you more ten
derly than it did negro mothers and their
babes. Then the power whereby you are
an almost subiugated people, is yoar orOn
folly" "Dear foxes, you have said with
feeling, we wish our geese to wander in
your rich thickets, that they may grow fat.
Do not, we pray you, annoy them. We
sent them out with entire confidence tbatyou
will not molest,but will evenprotect them"
Let them come, say the foxes, they shall be
welcome to our rich thickets." Then GO
ing carelessly on week after you find every
bramble covered with white feathers, and
slowly on your amazed perceptions dawns
the truth that since the foundations of the
earth were laid, the eternal laws Gf the uni
verse, ethical and physical, have arranged
that foxes shall slay and eat geese"
The Republican Convention of New York
in their address, say that aggression is
necessity of its (Slavery's) existence."-
A recent writer, AYERS that sit is
in its nature aggressive. 1t is difficult to
restrain itself from acts Of hostility; and,
consequently, truce or peace with it cannot
long be maintained more than with hunger.
1t robs others by insolvency or conquest to
supply Deficiencies" at is always hungry
and must ALWAYS prowl as did Roman Sla-
very, which, after there were no more neigh
boring nations to rob, commenced taxing
the provinces or devouring her own extrem-
ities.'
The reason why the rulers of the South
have insiilled unworthy prejudices in the
masses below is manifest. These slave.
ridden people have been prepared to be
thrown upon Northern bayonets. F.
For the benefit of or mechanics and