The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-02-28


ton, even no such city as Boston.
"Cursed be Canaanl" and he is-master |
and slavel Who shall deliver them from this
death?
In intellectual and moral improvement, there
is more room for controversy. Yet the conclu |
sion is not far of, when the defenders of Slave
ry denounce the newspaper press and common
schools as "damnable heresies of progress,
and in conflict with all true conservatism y
The many "isms," in social political, moral,
and religious science, of the North, which are
sc much rallied at by the slave-propaganda, are
the evidences of intellectual lfe-the scales
which are wastefully thrown off from the stimu-
lated mind and passions, whilst man is being
transformed into better metal and nobler struc-
ture. The conservatism " of the South is the
quietude and homogeneousnesso of the unwrought
ore, which lies forever unchanged in the dark
mines of ignorance and despotisml
When all these arguments are pressed home
upon the South, the advocates of the peculiar
institution " venture to take refuge in the al
legged superior courage and gallantry of South
ern men. 1t is not my part, myself South
ron, to draw invidious distinctions, in this re-
spect, between the North and the South. There
are noble elements of character in both people.
But the annals of these States give no warrant
to the South to claim precedence in these over
the freemen of the North. We cannot forget
,chere were fought the first and bloodiest bat
ties and those evermemorable sea fights
where, if anywhere, it can be said of America,
Eripuit sceptrumque tyrannis I" Neither is
the Logic of History" in favor of the proves
of slaveholding States. The warlike tribes who
overthrow the slaveholding and more civilized
nations of Europe, during the decline of the
Roman Empire, were not the slaves of arrogant
tyrants, but stern freemen following, voluntarily
the standard of elected leaders. So later his
tory bears us out :; and nations are now power
full, in proportion as they are free. Sentiments
of Liberty only impart heroism to the soul;
and equality and dignity of labor only give that
energy and capability of physical structure,
which are alike necessary to success in peace
and war. So long as nations have been free in
their municipal organization, they have rarely
| fallen under foreign conquest. Only when the
masses of the people have become servile, has
it been that they care no longer to choose be-
tween masters, and that their subsection has
been sure.
These, gentlemen, are the views which. as a
citizen of slave State, have so often and
earnestly urged upon the South AS an Anti
Slavery question, it can only be legitimately
settled by the slave States themselves. There
the founders of the Republic placed it, and
there the wise men of the whole nation have
ever been willing to leave it for solution.
But the necessary sequences of its liberation
has elevated this from Sectional to ma
tional" issue. 1t is no longer a question of
Slavery and Anti-Slavery," but of Liberty
and Republicanism on one side, and "Divne
Right" and Despotism on the other. The
Slavery propaganda have re-opened the prob
lem solved by the evolution of the centuries,
and ignore "a law of nature" which our fathers
of l776 simply "re-enacted in terms in the
immortal Declaration. The viper, warmed in
to life by our mistaken sympathies, RECEIVERS its
ancient venom, and threatens to drive from the
home of the United States Constitution the
rightful owners of the hearthstone Slavery,
which was left only to die with decency, g. has
become the vital and animating spirit of the
National Government" The Oligarchy of the
three hundred thousand shareholders no longer
conceal their purposes or deny their assunp-
tons. Not only the Blacks, but the Whites of
the South have lost their liberties Nominally
free, they have long since ceased to be "third
estate in the slave States. They have no so.
cial equahty-no political force-no moral III
fuence. STEPPED in ignorance and poverty,
the privileged class neither respect their opin-
ions nor fear their power. The ostensible
representatives OF the people, in obedience to
their masters, have not only reduced the labor
| ing masses to servitude, but add insult to in
jury, by openly avowing that Slavery is the
rightful state of the laborer everywhere. White
and Black All the guarantees of English
Liberty which we inherited before the Revolu-
| ton are stricken down. The reign of terror
has done its dread work; from the press, the
pulpit, and the stump, there comes no word of
remonstrance. The horrors of mob law have
crushed out the spirit of the once gallant yeo
many of the South. Despair has seized upon
the bravest hearts; weeping bleeding, dying,
we sink down into our voicelss woe
Marching from the field of home conquest
the three hundred thousand take possession of
the National Government-plant their flag upon
the capital OF the Union-and by sea and shore
denounce and bring to the block the treason
able advocates of Republicanism The slave
holders have from the beginning been in secret
rebellion against the Government of our fathers
but now, seconded by atrocious servilityin church
and State, they avow their supremacy and
defy resistance. They control our foreign and
domestic policy, make war and peace, enact
and trample under foot laws and treaties and
constitutions, as suits their despotic wills.
Their avowals are no less insulting, than their
acts are insufferable and despotic. In the tenn
pie of Liberty, Liberty is herself derided. In the
Senate of the United States, the principles of its
founders are denounced as lie. The celebra-
ton of the Fourth of July, in all the slave
States, is looked upon as little else than a trea-
sonable emeute. The laws of Congress and the
constitutional privileges of the citizens of the
several States are alike denied validity, when
conflicting with the opinions or interests of the
Oligarchy. Courts of justice which are denied
in one State for the liberation of a citizen, are
perverted in another to the destruction of the
liberties of all. The great writ of Habeas Cor.
pus, which we vainly imagined the sheet anchor
of our freedom from arbitrary power, has been
by our highest justices turned into an most ia
cie and terrible instrument of irresistible des-
potism The right of petition and remonstrance
against these judicial tyrannes, once forbidden
by the record, is now no less effectually struck
down by prescription. The defenders of the
rights of man are deemed unfit for place out
side of CongreSs-as belonging to an I'M
healthy organization" they are excluded from
honorable position in it.
The friends of Liberty, driven from the cap
ital, take refuge in the States but even there,
their tameness of spirit and ignoble obscurity
cannot shield them from renewed insult and
determined extinction. Laws, monstrous and
unconstitutional pursue them to their homes,
stain with blood the sacred hearthstone, and
compel them to completely in the greatest of
wrongs which is capable of being inflicted upon
human nature. If the codes of antiquity were |
justly denounced as bloody, which, for one
crime inflicted one penalty, by the hard de-
privation of one right, what shall be said of this
statute, which, without crime exhausts all pen |
atty, and leaves the bleeding, mutiated, dying |
victim, not only without single right, but with |
out claim for a tear of sympathy No wife, no
husband; no parent, no child; nor sister, nor
brother, nor lover; no houses or lands: no
property, no privileges; no will, no pursuit of
happiness; no house no country; no Bible |