Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1856-04-04
VOL. L, NO. 19.......wHoLE NO 1851.


drivers may have come into this po-
sition, there is one little circumstance
to which Mr.. Douglas and his bro
ther slavedrivers in Congress do
not seem to have paid quite suffi-
cient attention. awe will subdue
you" may answer very well with
negroes 1t may answer very well
for the white political hacks and
seekers of ofIice-like Mr.. Douglas
himself; but whether il will prove
quite so effeciual with the great mass
of Northern Freemen, might seem,
to judge from the past, to be little
doubtful Indeed, the principal in
stances in which this language
we will subdue you"-has hither-
to been used toward our Northern
people, aud in which an experiment
of that sort has been attempted, are
not Of a kind to afford much en-
couragement, TO those who are to
follow Mr.. Douglass lead.
We will subdue you" cried
Lord North in l774--the result Of
which cry was the Declaration Of
Independence, in which one of the
chief grievances alledged against
the British Government was its OBJ
stinate zeal for the extension of
Slavery. Z" We will subdue you,"
cried John Adams and the Federal
lists in l77S, and to that intent they
passed the Sedilion act, of which
the consequence was their defeat at
the election Of 1900, and the inau-
guration as President of that avow-
ed Abolitouist and sharp hater of
Slavery-Thomas Jefferson. We
will subdue you" cried the same
Jefferson some eight years after,
when, having procured to be passed
the most extravagant Embargo act,
forbidding the expectation Of any
article whatever from the United
States, (aIl, as it was alledged, for
the benefit Of commerce,) he at
tempted, by all sorts of legal penal
ties aud inquisitorial and summary
proceedings, to put down the oppo-
sition made at the North to the par
alysls of the industry of the coun-
try. But. so far from succeeding in
this attempt, it became necessary
speedily to repeal the embargo, and
Madison and the other supporters
Of Jefierson's policy presently found
themselves forced by rebellion in
their own party to give over all their
favorite projects Of commercial re-
strictions, aud to resort, very much
against their will, to a war, of which
the result, had it succeeded, would
have been the annexation of Cana.
da and the decided territorial pre-
dominacy of the North.
Whether this cry, I" We will sub
due you," is to be any more efec-
tual in the mouths of such political
giants as Mr.. Douglas and Mr..
Pierce, than it was when uttered by
Lord North, by John Adams and by
Jefferson, remains to be seen. Mr..
Douglas is but young man. 1t
will not do for him to take merely
that era of doughfaceism during
which he has himself hourished,
and in which and chiefly through
which he has played somewhat
conspicuous part, as the sole meas
ure of political probabilities and
still less will it be safe for him to
estimate the feelings, sentiments and
dispositions Of the mass of the Nor
lheru people, by taking as a stand
ard himself and the bar-room politi-
clans with whom he is chiefly ac-
customed To associate. Let Mr..
Douglas recollect that this is the age
, of Sharp's rifles and if, in his at
tempt to subdue us, the light should
be made 10 shine through and thro'
his political body, if, instead OF
hanging the men of Kansas for trea-
son, he should find some fine Sum-
: mer morning, himself and all the
: Northern traitors, his associates,
. hung as high as Haman on moral
gallows-leI hun confess, as he feels
: himself choking, that we long ago
warned him of his danger and bade
him take heed.