Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1857-01-03

committees and patrols had been appointed in
each neighborhood and township. Eight negroes
had been hung at Dover, making nineteen in all.
No overt act had been committed, but tho proof
against them Of insurrectionary designs, it was
said, was conclusive -A. s. Standard
The New York II ibune has the following COM
ments upon the recent cruelties of the South per-
petrated on mere suspicion and at the promptings
Of guilt and terror
The recent dealings in several Southern States
with slaves accused of conspiracy to revolt and
o%verpower or escape from their masters have ex-
hibited some features which deserve thoughtful
consideration.
l. The slaves are not allowed to learn to read,
and whoever teaches them subjects himself to
punishment: there is no provision even for the
reading of tho laws within their hearing; yet
they are held to a rigid accountability for every
violation OF those laws-those interdicting the as-
semblage OF more than n small number of black
persons, for example. No matter though, such as.
s~emblage be for religious worship, or to celebrate
a wedding or funeral, the penalty is the same.
2. Though slave testimony is good for nothing
against white men, it is good enough to hang one
another. Even though it be whipped out Of q poor,
frightened creature by whaling him within an inch
OF his life, it answers every purpose.
3, Though the laws are all made by white men,
and are as severe and one-sided as possible, yet the
poor slave suspected Of conspiracy to revolt is not
allowed even such protection as they profer him
but let the neighboring white loafers once get the
notion in their heads that there is or may be q
plot among the slaves of any locality to revolt, and
at once they set to work arresting, overhauline,
questioning, whipping, torturing hanging, without
the least regard either for the sacred rights of
property or the right of the victims to such pro-
lection and immunity as the law made by their
masters vouchsafcs them. Law and Order" are
only respected so long as they operate against
these dumb, fettered chattcls: wherever they
are likely to bear in their favor they are coolly
brushed aside.
4. A wise old Book says, "Thc wicked flee ,ohen
no man pursueth." Those who doubt this can
never have scanned carefully and thonghtfully the
history of pretended slave conspiracies and medi-
tated Instructions.
Such paragraphs as the following lead to the
doubt expressed above, that really there has been
no serious, special cause of alarm, but that it is to
be attributed to the general chronic apprehension
Of the Shareholders:
The Murfreesboro' Meps has the following item
on the same subject: On last Thursday evening
there was some excitement in town, which in
creased afte. dark and continued throughout the
next day. 1t was not caused by q resurrection nor
insurrection OF the slaves, nor by any well groud-
ed apprehension Of either at this time but by q
self-constituted sort of Vigilance Committee or
mob, that whipped, as we have been told, nearly
every male tree negro to be found in town, and
ordered each one to leave the corporation and to
return no more.
Correspondence Of the Petersburg Express.
= RlCnMoND, December II, 1856.
8 No little interest exists in our city at resent,
I consequent upon rumOrs Of insurrectionary move.
ments, and tho women and childrenare, as YOU might
suppose, very much alarmed. There lie. in fact, no
sort of foundation for such reports. Yet il has
been deemed expedient, in consideration of intel
ligence from other places, to take such precautions
for any emergency as will be sufficient to Illustrate
an attempt of the sort. Twenty men have been
ADDED to the night watch. and the various military
e companies have received secret instructions as to
q their mode of action in the event Of difficulty.
Still, no sensible person anticipates it, and, as
above intimated the timid are alarmed at tho weak
inventions of their own minds.
Some families in the western part Of the city
d were much frightened the other night at n small
assemblage of negroes. who were playing the
banjo Tor their own amusement. An alarm of FIRE,
last night, at q late hour, carried terror to the
minds of many yet here we are, this pleasant
morning. in big Richmond, all o. X, and likely
a to continue so.
A person who came from New Kent county
yesterday. states that they were then in the act Of
OF plotting mischief.
Tennessee paper says Senator Bell will lose
about $40, 900 by the instruction panic. Four Of
'o SS'SSO a io bDSthSCs Z huie u ID "
the local courts, and five moro afterwards by thu
u mob. without judge or jury. Yet there seems t.
. be little or no evidence TO inculpate them. Here
l %ecple are SO fri ,.htened that they dare not let tn,
negroes assemble in church, Sunday nights. Tn,
penalty for meeting for any purpose" even for
n social party or a prayer meeting. ranges from
" fifteen to thirty lashes under the Virginia law. l
has been inflicted in several cases on both mel
and women, in the neighborhood of Alexandra,
~ recently.
mt -
SoUTH CAROLINA BACKING DowN.-Both IIou.
st es Of the South Carolina Legislature have passe,
a law modifying the treatment melted out to col
:" ored seaman who visit the ports of that state. TIL
or new law allows colored seaman to remain Oh
ng board, instead Of being confined in the Jail a
e.. heretofore. The master Of the vessel giving bond
OF that they shall obey the laws of the state. L
he case the law is violated or the seaman found bs
,r, You'd his vessel the bonds are forfeited and til
ill act Of 1885 resumes its full force.
One of the reasons urged for the change wa
VS. that South Carolina has established her right
as ~imprison these seaman in defiance of the oppos
M lion of Massachusetts and England. the only al
thorities which attempted to question that rigf
for and having ~triumphed by the quiet concession
Ter all the powers of the earth, she could now afor
m to be magnanimous, and imprison them on shi
~ board, instead Of in her own jails.-Quite a col
of cession for chivaliy to make.-one which som
what improves the chance of the colored seama
ian to escape from the threatened enslavement.
ole
~ THE BLESSINGS OF IGNORANCE.