Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1857-05-09
of the white race" ''that negroes have no rights
which white men are bound to respect"
Responding to this Putnam says;-

aNNSbShNibA " thio 4 uNbhm oUJo
The difficulty with Chief Justice Taney's argu.
mont from history is, that he post.dates the period
the black. plague which ravaged human con-
'cience by u hall century ut least just as tho
spirit OF his decision is u whole century behind
own times. A brief retrospect OF the changes
opinion in regard to slavery will show this.
When the slavery Of the blacks was begun ia the
sixteenth century, it was authorized, not on the
ground that negroes were 'things," nor on the
grounl that they were Africans but, because
they were %heathens, or p lgans, for which the per.
verted religious sense of those days fancied that
it found a sanction in the Mosaic records. Chris.
tianity had already widely difused the sentim SIT,
that il would be wrong to enslave one who bcro
the Image of Christ, but it was not thought incon-
sistent with that sentiment to trent Indians and
negroes as the Amalekites and Canaanites had
been treated by the Hebrews. Tho Spanish
%brigands, who introduced slavery into South
America, did it for the good Of souls y Louis
Nil. OF France was persuaded to consent to-
1t, in the French colonies, on the same grounds,t
and Queen Elizabeth would not grant a patent to-
Sir John Hawkins for the slave-trade, until shel
was assured that the negroes left Africa ~volunta-
rily, and would receive the benefits of conversion.f
In Virginia, in 1852, it was declared by statute
that all servants brought into the country, whether
negroes, moors, mulattoes or Indians, not being
Christians, should be slaves.S From New Eng
land to Carolina, says Bancroft, the notion pre-
vailed, that being baptized is Inconsistent with q
state Of slavery."N
But the avarice of planters and merchants SOON
overcame these feeble scruples, and that condition
Of the public mind was brought about in the fol-
lowing century, which Chief Justice fancy has
described of u later period. Slavery, which in tho
ancient societies had been the result of war, 'the,
fruit Of the spear" as it was called, and which,
in The middle n res, had declined, by slow and i'm
perceptible degrees, into tho various kinds of SER
fage, until the direct and grossor forms of it were.
nearly, if not altogether extinct, assumed once,
more q new character and a new life as n com.
mercial speculation. Tho slave" says Arthur
Helps, twas no longer an accident of war ne,
had become the object Of war. lie was no longer
a mere accidental subject of barter he was to be-
sought fUr-to be hunted QUITO DO produced.
and slavery became n more monientous question
than 1t had ever been beture."N
Single individuals protested against tho hideous.
traihc to which 1t led, on the ground of Christian
morals and common humanity; but their VOICES
were not heard in the din Of maritime adventures
and national wars. Yet those voices became more.
frequent, with the growth Of time. Richard Bax.
ter. out of the depths of his fervent piety, branded
the system, under the Protectorate Southern.
Steele, and Savage, in their plays and tales, drew
tears for the wrongs of "Afric's sable sons !"
Hutchinson. the Irish meta physician, stigmatissd
the traffic in men the noble and fearless sect Of
Qoakers, whose glory Is to have ANTICIPATED so
much that is best in modern philanthropy, organ.
lied themselves against 1t but there was really
no publio opinion ON their side until after tho mid.
! die of the eighteenth century. .
Montesquieu was among the first of poverful
Q and influential writers to expose the infamy Of en-
e shaving the blacks. In n fine piece Of sarcastic
irony, he said. "lf | were called upon to defend
G the right to reduce negroes into slavery, | should
e say. that the Europeans, having exterminated the
t Americans, must carry off the Africans, in order
a to clear the new lands that sugar would be very
< dear 1t the plant which produces il was not cult
e waited by slaves that people who are quite black
" from bead u foot. and have such crushed nosos.
Ia - ny of pttu. tt,, 80, ., In -. a.
h how GUd, who is so wise, should have put o soul,
q and. above all. a pure soul, in such u dingy body
that color evidently constitutes the very essence Of
humanity and that it would he impossible to
allow that negroes were iuen, because, il we allow
them to be men, we must begin to believe that We
ourselves are not Christians" ** Elsewhere he
condemnedt the system in more direct and serious
terms. Foltaire opened the magazine Of his
n scathing wit upon it 1T Rousseau denounced id
IS fundamental inconsistency with the social law IT
Is and Raynals, and many other writings were filled
,e with anti.slavery philippics. After u time, when
+ the Socicte DIES 1imis deS Noirs took up the sub
|, ject, they found the field of public sentimen,
,e already conquered for them, so that when the
,e National Convention met, in 1894, one of it's FRS,
and most I'M portant acts, due to the calls Of justice
i and the whole spirit of tho age. was the abolition
of slavery forever in the French colonies.
l. Meantime, a still more vigorous effort in the
same direction had been going forward in England
As long ago as 1905, Lord Holt had decided tina,
IN There was no such thing rs u slave by the law Of
70 England, "a but the later expounders of the law
as like some of our own judges, had managed 4
undermine or evade this salutary decision, and !
was reserved for Granville Sharpe--one Of thos,
humble individuals of n tenacity of purpose equa
Ia their goodness OF heart, whose private actions
influence the destinies of nations-to spur tn
;, tagging conscience of Mansfield into the full an,
explicit abjuratiOn of slavery, which he pronouncet
in l772. in the famous Somerset case. Nl II
view OF the extensive colonial interests 90
~ pendent upon the result, and not without tho hest
tation natural to a timid legal mind under tho cir
cumstancos, that eminent judge could still exclaim
fiat %j"stitiac, rudt cGium. and purgod his countr
of the curse. Then it was that Cowper nigh
Sc write
ng "slayes cannot breathe In England If their lungs
q Receive our uh, that moment they arc free.
DC They touch our country, and their shackles al'
CO And then it was that the swelling soul of the Iris
orator, Currau, q worthy example for other Lis
orators, broke forth in that strain of wsltknowr
fs' rhetoric. in which he said that the stranger an
~ the sojourner, when he set his foot on Brit ish cart
~ trOd a ground which was holy and eonsecrated b
the genius of universal emancipatica"-that, IN
y. matter in what language the slaves doom ma
tn have been pronounced-no matter whnt compiler
ion, incompatible with freedom, an Indian or a
do African sun may have burnt upon him-th
nd moment he touched the sacred soil of Britain h
ng stood redeemed, regenerated. and disenthralled
te. Nor did the philanthropio enterprise Of Englan
at stop with the cleansing of its own soil, but a.
vanced. in the course Of n few years, under Il
oil leadership Of Clarkson, Wherefore, Fox and Pit
S. to the overthrow of the slave trade and the abel
ton of slavery in the colonies. Public sentimon
try throughout their arGuo1s struggle, was decided
) a on their side, and ii gns only the power Of veste
all interest which bin&efed them from achieving
as prompter and easier victory. 1t was a battle b
m. tween commorce and conscience, and. rs in a
Jus such encounters, tho better principle won Il
triumph.
VS. In TINS country. the enoris OF The coionists
of secure their own liberties, had brought the great
de. part. At An carly day. TO sympathise in the eeper
ex. movement for liberty. Slavery existed amor
of them, but it existed as an inheritance. and not
,pe "a 'h'ns when they approved "lhere Is not
Of says bancroft, IN all the colonial legislature
tas America, one single law which recognizes Il
ery riehtlulnsss Of slavery in the abstract. Eve
SO province favored freedom as such ."Ts In HIS q
to dress to the Virginia Convention Of lIT4, Jeff
inn son said. .thAt The abolition Of domestic slaye