Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-11-29
THE PURPOSE OF THE ALARMIsTs.

which has been industriously cultivated by
public men and oracles of public opinion, is
an anomaly in the history of the republic. 1t
cannot be explained upon any ordinary n.y.
pothesis, nor justified by the logical connec-
ton of events That a community conscious
of the insecurity of institutions founded by
force should be startled by sudden and
strange assault upon them, is easily enough
understood. Human nature is so finely strung
that single mans hand, if it does not adver-
tise its purpose, may at any time make it
thrill with fright But the fright, continued
after the assault has been made and failed,
as failures are generally estimated, becomes
inexplicable.
The captured insurrectionists, helpless it
is possible for men to be, never strong except
in the marvellous sincerity of their purposes,
are in the grasp of the laws of Virginia,
criminals by the Judgment of her courts and
by the reclamation of her public opinion, and
fit subjects for Virginia to put to death at
least with dignity and decorum. But the Old
Dominion is blind with confused passion.
She hurried them to trial, conviction, and con-
domination as if she feared what Old Brown
believed, that God would open the doors of
their prison and bid them go free. She sent
them back to prison with the assurance
"who enters here leaves hope behind" -and
became more frantic than before Governor
Wise began to write still longer and more fire.
quent letters. The Richmond papers began
to indulge in more mischievous and malignant
expressions of brutality. The militia began
to put themselves in order for service while
the carnival Of frenzy lasted. The extinction
Of gas light, the burning of wheat stack,
the sight of COW wonder-struck by the I'M
usual clatter, the voice of whippoorwill,
and all the common occurrences of common
life began to seem frightfully ominous, and in
duced the authorities to put eastern and north
ern Virginia under kind of military guard.
This state of things seems the more won
derful, as it is opposed to the policy which,
if the advocates of slavery were wise, they
would be certain to adopt. 1t is not for its in
terest to tell its slaves that such large body
of people is seeking for their liberation, and
such cloud Of men is expected to interfere
with the execution of John Brown as to Justify
this frantic appeal to arms. 1t would have
been its best policy to have had slow trial. to
have quoted the first expressions of agitation,
to have explained the outbreak as the rrespon-
sible work of the men who were engaged in
it, and who were either slain in the act, or re-
served for equally certain death upon the scat
fold. But in the inscrutable purposes of Prov
L.. Il Il l.
ers. In their strange and dsproportionate pas
sion for revenge, they gave eclat to the broken
enterprise of their victims, and did their ut
most to crown them with the glory of martyr
dom. And if hereafter the slaves on the banks
of the Potomac, and in the fruitful valleys of
Northern Virginia, rest quietly under their
burdens, and if the name of John Brown
passes unheralded into the judgment cham
Der of history, it will not be for any
lack of pgovocation or encouragement on the
part of the people and the authorities of Vir-
ginia.
But whatever may be the cause of the pam
ic, whose weight of shame will never be re-
moved from its honor, it has been used and is
still used for a purpose which should excite
the indignant reprobation of every man
who respects the Union and the laws
The avowed promoters of sedition and trea-
son, the revolutionary leaders of that VIC
lent public opinion which knows no law
but slavery, have taken hold of the new
excitement, encouraged and sustained it by
the arts which belong to the bad professor of
their lives, for the sake of forming in the slave
states the nucleus and centre of movement,
contemplating secession, or if not that, an as
sault upon the Union itself. The Union would
undoubtedly outlive secession, and would pro
fit for time by the absence of the disorderly
fillibusters who are busily enacting treason
while in it. 1t is not for those who estimate
these noisy disclaimers of sedition at their rea
value to offer any active persuasives to keep
them in their place. But here is ''feld" for
the service Of conservative men who hold that
the Union is the ultimate good The agitators
are not in Boston, in Worcester, in Syracuse,
in Ashtabula, but in Richmond and Charles
town. These are the men who are to be disc-
plined and restrained We think we hear the
secular voice of the journal of Commerce re-
buking the indictments, and the reli gious res
ponses of the New York Observer, and the
Boston Post calling their excited friends to
account. For the sake of public peace, we
trust their hypothetical zeal will be rewarded
PoLITIcAL.-"Occasion of the Philadel-