Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-10-26

despotsm. The coward is necessarily
'oreeaaveu. The meanest and most servie of
his bondmen has only TO whisper to send him
shrieking for help. A handful of courageous
men strike one of the slightest branches of the
system of slavery, and the whole tree shlv-
ers to the roots. John Brown and has
his party desccned upon the little town
of Harper's Ferry; and for forty-eight
hours, not a man in the Old Dominion could
tell what hurt him. Cowardce is part of ev
cry oppression, and whips, letters and cofiies
are its manifestations. The master dare not
meet his slave in a fair field-dare not cross
his path without the assurance that the slave
is helpless under his burdens, or under the
cloud of ignorance which settles down upon
him like night. And whenever, either by
outward suggestion, or that inward illumination
which sometimes brightens the most benighted
minds, the thought of liberty comes to the
slave, and like others whose examples illus
trate all history, he strikes for his right, the
panic which spreads among the Shareholders
becomes little less than terrible 1t is one of
the incidents of their social constitution If
they choose to live in powder magazines, they
must take the risk. If they will bend the ma
ture of whole race of men by violence, they
must take care of themselves when the re-
bound comes
1t would be well if the panic never extended
farther than the circle of those who expose
themselves to retribution. If the ayenging an
gel is merciless it is also just. Though the
wrong perishes with ignominy, the right lives
and blooms overits grave. The fear which thrill
ed every vein of Virginia, and banched the
cheeks of the President and.his Cabinet COM
fortably housed at Washington, at the first
shot of Old Browns rifle, ought to go no far
Their than those who had practiced injustice,
and laid up abundant causes for fear. Least
of all, has that yirtuous public opinion which
rests upon the assurance and belief that God
has made of one blood all the nations of men,
only that every man in the sight of God is the
equal and peer of his fellow, cause to humble
itself, or even to defend itself in Difference to
the timidity which fears truth, or the audacity
which denies it. Though score of JOHN
Browns, maddened by the injustice they have
suffered, were to commence guerrilla warfare
to-day upon every slave state in the Union, and
were to leave victims on their borders as John
Brown of Ossawatomie left his upon the banks
of the Potomac, the principle which inspires
every judicious anti-slavery movement, would
not be shorn of any of the sanction or the
authority which commends it to our hearts.
1t is the thought and the impulse OF atheism
which perverts the lesson of this "Insurrec-
ton" into a rebuke of the sentiments and con-
vctons which prevail wherever the institution
of slavery does not exist. Those who, in
our own midst, insult the prevailing intelli-
gence and the general judgement by pointing
to the rash and bloody work at Harper's Ferry
as one OF the fruits of antislavery opinions have
mistaken the atmosphere, and under estimated,
the patience of the community in which they
live. We find no cause for those EXPLANATIONS
of caution and alarm which have already be-
come SO common among politicians. Parti
zans may cry themselves hoarse with the
falsehood of misapplied responsibility. The
responsibility will ultimately fall where it be-
longs, and will crush when it falls.