Daily national Democrat., 1859-11-23
Cemitt smith on Insnrrection.

~ hcScue committee:
My Dean SIR Il have this day received
! your letter inviting me to preside at the ap-
preaching anniversary of the rescue of Jerry.
and to prepare the papers for it, Thankful
for this honor, as | truly am, nevertheless |
am constrained to decline it. | have presid-
ed at all the anniversaries Of this important
event, and written the address adopted at
each Of them. But my interest in them has
| declined greatly for the last two or three
years, and | am now decidedly of the opinion
that II IS n'',cjSe to continue to repeat the farce
any longer.
The rescue of Jerry was a great and clo
rious event. Would to God it had been dulv
| improved But those who achieved it-and
| include in this number all who cheered it
on and reioiced in every step of its progress
have, with few exceptions, proved them
selves unworthy of the work of their own
hands. We delivered Jerry in the face of the
authority of Congress and Courts; and, as
most of US believed, lin contempt also of
provision of tbe Constitution itself" Wed
livered him, believing that there was no law
and could be no law for slavery On that
| occasion our humanity was up; and in vain
would all the authorities on earth even the
Bible itself included have bid it down. Our
humanity owned Jerry for its brother; and
so did it cling to him, that all the wealth of
the world would not have sufficed to buy it
off, or tempt it to ignore and betray him
1t is perhaps, vain as respects its effect on
slavery, for me, or for any one else, to remon-
strate against voting for those who believe in
law for slavery, or, in other words, against
pro slavery voting 1t is, perhaps too late
to bring slavery to an end by peaceful means
too late to vote it down. For years have
feared, and published my fears that it must
go out in blood. My speech in Congress on
the Nebraska bill was strongly marked with
such fears. Those fears have grown into be.
lief SO debauched are the white people by
slavery, that there is not virtue enough left
in them to put it down. If | do not misin-
terpret the works and the books of the most
intelligent and noble of the black men who
fall in my way, they have come to despair of
the accomplishment Of this work by the white
people.
The feeling among the blacks that they
must deliver themselves gains strength with
fearful rapidity. They are sensible how cruel
ly they have been deceived by the Liberty
party the Freesoil party, the Republican
party and the mass of even the most loud
mouthed Abolitionists They see that all
these, instead of voting slavery down. have
voted it up. True, the Republican party
did not promise them much. But they did
not think it would insult and exasperate
them by taking the name of "the white mans
party" They did hope for some help from
this party. But they get none. 1t lifts not
a finger to repeal the Fugitive Slave act nor
to abolish slavery in the District Of Columbia,
nor to abolish the Interstate traffic in hu-
ms f,, -
that the slavery of black men, lit would not
dare admit it in the case of but one white
man, can be legalized in every State of the
Union. The Dred Scott decision and the re
opening of the African Slave trade are proofs
that slavery has never strengthened itself so
rapidly as during the existence of this new
and misnamed Republican party.
The Republican writers and orators de-
claim much against the obvious purpose of
the slave power to overspread the free States
with slavery 10y the help of its natural al
ly," the Northern Democracy. But do not
these writers and orators admit the right to
DO This when they admit the legality of slave
ry in the slave States? What is property in
Virginia is, by a law above human enact
ments, property in Vermont also. He who
is a slave or property in Mississippi is a slave
or property in Massachusetts also. What is
property anywhere is property everywhere.
Moreover, it will, in the end, be found to be
as vain as it is inconsistent to oppose the eX-
tension of slavery into the free States while
upholdng it in the slave States Gov Sew
ard was right in saying that the States must
ultimately all be secured to freedom or given
up to slavery. But he did not see that his
standing by slavery in the slave States rem
ders unavailing his opposition to its extension
s,,f. tl,, I
nothing to prevent slavery going where it is
not, unless he holds it to be piracy and an
outlaw where it is
No wonder, then, is it that, in this state of
facts which have sketched, intelligent black
men in the States and Canada should see no
hope for their race in the practice aud policy
of white men. No wonder they are brought
to the conclusion that no resource is left
them but in God and insurrection For in
surrections, then, we may look any year, any
month, any day. A terrible remedy for
terrible wrong But come it must unless
anticipated 10y repentance and the putting
away of the terrible wrong.
1t will be said that these instructions will
be failures; that they will be put down.
Yes, but will not slavery, nevertheless, be
put down by them? For what portions are
there of the South that will cling to slavery
after two or three considerable instructions
shall have filled the whole South with hor-
ror ? And is it entirely certain that these
instructions will be put down promptly,
and before they can have spread far? Will
telegraphs and railroads be too swift for even
the swiftest insurrectionists Remember
that telegraphs and railroads can be rendered
useless in an hour.
Remember, too, that many who would be
glad to face the insurgents, would be busy
in transporting their wives and daughters to
places where they would be safe from that
worst fate which husbands and fathers can
imagine for their wives and daughters l
admit that, but for this embarrassment,
Southern men would laugh at the idea of an
nsurrecton, and would quickly dispose of
one But trembling as they would for their
beloved ones, know of no part of the world
where, so much as in the South, men would
be likely, in formidable insurrection. to lose
the most important time, and be distracted
and panic stricken.
When the day of her calamity shall have
come to the South and fire and rape and
slaughter shall he filling the measure of her
afflicton, then will the North have two rea
sons for remorse.
First-That she was not willing (whatever
the attitude of the South at this point,) to
share with her in the expense and loss of an
immediate and universal emancipation.
Second-That she was not willing to vote
slavery out of existence.
Then, too, when, alas, it will be too late,
will be seen in the vivid light of the suffer
ings Of our southern brethren, both black
and white, how shameful and of what evil
influence was the apostaey of those Jerry
rescuers" who were guilty of falling from
the Jerry level" and casting proslavery
votes