Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1859-07-23
q o III III .
THE EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS.

Such genial souls as are ever ready to rejoice
with those who rejoice, are being INDUCED with
an extraordinary degree of qualification in the re-
cent exchange Of prisoners effected between the
5eligerent factions of the great proslavery party in
Ohio. To them the good time coming must seem
all ready here. Both parties to the bargain pro-
fess their extreme satisfaction in il, and each
boasts of the glorious victory it has achieved.
The Republicans are especially jubilant, as
might have been expected of q class of persons so
enamored of small favors that they are never
known to ask for the cause of liberty but the mi
nutest fraction of that prerogative which they od-
NIT it is entitled to command. In one way of look
ing at the subject they would seem to have obtain
ed the best of the bargain, in receiving men of re-
spectability and usefulness heretofore, who we're
incarcerated TOR obedience to, rather than o viola
ton of the moral law, in exchange for kidnappers
who were guilty Of an attempt at worse than muir
der. And in the ratio too of three for one. So
highly does the United States Government value
its two legged blood-hounds, it can afford to give
three good men in exchange for one of them to
save him from his just deserts.
But examine the compromise from another point
OF view and it will be seen that it affords no ex-
ception to the rule that those who trade with the
devil are sure of being cheated. If the Cleveland
prisoners were conserving to the measure, they
have,in that act given away the whole of the moral
influence emanating from their previous heroism
for the right, in allowing themselves to be sunk in
such On exchange to the level of the manthieves.
l trust they had no part In the matter. To be able
to return to their families and their business was a
boon worth seeking by all proper means. But to
obtain it by a complete surrender of the sovereignty
of Ohio, and by placing the safety Of the citizens
in the hands CT dickeriDg officials, as ready to
swap an honest man for q thief as to exchange
equals, was to pay too much for the privilege.
If the binding influence of party feeling has
not obliterated the common sense, with the self-re-
spect of the people of Ohio, they will be able to
extract q valuable lesson from this affair. 1t ex-
Eibi;s so distinctly the mendacity, the unreliable
character of both national and state governments
on all questions involving human slavery, that nc
rational, rejecting person, it would seem, could
place confidence in either of them. All the depart
ments of the General Government claim the Flu
gitive Slave Law to be constitutional and right
What then were the individual interests of thes,
kidnappers, that It should decline to vindicate it,
insulted majesty, and release these offender
against it. to save these men-thieves from thei
:, just deserts? Or what the interests of the Well
4 ington Rescuers to the great State of Ohio, tina
for their sakes she should agree to oompromis,
with the villains who had violated her laws?
.. What protection can any one anticipate, VIVA
value place upon governments so constituted as t
permit, and so administered as to effect SO complet
a mockery of what they claim to be justice? tn
whole affair is disgraeeful to US as a state and as
nation. But having become q portion of our histor
let US see to it that we endeavor at least to ope
|, the eyes of the people to the base completely wit
crime INDUCED in by their servants, and therefor
duplicating themselves. A. BROOKE.
% MARLBORO, o.. July 20.