Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1859-12-24
THE VOICE OF O

49, NVASh Va oASoo'
On Friday, Dec. 10th, the day when most of our
subscribers will read this, so many Of the brave
and noble liberators who accompanied John Brown,
as Virginia still has in her power will be murder.
ed by the laws and customs, the manners, morals
and religion Of that mean, cowardly and oppres.
sive State or, to sum up all in one word. they
will be murdered by TIL Slaue Po,cer, aftcr hav.
ing been insulted with that mockery of Justice,
the form, without the substance, OF q jury trial.
The ~epithets mean and copardly, above applied
to Virginia, do not refer to the panic terror which
thrilled through her whole population. and called
together her entire mass Of soldiery with their
flint locked %muskets), on the incursion OF twenty
two men not to the report Of one Of her citizens,
who. having been brought into the arsenal whore
this force was assembled, returned and reported
them as not less than two hundred white men aud
Eve hundred negroes not to the shooting Of q
COW as an invader, by an agitated sentinel. II 10
true, as they say in reply, that a panic may hap
pen in any community though it is also true. a.
they take care not to say, thai, a community,
whose policy is systematically directed to the
maintenance of a perennial source of danger with
in it's own bosom, is scarcely entitled to plead the
general proposition above mentioned against the
ridicule which is apt to befall q frightened boast
err.
We call Virginia mean and cowardly because
like Coupeen-deur. in the instructive story Of
Pique- Vinaigre) she is strong with the weak; be.
cause she is accustomed to grind the face OF the
poor; to bully the feeble and friendless; to strike.
again and again, the man who is down to berats
habitually, with brutal and profane insolence, the
unfortunate black. who, if he answers like q man.
is knocked down and beaten until his '.insol.
ence" is subdued, and who, if he lifts bis hand
in self-defence (like a man, againl, is killed on
the spot, and this by provision Of Virginisu
laws.
In our Northern cities, the business Of q ha,lo,
is deemed Infamous. Among that vretched crew
one is occasionally found who has plunged from
that depth of infamy to a lower deep, by selling
her daughters. with their own consent, to q life Of
shame. But Virginian fathers are constantly
selling their daughters, wihout their consent, 20 .
life of yet deeper shame and misery, openly do
ing this as their legitimate and customary bu.i.
ness. suassosssiog. the while, of their "honor q
gerSse1sos'1 Is there .upDns earth, a being more
utterly mean and oontemptible than those gentle
men las they call thetnseisss) of the "6rs. fami.
lies Of Virginia." who make their living, from
year to year, by the sale Of their own flesh and
blood Yes. there is one The Northern clergy.
man who defends them !!
Slaveholders-especially when they are fright.
ened-are accustomed to bring before us vivid
pictures of the horrors of q servile instruction,
terminating in the supremacy of a race hitherto
held as slaves.
Tho natural answer to these representations
made by one who had been accustomed to hear
the usual talk Of Virginians about slavery and
anti-slavery-would be-"Impossible :! your slaves
are not only well treated, and contented, and car
ed for in the manner most conducive to their pres
ent and future welfare, but they are happy in their
present situation. and most deeply attached to
their masters and mistresses, and moreover uveres
to the acceptance OF freedom when it is offered
them !"
Alas the whole aspect Of Virginia, ever since
that night when John Brown and his few associ.
ates entered The arsenal at Harper'S Ferry, her
panic terror until the murder of the veteran lead.
err was completed, and her determined military
attitude. maintained, with most inconvenient snG
expensive rightly, until the last of his few re.
, naming followers shall have been strangled, have
, forever dissipated that p~retence. 1t shines forth
2 now. distinct aad unmistakable as the writing on
Belshazzar's wall, that the slaves are not content.
y ed, not happy, not attached Except by chains) to
g the estate upon which, and to the masters and ov-
y erseers under whom, they live. Perhaps the case
t of Deacon Netherlands aged slave in Tennessee
r (who died under moderate correction inflicted with
a hand-saw) may have some parallels even in Vir.
!. ginia AT least, every one must now admit that
' the white Virgiuians would consider them selves
: seriously endangered by a servile instruction.
u Well, if our Southern brethren have been DELHI.
erately lying to us, all these past years, respect.
ing the condition of their slaves-if these bens.
u fciaries of the much Wanted patriarchal institu-
ton have not only not been happy at all. but have
Q been so very i'll treated that murder and rape are
the requital necessarily to be expected from their
hands, as soon as those hands shake themselves
free from their fetters--then, indeed, the matter
demands our attention
Murder, rape and arson! These are what va
may naturally expect-so Mr.. Everett told the
4 Boston people the other day-these are what the
white Virginians actually do expect. from slaues
treated as theirs haze been. as soon as those slaves
can stand erect. and act like free men The case
is a most serious one
Murder and rape are the very worst evils ths,
can befall a community. But when that commu-
nifty consists of our own relatives and friends
"our Southern Brethren"-was not Mr.. Everett,
right in volunteering to buckle on his kuapsack,
and shoulder his musket, and march to their aid
whenever such a calamity should befall them I
If he Was right, if the %striotest advocates Of State
rights would no. only allow him to interfere"
% with the course of things in Virginia to that extern,
% but would heartily applaud him for it, see whs,
10 follows
" The horrible contingency supposed is not. by
%pothasis, but q fact. Our Southern brethren, til,
black natives Of Virginia, are not merely liable to
q but have for whole generations been suffering IN
der, the frequent preparation Of rape and murder
u A horde Of savage aud brutal men, having tn
10 disposition 10 commit these crimes, and The povs