The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-11-03
"THE HARPER'S FERRY AFFAIR AS
PARTY CAPITAL THE DANGER OF
USING IT.

PARTY CAPITAL THE DANGER OF
USING IT.
The Richmond Enquirer has had the frank
ness to avow that the Harper's Ferry revolt is
to be turned into party capital but what the
Enquirer justi6es in theory, others of its CO.
laborers in the cause of spurious Democracy
have put in practice ON a more extended scale,
and with far greater reeklessness Of truth. The
efforts made by the leading organs of the party
in New York to turn the affair to political &C
count betray want of truth, candor, and self
respect, truly deplorable. According to these
superserviceable zealots in the cause of Slavery,
it is enough to convict any Republican Of high
pended with Ossawatomie Brown.
The fact is well known that Brown took
leading and honorable part in cxpelling the
Missouri ruAians from Kansas. If, maddened
by their injustice, he afterwards placed himself
in the wrong by carrying the war into Missouri,
the fact only illustrates the tendency of such
outrages to provoke retaliation. While Brown
was engaged in defending himself and neigh
bors at Ossawatomie, he had the respect and
admiration of the country he was sustained by
the contributions Of the friends of Freedom, and
held extensive correspondence with them.
Fragments of their letters relating to Kansas
affairs are now found in his possession, and are
made the basis Of deliberate charge of com
plicity in the recent attack on Virginia. The
baseness of these accusations is too palpable
to need exposure. They are merely designed
for party capital but their absurdity is apPar-
ent to every intelligent mind, and the impress
sion they will make must be transient.
These attempts to implicate the Republicans
in the schemes of Brown may to some extent
affect the approaching elections in New York
and New Jersey, but their worst consequences
must fall upon the South The Southern news
papers and politicians who reecho them will do
SO at the peril of the public peace. They will
infallbly inst into the minds Of the negroes the
idea that great and powerful political party
in the free States-a party which already has
the control in all but two or three of those
States-is ready to liberate them by act Of Con-
gress, or even by a war of determination against
their masters. The politicians who invent or
repeat these falsehoods know them to be false,
but the ignorant negroes who will hear or read
them will take them ct their word -ThaB viii
listen eagerly, they will meet together in com
panies or gangs" and talk the matter over,
and their long-smothered hopes of freedom will
kindle into life. As time passes, and their
hopes are deferred, they will become impatient
Of restraint they will conspire among them
selves, and endeavor to realize through bloody
instructions the dreams of freedom which
" Democratic demagogues had taught them
to expect at the hands Of the Republicans The
incendiaries whom the South has to fear are
these demagogues, who, for the sake of frighten-
ing timid men from the Republican party, are
intoxicating the spirit of instruction among the
slaves.
1t is only two or three weeks ago that we
pointed out this necessary effect of such false
hoods, when we had no suspicion that so soon
an event would occur, well calculated to call
them forth with tenfold profusion. But we feel
it to be due to the South and to the cause of
humanity again to give warning of the danger.
Every statement duplicating the Republican
party in the Harpers Ferry affair, which APP
pears in Southern newspaper or issues from
the lips of a demagogue, is a brand which may
light the fires of instruction. Think of it. ye
people of the South, who have interests at stake
higher and holier than those which depend
upon the success of a party Our paper is seen
and read by few of you; but those few, the edit
ors, can reach you. We call on them as men
of honor and candor to say if we have over es.
timated the danger of false and exaggerated
statement Of the Republican creed and policy?
Let them remember the instructions of 1856
Southern editors had then to admit that those
were caused by the hopes excited
in the minds of the negroes, by such false state
ments made in their hearing by demagogues
Will they now repeat those falsehoods with ten
fold exaggeration, at the risk of producing ten
fold more bloody consequences
Southern men know that it is impossible to
publish anything in their newspapers relating
to the freedom of the negroes, without the glad
tidings reaching their ears. Many Of the ne
groes can read. Many white men, allow them
to be very low, mean, and vicious, as is general
ly the case in the South, associate with negroes
on terms Of equality, and to considerable ex
tent sympathize with them. This class of Door
whites are generally SO poor, despised, and de-
pendent as often to be placed under obligations
to slaves. They carry on contraband trade
with them in stolen goods, and are not unfre-
quently rather proud of association with
wealthy planters slaves. They are at the same
time assiduously courted by the demagogues
for their votes. They attend public meetings,
and hear their harangues on Slavery and the
bloody designs of the Black Republicans"
Many of them can read. Every neighborhood
in the South has one or more of these charac-
tiers, who are at once on the most confidential
relations with slaves and with Democratic
demagogues. They give the latter their vote
for a consideration in whisky, and then com
mend themselves to their negro associates by
predicting the triumph of the Black RepubE-
can party" which, they have been told, is
pledged to set all the negroes free on the next
4th Of July.
Can any intelligent man who is acquainted
with Southern life doubt that the negroes will
in this way be led to expect immediate emsn-
cipation, as the fruit of Republican triumph ?
And is it not highly probable that the belief
among them that the great majority Of the
Northern people stand ready to second their
efforts for Liberation, will cause them, in their
eagerness and haste, to plot instructions
1t would be fatal mistake to infer that the
negroes have no desire to be free, because they