Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1860-03-03
THE SIMPLICITY or SLAVERY.

fuL ofhfLfJfII Of Ola IEh 4.
Like some of the shrewder animals of the
fables, the slave sentiment, grown rather hum
BILE of late, now asks as favor what it has hith-
erto demanded as right. 1t drops down from
a very considerable height of imperiousness
and consents, through its worthy doymon the
democratic party, to petition in respectful
manner to be allowed to extend itself through
the free States. 1t asks, simply, that body-ser-
wants may be allowed to go free for few
months in each year-or in other words, that
the opinion of the free States shallrespect slav-
cry whenever it shall present itself in the mod
est shape of favorte body.servant. The ad-
vantagcs Of this measure to the North, in the
way of increased receipts from travel, are not
particularly set forward, although they are suf-
fciently clear in the background to have their
proper effects and we do not doubt will have
all the weight that such considerations are like
~ to have with the inhabitants of the free
States at the present day.
We learn from New Haven paper, the Dali
IN Register, which is leaving no effort untried
to rally the democracy Of Connecticut to pro-
long and renew the struggle for the support of
slavery, that-"7here is a petition before the
Ne,o York Legislature for a lao permitting
Southern persons, risiting that State to bring
their body servants, and remain for a period Of
nine months" We give the Register as author
ty for this statement, since we have not seen it
any where else; and since we believe that it
would be much more to the advantage OF the
RcgiSter to locate the measure in New York
than it would in its own State of Connecticut
for we doubt much whether it could be enter
tanned for a moment in the land of steady hab-
its-the axis of the Revolution.
In order fully to comprehend the entire SIM
plicity of this proposed measure, let us suppose
for moment that a petition should be got up
among the printers of the country to the Leg
islature of Virginia for provision to establish a
free press in Richmond. We can see the folly
Of such a movement, at once, and would not
give it a second thought; and yet, it would not
be more simple than the petition before the
Legislature of New York. If the body servant
may come as slave into free territory for nine
months of the year, why may not the iield-la-
borer and other slaves come for six months in
the year, long enough TO get in the crops be-
fore being compelled by the approach of winter
to return to the sunny South? There is moth
ing to prevent the STAKEHOLDER from owning
land in free State, and why should he be pre-
vented from cultivating it with his own favorite
slave-laborP
As pertinent reply to this modest pretcn-
ton of wrestling the usagcs of free territory to
the purposes of slavery, we may conclude with
the sentiments Of the poet;-
"Saves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are frce;-
| They touch our country, and their shackles fall
That noble, and bespeaks a nation proud
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it them
And let it circulate through every vein
OF all your empirei that where Britan's power
i, felt, manknd may feel her mercy too