The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1860-02-08

be ga lecture" of Joshua r. Giddings, deli
vered in this city, on the duties of human
governments" but what every reader will
pronounce to be stump speech Of the Presi-
dental campaign. With great naiuetf, he says
that some have charged him with giving
partisan and political character to his lecture,
but that it is merely lyceum lecture" If
ever lecture was political and partisan, that of
Giddings undoubtedly is. 1t lie, II possible,
more 80 than even the lecture Of Wendell
Phillips, who holds out the massacre of st.
Domingo as an example to the slaves of the
South; and as for its being of the lyceum order,
it is more suited to the Five Points ard a
niger mob There is nothing of the lecture
about it from beginning to end. II is mere
clap-trap ad captand.m political party speech,
in which the vain old garrulous ssitater makes
himself the principal subject. 1t consists Of a
string Of stories about John Quincy Adams
and Joshua r. Giddings, and what they said
and did in Congress, and how Glddings, to save
himself from being expelled for his violence,
an away. But as for discussion Of the princi-
Piles of human government or its duties there
above the calibre Of such men as Giddings.
The composition was not lecture, but an
incendiary harangue of the most violent de-
scription, quite worthy of him and in keeping
with his political history and antecedents But
it was necessary to give out that it was +" mere
ly lyceum lecture" in order that persons who
do not swear by Giddings and Seward should
be entrapped into attendance. The object is
to make proselytes, and Joshua wants hear
ing. Agitation is his trade. He was born iD
Pennsylvania, and is now sixty five years of
age. He practised law in Ohio, whence, in
1888, he was sent to Congress, where he held
a seat ever since till the last Congress. On
retiring he made remark which is characters
tic of him. He said, in writing letter in De-
cember: "This is the first letter have paid for
in twenty years." How has the Post Once
been abused and perverted all that time in
circulating gratuitously the printed sedi-
ton and incentives to treason and blood
shed and murder which emanated from
his own pen and the silly brains of his
fellow conspirators, to say nothing of their
private letters, having the same objectin view
| the subversion of the constitution and the 60
| vernment
| Mr.. Giddings, who is lawyer, thinks he has
made great point by showing that treason
can only consist in such overt acts as those of
John Brown. That may be the definition of
legal treason, though to give aid and comfort
to traitors is also treason. But there is a
moral treason that is more criminal in the eyes
of all law. abiding men, and that is the treason
| that influences brave but foolish men to deeds
Of violence and instruction and civil war, but
shrinks back from the personal consequences
in which it involves its dupes. This treason
is more detestable than the other, because it is
cowardly and will not practically carry out its
own doctrines when there is danger in the way.
Giddipgs, like Garrison, knows how to take
care of bis neck. Like him, too, he is one of
the oldest leaders of the anti-slavery party,
and has been always regarded as its Corypheus
till Seward doomed up in his " higher law and
"irrepressible conflict" and thus took the abo-
lition wind out ofmany spreading sails But Gid
dingsi is still afloat. de was prime moverin the
| organization of the republican party at Pitts
burg, and he now takes the stump in its cam
paign of 1860, and seems determined to
make up by violence of language for his partial
eclipse by younger, fresher and more refined
men who have adopted his views.
1t is impossible for the republican party to
get rid of such leaders as Joshua r. Giddings
and William Lloyd Garrison, and well may
these men now exult with the diabolical pride
| of Satan, who enticed the angels in heaven
from their allegiance to God, that after an agi.
tation of a quarter of o century they have sue
ceeded at last in seducing multitudes of fana-
tics from fidelity to the constitution, and mus
tering party who are strong enough to elect
Speaker in Congress, and, perhaps, to place Q
man after their own hearts in the chair of the
chief magistracy of the United States.
| 1t is not our intention to review at length
what's 80 facetiously called the lecture" of Mr..
Giddings. That, indeed, would be an arduous
task. To argue with him would be like saw
ing the air. AS well might we undertake to
refute raving maniac in bedlam, or to make
bend problem in the science Of astronomy.
| By what process of reasoning can man be de-
feated in argument who says he believes in the
constitution, swears to it, declares in favor of
State rights and non-interference with the do.
nestle institutions of the Southern States, and
yet denounces the Shareholders of the South as
"murderers, robbers and thieves" and, worse
than Nero, applauds the slaves that mutiny
| against their masters and smite them dead, and
that, as for himself, If he were slave, che
would escape if compelled to slay every slave
holder who opposed his escape, if God gave
him the power, even though he should be COM
PEELED to walk upon the dead bodies of slave
holders from Mississippi to Aaldens" How for
tunate for the Shareholders that the power and
courage of Giddings are not equal to his will!
IIo aadod That ho doalarod In Car,arroea Tint