Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-06-06
Commentaries ON the wassonor Case.


The following suggestions may have been
occasioned partly by the dattering notice of
our course in the Waggoner case, in paper
which maintains kind of semi-existence at
Newport and which evidently is desirous
that the literature of the citizens of that
town should be restricted to that furnished
in its columns.
An attentive examination of the materials
of which abolition speeches are made, and
upon which abolition or anti-slavery efforts
are predicated, will show that they are mostly
drawn from the accidents of slavery, and not
from the essentials. 1t is not upon the rela-
tion of master and servant, or any of its legiti-
mate consequences, that appeals are made to
the sympathies of Northern people, or if it is,
the appeals are seldom productive of any act
i've effects; but it is upon the separation of
husbands from wives, and parents from in
| FAINT children, and upon the sale by fathers of
their offspring things which are not neces-
that series of efforts by means of which, act
ing upon the social sympathies of the people
of the free States, anti-slavery feelings have
been made political element of no ordinary
potency. sf. .t .
Whether these practises do actually make
anti-slavery agitation legitimate as po-
litical power in the North, is question upon
which there may be differences of opinion;
but all will agree with us in the remark that
it is advisable for the sake of both parties
that these causes of excitement be kept as
few in number as possible; and that any ad-
| dition to the catalogue is to be deprecated
| by all who love their country and value its
tranquility. If there should be added to
these, and upon the evidence of actual oc-
currences, the charge that the people or the
| governments of the slave States are con-
irving, or are desirous, or are willing TO
kidnap and reduce to slavery the free negro
citizens or iRhdbitdnts-for we will
not cavil about word-of the free
States, and have passed laws whose
effect is to screen, and even to reward the
kidnapper, and subject his victim 10 inevita-
bic servitude, the danger Of trouble would be
greatly increased. Not all the other sources
of discord would be half so efficient as this
| nv mum my ObhCA oOuiSO NOuiN W
half as dangerous. Such a practice would
render political agitation against slavery in
the free States legitimate. Indeed, it will
throw upon the executives of those States
whose citizens are kidnapped, an imperative
obligation not only TO rescue those who are
taken, but to provide against a recurrence
1t is, therefore, within the range of possibili.
ties that it may produce that event. the mos
of all to be dreaded and avoided forciblt
collision between two members of the Con
J federacy. .
We do not believe that the people Of
= Newport, or the people of Kentucky
= or the people of the South, have any
J desire to change the free persons o
, color of the Northern into slaves in tht
Southern States. Hitherto the people of thu
slaye-holding have appeared as jealous of al
} inyasions of individual freedom, whateve
the color Of the party attached, as the peopl
} of the non-slave-holding States. There ha
been exhibited, in their general conduct, nj
admiration for the kidnapper, but, on tn
J contrary, they have professed to hate AM
despise him, and have been willing, appar
5 entity, to visit upon his head penalties full.
proportioned to the magnitude of his offense
1t is not likely that, in this respect
5 they are greatly changed. Circumstance
having no necessary connection with tn
I case Of Waggoner, have rendered tn
people of Newport some of them
! Indifferent to the matter; but the fact tina
l the small number of parties pecuniarily in
: terested in the enslavement and sale Of th
4 poor fellow were impelled to employ sucl
Z hastY and extraordinary means to bring hin
I 70 the block, is evidence that they had N
: confidence in any public sentiment In favo