Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1860-12-27
Something on Personal Security at the
south.
WAsHINeroN, Dec. q, 1850.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 25, 1860
Dear Spy The remarks of Senator Wade,
upon the ill treatment of our citizens at the
south, were welItimed and appropriate. The
complaints we hear from those who have been
tarred and feathered, whipped, imprisoned, or
driven away from southern cities, we have
been accustomed to scout at as improbable as
unfounded, or at any rate as exaggerated.
We have classed such reports with the TRADES
of "The Liberator, with the pictures of the
manacled slave in the Anti. Slavery Almanac,
and felt it duty incumbent upon us, as we'll
disposed citizens, to give deaf ear to such
stories. And when a case of peculiar atroci-
ty, perpetrated upon one well known to u.s. is
proved to have taken place, we have sought to
pallate the outrage, by saying it was what the
victim might have expected, in continuing, with
his known sentiments, to visit a slaveholding
community. But it is time we should look
at our wrongs, and see what really are our
rights.
Under the constitution, even Wendell Phil.
lips has as much right TO visit Charleston as
Cambridge Until he has committed some
crime he is amenable to no law. And yet we
know that the moment he was known to be in
a slaveholding state, his life would be unsafe
His imprisonment would be a clear infraction
of the constitutional rights of Massachusetts,
of which he is citizen. But he would not
be imprisoned; he would be lynched and the
civil authorities, even if they wished, could
not save him.
But this is a case wide of the existing state
of affairs. No citizen of Massachusetts, be he
the veriest doughface that walks State street,
would be safe i'll the cotton states. For years
such has been the case Now more than ever.
are the constitutional rights, not only the
citizens of all New England, but of all the
tree states intringed every day. And yet the
matter Is seldom spoken of but with a sneer.
Hardly steamer returns from a southern
port that does not bring home those who
have been driven on board by open threat of
the vigilance committees. One steamer land.
ed one hundred and twenty.six persons on
Long Wharf, not many days since, each of
| whom were served with the following notice
| the morning of their embarkation "You will
| leave our city at ten or be hanged at twelve"
| They brought word that the newspapers do
not give more than a faint idea of the "reign
of terror" from which they have escaped
| They say that men are actually hanged for
not complying at once with the peremptory
notices to quit, which they receive from such
| irresponsible sources as volunteer vigilance
committees. They say that the cruelties of
the inquisition are reeked upon suspected
persons from the north, and that they find no
help or safety in the temples Of justice. And
we know these complaints 10 be founded at
| least in truth from the reports in papers pub
| lshed in the towns where these high handed
iniractions Of constitutional law take place.
Now were our citizens thus treated in Mex.
| leo, or in Peru or in Chilli or in Paraguay, or
in Nicaragua, or even in Canada-were one
such case as those that are every day transpr.
| ing in the slave states-to happen in any for.
eign country, be il the most powerful OF the
| European, would we not make it the subject
of diplomatic complant-woud we not de.
mand, and if it were in our power, exact re.
dress A case similar to what occurs daily at
the South TRANSFERRED in Syria A New En-
gland family, named Dixon, were maltreated
and robbed by Arabs on the confines of the
great desert. But the offenders were not too
obscure, OF 100 distant, or too powerful to es-
cape the avenging arm of our federal govern.
ment After the lapse OF years, they have
| finally been brought to justice and have expi
ated their crimes in the hands of the execu-
| TONER The government under which the
crime was committed has been forced to nav
for the property plundered, and even for
the detention of the plundered family
| Our minister at Rome has recovered from the
papa authority damages for the sufferings Of
some Americans at the capture OF Perugio
Our diplomatic relations have Just been sun
dered with Peru because she refuses compen
satlon for American property seized during
her revolutionary struggle. We demand and
exact justice for our citizens in foreign lands
but do not attempt to preserve for them
their constitutional rights in different parts of