The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1860-08-10
cause of human liberty from the cultivation

dOl0mg tnu6 slSo - 80
with Gov. SrwARD. our people have hereto.
fore permitted their fellow-citizens Of the
Southern and Southwestern States to travel
to or from, and to pass through, the State
of Minnesota, with the attendants whom
custom, or education, or habit, may have
rendered necessary to them. This permits
sion would have been continued, and have
grown into an unvaryiDg rule of action, of
mutual convenience and benefit to resident
and sojourner, and of no injury or annoy
ance to either, had not the exigencies of
the Republican party required that niger
excitement should be created to revive the
drooping fortunes of their tanatical cause.
And so, Republican conspiracy was formed
to steal niger. With characteristic
cowardice, the victim selected, whose pro-
perry was to be made the basis of Republi-
can capital, was widow lady, sojourniDg
among US without protection, and with the
care OF family of invalid children. While
the conspiracy was ripening, the two Re-
publican papers here, for the purpose of
increasing the feeling of security on the
part of our Southern neighbors, were pro-
fuse lin assurances of protection to their
slaves in attendance upon them. When, by
these protestations, their fear of insecurity
bad been sufficiently Quoted to accomplish
the purpose, the niger was clandestinely
run of, and their game of hypocrisy con-
summated. Itwas this hypocrisy and conspi.
racy, practised for political purposes, against
which we inveighed, and not against the
fact of voluntary assertion by the negro
of bis legal rights, and Mr.. NORTH knows
it. And yet his fanaticism, which will not
permit him even to look for the truth, ex.
cept by the inconvenient process of looking
through niger, induces him to write US
as though we had taken ground directly the
reverse; and by such indirection, we, and
those who agree with US in political senti.
ment. are classed among the breakers of laws
for the most inhuman of purposes. Yet, in
spite of this, having started out with the
assertion that JOHN w. NORTH, as the world
goes, is an honest man, we suppose consis-
tency requires US to stick to it to the end.
But, is it not evident, in that view, that the
world is going to the devil?
By the same process, Mr.. NORTH places
us in sympathy with kidnappers, and deli
cately classes US with those outcasts of
civilization who hunt and capture human
beings in the jungles of Africa for sale in
the market. He assumes that the recovery
of the widows slave was case of kidnap.
ping. He makes this assumption on the
evidence of niger, who is known to our
police as a notorious criminal, and whose
testimony was so manifestly false that he
was transferred from the witness stand to
the jail, to wait the indictment of a grand
jury for the commission of perjury. He
then denounces this assumed kidnapping
with virtuous horror--reminds us of our
"claim to be law-abiding citizen" and Of
our professed reverence for law"-and then,
by way of climax, and to point that which
would otherwise be meaningless, appeals to
US to answer if Liberty is not worth as
much as Slavery? and if a0e will not labor
as hard to protect the legal rights of men,
as for their illegal enslavement Mr..
NoRrH's only object in thus framing his
anathema and his appeal, is to connect our
name with the crime of kidnapping, at least
in sympatby-a crime which, in the same
paragraph, he stigmatizes as equal in guilt
to that of piracy. He does this, when he
knows that we have expressed no opinion
whatever in regard to the recovery of the
slave, whether it was legally or illegally
performed, and that we have not justified
the act in one aspect or the other. He does
it, too, knowing, by every consideration
which would justify him in forming any
opinion, that our reverence for law,
whether "professed or not, is equal to his
own or that of any other mans; and that
we would 60 as far as be or any citizen te
protect it against infraction, and to punish
those who disregard its requirements and its
obligations. Is it not more to the credit o
our charity than our justice, that we still
speak of JOHN w. NORTH as an homes
man?
We have thus confined ourselt to an ex
posure of Mr.. NoRrH's ingrained fanaticism
which prevents him from seeing truth o
doing justice, IN any case where niger in
terests are involved. We have not consid
cred the points which he brings forwar'
against the enactment Of sojourner's law
nor do we propose to. We leave thos
points as matters at issue between himsel
and his great exemplar Of Republican
craftsmanship, WILLIAM H. SEWARD. Sen
. ator SEWARD enjoys eminence as lawyer
t skill as logician, and merit as a disputant
r He occupies ground directly the reverse &
o Mr.. NORTH, and is certainly champion
we'll worthy Of the latter's steel. We refe