Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1860-03-10
From the n. Y. Evening Post.
ENSLAVEMENT OF FREE NEGROES.

During the past few days frequent reference hal
been made in the columns Of the Evening Posi- tC
bills before the legislatures of the slave states, fol
the purpose of prohibiting emancipation in future
if not Of re-enslaving those who have already been
manumitIed. An act with both objects in view
has passed the Missouri legislature and received
the signature Of G Jvernor Stewart. On pert sing
it's various sections-twenty four in cumbersome
can scarcely help believing that the ApocalyptiC
prediction is about to be veri6ed-'Wo unto you,
inhabiters Of the earth and of the sea; for the devil
is come down among you, having great power ard
wrath; because be kuoweih that be hath but q
short time! II woull actually seem that the
great slavery propaganda Q! North America, con.
scious that its lease # power has nearly expired,
was bent upon making the most Of it's present op.
portunitios of tyranny and cruelty.
IIorod the great is said to have g ven orders for
the b~utchery, at the moment of his death, of n
large number of the Jewish nobility, to make sure
that the nation would 60 into mourning. Is it
With such an oljecti in view that the plantation in
terest of Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland is ma
king such desperate struggles to h%eighten the
wrong of slaveholding? Had such a law been
proposed in the first Of those states only, it might
be supposed that its collective wisdom had gone
on a drunken frolio with It's Governor; but so char.
table a superstition will not account for the euor
nifty elsewhere; and we are constrained to look
upon the legislation in question as the offspring oil
fear and conscious guilt. Where these elements
have full sway, there is scarcely en- enormity al
which many individuals will stop short, ard the
negro bills before US show that the same observa-
tin applies with equal force to public bodies.
The Missouri act provides that all free negroes
or mulattoei under the age of eighteen, who may
be found in that state after the FIRST Monday in
September, 1861, shall he bound out as a%ppienti-
ces until reaching the ago of twenty-one, when
they shall be set free and allowed twelve months
for the purpose Of leaving the state. Any who
may go into and continue inside of its limits for
twenty-fOur hours, together with such as are over
eighteen and have settled 10 the state since lS47
are to be notified to depart; and if they fail to com
ply within twelve months, the Sheriff is directed
under o heavy penalty to sell said free negro OIL
muIatso, at the Court House door of the county, t.
the highest bidder for ready money The mar
thus sold, is to be to all :ntents and purposes
slave, as if he had been born 10 that condition. Ii
addition to these, the act provides that no slay
shall be manumittcd in the state heuceforth, I'm
less his owner shall give security, in the sum O
no; less than two thousand dollars, that such slav,
shall leave the state within ninety days. Failur
to do this is to be visited with o penalty at leas
equal to the slaves Value at the time of his eman
cipation.
No, these provisions are not the effects Of
drunken frOlic, but of malignant hate towards
race which has hitherto returned good for evil
There is too evident a determination to tear u
the very foundation stones of tho temple of Libcr
ty; to outrag &c the moral sense of the human race
to afford a proof how rapidly it is possible for
whole people to degenerate from the principle
with which they set QUITO attribute the legisla
ton to any influence short of the satanic.