The weekly Anglo-African., 1860-01-07

all attorney, IuHlcTy WIZ WISHES W PIocoeu
hastily; and Judge, Parker, who suffers
him to have his way; the hearing cut short,
almost every application for derry refused,
forged and mutilated documents produced,
the witnesses for the defence kidnapped,
every obstacle thrown in the way of the
prisoners counsel, two cannon loaded with
canister stationed in the Court, orders
given to the iailors to shoot the prisoners
if they sought to escape; forty minutes Of
| elaboration, and three men sentenced to
die. declare, on my honor, that all this
took place, not in Turkey, but in America.
Such things cannot be done with impu-
nifty in the face of the civilized world. The
universal conscience of humanity is an ever
watchful eye. Let the Judges of Char
lestown, and Hunter, and Parker, and the
slave holding jurors, and the whole popu-
lation of Virginia, ponder on it well; they
are watched They are not alone IN the
world
AT this moment America attracts the
eyes of the whole of Europe.
John Brown, condemned to die, was to
have been hanged on the I'd of December
this very day.
But news has just reached us. A respite
has been granted to him, 1t is not until
the 10th that he is to die.
The interval is brief one. Before it
has ended will cry for mercy have had
time to make itself ehectually heard
No matter! it is our duty to speak out
Perhaps a second respite may be grant
ed. America is a noble nation. The i'm
pulse of humanity springs quickly into
life umong a free people. We may yet
hope that he will be saved.
If it were otherwise, if Brown should die
on the scafold on the 18th of December,
what terrible calamity!
The executioner of Brown, let us avow
it openly (for the day of the King is past,
and the day of the People dawns, and to
the people we are bound frankly to speak
the truth the executioner of Brown would
be neither the Attorney Hunter, nor the
Judge Parker, nor the Governor Wise, nor
the State of Virginia; it would be, though
we can scarce think or speak of it without
a shudder, the whole American Republic.
The more one loves, the more one ad-
mires, the more one venerates that lsepub-
lie, the more heartsick one feels at the con-
| temptation of such a catastrophe. A sim
gle State ought not to have the power to
dishonor all the rest, and in this case there
is an obvious justification tor Federal in
PREVENTION. Otherw ise, by hesitating to
interfere when it might prevent crime,
the Union becomes a participation in its
guilt. No matter how intense may be the
Indignation of the generous Northern
States, the Southern States force them to
share the opprobrium of this murder. All
of us, no matter who we may be, who are
bound together as compatriots by the COM
mon tie of Democratic creed, feel ourselves
in some measure compromised. If the
scaffold should be erected on the 10th of
December, the incorruptible voice of his
tory would thenceforward testify that the
august confederation of the New World
had added to all its ties of holy brother
hood brotherhood of blood, and the
faSces of that splendid Republic would be
bound together with the running moose that
hung from the gibbet of Brown.
1t is bond that can only kill.
When we reflect on what Brown, the
liberator, the champion of Christ, has
striven to effect, and when we remember
that he is about to die, slaughtered by the
American Republic, the crime assumes an
Importance co-extensive with that of the
nation which would commit it; and when
we say to ourselves that his nation is one
of the glories of the human race; that like
France, like England, like Germany, she
is one of the great agents of civilization;
that she sometimes even leaves Europe in
the rear by her sublime audacity of some
of her progressive movements; that she is
the queen of an entire world, and that her
brow is irradiated with glorious halo of
freedom, we declare our conviction that
John Brown will not die, for we recoil hor-
ror-struck from the idea of so great crime
committed by SO great people.
Viewed in political light, the murder
of Brown would be an irreparable fault. 1t
would penetrate the Union with a gaping
assure which would lead in the end to its
entire disruption. 1t is possible that the
execution of Brown might establish slavery
on firm basis in Virginia, but it is certain
that it would shake to its centre the entire
fabric of American Democracy. You pre-
serve your pfamy, but you sacrifice your
glory.
Viewed in moral light it seems to me
that portion of the enlightenment of hui
manity would be eclipsed-that even the
ideas of justice and injustice would be OBJ
scured on the day which should witness
the assassination of emancipation by liber-
ty-
As for myself, though / am but mere
atom, yet being, as | am, in common with
all other men, inspired with the conscience
of humanity, fall on my knees weeping
before the great spangled banner OF the
new world, and with profound and flial re-
spect, l implore the illustrious American
Republic, sister of the French Republic, to
see to the safety of the universal moral
law, to save John Brown, to demolish the
threatening scafold Of the 18th of Deem
Der, and not to suffer that, beneath its eyes
and add, with shudder, almost by its