The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1860-07-20
Slavery In tho United Statcs.--Pro-
test Against summers "Barbarism."

S10V6Ey In t00 OxASOW w.
test Against summers ssBarbarism."
From the London Times Of June Is.
Whenever there is lull in the storm of
discussion which ranges between the North
and South, we begin to hope for some good
in this matter. The freedom of Lombards
or Sicilians may be worked out by the
sword, and there is no finer spectacle than
that of the bold man who makes war against
the tyranny which brushes his cOuntrymen.
But the African will never be saved by such
means. He is too low to rise up as his own
deliverer, nor would humanity gain by the
substitution of negro anarchy for the present
social institutions of the Southern States.
The white man must raise him by the aid
of white men, and above all, by the aid of
his master. The politician who endeavors
to set hatred between different classes of
Americans on this subject, who encourages
the negro to look to violent means for his
deliverance, and fills the owner with in
creased dread of bloody reprisals by his
bondmen, is an enemy to the cause III which
he pours forth his acrimonious eloquence.
John Brown himself has not done more harm
to the cause of abolition in Virginia than
man like Mr. Sumner when he drives the
Southern Senators to fury by such violent
and uncalled-for philippe as our American
correspondent notices to-day.
1t was some years since Mr.. Sumner had
raised his voice in the assembly to which he
belongs. The result which followed his last
onslaught on slavery are still in the remem>
brance of every one. In 1856, when the
Union was agitated by the contest between
Buchanan and Fremont, and party spirit
was at its highest, Mr.. Sumner delivered an
anti>slavery speech almost as strong as that
of the other day. A Mr.. Brooks, men,
Der of the lower house, exasperated by Sum.
ner's language, and perhaps urged on by
rOwdy friends, ferociously assaulted him to
retire for a time from public affairs. Brooks
has since gone to his account, and we need
say no more of him. But the Senator from
Massachusetts has not yet learned Tempe
rance from the incident which nearly ended
his days. The speech which produced the
assault was Extensively acrimonious, but the
last one seems to overtop it. The South
ern gentry pride themselves on the posses
sion of high, and what are called " chival-
rOas" qualities. Mr.. Sumner, knowing
this, makes an grafton on the barbarism Of
slavery. 1t may certainly be said that
man has right to stigmatize as barbarous
those who defended and even praised bis
would>be murderer, but Mr.. Sumner ought
to know that it is immoral as well as un-
statesmanlike to provoke men of violent
temper, and that by so doing be only
presses down the yoke still closer on the
neck of the slave. But he puts himself for
ward as If purposely to aggravate his oppo-
nents. Every sheer, every cutting epithet,
every provoking insinuation which he can
call up, be uses for the purpose of CALLING
bis antagonists. "Slavery must breed
barbarians,' he observes " it develops
everywhere alike, in the individual and in
the society of which be forms part, the es-
sential elements of barbarism.'' "Vio.
lence, brutality, injustice, barbarism, must
be reproduced in the lives of all who live
within their fatal sphere" The master
shares the barbarism of the society which
he keeps ;" and so on.
We must, in the name of English aboli-
tionism at least, protest against these foolish
and vindictive harangues. Scarcely has the
frenzy caused by John Browns outrages be.
gun to die away than out comes Mr. Sum-
ner with a speech which set the whole South
in flame. We can well believe that the
prospects of the Republican party have been
already damaged by it. Mr. Sumner is one
of that class of politicians who should be
muzzled by their friends. The man who
can in personal irritability so forget the in
terests of great cause is its worst enemy.
Slavery existed on the American continent
long before the assembly of which Mr.. Sum-
ner is member. On it depends, or is sup.
posed to depend, the prosperity of half the
Union; the looms of Lancashire and Nor
mandy, as we'll as those of Mr.. Summers
own state, are supplied by slave-grown
cotton, and hundreds of millions of Northern
dollars are invested in slave worked planta-
tions. Slavery, with its roots thus deep in
the soil, is not to be rooted up by any peev-
ish effort of rhetoric; and we may predict
that the man who first gains victory for
the cause of abolition will be of very different
temper to the Senator from Massachusetts,.