The spirit of democracy. [volume] (Woodsfield, Ohio) 1844-1994, 1861-02-20
wooDsFIELD, MONROE COUNTY. OHIO FEBRUARY 90 1861

and theL, to sustain the creation of it's
fancy; has attempted to underpin' it with
an accumulation of facts These facts
are collected in precisely the way have
Tho statute books of slave
holding States are searched, and every
wrong enactment colfated; newspaper re-
ports of the cruelty and crime on the
part of wicked masters are treasured up
and classified, all the outrages that have
been perpetrated "by lewd fellows of the
baser Sort" of whom there are plenty,
both North and South, are eagerly seized
and recorded, and the mass of vileness
and filth collected from the kennels and
sewers Of society, is put forth as a faith
ful exhibition Of slaveholding. Senators.
in the forum, aud ministers in the pulpit,
distil this raw material into the more re-
fined slander "that Southern society is
essentially barba.ous, and that slavehold-
ing had its origin In hell. Legislative
bodies enact and re- enact statutes which
declare that slaveholding is such an enor-
nous crime that if . Southern man under
the broad shield of the Constitution, and
with the decisions of the Supreme Court
Of the country in his hand, shall come
within their Jurisdiction, and set up .
claim to fugitive slave, he shall be pun
ished with q 6ns of $4,000 aud Is years
This method of argument
has continued until multitudes of hoaest
christian people in this and other lands
believe that slaveholding is the sin of sins,
the sum Of all. villainies. Let me illus
trate this by an Incident in my own ex-
perience. A few years since | took from
the center table Of q christian family in
Scotland, by whom I had been most kind.
ly entertained, a book entitled "Life and
Manners in America, On the blank leaf
was an inscription stating that the book
had been bestowed upon one Of the chill
dren, of the family as 9 reward of dill
gence in an institution of learning. The
frontispiecs was picture of q man of
6erce countenance beating naked woman.
The contents of the book we're professed-
ly compiled from the testimony of Amer
leans upon the subject of slavery. I
dare not quote in this place the extracts
which I made il my memorandum. 1t
will be sufficient 10 say that the book as
serts as uudoubted facts that the banks
of the Mississippi are studded with iron
gallows for the punishment of slaves
that in the city of Charleston the bloody
block. upon which masters cut off the
hands of disobedient servants may be
seen in the public squares, and t6ht sins
against chastity are common and unre,
buked in professedly christian families.
Now, in my heart I did not feel angry
at the author of that book, nor at the
school teacher who bestowed it upon his
scholar, for in christian charity I gave
them credit for honesty in the case; bu,
standing there. 9 stranger among the mar
tyr memories of that glorious land to
which my heart had so often made its pill
grimage, / did feel that you and ], and
every man IN America was wronged BY
the revilers of their native land, who
teach foreigners that hanging ana cutting
off hands. and beating women are the
characteristics of our life aud manners.
But We need not go to foreign lands fcl
proof that abolitionism has carried on it
warfare by the language of abuse. Th'
annual meeting of the American anti
slavery society brings the evidence to ou
doors. We have been accustomed t.
laugh at these venal exhibitions Of fanati
cism, not thinking perhaps that what wa
fun to us was working death to on. breth
rem whose property and reputation W
are bound to protect. The fact is, W
have suffered Ere to be built in on
midst whose sparks have been scattered
far and wide-and now when the smok
of the confagration comes back to blin
our eyes, and the heat of 1t begins t
scorch our Industrial and commercial in
terests, it will not do for us to say tina
the utterances of that society are th
rawlings of a fanatical and insignifcan
flew; for the men who compose it are hor
ored in our midst with titles and Offices.
It's President is Chief Justice of th
State of New Jersey The minister
who have thrown over its doings the sane
tion of our holy religion, are quoted an
magni6ed all over the land as the repr.
sentative men Of the age; and the ma
who stood up in it's deliberations in th
year 1852 and exhausted the vocabular
of abuse upon the compromise measure
and the great statesmen who framed then
: is now Judge in our courts and tt
; guardian of our lives and our propert.
7 1t win doubtless be said that misrel
resentation and abuse have not been col
fined in the progress of this unhappy col
test to the abolitionists of the North
t that demagogues and self-seeking men
o the South have been violent and abusiv
q and that newspapers professedly in Il
Q interests of the South, with spirit whit
can be characterized as little less tht
: diabolical, have circulated every scand
q in the most aggravated and irritatir
I form. Bot suppose all this to be granite
It what then? Can christian men justi
!. or palliate the wrath and evil speakir