Holmes County farmer. [volume] (Millersburg, Ohio) 1857-1926, 1861-03-14


bill. Our ancestors for over half CEN
tury in peace and prosperity faithfully
carried out the requirements of. the old
law of '93, and inculcsted the doctrine
that it was the duty Of every American
citizen to bow before the majesty of the
law.
But the present is different age, and
while the masses of the people still ven
crate the supremacy Of law, there is,
nevertheless, class Of discontented spir-
its who, blind to the beacons that have
lit our fathers onward in their path of
glory, and stumbling over barriers by
which they have been stayed, with one
foot upon the laws and the other upon
the Constitution, raise their voice and
proclaim "bigher law" under whose
superior sanction all statutory enactments
inconsistent with its sybiline and oracu-
lar teachings, are trampled under foot;
and underground railroads organized for
stealing and running off deluded slaves,
and when efforts are made for their re-
capture, have no compunctions in at once
resorting to the violence of mob. 1t is
for the especial benefit of this class of our
citizens that l ask for the passage of this
bill.
Mr.. Speaker, it is no fanciful delusion,
but the alarming fact is before us that
there is class, large and would be res
pectable class of citizens, not only in our
own commonwealth, but throughout the
neighboring States of the north, who
have no sympathies clustering around the
poor white man, but on the contrary, a
growing disrelish for all his interests, his
hopes and his rewards, and whose minds
are carried away in the exercise of an un-
bounded philanthropy towards the negro
This false philanthropy has its develop
ment in the anti-slavery sentiment of the
north, and its fruits have only been evil
and that continually. 1t has trampled
the law under foot, and long been carry.
ing on system ofsfreebooting upon the
border States. IL has defied the virgin
soil of a neighboring territory with blood
and carnage. 1t enacted The horrid scene
at Harper's Ferry. 1t has divided oul
churches, and is laborng at this moment
to rend asunder this magnificent Union
around which cluster the brightest hopes
and noblest aspirations of the human
heart. 1t has not only stole the negro
from his comfortable home and thrown
him on society here, where he awakes in
the midst of poverty but to find himself
a degraded outcast, and his fancied free
dom delusion, but it has alienated the
hearts Of our countrymen, and made the
northern press to groan with ordinations
and falsehoods against the South and her
cherished institutions. With dignified
and solemn assurance it has entered even
the sanctuary Of the Highest, and by its
communicating touch the FURNISHED robes
of Zion's watchman have beer defiled,
and ministers turned beligerents. and
commissioned to proclaim the sword in
stead of peace and good will to man.
1t has denounced Washington as a
traitor, the Constitution a league with
death and hell, and is now invoking the
demon of intestine war, and calling on
the raven wing of utter desolation to en-
velop country, once the pride of earth.
and blot out the fair temple of freedom for
ever from human view. Were we to ex-
plore the fountains of intellect, and trace
the cause Of this fanaticism, believe it
will be found to resolve itself into two
propositions, the loaves and fishes, and a
belief in the perfect equality of the negro
with that of the Anglo Saxon race. The
more completely to settle and confirm
the latter proposition, a new plank had
to be indoctrinated into the Chicago plat
form. The fanatics of the North have
long been struggling in this direction
Abolition lecturers have harangued the
people and flooded the country with cords
of documents upon this subject. Contri-
buttons have been levied upon the press,
the pulpit and the stage--those mighty
molders of public opinion, and each have
WED with the other in lavishing upon the
negro their highest eulogies. Poetry, ell
oquence and music have each in turn adj
ministered to his praise, and as if not
content with the hosannas of a single
continent, contributions had to be levied
on foreign shores, and England respond
ed through her highness the Dutches OF
Sutherland, while Mrs. Harriet Beecher
Stowe immortalized his memory, and
consecrated it through all coming time,
by making him her hero, whom she di-
vested of all the vices and superfluities OF
life, and endowed him with all the sub
lime virtues that can dignity humanity,
and assimilate it to its maker. Thus has
a sickly sentimentality been engendered
in the minds OF portion of the American
people, with disposition to bow down
to their ebony idol of the Southern cot
ton field, with the exclamation, Thou art
the God of our souls, blest idolatry!
A true knowledge of the history of the
African negro in his native wilds could
never warrant such adulations of praise;
for, although he has lived in the same
bounti(ul county for over thirty centur-
les, he has not advanced beyond the con-
dition of that in which he probably COM
menced his intellectual carer. His mind
like the land Of his nativity, has been a
barren waste, where fiends and tempests
howl, His genius has ever been an idle
guest, and brought back no trophies from
the ocean, earth or skies. No tablets Of
bronze, nor obelisks of granite. record
his deeds. Destitute alike of both priest
and temple, and ever roaming amid those
sublime solitudes of nature, with super
stition like an incubus brooding over his
terrified imagination, we found him the
helpless victim of the elements, scorchng
amid the burninp sands and desert wastes