The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1861-02-15

of poverty, Now, what have I done9
have not misstated or exaggerated single
fact. And yet am not falsifier and q Sian.
derer of the deepest dyer Is there virtu
GUS woman or an honest man in this city
whose cheeks would not burn with indigna,
ton at my one sided and injurious state
ments? But this is just what Abolitionism
has done in regard to slaveholding. 1t has
undertaken to illustrate its cardinal doctrine
in works of fiction and then, to sustain
the creation of its fancy, has attempted to
underpin it with an accumulation of facts.
These facts are collected in precisely the
way have described. The statute books OF
slavehOlding States are searched, and every
wrong enactment collated, newspaper re.
ports of cruelty and crime on the part OF
wicked masters are treasured up and CLASH
ned, all the Outrages that have been perpe-
trated by "lewd fellows of the baser sort
of whom there are plenty both North and
South-aIe eagerly seized and recorded and
this mass of vileness and filth, collected from
the kennels and sewers of society, is put
forth as faithful exposition of slaveholding.
Senators in the forum and ministers in the
pulpit, distil this raw material into the more
refined SANDER "that Southern society is
essentially barbarOus, and that slaveholding
had its origin in hell" Legislative bodies
enact and re enact statutes which declare
that slaveholding is such an enormous crime
that if Southern man, under the broad
shield of the Constitution, and with the de-
cisiOns of the Supreme Court of the country
in his hand, shall come within their juris-
dlctlon, and set up claim to a fugitive
slave, he shall be punished with fine of
81, 600 and fifteen years. imprisonment.
This method OF argument has continued until
multitudes Ct honest Christian people in this
and other lands believe that slaveholding is
the sin of sins, the sum of all villanies.
Let me illustrate this by an incident in my
own experience. A few years since took
from the centre-table of Christian family
in Scotland, by whom had been most kind
ly entertained, 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 children of
the family, as a reward of diligence in
an institution of learning. The frontispiece
was picture of man of fierce countenance
beating naked woman. The contents of
the book were professedly compiled from
the testimony of Americans upon the sub
ject of slavery. l dare not quote in this
place the extracts which made in my
1t will be sufficient to say
that the book asserts, as undoubted facts,
that the banks of the Mississippi are stud
ded with iron gallows for the punishment of
in the city of Charleston the
bloody block on which masters cut off the
hands of disobedient servants may be seen
in the public squares, and that sins against
chastity are common and unrebuked in pro-
fessedly Christian families.
Now in my heart did not feel angry at
L l. ofx ~ IL IL,
teacher who bestowed it upon his scholar
for in Christian charity gave them credit
for honesty in the case But standing there
that glorious land, to which my heart had
so often made its pilgrimage, did feel that
you and 1, and every man in America, was
wronged by the revilers of their native land,
who teach foreigners that hanging, and cut
ting off hands, and beating women, are the
of our life and manners
But we need not 60 to foreign lands for proof
that AbolitiOnism has carried on its warfare
by the language Of abuse. The annual meet
ting of the American Anti Slavery Society
brings the evidence to our doors. We have
been accustomed to laugh at these vernal
exhibitions of fanaticism, not thinking, per-
haps, that what was fun for us was working
death to our brethren whose property and
reputation We are bound to protect. The
fact is, we have suffered fire to be built in
our midst, whose sparks have been scattered
far and wide and now when the smoke of
the confagratiOn comes back to blind our
eyes, and the heat of it begins to scOrch our
industrial and commercial interests, it will
not do for us to say that the utterances of
that Society are the rawlings of fanatical
and insignificant few; for the men who
compose it are honored in our midst with
titles and offices. Its President is Chief JUS
tice of State of New Jersey. The ministers
who have thrown over its dOings the sane
ton of our holy religion are quoted and
magnifed all over the land as the represen-
tative men of the age and the man who
stood up in its deliberations in the year 1852.
and exhausted the vocabulary of abuse
upon the compromise measures, and the
great statesmen who framed them, is now
Judge in our courts and the guardian of our
lives and our property.
1t will, doubtless, be said that misrepre-
and abuse have not been confined,
in the progress of this unhappy contest,
to the Abolitionists of the North that
demagogues and selfseeking men at the
that newspapers professedly in the inter
be characterized as little less than diaboli-
cal, have circulated every scandal in the
most aggravated and irritating form. But
suppose all this to be granted-what then?
Can Christian men justify or palliate the
wrath and evil speaking which are at their
own doors by pointing to the retaliation
which it has provoked from their neighbors
If were preaching to day to a Southern
audience, it would be my duty, and trust
God would give me the grace to perform it,
to tell them of their sins in this matter.
And especially would it be my privilege, as
minister of the gospel of peace-a privilege,
from which no false views of manhood
should prevent me-to exhort and beseech
them as brethren. I would assure them
that there are multitudes here who still
cherish the memory OF the battle-felds and
council chambers where our fathers cemen-
ted this Union of States, and who will stand
by the compact of that constitution to the
utmost extremity. would tell the thou
sands of Christian ministers, among whom
are some of the brightest ornaments of the
American pulpit, and the tens of thousands
of christian men and women, towards whom,
while the love of Christ burns in me, my
heart never can grow cold, that if they will
only be patient, and hope to the end, all
wrongs may yet be righted. Therefore,
would beseech them not to put great gulf
between us, and cut off the very opportuni-
ty for reconciliation upon an honorable
basis, by revolution whose end no human
eye can see. But, then, 1 am not preaching
at the South. I stand here, at one of the
main fountain heads of the abuse we have
complained of.
stand here to rebuke this sin, and exhort
the guilty parties to repent and forsake it.
IL is magnaminous and Christlike for those
from whom the first provocation came, to
make the first concessions.
The legislative enactments which are in
open and acknowledged violation of the
Constitution, and whose chief design is to
put stigma upon slaveholding, must and