Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1863-06-05
Free snsach.,,

Seine thirty years have passed since hand
full of obscure and insignificant fanatics" as
they were very inaeeurateIy stigmatized, be-
gan to peregrinate the more enlightened por-
tioDs of the free States. laboriousy collecting
audiences usually averaging enc superannuated
pastor. FIVE or six old maids, glad of any fiIlup
10 the monotony of their dreary- lives, one or
| two novelty hunters, three OF four nobodies
and eight or ten children, who would gracious
| y listen to their long drawn disquisitions on
the iniquity and mischief of holding and sell
ing men. women and children as slaves. By
the great mass of humanity, these agitators
were regarded with stold Indifference or with
intense aversion. Politicians, lawyers, bank
ers, mercbants-all who considered themselves
anybody, or aspired to be somebody
meetings to denounce and silence them; "re-
spectacle" halls and churches were sternly re-
fused theuI; clerks and dandies booted and
groaned at them; vicious boys and rowdies
rottenegged them, put cayenne pepper and
asafoedita on the stoves Of low, mean conven-
tieles; while Mayors, Gongressmen aud dry
goods iobbers wrote letters to the South, pro-
claiming their intense disgust and adherence
OF their "treasonable' inculcations. Nineteen
twentieths of all whose attention was drawn
to the subject, welding ninety ne-hundredths
of the social and political power of the com
munity were unqualifedly hostile to those
odious "Abolitionists," and would generally
have remained so to this day, had not the an
nexatien of Texas, the war in Mexico, the re-
pudiaton of the Missouri Compromise, the
oulrages in Kansas, and the persistent efforts
n ha aela 4Nsp lyp ba Il
ernment it's mere creature and convenience,
absolutely compelled millions in the interest
of that conservatism and quiet which they
cherished, to resist these incessant encroach-
ments aud aggressions. Had slavery been
content to let things remain as they were, it
would have had to this day nine-tenths Of the
property and intelligence of the North, with
all of the ignorance and depravity, as its ar
dent apolegists and upholders.
La those high old times-which were only
spoiled by the eagerness of the slave power to
make TOO much hay while the sun shone-very |
few imagined that "free speech" implied the
right to advocate unpopular and odious opiR-
ions, or suspected that Aholitionists, any more
lhan negroes, had any rights that other men
we're bound to respect. They were hunted |
been pigs in a garden, stoned in the Streets
mobbed in their houses, and widely treated as
social outlaws whom any rufian might rob or
maugle to his hearts content, and with the |
pleasing consciousness of performing patrl-
Stic duty. Public meetings were widely held
and bounteously attended-we recollect one in
Utica especially-wherein the right to advo-
cate ant-slavery views in public was vehem-
entity denounced, and It's suppression by vio-
lence plainly justified Aud the then Demo-
cratic Governor of our William L.
Marcy by pame-gravely recommended to the
and people The passage of law
making such advocacy crime.
The times have bravely altered since then,
and altered, we rejoice to say, for the better.
The right of free discussion which means the
right to proclaim and defend unpopular views
since the other sort have no need Of protec
Lion-is now affirmed and upheld by those
who for quarter of a century persistently
secuted and trampled upon it. We have
Democratic meetings in our city and else ]
where, whereby it is maintained that, even in {
lines of civil war, when the Republic trem-
oles on the brink Of destruction, men who
,ympathize with her deadly enemies and
;hucl1le over their successes, have a right to
lold meetings and make harrangues, wherein
every effort to sustain the Government of the
Union is maligned and coptemned, aud deter
nination to resist the draft, to repudiate the
public debt, and to embarrass and cripple in
avery way the National authorities, is pro
claimed amid thunders OF appause.-Nea0
York Tribune.