The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1864-05-12
10 ...an i,o1,ln nr >

that it is the aboltIonlsts who make the
slave restless with his condition, and that
they scatter the seeds of discomfort. How
can YOU treat us with such contempt as to
use assertions of that kind in your address
How can YOU think we would be SO devoid
of Intelligence as to believe the negro would
not know the miseries Of slavery, which he
feels every hour Of the twenty-four, unless
he were told by some Abolitionist that
slavery was a miserable condition.
There is nothing that makes us think SO
badly of YOU as your strain Of ribaldry IN
attacking the Abolitionists. >.
The desire to procure abolition IS, IN itself
a virtue and deserves our love for It's Chart
able Disposition as it does respect and vene-
ration for its courage under unfavorable cir
cumstanc9s Instead of the ribaldry Of your
attack upon the Abolitionists you ought to
respect and countenance them. If they err
by excessive zeal they err in a righteous and
holy cause. You would do we'll to check
their errors and mitigate their zeal within
the bounds of strict propriety. But if you
had the genuine feelings of Irishmen, you
never would confound their errors with their
virtue. In truth we much fear, or rather
we should candidly say,we candidly believe
that YOU attribute to them imaginary errors
for no other reason than that they really
possess one brilliant virtue-namely, the
love of human freedom in intense pertec-
ton.
Again, we have to remark that you exag-
gerate exceedingly when you state that there
are fifteen millions Of the white population
in Africa whose security and happiness are
connected with the maintenance Of the sys-
tenn of negro slavery.
On the contrary the system Of slavery in
hicts nothing but mischief upon the far great
er part of the inhabitants Of Africa. The on
ly places in which individual interest is con-
uected with slavery are the slaveholding
States. No, in those States, almost without
an exception Of, indeed, there be any excep-
ton, the people of color greatly exceed the
whites and thus, even if au injury were to
be inflicted Oh the whites by depriving them
of their slaves, the advantages would be
most abundantly counterbalauced and COM
pensated for by the infinitely greater num-
Der of persons who would thus be restored
to the greatest of human Neutrality-suspicious.
al liberty. Thus the old Benthamite max
i'm of doing the greatest possible good to
the greatest possible number" would be am
ply carried out into effect by the emancipa-
ton Of the negroes.
You charge the Aboltionists, as with a
crime, that they encourage a negro, flying
from Kentucky, to steal horse from an in
habitant of Ohio, in order to aid him, if ne
cessary, in making his escape. We are not
upon full reflection, sufficiently versed in cas-
uistry to decide whether, under such circum-
stances the taking of the horse would be an
excusable act or not. But even conceding
that it would be sinful, we are of this quite
certain, that there is not one Of you that adj
dresses us who, if he were under similar cir
cumstances, that is, having no other means
Of escaping perpetual slavery, would not
make free with your neighbours horse to eff
fectuate your just and reasonable purpose
And we are also sure of this, that there is no
one of you who, if he were compelled to spend
the rest of his life as a personal slave, work
ed, and beaten, and sold, and transferred
from hand to hand, and separated at his mas
ters caprice, from wife and famiIy-con-
signed to mountaineering without wa
ges, toiIing without reward-without any
other stimulant to that toll and labor than
the drivers cart whip--we do not say that
sthere is not one of you who would not think
the name Of pickpoclet, thief, felon, would
not be too courteous a name for the being
who kept you in such thralldom.
We cannot avoid repeating our astonish-
ment that you, Irishmen, should be so de-
void of every trace Of humanity as to become
the voluntary and pecuniary disinterested
advocates of human slavery; and especially
that you should be so in America. But what
excites our unconquerable loathing, is TO find
that in your address you speak of man being
the property Of man-of one human being
the property of another, with as little doubt,
hesitation or repugnance, as if you were
speaking of the beasts Of the field 1t is this
that fills us with utter establishment 1t is
this that makes us dsclaim you as country
men. We cannot bring ourselves to believe
that you breathed your natal air in Ireland
ireland, the first of all the nations on the
earth that abolished the dealing in slaves.
The slave trade Of that day was, curious
enough, a slave trade in British youths
Ireland, that never was stained with negro
tradiug-Ireland, that never committed an
offence against the men of coIor-Ireland,
that never fitted out a single vessel for the
traffic in blood on the African coast.
1t is, to be sure, affecting and heart end
ing to me to think that so many of the Irish
in America should be so degenerated as to
be among the worst enemies of the people of
color Alas! alas we have that fact plac-
ed beyond doubt by the indisputable testi-
mony of Lord Morpeth. This is foul blot
that we would fain wipe off the 'scutcheon
Of expatriated Irishmen.
Have you enough of the genuine Irish
man left among you to ask what it is that
we require you to do? 1t is this:
First: We call upon you, in the sacred
name of humanity, never again to volunteer
on behalf Of the oppressor nor even for any
self-interest to vindicate the hideous crime
of personal slavery.
Second: We ask you to assist in every
way you can in promoting the education Of
the free men of color, and in discountenanc-
ing the foolish feeling of selishness-of that
criminal selEshness which makes the white
man treat the man Of color as a degraded or
inferior race.
Third: We ask you to assist in obtaining
for the free men of color the full benefit of
all the rights and franchises of freeman in
whatever State he may inhabit.
Fourth: We ask you to exert yourselves
in endeavoring to procure for the man of
color, of every color, the benefit of trial
by jury and especially where a man insist
ing that he is a freeman, is claimed as a
slave.
Ftld: We ask you to exert yourselves in
every possible way to induce slaveowners to
emancipate as many slaves as possible. The
Quakers of America have several societies
for this purpose. Why should not the Irish
initiate them III that virtue?
Siztb: We ask you to exert yourselves in
all the ways you possibly can to put an end
to the internal slave trade of the States. The
breeding of slaves for sale is, probably, the
most immoral and debasing practice ever
known in the world 1t is crime of the
most hideous kind, and if there were no other
crime committed by the American, this alone
would place the advocates, supporters and
practicers of American Slavery in the lowest
grade of criminals.
Ssrenth: We ask you TO use every exer-
ton in your power to procure the abolition
of Slavery by the Congress in the District OF
Columbia