American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1865-11-01

in guarding the personal rights of the
citizen.
| But let us consider the other clause of
the Constitution of the United States re-
fernsa to. A million of square miles of
fertile territory seems to me to be a very
| goodly inheritance for a people; and the
territory lying south of the Potomac and
the Ohio, and west of the Mississippi,
claimed by the late insurrectonary chiefs
embraces more than million of square
miles, and is the most fertile region Of our
country, The Constitution guarantees
to each and all of you, and to all other
American men and women, the right to
citizenship on every foot of it. 7oi.ef
| 1t also guarantees 10 all the right to
communicate freely, by letter or other
wise, with any friend or acquaintance re-
siding anywhere on that million of square
miles of territory. Yet, my friends, have
1 been able to travel in the Southern Staes
lately? Let me ask you whether the
climate of Florida or ofTexas or Of South
Carolina would not have been fatally in
salubrious to me any day since 1856, had
venturcd there. (Laughtcr.) Now, |
will not talk about William Lloyd Gar
rison, because be was ''pestilent fellow"
who was always insisting on Constitution
al rights, while | only did il occasionally,
when an election was coming off (Laugh-
ter)
Was it not, for years before this Re-
bellion broke out, dangerous for any Nor
thern man to express, anywhere in the
South, the opinion that it was Christian
duty to do unto others as you would
have them DO unto you? Did any cler-
gyman, politician, statesman, or private
citizen, dare to say on Southern steam
boat, in railroad car, or stage, thot he
disapproved Of human slavery, because
under it you could not do unto others as
you would have them do unto you?-
Would not the political atmosphere in
4 which he uttered such sentiment have
been dangerous to him? In other words
no ole of you couls safely 90 there car
rying your manhood with you. You had
4 TO leave that behind when you travelled
South. You might have your trunk and
clothing, and your bones, and the coating
of flesh that covers them, but you must
leave your manhood at home with your
wife and children, if you wished to re-
turn. daughter and applause) You
might have a copy of the Constitution of
the United States in every pocket of your
garments, and hold out that instrument
as you safeguard but you all know that
you would not have found it very eff
cient protection.
Remember how it was in the case of
poor Powers, the Irish Philadelphia stone
mason Having voted for Buchanan
and Florence in the First Congressional
District, he was seeking employment,
and was recommended for work on the
State House at Columbia, South Caroli-
na He went there, and had worked
three weeks when he happened to drop
the remark that Slavery cut down the
wages of the white man and degraded
him, and that the white working man in
the South was regarded as little better
than a nigger!" For this offence he was
stripped to the belt, as boxer would say,
and tied by the wrists; slave was put
on each side of him with cowhide, and
he Eas faggelated till the blood streamed
to his slippers. He vas then dressed
with tar aud sand, ana brought, by slow
stages, ON an open truck, for nearly a
hundred miles, being detained in each
town for the gaze Of the multitude as a
''Northern Abolitionist." Barely esca-
| ping With HIS ille, ne caulc pdck W ulld-
delphia. When thus treated, he pleaded
in his defence the Constitution, ,--at least
he told me that he had done so ; but he
found it no protection. His crime was
that he had asserted that system of un-
paid labor, applied to four millions Of
men, degraded every other laboring man
in the section of the country in which it
prevailed! You have read of gentle
girls decoyed from their New England
homes into Southern families to act as
teachers, and of .their mails being scru-
tanized, until finally some injudicious
friend sent them copy of the New York
Tribune, or the Independent, with SER
mon by Beecher, or, bolder stiF, and
more ipdiscreet, the AnttSlarery Stan
dard, or the Li6erator; and you have
read how the girl in such a case was
turned away without wages and without
guidance, but not always without stripes;
for in one instance a fair and gentle mai