Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1866-04-22
VOLUME XXXIII.

Inherited the name and succeeded to th'
title and power Of his great ancestor
And now, at the close of three quarter
Of century,, and after six successive
changes in the Government, the people
oscillating all tho time between the love
of liberty and the love of glory, the pres
ent Government can scarcely be called
settled TO this day, and there is a mere pos
sibility that France, upon the death of tn,
present Emperor, may escape the scourgt
OF another bloody revolution. So much fol-
a few of the most striking features and in
cidents Of the revolution in France.
From 1928 TO 1888, both inclusive, cor
responding to the period in which the agi-
tatiOn in Great Britain for the abolition OF
slavery in Jamaica and the other British
slave colonies, had its origin Immediately
after the abolition of the African slave trade;
and singularly enough, coincident with the
period in which the intensely bitter contro-
versy was engendered between the North,
but more especially between the New Eng
land States, and the South, upon the subject
of the protective policy, its constitutionality
and expediency; the affirmative being main
tanned by the one and denied by the other:
and the period further marked by the re-
yival Of the heresy, sincerely held by some
and propagated by others merely 70 foment
sectional dissension, Tiz: that the diversity
Of institutions products, pursuits and in
terests between the two sections was so great
as to make il impossible that they could sub
si-t together in harmony. The conflict of
sentiment and opinion on these two points
has not, IN my opinion, been, in popular be-
lief, assigned its due weight and importance
in the catalogue Of causes which led to the
war, it being, in my judgment, quite as great
a provocative TO war, on both sides, if not
greater than slavery itself 1t was at this
most inauspicious juncture that VIM. Lloyd
Garrison, then little known and of no great
capacity, but of some shrewdness, establish
ed the LiJerGtor-a journal devoted to the
abolition of slavery in the United States
in Boston, the very centre and most distin-
guished seat of letters, science and philo-
sophie inquiry in America. He went for
immediate abolition, and would accept no
compromise.
George Thompson, a member of Parlia-
ment, an approved agitator, sent by the
Anti-Slavery Society of Great Britain on
mission 10 aid the abolition movement in
America, arrived in New York in the fall of
1884, and in one year had, by his impu-
dence and arrogant conduct, made himself
odious, and aroused the Indignation of many
who were willing to be lectured on the sub
iect of slavery by native Americans, but re-
scented the intrusion of foreign teachers and
professional agitatOrs. Some time in OctO-
Der. 1885, and upon his appearance in Boston,
warned by a significant intimation of the
feeling that had been reused by his imperti-
ncnt interference with matters that did not
directly concern him or his country, he
promptly embarked for England, but left
his friend and co-laborer, Garrison, to APP
pease the vengeance of the more reckless
portion of the mob, who, disappointed in
the principal object Of their resentment,
were not disposed to lose all the enter
tainment they anticipated. From the state
ments of the contemporary accounts of
the riot, il appears probable that Garri-
son might have escaped without any vio-
lence or personal indignity but for an i'm
prudent display of constitutional vanity and
levity. Rather hattered by the idea of his
consequence, and the notoriety he would OBJ
tain by sharing the honor with Thompson
of causing a connection or riot among the
people of Boston, than feeling any dismay,
as he retreated, upon the appearance of the
crowd before the house occupied by the Fe-
male Anti-slavery Society, he was heard sing
ing "Hail Columbia" with theatrical air
This conduct aroused a degree of resentment
which had not before been manifested against
him. The mob pursued him with eagerness,
and found him ensconced under some lum-
Der and shavings in n carpenter shop, whence
they dragged him, looking deadly pale, and
led him, with rope around his neck, through
a lane formed by the crowd, and placed him
in a carriage in which he was safely driven
to the mayors office, from whence, after a
warrant had been obtained for his commit
ment us an agitator and disturber of the
public peace, he was placed in custody of the
sheriff, and rapidly driven to the common
Jail. These circumstances show that re-
spectacle portion of the population had pro-
badly attended with a view TO prevent
rather than encourage, any scandalous vio-
lation of law and order in Boston. They
also demonstrated the fact that Garrison had
degenerated from the primitive Puritan
stock of the seventeenth century, to which he
might have been supposed to belong.
am unable TO fix the precise dates of
the different steps or stages in the progress
of Garrison, from the simple avowal of his
hostility TO slavery, to the
climax or extreme point Of fanatical fury to
which his dogmas finally conducted him.
But incline to believe that the sentiment,
''No union with Southern Shareholders" was
in the Liberator at an early pc
Rod after its first appearance, in perhaps
1881 or 1888. At all events the activity of
the abolition agitators had been such in
ii, a.
element, and was already creating so much
as to have led to public meetings
in most Of the large cities, both North and
South, TO express theirsentiments in regard 10
it, which were atthat time, generally adverse
and condemnatory. This rapid increase ofab-
clifton sentiment in 50 short a time after the
recent impulse given to it by the success of
a similar agitation in Great Britain in favor
Of the abolition of slavery in her colonies,
would be more surprising, but for the knowl-
edge we have of the exceeding fruitfulness
Of the soil in which this and most other
morbid or fanatical excitements have germ
mated in this country. There may not be
many Of the surviving contemporaries of the
period between 1880 and 1885 who have any
vivid recollection of the storm of clamorous
abuse and denunciation with which General
Jackson was aSSailed, for the injustice and
monstrous cruelty of his Indian policy,
and especially how pathetically and dolo-
rously the clergy and the women of that day,
in their petitions and remonstrances, be-
walled the sad fate of the poor Indians who
were expelled by force, or under color of
fraudulent treaties compelled TO abandon
their homes, the grounds where they and
their fathers, from time immemorial, had
kiudled their counoil-trcs, the repositories
IF the bones of their ancestors, and to seek
refuge in the wilderness beyond the Missis-
sippi. And when we call 10 mind, that be-
fore the keen sense of Indian wrongs and
had ceased 10 distress and harrass
the feelings of the fairest, most delicate and
sensitive portion of society, it was indeed
in the period of their highest excitement
upon this subject, when they were suddenly
called upon to transfer their grieis and their
to the long neglected and Gar
more aggravated sutierings Of the negro; and
that the fever brought ON by this latter in
lection continued 10 rage nearly or quite
orty years, or 10 the close of the war, in
what degree Of intensity, the cart loads of
petitions and memorials with which the
North and East overwhelmed Congress,
and taxed the endurance TO the utmost of the
odd Man Eloquent praying the abolition
Of slavery in the District of Columbia, may
attest, rs TO a large portion OF
that period. We cannot fail to be struck
with surprise and admiration Of the elastic
Ity and eXhauStleSS capabilities of the sources,
whatever they may be, of the sympathetic
and other like emotions, exhibited by the
lair petitioners without intermiSSion for SO