American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1867-06-12
"PURITANIsM.u y

/
and atrocious crime which is committed
in New England and declaring that such
is Puritan morality. The Implication is,
that the moral influences and efforts
which proceed from that quarter are hyp>
ocritical. Indeed, nothing is more com
ical than to read the objurgations poured
out upon New England sinner by those
whe contemplated the plantation life of
slavery and the daily history Of Ander>
sonville with perfect complacency. We
have been ourselves often favored by the
zealons with list of " Yankee enormi-
ties" which they warned us with burn
ing sarcasm, that it would be well to
illustrate; and we remember to have
seen a list of some dozen offeuses, which
was diligently published in the rebel and
Copperhead newspapers, as peculiarly fit
subjects for the artists Of Harper's Heck
B. Among these suggestive subjects,
however, we do not recall that the sale of
ones children by another mans wife, or
the hiring out of other mems labor, or
the whipping of women, or hundred
not exceptional but constant and charac
teristic incidents of region and system
which denied human rights, were in
cluded.
When, for instance, we published rep.
resentation of the scarred and welted
back of freedman, it was not the story
Of single crime but of criminal sys
tenn, of horrors which are inevitable in
any society p which men and women are
abandoned to the passions of others. Now
the test of the moral condition of com>
munity is not crime which is common to
all communities, but the feeling with
which it is regarded: If there be no es.
pccial adherence of the worst offenses,
it is fair to assume general demoraliza-
tion. Applying this test to a ''Puritan F"
and /" Cavalier" community, what do we
find A few months since the sarcastic
critics published the story of the savage
or insane clergyman who beat his child
to DEATH as if it were an illustration of a
certain state of society, If he were not
insane il was an uuspeakable crime, and
it was so denounced every where. Or
take the late ease in Massachusetts of
Serene Howe, a clergyman always Of
good reputation, man of ability, and a
member Of the Legislature. The Cop
perhead papers cried out as if they had
at last discovered the real tendency of
Massachusetts civilization. But the truth
was that public indignation was so arops-
ed and universal that Howe was o. liged
to fly on the very night of his exposure
the next day he sent in his resignation to
the astounded Legislature, then disap.
peared, aud has not since been heard Of.
Howe's offenses were indescribable but
/
bad as they were, can anything be worse
! than to seduce other mems wives aud sell
| their children Massachusetts, instinct,
lively spswed out Howe. When did pub
lie opinion in any slave State ever exile
man who sold other mems children
The reason is, that the puritan civiliza'
tion does not generate criminals like
Howe, while those of the other kind were
the natural and necessary product oc the
Southern social system. Under New
England influences the pangs of Ander'
sonviIle are absolutely impossible. In
! the region where they occurred they were
merely natural. When, therefore, you
find . paper which gloats over the fierce
punishment of pupil by New Eng
land teacher, or the poisoning of the fam
lily coffee by New England servant, OF
the overwhelming shame of New Eng
laad clergyman, events wholly exeep.
tional, ask yourself what that paper used
to say of the daily and necessary crimes
of the slave system what it said of An.
dersonville, What il said of the treatment
of the Southern negroes after the war
Such critics expose every blot in the civ
ilization of liberty that the foulness ol
the social spirit they defend may seen
less hideous.-Harper's Weekly.
Two amendments to the Constitution o
Kansas will come before the people Of tha
State at the next election. BY one OF thes,
amendments it is proposed to strike out tn,