The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1870-04-23
communicated
TCOmUOnlCAttuI
The Contract System and the Constitution

The Contract System and the Constitution.
An individual signing himself Magnet" not in
appropriately, as the system of w~hite-washed slavery
with which we are blessed (?) seems to have a mag
netic attraction for him, again favors us with another
specimen of his remarkable logic. To do him justice,
his whole nature, instinct, reason and imagination
appear to be thoroughly possessed with the idea of the
Justice and holiness of the system which he defends,
so much so that he disdains to follow or take any no.
tice of what have hitherto. until his advent, which
certainly marks an era in the laws of thought, been
recognized as the modes of establishing propositions
not self evident.
He clears the subject Of the rubbish surrounding
it, in the shape of certain provisions of the Constitu-
ton and of certain rights mis-called human, by which
certain purblind theorists have suffered themselves to
be dazzled, with a sweeping assumption that it was
's admitted that the law Of Master and Servant was
neither unconstitutional nor inhuman." This Of
course we are not allowed to question, being one of
those self-evident propositions which commends itself
TO the approval of men of sense.
81 propose to consider its necessity, he proceeds,
and he settles that aspect Of the case in his very next
sentence in the short compass of three lines.-"T The
contract system has been, and is now, a necessity be-
cause of the peculiar condition of the islands and the
wishes of the people We are glad to meet with our
old friend - peculiar again the great resource and
stand by of all embarrassed and perplexed writer's
and speakers, in such honorable service as that which
the great Magnet has chosen to espOuse Like an
able and skillful rhetorician, rs well as logician, az
he is, an expression at once so useful and SO definite
was not to be disregarded. We trust that, when he
refers to the will of the people, that is not pregnant
for the laws of the Modes and Persians, as in his next
sentence he mentions certain persons who, very
strangely, " have the ears of the natives, suggesting
thereby some degree of accord between them, but who,
however, are so malicious and evil disposed as to
% throw the blame of the system upon the planters.
and impute to them n desire to perpetuate it so as
eventually to bring about a system of slavery"
Now we must be permitted to express our astonish-
ment that Magnet can find any blame in the system,
and when he speaks of these malcontents and incen-
diaries, imputing a desire TO perpetuate it so as even-
tually to bring about slavery, he makes our blood
run cold and fills US with horror at human depravity.
That a man, or men, should be found SO lost to COM
mon sense, honesty and veracIty as to suppose, or
harbor, the idea for an instant, much less to give it
currency, that the planters even desire to perpetuats
the system, not to mention that horrible
its elimination in slavery, Is a charge so serious that
as humble members OF tlls community at the risk OF
being thought presumptuous and unnecessarily
touchy we must in behalf of our friends and ourselves
emphatically disavow, dlsclaim and solemnly protest
against it
And when Magnet says" with such insinuations
l have nothing to do, such assertions it is useless to
deny, to know the truth is to prove their falsehood,''
We are carried back to our. boyish days, when intro
UuCeu II tne pages u lIluiOEti1 DichelS u u III ac-
quaintance with that mild retreat and abode of the
muses., Dotheboys, and its interesting inmates, at
that interesting episode in the life of his hero NichO-
las Nickleby, when he is rewarded for his outrages,
calculated TO rue f1and exasperate the mildest nature,
by the plying contempt of the angelic Miss Squeers.
The recollections of childhood, and the days when
we made mud-pies and experienced amiable senti-
ments, akin to those of Miss Squeers and Magnet, so
throng upon our mind that we really cannot pro-
coed without considerable interval to compose ourself;
and also as we perceive that in the next paragraph an
allusion to the feudal system, a subject quite beyond
our depth, which we are admonished we must prepare
ourselves for by looking over Hallam aud Robertson.
and a reference to the origin of evil, a %congenial sub
ject, which we are unequal to deal with, however, at
present. We always did think that all sects of the
Christian religion were wrong, and penal laws and
punishments unrighteOus. Our first parents brought
sin into the world, and all our woe, and they
alone and none of their descendants, are respon-
sible for all the sin in the world which they originated,
The subject is of so much importance, and so vast,
that. we must look over theological treatises before re-
turning on that branch of it. In the mean time we
beg. az a particular favor to ourselves and a few friends,
that : Magnet - must hold his horse uutil We have
had time to digest all his article of this week before
he commences other branches of his subject.