The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1876-10-14
politital Sfairs.
Judge BLACKS LETTER TO GARFIELD.
The Republican ReCord--A Party Of
Lawlessness and Corruption,
sCATHING REVIEW OF GRANTIsM.


C5agrcs from Ohio IL have read the
speech you sent me- am astonished and
shocked. As the leader of your party, to
whom the candidates have specially dele
gated the conduct Of the pending cam
Daign, you should have met your respon-
sibilities in very different way do not
presume to lecture so distinguished man
upon his errors; but if | can prevent you,
even to a small extent, from abusing the
public credulity, it is my duty to try.
Promising only my great anxiety to pre-
serve the fraternal relations existing be-
tween US Cor many years, | follow the
Horatian rule, and come at once to "the
middle Of things"
You trace back the origin of present
parties TO the earliest immigrations at Ply
mouth and jamestown, and profess to find
in the opposing doctrines then planted,
aftcrward constantly cherished in Massa-
chusetts and Virginia, the germs of those
ideas which now make democracy and
aboitionism the deadly foes Of each other.
The ideas so planted in Massachusetts
were, according to your account, the free
dom and equality of all races, and the right
and duty Of every man to exercise his pri-
yate judgment in politics as well as rclig-
ion. On the other hand, you set forth as
irreconciably hostile the doctrine of Vir-
ginia, "that capital should own labor, that
the negro had no rights Of manhood, and
that the white man might buy and sell his
offspring forever" Following these as
scrtions with others, and liking the present
with the long past, you employ the devices
of your rhetoric to gloriiy the modern
abolitionist and TO throw foul scorn, not
merely on the southern people, but on the
whole democracy of the country.
This looks learned and philosophical,
and it gives your speech dignity SEEM
ingly above the reach of the ordinary de-
magoguc. Happy is he who knows the
causes Of things; felicitous is the partisan
member of Congress whose stump speech
goes up the river of time to the fountains
of good and evil But your contrast of
historical facts is open to one objection,
which give you in form as simple as
possible when l say that it is wholly des-
titute of truth. This, of course, implies
no imputation on your faith Your high
character in the church, as well as the
State, forbids the belief that you would be
guilty Of willful Misrepresentation.
The men Of Massachusetts,, so far from
planting the right Of private judgment ex-
tirpated and utterly ertiRguished it, by
H. 80
humanity can think of them even now
without disgust and indignation am
surprised to find you ignorant Of this.
Did you never hear of the frightful perse-
BUTTONS they carried on Systematically
against Baptists and Quakers and Catho-
lies? how they fined, imprisoned, lashed,
mutilated, enslaved and banished every
body that claimed the right Of free thought?
how they stripped the most virtuous and
inoffensive women, and publicly whipped
them on their naked backs, only for ex-
pressing their conscientious convictions
Have you never, in all your reading, met
with the story Of Roger Williams2 For
merely suggesting to the public authorities
Of the colony that no person ought to be
punished on account of his honest cpin-
ions, he was driven into the woods and
pursued ever afterward with ferocity that
put his own life and that of his friends in
constant danger. In fact, the cruelty of
their laws against the freedom Of con-
science and the unfeeling rigor with which
they were executed, made Massachusetts,
odious throughout the world.
These great crimes Of the Pilgrim Faith.
ers ought not to be cast up to their chill
dren; for some Of their descendants q hope
good majority are high.principled and
honest men, sincerely attached to the lib
cral institutions planted in the more south
ern ATTITUDES of the continent, But if you
are right in your assertion that the aboli-
tionists derive their principles from the
ideas entertained and planted at Plymouth,
that may account for the coarse and brutal
tyranny with which your party has, in
recent times, trampled upon the rights OF
free thought and free speech.
Nor are you more accurate in your de-
claration that the old Yankees planted the
doctrine of freedom and equality, or OPP
posed the domination of one race over
another. Messrs. Palfrey and Sumner
have said something to the effect that sla-
very never existed in Massachusetts,, and
you may have been misled by them. But
either they were wholly ignorant of the
subject, or else they spoke with that loose
and lavish unveracity which is a common
fault among men of their political sect.
The Plymouth colony and the province OF
Massachusetts, Bay were pro-slavery to the
backbone. If you doubt this refer you
10 Moore's "History Of Slavery in Massa-
chusetts," where the evidence Consisting
chiefly of records and documents perfectly
authenticated) is produced and collated
with fullness and fairness. thich cannot
be questioned. The Plymouth immigrants
planted precisely the doctrine which you
ascribe to the jamestown colonisG that is
TO say, they held that "the negro had no
rights of manhood; that the White man
might buy, own and sell him and hif off
spring forever" Practically and theoret-
ically they maintained that human slavery
in its most unmitigated form was per
fectly Just, proper and desirable institu-
ton, entirely consistent with christianity
as they understood it, and founded on
principles of universal jurisprudence,
They insisted upon il as an established and
setded rule Of the law Of nations that when
one government or community or political
organization made war upon its own sub
jcets, or the subjects Of another, and van
pushed them, the people Of the beaten
party had no rights to which the right Of
the conquerors was not paramount. When
ever il was demonstrated, by actual expe-
riment, that any people were too weak 70
defend their homes and families against
an invader who visited them with fire and
sword, they might lawfully DO stripped Of
their property, aud they themselves, their
wives and their children, might justly be
held as slaves or sold into perpetual bon
.dage. That was the idea they planted on .
their own soil, propagatcd among their