Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1877-06-15
Political Grimes.


races must naturally engender. Let me
ask why you don't notice with the same
degree of righteous indignation and horror,
these crimes in your own State. | will yen-
ture to assert that not another State in the
Union, for its population, can show longer
list of crimes, brutal murders and assasslna-
tons, than are constantly occurring in
the little State of Vermont Ought
not the descendants of a people boasting
their puritanical blood and superior ciyillza-
ton to set better example to the benighted
people of the South? There, where one
race has but recently emerged from dark
ness into light, from slavery Into citizen
ship, in this great Republic, that such ex-
cesses should occur, is not strange and III
the name of Liberty, too. That is only his
tory repeating itself. But in New England
no such excuse can be justified, and think
this quotation from the New Testament,
will apply with force Cast the beam out
of thine own eve, etc. Let us hope that
President Hayes's policy will soon work
civilizing and Outstanding effect at the
South JUSTICE.
Our correspondent uses the old argu-
ment. if such it can be called, with which
the South used to Justify slavery under
Northern denunciation. and with which men
everywhere so often defend themselves. the
argument of you're another" Now ii it
were true-and it is not true-that muir
ders are more frequent in Vermont than in
other States in proportion to population, that
would not Justify the mobbing and murder
of Judge Chisom and his brave son and
daughter in Mississippi. Two wrongs do
not make one right. We are not aware that
We have failed to make plain our horror at
the crimes committed in Vermont. Though
in large proportion they have been perpe-
trated not by native Vermonters, but by for
eigners, who come so largely into our State to
supply the drain of its native population,
there has been a fearful list Of them, in the
last FIVE years. And this paper surely has
not covered or defended them, or ceased to
strive to secure the execution of justice in
every case.
But there is this great difference between
these Northern murders and those in the
South. our comments on which have so dis
tlrbed our corrcspondent-the Southern
murders were political murders. OF course,
there are murders and assassinations at the
South which have no connection with
politics. About such We have little to say.
On the other hand, it is plain as the light
that the ChisOlm and Hamburg massacres,
and hundreds of other shootings and muir
ders which have redeemed Southern soil,
have had political connection and motive.
and have been proper subjects for such COM
ment as we have given to them. No such
crimes occur in Vermont. When they do, our
correspondent may be sure that they will
receive due attention from US.
There is another material difference in the
two cases. At the North, there is no
public sentiment which shelters and encour-
ages murder. As a rule-with rare excep-
tons when as result of some peculiar state
Of circumstances mistaken sympathy may
become aroused for criminal-public opin-
ion here demands the speedy and sure
punishment Of crime. While in considerable
portions Of the South, political massacres
have, as a rule, been encouraged, and the
murderers effectively sheltered, by public
approval and sympathy, If there has been
case where Southern Democrat has been
hung for the murder Of a Republican, We
have failed to hear of it. Yet Republicans
by hundreds have been shot at the South, by
Southern Democrats, for political purposes.
The mixed condition OF Southern society
and the relations Of the two races there, do
not palliate these atrocities or the indiffer-
ence to the value of human life and diseased
public sentiment which shelters and encour-
sges them. No other communities, calling
themselve. civilized, thus deliberately accord
immunity to crime. And while condition
of things so fatal to the success Of repub-
liean government and so dangerous to the
future Of our country continues, We shall
certainly not be silent in reference to it.