Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1879-07-04
A speck of Trouble.
From the Cincinnati CommerI

They have not ceased to regard the labor
ingmen as their property. They assert the
right Of the State to annul the Constitution
and laws Of the United States. 1t is their
high privilege, as they see it to do the Yot-
ing for themselves and the black people also.
Emancipation, according to their interpre-
tation Of the situation, is mere form, and
the enfranchisement of the freedman a
preposterous illusion. In checking the
exodus they fall back upon the grand old
principles Of the Fugitive Slave Law.
At meeting held IN Boston the oath
inst, and addressed by General Thomas
Conway and Wendell Phillips, resolutions
we're passed, with the following preamble:
Whereas, we have Trustworthy inform
nation that thousands of cOlored men and
women, citizens of the United States, are
are to-day eamped and lingering on the
banks Of the Mississippi to escape from
merciless oppression and denied the right
Of moving to more humane and law abid-
ing communities; and
Whereas, We also know that for years
they have been cheated out of their earn
/ ings, robbed of their property, denied the
rights Of citizens, and trampled mercileSs-
" in blood by bands of armed men and
| a rabble of assassins; and in dispair, desir-
ing peace, they are now seeking new homes
where law reigns, asking only liberty to
earn honest bread by daily toll, while the
great West Graves labor everywhere.
General Conway concluded his Boston
address with this significant statement;
''We will go to Cincinnati in few days,
with money got in Philadelphia, Boston,
New York, Baltimore, Washington and
/ elsewhere, and will charter boat and have
her carefully registered, and we will raise
the stars and stripes over her, and we will
have a crew of good Christian men, and
then we will attempt to go down the river
and do a work Of charity and humanity.
If we are attacked we will exercise the
first right of self-preservation, namely
self-defense. Then we will ask the Presi-
dent to keep his pledge and execute the
law, and Judging from the fitrore created
in the South when he told the Rev. John
Turner and myself that he would do this,
| am led to think he will do it, and do it
as the successor of Lincoln and Grant
ought to do it.
In the course Of his address, Of which
this is the elimination, General Conway says
his expedition will speedily help settle an
unsettled question, namely, whether a
State has any right to blockade a public
highway against business recognized as le-
gitimate and proper by the United States.
he says: "We do not mean to disturb any-'
body or anything. We want to 60 TO the aid
of poor suffering men, women, children
that is all. Some of us busted ourselves to
aid the yellow fever sufferers. Then We
were praised. Others of US helped the
sufferers from the overflow. Then We
were heFalded as humanitarians. But now.
when the negro cries for help, We are
threatened with Incarceration in Southern
dungeons if we dare to respond to his ap-
peal"
On this occasion Wendell Phillips made
one of his most remarkable speeches. He
said:
SIS the Mississippi public highway, or
have the Southern planters right to put
a fence across it? Are the negroes free?
Was there ever a rebellion? Did Lee really
drive Grant out of Virginia, and was it
jefferson Davis who pardoned Abraham
Lincoln? What is the meaning Of that pile
of granite on the Common? Did the folks
it commentaries succeed in settling any
thing? or do their graves only mark the
halfway house between somewhere and no.
where?
These are questions thoughtful men ask
themselves to-day. The father, whose son
was starved at Andersonville, or lies ''bur-
led with the niggers" on some Southern
battlefield, sadly asks: Did that death
gain anything?
What hypocrisy year by year to decorate
graves if we make no effort to keep what
that precious blood bought In constitu-
tional governments, when fragrant abuse
exists, or great wrong is done to masses of
citizens, parliaments and legislatures ap-
point committees to find the facts. Has
the great historic party, which binds the
emancipation statute on its brow as its
proudeSt plume, taken any pains to see
what is done or suffered in this emergen-
cy? Again;
Are the numbers of the fugitives insig-
niicant? Why then do planters grow pale
and Boards Of Trade protest and angry men
rush together in noisy conventions? Only
fifty or hundred idle or desolute negroes
such as we are glad to be rid of. Why
then do boat captains refuse to take their
money and carry them of?
No; we have been told thousand times,
and it is emphatically true, that it takes
an earthquake to tear the negro from his
home. What Wretchedness did he patient
ly endure in millions of cases rather than
leave his birthplace? Don't babble of good
treatment and bales of. cotton, and wide
breadth of cultivation-the theory don't
explain facts. Why does the negro fly,
and what does he brave such suffering and
loss to escape from-thousands of men
don't sacrifice their property and endure
piteous suffering, discomfort and disease
to get away from happiness. Get up, gen.
tlemen, some other explanation; this is
not plausible-the poor lie cracks and goes
to pieces when stretched to cover the ter
rible fact.
For ten years the negro has tried to do
his duty as a citizen; held faithfully up
his side of the yoke, walked to the ballot
box between loaded revolYers, been plumb
cred, hunted and shot for his opinions.
AT last, deserted by his Northern ally, dis
heartened, trampled in blood, mercilessly
under foot, he seeks safety in exile; asks
of the Nation who, in her need, summoned
him to this post of danger, only the poor
boon of protection in his escape, in his
right to travel.
Shame on the soldier who ever flung q
flower on the grave Of a dead comrade, if
he remains deaf to that appeal. Shame on
the survivors of that grand army whose
buried heroes never suffered defeat, if these
living men sit down hoodwinked and out
Wltted. Veterans, these are the men,
eamped houseless on the banks of the Miss |
iSsippi, who ask if you and your comrades
gained or settled anything. Shall juggl- |
ing politicians cheat you out of your vic
tories%
In conclusion, Phillips said that the
survivors of the war, half million of them
were ready to see that the old flag still |
meant liberty for all. Now, it will occur
to any rejecting citizen that this is SER
ious business. 1t is sending an expedition |
to the South in the midst of the busiest |
season, to aid in a movement of negroes
which has reused the passions of the dom
inant class in the Southern States. 1t |
suggests the sending of the unarmed Star
of the West to Fort Sumter, to be fired up
on by the young artillery officer recently
elected Bishop of Michigan.
There are reasons why we think this ex-
OaditiOn Tninrbt ho ;ud;o;o,-l,, 1afourol