The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1881-05-03
Macon Telegraph ~
Hears Issue with Edmuna Burke
and RAmmtmF jones.

ANA senator Jones'
The short paragraph which We append below.
from the Philadelphia Times, heisis Senator
George F. Hoar as handsomely as ever Barnaby
Swap was hoisted 10 receive the indignant appli-
cation OF the Dominie's cudgeL Hoar and Frye
and Dawes, and even Sumner, may be perfectly
ridiculous with their theories about the regenera-
ted power Of the ballet and universal suffrage
with comparative safety. But they can't belle
history, nor will their cruditss stand that test.
Says the Times:
Frye, in the course of that baCkwOods stump
speech in the Senate which 90 thrilled the Or
ganic journals, made bold to contrast the South
with the North IS q section scho0led In barba-
nsm and stewing in iniQuity. Jones. OF Florida,
undertook yesterday the altogether gratuitOus
task OF "vindicating" his secten. In this work
Of supererOgation, he cited from Burke the well
known generalization that no people were ever
50 tenacious Of liberty as the masters Of slaves.
Thereupon George F. Hoar, the alleged success
sor of Charles Summer, and mentor Of Malone,
with his New England notion of smartness,
leaped to his feet 10 announce that this was the
precise issue that divided the two parties, and he
declared II officially accepted. Nothing could
better illustrate the infinite litteness of the men
who figure as leaders than this piping Of penny
reeds. Fancy Webster or Charles Sumner plant
ing themselves astride such position Edmund
Burke was merely crystAlizing the commOnest
teaching of universal history when he said that
liberty had found its most heroic defenders in
the masters of slaves. The Romans who ex.
PEELED their kings were the owners of slaves
the Greeks who rescued civilization from the
Eastern barbarians were slave owners the
English who fought at Hastings were slave
owners the English who resisted five hundred
years OF continental aggression, held fellow-men
in bondage; Cicero, whose burning elOquence
in favor OF the republic stirs the coolest imagina
ton to this day, was the master of scores Of
slaves; Brutus, who plunged his dagger into
Caesars heart, his best friend, was slave dealer.
Nor were these refined and vehement defenders
of liberty masters of men of color. They had
in their vineyards airfaced bondsmen from
every cline that the Roman arms conquered,
from the blue-eyed Britain 10 the dark-eyed
Hebrew And yet every phase 10 defense of
liberty, every sentiment that strs mems blood in
the aspiration of selEgovernment, came from
them. George Washington was a lover of lib
ertY and could have probably given reasons for
the faith in him. Yet he was slave master
So where is the issue that the smart Hoar
seizes with such sharp avidityi Burke was deal
Ing with facts as philosopher, not seeking igno-
bic ends as smallfry partisan Martin Luther
was the instrument of the largest liberty that the
world knows, yet Martin Luther held tenacieusly
10 the most debasing dogmas of feudasm. Or
does Hoar mean to imply that the traditions of
liberty came 10 us from The helOts of the Datri-
archs, the hewers of wO' d and the drawers of
wafer, or the dull barbarian hordes that titled
the fields and worked the mines for twenty gen.
erations in Greece, Rome and Western Europe?
1t is perhaps too much 10 expect enlarged views
and statcsmanlike conduct from men making
such an exhibition as the Senate now affords,
but some common knowledge of the facts Of
history would not seem too much for men of
even their small calibre.