National Republican., 1883-08-18
Some Further Remarks on Mr.. DOnnells
"Reviow and Appeal"
Some Facts About Colonial Industries
That May Be New to Him.
The Exact Character Of "ThO Bloody Crimes" Com
mitted by tho Patriots Hundred Years Ago
The Errors Into which People Who In
vent Their Facts are Apt Go Fall.

the New York Free Trade club, under tho
above title and which on the tenth instant
we partially reviewed, thus holds forth:
"with these [sefshl views slavery aud protec-
ton entered the constitutional convention lof
l7SIl covered all over with crime ana drlppiing ping
simultaneously From complaisauce they sud
denly resorted to threats. The south declared IL
would not join the union II the importation o,
slaves from Africa was prohibited. New England
secuted the idea that she had any use Tor the
union at all unless her shipping was protected by
n navigation act. She needed no union to protect
her from war; she was able to protect herself These
two great interests must be cOnciliated somehow
or ali hope for union was at an end" &c.
protection covered all over with crime,
and dripping with bloodp' What "crime2"
And what 'blood?" Now, "Protection" to
American industry was evolved from the
revolution of 1776 Was that crimeH-a
"bloody crime2 Let us inquire into the
facts; lot us endeavor like Mr. Donnell, to
get beneath the surface of events" and as
certain the character and extent of our fore
fathers "bloody crimes" What was the
revolution of l7762 What the movement
which gave it birth2 What in its origin or
original and final purposes? Was it not
in the nature of great labor striker
Mr.. Lorenzo Sabine, q valuable authority,
in the introduction to his Biographical
Sketches of the Loyalists of the American
Revolution" declares
the revolutionary era, teach nothing more clearly
than this, namely that almost every matter
brought into discussion was practical and IN some
form or other related to labOr--to some branch Of
common industry. Our fathers did, indeed, in
their appeals to the people, embody their opposl-
tion TO the measures of the mother country IN one
expressive term: "Taxation," Taxation without
representation" But whoever has examined
the acts of parliament which were resisted
has found that nearly all of them inhibited
ty.nine laws which srestricted and bround
touched so much as "tne southwest side Of II
hair" OF an abstraction" and hardly one of
them until the passage Of Fb the sa act tba mpSsed ss %
waterfalls the erection of machinery, of looms and
spindles, aud the working OF wood and iron; they
set the kings arrows upon trees that otted in the
forest they shut out mar kets for boards and fish,
md seized sugar and molasses, ana the vessels in
which these articles were carried; and they de-
fined the limitess ocean as but narrow pathway
to such of the lands that 1t embosolns as wore the
British flag. To me then the great object OF the
revolution was to release labor from these resric-
tions.
To emancipate our colonial industries from
the tyranny of Mr.. Donnell's patrons-the
English manufacturers. These oven caused
the labor enterprises of our colonists to be
denounced by statue as nuisances. They
made their prosecution penal otfcnsc, aud
the provincial governors were ordered to sum
marily suppress them under certain penalties
for failure. Was resistance to such injustice,
armed and violent resistance to such tyranny
and unprincipled greed, "a bloody crimcW
Mr.. Donnel manifestly thinks so, and so
practically declares. But our colonial free
laborers, our colonial fathers, did not think
SO. Mr.. Sabine tells us:
Free laborers, inexcusable in this, began with
sacking houses, overturning public offices, and
tsmpitying tar barrels aud pillow cases upon the
heads OF those who were employed to enforce these
oppressive acts of parliament
Our free laborers our mechanics and those
engaged in manufactures, were thus the first
in the field against the tyranny of the British
trader. Mr.. Sabine continues
When the skill and high intellect which were
enlisted in their cause THAT OF the free laborers in
rebellion against the rapacious tyranny of the
English traderl, and which yanly strove to moi
dress of the wrongs of which they complained, and
were driven either to abandon the end in view or
to combine aud WELD their strength, men of all
avocalions rallied upon the field and embarked
Oh the sea, to retire from neither until the very
and every branch OF industry could be pursued
without fines or imprisonment
Fortunately for the independence and
happiness of our people, for humanity and
freedom, our colonial fathers our colonial
free laborers refused to abate their "ex-
cesses." They refused to moderate their act
i've hostility to tho common oppressor, the
avaricious English manufacturer and his
adherents and agents, but increased their
violent and armed resistance to them until
3" men of all avocations" were cOerced to sub
init to intolerable tyranny, to absolute
slavery, or to unto with them in q general
rebellion for independence. Here is u grand
fact lying beneath the surface of events -
Z" a subtle and all powerful force" governing
the mighty "phenomena" which emunci-
pated world-whch coerced from our Brit
ish oppressors the recognition that these
colonies are and of right ought to be free and
independent states." Our independence, our
existence in tho community of nations as u
free people, was thus the triumph, not of Mr..
Donnells free traders, but Of the early and
determined resistance of our colonial free
laborers to the rapacious tyranny of the
English manufacturers.
Was that q crime in them? Was the revo-
luton of l776 "a bloody crimeW In effect
Mr.. Donnell SO declares. But what had
slavery to do with these "eventsW 1t is u
matter of history, undisputed, and even no
torious above and beneath the surface of
events" that slavery was forced by England
upon our colonies against all the remon-
strances of the latter. Its existence, indeed,
among us, was one of our colonial griev-
ances. Tho enlightened English patrons of
trade, in plundering the world with their
carly corsairs, utterly indifferent to the
crimes which they perpetrated, to the mis-
cries which those crimes entailcd, and to the
ruinOus decentralization which slavery
wrought in the communities upon which il was
forced, or In which it was tolerated, early de-
lnonstrated their humanity and love of free
dom by the rapacity with which they prose-
Cuted the slave trade as branch Of commerce.
by their tyranny in its support, and the vio-
lent and vile injustice with which they forced
slavery upon their outraged colonies. 1t is
also notorious that one of the first acts of u
majority of our states, upon the recognition
of their independence was to abolish the in
famous system thus forced upon them
With its existence in our colonies or
elsewhere, neither Protection" nor the strug-
gle for Protection" had anything to do.
Nor did slavery and Protection" as allies
or confreres, as Mr.. Donnell labOrs TO show,
enter tho convention, demanding "simul-
taneOusly" peculiar or special privileges
They were antipOdes, and hostile in their
origin natures, and wants. They were ire
cOncilable foes Between them there was an
"irrepressible conflict" Each. il is true, was
dripping with blood, but with different blood
with blood shed in opposite or hostile causes
"Protoction" was dripping with the blood"
of freemen slain in the cause of independence
and nationality-with patriot blood freely
lavishcd, not merely in defense of our
own colonial rights, but of those of
humanity, so rudely shocked by the
tyranny of the British trader. Upon
its escutchoon rested and rests no stain Of
crime. But slavery, the offspring of trade
the infamous child of British commerce in
the plunder of the world with licensed pi-
rates, was not only dripping with blood"
but was covered all over" with the most