The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-08-31
PAINTED TO ORDER.

huIHlTdDte IN It's aItistiC lOILu, OCoulAaa Al
its simplicity of language and noble in its
thought. The orator quoted the fact that
the constitution of Vermont, adopted in
1777, contained the first prohibition OF
slavery ever put forth on this continent,
through all parts of which the institution
was at that time legal. The orator also
quoted the fact that. when. IN November,
1777, slave woman and her child fell into
the hands of Captain Ebenezer Allen, a
brother of the famous Ethan Allen, that
original abolitionist gave her this writing
to set her free:
being conscientious that IL Is not right In
the sight OF God to keep slaves, therefore obtain
ing leave from the detachment under my CON-
mand to give her and her child their freedom,
! do therefore give the said Dinah and her child
their freedom to pass and repasss anywhere
through the United States of America, with her
behaving as becOmeth, and to trade and traffic
for herself aud child, a. though she were born
free, without being molested by any person.
In witness whereunto have set my hand and
subscribed my name EBENEzER ALLEN,
Captain In Colonel Herrick's regiment OF Green
Mountain Boys.
The orator, referring to the devotion Of
Vermont to the Union, said:
When those who had been among the foremost
in creating that Union, and should have been
the last to assail IT, yet essayed Its destruction
81 900 of her young manhood, almost a 1.-THE of
her people, went out in its defense. And in all
that wides presd and terrible conflict there was
no battle ground on which her children are not
buried. Her LIE, whether in peace or in war,
through all the century that now closes upoa
us, has been not only in the Union, but for the
Union.
The reader would have right to assume
that she was the first to constitutionally
prohibit human slavery; who quotes APP
provingly the 'tfree papers" issued by Cap
tain Allen to a slave mother and child;
who in eloquent words declares Vermont
has in peace or war been mot only in the
Union but for the Union;" that this orator
had himself always been IN full sympathy
with the historical anti-slavery sentiment
of his state; that his voice had helped
swell the cheers with which Vermont sent
her sons forth to battle for the Union;
that he had mourned when his neighbors
wept over their fallen; that he had proudly
welcomed home the returning brave.
1t is a painful historical fact that Orator
Phelps was the bitterest and most conspic-
uous pro-slavery man that Vermont ever
produced before the war, and that he was
the most intellectual and outspoken SYM
pathizer with the cause of the Southern
Confederacy; the most unrelenting, vio-
lent enemy of Lincoln's administration
from 1861 to 1865, who could call New Eng
land his birthplace and ancestral home.
Orator Phelps is SO years of age, the son Of
United States Senator Phelps, bitter pro-
slavery Wing, who was refused reelection
to the United States Senate, because he
voted for and warmly defended the fugi-
tive slave law of 1850. His son, E. J.
Phelps, proved himself true chip of this
old pro-slavery block; this bigoted, pas
sionate old Northern doughface, for as long
as slavery had legal existence Orator Phelps
not only defended it as constitutional,
but publicly declared his respect for that
clear divine intention which had doomed
the whole negro race to the fate of wage
less labor, with its implied coincidents of
systematic concubinage and cattle mar
riages. That was the political record up
to the outbreak of the civil war of this
orator who today congratulates his state
that she was the first to constitutionally
prohibit an institution that he defended as
long as it existed as the legitimate and
rightful fate of an inferior race; who to-
day quotes with pride the Stree papers,
issued by the Vermont abolitionist of 1877.
The shot at Sumter that converted to the
cause of the Union such lifelong pro-
slavery Bourbons as Ben Butler, Caleb
Cushing, Edwin NJ. Stanton, Daniel 8.
Dickinson, Stephen A. Douglas. Isaac 1.
Stevens, Andrew Johnson, Edward
Everett. Louis Cass, John A. Dix, Reverdy
Johnson, Joel Parker, Amasa Parker,
Matt FL. Carpenter. James E. English,
John w. Geary, John T. Hoffman. did
not convert Orator Phelps.
Mr.. Phelps, from the beginning to the
end of the war, was the most corrosive
and conspicuous copperhead in New Eng
land, and openly sided with Vallandig-
ham, Voorhees,, Franklin Pierce, Fernando
Wood, Judge Woodward, of Pennsylvania:
Thomas II. Hendricks. Joseph E. Melon
aid, Judge Ryan, of Wisconsin; "Brick"
Pomeroy, George FL. Pendleton, of Ohio, in
their hostility to Lincoln's policy. When
the church bells rang "Laus Dec" January
1, 1853, for Lincoln's Emancipation Procla-
nation Phelps denounced Lincoln publicly
as "a third-rate country lawyer, who had
torn the last leaf out of the constitution.
and vilited that great man without ouaIi-
fcation from his Inauguration to his as
sassination, describing him as a boor. a
butfoon, "a baboon of the backwoods."
a wooden-head, as late as August, 1864. in
public speech delivered to a Democratic
club in Burlington, Vt. From a STEM
ographic report of this speech. published
for the first time in the political canvass of
1850, when Phelps was the Democratic
candidate for governor, we make the
following extract:
Wei, even then, when Abraham Lincoln. this
twenteth-rate oack-country attorney [spplause
ana ialghtetl-the man Imposed upon a people
VINO dld not know him. ~ set of politicians
VINO did not know him, without one single
qualification for a statesman, not one, not onel
Mcclellan knew that If the policy of ths.
wooden-heai llaughterl that you have got for a
president was adopted, you would drive that
people 10 desperation, and that there WAS no al
tentative but to put every one OF them TO death.
or Mcclellan, as compared with the i'm
mortal Lincoln, Phelps says:
They admit that he is pretty good oenee- bnt