Year: 1860

If there be any two things beyond all
others that men should value and preserve,
they are life and liberty; and if there be
question as to which shall be sacrificed, we
unhesitatingly say life, and the civilized
world echoes back the answer. life = Sacri-
flee life, and let liberty live. Without
liberty, of what value to the possessor is
life2


The Anglo-African instructions that
have occurred in this country within the
last two hundred years, as raked up and
spread with so much circumstantial mi
nuteness on their worst side, before the
public, by the New York Herald, are but
the uprisings of people keenly sensible
of their oppression, and willing to sacrifice
life in their endeavor to throw it off and
substitute liberty therefor. This satanic
press, to which we are indebted for many
things, (juSt as we are to that old individ-
ual having hoofs and horns for safe dis
tance from purgatory,) states much that it
may be well to consider Let us descend
little more to particulars.


In its insurrection papers, one of the
leading propositions laid down by this sa-
tanic press is, that the negro method of
warfare, as exhibi ed in these outbreaks, is
barbarous, brutal, and bloody. "He sets
fire to his masters house, and uses on his
masters person the red-hot tOngS with
fendish delight" says this journal, in proof
of its assertion. Now, maynot the tongs
or the pinchers mentioned be merely some
old branding-iron formerly used ON these
same negroes when they were helpless in
the masters power, and learned from him
the use of the instrument: and, moreover,
may he not be inexpert in said operation ?
But, be this as it may, did it never occur
to the Herald" and those who think with
it that oppressed men resolving to liberate
themSelve make use, and are justified in
that use, of the best means in their power
to that end 2


Warfare as carried on by equally equip
ped foes is no part ola chained mans cal
culation; but disenthralment from an un-
just yoke and heavy chains is his aim.
Who ever heard of an unarmed man de-
tanned by band of thieves and pirates to
be plundered of his sustenance, who would
not throttle, burn, or sink the whole den of
them when opportunity presented to lib
crate himself? What regard or concern
would he have for their laws? Precisely
SO the slave has no arms, no implements OF
warfare of any kind. He is slave-a
perpetual slave-aud yet having resolved
to be free, wisely makes use of the best
means in his power TO that end, He re-
sorts, and justifably resorts, therefore, to
the tinder- box, the match, and the torch
These are the only weapons of warfare
left him. Be has no choice, no election,
and therefore is not to be blamed. Give
him something better, something more in
keeping with the science of war, and the
art of using it, and he will not be backward
in accepting even such terms. But until
this is done he cannot afford to attend to
niceties of scientific warfare. The contest
is too unequal, and the stake too heavy.
Oppression, with all its accursed concomi-
tants, is on the one side, and liberty and
manhood, with all their joys and glories,
on the other


We wonder what white men would do
under the same circumstances; and yet
we are among those who think that one set
of men who have chained and hoppled an
other, and debauched their women, and
stole their children, are rather bad judges
of what nceties their victims should use in
their endeavors to release themselves from
such hellish thraldom. Will the satanic
press, to whom we are indebted for so
much, give us its impressions on this
point?


With regard to the negro's ferocity and
bloody brutality, so loudly proclaimed by
the Herald" we have only to say that it
is little too highly colored-the picture
is spoiled by it. Truth prompts us to say
that some of the most remarkable instanc-
es Of kindness and generosity to be found
, on the pages Of history are recorded of
these deeply injured and long outraged
men towards many of the whites during
these outbreaks, and no amount of histori-
cal perversion and newspaper lying can
make out to the contrary. The fact is,
what is so laboriously put forth by the sa-
tanic press to show the brutality of the
blacks in these instances of uprising, are
but the full settlements with the white
fends who had treated these poor unror-