Year: 1859


Ferry insurrection. His neighbors have at
last concluded that he is really mad, and sent
him to the place provided for the insane. 1t
may be that his madness is now more deci
ded than formerly, but that he has been in
sane for twenty or thirty years is evident
from all his past history He is one Of those
men who allow their hearts to get the better
of their heads. Feeling for the ''poor slaves
in bondage" and greatly exaggeratng the
woes under which they labor, he has forgot
ten that there is wrong way of doing even
a right thing. Admitting, for the sake of ar
gument, that slavery is wrong, it would at
once occur to a well regulated mind, that n
violent change in the Constitution of the
country, remodeng Of the Government by
the bloody process of Revolution, would not
be the proper way for remedying the evil,
because it would produce an amount Of un-
happiness, from the general crash and wreck
of society, vastly beyond that which the
most fertile Abolition imagination might sup
pose to be existing in the slave population.
The horrors of a servle war would be the
least of the disastrous consequences to follow.
No sane mind can for a moment suppose that,
were the stars of this Union to go down in
blood, and the republic crumble to ruins at
the feet of civil insurrection, new Govern
ment could be built upon its ruins at all
likely to stand Great governments like
this are not matured and established every
day in the year. They may not be over
thrown and set up like the cob-houses of
children. The blessings of this Union to the
great bulk of humanity are far beyond the
miseries, if miseries they be, which it inhicts
upon the African race, or rather that portion
of them who happen to reside within its
limits. For every African liberated by yio-
lence, and the overthrow of Government, n
thousand whites would mourn. Liberty her
self would mourn over the universal earth
The hopes of millions of mankind would be
crushed. Meantime the condition of the
slaves as a mass would be in no degree bene-
fitted, for another Constitution and another
system Of Government to take the place O
the present. aud modelled upon the principle,
Of absolute equality among men, would not
be established; because all the harmony
would be broken up-all compromises o
conflicting interests would be gone-ther,
would be no elements of union in the coun


try, for the only system upon which Uniol
d of sovereign States, each having its own pc
>. culiar interests, can be effected is that upoi
which our Government is now founded. L
is founded upon compromises which harmon
ize conflicting interests, compromises which
allow each State to regulate its own domes-
tic affairs, without let or hindrance from the
Others You might overthrow the Union a
thousand times, and if you could reconstruct
it as many, you would find that it was still
based upon the same original and only plan
of COMPROMISE between the different sections Of
the country. The moment you infuse into it
the absolute and unqualified spirit of one
section merely, you see the antagohiste part:


flying off at a tangent. The principle which
d would go to work to eradicate slavery b,
n remodeling the Government, on the strength


of a revolution. would not let it rest after /


was remodeled and slavery eradicated fol
it would still find new "evils" to be COM
planned of and to be remedied


1t is nothing more nor less than insanity
for set of men to imagine that human gov
ernments can be made perfect, and that pure
justice and unadulterated morality can be
carried out in their operations. Society and
government must do the best that they can
with the evils existing in their midst, and to
undertake to eradicate them by violence is
like knocking q mans brains out with a
sledge-hammer in order to cure him of q
cancer


Gerrit Smith and Wendell Phillips and
VIM Lloyed Garrison and men of that stamp
are all lunatics together. They have run
mad on one idea. Under the lead of this
idea, they forget the innumeratle blessings of
our Constitutional Union and blindly asail q
Government which is the only one upon
earth in which such men ns they are would
be left unhung as traitors-a Government
which is so large in its liberties as to extend
the protection of free speech even to those
who rail against the Government itself I'm
der such Government, how easy matter


1t is to appeal to public opinion for the rem
= edy of any wrongs which may exist or b.
= supposed to exist. The lawful way is tn,
best way, for then innocent parties do mo-
suffer by the change which is effected. Il
slavery be wrong, why Phillips or Garrison
or poor delirious Gerrit Smith is not responsi
bic for its existence. But in preaching
against the Constitution of their country.
such men are responsible, if crazy men can
be considered responsible, for vast deal of
evil no less iniquitous in its character than
they consider the holding of fellow man
in bondage to be. They are responsible for
the traitorous sentiments which are stirred
up in the community-for the future blood
which may be shed in the country-for the
woes and miseries which may yet afflict the
Union, or for the revolutions which NAV de.
stroy it.


Old Brown was another lunatie but man


aged to get rid of himself in very conven-
lent way for the peace of the country. If
Phillips Garrison and the rest would do n
similar thing, to-wit: act instead of talk
treason, and thus put their neeks into the
halter, it would be far better for the Union.
AS tits now they spread the infection of their
own mental diseases and scatter far and wide