Qass— Book- 7i i.^ ^-^ "^^^ "^'■^iff'Balpm,,fi-.n.^.O^''-^^"'''"^ e^ COLLECTION FROM THE MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS NATIIAiMEL I'EABODY ROGERS. Second IBTjftfon. MANCHESTER, N. H. : WILLIAM H. F I S K BOSTON: BENJ. B. MUSSEY k CO 1849. ,1^1 -2. " The world is out of tune now. But it will be tuned again, and all discord become harmony. When Slavery and War are abolished, and hanging and im- prisoning, and all hatred and distrust — when the strife of humanity shall be, who will love most and help the readiest ; when the tyrant steeple shall no longer tower, in sky-aspiring contempt of humanity's cowering dwellings about its base } when pulpits and priests, and hangmen and generals, gibbets and jails shall have vanished from the delivered earth, then shall be heard music here, where they used to stand. The hills shall then break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands." CONCORD, N. H. STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY MORRILL, SILSBY AND CO. PUBLISHER'S NOTICE. T\ collecting, from the abnntlancc of ^Ir. Rogers's ncws- pcr writings, articles sufllcicnt to fill the proposed " vol- le of four hundred pages," the constant difficulty has Dccn to decide "TFAw/ shall be omitted?''' All the pro- ductions of his peerless pen, scattered with such generous profusion through various newspaper columns — all arc worthy of more permanent and extensive circulation. Where all arc so beautifully in earnest and so full of im- portant thoughts, a selection is not to be made, and so a co/lection, only, has been attempted. The articles com- posing this volume have no peculiar excellency of style or sentiment over scores of others standing by their side ill the columns from v.'hence they were taken. 'J''hc aim has been to take such as, from the subjects treated of, might interest the greater number of the friends of the lamented author, and such too as seemed fitted peculiarly for still further work in advancing the great interests to which their author gave the last years of his life with such complete devotion. No attempt has been made to establish a consistent character for our friend, for '■^ con- sistoicif' was no part of his aim while living; constant, uninterrupted progress — going forward — the reader will notice ; never anxious for the sentiment spoken yesterday. IV PUBLISHER S NOTICE. but always careful to give utterance to the honest convic- tions of the hour. Such was he in Hfe — let such be his reputation now that he rests from his labors. It may be due to the memory of our friend to say here, for the information of such as may read this volume, and who were not of his intimate acquaintance, that some of his associates in the Anti-Slavery cause, who are frequent- ly spoken of in tliese pages in warm commendation, he was afterward, from further acquaintance and trial, forced to regard as men and women of very different character. William Lloyd Garrison, especially — a name tliat will be met with often in this volume, coupled with utterance of the most affectionate and enthusiastic esteem — Mr. Rogers, during the last two years of his lil"e, was under the morti- fying and painful necessity of holding in very decidedly different estimation. Our friend carried a warm and trust- ful heart ; never looking for selfishness and ambition in others, knowing none himself, he often had to drink of the bitter cup of unappreciated disinterestedness, and par- take of the mortification of unworthily bestowed com- mendation. Many articles that friends have desired should appear in this collection, from fear of swelling the volume to an undue size and expense, we have been obliged reluctantly to omit. It is possible that another collection of Mr. Ro- gers's newspaper writings may be made and published at a future day. CONTENTS. Pttire. Introduction ix " The Presence of God" 1 The Discussion 5 Call to a Convention Patience of Abolitionists 11 Dr. Farmer dead 13 Constitutionality of Slavery, — Keene Sentinel 15 Colonization Love and *' Logic," — Rev. R. R. Gurley 21 Eclipse of the Sun 25 Balloon Ascension 27 George Thompson 2*.) Limitations of Human Responsibilities, — Dr. Wayland 31 Jaunt to Vermont 34 Dr. Francis Wayland 39 Color-phobia 44 The New Hampshire Courier 47 Colonization 43 The New Hampshire Patriot 51 Reverend Ralph Randolph Gurley, — Elliot Crcsson 54 Ithabod Barllclt, — Osceola 56 Mas.>;acluisetts, — The Liberator 50 Anti-Slavery Divisions 62 War with Great Britain 65 Unparalleled Outrage 66 JCxtract of Letter from Durham 70 Emancipation in the West Indies 73 The African Strangers 75 Cingues 78 Pierpont ejected from the Pulpit *^0 The North Star 82 The Monthly Miscellany, — " Slavery as it is" 84 The Fifteen-Gallon Law 87 Anti-Slavery 89 The World's Convention '^1 vi CONTENTS. Letter from Edinburgh 93 To the Abolitionists of New Hampshire, on return from Europe 96 Ride over " The Border" 102 Daniel Webster 105 Wincobank Hall, — James Montgomery 106 Wentvvorth House and Park 109 Ride into Edinburgji, — Melrose Abbey, — Abbotsford 113 Letter to Editorial Chair 118 Pro-Slavery " Excommunication" 121 Correspondence with Pierpont 122 " Ailsa Craig" 128 Extract of a Letter, — Philadelphia 135 Meetings at New York, — Harriet Lloyd 138 "Tales of Oppression,"— Isaac T. Hopper, — James S. Gibbons 140 Mary Clark 143 Proceedings of the Annual Meeting 144 Trees 146 Salem, — Newburyport, — Whitefield 153 Anti-Slavery Jaunt to the Mountains, — Meeting at Plymouth, — North Hill, — Baker's River, — Franconia Notch, — The Flume, — The " Old Man of the Mountain,"— Convention at Littleton, — Fabyan's Tin Horn, — Ride up Mount Washington, — " The Willey House" 157 Poetry 1 94 Sectarian Worship 1 96 Rhode Island Meeting, — Public Buildings in Providence, — Frederick Douglass 197 Lecture on Elocution 206 Clerical " Jugglery" 208 Poetry ^10 British Abolitionism. .■ 213 Anti-Slavery ~19 Church and State 221 Cobbctt's American Gardener 227 At Home again. — Lynn, — Swamscott, — Marblehead 230 Bell-Ringing 232 Great Meeting-House Eruption 234 Newburyport Jail, — Thomas Parnell Beach 241 The Hutchinson Singers 244 Speech 247 The Boston Miscellany 248 Richard D. Webb 250 Labor 255 Spring 259 CONTENTS. vii The stultifying Power of Superstition, — Daniel O'Connell 361 Politics y63 "Shakespeare Gallery" 266 O'Connell 270 The Ilutchinsons 272 " The Tigers" 274 " Muster" 275 Authority 280 Property 285 Macbeth 288 Letter from Plymouth, — Woburn Butchers, — The Ilutchinsons 290 The Anti-Slavery Platform 2^2 Letter from Plymouth 204 Funeral at Sea 2!l6 The Jews and Holy Land 301 «« Pen and Ink Sketches,"— Byron 304 The Anti-Slavery Movement 307 Letter from Plymouth '.WJ The Great Question of the Age :ill " You arc before the Age" 'M4 Aristocracj' ;U7 The Learned Blacksmith 320 It rains 322 The Legislature 324 " High Rock" 327 Letter from Plymouth,— The Franconia Mountains 329 " The Unconstitutionality of Slavery," — George Bradburn, — Lysan- der Spooner's Essay 332 Tlie A mrrican Board 1137 " The Rights of Animals" :!;10 " Infidelity" 'JIO Thanksgiving 3J1 Reply to " H. O. S." 3^3 The "Attic Weaver" , 3.^0 Henry Brown, — Craj'on Portraits 350 Thoughts on the Death Penalty, by C. C. Burleigh 355 Instrumentalities 3,",7 liettor from Lynn 3r)9 ^^'=ir 3G3 The Death of Torrey 3GG " Pastoral Convention" 370 Tilling the Ground 373 Bursting of the Paixhan Gun 375 Free Speech 377 INTRODUCTION. I.N presenting to the public a volnmo of the miscellaneous writings of Nathaniel P. Rogkrs, his faunly nnd friends feel that they are meeting' a demand, often and earnestly pressed upon them, and at the sime time, contrihutin;^ something to the canse for which ho made great sicrit'ices, and devoted his highest powers and the best years of his life. To all those avIio are interested in the writer's reputation, it is a matter of deep regret that his own life was not spared either to make the selec- tion himself, or at least to let a selection, made by another, pass under his eye, and have the benefit of his own judgment, as to the pieces >ipon which ho would be most willing to rest his claim upon the grateful regards of those who should commune witli his spirit when his body should be " Commingling slowly with his mother earth." Yet, even had lie lived, it is doubtful whether he would ever have been induced to do for himself, what his friends have here attempted to do for him. He was more mindful of tlie good of otiicrs, than of his own fame. And it was more in accordance with his nature to produce and cast abroad the gems of thought, feeling and imagination, than to gather them up and arrange them in a cabinet fur his own gnitification, or the admiration even of his friends. But the treasures that he scat- tered with a liberal, and, for his health and life, quite too prodigal a hand, will be like choice seed, which, sown in a strong soil, not culti- vated enough to be quite ready for it, will yet strike its roots and live, and the field into which it is cast will yet feel its virtue, and be subdued and fertilized by it Rogers wrote, as he did every thing else, for Immanity, not for fame. He consulted the good of the future, not the ftishion of tl'.e present ; and his claims to the regard, even of the future, ho chose to rest rather upon help given to those who " could not help them- selves," than upon the good opinion of critics or literarj' connoisseurs. Whoever reads this book, will see that it was written by an earnest, and therefore an honest man ; a man whose soul was alive to the work to which he put his hand ; and who expected not, and asked not, the applause of a sensual and ser\ilc age. He sought rather to gratify the cravings of his own fers'cnt spirit, that glowed with love and pity INTRODUCTION. for those who were "despised and rejected of men;" and he did this, Jcnowing that if " the world and they that arc therein," have a Creator, who careth for his work, ho cannot he indifferent to tlie welfare of tlie oppressed and enshived, and that lie miLst approve — as ultimately he will prosper — the labors of such as " preach deliverance to the captive, and set at liberty them that are bruised." Our friend might have worn, but he did not " wear soft raiment, or dwell in kings' houses." Lazarus-like, here " he received evil things." lie might have received " good things," or what in the world pass for such, had he pleased. With his hands full of talents that he might have readily caused to be coined into golden eagles, for tlie sake of the slave " he became poor." He might have died under a silken can- opy, and been followed to the grave far otherwise tlian he was. But, with liis eyes wide open, he chose the course of a confessor and martyr ; and, as a natural consequence, he drank a confessor's — a martyr's cup. He drank of that cup, especially, for several of the last years of his life. He drank it to the very dregs, during its closing hours ; — drank it like a martyr — like a man. And why should he not ? A martyr's blood ran in his veins. He was a lineal descendant, from that "John Rogers who was burnt at Smith- field, during the reign of Q,ueen Mary ; " nor had the blood that was shed, nor the spirit that was then tried in the baptism of fire, degenerated by its transmission from the old martyr's stake at Smithfield, to the modern JlboiitionisVs death-bed at Concord. * T loved too well, and have lamented too deeply, this noble-spirited man, this sensitive child of genius, this self-sacrificing philanthropist, to * While Mr. Rogers was in London, in attendance upon the " World's Anti- Slavery Convention," in 1840, he was careful to go upon the ground at Smithfield, — now a cattle market — that was sanctiiied, in his sight, and tliat of all men who know where true greatness lies, by the martyrdom of his illustrious ancestor. It may be interesting to some of Mr. Rogers's friends to trace the descent of the Smithfield blood and spirit through the successive generations ; to gratify this desire, we have attempted to hunt up the genealogy of the family, which is here given as fully and correctly as we have been able to ascertain it. 1. John Rogers, the Martyr. 2. Nine or ten children; which number appears uncertain. 3. Rev. John Rogers, of Dedham, England, a son of one of them died 18 October, 1G39, aged 67. His son, 4. Rev. Nathaniel Rogers, was born MOS, came to New England in lfi36, and settled in Ipswich, Mass., where he died 3 July, 1650, aged 57. His wife was Margaret, daughter of Robert Crane, of Coggeshall, England ; and she died 23 January, 1676. His children were, 5. John, President of Harvard College in 1682, died 2 July, 1681, aged -51 ; a IXTIIODUCI'IOX. allow me to refuse the office, which, I learn from his afllicted widow, his chcrishod friendship assirrncd to mo before his death. Speakiiifr of the contompiatod vohimc of Extracts from his writinjrs, slie says, in a note to mo, "lie bo^-an to |)reparc it, at tlie request of a mimber of his friends, some montlis before his death ; and he often expressed his (lauc;htcr; Nathaniel, who died in IGSO, without issue; Samuel, who married •Sarah Wade, 13 November, IGlil, and died 21 December, 1C'J3 ; Timothy; and Ezekiel, who had several children, (Nathaniel, Ezekicl, Timothy and Samuel) and died in 1674. The John Uoners who was President of Harvard College, had a son John, wlio was pastor of the first church in Ipswich, and died 28 Dec. 17-t-), in his S'^th year. The latter had a son Daniel, who was pistor of a church in Exeter, N. II., and died December, 17'H5, asted 7S, and a son Nathaniel, who was pastor of the first church in Portsmouth, N. II 6. Jeremiah Rogers, of S.ilcni, Mass., who died 1720-31, was the ancestor of N. P. Rogers, and was probably a son of the .Samuel or Timothy mentioned in 5, or else a grandson of Samuel, Timothy or E/ckiel ; but at this time, and with the imperfect state of the records, it is supposed impossible to make this certain. His wife was Dorcas. That Jeremiah Rogers was a grandson of Rev. Nathaniel, of Ipswich, is attested on tradition. His granddaughter, Susanna, was the wife of Dr. Jacob Peabody, and mother of the late General Nathaniel Peabody, of Exeter, N. II. Jeremiah's son, 7. Rev. John Rogers, was bom at Salem, 22 November, IG.'VJ, graduated at Harvard College in 17"-5, and was ordained the minister of Boxford. He died at Leominster, 17 August, ll'ti, in his 71st year. His wife was Susanna, daiightcr of Capt. Manasseh Marston, of Salem. She was born 20 ,\pril, 10>S7, and died at Salem, 22 October, 1757, aged 7^^. They were married 21 March, 17TO. The children wore Susanna, John, Benjamin, Mchitabel, Nathaniel, Lydia, and Eunice. Their son, 8. Rev. John Rogers, was born at Boxford, Mass., 24 September, 1712; was ordained the first minister of Leominster, 14 September. 1744; was dismissed January, 17)!^, and died in October, 17^0, aged 77. His son, 9. Dr. John Rogers, was born at Leominster, Mass., 27 March, 17-55 ; grad- uated at Harvard College in 177<> ; settled in Plymouth, N. H., as a physici.in, and was eminent in his profession, and well known for his poetical talents. His wife was Betsy Mulliken, of Bradford, Mass. He died 8. March, 1S14, aged .59. Their fifth child was N.vTUANiEL Pfatiody Rookrs, who, it will be seen, was one of the tenth generation from him who is so well known as the "first in that blessed com- p.-xny of mnrtyrs who suffered in the reign of the bigoted Mary." The blood of the Martyr flowed pure and in liberal measure in the son even thus distantly removed. Not only did " heart answer to heart," but wonderfully did '• face answer to face." Those who have seen both our deceased friend and a well- preserved portrait of the Martyr, hanging in one of the halls of the American Antiqiiarian Society at Worcester, cannot have failed to notice the great re- semblance in the shape of the face and head, in the eye, the complexion, and the general expression of the two men. INTRODUCTION. intention to request you to furnish an Introduction; — and I cciunot but believe it would be gratifying to you to do it, especially as it was a favorite idea of tbe dear departed, avIiosc attachment to yourself was both fervent and sincere." Yet I know myself too well not to know that I shall best discharge the duty assigned me by letting others, who were more constantly in liis society, and more closely allied to him than myself, speak in my stead. Being more frequently in his presence, laboring under his eye in the same cause, and partaking largely of his spirit — seeing how manfully lie bore his cross while lie lived and suffered, and how calmly, after all his labors and sufferings, he could die, — the language in which they speak of our common friend, is much more touching, because much more true to nature, than any that, without their aid, I could command. Much of what follows, therefore, is compiled from an obituary notice of Mr. Rogers, from the pen of John R. French, which appeared in " The Herald of Freedom " of Oct. 23, 1846, and from an article by Richard Ilildreth, inserted in the same paper, from the Boston Chrono- type, and a few other brief notices, transferred from other journals into the same number of the Herald. Mr. Rogers was a son of Dr. John Rogers, of Plymouth, N. H., where he was born, June 3, 1794 ; consequently, he was fifty -two years of age at the time of his death. His father was a highly respectacle physician, a man of brilliant intellect and superior education, — a graduate of Har- vard College of the class of 1777, and a son of tlie Rev. John Rogers, of Leominster, Mass., — a clergyman in his day somewhat celebrated for his talents and independence in religious faith, and for his rebellion against ecclesiastical domination. Mr. Rogers's mother, an intelligent and quite active old lady, still lives, at the advanced age of eighty-six, to mourn the son of her strong affec- tion. The only desire longer to live, expressed by our friend during his sickness was, that he might minister to the wants and comfort of his mother, in the decline of her life ; and the only request that he left to his family was, that they would do all in their power to make her happy. The subject of this notice entered Dartmouth College in 1811, but, after remaining one year, -was, through ill health, obliged to leave. He afterwards returned, and, in 181G, took his degree with the class next below that with which he entered. He immediately afterwards entered upon the study of the law; spending two years with Richard Fletcher, then of Salisbury, N. H., now of Boston ; and one year with Parker Noyes, also of Salisbury. He then commenced the practice of his profession in his native village, where he remained for twenty years, a diligent and successful lawyer. With an instinctive delicacy, — Avhich, INTKODrCTION". wliile it was one of the ornaments of his character, kept all but his intimate friends in ignorance of his ability, — he shrank from the rude encounter of the forum, and was seldom known as a pleader. But, so accurate was his knowledge of the law, and so industrious and shrewd wap he in his business, that a client's success was always calculated upon from the moment that his assistance was secured. The mind of our deceased friend was severely and beautifully disci- plined. Enriched by a greedy and enthusiastic reading of the book of Nature, and made to love its pages, not only by his delicate and poetic organization, but by the beauty and sublimity of some of the finest scenery on the earth's surface, in the midst of which he had his birth, it had been cultivated by familiarity with the great writers of both an- cient and modern times. But for the last ton years of his life, Mr. Rogers had almost entirely given up the reading of books, and turned liis whole attention to the condition of men, in their various circum- stances of suffering and oppression. His susceptible heart was among the first to be touched, especially, by the wrongs of the slave. lie entered into the Anti-Slavery con- troversy with great zeal, and presently removed to Concord, for tJic purpose of more conveniently publishing the " Herald of Freedom," which he edited for some years, with very slight, if any compensation, devoting the whole of his available time to the cause. This paper purported, during a portion of this period, to be under the patronage of the New IJampshire Anti-Slavery Society. But it owed all its in- terest, and, in f;ict, its very existence, to tlie brilliant contributions and disinterested labors of Mr. Rogers. To the readers of the " Herald of Freedom " nothing need be said of his ability. As a newspaper writer, we think him unequalled by any living man ; and in the general strength, clearness, and quickness of his intellect, we think that all who knew him well, will agree with us, that he was not excelled by any editor in this country. His facility in wri- ting was perfectly wonderful. His articles were always written with a rapidity which few can ever attain. Never under the necessity of wait- iiig for the coming up of a thought, or for the arranging of a sentence, his pen seemed to be driven forward by tlie impetuous current of his thoughts, the fountains of which seemed never to be exhausted. When writing for his paper, the limits of his columns were the only limits to his articles; and during the time of his editing, probably as much tliat he wrote was omitted for want of room, as was printed. Mr. Rogers, fallowing the lead of Mr. Garrison, became a Non- resistant. He also, along with Mr. Garrison, loudly appealed to the Church for aid. Of this ho had become an ardent and devoted mem- INTRODUCTION. of Mr. Rogers. Tender and gentle, he was yet firm as a rock, neither to be cajoled, brow-beaten, nor driven. Ardent, keen, speaking out his whole mind, there was nothing about him of savage selfishness, or sec- tarian malice. Cant and humbug, of which so large a share enters into most newspaper compositions, were to him totally unknown." While sutTering from sickness and from abandonment by his former friends, Mr. Rogers had tlie additional misfortune to find his young and numerous family, through the failure of a relative, to Mhose hands a large part of his property was entrusted, suddenly deprived of the pro- vision that his industry had made for tlieir education and support But amid all these sources of irritation, he remained gentle, collected, firm and hopeful as ever. lie wrote for " The Herald of Freedom " even witli increased diligence ; with occasional severity, indeed, yet his sharpest articles were but tlie brilliant corruscations of indignant genius, and the bitterest were but tlie true expressions of an honest and uncom- promising hatred of wrong. Whatever else there might be found in his columns, you would encounter no dull dribblings of a heart hardened witli selfishness, or festering with party spirit. Even among the weakness and sufferings of the summer immediately before his deatli, as a means, in part, of procuring bread for his cliildren, he wrote the series of "Letters from the Old Man of the Mountain," published in tlic New York Tribune, which made him known to many who never saw " The Herald of Freedom." A part of the same sum- mer he spent in Lynn, near Boston, whitlier he went, early in July, to visit his few friends there, and to meet " tlie Hutchinsons," who were tlren daily expected from Europe. In a few days after his arrival at Lynn, the disarrangement of his physical system, from which he had been a sufferer for thirty-five years, began to assume a more obstinate and fearful character. Wlien about seventeen years of age, by too violent a participation in the exercise of " foot-ball," during liis college life, lie injured his side and stomach, which then occasioned a year's severe illness, resulting in chrontc dyspepsia, which, together with tha derangement of the other sympathetic organs, entailed upon him long years of suffering, and now seemed to be about to finish tlie work that had been given it to do. He remained at Lynn, and witli his friend Rev. Mr, Sargent, of Somerville, some six weeks, being unable during that time, to undertake tlie journey home. Yet such was hia desire to be doing good, and to work while the day lasted, that notwithstanding his weakness and pain, he every week furnished a large quota of the editorial matter for Uie " Lynn Pioneer," which labor, during Mr. Clapp's absence in Europe, he had taken upon his weak but willing slioulders, besides attending and taking part in many Anti-Slavery, Temperance, INTICODULTIOX. xvii and other reformatory meetings, that were held in Lynn and its vi- cinity. After returning Iiorno, Mr. Rofrers left his house but a few times. Ills piins soon became of tlie most acute character, and continued, without intermission, until about two weeks of his death. So intense was his sufterinff, tliat before the close of Auo;ust his family were in constaiit expectation of his death. How he was enabled to sustain tJie conflict, throu;,fh tiie lon^ and painful hours of the last sLv weeks of his life, was a wonder to all who were acquainted witli his condition. More won- derl'iil still was it, tliat his mind, through all tlie distress of his bodv, never, f )r an instant, faltered. P'rom tlie commencement of his sickness, he was confident that death was to be the result, and spoke of his expectation of the event as calnilv and bravely as he ever spoke of any inv;ident of his life. A few davs before his death, on observing one of his family in tears at his bed-side, he remarked th it he was happy, and wished his family to be so, and to continue about their ordinary duties, just as if lie were with tii"in. To the hour of his doatii he retained an unabated interest in all that was doing in tlie world for the good of man. His coiisfint inquiries were concerning the progress and state of the various philanthropic move- ments of the day, and for the health and doings of tlie friends with whom he hid been associated in tlieir common labors of benevolence. So strong was his desire still to be in the conflict for the Right, and for those v/ho hivo no helper, that when his hand had become too weak h) hold his pen, he would dictate articles for tlie i)ress, and ask some friend, standing by his bed, to commit his thoughts to paper ; and it was only br- the earnest remonstrances and entreaties of his friends, who found that these efTorts increased the ner^■o^ls excitement, from which he suffered greatly through all hissickness, thathe was, at last, prevailed upon to quit the battle-field. The friends of Mr. Rogers had seen, for years before, that the excite- ment and labors of tlie Anti-Slavery reform were fast wearing him out ; and that his great mental activity was an overmatch for the delicacy and ner\'0U3 sensitiveness of his physical system. But his deep love f jr the friendless slave, as well as his truly christian interest in the welfare of those who hold him in his chains, togetlier with his devotion to the gen- eral cause of freedom and right, left little room in his heart — large as it was — for thought or care for himself'. The alienation of old friends, and the feeling that some who had once loved him, and who, he felt, ought to love him then better tlian they had ever done, were now finally and hopelessly estranged from him, cast a shade of sadness over tlie evening of his life, and, doubtless, hastened the going down of his sun. B* INTRODUCTION. But from this, again, I turn, witli something' of the sadness and sorrow which one cannot but feel on seeing good and loving hearts torn — and one or both of them broken in being torn — asunder. On Friday, Oct. IG, with tlie falling of the leaves, Nathaniel Peabody Rogers breatlied his last. Without a struggle, witliout any of "the pains of death" — without a fear or a regret — in the full, unimpaired ■enjoyment of his intellect and all his senses — with his family and a few dear friends around hun, his life went out, gently and quietly as fades the light of a summer's evening. At times, his bodily distress had been -excruciating, causing him to cry out ; yet his mind, never at rest, would 'draw food for thought even from his own physical sufferings. The Sun- day night before his death, — a friend watching with him — in a paroxysm ■of his suffering he exclaimed, " O dear 1" — then, seeming to reflect upon ibis own exclamation, he repeated it, and said, " That's the cry now. This is the closing up of my terrible labors." The friend replied that it must be a consolation to him to consider that he had not sacrificed him- self in vain — that many had been blessed by his labors. Mr. Rogers said, " O yes, my dear N ; it sustains me unspeakably, — the reflec- tion that I have acted right." During his sickness he had suffered greatly from the want of sleep, and the night before his death he had not slept at all. This day, con- sequently, ho was more feeble than he had been any day before. He evidently suffered much, but made no complaint ; and, owing to his extreme weakness he conversed but little with the friends that stood about his bed. His remaining strength seemed gradually to decrease, so gradually, indeed, that it was impossible to mark the moment when he ceased to breathe. But his mind, during the day, and up to the last moment, as without any exception it had been through all his sickness, was clear, calm and strong, as in the strongest hour of his life. A short time before his death, he desired that some one would go and ask Judson Hutchinson, who was in town, to come and sing to him. While v/aiting for his friend, he requested one of his daughters to sing him Samuel Lover's beautiful song, " The Angel's Whisper." In the singing, a word was accented wrong, which he immediately indicated by whispering the word with the correct accent ; thus giving evidence, at once, of the calm and natural state of his mind, and of his undying desire to have every thing, that was done, done right. At the close of the song, he Avas asked whether Hutchinson, who had ariived during the singing, should come into tlie room. He spoke not, but made a slight motion of his hand, that was lying upon tlae pil- low, which attracted attention, and, from the peculiar manner in which his eyes were fixed upon a window, opposite to his bed, it was seen that the event tliat had, for weeks, been expected, was about to take place. INTKODUCTlOX. His oldest brother, who is a physician, and who had been witli him several weeks durinor his sickness, was called in from an adjoiiiin? room. He spoke to his brother, and asked if he knew him. The dyin^ man turned his eyes to the speaker, and, with emotion, callinfj him by name, replied, " Certainly," and then asked his wife, who was standinor by, whether he understood his brother rijjht, and why he had asked that (jucstion. In about ten minutes, with no other word, or a proan, or the moving of a muscle, "he was not, for God had taken him."* " On Sunday afternoon," s.iys Mr. French, " a few neip-hbors and friends met nt his late house, and, after an hour spent in social conver- sation, in which we relieved each other's sorrow by a remembrance of tiie virtuous life and calm death of our departed friend, we took his life- less body, and buried it in a retired corner of the villnpe trnive-yard, beneath the sheltering shade of a kindly clump of oaks. In the same yard arc buried Kimball and Cadv, the two noble men who were the f^ditors of the Herald, previous to Mr. Kofjers' connexion witli it The paper Ins been published but eleven years, yet the three ni'ii wlio have conducted its columns, have passed from life, — two of them while in its senice. An admonition to us, who are left, to be diligent in the work that is ffiven us to do. "From the establishment of the H sleep with iior sweet " Angels' Whis- per," — sitting, a widow in affliction, in the house that was left to them, O how desolate! Mijy I not hope that that little family choir — for the children all sing sweetly, — when gathered in their secluded mounUiin home, will some- times sing these lines, as a memorial not of their father only, but also of their fatlier's friend and theirs ? JNO. PIERPONT. TIIE FAMILY LAMENT. The " AnsTcls' Whisper" stole, in song, upon his closing ear ; Through his own daus^hter's lips it came, so musical and clear, That scarcely knew the dying man what melody was there, The last of earth's, or first of heaven's, pervading all the air. Ncr need he know : — The soul that's tuned in full accord with Right, Where'er it is, will harmonize with children of the light. Anathemas, the church's ban, or thunders hurled at him. Can never close his cars against the songs of seraphim. The love of right ! O, it was this that made our father strong : — The love of right, — that's yoked, for aye, to hatred of the wrong ; The loye of right was in his heart above all other love, And made the Mountain Eagle there to nestle with the Dove. • Acts xxviii, 22. INTRODUCTION. That brave and loving heart is cold ; — the clods are on that breast, That always heaved with pity for the helpless and oppressed ; And we upon His care are cast, who long ago hath said, " Trust me, and do my will, and thou shalt verily be fed." Thou Father of the fatherless, — the widow's God and Guide, In thee we put our trust, for we have none to trust beside I Thy servant, on whose arm we've leaned, hath gone to his reward : — The dust hath to the dust returned, — the spirit to its Lord. O, dreary was that parting day ! — October's earliest snow Was falling, as his coffined clay, so mournfully and slow, Was carried to the '• narrow house," and made a silent guest, " Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." We know, it was a holy day ; — thrice holy now it is ! The day our Savior left his grave, our father went to his. But it was dreary, not the less, for Winter, ere its time. Was come, as death had come to him, in his autumnal prime. And Autumn's red and yellow leaves were eddying, thick and sere, On the snowy air, as slowly trod the bearers of the bier, Or, to the oaks around his grave, were clinging, dead and dry. And rustling as the fitful wind went through them with a sigh. But summer shall come round again, and dress in green his grave, And by its head-ftone, oft shall kneel the liberated slave. And, all around, those oaks shall throw their broad and grateful shade.. And birds, among the branches, sing their evening serenade. And daily shall the sunshine fall wliere sleeps a child of light. The moon look calmly down on one as pure as she is bright ; And that true star, that from its post hath never swerved, nor can, Shall guard the grave of one as true to Freedom and to Man. A COLLECTION FROM THE NEWSrArER'WJaTJNGS OF N.P.EOGEES "THE PRESENCE OF GOD." [From l)ie Herald of Freedom of August 11, 103S.] We wander a moment from our teclmical anti-slavery " sphere," to say, with permission of our readers, a word or two on a beau- tiful article under this head, in the Christian Examiner. It is fmin the pen of one of our highly irified fellow-citizens, to whom the unhnppy subjects of insanity, in this state, owe so much for the public charity now contemplated in their behalf. It is writ- ten with preat elegance, perspicuity and force of style — and what is more, it seems scarcely to want that spirit of heart-broken Christianity, so apt to be missing in the ^'raceful speculations of reviewers, and may wc not say, in the speculations of the ele- gant corps among whom the writer of the article is here found. We will find, briefly, what fault we can with the article. Its beauties need not be pointed out — they lie profusely scattered over its face. It is an article on the presence of God, and treats of our relations to Him. But does it set forth that relation, as involving our need of the Lord Jesus Christ, in order that we may be able to stand in it? For ourselves, we cannot contem- ])late God — and dure not look towards Ilim, unconnected with Christ. Our writer seems boldly to look upon Ilim, as the strong-eved eagle gazes into the sun. God is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. He cannot look upon sin, but with abhor- rence. We have sinned; therefore we fear to behold Ilim. In Christ, alone, is he our Father in heaven, aiid we his reconciled 1 THE PRESENCE OF GOD. children. In Christ, we dare take hokl of his hnnd and of the skirts of his almighty garments. The Lord Jesus Christ and " him crucified," is the medium, through whom, alone, we dare look upon God, in his works, his providences or his grace. Sinless man might, without this medium. Fallen man may not. Like the Israelites at the mount of Sinai, he may " not break through unto the Lord to gaze," lest " he perish." The writer contemplates God in his works — but he seems, though awed, elevated and delighted at their grandeur, beauty and wisdom, to feel still baffled of the great end in their contem- plation. Does he not, we would ask him, feel the absence of .some link in the chain of communication with this ineffable being — which might, if interrupted, anchor his soul securely within the veil, which, after all, continues to shroud him from commmiion and sight? Can he, in sight of the works of God, speak out and sing in the strains of the singer of Israel ? Does he not experience, in view of them, an admiring enthusiasm and certain swellings of genius, rather than those spiritual heart- burnings felt by the two on the way to Emmaus, as they talked with the " stranger in Jerusalem?" Here is the grand mistake of gifted humanity. Tired of the world — sick of its emptiness — shocked at its heartlessness — withdrawn from its unprincipled highway into the lonely by-path of a supererogatory morality, — moved by those "longino-s after immortality," which haunt forever the unbesotted spirit — it tries to find God in his works, and peradventure in the majesty of his word — not looking for him, however, in " xnE way" — seeking him along the high and ridgy road of a sort of spirito-intellectual philosophy, instead of down in the valley of humiliation. The writer speaks of the communion of God with our 7ninds. This he seems to regard with chief interest. He mentions " the need oT having attention" — meaning inlellccttinl attention " waked up to those old truths." " Listlessness of mind," he continues, " an inveterate habit of inattention to the existence of the Eternal Spirit, needs to be broken in upon. We need to help each other to escape a fatuity of mind on this subject, that we may feel that God's ark still rides o'er the world's waves, and i THE PRESENCE OF GOD. that the burning busli has not gone out." There 15 an " inat- tcufion," it is true ; but it is of the heart, and not merely of the mind — of the nature, and not of " habit" merely — a spiritual inattention or rather alienation from God, which must be broken in upon. It is not the creature of hahit. Adani filt it in all its force, the very day of his first transgression. He heard the t'wjfc of God, which in his innowncv lie had hailed witli joy, beyond all he felt at the beauties of Paradise, — heard it, walking in the garden, in the cool of the day, and he hid himself from the presence of the Lord God, among the trees of the garden. His wife also hid herself, for she too had trans^res-sed — imd we, thrir moral hrirt, hide ourselves so to this day. They could walk in the fjarden in sight of tlie Iwautiful trorks of God, and perhaps admire the splendors of Eden ; but when they hcanl his voice, they hid themselves. Not from habit surely, that not being the creature of a day. There was " inveteracy," not of liibit, but of fallen nature. It is that which must be " broken in upon," before we shall incline to cxime out from among the trees, to welcome the presence of God. It may be there is a figurative meaning also in this hiding among the trees from the presence of him who made those trees — and may we not deceive our.<;elve9 in supposinfT we contemplate God in his works, when in truth we are seeking to hide ourselves from his presence, among the glorious trees of this earth's garden ? The elegant writer will bear with us in our coarse commen- tary. We would not expend critical attention on the literary merits or marks of genius, in a production treating of our rela- tions to God. It is too awful and interesting a subject. We want reconciliation with God. That is the one thing needful. The crew of the ill-f;ited Pulaski wanted only one thing, when thev were cast afloat upon the waves. When they retired to rest that niiiht, each heart was tantalized with a thousand objects of desire. Hut when that explosion awoke them, thev had all but one, — life — the shore — something on which to float. That, all needed, and all felt the need Such is onr nerd of reconciliation with God, to save us from greater depths than the sea. We have revolted from God. We are born universally in a state of alien- THE PRESENCE OF GOD. ation from him. The Scriptures and all experience teach this. We do not more certainly inherit the transmitted form of our fallen first-parents, than their descended nature. We are born with the need of being " born again." Of this we are sure. The truth of it and the effects of it press continually upon us, with the universality of the air upon our bodily systems. We cannot evade it. It is our fate, in the wisdom of God. We cannot escape it, any more than the Old world could the deluge. They saw an ark of Gopher wood, building by an enthusiastic old man. It eventually saved none of them, who refused to enter its pitchy sides. The old man forewarned them. He was a preacher of righteousness. But they were philosophers, and he a fanatic. He talked of rain and flood, — the breaking up of the fountains of the deep, and the opening of the windows of heaven. The sky looked blue — the sun rose and set gloriously, and broke out, as wont, after the showers. And though there were tokens about that despised old man, which at times made them turn up an apprehensive eye into the cloudless firmament — philosophy chose to risk it. The prediction was unnatural — irrational — it could not be so. They perished. We have an ark of safety, capacious enough, to be sure, to soce the entire race of man. It will save only those who will enter it, — and the time of entering, as it was at the flood, is before the sky of probation is overcast. The door is shut now, as then, before the falling of the first great drops of the eternal thunder shower. The ark of safety, we need not say, is Christ. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man can come to the Father but by him. Whoever hath seen him, hath seen the Father, — and by him is the only manifestation of God's presence. The pre- sence of his power may be seen in all objects around us, — but his strange love to the children of men cannot be seen, but thrcuo-h Christ. As the mortally bitten Israelite could be healed only by looking at the brazen serpent, so the mortally sin-infected de- scendant of fallen man can live only by looking at the Son of Man in the midst of his ignominious crucifixion — even where he was " lifted up." THE DISCUSSION. God may be seen in his works, by him whose sins are foruiven. Tie may be seen, then, in his word — and the Bible is then as fclf-evidently the word of God, as the sun, the mountain and the ocean are his works. His providential care and government are then palpably felt. The soul can then take him by the paternal hand, and feel that infinite safety which puts all human appre- hension at rest. But we are forgetting that our Herald is a .«inall sheet. We have not space to notice the excpiisite beauties of our writer's production as a composition merely, or the artrument it draws of God's presence from his works, and as it purports merely to notice this evidence of his presence, we will n<»t here express our reijret tluit the name of Christ is not mentioned in the article. ]STnv the rriffed writer, if he be out of the ark of safety, not delay to enter in. Tx-t him nut tarry without, to paze with the eye of eletrant curiosity, on the scenery of this Sodom world, — but bow his neck, and "enter while there's room." And as we bespeak his immnlintr heed to the " one thing needful," — so we demand his pen, voice, influence, prayers, and active and open co-operation, in the deliverance of his fellow-countrymen from the ciiAi.vs OF sL.WF.nv THE DISCUSSION. [From the Herald of Freed, m of July 1 1, lir.S.] TiiF, discussion goes on. It pervades, it possesses, it " agi- tates" the land. It must be stopped, or slavery dies, and the col- ored m.an has his liberty and his rights, .ind Colonization is super- seded. Can it not be stopped? Cannot the doctors, the editors, the " property and standing," the legislatures, congress, the mob, Mr. Gurlev, somebody or other, some power or other, the govern- ors, his honor the Chief Justice Lynch ; cannot any body, or every body united, put down this discussion ? Alas for the " peculiar institution !" it cannot be done. The club of Hercules could not strike it down ; it is as impalpable to the brute blow as the Q THE DISCUSSION. stately ghost of " buried Denmark" was to the " partisan" of Marcellus. It cannot be stopped or checked. It is unrestraina- ble as the viewless winds, or the steeds of Apollo. You hear it every where. The atmosphere is rife with it. " Abolition," " immediate," " compensation," " amalgamation," " inferior," "equal," " inalienable," "rights," " the Bible," '' of one blood," " West Indies," " mobs," " arson," " petition," " gag-law," " John Cluincy Adams," " Garrison." These are the words, and as familiar as household phrase. The air resounds to the universal agitation. Truth and conviction every where result, — the Genius of Emancipation moves triumphantly among the half-awakened people. And Slavery, aghast at the general outcry and the fatal discoveries constantly making of its diabolical enormities, gathers up its all for retreat or desperate death, as the case shall demand. The discussion can't be smothered — can't be checked — can't be abated — can't be endured by pro-slavery. The fiat has gene forth. It is registered in heaven. The colored man^s humanity is ascertained and proved, and henceforth he is destined to liberty and honor. God is gathering his instrumentalities to purify this nation. War, Slavery and Drunkenness are to be purged away from it. The drunkard, that wont reform, will be removed from the earth's surface, and his corporeal shame hidden in her friendly recesses, — his spiritual " shame," alas, to be " everlasting" — with that unutterable " contempt" which must attend final im- penitence, as saith God. Those persisting in the brute practice of what is styled military/, which is nothing more or less than human tigerism — rational brutality — hatred dressed up in regi- mentals — malignity cockaded, — and " all uncharitableness" plu- med and knapsacked, — homicide under pay, and murder per order, all who persist in this benstly and bloody mania, and refuse to join the standard of universal non-resistance peace — will perish by the sword, or by some untimely touch of the Almighty, — for Christ hath said, " All they who take the sword shcdl i)erish icith the sword ;" and the period of accomplishment of his work on this little globe is at hand. Let the warrior of the land take warning. " A prudent man foreseeth," «S^c. And slaveholders, pilferers of humanity 1 those light-fngered ones, who " take THE DISCUSSION. without liberty" the very glory and essence of a man, — who put out that light which dazzles the eye of the sun, and would burn on, but for this extinction, when the moon hath undergone her final waning, — those traffickers in inunortajitv, who sell a man " for a pair of shoes ;" those hope-extinguishers, heart-crushers, home-quenchers, family-dissolvers, tie-sunderers ; — oh, for a vo- cabulary — new, copious and original, of awful significancy and expression — that should avail us to shadow forth faintly to the apprehensions of mankineople of the land, to look to their liberties. We have no freedom of speech, no liberty of the press, no freedom of as.-^embly. The sovereign and tyrant of the country is Slavery. He holds his court in the South, and rules the vassal North by his vicegerent the mob, — or as Hul)bard Winslow preacJus it, " the brot/icr/tuod." We owe no allegiance to either. We shall pay none. DR. FARMKR DEAD. [Frv>m the Unrald of Freedom of Sept. 1, 1838] We wore amazed as well as deeply alllicted, at the death of this distinfriiishod and most excellent man. Ilis departure sur- prised us invalid as he long has been, and feeble as was his hold j,n life so insensible are we to the uncertainty and frailly of mortal existence ! We have lost a highly valued personal friend, as well as our cause a faithful, devoted and inv;duable advocate. We could weep for ourselves as well as for the poor slave, who does not know his loss. But it is not a time to weep. Survivors on the field do not pause in thick of the fight, to l.mient comrades or chieftains falling artmnd them. The departed Faumkr lived and died a devoted abolitionist. We proclaim this amid tlie notes of his requiem and the tolling of his knell — in the ears of the scorner of the supplicating slave and of bleeding liberty. Admirers of his distinguished worth — his admirable industry — his capacity — his usefulness^ — his blame- less life — who felt awed at his virtues, while he lived almost in- visibly among men — mingling with the busy throng of life scarcely more than now his study-worn frame reposes in the grave — know all, and be reminded all, that F.\rmer was in zeal, in devotion, in principles and in measures, not a whit behind the very chiefest 3 14 DR. FARMER DEAD abolitionist. No heart beat more ardently than his, in the great cause of human rights — or more keenly felt the insults, the inhumanity and the ruffian persecutions, heaped upon its friends. How deep was his mortification at the brutal and ignoble treat- ment of the generous and gifted Thompson, and with what agoniz- ing solicitude did his heart throb, as the life of that innocent and most interesting and wonderful stranger was hunted in our streets ! How freely would he have yielded up his own sickness-wasted form, to save his friend ! Scorners of the slave — sneerers at the negro's plea — ruthless hivaders (whoever you are) of the hearth of hospitality and the sanctities of home, we point you to the fresh grave of Faumeu. To the grave of Kimball, too, his beloved brother — that young martyred heart — who still pleaded among you, unheeded but faitlifuily, the cause of the suffering and the dumb, when his voice was hollow with consumption — whose mild eye still beamed with remembrance of those in bonds, when lustrous with the hectic touch of death. To the o-rave of young Bradley too, who bowed his beautiful head to the de- stroyer, like the " lily of the field" surcharged with rain remem- bering the down-trodden slave amid all the promises and allure- ments of youth and genius. And to other graves recent in your peopled church-yard, into which we should have looked with heart-broken disconsolation, but for thought of the resurrection. To these graves we point you — as you ponder on the past — not now to be recalled — registered for eternity. Advocates of the slave too, a voice from the church-yard speaks also to you. Tliere is neither knowledge, nor wisdom, nor device there, where the departed faithful lie, and whither you hasten. Your brothers and sisters in bondage descend thi- ther in the darkness of brutal heathenism, from lives that know no consolation. What thy hands find to do, do with thy might. CONSTITUTIONALITY OF SLAVERY. 15 CONSTITUTIONAUTY OF SLAVERY [From the ll«-ra) fallen, depraved fellow-men ? Can he suppose the idea ? Is he susceptible of this transmutation ? He is, if any body is. 16 CONSTITUTIONALITY OF SLAVERY. Can he be transferred, by virtue of a few cries and raps of a glib-tongued auctioneer 1 Could a pedler sell him, from his tin cart? Could he knock him off, bag and baggage, to the boldest bidder ? Let us try it. No disrespect to our esteemed senior. — We test his allegation, that a man is property. If one man can be, any man can — himself, or his stately townsman, Major-Gene ral Wilson, who would most oddly become the auction platform. If a man can be property, he can be sold. If any man can be, every man can — Mr. Prentiss, Gen. Wilson, Rev. Mr. Barstow — every man. Let us try to vendue the Sentinel. Advertise him, if you please, in the Keene paper. On the day, produce him — bring him on — let his personal symmetries be examined and de- scanted on — his sacred person handled by the sacrilegious man- jockey, — let him be ordered to shift positions, and assume atti- tudes, and display to the callous multitude his form and propor- tions — his points, as the horse-jockey would say. How would all this comport with the high sense of personal honor, wont to be entertained by the Sentinel ? How would he not encounter a thou- sand deaths rather than submit to it 1 How his proud spirit, in- stinct with manhood, would burst and soar away from the scene ! Who bids? an able-bodied, capable, fine, healthy, submissive, contented boy, about fifty — sound wind and limb — sold positively for no fault — a field hand — come of real stock, — faithful, can trust him with gold untold — will nobody start him? — shall we have a bid ? — will nobody bid for the boi/ ? Now we demand of our respected brother, whose honor is as sacred in our regard as in his own, what he thinks of the chattelism of a slave, — for we indignantly lay it down as an immovable principle that the Hon. John Prentiss is as legitimate a subject of property and of sale, as any the lowest of his race. We dispose of the position that " slaves are property," by utterly and indignantly denying the possibility of it. We will rescue our brethren of the Sentinel from the imputation of this murderous idea, by erasing the semicolon after " property," and making but one sentence of the second " difficulty," turning it into an opinion that " slaves are property by the constitution and the laws ;" throwing the infamy on to the old framers of the COxNSTITLTIONALITV OF SLAVERY. I7 constitution, and all of us who h;ivc lived under it, wiili power to amend or nullify it. It would sink the whole of us. Consti- tution and laws ! Is the Sentinel of opinion that a constitution could be framed by men, or by existences in the shape of men, that, instead of protecting human liberty and rights, should anni- hilate them ? A constitution to enslave men ! What would you say of a British constitution, that enslaved a British subject ? Would you not scout the idea of it — oi iha British possibility of it ? and can it be done licre, and was it done here by revolution- ary sages, who could not brook the restraints of British liberty ? A con.'^titution, that should provide for the enslavement of a man, would be a legal abortion. The bare engrossing of it would nul- lify it. It woidd perish by spontaneous annulment and nullifica- tion. It coidd not survive its ordinntion — ii«>r could its infamous framcrs. We deny that an enslaved man is property by the con- stitution, and we might deny that any man can be enslaved under our constitution, and consequently, that he could be chattelized, if a slave were admitted to be property. Things may be appro- priated— ;/i«rs«/».'! may "ot. They are self-e\ idently not suscep- tible of appropriation or ownership. By the constitution every body is i'poken of as a person — no mention is made of human thiniTs. If a slave is alluded to, in that instrument, as a possible existence in point of fact, it is under the name of "person." " Three filths of all other perscns" — " migration or importation o( persons" — " no person held to service." These are the only instances in it where allusion is made to slaves, — and it no more, in those allusions, sanctions enslaving, than it does " piracies and felonies on the high seas," which it also expressly recognizes, as they say of slavery. So it says " person," where it solemnly asserts that " no person can be deprived of liberty or property, but by due process of law." This clause prohibits the slightest approaches to enslaving, or holding in slavery, which is continued enslaving. No persc^i's j)ro])criy can be taken from him; not his life even ; infinitely less his libeuty, without due legal pro- cess. It is idle to say, that the fraraers of the constitution, or those who adopted it and acted under it, did not mean to save the colored man from slavery, by this clause. In law they are to be 2* 18 CONSTITUTIONALITY OF SLAVERY. held to mean so, because they said so. The intent of the frainers is now to be gathered from what they said in the instrument it- self — not their colloquies at the time or before or after — but what they put down in imperishable black and white. It is what they inscribed on the parchment for all time, that they legally intend- ed, and there we are to go to get at their intent. If the words are obscure and ambiguous, we may gather their intent by aid of concomitant circumstances, &c. But there is no ambiguity here. The clearest words and best understood and most trimly defined of any we have, here set forth the essential doctrine, (without which a community of thieves and pirates could scarcely be kept together,) that life, liberty and property are sacred. Enslave man and leave him these three, and you may do it, maugre this clause of the constitution. However, you must leave him, by virtue of other clauses, a few other incidentals, such as compul- sory process for calling in all witnesses for him, of whatever color; the inviolate right to be secure in person, house, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures ; right of trial by jury in all cases over twenty dollars' value; the free exercise of religion, of speech, of the press, of peaceable assem- bly and of petition ; the civil rights of republican o-overnment, which is guarantied to him in every state in this Union • the privileges and immunities of citizens in every state ; in short you must allow him a string of franchises, enumerated accident- ally in that part of the old compact, called the preamble, viz. justice, domestic tranquillity, common defence, general welfare and, finally, the blessings of liberty to himself and to his pos- terity ; — moreover you may add, in repetition, — for in securing these breath-of-life sort of rights, people run a little into superflu- ity of words — you may add the unsuspendible privilege of habeas corpus — the old writ of liberty ; — and perfect exemption from all attainder, or enslaving a man's children on his account. We will mention one more — that is the uninfringible right to keep and bear arms. All these and many other rights and immunities, "too numerous to be mentioned," are secured to him by adaman- tine provisions in the constitution, and if you can chattelize him under them, so that Austin Woolfolk can trade in him, at your CONSTITUTIONALITY OF SLAVERY. 19 capital, or Wade Hampton or the American Board, can buy him and use liim up in their service, or Doctor Ezra Styles Ely spec- ulate in his soul and body, then your doctrine, Messrs. Sentinel, is sound, that he is recognized as property by the constitution. We claim some exceptions, however, in case we cannot over- throw slavery in the slave states, by force of the national consti- tution. We cannot allow you to enslave any body in old Virginia. Look at her law paramount in our caption, declaring the birth- right, IN-VLIENADLE LIBERTY OK ALL MEN. In Maryland the right is constitutionally set forth a little stronger. You must not enslave a man in Maryland, — and \vc can't allow you to lay a finger on his liberties in the district of Columbia, i)ecause the constitutions of Virginia and Maryland are still piiramount law there, by congressional adoption, at the acceptance of the ces- sions. And if he runs away from the district or a territory, or either of those two states, we can't allow ymi to arrest him and send him back. We ask our leg.U friends, who think lightly of this " fanat- icism," to look into this constitutional and legal matter of slave- holding. We would like especially, that som(> of the neighbors of the Sentinel would give some exposition, during the coming convention, of the lawfulness of enslaving people in this coun- try. We ask the Kcene lawyers how this is. We want " the opinion of the court." For ourselves we venture the opinion, in light of what glim- merings of law scintillate about our vision, tliat holding a man in slavery is a violation of the law of this land, and of every part of it, not excepting our gory-fingered sister Arkansas, or our car- nage-dripping sister Alabama, the haunt of christian enterprise from New England and the worn-out slave .states in the north. A constitution that can avail to protect republican liberty to a single member of this community, inviolably secures it to every man, and condemns and prohibits slavery. It cannot otherwise be. Slavery is a mere matter of fact — in the face of the consti- tution — in the face of each state constitution — in the face of every court of justice which soundly administers the law of any state — in face of every thing, btit a tyrant public sentiment, and a diabolical American practice. ■20 COiNSTlTUTIONALlTY OF SLAVERY. The enslaved of the country are as much entitled to tlieir liberty as any of us, by the law as it is. They have a right to throw off all violation of it by force, if they cannot otherwise. Nay, it is their duty to do so, if they can, — for it is not injury merely, that they are submitting to — not wrongs. Tiiey are rendered incapable of suffering injury — incompetent to endure wrong. The accursed system, that preys upon them, makes things of them — exterminates their very natures. This they may not submit to. They ought to prevent it, at every cxperise. They ought to resist it, as the Christian should the devil, for it wars upon the nature of man, and devours his immortality. If they could heave off the system by an instantaneous and uni- versal effort, they ought to do it. Individually we wish they could do it, and that they would do it. We may be wrong in this opinion — but we entertain it. If our white brethren at the South were slaves, we should wish them instantaneous deliv- erance by insurrection, if this would bring it to them. We wish our colored brethren the same. We do not value the bodily lives of the present white generation there a straw, compared to the horrible thraldom, in which they hold the colored people, and we value their lives as highly as we do the colored people's. But insurrection can't effect it. It must be done by the abolitionists. They must annihilate the system by force of their principles, and as fest as possible. And they must increase their speed. Men will have to groan and pant in absolute brutality, witli their high and eternal natures bound down and strangled amid the folds of this enslaving devil, until we throw it off. To the work then, and Heaven abandon the tardy ! If you wish to save your white brethren and yourselves, we commend you to this work, in sharp earnest. We tell you, once for all, there is no time to be lost ! There is no end to the theme — there must be to this article. We deny the truth and existence of the Sentinel's two dijjiculties, and if, in fact, they both existed, our movement " provides for them." The people collectively have the power to declare slavery a crime in the slave states. Congress has the power to do what amounts to the same thing — by direct action. They can declare it criminal in the capital, and how long would it be esteemed COLONIZATION LOVE AND "LOGIC 21 innocent elscwlicre ? Tliey can punish enslaving in the district, and tlie nian-trafllc between tlie states as piracy. Lci talionis would enslave the perpetrators — but that would be devilish, and ought not to be inllicted. But if hanging is lawful in any case, it is in this. If the people collectively and Congress have no legal power over the slavery of the slave states, abolitionists have the power, ample and adequate, and they will " provide for the dilRculty." The constitution and the laws do w«< recognize the si ivcs ;is j>rt- perty. We call for the proof The Sentinel avers it. Let thcni point us t(^ the spot where. And could they do this, the aSoli- tionists have the power (consult rule of lliree for the time it will take) to change and redeem both the constitution and the laws, and transmute this pr >perty back again to humanity. COLONIZATION LOVE AND "LOGIC." [rrom llic Hrr.ild of Froeilom nf Sept. 0, 1!'^>.".] "abolition loqic." ".\o/ hatp of one's nriglibor." We prove it to bo hate, bocaus? it wants to send off. Hatred roprls, and would expol. I»ve attracts, draws, wishes to drtain. Colonization proposes to rid tlie land of col- ored people. It therefore, cannol love tliein. Its love is more prcteace. — Hrra'.tl of Fieedom. Till.-! arijumont, poor as it is, with Irinlly 3|)cciousnr"Js cnonrfh to deceive a sensible boy of si.v yonrs obi, is the same that was used by Georpc Thompson, in our dcbati; with him in Boston. But bow will this arjjuniont work ? A New Hampshire futlicr sends off bis son to make bis fortune on the ricb lands of the West. Tben^fore he h/des him. A Boston morcliantsf(w/.» off Ins son to Europe or tJie East Indies, that he may oxtend bis scbemus of entorpriso, and acquire wealth. Therefore bo hnltJt him. We send off missionarios to barbarous nations, tliat tboy may extend tbo blossine i^jncious arguments, — " showy, plausible, superficially not solidly right," as Walker defines them. The Secretary had better not use any more of them. " Fair play is a jewel." " How will this argument work ?" Try it and sec, Secretary. COLONIZATION LOVE AND "LOGIC." 2? You don't try it. You put diflt-rent cases. Yoa speak of farm- ers sending away sons for their benefit and fortunes. We speak of sending off — a sending off to git rid of. Farmers don't send off their sons, unless they get angry, and forget tlieir nature, and disinhirit them. Tlien tht y send thcTn off. This sending to the West is not true in fact. The sons want to go from New Hampshire rocks to tlie prairied West. They have heard stories about it ahnost as extravagant and false .is the Secretary t.^lls about the death-hatnited capes of Liberia, where bones lie blcacli- ing as they do in the valley of the fabled Upas. The father wants them to stay with him, if he has got land for them, and if be han't, he would go with them. Tiiut is the way the father fen'ls. cff his sons. Does tlie .Secretary send off the drar eohrrrd people so? Would he accompany tlieni ? Let him go and edit at Gape Palmas, and sing his ditty of the " African steeples" about among king Joe Harris' people. They would admire his tall presence and his fine head, as the Cossacks did Murat on his black chir- ger. No. The Secretary loves — " society," that has got more " frame-work" in it. The dragon take Liberia, for all his going there ! It is a grand country for " free niggers ;" but the Secre- tary belongs to another reice. " The Boston merchant sends off his son," &c. Whoever heard of such a sending off? Would the weeping father, as the vessel, with his dear boy on board, was clearing the harbor and standing out into the wide sea, tell the disconsolate mother and the brothers and sisters — all in tears — "I've sent off Charles I" Sent him off! for shame. Secretary ! If you had instanced a Boston merchant, who had a poor, miserable, profligate, drunken, prodigal son, that had exhausted his paternal nature, and forged his name to checks — whom he did not wish to see hanged at home, f.ir the disgrace it would bring on the family, and he had shipped him aboard a man-of-war for the Mediterranean — or a whaler for a three years' chance among the storms of the cape, and the grampuses of the arctic circle, peradventure to come back, and peradverture not, then you might talk of a father's sendinrr his son off. But that comes too ne;ir colonizing, for the Secretary's purpose,-- -only he wants to ship the innocent — the 24 COLONIZATIOxN LOVE AND "LOGIC" blameless — the unoffending — guilty of nothing but want of the roseate huj of the beauteous, Absalom-looking Secretary. " We send off missionaries," &c. Only ta Liberia, Secretary. We send out to every other quarter. Note this peculiarity, reader, in our American efforts to evangelize the world. We send out white, educated, college-learned, beneficiary, Andover- finished theologians to those people we have never enslaved ; and to our old human hunting-ground we send off " abated nuisan- ces," called " free niggers," — sent off " loith t/uir otvn consent." (" He 'ticed him out of the field," says the witness ; " 'ticed him clear out." How did he 'tice him ? said the court. " O, he 'ticed him with a pitchfork.'") We had the curiosity to look, in this very number of the Secretary's " Statesman," to see what he called the sending of missionaries. He has a deal to say about love to the heathen. We lit upon " Missions to Liberia," the first thing almost. It is not the Secretary's own, but his faithful Achates, R. McDowell's. He gives us the very technical phrase for missionary sending; but there. is no o^ to it. "The first mission, established in Liberia," says McD., " was the Swiss mission, &c., sent out by Rev. Dr. Bleinhardt," 6lc. Don't talk of sending off sons and missionaries, any more, Mr. Secretary. It is too " specious." The Secretary says, we " ludicrously kill our argument before we get down our column." What is our argument 1 That sending off our free colored people, to rid the country of them, is proof of hatred towards them. How do we kill it ? Why, by saying it won't hurt a slave to send him aicay. Commend us ta such killing. " What is sauce for the goose, may be for the" Secretary ; but it don't follow, that what is bod for the freeman, would be bad for the slave. Would it be goud for the freeman of America to be sent to Algiers? We say it would not hurt the slave to be sent there. He would rejoice to get there, and we should rejoice io have him, if we can't free him here, — even to Liberia — rather than stay within influence of such teachers of humanity as McDufhe and Gurley. The Secretary's mention of our proposal to colonize the slaves in Canada, as a serious proposal, is so roguishly " specious," that ECLIPSK OF THE SUN. we can't answer it. — The charge of " insanity," abolilionists nre used to. The Secretary will be gl;ul to be so, by and by, when we get slavery down in this country. The cry from the West Indies makes him look wild. He will exclaim, by another year or two, when Congress, with old John Qiiincy Adams at their head, and Alvan Stewart and Wendell Phillips and Vermont Knapp to back him up, declare slavery down in the capital and the district — he will then cry out, as Atlialiah did, when she " heard the noise of the guard, the clapping of hands, and the God save king Joash." He will be stark crazy th^ii, — if he does not rejjent — which we hope he may. ECLIPSE OF THE SUN. [From the [Icrald of Freedom of Sept. 2i!, 1838.] Wk had a fine opportunity, on our way from Plymouth to Con- cord, to witness this grand conjunctiim of the mighty orbs of the sky — this conflict of the " greater and lesser lights" — the lesser obscuring the greater, as is sometimes the case among subhuiiry bodies, by force of position. The glorious sun was indeed "sick almost to doomsday," — and it was pitiful to see his regal distress, and with what dignity and decency he drew around him his robe of clouds, to hide his disaster and shame from the smoked-glass gaze of mortals. The atmosphere and the land.scapesombercd at his obscuration, and he looked, as the foul intrusion overshadowed his disk, like a noble nature seized upon, darkened, marred and smothered to blackness and darkness, by the Genius of slavery. The envious eclipse passes off, and the released luminary shines on gloriously again in mid heaven. Slavery is perpetual eclipse — sickness to " doomsday" — eternal obscuration. May God in his mercy rectify the erring orbs of life, to prevent and remove such fatal moral conjunctions. All animate creation seemed to apprehend and notice instinc- tively the malady of the heavens. The few birds that remain e.xtant at this unmusical season, gave token of their apprehension 3 20 ECLIPSE OF THE SUiN. of ni*jlit-fall by betaking themselves to the topmost boughs of the trees — to get as late a good-night as they could, from the blessed luminary whose good morrow they hail with such choral glad- ness, in that joyous season when " the time of the singing of birds is come." The cricket and the grasshopper, in tlic fields by the road side, set up, as night came down, their twiliglit hum, and blew their " drowsy bugle." A drove of cattle, through which we passed, on the way to Brighton — like a ccffle from the city of Washington to Alabama — halted, as the drover told us, as if the hour for putting up for night had come. And our own good steed, refreshed by the coolness of the temperature, and warned by the~ deepening shadows, set up his evening trot, in full remembrance, as well as his master, of Concord hospitality — for he has a " memory like a horse" — and had every visible and ostensible reason to believe, that stable-time and release from the harness were at hand. Would that the poor human cattle of the republic could realize such a season ! But neither night nor eclipse brnigs respite to them. They ake slaves. At the height of the obscuration, the sky wore the appearance of real sunset — a sunset far up from the horizon, with blue sky below, between it and the hills. The passing off of the eclipse was invis 1 le, by reason of the thick, hard, night-looking clouds, and the sun did not reappear to give assurance of his recovery. May it not be emblematic of the extinction of slavery in this country amid the gloomy shadowings and night of insurrection, which our friend, the Observer, deprecates with such deep shud- dering — while the prospect of itmial davcry he can 1< ok on with most se ( ne compi sure. The " specious" twilight of the eclipse gradually put on even- ing's bona fide enshroudings, and settled into but we forget that our eclipse was seen by all our readers, and will leave them, with the wish, that the sun may rise upon them again on the morrow, all unmarred and unscathed by his conflict with the "dirty planet," and light them all on the way tr> a day cf anti- slavery gratitude and duty. BALLOON ASCENSION. 07 BALLOON ASCENSION. [From the Herald of Freedom of Sept 20, 1333] One of these presumptuous " quittings of one's sphere," lo " rush into the skies," was attempted in our little capita] city, on Friday, tlie2lst inst.,aud with vcrv h;indsonie success, Pupular curioi?ity poured in to witness it, under unibrellaj: and cloaks, from all the surrounding country. — We wi.sh lliey would take hijf the pains to free their country from slavery, that they will to see a great soap-bubble go up into the air, with a gaseous man sub- joined to it. It was a novel sight, to be sure, and if it is to be rfrt/if, perhaps it may as well be $rni ; though going to see it, is all the occasion of the poor skyman's venturing up. He can have no t>ther. — This aerostation can never, probably, come to any thing usefuL We can't navigate, for tlit- purposes of comnierce, travel, or discovery, "the brave o'er-hanging firmament," or explore, in this gas-distended craft, the great orb of day, the waning moon, or those islands of light, that sprinkle at night the boundless Pacitic " hung on high." — No rudder can be invented, that shall steer the litjlit air-ship throuirh the billowy clouds. The compass will not traverse, to point to the celestial pole, and no anchor can fix its crooked fluke in the bottom of the aeronaut's ocean. The utmost result of a voyage is the escape of the voyager with a wliole neck. Science can derive no accessions from it. It caimot promise even the north-west passage to China, to explore which, English audacity has braved the liorrors of the polar half- year's night — the formidable ice-islands — and all the terrors of the arctic wiiiler — a passage which commerce of course could not use, if tlioy coidd find one, without a Parry or a Ross in every iiuTclnntrnnn. Mr. Lauriat wont up at Concord. His balloon, made of oiled silk, containing, as was said, seven hundred yards, and covered with a fi:ie nettinsj, was about two hours infliting. The gas was made in hoosheads, passed from them tlirough tin tubes, going out of the tiifht heidin^rs, as the casks stood on end — and leading into reservoirs cf lime water, which purified the gas as it passed 28 BALLOON ASCENSION. through it, — out of which it was conducted, in large cloth ducts, into one which entered the throat of the balloon. The balloon, when filled, was about sixty feet high and thirty through. As it filled and struggled to rise, like an overgrown elephant, it was held down by the cords attached to the netting, by a circle of spectators and others standing round it. The car was brought and suspended directly under the centre, by these cords. It was of basket work, about a foot high, and from four to five feet over ; a net work connected a hoop with it about eighteen inches above, to keep the navigator from falling overboard. About 5 o'clock, in the midst of a rain, he got on board his frail vessel, and they let him up, by a cord about twenty feet, when he made a short valedictory, cut his cable with his pocket knife, with rather an agitated hand, as we thought, and went up. The ascent was very graceful and gentle, and reminded us of the ascent of thistle-down. The multitude dismissed him with a good-natured hurrah — and he was soon so high that he looked more like a puppet than a man. He waved a little flag, which, if it was the starred and striped one we sometimes see flapping at liberty poles down here, could be more appropriately unfurled after he had passed beyond the clouds, than this side of them. When his vehicle was reduced to about the size of a hand, he went in behind a cloud-curtain, and disappeared. He went to Canterbury, about a dozen miles distant, and lighted down among the broad'brimmed hats of our friends the Shakers, about twenty minutes after he started, took a drop, as we are told, of their imperial cider, to keep the clouds from striking to Jiis stomach, remounted and rode on, upon the twilight air, to Northfield, and landed near where Samuel Tilton, Esq. once arrested George Storrs for prayer. He was dripping wet, having rode in the rain and among the very springs of foul weather, most of his way — - though a portion of his journey was, we imderstand, above them in clear sky. When he was above the clouds, he said it seemed to him he was stationary, though he knew he must be moving. he knew not whither, with great velocity. He could not see the earth. His greatest elevation Avas eleven thousand feet. One of the greatest balloon feats we believe ever performed, GEORGE THOMPSON. 29 was by a Mr. Bl;inchard and another adventurer, who sailed from Dover clilFs in England, crossed the entire British channel, and landed safely in France. It would have been much safer, how- ever, and (juite as rational, to take the Calais packet. The chief end and result of ballooning seem to be, as in the case of the intrepid Samuel Patch, (who ascended the other wnv,) to show that " some thinrrs can be done as well as ethers." GEORGE TlIOMPSOxN. [From the Herald of Freedom of Sept. 2?, 1838.] Our readers may remember that his excellency Governor Ilill, the Reverend Wilbur Fisk, D. D., Pre^iident of Wcslcyan Uni- versity, the Honorable Charles G. Atherton, one of our free and enlightened delegation in Congress, and sundry other dignit irics in church and state, as well tis the Honorable their Graces th'^ Concord mob — while Mr. Thompson was in this countrv, nnd soon after our brutality drove him from these guilty shores, — took great liberties with his name, and attempted liberties with his person. We call the attention of these distinguished function- aries to st)me of their savings and doings, and will then sulijoiu some few of the testimonials recently come to us from England, or which will be new to them, we presume, as they would not be likely to encounter them in the courseof their more lofty readings. " This fugitive from ju.stice," said ftis excellency Isaac Hill — this " bankrupt in character and in purse," said his highness the Reverend Doctor Fisk, a gratuitous vindicator of slavery — " a miscreant who had fled fr«)m the indignation of an outraged people," declaimed the pert Mister Atherton — amen to the wliole of it, repeated their Graces the mob. Hear Thomas Fowell Buxton, the Wilberforce of the British parliament — one of the ornaments of philanthropy for all Chris- tendom. It was at a gre.at anti-slavery meeting in the city of Norwich, in the neighl>orhood of where this fugitive from justice had been brousjht up. He had just spoken on the platform wheie 3* 30 GEORGE THOMPSON. Buxton and other great men of England sat. " I come here," says Thomas Fowell Buxton, " to declare my assent to the great doctrine of immediate abolition of the apprenticeship, as well as to hear a speech from George Thompson, with whose sentiments I fully concur, and with whom I hope to labor through years to come, shoulder to shoulder, for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade throughout the world." " Fugitive from justice" in- deed — " bankrupt in character," with a witness ! Hear Ralph Wardlaw, of Glasgow, one of the ablest, pro- foundest divines and writers in Europe. After Mr. Thompson's victory in Scotland over Rev. Robert J. Breckenridge of Balti- more, who honored the challenge of this " fugitive from justice" in the very land from which he fled, — fought with him in presence of 1200 of the very flower of the city of Glasgow, and fell before him there — at a public meeting held in Dr. Heugh's clnpel in commemoration of this victory. Dr. Wardlaw said of Mr. Thomp- son, " With the ability, the zeal, the eloquence, the energy, the steadfastness of principle, the exhaustless and indefatigable per- severance of OUR CHAMPION, we were more than satisfied." — " We sent him to America," said Dr. Wardlaw. " He went with the best wishes of the benevolent, and the fervent prayers of the pious. He remained in the faithful, laborious and perilous execution of the commission entrusted to him, as long as it could be done without the actual sacrifice of life. He returned. We hailed his arrival," &c. " Fugitive from justice," says the New Hampshire governor. " We sent him," says Dr. Wardlaw. " Bankrupt in character," says the Rev. Dr. Fisk. " He return- ed," says Dr. Wardlaw, " and we hailed his arrival." And now hear Henry Brougham, in the House of Lords. We put him against the American Brougham, who called George Thompson " miscreant !" against the Honorable Charles G. Ath- crton, of America. In the House of Lords, July IGth ultimo, in reply to Lord Glenelg, who claimed for the British government the credit of abolishing slavery in the West India islands — Lord Brougham said that " he maintained that, but for the interference of this country by the friends of emancipation and of liberty, there would not to-day have been received such a despatch as DR. WAYLAND. 31 li.ul arrived from tlic governor of Jamaica." " lie would say, ' Honor to those to whom honor was due.' lie would name such men as Joseph Sturge, John Scoble, William Allen, and other noble-minded and devoted philanthropists — and above all he would name one — one of the most eloquent men he had ever heard either in or out of parliament — he meant the gallant and highly-gifted George Thompson, who had not alone exerted him- self in the cause of humanity in this country, but had risked his life in America, in the pronndgation of those doctrines, which he knew to be founded in truth." Has our daiiitv-hngered little statesman ever heard of Henry Brougham, of England — that intellectual Titan — that coni!)ina- tion of all that is glorious in the history of British genius and learning and eloquence and patriotism ; the pride of Westminster hall, the peerless among her peerage, the very star of Kngland, the man whose impre.-s, of all others, this age and coming .iges will bear wherever the English language shall be spoken, the man whose mental influence is felt from the palace to the hovel, from the queen to the chimney-sweeper — has the Honorable Mr. Atherton heard of him, and does he call " miscreant' tl'.e man w ho receives such eulogium from his lips, in the face of Europe ? Fugitive from justice ! Is the companion of Brougham and O'Connell and Buxton and Sturge and Scoble and Allen and Wardlaw, a " felon" and a " bankrupt in reputation" in England — a miscreant? What say you, ]Messrs. Hi!!, Eisk, Atherton, and mob, will you repe;it your words in face of such testi- monials as these ? LIMITATIONS OF HUMAN RESPONSIBILITIES.— DR. WAYLAND. [From the Herald of Freedom of Oct. G, 1838] We were unpleasantly surprised, on receiving our la.st number of the " Comprehensive Commentary" and the " Supplement," from our crood anti-slavcrv friend Boutelle, to find the mifeelins 32 LIMITATIONS OF RESPONSIBILITIES. author of the " limitations" posted up, in the frontispiece, by Dr. Jenks, at his own right hand, and directly over the head of old President Dwight. Perhaps this is a sort of peace-offering to the slaveholder — a bit of policy to give the " Commentary" a currency among our " southern brethren." The Doctor's image would give the Commentary a cordial passport to the heart of every slaveholder. He would expect to find the Bible itself chock full of limitations of human obligations and warrant for slaveholdin^. We should not dare send a lad to the Doctor's college, for fear he would teach him this science of " limitations ;" a science as fatal to human welfare as the atmosphere of Upas is to healthful respiration. What a kindly blow has the Rev. Doctor here struck at religion and humanity, by this work, with a most significant and appropriate title — " Limitations of Responsibilities !" Abridg- ment of human obligations ! Curtailment of moral obligations ! Irresponsibilities to God and man ! What a title and a work, to surprise and delight the devil withal ! Give me, quoth the devil, these abridgers of human liability. O no, sweet mortals, " ye shall not surely die." Hath God indeed said so and so? It may be — but then the meaning hath excellent " limitations." Com- mend me, quoth the arch-gambler for the exposed soul, to these highly taught rabbies — brought u;> at foot of Gamaliel, who will ratiocinate the apprehensive mind clear of the trammels of re- sponsibility. It has been a desideratum with human depravity, from the first transgression down, to discover that this fatal responsibility had limits — some resting place, short of these crucifying recjuire- ments. Orthodoxy itself hath at last discovered it, and the for- tunate finder is Doctor Francis Wayland. "Granting slavery to be in violation of the law of God," says the daring Doctor, " it still remains to be decided, what is our duty respecting it." In this horrible doctrine we cannot agree, but say rather, that granting slavery, or any thing else, to be in vio- lation of that law, it is decided, and always has been, that our duty is forthwith to labor to our utmost for its immediate suppression. The Doctor's essay is to " kill tho ab litionists dead." Colonel DR. WAVLAND. 33 Mordecai Noah, of the tribe of Is^achar, says exuhingly, that it is doing it. A band of self-devoted men and women have formed tlicmn. The air fresh, free and wiiolcsomo, — i»o steaming of the fever and ague of the West, or the ran/: shici holding oi' ihc South, — the road almost dead level for miles and miles among mountains that lay oTcr the land like the great swells of the sea, and looking, in the pros- pect, as though there could be no passage. On the whole, we never, in our limited travel, experienced any thing like it, and we commend any one, given to despondency or dumps, to a ride, in beginning of October, chaise-iop back, fleet horses tandem, fresh from the generous fodder and therongh-g< i:ig groomage of Steel's tivcrn, a forenoon ride, from AV'hite-river Sharon, through Tunbriilge, to Chelsea Hollow. There's nothing on Salem turnpike like the road, and nothing, any where, a match for "the lay of the land" and the ever-varying, .mimating land- scape. We cim't praise Vermonters for their fences or their barn.", and it .seems to us their out-liouses and door-yards hardly corre- spond with the well-built dwellings. But they have no stones for wall — no red oak or granite for posts, or pine growth for rails and boards in their hard-wood forests, and we queried, ai we observed their " insuflicient fences" and lack of p(^unds, whether such barriers as our side of the Connecticut we have to rear about an urcnsional patch of f red, could be necessary in a coun- try where no " creatures" appeared to run in the road, and where JAUNT TO VERx\IONT. there was not choice enough in fio.ld ar.d pasture, to make it an object for any body to be breachy, or to stray — and where every lioof seemed to have its hands full at home. Poor fences there seemed to answer all purposes of good ones among us, where every blade of grass has to be watched and guarded from the furtive voracity of hungry New Hampshire stock. The farmers looked easy and care-free. We saw none that seemed back-broken with liard work, or brow-wrinkled with fear o^ coming to 7va)it. How do your crops come in, sir? " O, middlin'." — How much wheat? "Well, about three hundred. Wheat han't filled well." — How much hay do you cut? " Well, sir, from eighty to one hundred ton." Corn? "Over four hun- dred; corn is good." How many potatoes? "Well, I don't know; we've dug from eight hundred to one thousand." How many cattle do you keep? " Only thirty odd head this year; cattle are scarce." Sheep? " Three hundred and odd." Horse kind? " Five," and so on. And yet the Vermont farmers are leaving for the West. The only thing we saw, that looked anti-republican, was their magnificent State House, which gleams among their hills more like some ancient Greek temple, than the agtiuy Jwzisc of a self- governed democracy. It is a very imposing object. Of the severest and most compact proportions, its form and material (the solid granite) comporting capitally with the surrounding scenery. About one hundred and fifty feet long, and some eighty or one hundred wide, we should judge, an oblong square, with a central projection in front, the roof of it supported on a magnificent row of granite pillars — the top a dome without spire. It looks as if it had been translated fi-om old Thebes or Athens, and planted down among Ethan Allen's Green Mountains. It stands on a ledge of rock ; close behind it a hill, somewhat rocky and rug- ged for Vermont ; and before it, descends an exceedingly fine and extensive yard, fenced with granite and iron in good keeping with the building, the ground covered with the richest verdure, broken into wide walks, and planted with young trees. It is a very costly structure ; but Vermont can afford it, though we hold to cheap and very idain State houses, inasmuch as the seat of JAU.NT TO VERMONT. 37 government with us is, or should be, at the people's homes. We want to see the dwelling-houses of the "owners of tlie soil," tlie pnlaces of the country. There the sovereignty of tiie country should hold its court, and there its wealth should be expended. Let (lesp.its and slavelu-lders build tliiir pompous i)i;l)lic i)iles and their pyramids of Egypt. The apartments and fiiruituro of the Slate H«Mi.-e withiu are very rich, and, we should jiuige, higlily conuncidious. The Ilepre.'Vntatives' Hall a semicircular, with cushioned seats, a luxury hardly suited to the humor of the stout old Aliens and Warners of early times, and comporting but slightly with the hardy habits of the Green Mountain boys, who now come there, and in brief sessicn pass anti-slavery resolutions, to the dismay of the haughty South, and the shame of the neighboring dough- faced Nc predicated of fallen, depraved men, that thoyuill bf> likely to overrun their obligations ? Need they be guarded against an extravagance like this? Need ministers of the gospel tax tiu'ir ingenuity in a behalf like this? Gener:illy this class of men have Ijcen engaged, on what they cidl in court " the other side;" in enforcing human obligations, and iti setting forth and iirt we want our neighbors to help put the fire out ? If we were in the water, going to the bottom, could we bear it that neighbors should go inditTerently by, and let tis sink — that thev should merely pity us — in the abstract? The slaveryca.se is exceed- ingly plain. Slavery is the creature of tolerance — of public sulTerance. Southern slavery exists in northern sufferance. The NoTih is the seat of American sufferance. It is the theatre of 40 DR. FRANCIS WAYLAND. moral influence for this nation. There is no such influence in the South — that is, no reforming influence except by negative operation. What is the moral influence of New Orleans en the nation? What of Charleston, or Mobile, or St. Louis, or Rich- mond, or any of the states or people of which these are the capi- tals? What religious or moral enterprise ever originated, or advanced in any of these places or people? They no more influ- ence the country, than gamblers, drunkards, thieves, religiously influence the church. The church influences them for good or for evil, according to her faithfulness or unfaithfulness in her Master's service. The North influences the South in the mattei of slavery. Yea, the North acts with the South in slaveholding. They directly and professedly uphold the system wherever they have occasion. They tolerate it in the District of Columbia. They directly sustain it in the territories. They allow the slave trade between the states. They conspired with the South in the constitution, that the foreign trade in slaves should not be inter- rupted by Congress for twenty years. They voted ihnt Arkansas should come into the Union, with a constitution guarding slavery with a two-edged sword, giving the slaveholder a veto upon an emancipating legislature, and the legislature a check upon the repentant slaveholder. They have vcted to admit a system that forbids and discourages repentance of the sin of slaveholding, and m^kes it desperate. All this has been done solemnly and with deliberation, and in legislative form — and the whole nation has tacitly allowed those of its people who chose, to hold i-laves. It has never been disreputable, but highly the contrary, to hold slaves in this country. Is not a nation answerable for the vices and crimes which are reputable and popular within its borders? If a nation has any moral influence, any moral stand^n-d, is it not responsible for what that standard does not condemn? Has not this nation cast all its presidential votes for two men, guilty at the very moment of the election and all their days before and since, of the crime of slaveholding — Andrew Jackson, a slave- holder and a slave driver, and voted for twice by a majority of the electoral suffrage of this nation, north and south — and Henry Clay, a slaveholder and a notorious compromiser in the service (>;<. FIIANCIS WAVLANU. 41 of the infernal system, voted for by the rest of the nation. Jack- son chosen by northern men a^iaii-t .\fi:;nis a nortli' rii iivm. And then a nortlicrn man abandoned by northern men, one and the same party, in favor of Clay, a southern slaveholder We have nothing to do with abolisbinor slavery, savs the Doc- tor Wayland, ciilier as citizens of the United States, or as men. Our responsibilities for its removal are all limited away. On the very face of our case, it is palpable and grossly evident, we say, that the nortliern people have at least as much to do with its abolition as the people of the south. They have at least as much to do with its continuation. They arc as directly engniTcd in it. They have tiie control of it in the national councils wherever it exists within congressional jurisdiction. It is the North, and not llie South, that prevents a legislative abolition of it in the District of Columbia. Slavery in the national district is a norfliorn insti- tution, and not a southern. It is the " peculiar institution" there of the North, and not of tiie South. Is it not so? Wc declare then, that, as citizens and as men, we at the North have some- thing to do with the abolition of American slavery — ay, that we have cvtrti tliins^ to do with it. We can abolish it, a'ld we alone can. We ought to abolish it, an«l we alone ought to do it, aa appears at first impartial glance. " I think it evident," says Dr. Wayland, " that as citiznis of the Unitrd States:, we have no power whatever either to abolish slavery in tlie southern states, or to do any thing of which the direct inteutiosed the treachery, the baseness, the duplicity, the tyranny, the savage cruelty, the more than sav- age — the republican and civilized — barbarity of this country. He paid some merited compliments to the learned law-oHiccrs of this great repul)iic, for their ofticial opinions, as counsel, advising this mighty nation on the legal effect of some of their processes to " extinguish Indian titles" to country and to home and hearth- stone. We wish these cabinet officers had been present. But their clients were, and it may not well become parties to abuse their ingenious counsel. We do not attempt a complimentary notice of this lecture. We felt mortified and humbled through the whole of its delivery, eloquent, powerful, graceful and forcible as it was. We felt that a few such finolv drawn laments was all the relief the country promised the wretched Indian. The generous and indignant orator himself would say, we proBunip, if n<e establishment of a new state anti-slavery paper in the old commonwealth. We don't know but it -.vill be regarded by our brethren in that state, as " out of our sphere" to i^ieddle with that proposal. But we cannot refrain — though too late to affect, so far as our small inlhiencc nnght, the movement contemplated there, which is probably consummated this week. There are three objects to be affected by it — urging political action independent of party ; exclusive devotion to anti- slavcrv ; and control by the State society. As to the lirst, who can urge political action, and all other, with the force and the single-eyed constancy of the Liberator I As to this cTclnsivc devotion, there seems to us some indefinite- ness. For how broad is anti-slavery? Whether the Liberator be or not exclusively devoted to anti-slavery, depends on the ques- tion how broad is anti-slavery proper, and on how wide and deep foundations it must be based. The anti-slavery of many aboli- tionists is exceedingly narrow, and of very slight depth. Bona- parte and Murat were anticipating a petty battle in Egypt. — CO MASSACHUSETTS. Napoleon, who looked more deeply into things than the king of Naples, said solemnly, that " on its result hung the fate of Europe." "The fate of this hattk, at least," s: id Murat — for he could see no farther. We do net pretend, f».r curselves, to limit, very defmitely, the anti-slavery enterprise. We hold its "gross and scope," to be the mere abclition of American negro slavery. As to the matter of control, we caution brethren, with rll de- ference, not to covet control of the Liberator. The contrcllcrs of that sheet and its conductor would find themselves clothed with an awkward trust. That paper started the anti-slavery enterprise. It pioneered it. It pioneers it to this day, and will and must, God willing, pioneer it to the end of it. Whoever undertakes its control, will find they have mistaken their strength. The continental Congress would have acted unwisely, had they assumed special c mtrol of the movements of the continental arm} and its grave chieftain. Those of us, who came into the service late, — after societies were formed, and who are the creatures of societies — may be properly under society supervision. But the originator of the enterprise — the bold projector of the expedi- tion — the Columbus of this exploration for the new world of Liberty, — to control and limit his course, would be too much like subjugating the compass to the regulation of the rash mariner, — or the north star itself, to the influences of the vibrating needle. The Liberator undertakes no guidance of abolitionists. It seeks none. It would accept none if proffered. It could exer- cise none. It wants no followers. It has too much personal freedom to want followers. It would place no dependence on them. It has no respect for them. But it jvill pioneer us. We can't help it. The Liberator can't help it. It has a mental and moral calibre different from that of the rest of us. It has a clearer vision, a profounder sagacity than any and all of us. In a storm, all hands would call the Liberator to the helm. Every department of our now extended enterprise feels its miglity in> pulses. All would at once miss its agency, if withdrawn. If God should withdraw it, our cause would go oji, and other hands be emboldened and strengthened to grasp our flag staft', and MASSACflURKTTS 6| cheer us onward. If we strike down the Liberator, God will carry on our cause, but not by our instrumentalily. To hoist a superseding flag (and that is tlie secret of this move- ment) in MassJichusetts, seems to us would be the heiirht of folly. It would be a superfluity — a sort of rus;h-liirht illumination in aid of day-light. It is grossly unnecessary there ; and it could not be maintained. Wo tojhe rash hand that should undertake to hold that fl.ig in the wind. The rude breezes and rouuh weather, that float the strong sheet of the Liberator, and unfurl its solenm folds, would shiver the rash ensign, "Till ltd rent canvass fluttering strowcd tlie gale." The storms that are the breath and element of the Liberator, that flag could not live in. And why hoist it ? where is the need, and where the occasion ? Did France want new banners in Itnlv, when her eagles had stooped from the high Alps upon the Po ? Did she want other leading, after Marengo and L(»di ? Did she lack champions while Napoleon was trampling the " vinevards of Europe !' This may sound extravagantly, to speak of Napoleon and Washington along with your mobbed printer, whom you know and sec, — but mark us, brethren, the day comes, when a little antiquity, ay, a verv little, will invest the name of that printer with a magnitude and a dignitv, which will cast forever into for- gotfulncss, these sicordsmm and statesmen. We hazard the ex- travagant prediction. A state anti-slavery paper in Massachusetts while the Libera- tor lives ! An anti-slavery editor there, while Garrison is in the field ! Preposterous — suicidal — vulgarly ungrateful ! Why, strike down every flag of us, from ^Laine to the Ohio, — from the gorgeous streamer that floats in firmament beauty over the tower- loss city of Penn to our own little rag that wrestles here with tl^.e breath of the White Mountains, — strike us all down at a blow, and we should not be missed like the mighty Liberator. There haniTs, and should forever hang, the broad pendant of the anti- slavery fleet ! On the deck of the Massachusetts rides Nelson — Nelson of the Nile. God grant we hasten no Trafalgar — none at least without its being purchased of the enemy. 6 62 ANTI-SLAVERY DIVISIONS. Brethren of Massachusetts, we solemnly warn you, lay no rash hand on the Liber at )r. Do not embarrass it. Do not call off its energies from the enemy upon yourselves. You need all its power. You never needed it more. Has it errors? Put them down — put them down in its own columns. Those are now open to you — close them not up. Don't charge it with errors which you dare not refute. Pour your antidote alongside its bane, in its own columns. That is your only safety and honor. We hint no opinions on the subjects of your complaint. But we declare this. No man should embarrass or limit at all the right of discussion. Don't overawe that right. Give it free scope. It is the life and salvation of your enterprise. It is the very breath of anti-slavery. Encourage the freest — the very freest expression of honest opin- ion. Above all, cherish the man who pays no homage to human authority. The age should cherish him as the apple of its eye. ANTI-SLAVERY DIVISIONS. [From the Ileiald of Freedom of ISIarch 16, 1839.] Discord, alienation, and open feud, breaking out in the anti- slavery camp ! Not differences of opinion, — not mental disa- greement — discussion — debate, — but hostility, distrust and mu- tual crimination ! — and .among such men — Stanton, Garrison, Phelps, — and such bodies — the executive committees of the National Society and of the pioneer society of the old common- wealth. We lament it — are grieved — mortified — alarmed at it. Brethren concerned, — is this icarrantable ? Is this a ti?ne for in- ternal divisions? When the eyes of the disquieted, agitated, awa- kened world are just opened upon us, — when, by the help of God, we have just arrested to our doings and our cause, the unheeding current of mankind, — shall we now amuse them with a gladiator- ship of our champions ? And is it time of truce, that we may indulge in private encounters upon the wall ! Now, when our despairing adversary, terribly enraged, is gathering himself, amid ANTI-SLAVEIIV DIVIci^IONS. (53 mortaJ wounds, for the fiaal struggle, and Clay leads on the for- lorn hopr, — Napoleon hin;s:lf ch rging with tlie Old Guard, which never charged but when the field was an Austerlitz or a Waterloo ! Is this the time for our champions to turn their steel on ( ach other, in si^ht of both hosts ? It mii?t not — nav, it siiAi.i, not be. We fhinand of our brethren, that it cease. We c:ill tm the Voice of Freedom and the Advocate of Freedom, our strong northniost brothers in arms, on Maine and Vermont, tt) join us in this remonstrance. We who stand afar b;ick liere to watch the frontier — along these Canadian borders — our bre- thren will allow us this license of position. The.-^c conllicts uw^t cease. We inquire not the cause. We demand cessation i.f the rfftets. AV'e had heard of anticipated troubles before the Massa- chusetts annual meeting — but dreamed of nothing like this. We apprehended nothing but some repetition of clerical appfllanci/. We knew nothing of names. But, alas! it is u>es clustering together with all the sociable proximity of the citv, were forsaken by the lum- bermen of liarrington and Barnstead and Pittsfield and North- wood — and its flagged and worn sidewalks sprung to grass. It now seems to be reviving again; not under the returning in- fluences of trade, but the more lasting and substantial thrill of agriculture. The land around it is of exceeding fertility and beauty, and under the fostering influences of temperance ami anti-slavery (and of resulting religion) could these be brought to bear upon it, it would soon reg lin an ascendancy, of which no rival Dovers or New Markets could deprive it. Its prosperity wouM then be based on the imperishable foundations of good principles and good husbandry. Its verdant soil would maintain the popu- lation of a city. The ocean flows up into its little creeks, and its quiet river is visited by small craft from the sea, distant some ten miles. I repeat that anti-slavery, temperance and religion, and the enlightened and industrious tilling of the rich ground with which a bounteous God has blessed them, would, in a brief period, make Durham the pride of the state. Total abstinence must make its people temperate. You would not then, as you rode into town from the eastward, meet the farmers of the neigh- boring region, returning towards the sunset, with faces as red as ithat luminary's in harvest time, and with a light borrowed, not where the moon borrows hers, but at the inflammatory fountains of the unconscionable village grocer. To bring about this tiUal absti- nence, the professors of religion must press the whole power of the 72 LETTER TO ALBE CADY— EXTRACT. Bible upon the nin of this spirit excitement. They must establish and enforce the principle, that the slightest indulgence in ardent spirit or any of its auxiliaries, is a crime against God, who de- mands of man a worship and a service, which he cannot render, when touched, ever so lightly, by this unhallowed inspiration. To touch it to the taste, is sin. The soul should be left to the utmost use of all its faculties and powers. Under its care and culture, the landscape would then revive and smile like the garden of Eden. The cry of the American bondman, for his liberty at the hand of the nation, would then reach the ear and the heart of a clear-minded and magnanimous community. Every man and every household would be abolitionists. The Spirit of God, always striving with man till grieved and driven finally away, would be rcisisted no longer, among a people who had crucified their prejudices and denied their appetites the strange delights of intoxication. Reli- gion would cover the face of the land with the verdure of salva- tion. On my way I crossed the bold and beautiful Northwood hill. A clear pond mirrored at the foot of its western slope. The smooth path ascended gently over it, bordered with green. The road-side was sowed thick with dandelions, yellow as gold, and " rich as the crown of a king;" and above, as the sun broke out, the termagant bobalink hovered, scolding at the delinquent plant- ers, and uttering his season cry, " Plant your corn ! j)lant your corn !" From the top of the hill you behold the level-ocean region stretching to the sky, and extending the whole semi-circle of the horizon. You feel at once that you are in the neighbor- hood of the great sea. To the west the rude and rugged inland of New Hampshire. A glorious swell of land to inhabit and inhale the breezes of liberty. I wondered, as I contemplated it, how editorial genius could be born and bred there, without catch- ing the love of freedom and emancipation. It is the early home, I believe, of the accomplished editor of the Nevvs-Letter. This morning I took stage for the metropolis — passed the beautiful New Market factories and flourishing village — the dull village of Exeter, which with all its remaining splendor looked EMANCIPATION IN THE WEST INDIES. 73 to me like a " decayed gentleman," a dilapidated aristocrat. I thought it would be one of the last places that would hear of the anti-siavcry revolution, or any of the great reforms of the day. Thi^- \v;ia 'ik mere passing apprehension, and may be wholly a mistaken one. The respectable and high-born old town may be, at tliis hour, full of ultra temperance men and " technical abo- litionists." I could perceive, in my rapid ride through it, no signs of this, however, except the sign of the oflice of the " News- Letter" — indeed I did not discover that, thougii I respectfully looked for it. At Haverhill we took passage in the car.s for the city, at half past one, and were scarcely seated, when the mighty propulsor, aggravated by the interesting conversation of some anti-slavery ladies, hurried us at once from the green and glowing country into the confused city. EMANCIPATION IN TIIK WEST INDIES. [From the Herald of Freedom of Aug. 31, 18.39.] Complaints are frequently made that it docs not work well. The great proof is, that the sugar crop is lessened. And why should not it be lessened, if emancipation works well or works at all ? Before emancipation, the sugar crop was all in all. It was l!ie whole crop and fruit of slavery. All was raised and made that could be, and as much exported and as little consumed at home, as could be. It was the slave's business to produce — not consume. Now he is emancipated ; and what follows? Why, there IS something else to be done in the islands, beside the sweet work of making sugar to sell and nourish the idle masters. The col- ored man is no longer doomed and devoted and sacrificed to sugar making. It is not now " the chief end of man" there. The man has something else to do. He has houses to build, to live in. Ilis Imd to carry on, to raise provision on. He cats some of the sugar he makes, and does not leave it all to swell the crop for the market. He has to help build the school-house and 7 74 EMANCIPATION IN THE WEST INDIES. the chapel, ay, the chapel. There is great call for chapels in the West Indies. Chapels are looking up there. Chapels are rising. There is fencing to make, we take it, and premises to rig up and repair and make comfortable. The women too are leaving the fidcl, and turning tlieir hands to house-uwrk. They are quitting their sphere in tlie cane-field, and betaking themselves to domestic institutions. And the children — they are going to school, and instead of making sugar, tnaking progress in the a b ah business. This draws off a good share of the effective force from the szocet business of the plantation. And after all, only one twentieth of the crop is diminished, from the utmost result of the whole slave force of the islands, — driven at the top of their speed, at high-pressure whip-power. Only ^j — such is the superior vigor and productiveness of free, over slave labor. The crop will by and by increase twenty-fold. Not all for exportation, to be sure — for consumption, portion of it — Ziowc-consumption ; for there is getting to be homes in the West Indies. " Sunrise" no longer " brings sorrow" there. " Childhood is" no more " win- tt-y" in the sunny isles of the Carribean. Other things will be raised there, beside sugir, which, sweet as it is, is but a poor and hitter staff of life. Man cannot live by sugar alone. How un- natural and gloomy, to have those glorious gardens doomed to that solitary production ! To have the patient and generous earth ensloved and prostituted to the unsiglitly and unsocial production of a single article only, and that not the staff of life- — not bread — not grown to live on, but to sell, to enrich those who did not sweat in its production, only as they toiled with the whip, to drive unrequited (or thns requited) labor out of the wretched slave. The earth never would spontaneously give her strength to such an unnatural production. She wants to yield food for man and beast, and not mere merchandise. She wants to yield it, too, to free labor. She joys to have her bosom vexed with the free ploughshare, and shaven with the scythe and the sickle of the shouting husbandman, who owns her fee simple. She likes to be ploughed and dressed by her own lords paramount — "them and their heirs forever." She likes to be freehold in the hands of those who cultivate her acquaintance and her surface. Yes, eman- THE AFRICAN STRANGERS. 75 cip.itiun works gloriously in the West Indies. A friend told us this morning th;it a geiiticnian in New York, recently from Ja- maica, complained to him that he had to leave, in consequence of emancipation, lie was an uvrrstrr. He had to quit fur mto/i^ of cnipluij, poor gentleman. Others had to do the same. There \va.s nobody lell in the island to oversee, or ovirluok. He brought an immense lot of gold and silver from the West Indies with him that he had carnrd there. The Wall street sharpers got hold of him, and eased him of the whole of it. It reminded us of the eagle plundering the fish-hawk. We are glad the money has got into comparatively honest h:mds. THE AFRICAN STRANGERS. [From the Herald of Freedom of Sept. 21, 1839.] We arc inclined to treat their case as an abolitionist, railii^r than as an incjuirer into their liabilities under the rules and regulations of this slaveholding country, called laws. As an abolitionist we say, defying contradiction, that they ought not for a moment to be kept under dure!-t them, from king Sharka down through the dignitaries of Cuba to Andrew Sharha Judson, is all of a piece. It is pro-slavery violence all of it. This is what we take notice of We shall not trouble our- selves or our readers to go through the legal authorities or argu- ments bearing on the case of these imprisoned men. If they would treat them as they do white men, we don't so much care as to the result. Their lives are as important and no more so, than any other equal nniuber of human beings of the great multi-col- ored and dispersed family. We look to see what hand slavery has in disposing of them, and to make what use we can of the whole occurrence against the infernal institution of slaveholding. And though we feel no small interest in the heroic Cingues, we don't claim that he have his life and his rights merely because he is a hero or a master spirit, but because he is a man. Had he been ever so cowardiv or ever so imbecile in mind or spirit, we should 76 THE AFRICAN STRANGERS. be equally strenuous, and more so, in his behalf; for it is the poor and feeble brethren of our race of whose rights we ought to be most tender. We are aware that a good deal of enthusiasm displayed by the pro-slavery press is based upon any thing rather than justice and a love of the right. It forgets Cingues' color, in admiration of his valor and his talent and personal prowess. But all this will evaporate by and by, when we call on it to carry out the feeling in behalf of three millions of Cingues' brethren and sisters, who are now weltering in the slough of slavery in this country. Why don't this sympathy rise for them ? Who shall kindle at the wrongs of Cingues, and sneer at the infinitely greater sufferings of the plantation ? If they hang Cingues, they w-on't defeat him of the chief object of his rising. He rose for liberty. He has got that, and if he dies, he dies a freeman. Liberty will be cheaply purchased by death. Death is infinitely lighter than slavery. He loses his country, his sweet home, his dear wiie and children. His heart will be with them — " There where liis rude luit by tlie" JViger " lay, There were his young barbarians, all at play, And there tlieir" Afric "mother, — he their sire Butchered to make a" Yankee "holiday." But they won't hang him. We are fearful they won't try him. The sovereignty of Cuba is making application to Van Buren to deliver up this stray property. See if he will incur the frown of the South, and hazard the bauble of the presidency by refusing. Try them and acquit them and treat them as innocent men, or as MEN, the country won't dare do, unless in this moment of excite- ment, and conquered for the hour by Cingues' William Tell prowess. How could we look the South in the face after it ; as Abncr said to Asahel, " How then shall I hold up my face to Joab thy brother?" What will become of the Union? The South would get together in the Rotunda at Charleston, and with flam- ing speeches from Calhoun and Preston, dissolve it into non- entity. They would stare at the North so fiercely, that it would go into dough-faced hysterics. They won't dare acquit. And to condemn will be a delicate matter. Counsel are engaged who THE AFRICAN STRANGERS. 77 will be compelled by their oaths to unfold the whole law, and to show forth their right of acquittal by our own Venetian justice, and the full reasons of acquitt;U will be recorded, and the nation will read it, and the blood of tlie murdered Cingues will cry in ears that were deaf as the addt-r to the voice of Lovejoy's. They will hardly dare hanur. Cuba will relieve the republic. She will ask her imperial sister for her slaves. She will get thera. The brave Cinffues crosses the Gulf stream ouce more, ajid should God not open to his mighty genius some second way to victory and liberty, or his unwary tyrants slacken his chain, so that he miglit i>ound nidignantiy over the vessel's side, and escape them in the depths of the ocean, they will revenge ujxm hiui the daring effrontery that raised hand against the divine prerogative of mastery. They won't attt'Mipt to got him to the phinlation. They have no fancy to luidcrtuke reducing him, breaking him, making his Hannibal form handy in the reptile harness. No overseer would covet the management of him. He would as soon harne.«s the " unicorn" to " harrow the valleys after" him. Jle would gladly swap Ciugues for almost any pro-slavery editor in the Nt'w England states, and pay that boot which is due to the servility of spirit that would make a slave. No, they woidd save his more d»)cilc and submis- sive companions for the plantation, but they would make of the gallant hero a sigiud example of slaveholder's vengeance, which knows no bounds. Those laughing Afric girls would be reared to adorn, by and by, Don Jose Rucz's harem, that young gentle- man, who so interested the New London editor, and the United States naval oflicer. He would undoubtedly requite these repub- lican .sympathisers, should they hereafter visit his Cuba plajilation, with all sorti <)f hofiJitalitif. ■78 CINGUES. CINGUES. [From the Herald of Freedom of Sept. 28, 1839.] We are inclined to call the noble African by this name, al- though he is called by as many different titles as our republican- ism offers reasons for enslaving his people. We have seen a wood- cut representation of the royal fellow. It looks as we should think it would. It answers well to his lion-like character. The head has the towering front of Webster, and though some shades darker than our great countryman, we are struck, at first sight, with his resemblance to him. He has Webster's lion- aspect — his majestic, quiet, uninterested cast of expression, look- ing, when at rest, as if there was nobody and nothing about him to care about or look at. His eye is deep, heavy — the cloudy iris extending up behind the brow almost inexpressive, and yet as if volcanoes of action might be asleep behind it. It looks like the black sea or the ocean in a calm — an unenlightened eye, as Webster's would have looked, had he been bred in the desert, among the lions, as Cingues was, and if, instead of poring upon Homer and Shakspeare and Coke and the Bible, (for Webster read the Bible when he was young, and got his regal style there) it had rested, from savage boyhood, on the sands and sky of Africa. It looks like a wilderness — a grand, but uninhabited land, or, if peopled, the abode of aboriginal man. Webster's eye like a civilized and cultivated country — country rather than city — more on the whole like woods and wilderness than fields oi villages. For, after all, nature predominates greatly in the eye of our majestic countryman. The nose and mouth of Cingues are African. We discovei the expanded and powerful nostril mentioned in the description, and can fancy readily its contractions and dilations, as he made those addresses to his countrymen, and called upon them to rush, with a greater than Spartan spirit, upon the countless white peo- ple, who, he apprehended, would doom them to a life of slavery. He has none of the look of an Indian — nothing of the savage. It is a gentle, magnanimous, generous look, not so much of the CINGUES. 79 warrior as the sage ; a sparing and not a destructive look, like the lion's, wlicn unaroused by liun^rer or the spear of the litints- nian. It must have flashed terribly upon that midnight deck, when he was dealhig with the wretched Ramonflues. We bid pro-slavery look upon Cingues, and behold in him the race we are enslaving. He is a sample. Every Congolese and Mandingan is not, be sure, a Cingues. Nor was every Corsican a Napoleon, or every Yankee a Webster. "Giants are rare," said Ames, " and it is forbidden that there should be races of them." But call not the race jwy<;-/or, which in now and then an age produces such men. Our shameless people h ive m ide merchandise of the likeness of Cingues, as they have of the origiimls of his (and their own) countrymen. They had the e(Trontery to look liim in the face long enough to delineate it, and at his eye long enough to copy its wonderful expression. By the wav, Webster ou^ht to come home to defen its pulse — to make its eyes start from their spheres, and its com- hincd locks to rear themselves on end — separate and rigid with i THE MONTHLY MISCELLANY. 85 horror. But is it surprising I Was it not to be expected of such a relation, betweeii nun, as that of master and slave, — owner and chattel ! Is any one so utterly unaware of luniuni nature, as to think human treatment — not to say humane — could be bestowed upon a brute ! — Terrible developuients, forsooth. Well, the aboli- tionists have been holding up to community, these eight years, the creature itself — in its essential, vital monstrosity. They dragged it forth on to the public arena, and stretched it out under gaze of the nation in all its scaly deformity, its hyverett in his gubernatorial shoes. We detest legisla- lative interference, because it promotes drunkenness. We think 88 THE FIFTEEN-GALLON LAW. the election of Gov. Everett of far minor importance to the intox- ication of one man — the most abandoned wretch in the by-places of the capital. For one man to get drunk, whoever he be, is of more mischievous importance than a political revolution that should not only defeat the Reverend Mr. Everett of one year's occupancy of '' Herod's judgment-seat," but should leave the tetrarchtf of Massachusetts unoccupied for twenty years to come. Indeed, we think it would be a great benefit to the selj-govcriicd people of the Commonwealth to go iingoverned — except by them- selves — for that term of time to come. We could get along pretty well so in New Hampshire, were it not that the croiv and militia laws need continual modification ; and they are of no force over crows or militia officers, without approval of a gov- ernor. Some of our temperance friends are in love with legislative reform in this state, in this behalf. We are decidedly opposed to it. It is an illegitimate mode of reform, and is, we believe, resorted to by those clergymen and politicians, and other great men, who are afraid of the effect of moral agitation upon their influential positions in community. We say, let every man sell as much rum and drink as much rum as he chooses, /«/• all legis- lation. If we can't stop drunkenness without the paltry aid of our state house, let it go on. It is a less evil than sumptuary legislation, — and a legislative reformation would be good for nothing, if it could be effected. It would be a totally unprinci- pled reformation. And as much as we loathe drunkenness, we had as lief witness any bar-room scene we ever saw, as some scenes enacted at our stone state house. Why, we have to keep the legislature itself, sober, in the very session time, by influence of the Temperance society. Stop that influence, and the legis- lative session would be a time of general drunkenness, gnmblino- and debauchery, wherever the legislature should hold its sittings. And is the country to look to legislation for the preservation of its morals ! We would as soon look to the general muster, as the general court. We say this with all deference to our public servants, as they call themselves when they want our votes. ANTI-SLAVERY. gg ANTI-SLAVERY. [From the Herald of Freedom of Jan. 18, 18 JO.] This is our maornificent enterprise — our irrand and glorious purpose of pliilanthropy. We labor to effect it by tlic power of truth, by admonition, by warning, by solcnui appeal to the heart annvention gathered, without distinction of sect or LETTER FROM EDINBURGH. 95 sex or color or clime. They said, as I understood, that they had not any idea of a World's Convention, — that it was but " a poetical flourish of Friend Whittier." They said, in relation to one fea- ture of the meeting, that women were not admissible because of the delicacy of her sir. Yet we saw women all the way through England, toiling in the hay-field and the hoe-field, and even ham- mering stone for macadamizing the road 'along the great high- ways. She was not " out of her delicate sphere" in any of these " domestic avocations," — no — nor in spreading manure to ferti- lize the soil of merry England. More of this, should I reach home. The conference, though by no means what it ought to have been, or at all like a " World's Convention," was still an important meeting, and pa.ised some valuable resolutions — and good will follow it. " The World's Convention," however, nm.st be holdi-rj in a freer land tlian old England — it must be holden in i\ti(I e}^, the very iJcnt'ual bed, on which s/u- that teas aft tricar da Victo- ria, fjumi (if Kngland, slept — and her dressing-room, wliile she sojourned, in queenly expectation, at this stately mansion. Her bed was of purple and gold, and the linen thereof (if it had linen) must have been the " fine linen of Etrypt." It was every way a couch worthy tlie slumbers of Cleopatra. To show the rank of Wentworlh House, it is one of the two or three spots, sjviken of at court, where her majesty would probably pause during the anticipated birth of an heir apparent to the thrt ne of Britain. And what an inlieritancc for a worm of mortality to wanton in for a sca.sur miles distant down the Tweed, a hoary ruin, looked out iipon us from a wood of oaks. An impressive sight. It is the totiib of Walter Scott. Up the Tweed a little way, towered the colossal statue of Sir William Wallace. It stood on a wooded hill-side, overhanging the stream, and looking down upon it as the guard- ian of Scotland's favorite river. — A few miles onward, and we crossed the Tweed, and 1<> ! AnuorsroKD ! llie last living abode of the Great Magician, with its muiti-turreted top, shooting above a wood of his own hand's planting. It stands in a low valley, with- in a few rods of the bank of the Tweed. A forest, planted by the same hand, overspread, for miles around it, the hills, which were naked and bare when he became proprietor of the charming neighborhood. Tweed is a modest stream to one who has learned his definition of river, this side the Atlantic. It looked the " Tweed's fair river ;" but the " broad and deep" must have been seen nearer down to the German ocean. The road was of white, macadamized dust, and as smooth as a floor all the way. Not a root, nor a scollop, nor mud, nor stone. The coach wheels rolled over it as over plank — when we came to down hills, the patent drag was instantly slipped under the hind wheel, and the fine-trained team descended without slacking their trot. The land was cidtivatod like the fairest of England — the " aits" and the barley, and the wheat. Fine crops of hay too, and the lads and lassies of Scotland were out among it on hill-side and lea, on bank and brae. The country, bare and sightless in the days of Dr. Johnson, is now adorned with a growth of respectable sized forest, — planted with the love of beauty and the taste natural to Scotland. Now and then a parti-colored magpie flew up from the hedge as we drove along. We saw but few birds, however ; the hedge row does not teem with them, like our Iirdi^e fence. We coursed along a high hill-side, and below us to the left, shcne the slated roofs of the little town of Galashiels, a manufacturing place of some considerable importance on the Gala-water. A range of green summits loomed out of the mist on our left. They were the Pentland hiJIs. We passed a low, winding vale, with a small stream running along it — and down on our right, a mile 116 RIDE INTO EDINBURGH. distant, on a knoll by the side of a little tvatcr, stood Bothwell Castle — a grim old fortress, where a fellow-passenger told us Q.ueen Mary retreated after her escape from Loch Leven, but was soon compelled to flee from it. We will not be too certain that it was this castle. By and by, a mountain away a-head, half hid in mist — green — insulated, rising like a tower on a plain, and the outline on the top of it, like a lion asleep. " That," cried a young Edinburgh passenger, as enthusiastic as we were, " is Arthur's Seat, and soon ye'll see Ed'nborough." The country was level and beautiful. The day was fine for Scotland. It had rained, as it had evert/ day since wc landed in England on the \7th of June — and the Scottish mist was on the hills j still it was fail weather. We saw another castle — Craigmillar — on a hill crowned with noble oaks. It was a giant of a castle, and the favorite summer residence of Mary Queen of Scots. It stood about a mile off on our right, and seemed a ruin. We saw the " hills of Braid." Arthur's Seat grew more and more distinct. We could see the Salisbury craigs — the rocky battlement that girdled its side to- ward the city ; and at last the Edinburgh castle and the " city of palaces" herself — and a more glorious looking object we can scarcely conceive of It was piled up like the cliffs of a moun- tain, and the towers of the old castle were clouded in the mist. The princely streets and rows of palaces — the semi-circles of stone architecture, kept developing from the vapor as we drew nearer, till the coachman whirled us into the city, and almost at the threshold of it, in a high, airy, cleanly region, we found our- selves in George Thompson's " Duncan street, Nevvington" — at *' No. 8" of which — (every abolitionist wants to know) — the "fugitive from justice" has his home. We of course were dropped down at the nearest spot to No. 8. The stage-coach, by the way, don't go out of the straight road to drop or take up passengers in Britain. Thompson had expected us. We had parted with him the Saturday morning before, at New Castle upon Tyne. He was out at the street corner promptly to receive us, and asking a broad-shouldered porter, with a coil of rope on his back, to take charge of our lusoraore, took us at once to his home. RIDE INTO EDINBURGH. Hf We were joined there by Charles Lenox Remond and John Dun- lop, which infule good our groiij) that started together that day week, from London for the North. It was two o'clock, after noon. We found a beautiful family at George Thompson's — one little orator about a week old — the little one born in New Eng- land, now a bright-eyed, sweet-voiced, distinct-spoken lad, — little Garrison, a younger boy than ho, born after the " /'//xr'Vjrc'>;" return to "justice" and to Scotland, — and two fair-h;iired, older daughters. These arc childish facts; but the children are Geoiuje Thompson's, and that gives them a place in the Herald of Freedom, and in the interest and hearts of abolitionists. We found our beloved friend neatly and abitnduntlij situated. The work cut out for the delegates to " 'J'lie World's Convention" for the afternoon was to undergo a splendid dinner at Dr. Beilby's, one of the leading |)hysicians of Edinburgh; and for the even- ing, to speak at the Ilechabite festival, a great tec-total meeting at Dun Edin hrill ; for which, of course, we all felt abundantly prepared. We will wind up the day with our hurried narrative, and say that our first specimen of Edinburrrh hospitality was of the most elegant and friendly character. Dr. Bcill)y was, fiir our host, all that the Abernelhies, or the Rushes of the literarv capital of the world could be, and his wit'e, an Irish icuman, was his equal, and his Scottish guests were such men as George Thompson and John Dunlop, Adam Black of the Edinburgh Review, and the celebrated Dr. Abercrombie. From the dinner table we went to Dun Edin hall, where were gathered two thousand of the moral flower of Edinburgh ; and when that tee-total meeting broke up, it was after two o'clock in the morning. We never met a crather- ing of such spirited peo]>le. We were not inclined to sleep here, weary as we must have been. We realized ichrrc ire irere. That kept us from drowsiness ; but there was nothing calculated to stujiify in the speeches of Thompson, Garrison and Remond, or the stirring strains of an instrumental band of music, that plaved at intervals from the orchestra of that splendid hall, or the finer strains of a band of vocalists — a dozen or fifteen of the amateur singers aniong the young gentlemen of Edinburgh. We never 118 LETTER TO EDITORIAL CHAIR.- heard the like of their singing. When Remond rose — introdu- ced by Garrison as the representative to Scotland of the colored people of New England, they cheered him, that multitude, with clapping, and waving of hats, caps, and kerchiefs, and with Scot- tish hurrahs, till the rafters of Dun Edin hall faiily trembled. Such is prejudice against color among the polished people of the " modern Athens." We wish our democratic republican negro- haters had been there to be thunderstruck at it. LETTER TO EDITORIAL CHAIR. [From the Herald of Freedom of November 6, 1810.] Phjmouth, Nuv. 4, 1840. TO THE EDITORIAL CHAIR OF THE HERALD OF FREEDOM. Beloved old Chair, — You are not old, «5 my Chair, or as the Chair of the Herald, but in your private capacity of mere seat. What your capacity held, or whom, before you became Chair of the Herald, I do not know ; but you are by many years, apparently, the senior of the paper, in whose service you now faithfully stand ; and so are an old Chair. If you were old as the editory seat of the little anti-slavery paper, whose servant you are, I should respectfully style you, and not familiarly, as I now do. I take it, you and I both shall be more respected some years hence, than we are now, — at least, treated with more respect. You are now sat upon, while I am trodden upon — you by your friends, and the friends of liberty — I by its enemies. But we both bear it patiently. I said we should be respected hereafter, for I expect myself to be remembered in connection with the first paper ever printed in New Hampshire in the service of human- ity. Although I shall not, as I expect, add any thing to the memorability of the paper, yet I shall get remembered among the other incidents of it, and as one who did his best faithfully to keep it in effectual operation for the great cause. I believe Joseph Horace Kimball used to be your occupant. LETTER TO EDITORIAL CHAIR. 119 This will be an honorable circumstance to you, and give you an honorable perpetuity. But let futurity, as to these things, take care of itself. Nei- ther chair nor those wIjo set in them, are much benehte