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    N,-r, 509- Pec. 24, 1859] THE LEADER. 13...

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    THE SLAYERY CAUSE IN AMERICA. American- ...

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    punished without due investigation as mu...

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    A DEBT OF, GRATITUDE. In an obscure corn...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    Mapmrmvr A Wn Nnun Jsa.Vul»Li\Jjx A.Sxaj Xtllu Ivi-H*

    It is well known that the Whig leaders are not prepared for this : they formed certain ideas on the subject -in-1815 , and they have passed the period of life at which ordinary men preserve the capacity of developing new thoughts . Their fossil intentions may be well meant , but they are unwitthMy playing the game of Russian aggrandisement ; and , while their pet , Austria , is steadily driving the Hungarians into revolt , the agents of St Petersburg are traversing the country , and representing to the discontented people that as

    England condemns them to be tied to the dying carcass of Hapsburg despotism , their best course will be to unite themselves with the Czar . Our Tory statesmen did riot like to see Austria disturbed in Italy—not that they were hostile to the Italians , but because they had ridiculous notions of the value of Austria as a Conservative power . The Whigs have long seen that Italy was a cause of weakness to Francis Joseph ; . but they have nnnosed Hungarian independence because it would

    be fatal to the old-fashioned notion of making Austria a counterpoise to Prance . If Austria had entered upon a career of progress , this scheme mifht have worked well , but her conduct has long been utterly hopeless , and entirely directed to combat the enlightened ideas of the age in which her Government is an anachronism as well as a disgrace . A thoroug h and safe friendship with France cannot be made until the Austrian delusion is uprooted from the minds of our statesmen . It is absurd to look upon her as a Conservative power , for the principle of her existence is a chronic dry rot .

    N,-R, 509- Pec. 24, 1859] The Leader. 13...

    N ,-r , 509- Pec . 24 , 1859 ] THE LEADER . 1395

    The Slayery Cause In America. American- ...

    THE SLAYERY CAUSE IN AMERICA . American- slavery has long been a great ci-iuie , and a reproach against republican institutions , which has caused grief to the friends of liberty , and enabled the abettors of despotism to slander the cause of popular government . It was a bitter and disgraceful mockery for the Declaration of Independence to assert that all men were created equal , and endued with the inalienable right of liberty , while those with a black skin were cruelly reduced to the condition . of cattle , and even a suspicion of negro blood was held an excuse for insult

    and outra ge on the part of those who professed a Christian religion of brotherly love . The greatest men of the United States have always felt ashamed of the " peculiar institution "—Franklin , Washington ami Jefferson were members of the Abolition Society of Pennsylvania , and the latter declared that " God has no attribute which can take part with the American slaveholders . " How then is it that the pro-slavery party has succeeded in obtaining so much power in the Union ? lhe and

    answer is—through fraudulent representations the establishment of a fictitious constituency , consisting of three-fifths of the slave population . By this extraordinary arrangement the slaveowners , Ion" - after they became a small minority , amounting to about 350 , 000 in 27 , 000 , 000 , have been able to hold their ground . The Southern States have , in fact , an unjust predominance , similar to that which enabled our landed class to "" nos e and maintain a com law in this country . This has

    politicians consider worse than a crime—a mistake . The act for which Brown suffered was most unwise , and founded upon calculations of the most erroneous kind ; but it was nobly meant , and if it had succeeded would have made his name one of the proudest in the annals of the Union ^ More - over , the character of the chief actor cannot fail to win respect in the New England States . He may have been deficient in judgment , but he had that stern love of duty and that fervour of religious conviction , which characterise the hero

    of the Puritan school . To bring such a man to trial , covered with recent wounds and unable to stand in court , and then to hang him , in a paroxysm of cowardly and frantic vengeance , were acts that might have been worthy of Austria and Haynau , but are profoundly disgraceful to America and Governor Wise . Victor Hugo , hoping to avert this disgrace , spoke the voice of civilised Europe in his eloquent letter , and it is satisfactory f o learn that similar feelings animate the best minds in the Northern States .

    Governor Wise ' s annual message to the Virginia legislature is a singular specimen of spasmodic terror , and could only be interpreted as an immediate appeal to arms , if the balance of force were not so over whelming oil the side of the northern States as to make such a course ridiculous . lie calls the anti-slavery spirit " a fanaticism which maddens whole masses of the country , and which enters into their religion , politics , prayers , courts of justice , and legislatures , and which has trained up three generations in moral and social habits of hatred to the masters of

    African slaves in the United States , and which would have sent rescue to assassins , robbers , murderers , and traitors , whom it has sent to _ felon ' s graves . " This rant of Governor Wise is Well matched by the demand of the pro-slavery leaders for a law prohibiting persons of an opposite way of thinking from entering the Slave States ; and it is to be hoped that these examples of unreasoning fury belong to . that sort of madness , which often entails speedy ruin on an evil cause .

    If the slaveholders attempt to carry out their threat of withdrawing from the Union and holding a Congress of their own , they will put American institutions to a severe test ; bufc we cannot doubt that they would soon succumb before the greater vigour and far larger population of the north . Tn eir slaves would , in such a contest , be a source of weakness , and more than half their free population belong to the class of" mean whites ; " that is , whites too poor to live honestly and decently without labour , and detesting it as only fit for the inferior race . These men constitute a great criminal

    population , who would fig ht for slavery , or against it , according to the prospects of pay and plunder , and would embarrass , rather than aid , the operations of the planters . Europe hag a strong interest in the settlement of this question , both on the grounds of public morality and political expediency . Liberal institutions and popular Governments will rise in estimation when America has wiped away the foul stain which slaveholding has made upon her banner , and the chief inducements to filibustering expeditions would be removed . We may be near the triumph of right—if not , its advent must be hastened by the d eath of Brown .

    been partly from the action ot tuo ucuuous constituency upon the House of Representatives , which is established upon the basis of numbers , but stil more from the provisions of the constitution with regard to the Upper Chamber . In the Senate , all States arc omial , the largest and the smallest sending alike two members , and hence the policy of the slaveholders has always been to make as many now slave states as possible , and to support every form of aggression and robbery likely to further thin design . . „ In 1820 , tho " Missouri Compromise was expected , by tho ndmirors of shuffling measures , to allay tuo virulence of tho quarrel between the two sections of tho American community , By tuis Bahama , slaver y was prohibited north o a certain

    line in Louisiana , and tho effort * or tuo slavery party were thus directed , south of tho free boundary , and tho strife wont on , with various cucumstancos of ombittonnent , until m 18 o 3 tue Nebraska Bill overthrow tho Missouri Compromise , and loft tho establishment of slavery in tho now state or states to bo decided by their own constitutions . From that time to the Uavpoia Ferry insurrection , tho oonaiot has threatened to assume the form of a final struggle , and the slaveholders will now find that tho brutal trial and execution of Captain -Brown was , what unscrupulous

    Punished Without Due Investigation As Mu...

    punished without due investigation as mutineers , when they only kicked up a half-drunken tow :, to speak of the remission of the felon punishment to which they have been and condemned , as " mercy " and as " c / emeracy , " is a gross abuse of the English language . When the circumstances are considered : that the men had just returned from , a foreign station—had done all their work , and fully prepared the ship to be paid off—that ' " their request for leave , instead of being confined on board the ship . almost within sight and hearing : of friends , wives , and sweethearts

    for the whole of sunday , had been sanctioned by their own officers , and was , as must have appeared to them , most arbitrarily , first in iact denied , and the partial permission afterwards withdrawn , —and that under such extremely irritating circumstances—they acted " like a parcel of riotous school-boys " —to remit the punishment to which they have been condemned would be neither clemency nor-mercy . It would be confirming an

    injustice . The men , on the showing of the Times , have been most unjustly and cruelly treated , and they will degrade themselves and degrade humanity if they accept as a boon what they may and ought to claim as a right . If ever there was a case in which a civil court would give damages for false imprisonment , judging equitably , without reference to barbarous technicalities , this is -such a case ; and the so-called " mutineers" will not act wisely and resolutely , will not protect themselves and the rest of the seamen from similar

    treatment hereafter , and will scarcely deserve to be protected from a repetition of such treatment , if they do not demand compensation for injustice , instead of accepting mercy as a Christmas gift , which is to buy their sanction to their own continued degradation . There is much more at stake in this matter than at first appears . It is not a trifle , we think , to find our language so abused and ideas so perverted as to call the remission of this felon outrage on 108 brave seamen " mercy and clemency . " It is still less a trifle , when we know that this terrible perversion takes place with a view to preserve the power of imbecile Admiralties over the

    seamen , and continue the barbarous system they love . Already , it has done the nation great dishonour and great injury , and is pregnant with ruin to the Navy . The subject becomes of vast importance when we know that the object of this perversion is to keep alive the potion that authority is infallible . To confess , by offerring compensation to the outraged seamen , that authority can do wrong , is to shake the whole svstem . and expose civil society , it is supposed , to

    the danger whioh Protestant religious society incurs of wanting an infallible head . The outrage is followed up by the perversion , in order to impose , if possible , a falsehood on the nation . The attempt is now , however , as palpably silly as it is erroneous ; for authority , in civil or military matters , is continually proved to be much more fulhble than authority in religion . The Times will probably class our remarks sneerino-ly amongst those " in our periodical literature winch tend toffive us "better laws and a better

    con-INFALLIBLES AND MUTINEERS . We are much pleased to see merchants , bankers , and others , of the City of London , petitioning the Queen " to exercise her prerogative of mercy ' in behalf of that part of tho crow of the Princess Royal " now undergoing imprisonment in Winchester gaol for an oilenco against discipline . " They do not " impugn the justice" of the courtmartial ; . they are , convinced that tho offence arose from no mutinous spirit , but from " momentary disappointment at tUo announcement of the recall of an order for leaoo undor very trying , circumstances . " The Times backs tho petition , and humbly implores for " clemajtoy" us a Christinas gift , to the so-called mutineers . " It admits that what the men have boon ' condemned for m batches , without much attempt at investigation , was " the mildest act of mutiny winch stands recorded in tho causes oMebres of the British navy " " -that it was a more " row , " which it is " absurd to call a mutiny . " It further states that tho offloers " may havo been acting under a sonoa of misaDm'ohensfons . " But surely , if the officers leduJdermisa pprohensioi ^^ f the men have been

    stitutiou . " We admit that they have such an object , and deserve the censure of a . j ournal which , worse than its own " duck-legged drummer , is not ouly now always behind the regiment , but always making a " thundering " noise to frighten it from its onward march .

    A Debt Of, Gratitude. In An Obscure Corn...

    A DEBT OF , GRATITUDE . In an obscure corner of an obsoure periodical , wo caught sight tho other day of an obsouro paragmph , containing a list o / a number of obscure individuals to whom testimonials had been presented by obsouro admirers . Everything connected with the matter was obsouro , we even fancied that our eyesig ht had grown obacure , when last , lowest , and fcast upon & o list , we read Jo name of Cox , of Finsbury . Surely o u * w deceive us . This cannot bo tho great Cox , the old original Cox , tho Cox of history our own . Oox . How aw the mighty fallen Belisanus a the jrates of Homo ; Sampson bound to tho iniu » £ ouh Philippe m Smith of Newhaven ; were not more instructive examples of tho vanity of human groat , ess , than Cox , the senator and itatem parading at a pot-hou « e in P ™* " ™^ ? " *¦ monialised with a teapot , and puffed in tho penultimate paragraph of a penny paper . Tho heartfeBB and ungrateful world may have

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 24, 1859, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_24121859/page/15/