LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS AND LETTERS. BY THOMAS R. HAZARD, OF VAUCLUSE, RHODE ISLAND. PHILADELPHIA: COLLINS, PRINTER, 705 JAYNE STREET. 1883 - LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA To With Compliments of the Author. Individuals, societies, and corporations to whom this book is donated will please insert their name in the blank left above. CONTENTS. PAOR STATE OF TEXAS versus UNITED STATES .... 1 CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO THE DEATH PENALTY ... 9 NORTH AND SOUTH versus SLAVERY ..... 34 PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE AND AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE . . 43 THE INSANE POOR ........ 51 OUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS ...... 59 FREE HOMESTEADS ........ 65 DYMOND'S ESSAY ON WAR . . .. . m . . .72 THE DEAF AND DUMB . . . . . ,. ' . .76 STATE'S ASYLUM FOR THE INSANE, ETC. .... 84 FAMINE 94 ROBESPIERRE AND MARAT versus JAMES K. POLK ... 97 PROGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA .... 99 THE CONDITION OF THE SOUTH SENTIMENTS OF WENDELL PHILLIPS . . . . . . . .. Ill WOMAN SUFFRAGE . . . . . . . .115 MACHINERY IRISH AND CHINESE versus LABOR . . . 122 RHODE ISLAND TURKEYS ....... 126 THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA 130 THE EXEMPTION OF MORTGAGES AND CHURCH PROPERTY . 136 TAXING MORTGAGES ........ 144 RICH MEN . . .147 MANNERS AND MORALS ....... 154 THE THREE GREAT PROBLEMS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY THAT ARE TO CULMINATE BY THE EXPIRATION OF THE TWENTIETH 162 IV CONTENTS, PAK THE TRUE PRINCIPLE OF TAXATION ..... 167 STRIKE FROM THE STATUTE BOOK OF RHODE ISLAND ALL LAWS FOR THE COLLECTION OF DEBTS . . . . . .174 OUR COURTS OF JUSTICE AND THE LAWYERS .... 177 OUR OLD BLACK TURKEY HEN'S NEEST .... 183 EARLY MANUFACTURES . . . . . . . 186 GENERAL BURNSIDE'S EDUCATIONAL BILL .... 194 AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE .196 A LINE OF STEAMERS TO AFRICA ...... 206 HOMESTEAD EXEMPTION BILL ...... 209 WHICH is THE SABBATH SATURDAY OR SUNDAY ? . . 224 THE FAMOUS " VISION OF JOSEPH HOAG" .... 229 LAW AGAINST BRIBERY REFORM OF OUR COURTS STATE HOUSE OF REFUGE STATE SUPERVISION OF THE PAUPER POOR 234 THE EXEMPTION OF MORTGAGES AND CHURCH PROPERTY FROM TAXATION 242 "THE MAINE LAW ? ' IN NEWPORT 246 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY "... 257 UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE versus SCHOOL AND STATE . 260 REMINISCENCES OF EARLY STEAM NAVIGATION . . . 272 WHAT CONSTITUTES TRUE WORSHIP ..... 275 THE RHODE ISLAND NATURAL BONE-SETTING DOCTORS THE UNNATURAL versus DIPLOMATIC DOCTORS .... 277 Ho FOR MONROVIA, TIMBUCTOO, AND ZANZIBAR . . . 285 A PLEA BY A NATIVE RHODE ISLANDER .... 288 TURKEYS AND TURKEYS 308 AFRICA 314 " THE NORTHMEN'' 327 LIFE IMMORTAL ......... 329 PROPHECY , 333 PROPHECY 335 RE-MATERIALIZATION OF THE SOUL ..... 336 THE ANGELS ARE COMING TO STAY ..... 345 WHAT CLOTHING DO THE ANGELS WEAR .... 363 FREEDOM FROM CLASS LEGISLATION AND DIPLOMATIC TYRANNY 367 HEALING BY LAYING ON HANDS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 379 NEWSPAPER ESSAYS AND WRITINGS. [From the Providence Journal, August 31, 1850.] State of Texas versus United States, AMIDST the turmoil and wrangling that render the debates in Congress almost unintelligible, it would seem that the satisfactory adjustment of the perplexing questions embraced in im compromise bill very much depends on the disposal of that portion which relates to Texas and its boundaries. Here at length the hitherto disjointed ultraisms of the country have found a point on which they can concentrate their traitorous forces; and by similar steps, and on the same soil that they and their coadjutor (the late Jarnes K. Polk) com- pelled a foreign, precipitated a civil, war upon their country. And should retribution be permitted to visit us through this means, how fearfully instruc- tive should be the warning ! As in the lives of individuals, so in the progress of nations, no human forecast can estimate the consequences that may 1 Z STATE OF TEXAS VERSUS UNITED STATES. flow from the first false step from the path of rec- titude. Twelve months in the life of a man may represent as many years in the existence of a na- tion but both alike may be cut off in youth, and it not unfrequently happens that sudden destruc- tion follows the commission of heinous crimes. And how stands our account in the sight of an all-seeing and just Creator, as regards our connec- tion with Texas? A multitude of assertions and official declarations may so mystify the truth that the pen of the historian may but feebly portray the heinousness of our public acts in relation to this subject; but the facts will still remain the same, and, stripped of all disguise, in their naked deformity continue to witness against' us in those realms of eternal truth and justice, where no sophistry or j|can find entrance. And what are those facts? Simply these: Some few citizens of the United States emigrated to Texas, a province of the republic of Mexico, with whom we were then and ever had been at peace. The soil was good, its products well adapted to the employ- ment of slave labor. By the laws of Mexico slaves could not be held in her territories. Mexico was weak, the United States was strong. The American emigrants raised the standard of re- volt in Texas. Thousands of desperate characters flocked to it from the United States, including murderers, robbers, and the worst of criminals. Our executive officially denounced the interference STATE OF TEXAS VERSUS UNITED STATES. 6 of our citizens; it was said personally encouraged it. Troops were ordered to the frontiers of Texas ostensibly to protect the territory of the United States. Whether intended or not, the effect was to encourage and strengthen the revolutionists in Texas. The independence of the ancient province of Texas, hounded in part hy the ISTeuces River, was finally accomplished so far as to he acknowledged hy some foreign powers, but not by Mexico. By an act of its own legislature it was declared that the Rio Grande, from its mouth to its source, should be the boundary of Texas in that direction. Her revenues from customs were also pledged for the payment of debts incurred hy the expenses of the war. Attempts were made by Texas to con- quer to that boundary, but never with even a pre- tence of success. At no point on ^fcRio Grande did they ever establish jurisdiction; on both banks of which river, and at every point from its mouth to its source, the Mexican laws had ever been un- interruptedly in force and peacefully administered by her officers, and were still so when Texas was annexed to the United States. The treaty of an- nexation does not define the boundaries of Texas, but whatever they then were they still continue to be. By annexing Texas, the pro-slavery men at the South obtained an extension of slave territory, through the aid of partisans at the North, who are now mostly ultra on the other extreme. Still the prospective preponderance was in favor of the 4 -STATE OF TEXAS VERSUS UNITED STATES. non-slaveholding States, and more slave territory was coveted to balance the account. The northern provinces of Mexico had been but little explored. Judging from their position, it was supposed that they were well adapted to the introduction of slave labor. A most wicked President was instigated to foment a war with Mexico for their acquisition. The paper boundary of Texas was seized upon as the means to accomplish the rapacious purpose. The Rio Grande was declared to be the south- western boundary of the United States. After a fruitless attempt, through Secretary Marcy, to induce Gen. Taylor to pass the iSTeuces on his own responsibility, the wary general was officially ordered to advance within the Mexican territory. Fortifications were erected and garrisoned by the United gyjfces on the banks of the Rio Grande, in the midst of a population which had never seen a Texan officer, and whose internal affairs were then peacefully conducted under the Mexican government. Aware of the power of the United States, and of its own weakness, Mexico seemed inclined to submit to the aggression, rather than to engage in contest. A fort had been erected so as to com- mand the town of Matamoros on the opposite bank of the Rio Grande; guns were placed and pointed in a direction to menace the town. The com- manding officer reported officially to his superiors at Washington, that the Mexicans could not mis- STATE OP TEXAS VERSUS UNITED STATES. 5 take their meaning. Insult thus added to injury goaded the Mexicans to madness. They vainly sought to expel by force the Americans from their soil. And now comes the crowning act of infamy, sufficient of itself to overwhelm a nation with shame and confusion. The President of the United States the prime agent and heartless executor of the plot announced to Congress that the United States was involved in war by the act of Mexico, and called upon that body for fifty thousand men to avenge the wrong, and save from destruction the handful of troops he had designedly placed in imminent peril, to further his wicked scheme. The demands of the executive were granted, and to cap the climax, Congress coupled the grant of man and money with a resolution re-affirming the cause of war assigned by the Presi(Htot to be true, at the very moment that those who voted, indi- vidually were protesting it was a lie. We are all conversant with the events that fol- lowed. They are the burden o history rapine and carnage; the shouts of victory; the shrieks of the wounded ; the groans of the dying ; the des- titute widow; the helpless orphan; the triumph of the strong over the weak, of might over right. The coveted territory was forced from Mexico but it does not prove to be what was anticipated; and instead of extending the area of slavery, it seems calculated to extend that of freedom. Driven to desperation by the prospect of such a 6 STATE OF TEXAS VERSUS UNITED STATES. result of their machinations, the ultras at the South seem resolved upon the destruction of the Union. And let us for a moment seriously con- template the method by which, they propose to accomplish their object. As our public crimes originated in our connection with Texas, the be- ginning of our punishment seems likely to emanate from the same source, and to be conducted by the same men who brought about the annexation of Texas, and instigated the war with Mexico. The present ultra free soil men at the North were for- merly many of them partisans of the pro-slavery men at the South. They acted in union until by their measures they involved the country in its present difficulties. They are now in opposite extremes, but still act in concert to defeat every measure of ^conciliation and peace that is pro- posed by the moderate men of any party. If the dispute with Texas regarding her boun- dary should eventually involve us in civil war if our hitherto highly favored country should meet with destruction from that source how humiliat- ing must be the record of our fall. The historian, in transmitting to posterity the cause of our ruin, must needs choose for us one of two dilemmas either that the President of the United States uttered a most wicked lie (for that is the only word sufficiently expressive of so base a falsehood) when he announced to Congress that war existed, by the act of Mexico, and that this lie was re- STATE OF TEXAS VERSUS UNITED STATES. 7 affirmed by an almost unanimous vote of Con- gress; or that the territory now claimed by Texas rightfully belongs to her. Previous to the war with Mexico, the United States had never acquired or claimed a foot of Mexican territory, other than that included in the new State of Texas. The claim of Texas to all the disputed territory rested alike on the same foundation. She had never acquired possession, or exercised jurisdiction over an inch of land lying on the Rio Grande, from its mouth to its source. Her only title to any part of it was a legislative enactment, which she purposed to en- force by future conquest, but which she never effected. It consequently follows, that, if previous to the war with Mexico, the Rio Grande was the southwest boundary of the United States, as as- serted by the President and Congress, it must also have been the boundary of the State of Texas when admitted into the Union. Let our members in Congress reflect seriously on these things, and they can hardly fail to con- clude that our transactions with Texas and Mexico have been a tissue of fraud, violence, and false- hood, commencing even before the annexation, and continued to the present day. We conspired with Texas to rob Mexico; we are now quarrelling about the division of the spoils. There can be no principle involved in the settlement of the con- troversy ; the premises are utterly devoid of truth 8 STATE OF TEXAS VERSUS UNITED STATES. or principle, and its adjustment is a matter of ex- pediency alone. If we perch ourselves on the one horn of the dilemma in which our first false step in annexing Texas has placed us, we make our- selves liars ; if, on the other, we must confess ourselves robbers. An impartial tribunal would award to us both glowing distinctions. If the assertion of our President and Congress was not true, then have we without cause of even heathen war, ravaged and robbed Mexico, and murdered thousands of her people, and should in honor restore her every foot of the acquired territory, and make all the reparation for wrongs we have inflicted on her in our power. If those assertions were true, then are we now seeking to rob the State of Texas, the partner of our guilt, our fel- low conspirator against the peace and rights of a, w r eak sister republic. As, says the Arab, " it is altogether a bad business, and the less honest men have to do with it the better. In dealing with it, they had better be sleeping than waking, better lying than standing, better standing than walking, a.nd better walking than running." But, bad as it is, it becomes the duty of Congress to settle the controversy; and it is to be hoped that our members of Congress will aid in bringing it to a close as speedily as practicable. The custom receipts of Texas were pledged to her creditors; by annexing her to the Union they have been di- verted from that object into our treasury. If the CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. 9 old adage about, "there is honor among," etc., remains true, we are bound to make these credi- tors some compensation. This may be made to serve as a cloak for our own humiliation, and help to mystify our disgrace in the eyes of the world. [From the Providence Journal, August 26, 1852.] Christianity Opposed to the "Death Penalty," Addressed to the Editor and readers of the Providence Journal, and to all professed Ministers of the Gospel, who plead Divine Authority for the shedding of Human Blood. " The Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." Je/mtf, the Christ. SOME time ago, I read a very able article in the Journal, signed "Law" by a writer who is op- posed to the " Death penalty." I have by me two other communications also in the Journal, signed I. M. H. D., in which an attempt is made to con- trovert the arguments of "Law" and to sustain "capital punishment" by Scripture authority but with so little effect that "Law" does not seem to think a rejoinder necessary. With men who read, reflect, and judge for themselves, it would un- doubtedly be safe to leave I. M. H. D. without comment; but there are others who take their belief and opinions second hand, with whom, asser- tions, professing to be founded on Scripture, are 10 CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. received with a superstitious reverence, especially when coming from a professed minister of the Gospel, and accompanied with the declaration, that they who deny them do not believe the Bible. On this account I hope that "Law" will excuse this feehle effort to expose the fallacy of your correspondent I. M. H. D.'s arguments, in favor of Scripture authority for "capital punishment" for the crime of murder. To prove that the "Death penalty" is compatible with the religion taugl\t by Jesus Christ, your cor- respondent adduces the following passages from Holy writ: 1st. The precept given to Noah. Gen. ix. 5, 6. 2d. Its re-enactment into the decalogue as a command. 3d. The practice under the Mosaic law, by the Jews. 4th. Confirmed by our Saviour. Matt. v. 21, 22; xiii. and xxiii. 1, 3. 5th and lastly. The example and instruction of Paul. Acts xxv. 11; Rom. xiii. 4. I know nothing, Mr. Editor, of Hebrew, or of any other language than my native tongue; but I believe that it is agreed by all commentators of eminence, that the precept given to Noah, to which your correspondent refers, " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God created he man" is of arbitrary in- terpretation " Will" being equally expressive of CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. 11 the meaning of the Hebrew for "shall" used in our English translation of the Bible, and which if substituted for the latter word, would entirely do away with the commandatory aspect of the precept. But if we suppose, as your correspondent alleges, that this precept (seemingly so vaguely expressed) was really intended as a Divine command; let us examine and see what is its true import. It would seem that the precept was not only proclaimed to Noah and his sons as an enduring law, but the reason of its being enacted is explained to them by the Almighty Himself. The crime to which the penalty of Death is annexed is not merely the shedding of blood, but for the shedding of the blood of a being made in the image of God. That is the sole reason given for the promulgation of the law, by the Almighty. It is the first law (if we may so speak without presumption) in the Almighty's criminal code. It is wholly complete in itself; it is not otherwise explained by prece- dent, comment, or example. Civil governments had not yet been instituted in the world, it could of course have no reference to practices adopted, or powers exercised by, or under them. It was at variance (wide as the .poles) from the mode of punishment ordained by God for the crime of murder in the case of Cain. In that instance the criminal was cast out of society, condemned to live in solitude, apart from his fellow men, who were threatened with sevenfold vengeance should 12 CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. they slay the murderer. What reason have we, then, to suppose that the penalty of this Divine law was only intended for that species of killing which the laws of men call "mwderf 9 * We all understand the literal meaning of shed- ding of blood, and the broadest popular interpreta- tion the passage will permit, is the taking of the life of man. The image of God is equally defaced, whether blood is shed by one man or by a thou- sand, whether secretly or openly, whether in pri- vate quarrel, or in public combat, whether in war or in peace, whether by the executioner, or the assassin. If the precept is considered as declara- tory in its character, the history of mankind readily explains its meaning. Man in his fallen state is ever ready to take vengeance into his own hands to slay the slayer. But if received as an organic law of society, or of government, its explanation is surrounded with difficulties. At the period of its promulgation Noah and his family comprised all the people of the earth: from them all mankind have descended. At what period was it, then, that this family had so multiplied and divided, that the bonds of brotherhood were severed, and they were authorized by Divine wisdom to call conventions and establish forms of civil government to modify or to nullify this law of God? Where did they obtain their warrant, to distinguish in its applica- tion to all cases of killing alike? How, -where, and when did ten, an hundred, a thousand, or a million CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. 13 of men obtain their credentials from the Almighty, to array their puny might against His law? to unite themselves into bodies politic, and to declare that the shedding of blood should be no longer the shedding of blood, if done and performed after the mode prescribed by them: to hang on a gallows a transgressor of the Divine command for killing one fellow-creature, and to exalt another to the highest honors for slaying his thousands? Where and when did they obtain the right to distinguish between private and public covetousness; between an individual's and a nation's greed or revenge? But, says your correspondent, this command given to Noah was incorporated u into the deca- logue as a perpetual ordinance to be observed by man," and that " a precedent was established under the Jewish theocracy when the life of the murderer was absolutely required at the hands of civil rulers." In the code of laws given to the Jews, there is no reference whatever made to the precept given to Noah any more than there is any reference in the latter to the punishment denounced on Cain. It is very evident from Cain's exclamation to the Almighty, as given in Genesis, that he was well aware of the existence of that revengeful disposi- tion inherent in man in a fallen state: "every one that finds me" (said he) "shall slay me." Is it not, then, as fair to infer, that the Almighty's words addressed to Noah were merely meant to convey a 2 14 CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. declaratory expression of the natural consequences of this revengeful spirit in man, as it is to infer that the law given to Moses contained a re-enact- ment of their spirit. But let us suppose that the views of your corre- spondent in this respect are correct ; that the pre- cept given to Noah was re-enacted into the Jewish law as a u perpetual ordinance to be observed by man," " And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death." This, says your correspondent, was " intended to be in force as long as there should be a violation of the law." But does not this prove too much for your correspondent's argument? If this law against murder is to remain in perpetual force because it is in the Mosaic code, are not all other laws contained in the same of equally bind- ing force, unless they have been repealed by the same authority by which they were enacted? Is not the law of the Sabbath equally binding? and is it not enacted in the Mosaic code given to the Jews: "Six davs may work be done, but on the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work on the Sabbath day he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to ob- serve the Sabbath throughout their generations for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever: for in six days the Lord made Heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed" ? Ex. CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. 15 xxxi. 15, 16, 17. Here is a Divine law so clear and explicit that it requires no commentators to explain it, and as in the instance of the precept given to Noah, a positive reason is given for its enactment. It being to commemorate the day on which the Almighty rested. Not only is this law made as plain to every understanding as it is possi- ble for words to make it, but the Almighty con- descended to expressly direct how it should be executed on offenders. "And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day. And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congrega- tion. And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him. And the Lord said unto Moses, the man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp," Num. xv. 32, 33, 34, 35; which was accordingly done. Now, although it was so plainly declared in the law itself, that whosoever should do any work on the Sabbath day should surely be put to death ; yet it is probable the mere gathering of a few sticks on that day seemed so light an offence in the eyes of Moses, of Aaron, and of " all the congregation," that they hesitated to put the law in force until instructed by the Almighty Himself. And, let me ask, by what authority do men (especially those who profess to be Christian teachers) who 16 CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. advocate the perpetual obligation and binding force of the Mosaic law, as administered in the Jewish theocracy, presume to abstain from ob- serving this law in all the strictness of its letter. Are there any of you who have not been guilty of gathering many sticks on the Sabbath the seventh day of the week the day especially set apart for the reason that it was the day on which the Almighty rested? In all seriousness, let me ask you, is there one of you, if placed in the position of the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath, who would not have to acknowledge that your lives had been forfeited not once, but many times? and should this not teach you to be careful how you evoked the penalties of the Mosaic code on the head of a fellow-sinner, for, perhaps, a first otience? Are you not afraid of being judged by the same code yourselves? for Him, whom you profess to obey and serve, has told you, that, " with what judgment you judge you shall be judged." And how dare you, rigid, literal construers of Scripture, to transpose the day of rest, the Sabbath of the Lord where is your positive divine autho- rity for the repeal of so positive a law a law ex- plained and enforced by the Almighty Himself ? But, even should we grant to you that the first day of the week is accepted by the Almighty as the Christian Sabbath, to be observed after the manner of the Jewish Sabbath ; have you not all gathered many sticks on that day ? Is there one CHRISTIANITY QPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. 17 of you who would dare to stand in the place of the first victim who suffered by the hands of the congregation of the Jews? would not your own congregation, think you, find it their painful duty to stone you to death, without the camp, in such an emergency ? yea, were you gifted each with a thousand lives, would their forfeiture, all suffice to expiate your "capital" offences against the Sab- bath alone? Again, there is a law in the Mosaic code that enacts, that a "stubborn and rebellious son" shall be stoned to death. This law, together with the Mosaic law in regard to witchcraft, were re-enacted by the early settlers in the old colonial laws of Massachusetts; but even these rigid interpreters of Scripture did not strictly fulfil the Mosaic law to the letter; for we read that in accordance with their laws eigbteen persons were hung, and one pressed to death between two platforms: the lat- ter, a more cruel mode of execution than any practised by the Jews, and it is to be hoped was unknown to them. Why do not the advocates of the Mosaic code strive to have these laws again placed on our statute books? are they not of equal authority with that for the punishment for mur- der, or with that of any other law given to the Jews? Are these believers in the perpetual obli- gation of the Mosaic code unfaithful to their belief? do they really fear man more than God? If not, why again do they not labor to have the 2* 18 CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. many severe penalties in the Mosaic code re-en- acted against immorality and uncleanness, which it is to be apprehended are crimes of much more frequency than that of murder, and some of which are made " capital" by that code, especially the crime of adultery? Again, consistency would seem to demand that the same rules of interpretation that are applied to the precept given to JSToah, should likewise be applied to all other passages in Scripture of similar grammatical construction, not explained in the context or elsewhere. By carrying out this rule, your correspondent would find an immensely wide field opened for the exercise of civil authority. " All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." Matt. xxvi. 52. "He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity lie that killeth with the sword must be killed by the sword." Rev. xiii. 10. Here, one would think, was to be found food enough for torturers of CD Scripture, in the Christian Testament, without going to that of the Jews. Under the sanction of these laws why should not every slaveholder be sent into captivity, and every warrior put to the sword. The two present candidates for the Presidency of the United States have both been active in leading many into captivity, as well as killing others with the sword. Why not, then, send them both into slavery for the one offence, and put them to death for the other. CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. 19 Again, says your correspondent, "This penalty (of death) was recognized and confirmed by our Saviour in Matt. v. 21, 22. " 'Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time thou shalt not kill ; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the c5 judgment; and whosoever shall say to his brother, Eaca" [i. *?., vain fellow] u shall be in danger of the council ; but whosoever shall say thou fool, shall be in danger of Hell fire." It strikes me that your correspondent could not have made a more inappropriate selection for his purpose, than this, from the whole Bible, as I will endeavor to show. A little further on, in that beautiful sermon on the Mount, from which the foregoing words are extracted, and in continuation of his subject, our Saviour declares, u Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." Matt, v. 27, 28. In the same sermon Jesus had previously de- clared, u Tii ink not that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets: I have not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled." Matt. 20 CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. v. 17, 18 ; thus showing that a period was to arrive when this dispensation of the " Law" would he fulfilled. Now, let me seriously ask, Is there any one who makes the least pretension to Christianity, who does not feel that within the compass of its duties, is included all the moral obligations of the Mosaic law, and all the teachings of the prophets? Does not its obligations embrace a much wider sphere? Does it not require that a disciple of Christ shall not only abstain from murder, but likewise from the spirit that causes murder such as hatred, malice, anger, etc.? And so in the case of adultery; not only must the Christian be guilt- less of the gross offence, but his heart must be cleansed of impure affections and desires. And is not this the obvious meaning of our Saviour, as taught in the passages from Matthew ? In the Mosaic law, to which our Saviour re- ferred, death was the penalty attached alike to the crimes of murder and of adultery. He had just declared tha^fc no part of this law, not a jot or a tittle should pass away until it should all be ful- filled (mark) all. He could not, therefore, have meant to abolish the penalty of death for adultery, and to retain it for the crime of murder, at the time he commented on these crimes. But hear your correspondent in allusion to the quotation from Matt. v. 21, 22; he says: "Civil government can take cognizance only or the overt act ; but Christ here shows that the spirit of the CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. 21 law would, if carried out, cut off the angry man before he had committed the deed, and thus save the life of the intended victim. Here is a full re- cogjiization of the law, requiring the life of the murderer an unequivocal explanation of this pre- cept, as applicable to the present, as well as to the former dispensation by him, from which authority there is no appeal.''' In which last sentiment we all doubtlessly agree with your correspondent. When we are really sure of Christ's authority, then, indeed, there is no appeal ; but we should remem- ber that we read, that many will profess to come in that authority, who have it not. "For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many." Matt. xxiv. 5. Now, if Christ in his teaching intended to show that the law, if carried out in his spirit, would ex- tend the penalty of death to the angry man as well as to the actual murderer, by a parity of reasoning, would not the same spirit extend the penalty of death to the man who u looketh on a woman to lust after her," as well as to the actual adulterer? Is there any escape from such a conclusion, unless, as your correspondent might say, we should deny the authority of Christ, who had just declared that not ouQj'ot or tittle of the law was abrogated, and we know that by that law the penalty for murder and adultery was the same "death" ' f And with these facts before us, let us turn to the 8th chap, of John, 1st to the llth verse. 22 CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. "Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives; and early in the morning, he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down and taught them." (Mark, taught them.) "And the Scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery, in the very act. ' Now Moses, in the law, commanded us, that such should be stoned ; but what sayest thou ?' This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him." (Mark, said tempting him. And how tempting him ? Were they aware that His law was not the penal law of Moses, and thus seek an accusation against him?) " But Jesus stooped down and with his linger wrote upon the ground, as though he heard them not." (Mark, on the ground the only intimation that we have in Scriptures that our Saviour ever wrote, save on the human heart. Query : Was this in conformity with his exquisitely beautiful manner of teaching, to intimate to those who had eyes to see and ears to hear, that, like the writing on the ground, the penalties of the Jew- ish law were to vanish and pass away ?) " So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and said unto them ; he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." (What a commission for an executioner ! Where could one now be found free from sin?) "And again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own con- sciences, went out one by one, beginning at the CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. 23 eldest, even unto the. last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, woman, where are those thine accusers hath no man condemned thee? she said, no man, Lord." (Executioners and accusers all fled in shame from the presence of him who knew their hearts.) u And Jesus said unto her, neither do I condemn thee: go and sin no more." How sublimely beautiful 1 Here is a Christian comment on the Mosaic code which, in- deed, comes with authority; in comparison with which all the labored dissertations of the most learned and talented of men are of less than a feather's weight. "Again," says your correspondent, "I urge lastly, on this question of Scripture authority, the example and instruction of St. Paul. 'For if I be an offender,' (mark, if only an offender) ' or have committed anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die.' Acts xxv. 11. Paul" (continues he) "clearly admits here the right of capital punish- ment, and refuses not to die, if proved guilty of a capital offence." The penalty for horse-stealing in Virginia is (or was recently) death, unless the culprit be in church orders, in which case he is allowed the benefit of clergy. This punishment, to us in Rhode Island, would be thought to greatly exceed the offence. Now, suppose that it should so fall out that a re- 24 CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. spectable citizen of this State should happen in Virginia, and that circumstances should cause him to be suspected (though innocent) of horse-stealing. What should we think of the discretion and wis- dom of that man, if, when brought into court to answer to the charge of breaking a law, the pen- alty for which he knew to be death, instead of de- claring and endeavoring to prove his innocence, he should commence a tirade against the injustice of all the laws of that State,* and especially against the unwarrantable severity of the penalty attached to the stealing of a horse? In such a case, is it not pretty evident that unless the ac- cused was acquitted on the ground of insanity, he would be almost sure to be convicted, and proba- bly hanged, for his temerity, to produce which result his unseasonable condemnation of the laws by which lie was to be tried would much contrib- ute? What prudent or discreet rnan would be guilty of such an absurd procedure? Now, this would be a very similar position to that in which Paul was placed. That great apostle was most pre-eminently a wise and discreet man. In his character, the wisdom of the serpent was most harmoniously blended with the harmlessness of the dove. He was a true Christian of that king- dom which " is not of this world," but yet he at- * It is said there were seventy offences to which the laws of Virginia formerly attached the penalty of death. CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. 25 tacked in no Quixotic spirit the existing institu- tions and governments of the countries or people he was led by the Spirit to visit. He well knew that the great image, spoken of in Daniel was not to be destroyed in open warfare, but that it was to be broken by the stone " cut out of the moun- tain without hands/' which stone was Christ, the master, whom he served. " Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone." Isa. xxviii. 16. And this was the stone which was to smite the great Image the Kingdoms and Powers of this world " upon the feet" (mark, upon its feet), " and break it to pieces, and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them : and the stone that smote the image became a great moun- tain, and filled the whole earth." Dan. ii. 35. Paul had been made a partaker of this stone. He was one of those blessed of the Lord, of whom the Spirit saith, " To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it." Rev. ii. 17. When brought before Festus to answer to the malicious accusations of the Jews, Paul felt conscious of being: innocent of the charges O C5 preferred against him. He did not seize upon that opportunity to condemn the laws as unjust or severe by which he was to be tried, or to denounce them as being inconsistent with the laws of a King- dom of Peace, just commenced on earth, to which 3 26 CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. neither Festus nor the Jews who accused him ac- knowledged allegiance. He took the wiser course of protesting his innocence of transgressing any of the existing laws, without either condemning or approving of them? "Neither," said he, "against the laws of the Jews, neither against the temple, nor yet against Cesar, have I offended anything at all." Acts xxv. 8. Does Paul by this disclaimer give his Christian sanction to all the laws of the Jews, of the Temple, and of Home? The supposi- tion is ahsurd. Had Paul been tempted to take the imprudent and over-zealous course which your correspondent intimates that he should have done, unless he meant to acknowledge by his for- bearance the justice and Christian conformable- ness of all the laws of the Jews, of the Tem.ple,&v\& of Rome that is, to denounce and condemn them, we may well suppose that so faithful a disciple of Jesus Christ as the apostle was would have felt restrained from such a procedure by the examples set by his Divine Master, both in the instance of the woman taken in adultery and when the Phar- isees sought to " entangle him" in the matter of paying tribute to Cesar, hoping that by enticing him to deny Cesar's authority, they might find occasion of accusation against him. " But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said: why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites ?" Matt. xxii. 18. How tempt ? Why, to deny the authority of Cesar to levy taxes ; the great law of the Roman empire CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. 27 the first of all its laws the law on which all other laws and the very existence of the empire depended. But mark how wary, in his answer to these wicked men, was our Saviour. " And he said unto them," (beholding a penny) "whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him, Cesar's. Then said he unto them, render there- fore unto Cesar the things which are Cesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." Probably at that period, not one of these Pharisees, nor, in fact, a single Jew living in Jerusalem, acknowl- edged at heart the right of Cesar to tax Judea. It was a conquered, a plundered province. It was only on the principle of non-resistance, and sub- mission to existing authorities, that Christians could acknowledge the right of Rome to collect, to compel tribute from the inhabitants of Judea. The whole system was one of wrong and injustice de- pending upon might rather than on right and it was doubtless in this view that Jesus acknowl- edged Cesar's power, as indicated by his wary answer to the crafty Pharisees. It was not in ac- cordance with the mission of Jesus, to smite the great image described by the prophet Daniel, either in its head of gold, its breasts and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of brass, nor yet upon its legs of iron, but upon its feet, which were ^part of iron and part of clay ." As had been foretold by Moses, Judea had become most emphatically the feet of the image, the very soles of its feet. The stranger 28 CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. within her had indeed become her ruler, an iron ruler; he was the head, she had become the tail. "The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high, and thou shalt come down very low. He shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail." Deut. xxviii. 43, 44. Jesus, the stone cut without hands, was to smite this image upon the feet formed of a mixture (as described by Dan. ii. 43) of iron and clay, which mingled, but cleaved not together, as their Roman conquerors mingled with but cleaved not to the despised Jews the relation being that of master and slave. Hence- forth the motley image the kingdoms of this world in all their pride of power, of war, of rapine and violence, of cruelty and bloodshed, of revengeful law r s, of bigotry, and false religion and superstition, are to be consumed, until "no place be found for them" before a kingdom " not of this world" set up by the Saviour of men, the "prince of peace" a kingdom of peace and righteousness, " which shall never be destroyed, but sliall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for- ever." Dan. ii. 44. Paul was a faithful servant of Jesus Christ. He labored earnestly to promote the extension of his kingdom, but he was better instructed by his Divine Master than to mar the good cause he had so much at heart by over vehe- mence or intemperate zeal. He was by far too wise a man to foolishly provoke the haughty power of Rome by an ill-timed denouncement of her CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. 29 laws, before which he was arraigned, however un- just he might deem them. He knew better than to cast pearls before swine, that they might trample them in the mire and turn again and rend him. The last passage that your correspondent ad- duces from Scripture to sustain his argument in defence of " capital punishment," is from Romans, xiii. 4 : ' For he, the ruler, is the minister of God to,thee for good; but if thou do that which is evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain, for he is a minister of God, a revenger, to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." Paul suffered death under Nero, who was the reigning emperor, when the apostle wrote. It was Nero who, in a laughing mood, fired Rome, and with jocund hand played on the violin as he looked on that great capital in flames. Finding his life in danger from the rage of the people, he caused the Christians to be charged with the crime of firing the city, had them seized, and inflammable splinters thrust into their flesh, which being set on fire, they were driven in flames through the street, for the diversion of the besotted populace, by whom multitudes of them were massacred. Now, who can believe that Paul meant to jus- tify such enormities as these, and to maintain that that they were approved of by God? "But" (says Paul) " if thou do that which is evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain, for he is the minister of God, a revenger, to execute 3* 30 CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. wrath upon him that doeth evil." Rom. xiii. 4. And was Nero indeed appointed by God a re- venger, to execute wrath upon Paul for the evil he had done? Did he cause the early Christians to he falsely accused, thrown to wild heasts, and tormented to death by thousands, for the evil they had done ? The idea is too preposterous to enter- tain for a moment. Why, if all civil govern- ments are of Divine appointment in the sense the advocates of the Divine right of kings contend for, then not only was Nero acting in accordance with the precepts of Jesus Christ, but the infamous Caligula, his predecessor, who was wont to wish that all 'mankind had but one neck, that he might kill them with a blow, was but simply performing the will of the Almighty, in striking oft* the heads of the citizens of Rome he met in his daily walks, for his amusement and to try the temper of his sword ; and the laws of Rome, that permitted masters to slaughter their Christian slaves at will, to furnish a species of food for the fishes they fattened in artificial ponds, that im- parted a peculiar flavor gratifying to their de- praved appetites, was a most Christian law, or- dained and approved of by God. All the tyrants and monsters that have ever afflicted mankind, if but seated on a throne or holding the reins of civil government, from the Pharaohs of Egypt down to the present kings of Soudan and Dahomey, who periodically slaughter thousands of their subjects CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. 31 that they may decorate their mud-walled palaces with human skulls, and swell barbaric pomp, were all in accordance with the will of that great and just God, of whom it is declared, " Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." Hab. i. 13. That Paul intended to teach submission to existing laws and obedience to magistrates, is highly probable ; such, no doubt, is the duty of every follower of the peaceful king- dom of Christ, either by performance or by suffer- ing. To this effect our Divine Master set a most memorable example ; He who could summon le- gions of angels to his rescue, submitted to be led to judgment, nailed to the cross, and to suffer death by the hands of guilty men, without up- braiding or reproof. As afterwards with Paul, when brought before Festus, our Saviour did not even deny the justice of the laws he was accused of having offended against. " When the chief priests therefore, and officers saw him, they cried, saying, Crucify him. Pilate sayeth unto them: Take ye him and crucify him, for I find no fault in him. The Jews answer: We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made him- self the Son of God." To all this Jesus answered' not. " He was oppressed, and lie was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth : he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter; and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth." Isa. liii. 7. And was this affecting silence to be 32 CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. construed into evidence of our Saviour's guilt, or an acknowledgment of the justice of the law He was accused of transgressing? or was His. subse- quent intimation to Pilate, that he had no power at all against Him, "except it were given him from above," meant as a Divine warrant for the crucifixion of the Son of God? That the Al- mighty permitted it we all believe ; but that He justified the guilty instruments of that dreadful crime, none of us believe. That the Almighty ordains by permission all evil, whether committed by rulers or by others, we all, probably, admit ; but that He will permit, in the final day of ac- count, a ruler to plead his official position as a jus- tification for the transgression of His laws, I sup- pose to be totally at variance with the teachings of Christ. But your correspondent discreetly for- bears making any serious attempt to sustain " Cap- ital punishment," by the passage quoted from Romans. He doubtless perceives that it cannot be used for that purpose without proving too much. If " Capital punishment" can be sustained by that text, then, of course, can all other punish- ments, crimes, and outrages that have ever been committed under the authority of government be sustained by the same ; they are all alike involved in the same problem, are inseparably connected in its demonstration, and must stand or fall to- gether. This conclusion seems to me to be inevitable; CHRISTIANITY OPPOSED TO DEATH PENALTY. 33 and the corollary seems no less certain, that if capital punishment for the crime of murder can be sustained by the passage from Acts, first quoted by your correspondent, then it can equally well be sustained by the commission of any offence made capital by the laws of Rome. For Paul expressly del a red that he was ready to die, not only in case he had "committed anything worthy of death," but said he, " if I be an offender, I refuse not to die." Again, if the passage quoted by your cor- respondent from our Saviour's sermon on the Mount sanctions " capital punishment" for the crime of murder, then it also sanctions the inflic- tion of death for every offence made capital by the Mosaic law ; for it was declared in the same sermon that " One jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled." Thus the authority adduced from the New Tes- tament for the re-establishment of capital punish- ment "for the crime of murder," will with equal force go to justify the re enactment of the whole of both the Roman and Mosaic criminal codes, and again defeats the argument of your corre- spondent, by proving vastly too much for his pur- pose. His argument must share the same fate if rested on the precept given to Noah. If that proves anything for your correspondent's purpose, it too proves far too much, as I trust has been shown in these remarks, and must be apparent to all unprejudiced minds, that have been seriously turned to a careful examination of the subject. 34 NORTH AND SOUTH VERSUS SLAVERY. [From the Providence Journal, December 19, 1848.] North and South versus Slavery, FAST thickening events can scarcely fail to im- press reflecting minds with the belief that an era is approaching in which the permanency of our institutions may be severely tested. The inflam- matory acts and denunciations of the ultra pro- slavery and the ultra anti-slavery factions, seem to have greatly alienated the fraternal feelings which once existed between the people of the Northern and Southern States ; and the recent organization of a great political party, avowedly formed with especial and paramount reference to the question of slavery, under the auspices of a wily politician, whose movements, there is too much reason to believe, are influenced by personal and political motives, rather than devotion to the cause he has embarked in, or the public good, will doubtless^ tend to widen and aggravate the breach already existing between the two sections. Judg- ing from past experience and from the energetic and persevering character of the American people, it seems hardly possible that the most hopeful spirit should believe that the poison which has been so long infusing itself into the public mind, can be stayed in its progress by temporary expe- dients, or that it can be effectually ejected other- NORTH AND SOUTH VERSUS SLAVERY. 35 wise than by the removal of the great Upas of slavery from whence it emanates. If this he true, it should be the study and prayer of every honest- mi nded citizen of the United States, without re- gard to section or party, to have this tree of evil removed from amongst us. The people of the North should remember that they themselves assisted in planting the evil tree, and that its pestiferous leaves once overshadowed their land. From local circumstances, perhaps, rather than superior morality, we gradually lopped its branches, and dug its roots from our soil. They became more deeply rooted at the South ; they now penetrate every foot of her soil ; they are in- terwoven with the foundations of her habitations; they are netted beneath the thresholds and hearth- stones of her people. Arrested by the Atlantic on the East, they are making rapid advances to the Pacific on the West. How shall its progress be stayed? How shall the tree itself be removed? Uproot it by force and the nation may be con- vulsed by the effort, perhaps crushed by its fall. By seeking to avoid Charybdis we may rush on Scylla. In the middle course is safety, a course by which great social evils of long standing can alone be safely removed. We should avoid left- hand as well as right-hand errors; this Christianity teaches, and that we should act on a-11 occasions with prudence and discretion, seeking to prevail by persuasion, by entreaty, by forbearance, by self- 36 NORTH AND SOUTH VERSUS SLAVERY. sacrifice, and by long suffering, rather than by threatening, violence, and bloodshed. This is the spirit which eradicates as well as overcomes evil, and in this spirit alone can the dreadful evil of slavery be removed from our country without en- dangering its peace. It has grown gradually, it must be gradually removed. The North and the South have been both engaged in fostering it, they must unite in destroying it. How shall they pro- ceed? The North have no constitutional right to demand the freedom of the slave ; the laws of the Southern States forbid his emancipation unless he is removed from their limits. Where shall he re- move? The laws of some of the States whose people clamor loudest for his freedom, forbid his entering their borders. He is disfranchised by the laws of most of the Northern States, and by the customs and prejudices of them all. He is there rarely employed by individuals, excepting in me- nial services; his participation in public affairs is mainly confined to the work-house and peniten- tiary. With no honorable markup, view to which the colored race can aspire, their best energies are paralyzed, tiie better class become dejected and re- tiring; the more worthless, impudent and reckless. The former are driven into the obscure nooks and by-lanes of our towns, or scattered on the impov- erished hills and outskirts of our farms. The latter are sent in crowds to our prisons. Is free- dom such as this to be coveted, even by a slave? NORTH AND SOUTH VERSUS SLAVERY. 37 In case of immediate emancipation on the soil, what will he the probable condition of the colored man at the South ? At present it is there a penal offence to teach him to read his Bible or to write his name. His wife or daughter may be violated in his presence by a white man, against whom neither his own nor any other colored person's evi- dence would be received in court, whilst the hus- band's and father's life would be forfeited by law should he raise his hand in their defence. Hus- band, wife, and children may at any moment be separated and sold into slavery, beyond each other's ken, the law not (infrequently making the kind treatment of an indulgent master minister to its cruelty, as in case of his dying insolvent his slaves are sold at auction in lots to suit purchasers. In some of the Southern States free colored per- sons may be thrown into prison and compelled to prove their freedom. If they succeed in proving their right to liberty, they are sold into perpetual slavery to pay the expenses of their unjust im- prisonment, ^refinement of iniquity probably unexampled in the annals of the human race, and which goes far to prove the capability of man to become perfect in wickedness. A spirited horse would be applauded for spurning servitude or slavery at the South ; a colored man is punished for attempting to escape from it. He is there a nondescript, that is, denied both the rights of a man andthe privileges of a brute. 4 do NORTH AND SOUTH VERSUS SLAVERY. Nearly equal in numbers in many of the South- ern States, is it probable, in case of immediate emancipation, that the two races will long dwell in harmony on the same soil ? By the simple pas- sage of a general law will the present domineer- ing spirit of the white man be converted into the lamb like disposition, necessary to enable him to fraternize with a race he has been taught from in- fancy to despise? At present, whilst the laws of the South are cruel to the slave, the masters are in general humane and protect their people from the law's severity, rather than subject them to its abuse. In the event of immediate emancipation on the soil, the whites would undoubtedly retain in their own hands all political power. They will both make and administer the laws, and whilst the colored man will be crushed by their weight, he will have lost his former protector. Unlike the negroes of the West India colonies, the only sove- reign power he can appeal to for justice will be to that of his oppressors. Feuds and contentions will perpetually arise, and driven- perhaps by des- peration to rebellion, a pretext will be afforded for the banishment or destruction of the more ignor- ant and weaker race. How, then, shall the slave be made free, and where on earth shall he find a home ? If he be colonized on the shores of the farther west, the Saxon land robber will soon ex- pel him with the last Indian thence? Where, then, shall he flee? Where but to the land of his NORTH AND SOUTH VERSUS SLAVERY. 39 fathers, to a home that is already prepared for him in Africa ; a home guaranteed to him hy the laws of our common Creator, which smites with death the white man who trespasses on its confines. In northern climes, the white man thrives, the colored man withers and dies the beams of Af- ric's burning sun impart health to the colored, but mortal disease to the white man he cannot dwell there and in this consists the safety of the negro. What are his hopes and prospects in Africa? Let all who wish to inquire, read the late message of the colored President of Liberia to the colored Congress of that African Republic. Let them read the history of the Colony of Liberia, com- menced under the auspices of a few benevolent men less than thirty years since. Let them trace its progress to the present day, and behold the feeble and despised colony of yesterday already grown into a Republic of 80,000 people living under a constitution similar in every essential respect to that of the United States of America, and guaranteeing to the people of color of every nation upon earth, who seek an asylum there, the same freedom and rights that are awarded in the United States to the white man of every clime. Let them contemplate this new Republic taking its stand with dignity and propriety among the nations of the earth, already entering into treaties of commerce and alliance with the great powers of Europe, its government thoroughly organized, 40 NORTH AND SOUTH VERSUS SLAVERY. and unanimously supported by its happy people, its courts of justice presided over by enlightened judges, its bar respectable, its juries honest and independent, its system of common school educa- tion already rivalling that of some of our States, and surpassing that of others, affording the means of instruction, not only to its own, but also to the children of the native princes of the interior; whose fathers they are destined shortly to suc- ceed in sovereign power. Then, behold its people to whom entire religious liberty is guaranteed by the constitution, wending their way to the nume- rous Christian churches, to offer adoration to their Creator, on the very spot, where not a quar- ter of a century since, the Devil's bush was the only temple, and where the name of the one true God was never heard but in blasphemous impre- cations from the lips of the slave-dealer. Let the inquirer then cast his eye on the map of Africa, and behold more than four hundred miles of its coast, but late the very focus of the slave trade, already redeemed from its direful curse, by the peaceful extension of the new Republic, which has done more towards the suppression of the horrid traffic, as has been lately announced on the floor of the British Parliament and from other high quarters, than has been accomplished by all the armed powers of earth combined. Let the inquirer contemplate this as having already been done, and then reflect that the soil of Africa is produc- NORTH- AND SOUTH VERSUS SLAVERY. 41 'tive beyond that of most other countries; that de- populated by the man-stealer, its sea-coast offers an extent of country ample to accommodate and sustain millions of immigrants, who being thus located, will gradually girt the continent with a living: wall of intelligence which will be more ef- o 3 iicient in annihilating the slave trade than all the fleets of the world combined ; whilst, on the other hand, a door for a world enriching peaceful com- merce will be opened with the interior, and the beams of Christianity will radiate Jfrom the cir- cumference to the centre of Africa, scattering in their path, civilization, a knowledge of agricul- ture and the arts, and long benighted Ethiopia, through the instrumentality of her returning children, be thus taught the way of salvation, and with a shout of rejoicing from the whole length and breadth of her land, in the emphatic language of prophecy, "stretch out her hands to God." If the inquirer thinks this too much to anticipate, let him turn to the page of the history of his own country, and compare the growth and progress of Liberia with that of the European colonies on our own shores. He will there find it recorded that at a corresponding period in their settlement, whilst some of them were abandoned or as-airi O and again nearly destroyed and lingering in a per- ishing condition, none were to be compared in prosperity to Liberia; and yet in a little more than two centuries from their settlement, we see , 4* 42 NORTH AND SOUTH VERSUS SLAVERY. these feeble colonies expanded into a mighty nation* of 20,000,000 of freemen, in the full enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, teaching by their exam- ple and encouraging by their experience their brethren in Europe, on their way to freedom and self-government. If such results have grown out, of colonizing North America by a race who exter- minated the native inhabitants, what may we not expect from colonizing Africa, when \ve consider the rapid progress of Liberia to the present time, and remember that so far from exterminating the natives, the colonists who settle there are but the expatriated brethren of the millions of Africa, with whom they naturally fraternize and amalga- mate on their return to their father land ? But how shall they return ? Aye, how shall they be returned? Let but the United States marine be employed in conveying to Africa, free of expense, all such free people of color as may desire to emi- grate, and tens of thousands will soon be found ready to embark. Thousands of benevolent planters will embrace the opportunity to place their negroes in a position where they can be comfortable, and free from the oppressions which await them, in America, alike at the South and the North. In the one section they are robbed of their liberty, in the other of their rights. In Liberia they enjoy both. There they are men ; men fearing God only, whose mission is to civilize and Christianize Africa, to drive the slave ship PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 48 from her coasts, and eventually to free their brethren from bondage throughout the whole earth. Who will not aid so good, so great a cause ? [From the Providence Journal, January 2, 1851.] President's Message and African Slave Trade, IN the last Presidential election my suffrage was not cast for Zachary Taylor. It was not, however, withheld from any doubts in my mind of his character as an honest man; if such had been the fact, every such doubt would have van- ished upon reading his recent annual message. It is one of those transparent productions that carries within itself such an evidence of truthful- ness that the mind is left no 'room to doubt the honesty, though it may not assent to all the views of the author. Its language conveys the same sound to the understanding that it does to the ear. It is addressed to the virtue and good sense of Congress, not as heretofore has been too often the CD / case, to the passions and prejudices of their con- stituents. It is meant to convey information to that body of the real wants of the country, and to stimulate its members to labor for the promotion of the public good not to distract their cou'ncil by executive dictation or to degrade and embarrass 44 PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE AND THE SLAVE TRADE. them by threatened vetoes. The two last para- graphs of the message should be engraven on the memory of every American citizen every sen- tence in them is pregnant with sound sense and manly patriotism. But my object at this time is not so much to call attention to the general merits of the message as to direct it to the President's remarks relative to the African slave trade, and his recommenda- tion that Congress should so amend our laws as to effectually suppress that horrid traffic. The half of a century has nearly elapsed since the first powers in the world combined to put an end to the African slave trade. England, France, and the United' States are now bound by mutual treaties to keep expensive armaments on the coast of Africa to protect her people from the depredation of the slave ships, and hundreds of their citizens have fallen a prey to the unhealthiness of the climate and yet all that this has accomplished is an aggravation of the evil. As far back a's 1838, only five years after the abolition of slavery by Great Britain, T. Fowell Buxton thus writes, after having examined all the books and parliamentary documents connected with the slave trade : " Will you believe it," says he, " the slave trade, though England has relinquished it, is now double what it was when Wilberforce first spoke ; and its hor- rork not only aggravated by the increase of the total, but in each particular case more intense than PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 45 they were in 1788 ? Will you believe it, again, that it requires at the rate of one thousand human beings per diem, in order to satisfy its enormous maw?" Mr. Buxton's biographer states that, in the work called The Slave Trade and its Remedy, " Mr. Bux- ton demonstrated from official evidence, that_.at the very least 150,000 negroes are annually im- ported into Brazil and Cuba alone ! He drew also from a vast number of sources a description of the horrors attendant on the trade, which he says 'has made Africa one universal den of desolation, mis- ery, and crime.' He showed what a waste of human life is incurred in the seizure of the slaves for the merchant; in the hurried march through the desert to the coast, with scarce a pittance of water, under the broiling sun, in the detention at the ports, where hunger and misery carry off num- berless wretches, whose late might yet be envied by the miserable beings who survive. These, pressed down for weeks together between the decks of the slave ship, have to endure torments which cannot be described. Scarcely can the mind real- ize the horror of that dreadful charnal house ; the sea-sickness, the suffocation, the terrible thirst, the living chained to the putrid dead, the filth, the stench, the fury of despair. Even after landing, multitudes more perish in what is called 4 the sea- soning on the coast,' and the remnant who have lived through all this misery, are then sold to en- dure as slaves the abominable cruelties of Spanish 46 PEESIDENT'S MESSAGE AND THE SLAVE TRADE. and Portuguese masters. He showed that at the very least two negroes perish for every one who is sold into slavery. 'In no species of merchandise/ he exclaims, ' is there such a waste of the raw ma- terial us in the merchandise of man. In what other trade do two thirds of the goods perish, in order that one-third may reach the market?" 3 This was a picture of the slave trade some ten years ago, since which time its then inconceivable horrors have been greatly increased, for the rea- sons that a greater demand for slaves has been created in Brazil and Cuba, through an increased consumption of their products in Great Britain, in consequence of an equalization of duties on colonial and foreign sugar. It is now proved that if one cargo of slaves out of four arrives in Brazil the business is remunerative. This affords a stim- ulus to the slave merchant that no blockade can resist, although it may greatly aggravate the suf- ferings of the poor negroes, as, to elude the cruis- ers, small vessels, built sharp, for the purpose of sailing fast, are mostly used, in lieu of roomy ves- sels as formerly, into which the poor things are literally packed as herrings, and whose sufferings are greater than the mind can conceive of. Some- times in case of hot pursuit whole cargoes of them are thrown overboard. At other times, during vio- lent storms of long continuance, the hatches are closed upon them, and hundreds perish by suffoca- tion. A physician from Brazil gave in testimony 47 a few years since before a committee of Parliament that he had known five hundred slaves massacred on the beach at once, being condemned as unmer- chantable on account of their suffering on the voyage, and he also stated that similar transac- tions were of common occurrence in Brazil. Many vessels under the United States flag are engaged in this horrid traffic, and no doubt some of our cit- izens. It is a favorite flag to sail under, as no cruisers can interfere with vessels on which it waves but those of the United States. It is now, I believe, pretty generally acknow- ledged by the most prominent friends of the negro in England, that all the acts of the British gov- ernment so far, relating both to slavery and the slave trade, have tended to aggravate both evils in the aggregate. Formerly the sugar for the supply of the British empire was furnished by the blood and sweat of less than a million of slaves, who were at least partially protected by law, and in whose good treatment the interests of the planter were involved: as in case of their death or diminution they could not replenish their stock by importation. But now the supplies of sugars are received from sources where the poor negroes are worked and abused to the last extremity, and where the wants of life on the plantations are replenished after the horrible manner before de- scribed. Does this not look as if the right meas- ures have never yet been adopted by England for the true amelioration of the colored race? This seems to be the conclusion which that great and good champion of the rights of the colored race, T. Fowell Buxton, arrived at before his death, which was probably hastened by the failure of the Niger expedition in accomplishing its intended object. In alluding to what that expedition had done, Buxton says: "This looks that 'the set time were come' and makes me hold fast to the convic- tion, that although we may fail, and our plans prove worthless, the day is at hand when the right methods will be devised, and when Africa will be delivered. God grant that the happy day may soon arrive." Again he says, "at all events we know one thing which we did not know before. We know how the evil is to be cured that it is to be done by native agency by colored ministers of the gospel. Africa is to be delivered by her own sons." And thus after a life spent in the best intentioned error, did T. Fowell Buxton arrive at truth at last. Yes, Africa must and will, I most confidently believe, be redeemed through the instrumentality of her own sons. The plan is already laid and perfected, it needs only extension. The experi- ment has been fairly tested in Liberia. Some six thousand free colored people settled on the coast of Africa, have succeeded in accomplishing more good for their race in the lust thirty years, than has all the world besides. They have entirely PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 49 banished slavery and the slave trade from more than four hundred miles of sea-coast, where for- merly it was carried on to a greater extent than from any part of Africa. They have so far civil- ized some 80,000 of the natives, as to make them sensible of the nature and advantages of a repub- lican form of government, which they have estab- lished and live under in peace and happiness, and are respected by the first nations in the world. This has all been done through the exertions of a few individuals. Let but now the Government step forward and lend its aid to the cause, and the slave trade will soon cease to exist. The whole line of sea-coast where it does exist is thinly peo- pled, owing to the depredations of the slave tra- ders, and thus ample room is provided for millions of emigrants. Supply but the means of sending them to Africa, and thousands will be found will- ing and glad to go, to assist in redeeming their fatherland from slavery and barbarism, and to build up a nation of colored freemen, where they can feel themselves men. Our government has voted millions of dollars and hundreds of lives to support a fleet of war ships on the coast of Africa. Let them now spend a like sum in missions of peace, and the hydra of slavery and the slave trade will receive its death blow. Hundreds of benevolent planters are now ready to free their negroes so soon as they can be placed in a situation where they will be 5 50 PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE AND THE SLAVE TRADE. comfortable, and no longer require their protec- tion. Thousands and tens of thousands will soon follow their example, and the effect will be to re- deem Africa from the curse of the slave trade and from barbarism, and our own country from that of slavery. The Colonization Society, for the sum of fifty dollars, pays the expenses of an emigrant to Liberia and maintains him for six months when there. Their funds at present will not admit of their sending but a small part of the applicants, and they are constantly multiplying. Great Britain paid one hundred millions of dollars to free less than one million of slaves. This sum, in the hands of the Colonization Society, would send two mil- lions of people to Africa and there is no question but that the people would be furnished if the money could be obtained. For one, I have no doubt that if the government of the United States would withdraw their fleet from the coast of Africa, and appropriate the cost of its mainte- nance to the cause of colonization, the imme- diate good results would be so apparent as to cause such a course increasingly to grow in public favor, both at the South and at the North, and that the government would be encouraged to ex- tend its aid to any necessary amount, and that the slave question would soon cease to agitate and threaten the stability of the Union. THE INSANE POOR. 51 [From the Providence Journal, December 6, 1849.] The Insane Poor, I WAS ranch gratified to perceive by some re- marks in a recent number of the Journal, that you take a lively interest in the cause of the in- sane poor, especially of our State; and I hope that you will not allow your interest in their be- half to abate, until something effectual is done, either by State legislation or otherwise, to better their condition. So long as there existed no in- stitution in our State where insane paupers could be placed and properly treated, there seemed to be some excuse for the several towns not pro- viding more comfortably for that class, than they have been in the habit of doing heretofore. But since the establishment of so excellent an institu- tion as the Butler Hospital, there seems to be no excuse for the towns persevering in keeping this afflicted and afflicting class confined at the asylums for their poor. Necessity frequently sanctions con- duct under some circumstances that would be criminal under others, and although the course adopted by the towns before the erection of the hospital might be excused, since that event, the necessity no longer exists, and it becomes criminal. It is true that it may come under that class of crime which is not to be reached by the law, although of this fact I am by no means certain, and I 52 THE INSANE POOR. should like very much to see the question settled by a judicial tribunal. If legal redress cannot be obtained for causing unnecessary suffering to in- sane persons, there certainly exists a great anom- aly in our institutions. A man charged with the grossest infraction of law, is at once acquitted and declared innocent of crime, provided it ap- pears that he was insane at the time of commit- ting the offence ; and, yet, had he been sane and pronounced guilty, the sentence of the law might have caused him much less suffering than he is now made to undergo by his fellow townsmen, for being found guilty of insanity; thus credit- ing crime with the extra penalty inflicted on misfortune. We have jails and penitentiaries for the con- finement of criminals, and care is taken that the accommodation should be as comfortable as the nature of the institutions will permit. Now, sup- pose the superintendent of our penitentiary was to single out (it may be) the very worst criminal within its walls, and place him in the depth of winter in an isolated shed, chain him to a rock, without clothing, and without fire or artificial heat of any kind, and there leave him through a long, cold winter to shiver and writhe in the most dreadful torture, would there be no remedy in law think you, Mr. Editor, should the friends (if hap- pily friends there should be) of the sufferer to commence legal proceedings for damages? And THE INSANE POOR. 53 even was there no remedy by law, would not such cruel conduct wake up the very stones in our streets? Yea, and not in ours only; but such a cry of indignation would burst from the whole length and breadth of the nation, as would of itself rend the chains of the sufferer asunder. Look well at that picture, Mr. Editor, and then compare it with this. Suppose a man to have been born and to have resided within the limits of a town in the State of Rhode Island from infancy to old age, who had always sustained a good char- acter; had labored assiduously in his calling for the support of his family ; had ever cheerfully borne his part of the burdens of society ; had carefully brought up his children and educated them to the best of his ability; yea, had watched over them with that tenderness which parents only can appre- ciate and understand. His youngest, the child of his old age, blighted from birth by disease, a frail, weak thing, and thereby rendered doubly dear; this helpless child, a daughter. Years pass on, mis- fortunes gather around the poor man's home ; his only son, the staff of his old age, is smitten with death ; afflictions come not alone, the mother soon follows to the grave ; old age and sorrow have palsied his arm; he can work no more; the lit- tle savings of a life of labor are exhausted; the afflicted daughter strives to the utmost to earn the means of existence for her decrepit father re- gardless of her own wants; day after day, and 54 THE INSANE POOR. night after night, amidst weariness, sorrow, and pain, she struggles on, plying the needle to ob- tain the pittance which society awards to feehle woman's toil. But, alas, the world has gained the victory; it has proved too hard for its victim; anguish of mind and exhaustion of hody has turned her brain; the poor man's child is crazed. The daughter, and now bedridden father, are con- veyed to the town's asylum for the poor, where the father is comfortably provided for as to out- ward wants. Unhappy and restless, the daughter attempts to escape ; is brought back and chained to the floor of her room to save the trouble or expense of watching her; a glimpse of returning reason revisits her mind; she looks about inquir- ingly; her father is not there; she moves Jooks down, and beholds the chain ; the dreadful reality flashes on her memory ; the work of the mind's destruction is accomplished. In her agony she wrings blood from her hands, casts one despairing, hopeless look around, and shrieks, and shrieks, and shrieks, again a raving maniac. Her mid- night cries disturb the keeper's rest ; bloody stripes inflicted on her attenuated form fail to silence her, though echoed by her father's groans, and a cav- ern is made of rocks, or dug in the neighboring hill, where she is dragged and chained, without light, without fire, without clothing, for this she tears in desperation from her limbs. Follow her there, Mr. Editor, make the picture real, for such THE INSANE POOR. 55 things have been. Think of the fond father's agony, who for years had debarred himself the necessaries of life to soothe the sufferings of that poor, sickly, helpless girl. Let your sight be borne on the winter's blast, 'twill waft it through the cranny in her dungeon's wall ; there she lies, crouching on the bare frozen ground, spotted with blood torn from her frail limbs by the rough iron chain. Her feet are freezing Toes she has none they perished on the cold Friday's night a year ago. Her teeth seem keys of some strange instrument, On which the icy hands of winter fiercely play. Her auhurn hair, once fair and soft, Is not so now 'tis matted now And hangs uncombed o'er her thin, pale face Grizzled with suffering and white with frost. She never weeps. Poor thing, the fabric of her brain is crushed tears cannot flow ; But through dreary days and long dark nights she writhes in agony, And mutters to herself 'tis cold 'tis cruel cold Or strikes at frightful phantoms issuing from her mind's poor wreck. Or shrinks from fancied blows from human fiends Or laughs or screams by turns with pain Or shouts and dances to the horrid music of her chattering teeth and clanking chain. Like crimes, quite as heinous and revolting as the one here pictured, have been enacted within this State as is well known to many. And is 56 THE INSANE POOR. there, indeed, no earthly tribunal before which communities or individuals, who have thus tor- mented their helpless fellow-creatures, may be brought to justice? Me thinks a voice answers, "none!'' By heartfelt repentance towards God and man alone, or by an eternity of punishment, can such dreadful crimes be expiated. It matters but little what customs or habits nations or communities may contract, they are equally wedded to the most criminal, and as prone to defend them, if of long standing, as they are the most just and righteous. Those nations that formerly worshipped the god Moloch, and cast their screaming infants into the fiery furnace, held in their idol's brazen arms, were then as ready to" defend their conduct, from any innova- tion on their cruel custom, as are those communi- ties now who sacrifice the poor and halting of their species to mammon, the god of their idolatry. As they who formerly should have sought to have preserved the innocents from the burning flames, would, in all probability, have themselves been sacrificed for their humane efforts, so must they expect to meet with odium, who seek to lift the veil that cloaks the evils that fester at the roots of society now. In contemplating the fabric of our religious, civil, and social institutions, my spirit is often weighed down under such a sense of their multiplicity and magnitude, that I am ready to exclaim with the mourner of old, Oh, that my THE INSANE POOR. 57 head were waters and mine eyes were a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughters of my people /" It, is said that all earthly institutions contain within themselves the seeds of their dissolution. And I have thought that if our political institu- tions were doomed to speedy destruction, that the cause would he found to emanate, in a great meas- ure, from our remiss ness in performing our duty to the helpless and poor, especially to that class who are denominated paupers. It is true that a great amelioration of their condition has taken place within a few years, hut much yet remains to be done. Many of our towns' asylums now are comfortable residences, so far as physical wants are concerned, but the best of them have no suit- able arrangements or accommodations for insane inmates, and none should be placed there, espe- cially such as it is thought necessary to chain, or even to confine. The needless suffering that they themselves endure, and cause to others of the household where they are confined, is incalcu- lable. Formerly, it was not infrequent for men who possessed much political influence in particular towns to use it for the purpose of having the towns' poor assigned to some partisan whose party services they had already profited by, or wished to secure for the future, thus making merchandise of the poor, and selling them for a reward. An- 58 THE INSANE POOR. other practice, if possible, still worse, existed in some towns of letting out, as it was termed, their poor to the lowest bidder, that is, to the one who would take them off the hands of the community and keep them for the lowest sum, thus grinding to a razor's edge the face of the poor. By experi- ments under this system, it was pretty satisfac- torily ascertained, that for a given cost of food, the vital principle could be preserved from extinc- tion in a greater volume of human bones and mus- cles than in the same amount of volume of any of the brute creation that has yet been domesticated by man. I have recently seen it stated in a public paper that this practice still exists in some of our towns. For the sake of humanity it is to be hoped that this is a mistake. This whole subject, Mr. Editor, should undergo a strict legislative investi- gation. The people should be made thoroughly acquainted with the real situation of every per- son in the State who is dependent upon public charity. Let us be minutely informed of every such individual, and whether they are sane, in- sane, blind, deaf and dumb, or idiots, and how they are placed and treated. We shall then be enabled to act understand'! ngly with regard to the subject, and to apply proper remedies where abuses really exist. All that is required is to fairly arouse public sentiment, and virtue and humanity will surely triumph ; delinquent towns will be shamed into duty, and demagogues will OUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. 59 no longer be permitted to cancel their bonds given to Shylocks for political services by pounds of human flesh ground from the faces of the poor. [From the Providence Journal, July 26, 1850.] Our Members of Congress, I HAVE not the least doubt that our State is at present represented in Congress by men who, at this trying time, are sincerely desirous to perform their duty, regardless of party ties, so far as they relate to the question which now more than ever seems to threaten the peace of the Union. And, indeed, although I have not until lately appre- hended that any serious consequences would re- sult from the protracted agitation of the question of slavery, I confess that it begins to assume a far more alarming aspect in my view than it has hith- erto done. The very name of our late lamented President, encircled as it was with a halo of public virtues, in which truth, sincerity, and firmness shone so conspicuously that no slanders could for a moment shake the people's confidence in his patriotism and entire devotion to his country's welfare, was, of itself, a tower of strength not easily to be over- thrown ; and identified as he was with the insti- tutions and citizens of that section of our common 60 OUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. country where, if to be apprehended at all, we should look for the first overt act of disunion, it seemed almost impossible that any organized re- sistance to the laws could be attempted, even by the most desperately wicked Catalines of the South, though goaded to madness by the taunts of short- sighted zealots of the North, who, for the sake of idle repetitions of the truth of questions relating to negro slavery already established beyond a doubt, would assist in demolishing the institutions of a country and precipitating into anarchy a people more highly favored by divine Providence than any other ever known either in the present or the past. But since the late act of aggression of the State of Texas in extending her jurisdiction by force over territory in possession of the United States, I confess that I feel serious apprehensions of approaching trouble, more especially when I reflect upon the character of a portion of the pop- ulation of those plague spots of the Union, whose marauding propensities have already involved the whole nation in repeated crimes, and whose fu- ture destiny now seems to be held dependent upon any half a dozen desperadoes, who, at any moment by their lawless acts, may precipitate a civil war upon the country, and thus this child of adversity be made a whip in the hands of Providence to scourge us for our sins. If these presentiments are true, if danger like this does indeed threaten us, how fearfully respon- OUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. 61 sible before the world, and in the sight of their Creator, must be the position of that man who, by the casting of a single vote, may have the power to stay the angry passions of men, and give peace to his distracted country ; or, by the same act, let slip the dogs of loar, arid fill its street with carnage, lamentation and woe. Who, under such circumstances, if a member of Congress, would not, by day and by night, prayerfully med- itate upon his duty to God and to mankind, and fearlessly resolve to perform it to the best of his knowledge, regardless of consequences ? Who, indeed, would not esteem it an honor to be sacri- ficed in such a cause, if thereby he could save his people from destruction, even though they should immolate him for the deed? But, on the other hand, how dreadful would be the reflection, that from a sincere desire to conform to the wishes of his constituents, a member of Con- gress should so vote as to bring the dire evil of civil war upon his country, and when too late find that he was mistaken in their sentiments ; that, like a bewildered mariner on a troublous sea, he had been led to believe that the straws driven by angry winds on its surface correctly indicated the flow of the deepest current, and whose error was not discovered until his vessel was stranded on the sand. And may not this be the very position of our members in Congress at the present time? Does 6 62 OUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. it not strike strangely ajar on the Rhode Island ear, to hear our Senators so uniformly voting on the great questions of the country, in opposition to Clay and Webster ? To the patriotic and enlightened efforts of the former, we, of Rhode Island, have ever been the foremost in ascribing, in a great degree, the unparalleled prosperity- of the country, and in an especial manner that of our own little State. Hitherto we have ever stood unflinchingly by him through good and through evil report, as he has for near half a century fought the great battles of his country in the halls of her national legisla- ture. Hitherto we have ever esteemed it more honorable to suffer defeat with him than to obtain a victory with his opponents ; and well might we we have never had reason to be ashamed of his cause. He has ever contended for enlightened just and practical public measures. He has ever sought to instruct, short-sightedness and ignorance, and oppose wickedness. How is it, then, that we have thus suddenly become separated from him? Has he, in his declining years, become less wise or less disinterested than formerly ? Has he, now that he seems to have aroused every faculty of mind and body for the last great effort for his country's good and the good of mankind, abandoned the cause of righteousness, and whilst trembling on the verge of eternity sold himself body and soul to the powers of darkness ? Or does he stand OUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. 63 where he has ever stood, erect in the cause of truth though sick at heart with the ingratitude of men he is spending his last breath to serve? Is it not we, who, in our national councils, have separated ourselves from him, by abandoning the cause of our whole country in her greatest need, and becoming the dupes of disappointed, malig- nant men, who, defeated in their ambitious pro- jects, concocted a scheme of revenge on the South which threatens to involve us all alike in ruin? The incongruous party that now paralj T zes the country originated in revenge, and no good thing ever flowed from such a source. It is true we may put the South more deeply in the wrong than we are in ourselves ; but will that be a sufficient recom- pense for destroying the Union, yea, the hopes of all mankind? It is true the people of the South are unreasonable in many things, that they are somewhat given to bluster and gasconade, but still they are a magnanimous and noble people with all their faults. They must be more than human if they did not feel the reversal of their political position in the Union. It should be the aim of the North to soothe and tranquilize their wounded pride, rather than to unnecessarily vex and irritate. The North can afford to be mag- nanimous, wealth, political power, numbers are all on their side, and increasingly so. Slavery, not only in this country, but in the world is a doomed institution. Deal kindly with the people 64 OUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. of the South, deal with them sincerely, and they will themselves soon aid in bringing it to an end, they are already aiding in doing so, and sacrifice yearly far more in the cause at this present time than does the North. I am no apologist, Mr. Editor, for the violent and inconsistent conduct of many of the people of the South. Their con- duct cannot be justified. But let not us of the North strengthen the hands of that class at the South by delaying proper legislation or by precip- itating intemperate measures. Most of the people of the South are sick of the controversy now raging. Where no vital issue is at stake we should meet them amicably in any scheme of com- promise that may be offered. Woe will await this country when the fealty of any of its States or sections to the Union is felt to be that of a conquered people. The compromise offered by Mr. Clay, I believe, would meet the ap- proval of a very large majority of the people of this State, and I do not doubt that their Repre- sentatives and Senators in Congress would be sus- tained by their constituents, should they vote for it on its final passage, without any material alter- ations from its original draft, when presented. The only objectionable feature to me, is the clause relating to the recovery of fugitive slaves. The provision is strictly constitutional. But the con- science of the people of the North is not now what it was when the Constitution was framed. FREE HOMESTEADS. 65 The law of God is paramount to that of man, and this provision can never be enforced at the North. We should deal sincerely with our brethren of the South and tell them so, tell them that we will give them every opportunity to prove their pro- perty at the North, every facility that they may need, and that when proved, we will pay them for the person of the slave out of the national trea- sury ; and this should and probably would satisfy them, and it would also satisfy the world that we are sincere in our professions of love to the slave and good-will to the master. Thus the Constitu- tion will not be broken, as the law is satisfied by penalty as well as performance. [From the Providence Journal, February 14, 1851.] Free Homesteads. I AM glad to see that a bill has been introduced into our Legislature providing for the exemption from attachment for debt of family homesteads of a certain value. Although the passage of the act has by a vote of the House of Representatives been for the present delayed, I would say to the friends of the bill in that body, fear not, be of good cheer, persevere in your righteous endeavors, and success will certainly eventually crown your efforts. If there ever was a just and beneficent 6* 66 FREE HOMESTEADS. law proposed, this certainly is one, and it is worthy in every point of view to receive the sanction of the representatives of a liberal and enlightened people. If carried into effect, it will not only prove a blessing to thousands of the more humble class of our citizens, but it will also be the means of placing the credit transactions of business men on a more permanent and reliable footing than that on which they at present stand. In fact, as far as regards the collection of debts, I for one have been fully persuaded for many years, that if all laws enacted for the benefit of creditors were totally abrogated, a credit business would be far more safely transacted, and with infinitely less loss than it is at present. lS~o law is necessary to induce an honest man to pay his debts. A dis- honest man will readily find the means to evade the payment of his debts in spite of all law. Debtors who feel that the credit that has been granted them, was accorded rather in dependence on the strength of the law, than from confidence in their integrity, often seem to think that if by any trick or contrivance they. can evade the legal demands of their creditors, they have satisfied the requisition of the law as fully as if they had com- plied with its meaning in good faith. And in this view of the subject society seems too often to acquiesce, by retaining in its bosom the dishonored defaulter, which would not be the case were there no law intervening between the debtor and credit- FREE HOMESTEADS. 67 or to mystify their relation. Thus it often occurs that men who are by nature or education inclined to honesty, and who require nothing farther to confirm them in an honorable course, than that their fellow men should regard them with con- fidence, are tempted into a dishonest evasion of the payment of their debts, from the humiliating aspect in which they feel that they are regarded in the eye of the law. Although I have long felt assured of the correctness of these views myself, I am well aware that they would be looked upon by most men as Utopian in their character. Such an invasion of the established usages and laws of mankind, as would be required to test their prac- ticability, would be too abrupt and radical to admit of the assent of the many, but I am in- clined to believe that the children are now born who will live to see all laws for the enforcement of contracts or the collection of debts abolished in our favored land. I believe that there is no law in the United States by which debts contracted at the gaming table can be collected. -In almost every instance suck debts as these are due from a class of men who are universally held to be the pests of society, and who are often in a manner outlawed for their wickedness, and hunted even to death by communities they haye outraged. Now if it should appear upon examination that a less percentage of these debts, contracted without a consideration being received by the debtor, due 68 FREE HOMESTEADS. from the most worthless of men to others of the same class, and without the shadow of law to enforce their payment, is lost to the creditor, than is lost of the business debts of the country con- tracted with men whose characters are generally fair and honorable at the time, where a fair con- sideration has been given, and the payment of which can be enforced by law, it would seem to go to show that the theory is at least worthy of consideration. Laws exempting homesteads from attachment have already been passed by many States in our Union, and we of Rhode Island, who boast that our forefathers were the individuals who con- stituted the first community on earth, that had the spirit and liberality to break loose from the ecclesiastical fetters that priestcraft had insidi- ously woven around the consciences of men, are in danger of losing caste by thus allowing our sister republics to outstrip us in the onward march of civil, social, and religious reform. The history of the past legislation of the world goes to show, that law-makers have generally looked only on the dark side of man, and that their science has been directed to crush as it were by external pressure the evil in his nature, whilst not a finger has been lifted to encourage the development of the good. The consequence of this system seems to have been that the ingenuity of individuals has been on the alert to devise some means to evade or FREE HOMESTEADS. 69 break through the laws that looked for their sup- port to no higher motive than the sentiment of fear. It is high time that we at least in our little State, now thickly studded over with schools, and organized as it were into one great temperance society, began to look on the bright side of human nature, and to legislate with a view of encourag- ing and developing the good as well as for the purpose of crushing the bad points in its character. There is a noble principle implanted in the breast of every human being, which, if appealed to in full and unsuspecting confidence, will seldom de- ceive. Low indeed must have fallen the most depraved of the species ere this principle becomes wholly extinct. It is the image of man's Maker, which though often obscured and oppressed by sin, seldom departs but with the breath of life. In proportion as this principle is exalted the spirit of evil is depressed. As iron sharpeneth iron, so may men assist their fellow creatures in its develop- ment, but the spirit of God can alone thoroughly refine and sanctify it. It is the soul of man. It is destined to live forever. Christ within is its light and true life, its father is the creator and sustainer of all things. Rhode Island was the first political community in Christendom to declare that the soul's allegiance was due to God alone, and that the consciences of men should not be constrained by human laws. Let us be among: the first to recognize in our le;is~ 70 FREE HOMESTEADS. lation a higher principle than the sentiment of fear to insure the observance of our laws. Let us begin by exempting homesteads of the value of one thousand dollars from attachment for debts, that may be contracted subsequent to the owner- ship of the exempted property and to the passage of the law. Insure to the industrious and frugal poor man a home for his wife and children, make the family to feel that it is indeed their own, that "no misfortune or imprudence of the husband and father can deprive them of it. Tell the son that he shall eat of the fruit of the tree that his hands have planted, the daughter that she shall gather blossoms from the vine she has cherished. The humanizing influence of such a law will soon be made manifest. Thousands who are now reckless will feel that laws that accord to them so bene- ficent a boon are well worth sustaining, that civil society is indeed worth preserving. Thus guaran- teed a shelter and subsistence for those he loves, the poor man will stand more erect among his fellows. He will become more chary of his credit, more careful of his reputation, he will need no appeal to the slavish sentiment of fear to prompt him to discharge his debts, but he will of his own accord strive with redoubled vigor to keep himself from embarrassment and his family from reproach. In many countries in Europe the people at large are permitted to have free access to the parks and pleasure grounds of the rich, and Americans who FREE HOMESTEADS. 71 visit these places are often surprised to find that a trespass is seldom or ever committed by any one of the tens of thousands who partake of the privilege. The beautiful park of St. James is situated almost in the heart of London. Some years since in loitering around the shores of the lovely little lake it incloses, I observed that the swans and other water fowl with which it abounds were so gentle that they scarcely seemed to notice my near approach. The green fields and serpentine walks were dotted and garnished with shrubs and flowers, amidst which many little birds found shelter for their young, and so void of all fear of man were they, that they gathered closely around my feet to pick the crumbs which I threw to them. Although the millions of the vast metropolis were permitted to pour at will unrestrainedly through the walks of the park, I observed that there seemed not to have been a flower or a leaf plucked. I admired the perfection of the police and the law that could insure such protection and safety to animate and inanimate nature when brought O thus in close contact with the population of the greatest city on earth. But I found upon inquiry that the birds and flowers owed their security to laws that addressed themselves to noble and higher sentiments in the breasts of men than those of fear. I learned that the whole population of Lon- don were made individually the guardians of the 72 DYMOND'S ESSAY ON WAR. park, and that the meanest beggar who sought recreation in the grounds felt i't to be his duty to aid in protecting them from injury, and that were a hand put forth to pluck the smallest leaf the cry of shame would at once arise in concert from an hundred voices. [From the Herald of the Times and Rhode Islander, Nov. 4, 1847.] Dymond's Essay on War, A NEW edition of this incomparable essay is now in the course of publication in Philadelphia, mostly for gratuitous distribution, under the superintendence of members of the society of Friends. It would seem almost impossible, that any honest minded person should arise from its careful perusal, without being convinced of the utter inconsistency of all wars with the precepts of Christianity. The gifted author seems to have conclusively demonstrated, that so far from war being con- sistent with the doctrines taught by Jesus Christ, it is a dreadful combination of every evil which they bear testimony against. He clearly shows by the Scriptures that whilst every argument of an affirmative nature, drawn from the Gospel, is opposed to war, all those pas- sages by which casuists seek to justify it, are DYMOND'S ESSAY ON WAR. 73 without exceptions of a negative character, which if admitted as evidence of the lawfulness of war, would equally establish the consistency with Christianity, of many other monstrous crimes. And if the silence of Jesus with regard to the profession of the centurion Avhose faith he so highly commended, was to be construed as evi- dence in favor of war, it might with equal pro- priety be taken as an approval of the Roman's worship as an Idolater. The author shows by unquestionable evidence, that for the^rs^ two centuries of the Christian era, the followers of our Saviour, in all countries, and under all circumstances, positively refused to bear (/rms, and in many cases laid down their lives in support of their testimony against war. He shows that it was not until after gross cor- ruptions had crept into the church, to such an extent that professors of Christianity were even found officiating as priests in the temples of Idolatry, that others making a similar profession, were found serving in the. ranks of Heathen armies. This cor- ruption in common with many others, continued to increase during the third century, and appears to have become very generally established in the fourth, after a union of church and state (in other words, of Anti-Christianity and. Paganism} had been effected under Constantine, the first Roman Em- peror who made a profession of the Christian religion, since which period, as is well known to all 7 74 readers of history, the world has been made one great human slaughter-house by professors of Christianity. With great strength and clearness, Dymoncl overthrows the doctrines of expediency so elabo- rately and ably advocated by Paley, and over- whelmingly exposes the fallacy of the latter writer's maxims in regard to what constitutes sufficient grou-nds for war*, especially that in which Paley contends, that the fear of injury is a just cause for war. Whilst mankind have ever been made butchers of each other, under the delusive idea that the shedding of each other's blood is necessary to the safety of communities and nations, the author of the essay proves by established facts that in every instance, where communities have religiously ab- stained from resisting violence by arms, and have in unwavering and submissive faith placed their whole reliance for protection on God alone, His guardian care has ever been extended for their preservation, even in the greatest extremities of seeming danger. As examples, he instances some of the early settlers of America, whilst engaged in sanguinary wars with the Indians. The colo- nists who were armed, were constantly being killed from ambushes whilst parsing about or whilst at work in their fields, and were at length compelled to abandon their homes and seek safety in forts. The members of the religious society of DYMOND'S ESSAY ON WAR. 75 Friends, who constituted a very considerable pro- portion of the settlers, alone escaped uninjured. Unarmed they attended to their labors in the field as usual by day, and lodged in their unprotected houses at night, unmolested by the hostile savages. The faith of three Friends at length failed. Two of them took arms to their field of labor, and were killed by the Indians, who had previously spared them as harmless unarmed men. The third, a woman, had resided for some time in her house with her children in safety, her faith too at length gave way, she sought safety by fleeing to a fort and was shot on the way. The author shows by official records, that dur- ing the rebellion in Ireland, when all the ties of society seemed sundered, and outrage and mur- der were the chief occupation of the populace, the houses of Friends and Moravians were unin- jured, and left standing entire amidst ruins, while not a member of the society of Friends (who were numerous) suffered from any party, excepting one young man who, assuming regimentals and arms, was slain. Whilst it was the usual practice of the people of the different colonies in America to defend themselves by the sword, Dymond shows that whilst this course ever failed in securing safety, Pennsylvania settled and governed under the auspices of William Penn and the society of Friends, without a weapon of defence in the colony, 76 THE DEAF AND DUMB. but depending solely upon the superintending care of Divine Providence for protection, subsisted for more than seventy years amidst six Indian nations, and surrounded by other tribes hostile to the whites in general, and not a man, woman, or child of the colonists was killed by them. In all their wars with each other, and with the adjacent colonists, the Indians ever respected the territories of William Perm, who, with his staff only in his hand, traversed regions in safety which a thousand armed warriors dare not approach. So has it ever been, so will it ever be found that both public and private peace and safety are best secured by a full and unreserved adherence to Christian duties, regardless of consequences. Then, as with individuals, so with communities, and so with nations will ways be opened, where no way to mortal eye may appear, and all will have to acknowledge that though a woman may for- get her sucking child, yet will not the Almighty forget those who put their trust in Him. [From the Herald of the Times, 1849.] The Deaf and Dumb, THE recent appeals that have been made to the people of Rhode Island in behalf of the "Insane THE DEAF AND DUMB. 77 poor/' have be.en responded to in such a way as to prove, beyond a doubt, that her citizens are not unmindful of the calls of humanity when its proper objects are brought fairly to their notice. More than one hundred and twenty thousand dollars have been voluntarily given and subscribed for the establishment and maintenance of the "Butler Asylum for the Insane." A highly eligi- ble site has been purchased for its location, em- bracing a sufficiency of land, not only for the pur- poses of exercise and amusement of its inmates, but also to furnish them with useful and profita- ble employment in its cultivation. It will no doubt be erected and furnished for the reception of patients as soon as practicable and in reference to useful architecture and inter- nal arrangements, will vie with the best models of similar institutions in this country and will require nothing but the hearty co-operation of the public to render it an ornament, an honor, and a blessing to the State. But there is yet another class of unfortunates amongst us, whose peculiar wants have not yet been properly provided for, either through indi- vidual or public beneficence the "Deaf and Dumb." We have been so long accustomed to hear the terms "Deaf" and "Dumb" used in connection, that some, without due reflection, have imbibed an idea that they imply not only a deprivation of 7* 78 THE DEAF AND DUMB. hearing and speaking, but that the mind as well as the tongue is "dumb" and is deficient in natural understanding. This is a mistake. Owing to the inability to hear, the organs of speech are rendered useless, and are never exerted ; but they nevertheless ex- ist as perfect in their formation as in the most fluent speakers. Restore the hearing and these dormant powers would be exercised, and aided by the admonitions of the ear, would soon learn to "syllable" the sounds that constitute speech, as in the case of an infant. So with the mind. Its primary powers are not at all lessened by the defects in the organs of hearing. The natural keenness of its perception and sensibilities are all the same, and since the art of teaching the "deaf and dumb" to communi- cate by signs has been perfected, it has been abun- dantly proved that this hitherto neglected and hopeless class of our fellow creatures are as capa- ble of intellectual culture and attainments as any others. And although God, in his inscrutable Providence, lias deprived them of hearing, it must in future be through the neglect of man if they are deprived of the benefits of their under- standings. Until recently, the experience that mankind has been slowly accumulating for ages was be- yond the reach of the deaf and dumb. Their un- tutored eye surveyed all they could know or com- THE DEAF AND DUMB. 79 prehend of nature and the visible incidents that occurred around their paternal threshold, were the only incitements to mental action. Whatever process their fettered reason might have adopted for the acquisition of knowledge, was incommuni- cable to others and died with them. These hope- less creatures began the world without the power of benefiting themselves by a particle of the lim- ited experience acquired by others, to light and cheer their lonely path. Long might their strug- gling spirits strive to penetrate the veil that sepa- rated them from their fellow creatures, but all in vain they were doomed at last to give up in de- spair conscious that they lacked something in common with those around them, but utterly unable to comprehend what that something was. But now institutions are in successful operation, at which through the agency of simple signs, made with the fingers and hands, representing the different letters of the alphabet and the parts of speech, the deaf and dumb are taught to commu- nicate readily with each other, to read and to write with facility, and thus they are not only enabled to profit by the knowledge of their dumb associates, but the whole experience of mankind as embodied in books is brought within their comprehension opening to their minds an inex- haustible field for intellectual improvement and enjoyment. The desponding beings who have hitherto moped in mental darkness, are now made 80 THE DEAF AND DUMB. conscious of possessing faculties capable of never- ending advancement. The innate ideas of their na- CD tare and destiny which have hitherto floated darkly on their bewildered imaginations, now burst forth into light and Revelation, points the longing de- sires of their souls, to its eternal home in heaven. The only institution of this kind in the New England States is located at Hartford in Connec- ticut, and is called the "American Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the " Deaf and Dumb." It has been in successful operation for about twenty-seven years, during which time it has received within its walls nearly eight hundred pupils from various States and territories. It has now nearly one hundred and fifty pupils in the course of instruction, and it is doubtful whether an equal number of human beings can he found congregated together in New England, who enjoy life with greater zest than themselves and whose happiness in their now favorable situation, is no doubt added to by their former deprivations. To this the writer can bear witness from observations made by him during a recent hasty visit to the Institution, being struck with the bright and cheerful faces around him, whose buoyant spirits seemed to overflow with joyous feelings. Of the number of those who have been instructed at the Asylum, ninety six have married among themselves, and forty-three have married with THE DEAF ARD DUMB. 81 those not deaf and dumb, making in all ninety-one families. Some of these families have six or eight children each, all of whom can hear and speak, and in only four families out of the ninety-one are there any children that are deaf and dumb a pretty conclusive evidence that deafness is not more hereditary than other imperfections of nature. The price of admission into this Institution is one hundred dollars per annum, which includes tuition, board, lodging, and washing. Pupils must be between the ages of eight and twenty-five, and will not be received.for a less term than two years. Besides literary instruction, the pupils of both sexes are taught useful trades and occupa- tions, suited to their sex and dispositions, to en- able them to maintain themselves and families, if necessary, after leaving the Asylum, and which, with the education there received, they are able to prosecute with equal advantages, in most cases, as others who can hear and speak. It is probable that this Institution will be able to accommodate all the deaf and dumb in !N~ew England for some years to come, and thereby ren- der the expense of erecting others unnecessary. It is now patronized by all the New England States with one exception. In this, Massachusetts, as in most other liberal and benevolent public acts, took the lead, and as early as 1819, made public provision for the support of twenty pupils at the 82 THE DEAF AND DUMB. Asylum, and has since increased the appropria- tions so as to provide for the education of all the indigent deaf mutes in that State, and now sup- ports thirty-six pupils at the Institution. The example of Massachusetts was followed by NQW Hampshire in 1822, and in 1825 by Maine and Vermont, which three States now support sixty pupils at the Asylum. In 1816, Connecticut made a grant of five thousand dollars to its funds, .arid in 1828 followed the example of her sister States in making appropriations for the support of her indigent "deaf and dumb," and now main- tains twenty-three pupils at the Asylum. Rhode Island, the wealthiest of all the New England States in proportion to her territory and popula- tion, has not yet made any provision for the sup- port of her indigent deaf and dumb, either at the Hartford or any other institution. Is it not high time that she, too, followed the example of her sister !N"ew England States, now that she is seven- teen years behind the last in that respect. Humanity not only calls for such a course, but Justice demands it. A part of the education fund of right belongs to the deaf and dumb. They have never, as yet, received the benefit of a farthing of it, and heavy arrearages are due them. It is true that not only the good, but the very existence of the State, in a republican sense, de- pends upon the general education of the people but, as individuals, those possessing all their natu- \ THE DEAF AND DUMB. 83 ral faculties may enjoy life in a good degree with but little instruction but not so the "deaf and dumb," to them education is indispensable, and upon it depends their whole enjoyment of life. The writer would not be understood to recom- mend the withdrawal of any part of the education fund as at present applied, so far from it, he would consider the man who at this critical period in the history of our republic' should recommend the lessening or perversion of that fund for any purpose whatever, as an enemy to his country. But he would propose that an appropriation be made, at the present sitting of the Legislature, of a sum not exceeding one thousand dollars per annum, for the purpose of maintaining the indigent " deaf and dumb" in this State at the American Asylum at Hartford. This sum, with the aid of friends, would probably be sufficient for the support of all of that class who \vould require assistance from the public. If the money cannot be spared from the treasury, let it be assessed on the towns a tax of three cents on one thousand dollars would raise the required amount, or it might be readily saved by shortening the sessions of the Legisla- ture a few days, which will otherwise be wasted, in all probability (judging from the past), that office-seekers may have time to perfect their in- trigues at the expense of the State. 84 STATE'S ASYLUM FOR THE INSANE, ETC. [From the Herald of the Times, November 16, 1843.] State's Asylum for the Insane, etc, ALTHOUGH not apt to be much impressed by public speeches, I have nevertheless been much interested in reading the stirring remarks made by Mr. Updike, in the Legislature at its last ses- sion, relative to the situation of our insane paupers and also as regards the present system of public instruction in this State. With regard to Mr. Updike's statement of the treatment of some unfortunate subjects of insanity, I can bear witness to its truth, being myself ac- quainted with a case existing in our State, which exceeds in enormity anything he has adduced, and in hopes that by making some of its details known to the public generally, it may be of ser- vice in expediting the erection of an asylum, if you think proper, I would thank you to pub- lish this communication in connection with Mr. Updike's remarks. Should it meet the eyes of any of the citizens of the town where the case exists, I trust they will riot ascribe any invidious motives to the writer, as he can assure them that it is not made in any ill feeling, but purely for the purpose above stated. The case alluded to is that of a man whose in- sanity was caused by the habitual indulgence of a STATE'S ASYLUM FOR THE INSANE, ETC. 85 naturally wilful temper, which disposition still attended him after he was bereft of reason, and in a paroxysm of insanity he killed a fellow being. For some time after he was confined in jail, from whence he was removed, for some cause, and a building (if it can be so called) was erected espe- cially for him in his native town. The writer visited this maniac in company with two gentlemen of respectability residing in the neighborhood, one of them being the Overseer of the Poor. As we were on our way to the poor- house, the Overseer remarked that the insane per- son had been taken out of his prison but once since his confinement (which I think had been for several years) at a time when it was thought ' he would probably die having refused to take any sustenance whatever for twelve or thirteen days and he was taken out, as was stated, that he might " die decently/ 3 or words to that effect. In justice to the Overseer, I will here remark, that he appeared fully aware of the unsuitableness of the maniac's prison, and appeared anxious that he should be removed to an asylum at the charge of the town, and expressed himself willing to contribute a share of the expense. JThe cell was detached from any other building, and was constructed entirely of stone, or rather rocks over which was a roof of wood. There was not a window nor even a chink or cranny left in any part of the outside door or building by 8 86 STATE'S ASYLUM FOR THE INSANE, ETC. which a particle of light could enter. I was ad- mitted through an iron door, which shut close and opened into a narrow passage, about midway of which, in a partition wall of stone, was a sec- ond iron door closed and fastened, with a hole in the bottom of it, perhaps a foot square, through which the wretched inmate's food was passed. When this door was opened the air was so offen- sive that one of the gentlemen refused to enter, saying that he could not bear it, and that he had no idea of the existence of such a place, although he had always resided within a few miles of it. The view of the inside of this prison beggars all description. The light of a lamp brought by the keeper was insufficient to dispel the darkness within, although not to exceed perhaps six or eight feet in dimensions. It was irregular in its shape, owing to the projections of the ragged and unhewn rocks, piled together large masses of which hung from the roof in a cavern-like manner. The tioor was wet and entirely of stone. There was not an article of furniture visible of any de- scription, excepting an iron bedstead in the further side of the dungeon, across which a cord was loosely woven. Immediately in front of the door and directly against his iron bedstead, confined by a massive chain, hanging from the rocks above and made fast to his ankle, the links of which were perhaps a foot or more in length, stood the wretched inmate of this "dungeon within a dun- STATE'S ASYLUM FOR THE INSANE, ETC. 87 germ," in an attitude accompanied by a demeanor which spoke plainer than words can speak, that he indeed might have passed those gloomy portals over which is inscribed " leave all hope behind." I have been in the prisons of Rome, and in the deep dungeons of Venice in the far-famed prison of Chillon in the dungeons where the Lords and Barons of feudal times incarcerated the wretched objects of their unbridled and irresponsible re- venge and in the gloomy cells where the victims of Monkish hatred and superstition were chained and suffered to linger out their miserable existence or expire beneath fiend-like tortures but they all failed in causing me to realize the pictures which my early imagination once drew, whilst reading of them as handed clown by historians, or recorded in the legends of romance. But now, for the first time, were they more than realized. The jug of water, the never failing attendant of the lonely captive, was not visible here. Here, indeed, was his chain here his iron bedstead but this was all no other article was to be seen, not even the rusty nail with which the captive of the Bastile had marked the days of more than half a century of his hopeless imprisonment and indeed it would have been useless here, where nought could be visible save the blackness of dark- ness. Not a particle of light could here enter to him the darkest night and the brightest day is the same through the thick damp walls of his 88 STATE'S ASYLUM FOR, THE INSANE, ETC. prison neither light nor darkness can enter or escape. He stood silent and statue-like beside his iron bed his body motionless his hands hanging down on either side his head drooping, with his chin resting on his breast his hair and beard long and dishevelled his waxen features, all pallid and death-like, on which despair seemed to have stamped its seal and marked him for its own forever and but for the evidence of mortal life and earthl}^ nature, manifested by his labored res- piration, I might well have imagined that the ob- ject before me belonged' rather to the land of spirits than to this world. I sought to draw him into conversation, but not a symptom indicated that he recognized the voice of a fellow creature. Once, indeed, as I spoke of his probable removal to a comfortable Asylum in a neighboring State, I fancied that I perceived a tremulous motion in his lips. I placed my hand on his forehead and raised his head, that I might observe his eyes, but there was " no speculation there," and why should there be? he had long ceased to need their use amidst the darkness of his dungeon, his eyeballs must be touched by an object before they could be conscious of its approach. I removed my hand and his head fell to its former position as if acted upon' by a spring. For a moment I closed the inside door, and stood within, that I might feel the spirit of the place and although accompanied by an atten- STATE'S ASYLUM FOR THE INSANE, ETC. 89 dant with a light, a thrill of deeper horror passed over me, as I endeavored to imagine myself incar- cerated there and I felt that the reason of the strongest mind must Soon have maddened amidst 3 the horrors of such a den, even if not shattered he fore. As I left the place, and before the door was closed, the sound of an unearthly gihbering met my ear, which I was told proceeded from his cell, and I stepped back to the inside door. He stood precisely as before, with the same cold and death- like expression of features, and I could scarcely believe it possible that he had relaxed from the position in which I first beheld him. I again left the prison, and again the same unearthly whisper followed me. I hastily turned and in the dim light a spectre seemed to flit from the door, but so indistinct that I was uncertain whether it might not be a phantom of the imagination, and the first object that again distinctly met my view was the maniac's form in precisely the same atti- tude and place as before. I understood the keeper to say that he was always found standing in the same position and place, and that he ever refused to converse with any one, and never apparently recognized what was said to him. On one occa- sion, the keeper stated, that during a visit from his mother, her maternal appeals were answered by tears! but, he said " THAT WAS ALL." In answer to a remark I made, that 1 could not 8* 90 STATE'S ASYLUM FOR THE INSANE, ETC. comprehend how he could exist in such a place, and that the want of exercise would be sufficient of itself to produce death, I was informed that the maniac was in the habit of taking a great deal of exercise " in his way," and that piercing shrieks accompanied by violent clankings of his chain, were frequently heard through the thick walls of his dungeon. There is nothing overdrawn in the foregoing description, but I can assure you that it falls short of the truth and that language is not adequate to describe it. That there are many other cases in our State of nearly or of quite equal enormity, I am constrained to believe, is very probable. Is it not then time that public opinion was aroused to this subject ? What excuse can be offered for allowing such a state of things to exist amongst us, especially, as is stated by Mr. Updike, now that a sum sufficient to erect a suitable Asylum has been bequeathed to the State by a benevolent individual, and only waits the action of the proper authorities to be appropriated for that purpose? Let a suitable lot of land for its site be purchased in the vicinity of the city of Providence, as required by the terms of the will of the donor, say in Warwick, or elsewhere, where land can be purchased cheap, and on which may be procured a sufficient quantity of stone for its erection, let it be built after the most approved models for Insane Asylums, but of rough unhewn STATE'S ASYLUM FOR THE INSANE, ETC. 91 stone, and I have but little doubt that one of sufficient size to accommodate all the insane of this State may be finished for a less sum than is bequeathed. If the provisions of the bequest will admit of it, the balance can then be invested as a permanent fund towards its support. The yearly expenses cannot, in any event, bear heavily on the State, a part of them will be borne by individuals who will be glad of placing relatives in an insti- tution where they will be comfortably provided for, and who will pay amply for their support. The towns by placing their insane paupers there, will relieve themselves jrom a heavy expense and responsibility, and their individual tax will be lessened in a greater ratio than that of the State will be increased, for the reason that in such an Asylum, many subjects of insanity will no doubt recover and be no longer chargeable to the public, who would under the improper system now fol- lowed most probably continue insane for life. Independent of the saving of expense, what a desirable object will be accomplished in removing the insane from our towns' poor-houses, where they are now generally confined, and where they frequently cause great suffering to the other in- mates of the same dwelling especially to the de- crepit and sick. Let us for a moment imagine ourselves, or our friends,' placed in such a situation whilst languishing on a bed of sickness, perhapsa deathbed, and our shattered nerves torn or our 92 STATE'S ASYLUM FOR THE INSANE, ETC. feverish slumbers interrupted, and perhaps our dying moments disturbed by the shrieks and in- sane ravings of the maniac. This subject of the Poor, too, Mr. Editor, has been much neglected in our State, and although our system is much improved from what it has been, it is still faulty. From the moment of their admission into our poor-houses or asylums, they are too often nearly lost sight of by the public. Strong and weak, sick and well, are subjected in some places to nearly the same treatment, and the object seems to be, not what will make them most comfortable, but what will cause the least expense. The care of the poor is a sacred trust, more strenuously enjoined b}' the compassionate author of our religion than any other duty, and I believe that all our outward forms and show of worship will be in vain whilst we knowingly suf- fer the poor entrusted to our care to languish in misery and want, and that the Father of all, who regards with equal eyes the beggar in his hovel, and the prince on his throne; who declares that he will have mercy and not sacrifice, will not heed our prayers although offered up in splendid temples dedicated to his service, whilst they ascend min- gled with the sighs and groans of the poor and needy, whose sufferings we might relieve for a tithe of what is squandered in luxury and waste. We have just emerged from a state bordering on anarchy, and the hand of Providence has been STATE'S ASYLUM FOR THE INSANE, ETC. 93 extended in protecting us, and in "bringing to naught the designs of wicked and revengeful men. Society has been shaken to its foundations, and all its worst elements have been excited to action. A calm has at length ensued, political danger, for the present, is apparently removed from our borders, and how can we better manifest our grati- tude than by uniting, as one man, to devise ways and means to relieve the sufferings of our poor and insane, and also, as Mr. Updike forcibly re- commends, to provide for the education of all? But for the conservative influence of the temper- ance cause, the passions of the ignorant and thought- less would probably bave been inflamed in the late difficulties to such a pitch, that when still farther stimulated by the habits of intemperance, once so widely diffused among the people of this State, they would have broken through the sanc- tity of the laws, and passed beyond all control. The same elements that have ever attended the destruction of republics are still fermenting among us. Disappointed and ambitious men are still watching some favorable opportunity again to excite the passions of the unwary, and urge them on to their country's destruction, that they themselves may, if possible, rise upon its ruin. Against such a crisis let us then endeavor to pre- pare ourselves, and to parry their attempts by a shield more potent than armies the minds of a well- educated people. From these the weapons of 94 FAMINE. the demagogue will recoil upon himself, and he will become less dangerous to the public tranquil- lity precisely in proportion as his designs are more artful and wicked. Let all parties, then, bury the tomahawk, and instead of tormenting each other, let one and all unite in the great and good cause of humanity. Let us provide, without delay, an Asy- lum for our INSANE let us examine into the condition of our POOR, and see that all their reasonable wants are provided for. Let us provide suitable schools for the education OF ALL, both white and black and in lieu of striving who shall possess each trifling public office let us emulate each other in doing good and depend upon it that more will be done by such a course towards harmonizing the discordant feelings at present existing in soci- ety, and in perpetuating our institutions, than can possibly be effected by legislative or legal en- actments. [From the Herald and Rhode Islander, January 28, 1847.] Famine, EARNEST attention is solicited to the following Address from a committee of the Society of Friends, in Ireland. The well-known moderation of this religious denomination, alike with the tone of the com- FAMINE. 95 munications, forbid the supposition that the de- tails of suffering are too highly colored, but, on the contrary, it is to be feared "that the half is not told." In all probability thousands of the poor in Ire- land are now in a starving condition. From recent accounts it appears that members of the Society of Friends, in England and Ireland, have subscribed twenty-two thousand pounds for their relief. Friends in Philadelphia are also col- lecting money and provisions to send them, and the citizens of New York have forwarded several thousand dollars through their Mayor to the Dublin Committee for the same object- Is not this a work of charity in which all Christ- ians should unite? Let those who possess a super- abundance of this world's goods seriously reflect on their responsibility to the Father of all, who has thus entrusted them with the means of reliev- ing the distresses of their poorer brethren. Contemplate for a moment your own happy families, surrounding the festive board or cheer- ful hearth, without an earthly privation, but perhaps revelling in the excess of every luxury. "Look on that picture and on this." Behold the widowed tenant of a mud cottage in Ireland, the last article of her little furniture at the pawn-broker's, destitute of food, bedding, or fuel, her little children shivering in rags, and 96 FAMINE. piercing her soul with plaintive cries for food, which she can only answer with tears. Behold them huddled together through the long cold night, to derive from each other's starv- ing bodies some little warmth, sobbing them- selves to forgetful ness, or moaning piteously in their hungry sleep. Ere the light of morning, death has perhaps released one of their number. Amidst darkness the wailing mother is striving to close its sunken eyes, whilst its innocent spirit has winged its way to the eternal Judge of all, there to remain an everlasting witness against those who, betray- ing their stewardship, appropriate to their own selfish purposes the goods entrusted to their care by Divine Providence. Should the re publication of the address be the means of exciting any individuals or communities to aid the sufferers of Ireland, the writer of this (who is not a member of the Society of Friends) would suggest the propriety of forwarding any funds raised direct to their committee in Dublin, whose organization seems so well adapted to pro- mote an impartial and faithful distribution. It may be well to remark, that no part of the aid re- ceived by said committee will be appropriated for the benefit of the poor of their own denomina- tion, ample provision being specially provided for them by the rules of their Society. ROBESPIERRE AND MARAT VERSUS JAMES K. POLK. 97 Robespierre and Marat versus James K, Polk, THE history of the Reign of Terror in. France assigns a more bloody celebrity to Robespierre, Danton, and Marat than to any other of the mon- sters who figured -in that terrible drama. When Robespierre was about being led to exe- cution, he asked for a napkin to wipe away the blood with which his mouth was filled, his under- jaw having been shattered by a pistol shot in the struggle to secure him. A 'bloody cloth was handed him, which he pushed aside "it is blood," said they, "it is what thou likest." During the fearful sway of that fell triumvirate, Marat edited a political journal in Paris, the col- umns of which absolutely howled for blood. On one occasion as he descended from the tribune of the National Assembly where he had, as usual, been belching forth his bitter accusations and raving for slaughter, it was moved by a member that the tribune be purified of its pollution, before any other deputy be allowed to ascend it. The atrocious sentiments expressed in the Pres- ident's late annual address might lead a believer in the transmigration of souls to imagine that the departed spirits of Robespierre and Marat had both been doomed to reside in his breast, and to act as his counsellors in wickedness. Whilst that dread engine, the guillotine, un- 9 98 ROBESPIERRE AND MARAT VERSUS JAMES K. POLK. ceasingly labored on by night and by day, dealing its strokes of death with fearful regularity, and mingling its own terrific shriekings with the groans of its victims, sacrificed to Robespierre's hate and revenge, that mocker of humanity even then pro- fessed to be tender of 'human life, and both wrote and spoke against the infliction of capital punish- ment. Even Robespierre at last grew sick of blood ; but James K. Polk, steeped in human gore to the very lips, seizes the bloody cloth, and, waving it over his perjured head, still howls for more more blood ferociously he yells more vital blood. He too professes to be tender of human life and a friend of peace. He who has murdered peace, and on whose head will ever rest the primary guilt of every drop of blood that has flowed in this unhallowed war with Mexico. It is true that he has by stratagem involved Congress and the nation in his crimes, but, though he may length- en his sophistries to ten thousand paragraphs, and repeat them again and again, until bewildered in the mazes of his own falsehoods he himself almost believes them true; yet he will ever fail to con- vince any person of sound mind that he is not the plotter, the contriver, and the responsible author of the war. As the ghosts of the tens of thousands of his slaughtered victims pass before him in fearful array, their gaping wounds striking terror to his PROGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA. 99 guilty soul, in vain does he point to his satellites in Congress and, with trembling lips, exclaim "Shake not- your gory locks at me ye cannot say I did it." The hand with which he points betrays his words, it reeks to heaven with murder's blood, which naught on earth can hide or wash away ; and his name will go down in his country's his- tory as that of a monster whose depravity of heart is rivalled by nothing on its pages but the falseness of his tongue. * [From the Friend, 8th mouth, 1850.] Progress of the Republic of Liberia, IN a recent number of your useful paper, I notice that the compiler of the interesting bio- graphical sketches of " Thomas Scattergood and his Times" has incidentally referred to an isolated fact, in a manner which I think is calculated to convey wrong impressions to his readers with regard to the former colony, and now Republic of Liberia. For many years I have felt a lively in- terest in what concerns this African settlement. This interest which tirst commenced in a charita- ble hope, has since almost become established in an earnest belief, that it is in the councils of the Almighty, through the instrumentality of this little beginning in Liberia, yet to redeem the 100 PROGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA. afflicted children of Africa from thraldom in for- eign lands, and from barbarism and superstition in their own. Entertaining these views, I was pained in seeing remarks tending to injure the cause of African colonization in a journal which is so extensively circulated among the members of a religious society so conspicuous as is that of "Friends" in aiding good works. I do not at all question the fact as stated by the writer in your columns, that the health of a family may have been destroyed by their removal to a newly planted colony in a distant country, but I should be glad to be allowed to convey a caution to your readers, lest they should indulge in the too com- mon practice of generalizing from single facts, and to infer that because the family of one man was ruined by seeking an asylum from oppression on a foreign shore, a like result must necessarily attend every similar attempt. A slight know- ledge of the early history of our o\vn country cannot fail to show the fallacy of such a conclu- sion. Who is there now who doubts the great good that mankind has derived from the coloni- zation of these United States ? And yet what hardships, what exposures, what destruction of human life, was incurred by our forefathers in establishing the various colonies on our coasts. In many instances they fled from persecution and oppression in their own land, to almost, certain death- on a foreign shore. How many instances PROGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA. 101 of privation, of suffering, and untimely death, might have been, and no doubt were, then adduced to deter others from following their example? And yet they persevered amidst every discouragement, and finally succeeded in establishing themselves where they and their children could dwell in peace, and unmolested worship their Creator according to the measure of light in their own conscience. And what has been the result? Two centuries have scarcely elapsed ere these colonies are grown into a nation of more than twenty millions of people, with every prospect, should 'Divine Provi- dence prosper them as heretofore, of numbering their population in hundreds of millions ere the period of their future existence corresponds with the past. The limits of such a communication as this will not admit of my entering into a minute com- parison of the progress of the colony of Liberia with those of our own country. If so, it would require but a simple statement of facts, to show that the degrees of success are altogether in favor of the former, and so strikingly, as to be scarcely credited by any who have not investigated the subject. I believe that if the true character, pro- gress, and probable results of this benevolent plan for the amelioration of the condition, and moral and religious elevation of the colored race, were fully understood by the Society of Friends gene- rally, thousands would be astonished at the infat- 9* 102 PROGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA. uation which has led many good men to think lightly of, or to speak disparagingly of its objects and results. A monthly paper published at Washington, in pamphlet form, at one dollar per annum, payable in advance, probably contains the best information to be obtained, as regards the current progress of the Republic of Liberia, and the doings of the American Colonization Society. One highly favorable and distinguishing fea- ture of ''African Colonization" is to be found in the fact, that whilst the colonists of America were too often engaged in exterminating the aboriginal inhabitants, or in enslaving them, the colored emigrants to Africa fraternize with the natives of the soil, and so far as their influence and laws extend, protect them from slavery. The Eepublic now embraces a sea-coast of more than four hundred miles in extent, which, before being colonized, was the very focus of the slave-trade, but on the whole extent of which it is now totally abolished. We thus behold the beautiful specta- cle of the descendants of those who were sold, as it were, by their brethren into Egyptian bondage, returning after many years to their Canaan, not to destroy and exterminate as under a former dis- pensation, but to teach their ignorant brethren the arts of civilization -and peace, and to bring them to a knowledge of their God and Saviour. The colony of Liberia was commenced about thirty years ago. The colonists were of an op- PROGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA. 103 pressed and down-trodden race; in most instances incapable of assisting themselves, or of contribut- ing towards the expense of their passage to Africa, which was defrayed by subscriptions from com- paratively a few individuals. The colony has had to struggle with poverty, obloquy, and many dis- couragements. The society has been assailed with a degree of virulence amounting to persecution, and yet what is the result? That the colony of Libe- ria has scarcely yet attained to an age at which the Plymouth, and some others among the most conspicuous colonies in America, were utterly de- stroyed or abandoned, or reduced to the greatest extremities, ere we behold it taking its stand among the nations of the earth, establishing a government, and instituting laws second to none in apparent stability and wisdom on earth. Throughout the Republic, peace and order reign, and are daily gaining strength from a system of education for the youth and native tribes, that will favorably compare with that of our own, and where religion is respected, and untrammelled by kingly power or priestly craft. Owing to the devastation caused by the traf- fickers in human flesh, a great extent of country adjoining the sea-coast in Africa is thinly pecfpled, affording ample roofn to accommodate millions of emigrants. The advantages of such a location, both as it regards protecting and instructing the natives of the interior, are too apparent to need 104 PROGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC OP LIBERIA. illustration. The nucleus is already formed and firmly established ; its growth will depend upon the degree of favor the cause of African Coloniza- tion meets with from the American public. Some object to the cause of African Coloniza- tion upon the ground that the colored man by right should enjoy equal privileges with the white man here, and that he should remain to assist his brethren in obtaining their just rights. It' William Penn and the early settlers of Penn- sylvania had acted on that principle, Philadelphia might never have been built. They, too, were denied their just rights by the government in England. The prospect of obtaining their rights in England was certainly not more unpromising than is that of the negro's obtaining his in this country. And yet they thought it best to seek a home in the wilderness; and the result fully proved the wisdom of their decision. A secure home was thus provided for their persecuted brethren, where they could flee and be at" rest from their persecutors ; and there is not the least reason to suppose that the cause of those they left behind in England suffered by their conduct. On the contrary, the wisdom and propriety with which the colonists of Pennsylvania conducted their affairs, no doubt, had a tendency to open the eyes of both the people and government of England to the real merifs of a people they had hitherto been accustomed to despise. Will not PROGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA. 105 this be the effect of colonizing Africa? The pre- judices of a great majority of the people here are against the negro ; that majority controls the government. Here the negro suffers oppression in some shape or other, alike at the North and the South. Let him imitate William Perm; build up a nation in Africa, and show to the world that he is not inferior to the white man, when allowed a fair iield of action. A little inquiry will satisfy him that Liberia is not the sickly, wretched country that he has been told it was. He will find that although the white man cannot exist there, yet it is healthy for his race, and astonishingly productive, and where they can soon be enabled to compete with their former oppressors in the world's market in similar pro- ductions, raised on a free soil. The moral effect of a nation of free and enlightened colored men would be felt throughout the world. To it would the eyes of all the race be turned, with aspira- tions that would greatly assist in breaking their chains. The efforts of many advocates of the rights of the colored man seem limited to his op- pressions in their own country. But is this a correct view of the evil ? Where does the true Christian find a precedent for looking at it in such a light ? The charity of good Samaritans is not to be circumscribed by local limits. Wherever they find suffering, there will they find objects for the exercise of Christian charity. Now, great 106 PROGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA. as are the evils of slavery in the United States, they are light compared with those connected with the system throughout the world. Indis- creet zeal in the best of causes, frequently aggra- vates rather than diminishes evil. Look at the example of England. Led on by Clarkson and Wilberforce, all the virtue of the kingdom seemed arrayed against the system of slavery. After years of effort, the friends of humanity at length succeeded in accomplishing its utter overthrow throughout British, dominions. And what has followed ? The production of sugar for the Brit- ish market was transferred from the British West Indies to Brazil and the Spanish Islands. This increased demand for sugars created an increased demand for slaves, which w T ere only to be procured from Africa. Three powerful nations are combined England, France, and the United States in blockading with vessels of war the western coast of Africa, to in- tercept the slave ships. The dealer in human flesh is actuated alone by motives of self-interest and profit. Formerly, it was his interest to con- struct commodious vessels for his victims, that they might reach their destination in tolerable order, diminished as little as possible by death in the middle passage. But since- the blockade of the coast by vessels of war, he finds it advanta- geous to his interest to adopt another plan, and that is, to construct his vessels on such a model PROGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA. 107 as will best enable him to elude and escape the cruisers. Small, sharp built vessels are conse- quently employed in the nefarious traffic, into which the poor negroes are literally packed and whose sufferings in the middle passage beggars description. And there can be no doubt that, great as are the hardships of the slave in the United States, the horrors that attend the pas- sage of one slave vessel across the ocean, as now conducted, exceed all the sufferings that occur from slavery in the United States for twelve months together or more. T. Fowell Buxton states that in 1838, it re- quired one thousand human beings per diem to supply the slave markets in America ; about two- thirds of them dying in indescribable misery on their journey in Africa to th% sea-coast, and on the passage across the ocean. Since that period, owing to an equalization of the duties on British colonial and foreign sugars, the consumption of the latter has greatly increased, consequently in- creasing the demand for slaves ; whilst latterly a more rigid enforcement of the blockade, and con- sequent interception of cargoes of slaves by the cruisers, has rendered it necessary to ship a still greater number than at the time T. F. Buxtou wrote ; all of whom, including the recaptured, are made to undergo the horrors of the land journey at least. Now whilst no one will presume to cast blame on the English philanthropists, who accom- 108 PROGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA. pi i shed the abolition of slavery throughout the British dominions, can there he any douht'of the fact that the sufferings of the colored race were greatly increased in the aggregate thereby, and so with the blockade of the coast of Africa. The demand for slaves has ever been fully supplied, and the only effect of the blockade has been to enhance their cost to the planters of Brazil and Cuba ; whilst their mortality 1ms been more than doubled thereby, and their suffering increased in a degree not to be conceived of, much less de- scribed. Now, can any reflecting person doubt, that if the money that has been expended by England in suppressing the slave-trade had been appropriated to colonizing with free blacks the sea-coast of Africa, on the plan of Liberia, the cause of the negro would have been promoted in a far greater degree than by the methods that government has pursued ; or if the squadrons that have been furnished by the three powers had been employed in transporting all negroes who wished to emigrate to Africa, that were or should be freed, instead of blockading her coasts can there be a question which plan would have most conduced to the suppression of the slave-trade? What magnificent results would in all probabil- ity have attended such a course! The whole of Africa ere this might have been hemmed in with colonies of intelligent men, rendering her coasts impervious to the slave-ships. A way would have PROGKESS OF THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA. 109 been opened for thousands of benevolent planters to have freed their negroes, and to have placed them where they would no longer need protection. The natives of the interior no longer instigated by the trafficker in human flesh, would have turned their attention to the cultivation of the soil, to procure of their civilized brethren the arti- cles they had been accustomed to receive of the slave merchant, in exchange for the bodies oj^ their fellow men. In a remark made by the compiler of the Life of T. Fowell Buxton, a key is given to the only plan that can seemingly be brought to bear effect- ually upon the civilization of Africa. After describing the success which attended the early operations of the Ni^er expedition showing that the natives were every way disposed to profit by instructions of the officers of the expedition, and to comply with their wishes in abandoning the slave-trade, etc. the. cause of the failure is attri- buted to, and no doubt was caused by, the mor- tality which attended the expedition. The writer says: "Of the 301 persons who composed the expedition when it commenced the ascent of the Niger, forty-one perished from the African fever. It may be worth while to observe, that of the 108 Africans on board, not one died from the effects of the disease. " Here, then, is the key of African civilization, exposed, as it were, by accident, as the writer 10 110 PROGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA. really seemed to doubt whether it was worth while to spare a couple of lines for its disclosure; and it does not appear that the important circum- stance was ever noticed afterwards. This fact, connected with the preceding narrative of the Niger expedition, proves almost conclusively that settle- ments might have been established with ease, had the expedition been manned and officered exclu- sively with colored men. And this is the plan of the American Colonization Society, as carried out in their settlements in Liberia, with very few exceptions. The British colony at Sierra Leone was on the plan of the Niger expedition ; nearly or quite all places of trust or profit were filled with whites; and, consequently, the colored race were degraded, and the colony languished, and still languishes. The circumstance of the climate of Africa being so detrimental to the health of the whites, affords the best guarantee for the se- curity -and prosperity of the colored immigrants. I have extended these remarks far beyond what I intended; but the longer I dwell on this subject the more it expands to my view, and the greater importance it assumes. And great indeed is the importance of African colonization, if in its future career is involved the expulsion of the most crying evil under the sun from one conti- nent, and the civilization and Christianization of another. THE CONDITION OF THE SOUTH. 11.1 [From the New York Times, 1867.] The Condition of the South Sentiments of Wendell Phillips, ON the 28th of last February I left New York for Florida by way of the sea, via Savannah, whence I returned north mostly by rail. I had been led to suppose that, owing to the unsettled condition of political affairs at the South, a sojourn there would be far from agreeable in many respects. In this, however, I was happily disappointed. I passed two weeks in a lone house on the St. Johns River, the outside doors of which were never fastened; and again about the same period in a boarding house kept by a widow lacfy in St. Augustine, in which there was not so much as a button on an outside door, where I slept without apprehension, although at times I was the only male occupant. In all, I passed some sixty days in the Atlantic Southern States, during which period, although I heard of some murders and other outrages, I witnessed no- thing unpleasant myself, nor was there even an angry word spoken within my hearing while I remained south of Mason and Dixon's line. I conversed much and freely with many persons of both sexes and divers colors and grades of society, including some possessing high accomplishments, from all of whom I received kind and courteous 112 THE CONDITION OF THE SOUTH. treatment, and, in some instances, touching hospi- tality. As far as I could judge, the people of in- telligence generally felt that they were hopelessly conquered, and were not only willing but anxious to be returned to their places in the nation they had so unwisely sought to destroy. The only bitter words I heard spoken were uttered by a distinguished gentleman in South Carolina, whose sentiments were entitled to greater weight, from the fact that he had ever been, throughout the rebellion, a consistent and earnest friend of the Union at great sacrifice of property, including most of the furniture of the house in which he now lives, and subjected himself and family beside to much persecution and social contumely. u The man," said he, in alluding to some of the ultra Radicals, who were then advo- cating more stringent measures than those which Congress had recently adopted for the pacification and reconstruction of the South u the man," said he, " who is aware of the present condition of the Southern States, how utterly they have been impoverished and desolated by fire and sword, how the whole length and breadth of the land has been devastated and passed over, as it were, by the burning ploughshare of destruction and sown thick with the salt of affliction, that will seek to add to their woes by measures prompted by the spirit o^revenge^can have nothing human left in his nature. He must be a fiend!" THE CONDITION OF THE SOUTH. This conversation was recalled to my memory while reading a communication in the Weekly Times of the 25th inst., from "Wendell Phillips on the release of Davis," copied from the Anti- Slavery Standard. The word " fiend " is described by lexicographers as meaning "an enemy in the worst sense" (as, for instance, the foul fiend or devil), "an implacable and malicious foe." With- out meaning to be severe, I think candid readers must admit that in his communication, Mr. Phil- lips has given expression to sentiments and evinced dispositions that entitle him most emphatically to wear the term " fiend," as it is defined in dic- tionaries ; for it seems to me that he has exhausted the strength of the English language in giving utterance to " implacable and malicious" senti- ments, and in proving himself to be "an enemy in the worst sense," not only to Jefferson Davis, but to his fellow-men and all law, whether human or divine. Nor is this present phase of Mr. Phil- lips's character unwarranted by that of the philan- thropist, that has been heretofore so widely ac- corded to the gifted orator, for, as with a too " vaulting ambition," a morbid excess of virtue and love of human kind sometimes, as in the in- stance of Nero and Robespierre, " o'erleaps itself and falls on t'other side." It sounds awful and wierdlike to hear a people educated in a Christian land told by a teacher of morality it' not of religion, as Mr. Phillips 10* 114 THE CONDITION OF THE SOUTH. claims to be that it is a virtue to punish, and a lack of it to forgive; that millions of " loyal hearts" are now "swelling in secret with bitter hate, which bides its time" to be -revenged on the "knavish government" and " prostituted Court," that refused to hang Davis, " the wretch who sought to crush the most beneficent government on earth ;" that this " bitter hate" will last be- yond the grave, and that dying fathers " will leave bloody instructions for those who come after them." It seems to me that if Shakespeare could have had access to Mr. Phillips's discourse lie might have found material by which he could have in- tensified the character of lago. But the parallel would not have been complete, because the mali- cious revenge lago contemplated was confined mostly in his own breast, whereas Mr. Phillips seeks to infuse the "bitter hate that bides its time" into the hearts of millions, and to perpetu- ate and extend it even to future generations, and until the " next time" arrives, when he counsels "our boys in blue" and other loyal hearts not to rely on our Government and laws, but " resolve to settle their own wrongs and prevent being cheated," by taking the law in their own hands, and doing as w r as done by some of our soldiers in the late war, who " reported no arrests at head- quarters," but (continues Mr. Phillips in italics) u they simply brought in no prisoners;" in other words, assassinated them. WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 115 [From the Newport Mercury, Dec. 10, 1870.] Woman Suffrage, THE " Woman's Journal" of Nov. 9th contains a most admirable speech made by Julia Ward Howe in Philadelphia on the 10th ult., at a meeting of the " Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association." A good cause such as the Woman's Suffrage movement with such gifted advocates to commend it cannot linger long on the road to success, and we already see the more advanced minds of the age hastening to array themselves on its side. The stale objections that have been thrown in its way by the coarser and more bigoted of the sterner sex are receiving a sifting at the hands of gifted women in their journals and conventions that is thoroughly exposing their weakness and sophistry, and it is hardly probable that another decade will pass ere taxation with representation those cardinals of freedom will go hand in hand throughout the Union without distinction of Z3 color or sex. Says the vulgar minded political trickster, " all we want of woman at the ballot box is to sweep from our town halls the peanut shells and tobacco quids left there by the lords of crea- tion." " Let us enter there," replies woman, " on an equality with men, and we will keep them clear of such nuisances by the mere force of our presence 116 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. without the aid of a broom." Savs the arrogant v S M.D., "we want no woman beside the bed when a child is born save as a nurse to do our bidding ; we want her not in the sick-room, save to admin- ister our drugs; \ve want her not in the dissect- ing hall save to remove the human blood and brains we leave scattered around." Says woman, u we read in the good book that when Hebrew mothers were assisted by their own sex only, their deliverance was so 4 lively' that the child was born 4 ere the midwives could come in to them' as it would be with Christian mothers now were it not for the damaging presence of he doctors." Again, says woman, u give us the care of the sick and with the aid of the intuitive powers that God has so peculiarly endowed us with, we will arrive at a truer diagnosis of the ailments of the human body than you can obtain with your books and your scalpel knives, and do more to restore it to health by the healing magnetic currents that Christ imparts through the organism of all who believe under- standingly in his spiritual power, and the applica- tion of simple vegetable remedies than has ever been done with all your drugs and mineral poi- sons." And now, says the learned LL.D., " it would ill become your sex to partake in the lying and ribaldry of the court-room, or to sentence from the iudo-ment seat the criminal to the gallows or t) O O the prison !" " Let us," answers woman, " plead WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 117 in your courts, and though we may not be potent to make your lawyers honest and truthful, we will at least shame them into external decency ; give us a share in the making and administering of your laws and we will decimate crime by wiping from your code every statute enacted in the spirit of self-perpetuating murder and revenge; we will annihilate your gallows, and turn every jail and prison into reformatory infirmaries." And now comes with sepulchral tone, the dogmatic D.D., full almost to choking, of Paul and himself, " woman the first tempted of the devil and the author of man's fall, has no right to administer at the altar or expound the word from the pulpit. It requires no waste of words to establish this dogma, for has not our great high priest of all the churches, the apostolic bachelor of Tarsus, ordained as an eternal law to last far beyond the time- when time shall be no more, that woman shall in all humility and thankfulness remain tributary to and the slave of man, and learn religion of her husband at home, 'in silence with all subjection. 7 !Kow mark what Mark sa} r s, c He that belie veth shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be damned' to eternal hell fire forever and forever, amen !" Answers the spirit of her who was " the last at the cross and first at the tomb." We seek to offer no vain oblations on your altars, no long prayers in your pulpits, we want no high seats in your 118 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. synagogues and temples, we covet not your ecclesi- astical positions or worldly honors, we would only show our love to God by administering to the needs of his Christ in the persons of the poor and afflicted, to feed him when hungry, to give him drink when thirsty, to clothe him when naked, to take him in to our houses and provide for him when a stranger, and to visit him when sick, and in prison, even though we should have naught left to hestow upon the erection and maintenance of the costly churches dedicated to his worship." " But," says the soldier, bearded like a pard, " if woman votes she should be ready to shoulder the musket and fight for her country." Woman replies, " where in history can you name a more successful conqueror than Semiramis, who withstood the Roman power so long and success- fully as Z/enobia, who more valiantly than Boadicea, who when France lay bleeding at the feet of Edward of England, but a simple peasant girl in- tuitively demanded place at the head of her armies and turned the tide of victory ? But," continues woman, in the low sweet tone so excellent in her sex, " we seek not, we covet not military honor. Give us place in your councils and we will soon bring all wars to an end, and hastening the usher- ing in the day foreseen by the gifted seer of old, whose lips were touched with a living coal from on high; when men 'shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks,' WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 119 when 'nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.' ' And may not that glorious day be indeed nearer at hand than we expect ? It is truly said that it is darkest just before day. Hitherto man has mo- nopolized and conducted the governments of the world mostly through his intellectual faculties, and the result has been countless mistakes and one continued scene of war, crime, and misery. May not the present dark hour, with perhaps a still darker one at hand, be but the veiled harbinger of a brighter morn than has ever yet dawned upon earth, a morn that is to usher in an era wherein- the coarse, hard, halting, uncertain intellect of man is to seek counsel of the angel-eyed intuition of woman in the governing of the nations. The brute that faithfully follows the promptings of the instinct that nature has endowed it with is never deceived. The intuition of the human is but a higher order of instinct, and if faithfully followed in godlike simplicity it too will never deceive. It is a nobler, truer, higher faculty of the soul than intellect, and shines far more brightly and clearly through the frail delicate organism of woman than man's. It was through intuition that Isa- bella of Spain beheld America in the distant vista, that Maria Theresa of Hungary, the two first Ca- tharines of Russia and the queens Elizabeth and Anne of England, discerned the intellect and called to their councils the hosts of able men, both in 120 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. cabinet and field, with whose aid they ruled their kingdom and furthered the cause of civilization so wisely and so well. Napoleon, the all but conque- ror of Europe, was successful in his gigantic enter- prises only so long as he took counsel of the intui- tion of Josephine ; and as in public affairs so in private life, all other things being equal it will be ever found that he who takes counsel through the intuition of a faithful wife will ever be the more successful man in his undertakings. Intui- tion is, as it were, the poetry of intellect. The one pauses not o'er the slow deductions of the other, but springs with heaven directed certainty from cause to effect, touching but the stepping stones o'er which intellect plods to conclusions, with wings rather than feet. It is the link of the mighty electric chain that unites the worlds and universes with God and the spirit realms, through which angels telegraph their affections, their wis- dom and guardian admonitions to mortals, and through which Christ the Spirit of truth is ever striving to lead, " and guide mankind into all troth/ 5 But says the man of fashion, as he revolves in the polka with the glowing half-naked maiden clasped to his breast. It would destroy woman's refinement and delicacy of character to permit her to mingle with men at our polls and in our halls of legislation! -But what says experience, that best test of every question? For nearly two cen- WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 121 turies and a half women have exercised in the society of "Friends," all the rights and privileges of men, both in their religious and secular meet- ings and concerns, and to this day their drab bon- nets are a sufficient passport into the best and most cultivated society ! And why ? simply be- cause it is well known that, let their station in life be ever so humble, they possess an instinctive sense of propriety, a true and natural refinement and culture that will not permit them to offend the most fastidious taste in good breeding. In point of numbers the Society of Friends have always been exceedingly limited, and yet few as they are, if we search the world for specimens of high female culture, in all that pertains to the family relation, home duties, and the qualities that adorn and utilizes character in woman, we shall hardly find superiors to Elizabeth Fry, Anne Jenkins, and hundreds of others of the Quaker sect. These facts speak volumes in behalf of" woman's rights." Another most significant fact is, that the movement is following closely upon the ad- vent of the late second great outpouring of spirit influences from the unseen world, which too are concentrating their mighty powers in favor of elevating woman to an equality with man in all that belongs to social, civil, and religious affairs and government. There is no question that the righteous cause will progress and finally be crowned 11 122 IRISH AND CHINESE VERSUS LABOR. with success, and I believe that the people who first grant to woman her full and just rights will acquire a prestige among the nations that will not depart until Shiloh the prince of peace shall be crowned on earth by woman's hands, and all the peoples thereof be brought into one common, peaceful brotherhood and fraternity, comparable to the beautiful scripture simile, when " the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid ; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.'' [From the Mercury. August 31, 1871.] Machinery Irish and Chinese versus Labor, IN a letter received by the writer from the late James Robinson, of South Kingston, R. L, dated second month 22d, 1840, he says: "In 1797 I hired good hands to work upon the farm for three dollars per month, and in hay harvest for twenty cents per day ; that, however, was something lower than common ; but five dollars per month was the more general wages for approved laborers, and go through the season." There was then compara- tively no tariff, no machinery, no Irish, no coolies in the country. Laborers and mechanics lived mostly on pork, corn bread, and milk porridge, IRISH AND CHINESE VERSUS LABOR. 128 lodged in unplastered, impainted shanties, and dressed in tow cloth in the summer and sheep's grey cloth in the winter. In 1820 I hired to work on my farm for the season two of the best of laborers, (Win. Smith and Abram Perry) for twenty-five cents a day, for all work except mowing, for which I paid them fifty cents per day. There were then no mowing machines, no horse rakes, no horse hay forks or spreaders, and a day's work was from sunrise to sunset, and in haying time anywhere up to nine o'clock at night. In that year I built a small factory, and hired able-bodied men to work in it at five dollars per month with board, and at ten dollars per month they boarding themselves. Women I hired for twenty-five cents per week and board, or one dol- lar and twenty-five cents, they boarding them- selves. Farmers' produce and food generally was much cheaper than now, but all manufactured goods much higher in price. At this time, or a little before, labor-saving machinery began to be introduced into England and this country, and a terrible outcry arose, lest it should starve out the laborers, and in some in- stances it was broken to pieces and its introducers threatened with violence. Steamboats also began to be introduced, and sailors thought their occu- pation- about ended. And now came the railroad, a devilish invention that was not only to bankrupt 124 IRISH AND CHINESE VERSUS LABOR. turnpike corporations, but cause the annihilation of all horses. But, strange as it may seem, as machinery in- creased, labor and farmers' produce rose in value, while manufactured goods fell to a quarter of their former price. So, too, as steamships multiplied in the rivers, there was an increased demand for sea- men to convey the produce they brought to the com- mercial depots to domestic and foreign markets, and so continues. So with the railways. Instead of doing away with a necessity for horses, such was the impetus given to business and to travel- ling, that one hundred horses were soon required to convey passengers to the depots, where a single pair were wanted before, to draw the old " fly-trap" from Boston to Providence, or from Dan to Beer- sheba. And as soon as mechanics and laborers of all classes began to take a higher stand in society, to drink tea and coffee, to eat white bread, and live in comfortable houses, a new danger threat- ened them. A terrible famine occurred in Ireland, and mil- lions of ten-cent day laborers began to invade our country. Ruin stared our own laborers in the face, but lo and behold, strange as it may seem, through the weird effect of some beneficent enchanter's wand, BO far from lessening the price of more skil- ful labor, the cheaper labor of the Irish only in- creased it to a fabulous extent, and our artisans soon began to live in their own painted and richly IRISH AND CHINESE VERSUS LABOR. 125 ornamented houses in the winter, and to spend their summers at fashionable watering places. The Irish now afford the only men and women of all work, and these are getting so fearfully scarce that it is a perfect agony to live on one's money. But lo and behold ! now that the march of empire and civilization has finished the circuit of the world, the returning tide threatens labor with a new and most terrific danger. Four hundred millions of Chinese are about to invade -^s; who will work, not for three or five dollars, as good, faithful Yankee hands were glad to do half a cen- tury ago, but for the pittance of twenty-five dol- lars per month. But let every son and daughter of toil take courage and judge the future by the past. Hitherto labor has reaped the whole bene- fit arising from improved machinery. It has more than divided with capital the profits and conve- niences of steam and rail. The advent of the Irish fourfolded the wages and made bosses of the Yankee laborers, and now that the Sons of Erin have become enlightened and prepared by their instructive and liberalizing experiences in Amer- ica, they, too, in turn will be lifted on the shoulders of the coolies, through the new impulses given by their introduction to industry and the arts, into higher positions than they have hitherto occupied, and all who lived by honest labor will go on pro- gressing in an increasing ratio of prosperity, as 126 RHODE ISLAND TURKEYS. sure as that " the liberal deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things shall stand," for such is the law of humanity, the universe, and God. [From the Boston Advertiser.] Rhode Island Turkeys, it stated in your paper that Rhode Island turkeys are worth three cents per pound more in the Boston market than any others. Why is this so? it may well be asked. Simply, I answer, be- cause turkeys are fed, especially in the south part of that State, on hard Indian corn instead of meal, barley, oats, or other kinds of food, and because they are picked without being scalded in hot water and their inwards removed immediately. There is almost as much difference in the bird prepared in this way and one that is fed otherwise and dipped into hot water (to save two minutes labor in picking), and then left to swelter a week with its inwards undrawn, as is the case with the most that are brought to the New York, Philadelphia, and other markets, as there is between a woodcock and a crow. The flesh of animals and birds partakes more or less of the quality of their food. The delicious ortolan of Europe, the rice bird of Georgia, the reed bird of Delaware, and the bobalink of New RHODE ISLAND TURKEYS. 127 England are said to be one and the same bird, varying in plumage and flavor in each locality because of the difference of climate and food. But why, it may be asked, is not Indian meal as good as Indian corn to fatten turkeys upon ? Simply, I might answer, because experience proves that it is not. But as modern scientists are loth to accept facts that are not founded on theories, I may say that the reason of this may or may not be from the fact that both theory and experience attest that three bushels of Indian meal will make more flesh when fed to a turkey or a*pig than/