Newspaper Page Text
T HE
THE GREATEST YET.
ATHENS
GEORGIAN: OCTOBER 3, 1876.
arfield. The Pharlsefe, Put
Upon the Spit and Done
laws against the freedom of con
science and the unfeeling rigor with
which they were executed, made
Massachusetts odious throughout the
'rlpclnnl Pro
duct of New lOngland
Cupidity.
Some A recent of the Puritan Stare Drtren and
Mare Trader*.
A fnribl* Amlcuuat of BoftfUeu Susili Chuti
uA
JUDGE BLACK'S OPEN LETTER.
To Hon. James A. GarfieldMem-
her of Congress from Ohio : I have
read the speech you sent me, I am
astonished and shocked. As the
leader of your party, to whom the
candidates have especially delegated
the conduct of the, pending campaign,
yon should have met your responsi
bilities in a very different Way. I do
not presume to - lecture “bo distin
guished a man open his errors; hut
if I can prevent you, even to a small
extent, from abusing the publio ere
dulity, it is my ditty to try. Pre
mising only my great anxiety to pre
serve the fraternal relations existing
between us for many years, I follow
the Horatian rule, and come at onc<
to “ the middle of things,”
You trace back the origin of pres
ent panics to the earliest immigra
tions at Plymouth and Jamestown,
and. profess to find in the opposing
doctrines then planted and afterward
constantly cherished in Massachusetts
and Virginia the germs of those ideas
which now make Democracy and
Abolitionism the deadly foes of each
other. The ideas so planted in Mas
sachusetts were, according to your
account, the freedom and equality of
all races, and the right and duty of
every man to exercise his private
judgment in politics as well as reli
gion. On the other hand, you set
forth as irreconcilably hostile tbe
doctrine of Virginia, “that capital
should own labor, that the negro had
no rights of manhood, and that the
white man might buy, own and sell
him and his offspring forever.” Fol
lowing these assertions with others,
and linking the present with the long
past, you employ the devices of your
rhetoric to glorify the modem Abo
litionist and to throw foul scorn, not
merely on the Southern people, but
on the whole Democracy of the
country.
This looks learned and philosophi
cal, and it gives your speech a dig
nity seemingly above the reach of
the ordinary demagogue. Happy is
he who knows the causes of things;
felicitous is the partisan member of
Congress whose stump speech goe
up the river of time to the first foun
tain of good and evil. But your
contrast of historical facts is open to
one objection, which I give you in a
form as simple as possible, when 1 say
that it is wholly destitute of truth.
This, of course, implies'no imputation
on your good faith. Your high char
acter in the church, as well as the
State, forbids the belief that you
would be guilty of willful misrepre
sentation.
TOLERANCE IN NEW ENGLAND.
The men of Massachusetts, so far
from planting the right of private
judgment, extirpated and utterly
extinguished it, by means so cruel
that no man of common humanity
can think of them even now without
disgust and indignation. I am sur
prised to find you ignorant of this.
Did you never hear of the frightful
persecutions they carried on systemat
ically against Baptists and Quakers
and Catholics? How they fined, im
prisoned, lashed, mutilated, enslaved
and banished everybody that claimed
thq right of free thought? How
they stripped the most virtuous and
great crimes of the Pilgrim
Fathers ought not to be cast up to
their children; for some of their de
scendants (I hope a good majority)
are high-principled and honest men,
sincerely attached to :the liberal in
stitutions planted in the more south
ern latitudes of the continent. But
if you- are right m-your assertion
that the Abolitionists derive their
principles from the ideas entertained
and planted at -Plymouth,,that may
account for the eourse-aud brutal
tyranny with which your party has,
in recent times, trampled, upon the
right of free thought and free speech.
SLAVERY IB MA88ACIIUSETT8.
Nor are you more accurate in your
declaration thatf the (old .Yankees
planted the doctrine of freedom and *
equality, or opposed the domination
of one race over another. Messrs.
Palfrey and Bnmner have said some
thing, to the effect that slavery never
existed in Massachusetts, aud you
may have been misled by them. But
either they wenu wholly ignorant of
the subject, or else they spoke with
that loose and lavish unveracity which
is a common fault among men of their
political sect. The Plymouth colony
aud the province of Massachusetts
Bay were pro-slavery to the back-
bon •. If yon doubt this, I refer you
to Moore’s “History ofSlavery in
Massachusettswhere the evidence
(consisting chiefly of records and
documents perfectly authenticated)
is produced and collated with a full
ness and fairness which cannot be
questioned. The Plymouth immi
grants planted precisely* the same
doctrine which you ascribe to the
Jamestown colonists; that is to say
they held that “the negro had no
rights of manhood; that the white
man might buy, own and sell him
ami his offspring forever.” Practi
cally and theoretically they main
tained that human slavery, in its
most .unmitigated form,' was' a per
fectly just, pro]>er and desirable insti
tution, entirely consistent with Chris
tianity as they understood it, and
founded on principles of universal
jurisprudence. They insisted upon
it as an established and settled rule
of the latv of nations that when one
government or community or politi
cal organization made war upon its
own subjects, or the subjects of an
other, and vanquished them, the
people of the beaten party had no
rights to which the right of the con
querors was not paramount. When
ever it was demonstrated, by actual
experiment, that any people were too
weak to defend their homes and
families against an invader who vis
ited "them with fire and sword, they
might lawfully be stripped of their
property, and they themselves, their
wives and their children, might justly
be held as slaves or sold into perpet
ual bondage. That was tbe idea they
planted in their own soil, propagated
among their contemporaries, and
transmitted to the Abolition party of
the present day. You have preached
and practised it it in all yonr dealings
with the South. This absolnte dom
ination is what you mean, if you
mean anything, when yon talk aliout
the “ precious results of the war.’’ If
the doctrine thus planted by the
original settlers in Massachusetts be
true, and if the “precious fruits” of
it, which you are gathering with so
much industry, be legitimate, it is a
perfect justification of all the slavery
that ever existed on this continent.
Your great exemplars, from whom
you acknowledge that yon have de
rived yonr ideas of freedom, certainly
force, was good in the hands of all
subsequent purchasers, however re
mote from the original conqnsitor.
TBE MASSACHUSETTS SLAVE FRAUDS.
They executed this theory to its
fullest extent in their own wars with
the Indians. Without cause or prov
ocation, and without notice or warn
ing, they fell upon the Pequods, mas
sacred many of them/ and made
slaves of the survivors, without dis
tinction of ago or, sex. ,; About seven
hundred, including many women and
children, were sent to the West In
dies, and: there sold bn public account,
the proceeds being put in the colonial
treasury. - Bight score of these un
fortunate people escaped from the
butchery by flight, alid afterward
agreed to give themselves up on a
solemn promise of the authorities
that they should neither be put to
death por enslaved. _Jhe promise
was, broken with ns
a modern Abolitionist would vio'ate
his oath to support the Constitution.
The “precious results of the war’’
were not to be loat by an hqnost ob
servance of iheir pledged faith, and
the victims of this infamous t reseliery
inoffensive women, and publicly i thought, or professed to think so, and
whipped them on their naked backs,
only for expressing their conscientious
convictions? Have you never, in all
your reading, met with the story of
Roger Williams? For merely sug
gesting to tbe public authorities of the
colony that no person ought to be
punished on aocount of his honest
opinions, he was driven into the
woods and pursued ever afterwards
with a ferocity that put his own life
and that of his friends in constant
danger. Inflict, the cruelty of their
they carried it out to its logical cons
sequences. When an African poten
tate chose to fight with and subdue
a weak tribe, inside or out of his own
dominions, he sold the prispners
whom he did not think proper to
kill, and the men of Massachusetts
bought them without a question of his
title. They kept them and worked
them to death, or sold them again as
their interest prompted—for they
held that the right of domination,
resulting from the application of brute
were all of them shipped to the Bar-
hndoes, and sold or “swapped for
Blackamoors.” This practice of en
slaving their captives, was uniform,
covered all cases, included women
and children, as well sis fightiiurmen.
When death put King Philip beyond
their reach,-they sent his wi c and
child with the rest lo be sold into
slavery. The Induing m ke bad
slaves. They were hard to tame;
they escaped to the forest, and had
to be bunted down, brought back
and branded. They never ceased to
be sullen and disobedient. The Afri
cans always, on the contrary, accepted
the “situation,” were easily domesti
cated, and bore the vake without
murmuring. For that reason, it be
came a settled rule o. public and pri
vate economy in Massaclrase ts to
exchange their worthless Indians for
valuable negroes, cheating their West
India customers in every trade. Per
haps it was here that your party got
the germof its honesty 113 well as its
humanity. They made war for no
other object than to supply themselves
with subjects for this fraudulent traf
fic. In 1R34, Emanuel Downing, the
foremost lawyer in the colony, and a
leader of commanding influence, as
well as high conjicctions, made a
written argument in favor of a war
with the Narragansetts. He did not
pretend that any wrong had been
done, but he v had a pious dread
that Massachusetts would be held re-
ponsible for the false religion of tbe
Narragansetts. “ I doubt,” says he
“if it be not synne in us, having power
in our hands, to suffer them to tnayn
tayno the worship of the devil, which
their pow-wowes often doe.” This
tenderness of conscience is very char
acteristic of the party which got the
“germ of its ideas” from that source.
But go a little^ further, and you will
see with pleasure how exactly you
have copied their doctrines: “If,”
says he, “ upon a just war, tbe Lord
should deliver them into our hand,
we might easily have men, women
and children to exchange for Moors
(negroes), which will be more gayiie-
ful pillage for us than we conceive,
fof I do not see how we can thrive
until we get in a stock of slaves suffi
cient to do all our business.” This
(except the spelling) might come
from an Abolition caucus to-day.
You will find Downing’s letter in
Moore, page 10.
YANKEE HUMANITY.
They did get most of their Indians
off, and supplied themselves with ne
groes in their place. The shameless
inhumanity with which the blacks
were used made slavery in’ Massa
chusetts “the sum. of all villainy.”
In the letter of Downing, already re
ferred to, he says: “ You know very
well we shall mayntaynO twenty
Moors cheaper than, one English ser
vant.” Think of reducing a West
Indian negro in that intensely cold
climate to the one-twentieth part of
the food and clothing which a white
menial was in the habit of getting.
They must have been frozen and
starved to death in great numbers.
When that happened it was but the
loss of an animal The harboring ofa
slave woman was, in 1646, pronounc
ed by the highest authority to be the
same injury as a lawful detention of
beast. In )7l6, Sewell, the chief
justice of the colony, said that 'ne
groes were rated with horses and
hogs. Dr. Belknap tells us that
afterward,, when the stock enlarged
and the market became dull, young
negroes and mnlnttoes were some
times given away like puppies. This-
is the kind of freedom, this the equal
ity of tbe races, xtfiich you learned
from the ancient colonists.
But they taught you more than
LTbrir precept and example
established the slavery of white per
sons as well as Indians and negroes.
As their remorseless tyranny spared
uo age and no sex, so it made no dis
tinction of oolor. Besides the car
goes of white heretics which were
captured and skipped to them by
their brethren in England, thej took
special delight in fastening their yoke
on all who were suspected of hetero
doxy. One instance is worthy of
special attention. -Lawrence South-
wick and bis wife were Quakers, and
accused at the same rime with many
'tliers of attending Quaker meetings,
or “ syding with Quakers ” and “ ab
senting themselves from the public
ordinances.” The Sonthwicks had
previously suffered so much in their
persons and estates from this kind
of persecution that they could no
longer work or pay any more fine-,
and, therefore, the general court, l»y
solemn resolution, ordered them t
be banished on pain of death. Ban
ishment. you will not fail to notice,
was m itself equivalent to a lingering
death, if the parties were poor and
feeble; for it meant merely driving
them into* the wilderness to starve
with hunger and -cold. Southwick
and bis wife went out and died very
soon. Bnt-this is not all.' This tin-
fortunate pair had two children, a
boy and a girl), Daniel and Pmvid-
e I ), who, having healthy constii u-
tions, would bring a good price in
the slave market. The children were
taken from the parents and ordered
to be sold in the West Indies. It
happened, however, that there was’
not a shipmaster in any port of-the
eolo.’v who would consent to become
the agent of their exportation and
sale. The authorities, being thus
baulked in their views of the main
chance, were fain to be satisfied in
another way; they ordered the girl
to be whijiped ; she was lashed ac
cordingly, in company with several
other Quaker ladies, and then com
mitted to prison, to be further pro
ceeded against.
of her there. No record shows
whether they killed her or not.
This is one case out of a great
many. It is very interesting and in
structive when taken in connection
with your speech, for it shows the
“ germ of the idea ’’ which your party
acted on when it kidnapped and im
prisoned men and women by the
thousands for believing in American
liberty as guaranteed by the Consti
tution. The Quakers and Baptists
had no printed organs in that day
through which their private judg
ment conld be expressed, else you
would no doubt have cases directly
in point to justify your forcible sup
pression of two hundred and fifty
newspapers
•A CHANGE OF UEADEBS.
Enmity to the right of private
judgment comes down to the' party
of Plymouth ideas by consistent and
regular succession. It is woven like
a dirty stripe into the whole warp
and woof of their history'. As soon
as they got possession of the Federal
Government under John Adams they
began to nse it as an engine for the
suppression of free thought. Their
alien law gave the President power
to banish or imprison, without trial,
any foreigner \vhose opinion might
be obnoxious to his supporters.
Their sedition put every Democratic
speaker and writer under the heel
of the administration. Their stand
ing army was used, as it now is, to
crash out their political opponents.
If you come into Eastern Pennsyl
vania, and particularly into the good
county of Berks, you will learn that
the people there still think with in
dignation of that old reign of terror
when Federal dragoons kidnaped,
insulted and beat their lathers, chop
ped down their 1 ‘liberty poles,’’broke
to pieces the press of tbe Reading
its venerated
iarket-house. The
Magic, and w
editor in the
same spirit broke-out'again in the
burning of nunneries and churches
under Maria Monk, and under John
Brown the whole country swarmed
with spies and kidnappers. When
you abandoned the harlot and rallied
to the standard of the thief, you
changed your principles
THE YANKEE SLAVE CODE.
The slave code planted ‘in Massa
chusetts was the earliest in America
and the most cruel in all its provis
ions. It was pertinaciously adhered
to for generations, and never repeat
ed of, or formally repealed. It was
gradually abandoned, not because it
was wrong,, but solely because it
was found, after long experiment
to be unprofitable. Their plan
of keeping twenty negroes as cheap
ly as one white servant did not
work well; for in that climate a
negro tluis-used would infallibly die
before his labor paid what he cost.
They sold their stock whenever they
could, but emancipation was forbid
den by law, unless the owner gave
security to maintain the slave and
prevent him from becoming a public
charge. To evade this law, those
rho had old or infirm negroes en
couraged them to bring suits for their
freedom, and then by sham demur
rer-, or other collusive arrangements,
judgment against themselves that the
•groes were free, and always had
been. Females likely to increase the
stock were advertised.to be sold “for
that fault alone.” Young ones, be
cause they were not worth raising,
were given away like puppies of. a
super-abundant litter. In this way
domestic slavery by degrees got
loose in practice, simply • because it
would not pay—but the prin
ciple, 911 which one man may own
another whom he subdues by superior
strength or cunning was never aban
doned, repudiated or denied. That
principle jwas cherished, preserved
tid transmitted to you, their imita
tive and loving disciples, and you
have applied it .wherever you could
as tryrannically as they did,
THE PURITAN’S “IDEA ” OF AVAR.
You say that “ war without an
idea is simply brutality.” I submit
to your judgment, as a Christian
man, whether war is redeemed of its
brutality by such ideas as you and
your political associates entertain of
its purposes, objects and consequen-
History loses sight ces? In 5111 y° ur acts nnd m asures,
and by all your speeches and discus
sions, you express the idea that the
logic of blows proves everything you
choose to assert; that a successful in
vasion of one people by another has
the effect of destroying all natural
right to, and all legal guarantees for,
the life, liberty and property of the
people so iiiA’aded and conquered; that
after a trial by battle the victor may
enter up and execute Avliat judgment
he pleases against his adversary;
that the crime which a weak com
munity are quilty of when the at
tempt to defend their lives, their
lives and property and families
against invaders who come upon them
to kill, destroy and subjugate them
is so unpardonable that the whole
body of the offenders taken collec
tively, and all individuals who par
take even passively of the sin, may
lastly be devoted to death, or such
other punishment, by wholesale or
retail, as the strong power shall see
proper to inflict; that the conqueror
after the war is over, may insist that
the helpless and unarmed people,
whom be has prostrated, shall assist
him by not merely accepting, but
“ adopting V (I use yi>tir own word )
the measures intended to degrade
and rob them, and thus make him.
self master of their souls as well as
their bodies. AU rights of pi^n are
resolved by tills theory into the
mights of men.
I aver that this doctrine, in all iff
length and breadth, is false and per
nicious.
It is
the foundation on
which all slavery rests, and the ex.
cuse for all forms of tyranny. It has
no support in any sound rule of pub
lic law, and has never been acknow
ledged by wise or virtuous govern
ments in any age since the advent
of Christ. You can find no authori
ty for it, except in the examples of
men whose names are given over to
universal execration. Mahomet as
serted it when he forced his religion
upon the subjugated East, when
churches were violently converted
into mosques, and the emblem of
Christianity^was trampled underfoot,
to be replaced by the badge of the
impostor. On* the same principle
Poland was partitioned, and Ireland
plundered a dozen times. The king
of Dahomey acted upon it when he
sold his captives, and the men of
Massachusetts indorsed it when they
took them in exchange for captives of
their own. You and your confreres
adopted it as a part of your political
creed when after the Southern peo
ple were thoroughly subdued, you
denied them all rights of freedtnenl
tore up their society, abrogated al-
laws which could protect them in
person or property, broke their local
goveramets in pieces, and put them
under the domination of notorious
thieves, whom you forced them to
accept as their absolute masters.
These results of the war are no
doubt very precious. The right to
traffic in tbe flesh of Indians and ne
groes was precious to the Yankee
and the king of Dahomey. That
■was the fruit of their wars. But was
it in either case legitimate? Your
great reverence for the founders pf
your political school in Massachusetts,
to say nothing of your respect for the
authority of the African princes, or
your faith in the Koran, will proba
bly impel you to stand up in favor
of the “idea ’* which you have learn
ed from them. But I think I can
maintain the Christian law of liberty
In opposition to all yonr Mussulman
notions; for God is great, and Maho
met is not liis prophet.
THE CANT OF THE PHARISEE.
It Avonld be very unjust to deny
that a great many men from this ear
liest period of our history were sin-,
cerely opposed to African slavery,
from motives of religion, benevolence
and humanity. This sentiment was
strong in the South as Avell as the
North, and by none was it expressed
with more fervor than by Jefferson
himself, the great apostle of Democ
racy. But this concession can hard
ly be made to the political abolition-
i ts. As an almost universal rule,
the lenders of that sect were ribald
infidels and their conventicles teemed
with the most shocking blasphemy.
They word? by their own avowals,
the most cruel barbarians of any age.
Servile insurrection and a general
butchery of the Southern people was
a part of their programme from the
beginning. The leader to whom
they give their highest admiration
were tbe men Avho.se feet were the
swiftest in running to shed innocent
blood. Seward won their affections
in his early manhood by proposing
measures from which he promised
that negroes should be incited to
“ rise in blackest insurrection.’’
They applauded John Brown to the
echo for a series of the basest mur
ders on record. They did not con
ceal the’r hostility to the Federal and
State GoA'erroents, uor deny their
enmity to all laws which protected
the liberties of white men. The
Constitution stood in their way, and
they cursed it bitterly; the Bible
was quoted against them, and they
reviled God Almighty himself, I
know that the mind of man, like his
body, is fearfully and Avonderfully
made; I understand*all the difficulty
of analyzing hnman passions, and I
admit we should not judge harshly
of motives; but how these heartless
oppressors of their own race could
have any care for the rights of the
negro, passes my comprehension.
Unless yon can explain it otherwise,
the judgment of history must inevita
bly be against the sincerity of their
anti-slavery professions. In the pres
ent aspect of the case, it seems im»
negro was not assumed as a mere ex
cuse for enslaving the white race,
just as their ancestors put on the pre
tense of piety to gratify their appe
tite for the property and blood of