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POETRY.
IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT.
BT JOHN GREFNLEAF WHITTIER.
Look on him—through his dungeon grate
Feebly and cold, the morning light
Comes, stroling round him, dim and late,
As if it loathed the sight,
Reclining on his strawy bed.
His hand upholds hisdroopirg head ;
His bloodless cheek is seamed and hard.
Unshorn his gray, neglected beard,
And o’er his bony fingers flow
flis long dishelled locks of snow.
No grateful fire before him glows,
And yet the winter’s breath is chill;
And o’er his half clad person goes
The frequent ague thrill!
Silent save ever and anon,
A sound, half murmur and half groan,
Forces apart the painful grip
Os the old sufferer’s bearded lip;
Oil, sad and crushing is the fate
Os old age chained and desolate !
Just God! why lies that old man there ?
A murderer shares his prison bed.
Whose eyeballs through his horrid hair.
Gleam on him fierce and red;
And the rude oath and hear'less jeer
Fall ever on his loathing ear,
And, or in wakefulness or sleep.
Nerve, flesh and fibre thrill and creep.
Whene’er that ruffian’s tossing limb,
Crimsoned with murder teaches him.
What has the gray-haired prisoner done T
Has murder stained his hands with gore ?
Not so; his crime’s a fouler one—
God made the old man poor 7
For this he shares a felon’s cell.
The fittest earthly type of hell !
For this—the boon for which he poured
His young blood on th’ invader’s sword.
And counted light the fearful cost —
His blocd-gaincd * Liberty’ is lost.
And so, for such a place of rest.
Old prisoner, poured jliy blood as rain,
On Concord's field, and Bunker's crest,
And Saratoga plain ?
Look forth, thou man of many scars,
Through thy dungeon’s iron bars;
It must be joy, in sooth, to see
Yon mounment upreared to thee.*
Piled granite, and a prisoned cell—
The land repays thy service well!
Go, ring the bells, and fire the guns,
And (ling the starry banneFout—
Shout * Freedom !’ till your lisping one*
Give back their cradle shout—
Let boasted eloquence declaim
Os honor, liberty, and fame—
Still let the poet’s strain be heard,
With “ Glory” for each second word,
And every thing with breath agree
To praise our “ glorious liberty 1”
But when the patriot’s cannon jars
The prison’s cold and gloomy wall.
And through its grates the stripes and stars
Rise on the wind and fall—
Think you that prisoner’s aged cor
Rejoices in the general cheer ?
Think you his dim and failing eye
Is kindled at your pageantry ?
Sorrowing of soul, and chained of limbs,
What is your carnival to him 7
Down with the Law which binds him thus!
Unfeeling freeman, let it find
No refuge from the withering curse
Os God and human kind !
Open the prisoner’s living tomb,
And usher from its brooding gloom
The victim of your savage code,
To the free air and sun of God.
Nor longer dare as crime to brand.
The chastening of the Almighty’s hand*.
* Bunker's Hill Monument.
BROTHERLY LOVE.
110-ss lovely a sight to behold brethren dwelling
Together in love's union bland.
Heart to heart with one feeling responsively swelling,
A happy, a ne’er sundered band:
'Tislike the rich ointment which fragrantly sited
Its perfumes o'er his garments from Aaron’s blest head—
Like the light rosy dew in the morning-beam lying
On Hermon’s green blossoming brow,
Or the drops on the soft heaving mountain* of Zion ;
For there, Lord of Harvests, hast thou
Commanded a blessing—a ne'er-failing store —
Even life 'neath thy smile evermore !
Epigram—To a Quack.
Where'er admission thou canst gain—
Where’er thy phi* can pierce,
At once the doctor they retain,
The mourners and the hearse.
MACON, (Ga.) SATURDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 8, 1838.
MISCELLANEOUS.
From the Southern Literary Messenger.
POLITICAL RELIGIONISM.
BY A SOUTHRON.
1. A 1-ettrr to the Hon. Henry Clay, on the Annexation
•/Texts; by WiUiam E. Channing, D. D. Boston,
1937.
2. “ Texas," Quarterly Review, June, 1839.
It is unfortunate for mankind, that the literary cha.
racteris not associated in glory with other professional
classes of society. The latter pressing more immedi
ately upon the attention of men, are stimulated by per
sonal interests and remunerated by early honors; while
the former, habituated to seclusion, produces its rich
fruits in concealment, which are neither appreciated
nor gathered until a late period of life. Indeed the
utility of their labors is not always capable of imme
diate application, and is not unfrequently undervalued
by the passing generation. Thus Mihon and Shakes
peare felt springing within them the germs of immor
tality, and overlooking the opinions of the age in which
they lived, wrote for posterity. It was when the mind
of Kepler, awake to celestial harmony, was filled with
the enthusiasm of genius, and when he felt that the age
in which he lived would not appreciate the value of
his discoveries, that he exclaimed = “ I have stolen the
golden vessels of the Egyptians, and I will build of
them a tabernacle to my God. If you pardon me, I re
joice, if you reproach me, I oan endure it; the die is
thrown. I can wait one century for a reader, if God
himself waited six thousand years for an observer of
his works.” Genius is immortal, and not unlike the
actors in the Grecian games, the torch of science has
been passed from hand to hand, in all ages by the
“ great lights of the world." Genius creates an intel
lectual nobility which is conferred on literary charac
ters by the involuntary feelings of the public ; and it is
the noble prerogative of genius to elevate obscure tnen
to the higher classes of society. But this fame is not
unfrequently posthumous, and the Grecian virgins
scattered garlands throughout the seven islands of
Greece, upon the turf beneath which were supposed to
lie the remains of the blind old bard, who wandered in
penury and obscurity through life, or only sung passa
ges of his divine poem at the festive board of his con
temporaries.
The small cities of Athens and of Florence attest the
influence of the literary character over nations • for the
one received the tribute of the mistress of the world,
when the Roman youth crowded the walks of her phi
losophy, and the other, after the revival of letters, dis
pensed all the treasures of literature to the admiring
nations of Europe. Those who govern mankind can
not at the same time enlighten them; they merely regu
late their manners and their morals: but the literary
class, standing between the governors and the governed,
light up with the divine ray of intellect, and give shape,
and character, and beauty and utility to the whole
framework of society. And to descend from classes to
individuals, how often do we behold gifted men, mas
ter spirits, springing up, and with pregnant inspiration,
from the depths of their solitude, impressing their own
upon the character of a whole people 7 Intelligence is
progressive and cumulative, however nations may re
lapse into barbarism ; and each departing age pours its
increasing treasures into the lap of its successor. Th
link of mind is never broken. In every age and clime,
however stormy and tempestuous, the divine intellect,
like the electric flame springing into life from the dark
bosom of the clouds, rolls its voice over the chasms of
darkened ages, and lights up every summit which lifts
its head from amid the surrounding gloom.
Far along,
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among
Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers through her misty shroud,
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud.
Every father spirit in the intellectual world has his
gifted sons ; and it is wonderful with what rapidity the
germs of intellect expand in fruitful soils. How often
in the creative spark struck forth in a moment, and af
ter the lapse of ages caught and kindled into a living
blaze. There is a singleness and unity in the pursuits
of genius through all time, which produce a species of
consanguiuity in the character of authors. Men of
genius, flourishing in different periods, or in remote and
inhospitable countries seem to he the same persons with
another name, whose minds have in the intervening
time been constantly improving, and thus the literary
character, long since departed, appears only to have
transmigrated. In the great march of the human in
tellect, each still occupies the same place, and is still
carrying on with the same powers his great work
through a line of centuries. Sometimes, indeed, it hap
pens that some useful labor is lost for a season, some
one of the greater lights is apparently struck from the
system; but another Kepler arises to point out the dis
cord in the celestial harmony, and some future observer
discovers in the vast fields of space, the fragments of
the lost planet, and restores the broken chord. In the
history of genius there is no chronology; the whole
book is open before us; every thing is present, and the
earliest discovery is connected by a thousand links with
the most recent. Many men of genius must arise before
a particular man of genius can appear. Aristophanes,
in his comic scenes, ridiculed the Grecian mythology,
and Epicurus, following in his footsteps, shook the pil
lars of Olympus. The skeptic mind ol VVickliffe over
shadowed the genius of John Huss—and Luther, gird
ing himself with their armor, caused the institutions of
Europe to tremble to their foundations. Cicero, in his
sublime morality startled the warriors of Rome with
a lesson of unwonted mercy. He wished them to spare
their enemies even - after the hattering ram had wnit
ten the walls.” And Bcccana, catching this amiable
spirit, opposed the voice of humanity to the rooted pre
judices of ages. We might extend our illustrations of
this sublime truth indefinately, and we could with
equal facility trace the immense, we had almost said
frightful influence of men of genius over the destinies
of mankind, since the invention of printing and the re
vival and cultivation of polite letters. We might in
dicate trivial and remote causes, sleeping for ages, and
suddenly springing, by a happy combination, into ata
pendous results. The same law obtains in the intellec
tual and in the animal kingdoms. The submarine la
bors of the coral animalcules, and the seeds floating on
the bosom of the deep, have planted in the depths of the
ocean large aud fertile islands. How extensive, then,
and how incalculable are the consequences of human
action, and how rcsistleesly and absolutely is it swayed
by men ofgenius 7
Although not a genius of the first order, nor one of
those great lights which seem destined to shed perpe
tual lustre over the hiatory of man, the author of the
f letter to Mr. Clay, on the subject of the annexation of
Texas, William E. Channing, fills no little space in the
public view, and is not without distinction in the repub
lic of letters. His enlarged intellect has borrowed
j easy and graceful proportion from his moral virtues.
: He is a consecrated vessel, set apart for the service of
the Deity, and for the propagation of truths,
toerring man. His is a ministry of peace and good
will. And he has brought 10 the service of his master
a talent, which has not been unimproved, neither has it
been buried ; he is a shining light, and in rendy obe
dience to the heavenly prohibition, he has not hid it
under a bushel. In the prominent power of his intel
lect, he strikingly though distantly resembles that cha
racteristic of Milton's mind, which he basso beautifully
illustrated, and that is the faculty of impregnation.—
His excursive and active genius travels over the whole
field of literature ;he gathers every choice plant in the
gardens of wisdom, and they flourish with unusual vigor
in the fertile soil into which they are translated. A
graceful purity of style adorns the solid structure of his
reasoning ; and he ha3 richly earned the distinguished
title of the American Atticus.
It is to be lamented, that powers such ns this instruc
tive writer possesses, should, from the general neglect of
literary merit in this age of utilitarianism, be forced from
their appropriate and legitimate sphere, and direeted to
questionable,perhaps unhappy results. Few minds in this
age, and more particularly in this country, where the
labors ofintellect are so little appreciated, aud so siowlv
rewarded possess the moral firmness and the persever
ing steadiness which lead to a solid, but slow and dis
tant, reputation through a life of toil. Few such can
resist the scducements of those whose instant but fleet
ing and precarious honors which are snatched amid the
hazards, and struggles, and excitements of political dis
cussion. In agovernment like ours, in which each in
dividual is constantly reminded of the deep stake he has
in its welfare, and of his immediate agency and influ
ence in its administration, the tendency to descend from
loftier stations to mingle in the conflicts of the arena, is
irresistible to the many, and seldom checked by those
who have the sagacity to perceive the moment when
their interposition may decide the controversy. Such
is the resistless operation of this spirit of interposition,
such is the longing of the impatient mind for early dis
tinction, that all classes yield to this petty ambition.
It invades ihe holy precincts of the sanctuary, and
the priest not unfrequently becomes the agitator.
A sound and healthy state of public opinion is of slow
and cautious growth, and we should accurately distin
guish between this salutary agent and that feverish and
artificial excitement which is produced by associations
and combinations. “ Public opinion,” says an able
writer, * in his review of Miss Martineau on slavery, in !
the November number of the Messenger, “ public opi
nion is of very slow, very temperate, and very judicious 1
formation. It is the aggregate of small truths and the j
experience of successive days and years, which, heaped ;
together, lorm a general principle, which is of instant 1
conviction in every bosom. It only requires to receive
a name in order to become a law; and a law, which is
precipitately imposed upon a people, in advance of the
formation of this sort of public opinion, will soon be
openly abolished, or become obsolete in the progress of
events. For my own part, lam satisfied with the ex
isting law's, until the convictions of the majority and
the progress of experience shall call for their improve
ment. I have no respect for those who set themselves
up for makers of public opinion ; and as for the 4 hell
broth,’so compounded, I know not any draught which
would not be more wholesome, than that which makes
the body politic a body plethoric, and leaves no remedy
to the physician but the cautery and the knife.”
It is a subject of deep regret, that we so frequently find
schemes and associations, calculated to create the spu- I
rious kind of public opinion, promoted by some of the j
distinguised members of the clerical order. Over- i
zealous in the service of their master, they prepare for ,
the fanatic and enthusiastic perilous employment; and I
unrestrrined by the stern rebuke of the Redeemer, they
seem prone to imitate the chief of the apostles in their :
readiness to smite with the sword those who, in their j
excited imaginings, are the enemies of religion: The
great evil of the present day, and that which threatens j
the existence of the Union, as well as the peace and se- j
cury of the southern states, is “ Political Religion- !
ism." And it is on account of the infusion of thisfana- j
tical and destructive spirit into the strictures of the |
American divine, upon the character and morals of our :
people, and upon the domestic institutions of the south:
it is becanse the British reviewer, misled by these in
vectives, has assailed the character, of our government,
and proclaimed the licentious tendency of republican
establishments, that we feel impelled to notice the pub
lications placed at the head of this article.
The *• Letter of Dr. Channing to Mr. Clay” contains
grave charges, upon which the British reviewer, in the
article “Texas,” frames a specious argument to prove
the perishable nature of our free institutions. But we
can neither admit the truth of the charges made by the
divine, nor the solidity of the argument labored by the
monarchist. The letter states in substance:
1. That the revolt in Texas was sustained by the •
southern states, and the admission of Texas into the i
Union was demanded in order io create anew market '
for slaves, a new’field for slave labor, and the accession [
of political power in those states, which subsist by slave- |
breeding and slave-selling, and furthermore to perpe- 1
tuate in the old and to spread over the new states the
horrors of slavery.
2. He appeals in behalf of the slave to the interposi-'!
tion of the British government; declares that England i
has a moral as well as a political interest in this question
and pronounces “an English minister unworthy of his
office who would not strive by all just means to avert .
the danger.”
3 He charges his ccuntrymen with a law lessness and
corruption of public morals, which is well calculated to
disgrace them in the estimation of mankind; and paints
with so gloomy a pencil, that his British review er, the
avoyed enemyofall republican institutions, exposes the
picture in triumph to the friends of legitimacy in Europe,
ns the impartial testimony of a ripe scholar, a native citi
zen, and an anointed priest.
The discussion cf these subjects, in the articles under
consideration, is so intimately interwoven with the whole
subject of slavery in the south, of southern crime and
southern policy, that wewill confine our attention prin
cipally to that theme. With the Texian controversy we
have no concern. But before proceeding to discuss this
agitating topic, we will make a few remarks upon the
* Not a few »f our reflections upon the nature and
condition of the Indian on our frontier, and upon slav
ery in general, will show that we have read and remem
bered the “ Review of Miss Martineau on Slavery."
We could not receive the light from a purer source, for
that publication is universally regarded at one of the
ablest productions of the American press.
loose morality and lawlessness of those hardy pioneers
of the wilderness for whose excesses the nation is held
responsible, and by the standard of whose morals the
whole American people isjudged. Under the imposing
title of a citizen possessing high talents and still higher
moral character, the British reviewer introduces Dr.
Channing to the world holding the following extravagant
language:
“ We are corrupt enough already. In one respect
our institutions have disappointed us all. They have
not wrought for us that elevation of character w hich is
the only substantial blessing of liberty. Government
is regarded more as a meansof enriching the country
than of securing private rights. We have become wed
ded to gain as our chief good. That under the predo
minance of this degrading passion, the higher virtues,
the moral independence, the simplicity of manners,
the stern uprightness, the self reverence, the respect for
man as man, which are the ornaments and safe guards of
a republic, should wither, and give place to selfish calcu
lation and indulgence, to show and extravagance, to
anxious, envious, discontented strivings, to wild adven
ture, and to the gambling spirit of speculation, will sur
prize no one who has studied human nature. A spirit
of lawlessness pervades the community, which, if not re
pressed, threatens the dissolution of our present forms of
society. Even in the old states, mobs are talcing the gov
ernment into their hands, and a profligate newspaper
finds little difficulty in stirring up multitudes to violence.
When we look at the parts of the country nearest Texas,
w’e see the arm of the law paralysed by the passions
of the individual. The substitution of self-constituted
tribunals, for the regular course of justice, and the in
fliction of immediate punishment in the momentof po
pular phrenzy, are symptoms of a people half reclaimed
from barbarism. Iknownotthat any civilized country
on earth has exhibited, during the last year, a spectacle
so atrocious as the burning of a colored man by a slow
fire in the neighborhood of St. Louis ! And this infernal
sacrifice was offered, not by a few fiends selected from
the whole country, but, by a crowd gathered from a sin
gle spot. Add to all this, the invasions of the rights of
speech and of the press by lawless force, the extent and
toleration of which oblige us to believe that a considerable
portion of our citizens have no comprehension of the first
princi/Jes of liberty. It is an undeniable fact, that, in
consequence of these and other symptoms, the confidence
of many reflecting men in our free instutiosu is very
much impaired. Some despair. That we must seek
security for property and life in a ‘stronger govern
ment,’ is aspreading conviction."
The reader shrinks with abhorrence from this loath
some picture, and is startled to learn that it has been
sketched by the hand of a countryman. From the tenor
of the whole letter of Dr. Channing, it is manifest that he
designs to attribute this national depravity in a great mea
sure to the slaveholder and the frontier-man. Wc will
confine our remark*, therefore, to these two points, and
endeavor to prove that the border-men of the sou’.h
we -tern states are no worse than those of other nations,
and that the other evils of which he so loudly complains
have been produced mainly by the northern fanatics,
and are the first fruits of political religionism.
Man is a frail and rtjjiellious creature, and the stern
est sanctions of the law have in all ages been required
for the maintenance of peace and order. But all the
force of the laws has, under every frame of govern
ment, been fotmd insufficient to repress the spirit of
insubordination. The stormy impulse #f the passions,
and the hope of impunity still impel daring and wicked
men to violate the law of the land, and to commit the
most detestable and atrocious crimes. But, that cither
in our cities or upon our frontier, there is a greater de
gree of crime or more profligacy than is to be found in
similar classes in other countries, or that our people are
more demoralized than those of other nations, has no
foundation in fact. We are the descendants of the
European, we are the children of sin, and we have
brought with us into this eountry the frailties and the
passions of our nature and of our forefathers. But our
great cause of complaint is, that we are falsely charged
with surpassing profligacy by the friends of a stronger
and more artificial frame of government, upon the
the testimony of our own writers, who libel their kin
dred ; and this unusual depravity is attributed to the
licentiousness promoted and inculcated by free institu
tions. And it is to be deeply regretted that there are to
be found among us those, who in their fanatic zeal to
extirpate slavery in the south, exaggerate the failings
and the vices of their countrymen, and thus furnish
with perpetual argument the enemies of republican
institutions. The heart has been made sick with de
tails of crime and violence on our southern and western
borders; and they have been diligently dressed and
served up, as precious morsels, as a rich feast for our
European friends. The outrages of the pioneers, the
border morals, lynching and frontier regulations, are
the same in all new countries. And the classic and
well stored mind of Dr. Channing treasures many a
salutary lesson drawn from the flight of the Roman
eagle, sweeping onward in his resist'ess flight from point
to point in a constantly advancing frontier, to the utter
most boundaries of the haunts of men, until he bad
looked down upon a submissive world, and folded his
unwearied wing beneath the shadow of universal do
minion.
The fields of Northumberland, and the cruel inroads
of the Percies, live in Scottish minstrelsy, and the ob
servant eye of so ripe a scholar has traced the destruc
tive progress of the freeboters of the horde', by the light
of the torch, and the red stain of the brand, that have
marked the progress of repine on the frontier of civiliza
tion. We can readily appreciate the sympathies of a
good man, we can excuse the complaints of an apostle
es peace, when the melancholy lessons of history are
repeated in his own age and in his own clime; but we
must be' cautious to consult the lessons of experience,
and take counsel of the ripe understanding, before we
proclaim to the world, in the fervor of a heated imagina
tion, the enormities of border license. Let us lament
the stern necessity, but restrain the currantofindignant
lest w* exagerate the extent ofevils which loom
up in deceptive magnitude through the mists of preju
dice, and seem the more formidable because of their
propinquity.
The annals of England and Scotland will furnish to
the learned divine, as well as to the British reviewer, a
tale of blood and license for surpassing the sad but un
frequent excesses on our frontier. When civilization
sendaforth tier pioneers to-open and tame the wilderness,
the qwiet, peaceable and orderly, remain at home ; the
frontier-man is the bold, and hardy, and reckless ad
venturer, who alone is fit to contend with the stubborn
forests and the savage tribes who tread them in solitude.
It is to be a matter of wonder or of regret, that society
purges off and throws among them the dissolute outcast
or the exile of crime 7 The pilgrim fathers were a
different race, not thrown upon the frontiers of an an
cient or established people, to push the march of civili-
zation, but stern men, whom the profligate tyranny of
the Stuarts, and the intolerant ravings of fanaticism,
sent forth to people the inhospitable shores of the new
wor’d with the sturdy and unbending spirits of the old.
With no love but for freedom—with no hope but in God ?
their lonely barque was freighted with the consecrated
| cmUenti of liberty, and turning to the setting sur, they
i sped onward, to throw the illimitable waste of the ocean
a barrier between themselves and their oppressors.
S'ern and indominitable spirits—pious nnd practical
professors of the doctrines of the meek and merciful
Redeemer—incapable of submission to oppression, and
too fe .v io shake the foundations of a throne laid
deep in the rcceses of time: they gathered up the frag
ments of their broken fortunes, and " wandered from
their fathers’ houses into these ends of the earth, and
laid their labors and estates therein,”
Such were the Pilgrim Fathers; and but that their
graves are voiceless, they would teach to their deset n
dants salutary lessons of patience and forbearance ;
they would point to their own protracted sufferings in
the old world for melancholy examples of intolerance
and fanaticism. They planted in this country the
{term of civilization, which in our day has burst forthln
wild luxuriance, and stretched its branches to the four
winds of heaven. There have gone forth from among
thiir desendants a host of turhulant spirits. These
pioneers are ihe links which bind civilization with
barbarism, the city with the wilderness. They are a
rude and unpolished generation, carrying with them
the elements of order, disarranged by their contiguity
to savage and lawless multitudes. Crimes peculiar to
the situation and character of a people are committed
everywhere ; and if these unsettled classes perpetrate
enormities which curdle the blood of a mere refined
people, these latter indulge in excesses appropriate te
themselves, which although less shocking, are no less
destructive io the morals and happiness of mankind.
And if the “ negro perish by a slow fire.” on the plains
of Missouri, the flames of a sacked convent, in the midst
of the cities of Massachusetts, attract attention to tha
cries of unprotected woman and helpless infancy. If
Texas be the field of blood, Boston has gent forth and
protected the midnight incendiary. If the laurels of
San Jacinto be stained with purple the monument of
Bunker Hill has disclosed its pallid form by the lurid
glare of the torch in a night of ruthless rapine and
sacrilege, which would have disgraced the darkest ago
of feudal barbarism. If an enthusiast and agitator pluck
down ruin on his press, nnd perish by a bloody death,
himself red with the blood of his brother, in the town
of Alton, fanaticism burns and plunders the living,
desecrates the altar, and violates tho dead on the height#
of Chailcstown. And if it were the popula-e which
projected the crime and hoodwinked justice, it was tha
legislature of Massachusetts which sanctioned, aye,
and still sanctions the act by withholding retribution.
Crime prevails wherever man is a dweller. It is by no
means extraordinary, that as man recedes from tho
cenlre of civilization, and reaches the uttermost limit of
the social circle, the salutary restraints of the law should
be more feebly felt, and deeds of violence and disorder
should more frequently occur than in the bosom of
society. We are not of the number of those who form
our estimate of the morals or character of a people, by
the conduct of those who scarcely feel the bonds of so
ciety. Such as they arc, were those, two generations
ago, who now dwell in peace and concord, revelling in
all the luxurious refinements of polished and humane
association.
To the west, to the successor* of these border-men,
who carry with them the germ of civilization, do we
confidently look for the security of the republic. They
throw open the wilderness; the fastnesses of the forest
retreat before them, and the valleys which now ring
with the yell of the savage, will soon teem with abun
dance. The landed proprietors have always been, and
still arc, the bulwark of established institutions. Upon
them, in the hour of danger, falls the burden of defence.
Their staid habits and steady virtue tend to check the
maich ofcsrruption and commercial wealth, that mortal
foe to the only sentiment which sustains republic*.
M o look to the wilderness for protection from the cities.
In our happy country, and under those excellent insti
tutions which breath a spirit of equality, this com
mercial spirit may be counteracted ; for, the main
pillars which sustain it in other countries have been
thrown down by our sagacious forefathers. Entail
and primogeniture have ceased to create and to per
petuate a privileged class. In every age, from the palmy
days of Rome and Athens to the stormy revolution of
Paris, centralism has been fatal to the best interest cf a
people. As our empire expands over the great western
frontier, the large commercial cities of the Union will
cease to overshadow, to corrupt, and to contnl ha
Union. Our north-eastern brethren, hardy and intelli
gent, are consumed with this commercial cancer. If.
with Franklin, they have diligently investigated the
practical truths of material philosophy, they recognize
him as the founder of a trading people, they adhere
with the religious observance of the Spartan to hia
mecenary precepts, and have superadded to them
parsimonious habits and wary cunning. A prying curi
osity into the concerns of their neighbors, is another
leading trait in their character, sketched by the same
hand; and to this bias in their nature, we may attribute,
in a great degree, their blindness to their own Vandal
ism, in the sacking of a convent, and their deep solici
tude to deliver their southrrn brethren from the horror*
of slavery, even with the aid of foreign interposition.
Let us not be understood to undervalue the enterprising
activity, the love of freedom, the moral rectitude, the
intellectual acumen of the New Englanders. We
would willingly do them no injustice. But when in
their intemperate zeal, they proclaim freedom to the
slave, and denounce the slaveholder, even from the
sanctuary ; when they exhibit their southern brethren
to the eyes of the world as the most profligate and un
feeling of mankind, surely it may not be amiss to inviui
their at'ention to those defects in their own character,'
which should be amended, before they become apostles
of reformation.
By what right do so many of our northern and east
ern brethren demand and attempt, by all the powers of
combination and association, the abolition of slavery in
the southern states 7 They have permitted themselves
to become the agents of foreign agitators; for this
fanaticism is offoreign birth, and originated in England
with the people who introduced and planted slavery in
our soil. Her example is no precedent for us ; for, the
structure of our government, the fundamental la w of the
land, and our peculiar position, present insuperable ob
stacles to the march of this foreign enemy. An im
mense empire, belting the globs with territory, may
indeed abolish slavery, indemnify the owner, and pre
serve public tranquility in a few amall and distant
islands of the ocean. In our country there is no such
power vested in the government, even if the scheme
were practicable, or its consummation desire bis-
NO. 46.