19 limb. Complaint has sometimes been made of the wrongs to American citizens in Mexico; but during the last year, more outrages on American citizens have been perpetrated in the Slave States than in Mexico. Here, again, I have no time for details, which have been already presented in other quarters. But the instances are from all conditions of life. In Missouri, a Methodist clergyman, suspected of being an Abolitionist, was taken to prison, amidst threats of tar and feathers. In Arkansas, a schoolmaster was driven from the State. In Kentucky, a plain citizen from Indiana, on a visit to his friends, was threatened with death by the rope. In Alabama, a simple person from Connecticut, peddling books, was thrust into prison, amidst cries of “ Shoot him! hang him! ” In Virginia, a Shaker, from New York, peddling garden seeds, was forcibly expelled from the State. In Georgia, a merchant’s clerk, Irishman by birth, who simply asked the settlement of a just debt, was cast into prison, robbed of his pocket-book, containing nearly $100, and barely escaped with his life. In South Carolina, a stone-cutter, Irishman by birth, was stripped naked, hnd then, amidst cries of “ Brand him! ” a Burn him I ” 11 Spike him to death I” scourged so that blood came at every stroke, while tar was poured upon his lacerated flesh. These atrocities, calculated, according to the words of a poet of subtle beauty, to “ make a holiday in hell,” were all ordained, by Vigilance Committees, or by that busiest magistrate, Judge Lynch, inspired by the demon of Slavery. “ He let them loose, and cried, Halloo I How shall we yield him honor due? ” In perfect shamelessness, and as if to blazon this fiendish spirit, we have had, this winter, in a leading newspaper of Virginia, an article, proposing to give twenty-five dollars each for the heads of citizens, mostly members of Congress, known to be against Slavery, and $50,000 for the head of William H. Seward. And in still another paper of Virginia, we find a proposition to raise $10,000 to be given for the kidnapping and delivery of a venerable citizen, Joshua R. Giddings, at Richmond, u or $5,000 for the production of his head.” These are fresh instances, but they are not alone. At a meeting of Slave-masters in Georgia, in 1835, the Governor was recommended to issue a proclamation, offering $5,000 as a reward for the apprehension of either of ten persons named in the resolution, citizens of New York and Massachusetts, and one a subject of Great Britain—not one of whom it was pretended had ever set foot on the soil of Georgia. The Milledgeville Federal Union, a newspaper of Georgia, in 1836, contained an offer of $10,000 for kidnapping a clergyman residing in the city of New York. A Committee of Vigilance of Louisiana, in 1835, offered, in the Louisiana Journal, $50,000 to any person who would deliver into their hands Arthur Tappan, a merchant of New York; and, during the same year, a public meeting in Alabama, with a person entitled “ Honorable ” in the chair, offered a similar reward of $50,000 for the apprehension of the same Arthur Tappan, and of La Roy Sunderland, a clergyman of the Methodist church at New York. These manifestations are not without prototype in the history of the Anti-Slavery cause in other countries. From the beginning, Slavemasters have encountered argument by brutality and violence. If we go back to the earliest of Abolitionists, the wonderful Portuguese preacher, Vieyra, we shall find that his matchless eloquence and unquestioned piety did not save him from indignity. After a sermon exposing Slavery in Brazil, he was seized and imprisoned, while one of the principal Slavemasters asked him, in mockery, where were all his learning and all his genius now, if they could not deliver him in this extremity ? He was of the Catholic church. But the spirit of Slavery is the same in all churches. A renowned Quaker minister of the last century, Thomas Chalkley, while on a visit at Barbados, having simply recommended charity to the slaves, without presuming to breathe a word against Slavery itself, was first met by disturbance in the meeting, and afterwards, on the highway, and in open day, was fired at by one of the exasperated planters, with “ a fowling-piece loaded with .small shot, ten of which made marks, and several drew blood.” Even in England, while the slave trade was under discussion, the same spirit appeared. Wilberforce, who represented the cause of Abolition in Parliament, was threatened with personal violence ; Clarkson, who represented the same cause before the people, was assaulted by the infuriate Slave-traders, and narrowly escaped being hustled into the dock; and Roscoe, the accomplished historian, on his return to Liverpool from his seat in Parliament, where he had signalized himself as an opponent of the slave trade, was met at the entrance of .the town by a savage mob, composed of persons interested in this traffic, armed with knives and bludgeons, the distinctive arguments and companions of Pro Slavery partisans. And even in the Free States the partisans of Slavery have from the beginning acted under the inspiration of violence. The demon of Slavery has entered into them, and under its influence they have behaved like Slave-masters. Public meetings for the discussion of Slavery have been interrupted ; public halls dedicated to its discussion have been destroyed or burned to the ground. In all our populous cities the great rights of speech and of the press have been assailed precisely as in the Slave States. In Boston, Garrison, pleading for the Slave, was dragged through the streets with a halter about his neck, and in Illinois Lovejoy, also pleading for the Slave, was ferociously murdered. The former yet lives to speak for himself, while
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