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Noble Sentiment

Noble Sentiment image
Parent Issue
Day
19
Month
January
Year
1842
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Read the followmg extract from a lel- I ter of J. G. líiRKEY, ddted Cincinnati, ; Ocl. G, 1836. Then think of the heartlesa elabórate defence of slavery and ita abomin;ition3 by Hknrt Clay, ihe slave breeder - ihe man who raises children to be Süid in the Southern raarket! who practicully supportB ihat trade and system 'which v,uld disgrace the mud cottage of an uulettered AtVican Priuce.' Wiiich of these men do you prefer for President of tho United States? 'Bu!, gentlemen, it is not only for the emnncipation of the enslaved among us that we are contending; the very principies ofrepubliean freedomare menaced with overthrow ! The liberty of ihose yet freo is in imminent ueril! ConBtitutional right- the freedom of speech and of the press- the trial byjury - are all beginning, evon in tho free States, to be openly despised und trarnpled on, by a struoge union of our aristocracy and the loweet of the rabble. By such, are peaceable and law abiding citizens, who ask and use nothing which is not acknowledged, with-, out dispute, to bo their kight, hunted from their homes, thoir property destroyed, and their families kept in continual alarm and jeopardy. Whilst our arstocracy would preserve the domeatic peace of the South, they seem totally to disregard the domestic peace of the Ñorth. This very night, and for several nights previous, I und my family have beeu kept in constant apprehension of a violent assault being made on my house; of my person being exposed lo the most painful' and disgraceful inilictions; or of my being secrety hu.-i ied oñ' to the Suuih, where it is supposed certain and sudden death awaits every one who has pieaded, even as poorly as I havo done, for the poor slave."But, noiwithstandinjr the onset that is now making on our ireo insiitulions, by tiie ihoughtless rabble of the cities and largc towns, there is yet hope, and good hope too, in our 'country'e pride,' its hone3t yeomanry. They are yet untaintei! with the corruption that is at work in other classes, undertmnding nll thal is valuablo in our government. They are nol yet prepared to offer up e republic roined and undone, to sulirfy the exorbitant dernands of the opressor of his fellow; not to believe, as the elaveholders of ihe South would have tiö,that their'systetn'by which the majority are to be made poor and miserable that the few may spend their useless iivee in indolont voluptuousnss, is the true-'corner stone oí the repubiican edifice;' nor, that the laboring man can have noahare in the politics of the country; nor, that the working class consiitutes a dangerous element in the community; nor, that the employer ought to own the employed. No: - nor are they ready to surrender, at the imperious demand of the slaveholding South, the right that God gave them to investigate trutb; to publish tiieir opinions; to ask for a reformation of abuses; nnd, to petition their legislative servante, that a trade and a syetem, which for attrocity would diegrace the mud coltago ofan unlettered African prince, may ceaee to be carried on,or to exist in he very purlieus of the Capítol of this cultivaled nnd Chrislian nation No: - thunks be to Gud, they are yot unpoliuted - they neither desire for theniselvE8,or their ofl spring, thut they should be numbered either amongthe enslavers or the enslaved. In them is still the hope of the repubüc - the iife of hberty. All they want to know is, how the country is endangered, thal they ma}7 save it."