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Advertiser Vs. Birney

Advertiser Vs. Birney image
Parent Issue
Day
13
Month
January
Year
1845
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Suppóse a man tö be present at Church or Temperante meeting, and i hear a meniber in good standing relai the experience of his youth. Suppos this hearer to go abroad and report tli; A. B. had beon intemperate - profane - gambler - and of licentious habits - wc unworthy of confidence, and unfit ft public association. Suppose him t support this assertion by repeatin á part - and a part only, and ttit but a very small part of what he ha heard A. B. relate: that the frivolities o indiscretions of youth, strippcd of th fcts which preceded and followed ihen wre held up as isolated facts - as stanc ing oút in the naked deformity of incurc We vice - the characterHic hendlands, a were of the individual, and that aboveal! there was cóncéaled the great fact, thii those indiscretions had been repented c - abandóhed - and atoned for, and that life of virtuous consistency had foilowed Biipposo further that this tale of slande iiad been industriously spread amonj 'örsons who knew A. B. only by name but from -vvhom his support in life was ti flow, and that it was persevered in agaii and ag&in, by letter, and by .publicatioi pite of rebuke or the dictatps of con science, and that the nnrrator wouW no ven state that A. B. had ever given ar xplanation. Reader, suppose all this te happen in your neighborhood, and yourself to be its object, what would you thinl of him who thus traduced with an activitv so feil and wicked? This imaginary case has been suggestec by one of stern rtality, of which il is the faithful type. It isthesituationof Jamej G. Birney, at the hands of the Whigs, and especially at those of a sleepless assailant, the Detroit Advertiser. Yet, though James G. Birney be the immediate victim, it is not so much ag.iinst him as ngainstthe principie of Liberty, which he represents by the selection of its friends thrat the storms of persecution has been pöured. Mr. Birney was bom in aslave state, afid of slaveholding pnrents. His education and early associations were those of thé day, and the country. Born in 1793 he was not endowed with preternaturnl instihets oh tlie subject of sla very. He was óne of that age, and not half a centuiry in id vaneé, a man, and but a man, and of such powers as God bestowed, of c'öürse he feit and acted with regard to slavery, ás did all around him. He bcught and sold, and usedslaves - but even the hümanity which is so striking a trait in his character, procured for the poor slave the best possiblc treatment and alleviation. Mr. Birney's opinions on religión and duty Were, lifce those of the whole huinhn family, gradualJy matured. (Jrowiñg yéárs, with their instructi've experience, óperates upóh him as upon all others. He became trojbled on moral and christian' dufies. At ltength, in or about the year 1832 he united in o church membarship, and also bêcotne a c'ólonizdlrohist. Further reflection however, convinced him of the giivofslavery" and1 hö became a decided abolitionist. - Thiá Was in4 1834. Re ïminediately ehihricipated all liis slaves, and devotéd lnmsèlf, his'meansV his time, and his"talerits, nay his' very liie, to thé advócacy óf ahti-slav'ery, and' l'rórn that hour tó the present hé has never faltered,nor turn'ed b'hfcif. FÍis fírst object was to establish an antï-slavéry press. Diiven from Kentucky. be ereced i in Cincinnati. But perseciitfed nnd' iifesaulted, even on freédom's oil, hö' wás" obligad to r"emove it still further'. For many years of the early inovement, he stood'almost alone, but in his séc'üon, on1 slaéry'sthrèsh'old, He was éritirely alone. The storm of wrath and persecution, which sw'epf i ís tornado fury over thè abolitionists of the' land, feil on him unaided5 and olone; in his remóte Western locality: he breasted its power, support'ed but by pnncip!rë and a firmricss, that knew not toblench at dangers' apprbaciï: Somè years after his' abölition conversión, he had an op'portunity of attesting hís sincerity in a most remarkable and gratuitóü'é mánnér- 'the acV, however, sprurig from no such motive. The sincerity of abölition ism, in 1834, was self-e'vident; lik' boïdness, its danger, its importunity, the sacrifice of self and of inierest whicih accompanied it, wêre endëaVofs nöt bó mistaken of sincerity. - Thö acl'had'ifs örigln'in the huinánity of heart; álréady aliuded tó.' Mr. Birney's father died,' leavlng real arfd personal property to bé'dívíded' eqBüíly' 'a'morig his heirs. Among the latfér' wené séverál slaves. Mr. Birney's dueshare' xvasaii equal portion of real estáte, and equal portion of the personal. His' thèn principie of course required that heshoüld ( omnnciplate the slaves, thus inheritèd, "but it did not cali upon him to purchase and libérate aïl the family slaves; yet this act ] dith he' in fact do. At his ow.n proposal i the other heirs toot tne value of their l share of the in real estáte, which ( Mr. Birney assignedtothem. The slaves became his, and hre imrnediately liberated e them all, foregoing all pecuniáry benefit from bis father's estáte. This unusual conduct excited much 0 QOtice. A strong pro-slavery journal oí a he day commented upon ite cjness, and its remarkable illustration o. a principie. to Prior to 1834 it was not of coursc te te be expected that Mr. Birney woutd act on se antislavery principies. He was a slaveat holder, not feeling its wrong. Consea quently his buying and selling slaves up is to that period could be no just objection k to hinrnow?, on the present antislaverv to principie. Yet will it be believed, that a g sale made by him in 1824, tenyearsbefore it that time, and 21 years before the presl" ent; a rule too, accompnnied by rare cir(1' cumstances of caution and benevolence - ie has been harped upon ngain and again, as i? matter of overwhelming guilt? Yet so it is. It has been seized upon - dragged - out from its place in narrative - stripped IS of time, and date - and accompanying 1 events - and held up, as unanswerable it evidence of the corruption of Jamos G. f Birney, and ot his hypociisy in 1845. - a Nay this too, has been done again and again, by editorswho know all the facts, ir yet suppressed them - who like the defag mer sketched at our commencement, ïj learned - hut to deccive; - received truth 0 - but to pervert it, and employed the re n sponsible privilege of the Press, only to n traduce individual character, and abuse the confidence of confiding readers. 't Much oí this reprehensible con'tjbet 3 doubtless finds palliation in the exciting events of the lastelection season: but that - season is past, and excitement is dead. - v To continue the calumnies of that buried - excitement, is like carrying war beyond the tomb, and waging it on the ashes of J the dead: it shows a bitter spirit. And ' such unenviable bilterness we are sorry s to see in the Advertiser. j In a late nurnber it digsup again these ■ now decayed carcasses of election calum, ny: it groups them togelher; itsaysnota word about the facts: it gives not Mr. 1 Birney's full confession: it not even in-' i forms that it was made, but tauntingly : asks, "What became, too, of the slaves which he took to Alabama, and did nol bring back with him to Kentucky? We re they sold, and if so, why? Will the Signal of Liberty enlighten us on this last point? Nor has this bad spirit beeu confined to Mr. Birney. We regret to soy, that the grave could not shelter our late candidate for Vice President, from a dcagging up again of the slanders of the past season, and that the notice of the last moments of him, who was then in the hands of his God for judgment, should be a significant hint of his fabled immoralities, ingeniously thrown in, so that while the tnind was impressed with the fact of his mmoraüty, the Journal might seem to be guiltless of the indecency of making it. Says the Advertiser of the 17th uit.: "It is a singular coincidence that almost at the very time that his spirit was passing into the presence of his Álaker, a convention of the Liberty party' assembied in Albany we re actually cliscussing the question svfiether Mr. Morris was or was not a profane swearerf" The Advertiser has asked another question. We shall answer t in our ne.xt. It is in strict keeping with the one we have noticed. They are a "par nobile fr alrvm."

Article

Subjects
Signal of Liberty
Old News