The Reign of Terror.--Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Gazette [Republican](30 November 1859)
Free speech is now
denied at the South. Every man who opens his
mouth to utter a word of sympathy for old
Brown, or dares to advance a single sentiment
favorable to liberty, is at once arrested and
committed to prison. Men have been thus
imprisoned for saying that they voted for Fremont
in 1856; that old Brown was right; that slavery
was wrong; and a man has been compelled to
give $2000 bail to keep the peace, in Washington
City, for saying that he believed in the doctrine
of the "irrepressible conflict."
It would be useless to undertake the
enumeration of these cases. The Southern papers are
full of them. Every Northern man now in the
South is an object of suspicion; many have
already been driven off; others have received
notice to quit; and the rest are to be harassed
with prosecutions for using "seditious language"
in giving vent to their natural feelings, doubtless
under strong provocation. It is a complete
reign of terror. Every man is liable to be an
object of suspicion; and he who expects to
retain his foothold upon that soil must put a
padlock upon his lips, lest some incautious word
slip out and thereby endanger "the institution."
It is enforced silence, instant departure, or
imprisonment; and he who tarries among the
hospitable citizens of that chivalrous clime has his
choice of those pleasant predicaments. Over
the gate at the entrance to the South is written
-- "He who enters here leaves all liberty behind."
We do not write to find fault with this state of
things. It is the legitimate fruit of Slavery,
and it affords an unanswerable argument against
the extension of an institution, over free territory,
which exacts such submission from its victims.
It is impossible for us to free such States
as Virginia from her bondage; but we can, at
least, save the embryo States from a curse which
would reduce them to the level of Virginia.
There is another view of this subject which
it behooves the South to take note of -- every
man who is thus suspected, driven off or
punished for his free speech will become, in the
North, a proselyter for free sentiments. They
will become, in 1860, the most efficient laborers
in the cause of Republicanism. The South had
better be careful, or it may send home too many
of them.
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