MURDER AND TREASON vs. PATRIOTISM.Charleston, South Carolina, Mercury [Democratic](4 November 1859)
The New York
Tribune, the leading organ of the abolition party, in noticing
the late proceedings at Harper's Ferry, says:
"There will be enough to heap execration on the
memory of these mistaken men.
We leave this work to the fit hands and tongues of those who regard the
fundamental axioms of the Declaration of Independence as 'glittering
generalities.' Believing that the way to universal emancipation lies not
through insurrection, civil war, and bloodshed, but through peace, discussion
and quiet diffusion of sentiments of humanity and justice, we deeply regret
this outbreak; but, remembering that, if their fault was grievous, grievously
have they answered it, we will not, by one reproachful word, disturb the bloody
shrouds wherein John Brown and his compatriots are sleeping.
They dared and died for what they felt to be the right, though in a manner
which seems to us fatally wrong.
Let their epitaphs remain unwritten until the not distant day when no
slave shall clank his chains in the shades of Monticello or by the graves of
Mount Vernon."
It will be seen that the Tribune considers the act of Brown as the act of a
patriot, which future ages will admire and extol.
This is evident from its closing allusion to him -- the sentiment of which
is borrowed from the last speech of Robert Emmett, the Irish patriot, when
sentence of death was about to be pronounce on him.
To become a hero and a martyr, in the
Tribune's estimation, is to go to the South and excite the
slaves to rise and cut the throats of their white masters.
Their bloody shrouds it will not disturb by one reproachful word.
Kind and considerate Tribune.
[<<Previous Editorial][Next Editorial>>]
|
