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Secession Era Editorials Project

Furman University Department of History

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The Pennsylvania Black List.

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Morning Herald [Whig]

(22 May 1854)

We give below the names of the eleven traitors to Pennsylvania and the North, who voted to take up the Nebraska bill, with a view to its immediate passage. May these recreants never return to the State they have dishonored and betrayed. Let them depart the country on foreign missions, or borrow in patronage in and around the Capitol (the price of their treachery) but a decent regard for the people whom they have betrayed, forbids the thought of their ever again seeing the soil and sky of the old Keystone. Here are their names.-- Let their individuality be marked. Le the record be preserved in some conspicuous place within every farm house, work shop and counting room in the State.

The Traitors to Pennsylvania!

Thomas B. Florence, John Robbins, Jr., William H. Witte, John McNair, Samuel A. Bridges, Christian M. Straub, Hendrick B. Wright, Asa Packer, Wm. H. Kurtz, John L. Dawson, Michael C. Trout, J. Jones.

If these trucklers to the Slave power expect their districts to endorse their votes they will be mistaken. No party drill can force the free men of the old Keystone into the support of those who vote to substitute Slavery for Freedom. The conduct of these men will be closely scrutinized. Should they accept office from the Administration, the example of Judas will rise up in the memory of the people as duplicated in the persons of their Representatives. If they fail of their reward, let them come home and ask the people for an extension of their terms of offices; and see how the demand will be answered. We advise them to close their eyes and shut their ears, when the answer at the ballot box is given. In contrast with this base subserviency and treachery on the part of the Democracy, how noble the conduct of the Pennsylvania Whig Delegation in Congress, who unanimously resisted the outrage attempted to be perpetrated upon the North, by forcing the infamous Nebraska scheme through the House prematurely and without that full and "free discussion" which the importance of the subject demanded, and which free men claim as an inherent right.

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