"Make the laboring man the slave of one man instead of the slave of society, and he would be better off. Two hundred years of liberty have made white laborers a pauper banditti. Free society has failed, and that which is not free must be substituted." - Senator Mason
"The above is genuine Democratic doctrine, uttered by one of the leading statesmen of that party, advocated by all the Democratic journals of the South, and endorsed by a prominent Senator of the same party, who `hopes the day will come when the principles of Democracy, as understood and practices at the South, will prevail over the entire country.' Mechanics and Workingmen of the North who, for years, have worked and voted with the Democracy, will you longer remain in the ranks of a party whose leaders stigmatize you as `white slaves' and `A PAUPER BANDITTI?' The Democratic party, controlled as it is by the South, is the bitter enemy of Free Labor; and its leaders, while they despise and look with contempt upon the working men of the North, wage war to the knife against all our industrial interests. It is unnecessary for us to comment at length upon the infamous sentiments embodies in the above paragraph. We merely ask to toiling masses to read for themselves, draw their own conclusions and make their own comments. Self-respect, as well as their own interests, should teach them to turn with disgust from the men who thus insult them, and to abstain from political association with a party whose leaders regard them as `mud sills of society,' and `A PAUPER BANDITTI,' whose `moral condition is inferior to that of that negro slaves of the South.' Workingmen of the old Keystone! will you continue to serve in the ranks of the slave-led Democracy, or will you enlist under the banner of the People's Party, upon whose broad folds in inscribed `PROTECTION OF FREE LABOR AGAINST THE SLAVE LABOR OF THE SOUTH,' and `Encouragement of American Industry in preference to the Pauper Labor of Europe?' Will you lick the hands that smite you, or will be rise in the majesty of your strength and assert and maintain your dignity as intelligent freemen? If the latter, rally under the banner of the People's Party, and work with a will for the nomination and election of SIMON CAMERON, the champion of Freedom and Free Labor!"
"The unscrupulous papers of the Locofoco party continue to harp upon mad Brown's insurrectionary movement at Harper's Ferry, and seek to turn it to political account. Prominent among this class of partizan journals is the Patriot and Union, who charges the responsibility upon the Republican party. Such a course is unfair, unjust and contemptible. All parties alike, at the North, will condemn the movement, as wholly unjustifiable. It was the attempt of a crazed man whose bitter wrongs sufficiently account for, although they do not excuse, the deadly revenge which he had planned against the slaveholders. The riot was not the development of a widely ramified plot, extending throughout the slave States, or even through Virginia and Maryland. The actors were all strangers in the country surrounding the scene of their operations. The negroes on the spot, slave and free, were not privy to the outbreak in any sense. The whole thing was the work of less than twenty white men and three or four negroes - all from a remote distance. The paper found on one of them, which purported to be a captain's commission, proves that Brown was the alpha and omega of the plot and the emuete. There are no Satanic figures lurking in the shadow behind him. He writes himself the head of the Provisional Government of the United States! Surely this betrays the madman, not less than the traitor and conspirator. Again, we have the testimony not only of Brown himself, but of a prominent Democratic United States Senator (Mason) of Virginia, that the plot was entirely confined to the insurgents - There is literally not back-ground to the picture. Even the imagination is precluded from adding to the facts. We should be better pleased if Brown's followers, instead of being shot down like soldiers in battle, had died the ignominious death of traitors and murderers. They should have been saved for the gallows - every one of them. Were the slaves themselves to rise to revolt, their guilt, however great, would be light in comparison with the guilt of those white rebels or rather raparees. They not only spilled innocent blood, but they did their utmost to draw down destruction on the slave population of Virginia and Maryland, whose good they pretended to have in view, but who would be undoubtedly exterminated in the event of their uprising. Therefore, we say, they were the enemies of black and white, of the people, the slaves and the Government, and hence they should have been made to suffer the most severe and disgraceful death which the humanity of the offended laws can inflict.
But with all our abhorrence of this strange event and its authors, we are not disposed to exaggerate it as the Patriot and Union, and most other Locofoco presses, are doing. The Vigilance Committee in Louisiana, that the State authorities seem to be powerless to suppress, has killed more innocent men that Brown and his band have killed. That Committee has been also more cruel - infinitely more cruel - than the Harpers' Ferry insurgent. Indeed, no charge of cruelty can be alleged against the latter, while the former cannot make any better excuse for the murders, whippings and depredations they have committed, than their own unfounded fears or petty grievances. Measured by their own scale, the insurrection (if it be entitled to that name) at Harper's Ferry is less than the insurrection in Louisiana. Yet, while the one has been suffered to escape, in a great measure, the comments of the press, the other is seized by the proslavery organs and pressed into the service of sectional agitation. The horrors of servile insurrection are unfolded in panoramic view to the eyes of the Southern people. The imagination of demagogues are employed in conceiving pictures red with blood and incendiary fires, and dark with shapeless horrors, while their pens and tongues are busy in describing them. Yet if they should at any time recall the names and number of those who have been Lynched for their anti-slavery sentiments - whom they have literally murdered for the free expression of their opinions - they will find a large balance in their favor, even if those belonging to them who have failed(?) at Harper's Ferry should be counted each as ten. God knows it is a fearful and savage thing to count life for life, but the recklessness of a certain class of politicians will, we are apprehensive, make it a measure of self-defence with extreme Northern men. We say here that none but bad men will avail themselves of the recent occurrence to aggravate sectional animosities. In concluding, we cannot help adding that Brown's band were more like filibusters, suddenly landed on a strange coast, than like rebels or insurgents. So far form having the sympathy of any one, they found themselves isolated, while no one outside of their own ranks knew the scope or the purposes of their designs.
The St. Louis Democrat, published in a slave State, and one of the ablest of our exchanges, in a lengthy and well-written article on the Harper's Ferry riot, says that `whoever may have suffered his judgment to be controlled by the Southern press, must have acquired the conviction that hundreds at the North are ready at any moment to march with fire and sword against the South!' `The majority of the Northern people,' say the Southern alarmists, `are fanatical abolitionists, traitors and incendiaries, who would not hesitate to wrap the South in the flames of civil war and servile insurrection.' WEll, the experiment has been made - the South invaded, but the number, fanatical or insane enough to enter on the wild crusade, was seventeen whites and five negroes. From the representations made for several years, the numbers of their Northern enemy might be supposed to equal those which Xerxes led against Greece, but it turned out they were fewer than those who held the pass under Leonidas. True, there are letters from Gerrit Smith, Fred Douglas and some others, but we do not learn that they contain anything which would indicate that the writers were cognizant of the impending insurrection. But we lay no stress on this point. We are willing for the sake of argument to acknowledge the complicity of Smith, Douglas, Philips (Wendell) Garrison, and the rest of that school in the plot, but still we must conclude that the phantom has been driven away forever by the result at Harper's Ferry. The bugbear is exploded. The designing can no longer scare the timid by that `name of fear,' Abolitionist. From what has occurred the slaveholder cannot help realizing that his enemies at the North are for the most part men in backram - ghosts raised to frighten him; and hence we infer that the two sections will be mutually attracted rather than repelled by an occurrence which at first blush seemed to be fraught with direful consequences....
The disclosures show that the actors and their correspondents were all Abolitionists. The latter, it is well known, chrish a deep animosity against the Republican party, whose conservative principles they cover with abuse and anathema....
The advocates of slavery failing to find any name, act or circumstance, a nexus between the band of insurgents and the Republican party, expatiate (but in a very confused and helpless way) on the tendency of Republican doctrines. The teachings of the Republican party (say they) are calculated to produce such results as those which have been witnessed at harper's Ferry. We answer that they are calculated to produce opposite results. The Republican platforms, STate and National, disclaim all intention of interfering with the institution of slavery in the States. Unlike the National Democratic party, the Republican party has never, through its chosen leaders, newspapers and conventions, threatened rebellion, secession, nor any demonstration of physical force, as the alternative of defeat in a Presidential election."
"We find in the Kansas Herald of Freedom two leading articles on the antecedents of John Brown and his invasion of Harper's Ferry, which contain some important developments. The articles claim to be a narrative of facts written from the personal knowledge of the editor, and while exhibiting a sad amount of demoralization interwoven with the long struggle in Kansas, completely exonerate the Republican party from all complicity with the forays of John Brown and his associates in Kansas, Missouri and Virginia. These men are justly describes as `parasites, who fastened themselves upon the Republican party in Kansas, to gain strength before the country.' Their acts in Kansas were again and again disowned by the Republicans there, and many wild and wicked schemes which they concocted were happily frustrated by the Republicans. As a consequence, Brown left Kansas in disgust, and went a warfare at his own charge. Had he consented to remain and cooperate only with genuine Republicans, the history of crime that now blackens the record of his life would never have been written."
"Our contemporary of the Reading Journal administers and emphatic rebuke to the Locofoco Union Dissolvers. He says what every intelligent observer knows to be true, that the prospect of an easy Republican triumph in 1860 has so alarmed the pro-slavery Democracy down South, that they have again resorted to the stale and impotent threat of their intention to `dissolve the Union' in such an event. It is a curious fact that this `threat' has been made at nearly every Presidential election since the organization of the Government, and always by the party calling itself Democratic! The only self- acknowledged traitors to the Government of the United States, that have turned up in our brief political history, have been so-called `Democrats.'"
"A wild, unreasoning, frantic excitement possesses the region round about Harper's Ferry. From Richmond and ALexandria considerable bodies of troops are despatched to the scene of action. Arrests are almost constant, and every unsanctified Yankee pedlar, every poor devil who happens to be incognito, to the chivalry is an object of suspicion, and may take hi choice between jail and banishment. For all this panic, says the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, there is a certain show or reason. During Thursday five barns and outhouses in the neighborhood of Charlestown were fired by incendiaries. This happening to a community whose social system rests at all times on a powder magazine, may justify and excuse the otherwise laughable display of military force. Sitting at a safe distance from the scene of action, with a peaceful and trustworthy population about us, each of whom has a certain stake in the maintenance of law and order, we are liable to look too lightly upon the real dangers to which Virginia is exposed. All the rumors of rescue to the prisoners from the North, and the incendiarisms charged to sympathizers with Brown, are doubtless untruthful. The race of Abolition sympathizers is not so warlike or so ultra courageous as to trust itself within the limits of Virginia just now. If our Southern friends knew these people as well as we do, they would look for them at a long distance from the scene of action. But there is, nevertheless, a great and appalling danger imminent to the social system of the region involved. The slave population has caught the excitement of the hour and begun to understand the object of the John Brown invasion. It could hardly be otherwise, and we may fear that only the least of the consequences of that mad foray are yet known to us. At any rate, a frightful fear pervades the people of Northern Virginia. Every planter is surrounded by servants bred upon his estate, who have been his companions and the companions of his children , who cook his food and pass in and out before him; but who cannot be trusted for a moment. Women watch the approach of night with terror, and men sleep armed for sudden attack. And when a horror so dreadful impends upon a portion of our countrymen, we do not find it fair to ridicule their fears; but rather thank God that a theory of labor prevails here in the free North which permits of no such panics."
"One of our religious exchanges, alluding to the execution of John Brown, now certain to take place according to the sentence of the Court at Charlestown, says that Brown will make any concession or retraction, that he will yield to fear or acknowledge guilt, and he will do anything but vindicate the principle upon which he has acted, and condemn to the last the system of slavery which he aimed to overthrow, no man who knows his history and has marked his deportment during his trial and imprisonment, will for one moment imagine. The speech which he will utter from the scaffold will become historical - taking rank with those dying words of patriots, heroes and martyrs, which have become the watchwords of after-generation in the great conflicts and triumphs of freedom and truth. We doubt indeed, whether the chivalry of Virginians will so far conquer their cowardice as to suffer Brown to speak at all before the fatal noose is tied. And therefore, he would do well to deposit his last testimony in writing, with some trusty friend who will see that it reaches the public eye - Perhaps the justice which hurried a sick and wounded man through the mockery of a trial, may permit him the mockery of attempting to speak amid the din of drums, and the hooting of the crowd. Doubtless the precautions of the sheriff against an imaginary rescue, will so surround the gallows with a military guard, that no reporter shall be able to carry a word of what Brown may utter. But spoken or unspoken, there will go forth from that scaffold a speech that will stir the land. - There are sentiments of human nature which are universal, spontaneous, and unconquerable. Honor to bravery in whatever cause; honor especially to one who shows unflinching pluck for what he deems the right; honor pre- eminently to one who perils or sacrifices himself in a generous deed for others - the common sentiment of mankind awards this as its spontaneous tribute. The age of hero-worship has not gone by; the sentiments that prompt to this are not extinct. Not they alone who approve the object of Brown' ill-fated exploit, but they equally who disapprove that, feel in their inmost souls a response of admiration for the brave and generous old man. They know that such purposes as his are not fitly requited by the scaffold. And this feeling is strongest among those rougher and sturdier men who know enough of personal bravery to admire it in another, and among the hardfisted sons of toil, who know the worth of a generous deed on behalf of the wronged. John Brown's speech to the Court has found its echo in such sentiments, and the speech for his scaffold will deepen that response.
The scaffold will say to the North - this is the bloody, the insatiable tyranny of slavery. The very existence of that system demands that freemen shall be for ever silent in its presence; that the voices of our revolutionary sires shall be hushed; and that whoever shall speak or plan or act for the overthrow of slavery, shall pay for his temerity with his life, if ever he shall come within the grasp of its arm. - This is the first lesson. The scaffold demands of all the North, Will ye also be slaves?
That scaffold will say to the South - This must henceforth be the price of our slaves and of our security; a system of terror maintained in all our borders, the surveillance of despotism over the stranger and the citizen alike, counting it a crime to speak of emancipation, or to lift a finger to relieve the slave of his oppression, or to relieve society of this burden. The South may at first obey the behests of this new terrorism, but by-and-by will count the cost. The lesson of that scaffold upon the ethics and economies of slavery, will be greater than all that had yet been said against the system.
That scaffold will speak to the opponents of slavery words of lofty inspiration. It will remind them that theirs is a work of conscience and right, which no hindrance can check, which no violence can put down. A deeper earnestness, a more heroic self-sacrifice, will henceforth possess the minds of all good an true men in opposition to slavery. John Brown as a leader they might not have trusted while living; John Brown as an exemplar in the conscientious and unfaltering discharge of duty, they will emulate when he is dead.
But the most deep and emphatic utterance of that scaffold will be to the slave. The public execution of John brown and his associates will be talked of in every cabin of the South. Men who cannot read will catch the whispers of the wind, and all who are in bonds will know - by that telegraphic sympathy which makes the oppressed so quick to hear and feel - that free white men were brave enough to die in the attempt to give freedom to the slave. That scaffold will proclaim the insurrection it is designed to subdue. That scaffold will arouse in the hearts of the oppressed the determination to brave death itself for liberty. And here endeth its last lesson, in lines of fire and blood."
A Middletown correspondent, who writes to use over the signature of `A Union Loving Democrat,' is of opinion that the various plans proposed by Democratic papers of `save the Union,' will not accomplish the desired result. The writer had intended communicating his views on the subject to the editor of the `official organ;' but as our neighbor is so busy in his Patriot-ic efforts to save the Union in his own way, it was thought that he might not care about receiving advice from others. Our correspondent, after making the subject of `saving the Union' his study for a long time, has arrived at the following conclusions: - In the first place, we must cry `there is no North!' We must ignore it! IT is true, the North contains a larger white population than the South, but then Northern society is composed of `small farmers' and `greasy mechanics' - the `mudsills of society' - not fit to be mentioned in the same day with the `chivalry' of the South. Then we must swear by the Dred Scott decision and the Fugitive Slave Law. It is our duty to throw open our jails for the reception of those who have been foolish enough to long for FREEDOM, and who have been so unfortunate as to be captured while in search of it. - We must spend our time and money in looking up runaway negroes whenever we hear of one having been in the neighborhood. Should any of those who are free be kidnapped, and sold to the South, we must not interfere, it might create difficulty - besides, it was only for the benefit of the poor negro that he was carried off - We must allow the slaveholder to come among us and boast of his superiority, and the beauties of slavery; but we dare not say anything against the `divine' institution - it might offend. We should instruct our Senators and Congressmen to vote fore re-opening the African slave trade. Should business or pleasure take us to the National Capital, and we there hear sentiments uttered by our Southern brethren that makes the blood boil within us, we must smother our feelings and be as `dumb dogs that cannot bark.' To speak our thoughts would be `seditious.' We must admit that we have always been wrong, and they have always been right. - We must acceded to all their demands and ask nothing in return. And finally, we must each wear a collar on which is inscribed `I am Virginia's dog,' or South Carolina's dog, as the case may be; and if, after all that , the Union is not preserved, our correspondent, `A Union Loving Democrat,' does not believe it is worth preserving."
"There is no organization of the House yet, and the agitators North and South continue to howl in concert. A Washington correspondent writes that the veil is being lifted and the country is beginning to understand the tactics of a party which has forfeited all legitimate claim to the once honored name of Democracy, and should now, and hereafter, be characterized as a factious band of disorganizers and disunionists. From day to day, for nearly two weeks, the representatives of more than thirty millions of freemen have been compelled to listen to declarations disgraceful to the place, and to the age, and which, on other days, would have received the rebuke which such treasonable utterances against the peace and dignity of the nation so richly merit; while the creditors to the Government to the amount of more than $8,000,000 are clamoring for the action of Congress, that they may receive the sums for which they have rendered an equivalent and to which they are justly entitled. While the delay which has occurred is to be regretted in some respects, there are other reasons why it may result in ultimate benefit. If extremists are disposed to raise a violent controversy, on so small foundation as now exists, and to fulminate threats of disunion without the color of justification, the country will soon come to understand their motives, and to see that these movements are prompted by an ultraism which deserves the sternest rebuke. These agitators came with a foregone purpose to stir up a sectional strife. If Helper's book had never been written, some other expedient would have been found to serve the same purpose; and if that mad fanatic, John Brown, had never seen Harper's Ferry, still this crusade would have been carried on just as vigorously and vindictively. Both occasions are to be lamented, because they furnish some pretence; but if they had not existed at all, the temper and the resistance which have been witnessed during the past two weeks, would still have flourished in rank luxuriance. This whole movement has bene revolutionary from beginning to end, and it exhibits the culpable and dangerous excesses to which party will go rather than surrender the possession of power."
"The discussion which has been kept up unintermittingly in the lower House of Congress since the commencement of the session, shows unmistakably who are the Disunionists. Nearly all the talking done by Democrats, most of whom avow disunion sentiments."
"It will be recollected by all intelligent readers that during the last Presidential campaign Gov. Wise, at various times and places, counselled rebellion to the general government, in the contingency of Fremont's election, and denounced that event, in anticipation of its occurrence, as an `open, overt, proclamation of war.'....
In the year 1859, John Brown, with a small and irresponsible band of followers, formed a kind of organization for the purpose of running away slaves; and, in pursuit of that end, was drawn into collision with the State of Virginia. The thought of levying war upon the General or State Government probably never entered his head, which was already too full with the single purpose of liberating slaves. Of these two conspirators, one is still the Governor of a State which is in itself and empire, and lifts his head among the highest and the haughtiest, while the other has died upon the scaffold. So well accustomed have ]we become to the existence of slavery, which is itself a perpetual conspiracy against freedom, that we are still compelled to witness civic honors awarded to the arch- conspirators in its favor, and death to those who conspire against it. So much safer is it to conspire against liberty than for it."
It is surprising to us that many intelligent people of the North really entertain serious apprehensions that the South intend to resort to non-intercourse with this section of the Union. The attempted revival of this theory is another `hobgoblin' to alarm and intimidate the nervous and weak-kneed people of the North."