Christianity, by controlling the malignant passions of our nature, and
exciting its benevolent affections, gives a sacredness to the rights of
others, and especially does it guard human life. But where her blessed
influence is withdrawn, or greatly impaired, the passions resume their
sway, and violence and cruelty become the characteristics of every
community in which the civil authority is too feeble to afford
protection.
No society is free from vices and crime, and we well know that human
depravity springs from another source than slavery. It will not,
however, be denied that circumstances and institutions may check those
evil propensities to which we are all prone; and it will, we presume, be
admitted that in forming an opinion of the moral condition and
advancement of any community, we are to be guided in our judgment, not
by insulated facts, but by the _tone of public opinion_. Atrocities
occur in the best regulated and most virtuous States, but in such they
excite indignation and are visited with punishment; while in vicious
communities they are treated with levity and impunity.
In a country where suffrage is universal, the representatives will but
reflect the general character of their constituents. If we are permitted
to apply this rule in testing the moral condition of the South, the
result will not be favorable.
In noticing the public conduct of public men, we are not sensible of
violating any principle of courtesy or delicacy; we touch not their
private character or their private acts; we refer to their language and
sentiments, merely as one indication of the standard of morals among
their constituents, not as conclusive proof apart from other evidence.
On the 15th February, 1837, R. M. Whitney was arraigned before the House
of Representatives for contempt in refusing to attend when required
before a Committee. His apology was that he was afraid of his life, and
he called, as a witness in his behalf, one of the Committee, Mr.
Fairfield, since Governor of the State of Maine. It appeared that in the
Committee, Mr. Peyton of Virginia had put some interrogatory to Whitney,
who had returned a written answer which was deemed offensive. On this,
as Mr. Fairfield testified, Peyton addressed the Chairman in these
terms, "Mr. Chairman, I wish you to inform this witness, that he is not
to insult me in his answers: if he does, God damn him! I will take his
life on the spot!" Whitney rose and said he claimed the protection of
the Committee, on which Peyton exclaimed, "God damn you, you shan't
speak, you shan't say one word while you are in this room, if you do I
will put you to death!" Soon after, Peyton observing that Whitney was
looking at him, cried out, "Damn him, his eyes are on me--God damn him,
he is looking at me--he shan't do it--damn him, he shan't look at me!"
The newspaper reports of the proceedings of Congress, a few years since,
informed us that Mr. Dawson, a member from Louisiana, went up to Mr.
Arnold, another member, and said to him, "If you attempt to speak, or
rise from your seat, sir, by God I'll cut your throat!"
In a debate on the Florida war, Mr. Cooper having taken offence at Mr.
Giddings of Ohio, for some remarks relative to slavery, said in his
reply, "If the gentleman from Ohio will come among my constituents and
promulgate his doctrines there, he will find that Lynch law will be
inflicted, and that the gentleman will reach an elevation which he
little dreams of."
In the session of 1841, Mr. Payne, of Alabama, in debate, alluding to
the abolitionists, among whom he insisted the Postmaster-General ought
to be included, declared that he would proscribe all abolitionists, he
"would put the brand of Cain upon them--yes, the mark of HELL, and if
they came to the South he would HANG THEM LIKE DOGS!"
Mr. Hammond, of South Carolina, at an earlier period thus expressed
himself in the House: "I warn the abolitionists, ignorant, infatuated
barbarians as they are, that if chance shall throw any of them into our
hands, they may expect a FELON'S DEATH!"
In 1848, Mr. Hale, a Senator from New Hampshire, introduced a bill for
the protection of property in the District of Columbia, attempts having
been made to destroy an anti-Slavery press. Mr. Foote, a Senator from
Mississippi, thus expressed himself in reply: "I invite him (Mr. H.) to
the State of Mississippi, and will tell him before-hand, in all honesty,
that he could not go ten miles into the interior, before he would grace
one of the tallest trees of the forest, with a rope around his neck,
with the approbation of every virtuous and patriotic citizen, and that,
if necessary, I SHOULD MYSELF ASSIST IN THE OPERATION."
And now, fellow-citizens, do these men, with all their profanity and
vulgarity, breathing out threatenings and slaughter, represent the
feelings, and manners, and morals of the slaveholding community? We have
seen no evidence that they have lost a particle of popular favor in
consequence of their ferocious violence. Alas! their language has been
re-echoed again and again by public meetings in the slave States; and we
proceed to lay before you overwhelming proof that in the expression of
their murderous feelings towards the abolitionists, they have faithfully
represented the sentiments of their constituents.