OCR Text |
Show 36 TrrE FuGITIVE One slaveholder, together with the cotton men of the north, fretted and vexed by their sudden and un· enviable notoriety, foolishly attempted to obviate the impressions made by the book, by denouncing it as a lying fiction. Nay, one of the most ail'ccting illustra· tions of pure and undefiled Christianity that ever pro· cccded from an uninspired pen, was gravely declared, by an organ of cotton divinity, to be an ANTI·CIIRIS· TIA..'< book:• Truly, indeed, the wisdom of man is and we have nothing which so crushes lhc mind. Aod more than this, we hear you ha\'e now a J.Aw, just pn~sed by your National As· sembly, which would disgrace the cnLCl code of the Czar. 'Ve hear of f1·ee men and women, hunted like dO<o:ors on you1· mountains, and sent buck, without trial, to bondage worse than om· strfs have eve1· known. 'Ve have, in Europe, many excuses in rmcient evils and (leep-laid prejudie('s, but you, the young nnd free people, in this nge, to be passiug ngain, afresh, such measu1·es of uumitigated wrong 1''-Jlome l-ife i1~ Germany, by C!tarlcs Loviti[J Brace. 111'. B1·ace honestly adds: "}must say tltat the bloocl ti!![!lcd to 11t!J check with sl!amc, as he spoke." * " 'Ve lmvc read the book, and regard it as A nli-Christian, on the same gr·ouuds that the chronicle r egards it decidedly nnti ministerial.'' -New York Ob~er·ver, SeptcmbeT22, 185'!.-Edi.torial. '!'he Uishop of Jl.ome nlso regards the book ns A nli Christian, and has forbiddeu his subjects to read it. On the other lmnd, the clergy of Or('nt Brituin differ most widely fr·om tho rev er·eml gentlemen of the "Observer" and the Vatican, in their· estimate of the cl~tu·acter of the book. Said Dr. Wardlaw, who on this ~ubjcct m:1.y be regarded na the representative of the Protestant Divines of Em·ope : "IIe who c11n rend it without the bz·eatllings of devotion, must, if he call himself n Christian, have a Chriatinnity ns 1mique and qucstionabl~ 118 Lis hwnnnity." SLAVE AcT. 87 foolishness with God. "Tic rlisappointcth the de· vices of the crafty." Branded with falsehood and impiety, the author was happily put on l1er trial before the civilized world. She collected, ::ttTnngcd, and gave to the press, a mass of unlmrcaclJablc documents, consisting of laws, judicial decisions, trials, confessions of slaveholders, adverliscmcnts from southern papers, and testimonies of eye-witnesses. rrlw proof was conclusive and overwhelming that the picture she hacl drawn of Ameri· can slavery was unfaithful, only because the coloring was faint, and wanted tbc crimson dye of the original. A verdict of not guilty of exaggeration has been ren· dcred by acclamation. It has long hccn the standing refuge of the slave· holders, that northern men and Europeans, in condemning slavery, were passing judgment against an institution Of which they WCrC ignorallt. rrhe II pCCU• liar institution" was represented as some great mystery which eoulcl not be understood beyond the slave region. rrhanks to tllC fugitive ln.w, it bas led to the construction of a" key," which bas unlocked our Re· publican bastile, thrown open to tlJC sunlight its hid· eons dungeons, and exposed the various instruments of |