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Show 274 LIBERTY AND SLAVERY. Dr. Channing has told us, we are aw::tre, of the "indomitable love of liberty," which had been infused into the breast of "fierce barb< u·ians" by their native wildernesses.* But we are no great admirers of a liberty which knows no law except its own will, and seeks no end except the gratification of passion. t lienee, we have no very great respect for the liberty of fierce barbarians. It would make a hell on earth. "bfy maxim," exclaims Dr. Channing, "is any thing but slavery!" Even slavery, we cry, before a freedom such as his! This kind of f,·eedom, it should be remembered, was born in France and cradled in the revolution. May it never be forgotten that the "Friends of the Blacks" at Boston had their exact prototypes in "les Amis des Noirs" of Paris. Of this last society Robespierre waa the ruling spirit, and Brissot the orator. By the dark machinations of the one,t and the fiery eloquence of the other, the French peoplela grande nation-were induced, in 1791, to pro· * Works, vol. v. p. 63. t See chnp. i. i 2. l We have in the above remark done Boston some injustice. For New York has furnished the Robospierre, and Massacbu• etf-8 only tho Brissot, of "lcs Amis des Noirs" in Amcricn. ARGUMENT Jo'ROM TliE PUBLIC GOOD. 275 claim the principle of equality to and fo1· the free blacks of St. Domingo. This beautiful island, then the brightest and most precious jewel in the crown of France, thus became the first of the West Indies in which the dreaUful experiment of a forced equality was tried. The authors of that experiment were solemnly warned of the horrors into which it would inevitably plunge both the whites and the blacks of the island. Yet, firm and immovable as death, Robespicrrc sternly replied, then "Perish the colonies rather than sacrifice one iota of our principles!"* The magnificent colony of St. Domingo did not quite perish, it is true; but yet, as every one, except the philanthropic "Ami des Noirs" of the p1·escnt day, still remembers with a thrill of horror, the entire white population soon melted, like successive flakes of snow, in the furnace of that freedom which a Robcspierre . had kindled. The atrocities of this awful massacre have had, as the historian has said, t no parallel in the * This reply is sometimes attributed to Robcspicrre and sometimes to Brissoti it is probable that in substance it was made by both of these bloody compeers in the cause of abolitionism. t Sec Alison's History of Eurot>e, vol. ii. p. 241. |