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The Difference.
When Old Brown, in a fit of madness, calls about him a band of twenty-two men as crazy as himself, and endeavors to stampede slaves from the borders of Virginia, and in the course of the transaction two or three persons are killed, contrary to the intentions and orders of Brown,which were that life and property should be spared, --he is seized and placed upon hasty trial for his life. His acts meanwhile are openly condemned by the Republican party throughout the North. But when the Border Ruffians invaded Kansas and slaughtered her inhabitants in cold blood and sacked her towns and settlements, the marauders were rewarded with fat appointments and became pets of the Federal Government. What we have stated are historical facts. A number of instances are enumerated by the Albany Evening Journal which attests what we have said:
The Washington States chronicles a stampede from Alexandria of some thirty slaves, about the time of the Harper’s Ferry emeute, and the Rochester Express of the 25th says that the same living freight, valued at some $15,000, passed over the Suspension Bridge into Canada, and by so doing was immediately transferred from chattels into men, women, and children.
THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE
...So it is with this Harper's Ferry movement. The disclosures which have followed indicate clearly that of itself it is only a feature of the "irrepressible conflict" which the Seward's, Gidding's, Forbes' and others, are waging against the south. Whether it comes in the shape of "stampedes of slaves," or violent outbreaks, it is the same in effect. It will, if persisted in, destroy the Republic....
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What the Harper's Ferry Affair Proves.
A LARGE UNDERGROUND ARRIVAL --
In Noticing the recent arrival at Detroit of a cargo of live fright consisting of twenty-six “chattels” all the way from Missouri, and their safely landing in Canada, the Advertiser says:
A LARGE UNDERGROUND ARRIVAL --
In Noticing the recent arrival at Detroit of a cargo of live fright consisting of twenty-six “chattels” all the way from Missouri, and their safely landing in Canada, the Advertiser says:
[From the Raleigh Register.]
HARPER'S FERRY OUTBREAK––IMPORTANT DISCLOSURES.
...It matters not that Brown's exploded plot was not Forbes'. It matters not that Forbes discountenanced Brown's mode of operations. He did so because he believed his own plan––the plan submitted to Seward––was more efficient than that of Brown. Forbes' plan was by force of arms to stampede, or run off parties of slaves from the frontier States, and thus continually drive slavery inwards, until it was finally extirpated at the centre, and to this plan, according to Forbes, Seward either did not objection, or by his language consented....
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Negroe Stampede––$2,650 Reward.
An Abolition Agent at Memphis.
A Dr. W.R. Palmer has been arrested and held to bail for trial, on the strength of the following documents received by Gov. WISE of Virginia, and transmitted to Gov. HARRIS, of Tennessee. The press of Memphis state that excitement exists in consequence of these circumstantial disclosures, which, as far as evidence of immaterial circumstances goes, are correct....
The house of a leading black republican of this city was searched by the Sheriff last Saturday for ten runaway negroes from Missouri. The negroes were not found. The Sheriff was at least four days behind time.
We learn from the American, that on Monday last, ten negroes ran away from Lagrange, Mo., five males and five females. They belonged to seven different persons in that town. They have offered a reward of $2,650 for their arrest The negroes stole a flat boat from Lagrange in which it is supposed they crossed the river. The boat was caught afloat at or near Quincy. We also learn from the American that another negro made his escape from that place on Friday night last.
Improvement of the Harper's Ferry Idea.
...The house of refuge for runaway slaves by that event be brought down from Canada to the frontiers of Maryland and Virginia, and Kentucky and Missouri. No amount of vigilance could prevent stampedes on a far greater scale than that on which they have hitherto been conducted. The value of Slavery in all the States bordering on the north would rapidly depreciate, and the only security for that species of property would be in sending it immediately to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico....
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Barbarism.
...A long confession, written by himself, was read by one of his counsel, going into the history of his connection with Brown in the Kansas war and in running off slaves from Missouri, of John Brown’s convention in Canada, and of his own exploration of Jefferson county, Va., under Brown’s directions, to prepare for the general stampede of slaves....
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THE CASE OF PALMER.
The arrest at Memphis, Tennessee, of Dr. William R. Palmer, and his commitment to prison on the charge of plotting a general stampede of the slaves in that vicinity, has, we have very little question, been brought about by private malice, taking advantage of the excitement produced by the Harper's Ferry affair, and making tools of Gov. Wise, Gov. Harris, and of Mr. Josiah Horne, Acting Justice of the Peace for Shelby County, for the accomplishment of its purposes....
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...One aspect of these revolts, which has often presented itself to our minds, has been impressed upon us with renewed force by the circumstances of the Harper's Ferry stampede. It is the policy by which they must ever be accompanied. No matter how slight the spark, the apparent combustion is terrific. Old Brown, with his score of followers, has set the entire commonwealth in commotion, and arrested the gaze of the world. The same number of men, with the same [illegible], anywhere else, might have been suppressed by the ordinary police of a village. --...
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NEGRO STAMPEDE.––Eleven negroes made their escape from Lagrange, Lewis county, in the early part of last week. Ten of them went off together, and nothing had been heard of them Saturday. A reward of $2,650 is offered for them. The American says:
"The fugitives stole a flat boat from this place, in which it is supposed they crossed the river.––The boat was caught at or near Quincy. If these slaves succeed in making a permanent escape, it will be the third or fourth successful stampede that has taken place from LaGrange in the past three or four months. This fact leads us to the conclusion that there is a regular underground railroad established from this place to Chicago, Ills., and that the company have an agent or agents in this city. It is our belief that an abolition conductor accompanied this last party of slaves, and that this underground railroad forms a connection with the Quincy & Chicago R.R."
Stampede of Negroes in Missouri.
The St. Louis News of the 14th notices the escape of $11,000 worth of chattels from Lagrange, Missouri. The party consisted of six males and five females. They took a flat boat and crossed to Illinois in the night, and probably secured a safe passage over the U.G.R R, though the seven persons who claimed ownership offered a reward of $2,650 for their arrest
Negro Stampede.
The Chicago Journal says that on Thursday evening, the 17th inst., the underground railroad arrived there with thirty passengers, five from the vicinity of Richmond, Va., twelve from Kentucky and thirteen from Missouri.––They are now all safe in Canada. The thirteen from Missouri were sold to go down the river, the very day they started. A stalwart six footer and a Sharp's rifle were the only guides.
Drifting into War.
...At the very time when it was exhausting its energies to put down a slave stampede, caused by seventeen white men and five negroes, our territory was invaded by a foreign enemy, our citizens butchered, and a considerable village taken from the hands of its inhabitants....
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Stampede of Negroes from Lewis County.
Last Monday night ten negroes, five males and five females, ran off from Lagrange, Lewis county, in this State.––They belonged to seven different persons, and being valuable slaves, were worth not less than $10,000. They stole a flat-boat with which they crossed to the Illinois shore, with the help, no doubt, of Abolitionists. A reward of $2,650 is offered for their arrest. On Friday night another negro belonging to Capt. Lillard, of the same place, effected his escape, making eleven in all.––St. Louis News.
Stampedes of slaves in parties of a dozen or two are becoming frequent. The last troop of twelve or fifteen escaped from Alexandria, Va., about the time of the Harper’s Ferry tumult, and passed the Niagara the following week.
Excitement on the Eastern Shore of Virginia Anticipated––Stampede of Slaves.
NORFOLK, NOV, 23.––A special messenger has arrived here from Northampton on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, for volunteers to protect the property of slave owners, it having been ascertained that an attempt would be made on the 25th to run off slaves to Canada. Great excitement is said to prevail in the vicinity in reference to the matter.
The Slave Insurrection and Its Hero
…The whole affair appears to have been nothing more in its inception and little more in its execution than a plot for a “stampede” of the slaves––differing only in extent from attempts which are every day aided and abetted by the most virtuous of American citizens. Some of these, to escape the rigor of Southern law, backed by the Imperial power of the United States, have now been compelled to seek refuge in Canada….
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THE NORTHAMPTON REPORT.–– The report of a slave stampede to come off in Northampton county, Va., to-day, originated from an anonymous letter received by Mr. Raleigh, of that county, in which “A Friend of Humanity” states that an attempt will be made at four places on the Eastern shore of Virginia, to-day, (one of them being Pungoteague,) to free the slaves and send them off to Canada. Col. Mumford, Secretary of State, has telegraphed to Norfolk to send 300 muskets, with ammunition, to Col. Finney, of Accomac.
…That he attempted to run slaves, rather than free them by the slow processes of legal and social reform, is doubtless chargeable upon him, but to actors themselves must often be left the selection of means, and if they so determine, an exodus may be as constitutional as an emancipation act. The Stampede is only a practical use of the Bill of Rights which God incorporated in the charter of human existence….
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Prentice on Seward
…Last year, 1858, some of the restless spirits who had kept up the embrolio in Kansas, finding their former occupation gone, began to devise means and ways to carry on offensive operations within the frontier Slave States. FORBES’ plan was nothing more than negro-stealing on a grand scale by “organized stampedes"....
THE NORTHAMPTON REPORT.–– The report of a slave stampede to come off in Northampton county, Va., to-day, originated from an anonymous letter received by Mr. Raleigh, of that county, in which “A Friend of Humanity” states that an attempt will be made at four places on the Eastern shore of Virginia, to-day, (one of them being Pungoteague,) to free the slaves and send them off to Canada. Col. Mumford, Secretary of State, has telegraphed to Norfolk to send 300 muskets, with ammunition, to Col. Finney, of Accomac.
A LARGE NEGRO STAMPEDE.–– The Chicago Journal says that on Thursday evening, the 17th inst., the underground railroad arrived there with thirty passengers, five from the vicinity of Richmond, Va., twelve from Kentucky and thirteen from Missouri.––They are now all safe in Canada. The thirteen from Missouri were sold to go down the river, the very day they started. A stalwart six footer and a Sharp's rifle were the only guides.
The telegraphic dispatch from Norfolk, announcing a slave insurrection or stampede on the Eastern shore of Virginia, and a consequent excitement there, was based on a very slender foundation.––An anonymous letter was its only foundation, and the alarm, the Norfolk Herald says, excited only a general sentiment of derision.
Who Pointed the Way to John Brown?
...The Virginians are consternated at the audacity of John Brown’s scheme for running off negroes to the free States; they insist that he has levied war upon the Old Dominion, and that the upshots of his scheme, if carried into effect, would be anarchy and civil war. We do not believe that John Brown had any such objects in view. As an ardent sympathizer with the slaves, he desired their emancipation, but the method in which he proposed to bring it about was by a general stampede along the frontier, and not by a bloody insurrection….
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The St. Louis papers report a stampede of ten slaves from Lagrange, Mo., on the 21st November. They succeeded in reaching Illinois.
Stampede of Negroes in Missouri.
Last Monday night ten negroes, five males and five females, ran off from Lagrange, Lewis county, in this State.––They belonged to seven different persons, and being valuable slaves, were worth not less than $10,000. They stole a flat-boat with which they crossed to the Illinois shore, with the help, no doubt, of Abolitionists. A reward of $2,650 is offered for their arrest. On Friday night another negro belonging to Capt. Lillard, of the same place, effected his escape, making eleven in all.
ATTEMPTED STAMPEDE.––The Cambridge Democrat, of yesterday, says:
There were six negroes lodged in jail last Monday, five belonging to Capt. T.H. Webb and one to James Waddell, Esq. They were detected in making an attempt to run away.
THE DIFFERENCE.
When John Brown calls about him a small band, and endeavors to stampede slaves from the borders of Virginia, and in the course of the transaction, two or three persons are killed, contrary to the intentions and orders of Brown, which were that life and property should be spared––he is seized and placed upon hasty trial for his life. His acts meanwhile are openly condemned by the Republican party throughout the North. But when the Border Ruffians invaded Kansas, and slaughtered her inhabitants in cold blood, and sacked her towns and settlements, the marauders were rewarded with fat appointments, and became pets of the Federal Government. What we have stated are historical facts. A number of instances are enumerated by the Albany Evening Journal, which attests what we have said:
The South and Southern Safety––A New Presidential Programme.
We are informed from Washington that the failure of the South to secure a law at this session of Congress for the better protection and security of Southern institutions and Southern society will not be considered as the direct signal for disunion, but that still another effort will be made to secure the South, within the Union, against the abolition incendiaries and movements of the North. This effort, it is predicted, will be something in the shape of a Presidential ticket or platform, or both, from a caucus or convention of Southern members of Congress, the authorized and legally constituted representatives of the Southern people.
A PANIC IN TALBOT COUNTY, MARYLAND.––A letter from a reliable source in Talbot (says the Baltimore Exchange) thus explains the excitement said to exist in that county: "There will be, I apprehend, some rumors reaching you of an unpleasant excitement here, but I hope that neither currency nor credit will be given to such. It seems that a portion of a letter was picked up yesterday at St. Michael's, without date, signature or address upon it, but making allusion to meetings of servants to be held in three different places in Miles River Neck. The purpose was not stated, but as the fragment stated that six hours would be sufficient for the accomplishment of their objects, it was supposed that a grand stampede was alluded to. Whether the paper is an old affair or of recent origin, whether a genuine document or a hoax, has not been determined.
The Post Master at Emerson, writing to us on business, adds the following postscript:
"The next man that comes along and enquires for Emerson, tell him that it is in the North-west corner of Marion county, Mo. A gentleman told me a short time since that he enquired two days in your city before he could fin a man that could tell him where Emerson was.
"A day or two since a lot of negroes in this neighborhood were making preparations for a general stampede, but the scheme was detected before they got off, and their plans defeated."
MESSAGE OF THE
GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA,
RICHMOND, DECEMBER 5, 1859.
HARPER'S FERRY.––The slave population of the region of country in which the late outbreak was located is very large, and no doubt an immense stampede was calculated upon by these people. Within twenty miles of Harper's Ferry, there are not less than 23,000 slaves, of whom probably 6,000 are men.
Beecher on Practicability.
The Independent, in some comments on John Brown's movements at Harper's Ferry, observes:
"If we carefully analyze the action in the light of the hero's character and motive, we shall find that the criminal loses itself, in the erratic; that the sheer impracticability of the scheme is the real ground for its condemnation."
Ten negroes, valued at $10,000, escaped from Lagrange, Mo., into Illinois, on the 14th ult.
The South and Southern Safety––A New Presidential Programme.
We are informed from Washington that the failure of the South to secure a law at this session of Congress for the better protection and security of Southern institutions and Southern society will not be considered as the direct signal for disunion, but that still another effort will be made to secure the South, within the Union, against the abolition incendiaries and movements of the North. This effort, it is predicted, will be something in the shape of a Presidential ticket or platform, or both, from a caucus or convention of Southern members of Congress, the authorized and legally constituted representatives of the Southern people.
NO DISUNION.
We propose to show that the fire-eaters in Congress, who are now dinning the ears of peaceable Northern men with their threats of Disunion, are under bonds to keep under the guns of the Federal power, and that they dare not, if they could, rupture the tie which binds them to the North. We mean what we say––"dare not."
WHAT GOV. WISE THINKS OF THE LOYALTY OF THE SLAVES.
There is no consistency in the advocates of Slavery upon this point. At one time they will sing the halcyon peace and good will which reigns between master and slave, and almost defy the Abolitionists to seduce the negroes from their happy homes. Gov. Wise and the whole Southern press have dwelt with much unction upon the facts, that the slaves refused to join John Brown, and that the first Virginia martyr was a free negro fleeing from the Abolitionists. But immediately they turn about and speak of the imminent danger of insurrection, with all its train of horrors. In his recent message to the Legislature, Gov. Wise says:
A Poor Show for Moses
….If the argument is well grounded, the condition of the ancient law-giver, int he other world, must be very deplorable, for he headed the greatest stampede of slaves of which there is any record.––Gate City.
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NEGRO STAMPEDE.––The Chicago Journal says that on Thursday, the 17th inst., the Under-ground Railroad arrived there with thirty passengers, five from the vicinity of Richmond, Va., twelve from Kentucky and thirteen from Missouri. They are now all safe in Canada. The thirteen in Missouri were sold to go down the river the very day they started. A stalwart six-footer and a Sharpe's rifle were the only guides.
The Abolitionists to be Expelled.
The citizens of Madison county met on Saturday, and resolved that John G. Fee and his brother Abolitionists in that county should be driven from it. They recite these as good reasons why their presence is unsafe in a community where slaves are held:
The Entire Animal of Nothing
...We are tired of the whole Yankee nation, with their nasal twang, their hypocrisy, their canting, praying and cheating, preaching and swindling, lying and stealing, and creeping about the South with maps and books as men and false as their makers and authors. Always in the wake of these Aminadab Sleeks, you hear of one or more negroes making a stampede. We prefer them as open enemies to false friends. We have had quite enough of them and of this Union. The South has within itself every element of a great nation, and all we want is to cut loose from the free States and form a Southern confederacy.
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Excitement on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
We learn from Captain Beckworth of the schooner Peri, of this city, that the stampede and excitement originated with a negro man belonging to Wm. Townsend, Esq., who resides some five miles from St. Michael’s.––According to her story she was met by two strange men, who, after threatening her life if she betrayed them, told her that if Brown as hung at Charlestown, a large number of whites and blacks were combined to lay the whole county of Talbot in ashes….
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