Record Data
Transcription
ABOLITIONISM.
Two of our contemporaries of decided abolition tendencies, the Philadelphia “Spirit of the Times” and the “Evening Bulletin,” have seen proper to make comments upon the actions of Judge HEPBURN in the recent trial for a riot in this place, when he expressed the strong dissent of himself and his Associates, STUART and CLENDENIN, to the verdict of the jury in that case, by which some of the principal offenders were pronounced not guilty, and others were convicted who were obscure participators in that disgraceful transaction. We think the court would have been recreant to itself and to the whole community, if they had suffered the verdict to pass without a decided and proper rebuke. It would certainly have been a matter of comment, and perhaps dark insinuation, if the court under such circumstances had remained silent.
As to the assertion of the Times that “the verdict was in full accordance with the popular feeling in the Borough of Carlisle, as well as with strict justice,” it is about such an assertion as an abolitionist of the rank dye of some of those connected with that paper would make, without having heard the evidence, or knowing any thing at all of the matter, except what they have gleaned from kindred dark spirits.
An abolitionist of their stamp, regard neither the constitution or laws of the United States, nor the compromises upon which they are based, but seized with one idea, run stark mad, and make assertions at random without a tittle of proof to sustain them, and which are notoriously untrue.
Of the same piece are the sage remarks of the Times in reference to the late act of Assembly. The heroes of the Times in the abolition phalanx, when pretending to treat of law and justice, are like children playing with edge tools, or Justices of the Peace attempting to fathom Coke upon Littleton or Fearne on Contingent Remainders. We pity such miserable pretenders to great learning and profundity, and especially to great wisdom in legal lore, from the bottom of our heart, and consider them with their little knowledge and rank prejudices, as dangerous to the well being of the community as mad dogs, and should be kept within as restricted bounds, and be looked upon in the same light. They are eternally talking about what they don’t understand, and sagely conclude that a little nullification on the part of our State Legislature, in the shape of the late act of Assembly relative to fugitives from labor, must necessarily upturn the constitution and laws of the United States, and justify robbery and bloodshed, and even murder.
Our friend of the Bulletin is about as unfortunate as his neighbors of the Times, and is manifestly talking at random and about what he does not understand. He appears to place implicit confidence in his own opinions, never doubting but that the action of which he complains, was uncalled for, and out of place. Perhaps the editor of the Bulletin also has some sympathy with some of the defendants in this case, and was magnitized at the distance of a hundred and twenty miles, by the decided impropriety of Judge Hepburn, in his remarks in reference to this immaculate verdict.
Judge HEPBURN never did an act in his life for which he has been sustained so fully and heartily by the people of this community and this county, as his solemn protest against the verdict referred to, inbehalf of himself and the Associate Judges. Had he not done so, under the circumstances, he would have been unworthy of the place he so worthily occupies. His conduct on that occasion meets with natural approval, always saving and excepting the few abolitionists who infest, like venomous reptiles, every community, upon which they would make their readers believe a high handed outrage and arbitrary stretch of power had been indicted, before they venture their frail barks from the shore, where they are accustomed to paddle, and before they venture remarks the tendency of which they do not understand, and the effect of which they are profoundly ignorant.
Neither the two pensioned pressed of Carlisle, who are more or less infected with the one idea manta, and who have published garbled and unfair statements of this trial, nor their co-laborers in the abolition areas in Philadelphia, can change the honest sentiments of this community on a subject in which they in common with the mass of the people of Pennsylvania, and the whole Union, are so deep and vitally interested.
