In some of the slave States laws have been passed establishing a censorship of the press, for the exclusive and special benefit of the slaveholders. Some time since an anti-slavery pamphlet was mailed at New York, directed to a gentleman in Virginia. Presently a letter was received from William Wilson, post-master at Lexington, Va., saying—
"I have to advise you that a law passed at the last session of the Legislature of this State, which took effect on the first day of this month, makes it the duty of the post-masters or their assistants to report to some magistrate (under penalty of from $50 to $200), the receipt of all such publications at his office; and if, on examination, the magistrate is of opinion they come under the provision of the law, it is his duty to have them burnt in his presence—which operation was performed on the above mentioned pamphlet this morning."
The Rev. Robert J. Breckenridge, a well-known zealous opponent of abolition, edited, in 1835, "The Baltimore Religious Magazine." A number of this magazine contained an article from a correspondent, entitled "Bible-Slavery." The tone of this article not suiting the slave-breeders of Petersburg (Virg.), the subscribers were deprived of the numbers forwarded to them through the post-office of that town. The magazines were taken from the Office, and on the 8th May, 1838, were burnt in the street, before the door of the public reading-room, in the presence and by the direction of the Mayor and Recorder!!
It is surely unnecessary to remark, that this Virginia law is in contemptuous violation of the Constitution of Virginia, and of the authority of the Federal Government. The act of Congress requires each post-master to deliver the papers which come to his office to the persons to whom they are directed, and they require him to take an oath to fulfil his duty. The Virginia law imposes duties on an officer over whom they have no control, utterly at variance with his oath, and the obligations under which he assumed the office. If the postmaster must select, under a heavy penalty, for a public bonfire, all papers bearing on slavery, why may he not be hereafter required to select, for the same fate, all papers hostile to Popery? Yet similar laws are now in force in various slave States.
Not only is this espionage exercised over the mail, but measures are taken to keep the community in ignorance of what is passing abroad in relation to slavery, and what opinions are elsewhere held respecting it.
On the 1st of August, 1842, an interesting address was delivered in Massachusetts, by the late Dr. Channing, in relation to West India emancipation, embracing, as was natural and proper, reflections on American slavery. This address was copied into a New York weekly paper, and the number containing it was offered for sale, as usual, by the agent of the periodical at Charleston. Instantly the agent was prosecuted by the South Carolina Association, and was held to bail in the sum of $1,000, to answer for his crime. Presently after, this same agent received for sale a supply of "Dickens' Notes on the United States," but having before his eyes the fear of the slaveholders, he gave notice in the newspapers, that the book would "be submitted to highly intelligent members of the South Carolina Association for inspection, and IF the sale is approved by them, it will be for sale—if not, not." And so the population of one of the largest cities of the slave region were not permitted to read a book they were all burning with impatience to see, till the volume had been first inspected by a self-constituted board of censors! The slaveholders, however, were in this instance afraid to put their power to the test—the people might have rebelled if forbidden to read the "Notes," and hence one of the most powerful, effective anti-slavery tracts yet issued from the press was permitted to be circulated, because people would read what Dickens had written. Surely, fellow-citizens, you will not accuse us of slander, when we say that the slaveholders have abolished among you the liberty of the press. Remember the assertion of the editor of the Missouri Argus: "Abolition editors in the slave States will not dare to avow their opinions: it would be instant death to them."
XI. MILITARY WEAKNESS.
A distinguished foreigner, after travelling in the Southern States, remarked that the very aspect of the country bore testimony to the temerity of the nullifiers, who, defenceless and exposed as they are, could not dare to hazard a civil war; and surely no people in the world have more cause to shrink from an appeal to arms. We find at the South no one element of military strength. Slavery, as we have seen, checks the progress of population, of the arts, of enterprise, and of industry. But above all, the laboring class, which in other countries affords the materials of which armies are composed, is regarded among you as your most deadly foe; and the sight of a thousand negroes with arms in their hands, would send a thrill of terror through the stoutest hearts, and excite a panic which no number of the veteran troops of Europe could produce. Even now, laws are in force to keep arms out of the hands of a population which ought to be your reliance in danger, but which is your dread by day and night, in peace and war.
During our revolutionary war, when the idea of negro emancipation had scarcely entered the imagination of any of our citizens—when there were no "fanatic abolitionists," no "incendiary publications," no "treasonable" anti-slavery associations; in those palmy days of slavery, no small portion of the Southern militia were withdrawn from the defence of the country to protect the slaveholders from the vengeance of their own bondmen! This you would be assured was abolition slander, were not the fact recorded in the national archives. The Secret Journal of Congress (Vol. I., p. 105) contains the following remarkable and instructive record:—