Letter From S. B. Treadwell

Jackson, Scpt. 4, 1843. Dear Brelhren in the cavse of Liberty: - Hnving observcd tlie columtis of tlie "Signal" considcinbly occupied of late, I have not thought ït best for some time to ask a piace for aiiy thing I had to say upoii the mterests of ihat cause wliich I hope and trust wil! lic near my heart till it censes to bent. Having reccntly, however, witnessed among a portion of dut practically pro-slavery fellow-citizen?) eittraordinary manifestations oï interest in our long wronged, and oppresfcfet] t.-ish Brethren; and dIso in that c!a?s of ifellow citizens who are competing in mechanical einplo)menls wilh convict labor, I could but be reminded of n few irite sayings, such as "training at a gnat and swallowing a camel," "pcimywise and poumdfoolish" or "holding agroat so near the eye as to hide a guiara at the end oTlliaiose," $-c. $-c. I mean this, in case on!y, whcre much interest is manifested to remedy smaller evils, to the entire neglect or opposition to remedy far greater ones. For instance, as much as 1 believe Ireland has long; been wronged and greatly oppressed by the English Government, yet, if for a pro-slaverr, American to be loud nnd boisterous for the rights of oppressed Irehnd, and at the same time to swallow down 3,000,000 of American slavcs withouteven "toiitcing" and show bitter opposition even to any kind of effort for rheir liberation, be not compara'ively "slraining al a gnat and stvalloiving a camcF', I have to confesa I know not what is. There can be no wonder that tliaí portion of our fellow citizens who are so deeply sympathising with Ireland, and at the pame time sneerinir at American abolitionists, nnd thrir efforts and sacriiicee, and applauding the "chivalrous" slavcholders, ehould imagine England saying to them, first l'lakc the bcani from thine oicn eye (kat llwxi maycsl see the more clearly io tuke the mole from thy brolhet'scye. There can be wonder that some of these slnvehokling and pro skvery Irish repeal gentleman should have (as they do) serious misgivings nbout the "policy" (in icy word here truly) of their meddling with tiie political nffnirs of England, for fear, as they say, that Englaud miy seriotislv relalia'.e upon American slavery! Conscientious ?7icmr7iro?j tliis truly! The plnin interpretation of it is, that os long as Enland will hold her pcace about our slavery, we will enter into a solemn treaty with her to hold our pcace about Irish and all other British ODpressions. There cati be ii') wonder however, tliat such selfish and shameJess hypocri?y that wouldseem ready to die with sympathy for Ireland ((or the sake of party capital) and at the same time strenuously advocating every pro -slavery party, and principie and mensure, m America, should have such fearful forebodings of retributive judgment. The expedient tyrants of earth do indeed often make cornmon cause to aid 'and assist eacli other lo maintain their villany. But when tyrunts thus agree, wo be to their victims. The truth is, tliat true philanthropy encompasses the globe. A!) else is narrow-sotiied "policy" poising on its uvn tupremely selfisb axis. For insiance, witness the workings of the great heart of O'Conncll in this lofty and admirable sentiment, as recenily expressed by himself, in n great repeal nieetinf of mnny thoiifinnds of his counlrymen. " Those who commil and those who continue the. crime of slavery, I regard as the cnemirs of Ireland, and I desire to have no sympathy or support fiom them.'!" O says tlie American mushroom, stripling demagogue, O'Coniiell do'nt understand our institutions.' Afiaid to give full vent to their pio-slavery fedings against the great Irish Jiberator, for fear it will wake up jealousy in the confiding Irish heart as to the disinterestcdness and purity of their motives in so zealously advocatiog Ubctty for ïreland and slavery in America, and ihus blowing hot and cold with the same breath. O'Connell,tlie world's great chatnpion for liberly for more than a quarter of a century not understand the xvorla's slavery as well as the stripling proelovery demogogue of a day! Most preposterous! Sooncr far, would the great luminary of dny be eclipsed by a star." from the lofty eminence on the side of universal liberty for man every where, which, O'Connell bas bo long occupied ín the world, who can better rcbuke tyrnnny and exposé disgusting and miserable inconsisteney than he. May that pretended religión whether of state or sect, which has so long oppressed ecven millionsof Irishmen and ENSCaved three millions of Americans, soon shrink back to its own native heli to curse the earth no more. May the supporters too of a religión which oppresses nnd ensluves, instond of blessing mankind speedily repent and do workfi meet for ropentancojbefore they sink with their re Jigion, and their works do follow them. As to the interest in some eections, manifeEtcd in beholf of mechanics at the norih who are compelled from the pretent mistaken policy of some of the State Government to compete with convict labor, let me say tha I too beüeve this wrong both in principie an truc state policy; that it is oppressive an dcmoralizing and should by no means be suf fcrod among a free,a virtuous and enlightene people. Bctter, far better both for the moral and the prosperity of a state that the avails necd be, of convict labor bc annihilalcd.- But when our fellow citizeus who are engngcd n mechanica! employmenls areeaglo eyed, and exceedingly sensitive on this subject, and totnlly insensible or blind to the wholesale underrilinihg process of the compelition of the unpaid labor of 3,000,000 of slayes in the great southern prison house of this natio with cvery class of free laborers, itsnreJy se?ms lo me liko "holding a penny so near thr. cyr that d gitinea cannot be scen at the end of the note." The competition with convict labor in our country which is paid for 'm part, mny be as I to 500. That of entirely unpaid slaves, with freemen as 1 to G. Who must not sec, thercfore, that the wholesale vnpaid ehve laor competition with free labor in this nation s vasily more destructive to the freo labor nterests than that of convict labor. Run a lino throtigh the center of a state, a otinty, ora town, as it is througli this naion, and Iet all the mecbanical and agricultual labor on one side of it be done by unpaid miserable Elavcs, and what mechanic, or farmer on the other side of t'ie line, would not e most seriously injured and degraded by bens: thus put upon a par with slaves. Let but ne mechanic in a community work but a Ule undcr price, the njustice and ir.jury thus one to other mechanicF, is at once secn and Vil by ihem. This important principie is fastbeing seen, n the vastly greater and more unjust competion of the slave laborers with the free la)orers of this nation. Who should not see jat unpaid labor under the same body politie Uvays unjustly competes with free labor in ie same ratio that it is suffered to exist - that wo anlagonistical systems brought into conct, always tend lo assimilate nemer and carer to each other, until theybecome tdenficd, or until one overcomes and dcslroys the ie other. So it must inevitably be, with lavery and freedom in our country. One mst use up the other. Ye "bone and musle," ye hardy and yet but nomiually free aborers of this land, which shall it be? - Which shall finally spread, and be establishd over this land, universal freedom. regardess of color, or UNIVERSAL SLAVERY fgardless of color, among all the laboring lassen, as has at times been the case in olhr countries. Who ought to wonder that the 50,000 sla yeholders in this nation, holding o firmly in their own hands as thcy do, the )olitical balance of power, by means of their oting, for their 3,000,000 of SÏ.AVE3, are joldly predicting among themselvcs, that "ik 0 YKARS THE KNTIIIK CLASS OF LABORERS IN ÜR COÜNTRr WILL VIRTUALLY BK OAVNED, AND OUGHT AND SOLD BT THE LARGK CA PITALsts." Lel the slaveholding South, continue oting for their 3,000,000 of slave laborers id insidt as usual on demanding every thing 'the north, and the north, as they always do, irough their miserable servile party time serers, concede cvery tliing to the South, under ie speewvs pica Uiat ït la r,i-loitsm, and who ust not see that tlie political vassmugc ur ie entire laboring class of the people, will ertainlv and speedily be effected, and that oo, quite beyond a peaceful redemption by morol sua ion and the ballot box. The thireen slave statcs are but one great prison ïouse in which 3,000,000 of able bodied farmers and mochanics are every day whipped to oil without pay - but a peck of corn a week br food, and aoout íjíIO worth of coarse clothig per ) ear. The white laborers of the slave tates, nre already very little beler offin their gnorant and degraded condition, than the colred slaves themselves. And if the nominal ■ y free laborers of ïhe northern slates will ontinue mueh longer to suffer the little local nd party interests which will be constantly oming up, to blind their eyes, to those most estructive, slaveholding, slave politicol agressions upon their rights and liberties, what an they, what ovght they expect will be the egitimate rcsult, b'it their own ultimaie and tter degradation and ruin, and that too past II hope, ?hort of a bloody revolution. For the free laborers of this nation to think f ever saving themselves from this constiinty and rapidly downward tendency to utter estruction, by destroying from time to time ome of the far lesser evils among them, such s convict labor, Sec. while this great slave laor competition'is still going on, and the great SLAVE POLITICAL MONOPOLY exists, s no more consistent than it would be to atenipt to clcanse a foul stream far below its ource, while its exhaufilless fountain, is contnntly sending forth poisonous, loathsome nd purlurbed waters. The master stroke of ol;cy of the arch politicians of the South ïas ever heen to introduce and keep up nalonal questions to keep the north divided, while they thcmselvea have ever been careful to keep firmly united on every thing that could build up add inaintam the all controlling national ascendency of the slave power and the slave labor interest upon the prostration and ruin of free labor interests. The northern men in Congress of both the old parties have long yielded and will continue to succunib to these haughty and most unjust &outhern demande, for the most obvious reason that they daré not and can not do otherwisc and exist as nalional, northern and southern parties. The South hold the balance of power and our northern members of congress of both the old parlies know it and constantly yield lo it Nay more, the leaders of each of the old parties at the north are constantly underbidding the others, by oiTering to sacrifice more of the rights and liberties of the norlhcrn people te the south than the other party, for the sake ol securing the largest southern support to theii own party. The free lahorers of the north are thus hcl . I lo a most unnaturol and most dcstruclivearti . Idegrading connection to the slave labor [oprison labor] institutions of the eoutli. The greal Land holders or Land LORDS of England are also most vitally intercsted n kceping the control of our government os it is in the hands of a few soulhern slaveholders, and their few nor! hem miserable servile ailies in Congress who are constnntly cringing to the lash of thcsouthern overseers for the rake of now and then a "critmb" of office, tliat falla from their southorn mastcr's tuble. The English Land Lords can thus keep up and niaintain tlieir corn law league with American slaveholding cotton growers, as American I eign nunisters, to receive American cotton free, and prohibit the introduction of American veheat, &,c. Tiiis is the great American slaveholding and English land holding league whicb is so fast oppressing the American and he English laborers into one common mass of misery. degradation and ruin. This Ameicnn SLAVE Lord nnd English LAND Lord eague makes bread stuffs scarce and very ïigh in England, and plenty and very cheap n America. All the laborers in England and reland are decidedly anti-slavery. If ihey aw their true interest they wonld all be so in America too, on grounds of self defence and elf-preservalion, even if their hearts towards he poor crushed slave were as hard as Phaaoh's ever was. This great land holding nnd slaveholding arislocracy of the tvvo counries is most deadly hostile to the best interests of the true democracy of both countriee, hat is, the best interests o( the laboring people. Never will this wholosale and tremendousy oppressive aristocracy be overthrown, till ts kindred enterprises, Slave ABOLiTioN,Corn aw abolitio.v, and Irish repeal aeoí.ition shall be triumphant. Neither is it probable hat any one of these enterprises will ever be ut partially successful without carrying along vith it the triumph of its kindred ones. It vould I think be contrary to common sense and the nature of thingF, for oppressers and he oppressed have each their kindred interests every where. Whcn I sec, 3,000,000 of my fellow beings vantonly made slaves by this nation, now in he hands of a few slaveholders who are using hem by means of the VOTING POWER hey give them, to subverl the rights and liberties of the mass of the people who ihus enslaved them, I see in it all nothing more than vhat might well have been expected, a righteotis relributive judgment. I see by the last Signa I that Slade and Gidlings are both dropped in the late Whig noninations for Congress in their States. This s only an additional proof that each pro-slavey party at the norlh is determined, asfasl as lossible, to sacrifice every man among them upon the bloody altar of slavery who is even svspccled of common honesty, independenco and patriotism, insteat' of pro-slavery parlysm. This ought to convince all that ibe "LIBERTY PARTY" was absolutelv demanded, nd that it must and will bo mainiained ad he last hope of the slave and the country. - Jut those who cry "7 atn as much opposed to ïavery as any body but 1 disapprove of 'carring it into politicp," because I want SLAVEHOLDING CLAY or SLAVEIOLDING CALIIOUN elecied Prefident, just this once," seem to have labelled in blaing capitals npoa their foreheads, the word I YPOCRIS Y ! ! I most carnestly desire that ome means would be devised to introduce he tract and lecturing and organizing system n all the counties and towns in our Slace. - n co-operation with the Anti-slavery papers, t is fast enlightening the people and bringing hem over on the side of liberty in New York, Uassachusette, Vermont and others of our ister States. This seems to arouse the pubic inind and hold it to the contemplation of American Slavery as the great paramount evil n our country, siorally, toliticallt, and inanciaixy, without which the body of the people will never see sufficient cause to break away from the old long established party 'KEDILECTIOSS, tO UHlte Wltll the LIBERTY