The Liberator

VOLUME XIV.--NO. 10.

THE LIBERATOR

BOSTON:

FRIDAY MORNING, MARCH 8, 1844.

Explosion of the Peace-Maker.'

A thrill of horror is pervading the whole country, as the tidings of the recent disastrous explosion of the war-steamer Princeton's great gun are carried from post to post. Eight persons have perished by this catastrophe, and several others have been severely wounded. The number is quite insignificant, though some of the victims were conspicuous members of the republic. Lamentation and distress are every where visible, as though a national calamity had overtaken us. The press, the pulpit, the legislative assembly are full of condolence. All this would seem to indicate a high estimate of the value of human life, on the part of the people. But it is not so. The general grief does not spring from the fountain of our common humanity, but from baffled pride and selfishness, from degrading homage to false greatness, from geographical proximity. It is not, therefore, profound, but will be as evanescent as a morning cloud.

Still, the dreadful occurrence may be made subservient to pacific purposes. If rightly applied, it will do much towards hastening that joyful time when all weapons of war shall be turned into useful implements, and man shall no longer seek to imbrue his hands in the blood of his fellow-man.

This colossal piece of ordnance, in destroying human life, executed the grand design for which it was made. Americans, to be sure, were to be exempted from all personal danger in regard to it; but it was to be no respecter of persons, in the case of those who are called foreigners. All such,—whatever their station, fame, age, sex,—it was to mow down in battle, according to the exigencies of the moment, as though they were nothing better than wooden targets set up for amusement, or practice in sharp-shooting. It was manufactured for a diabolical purpose, and christened, with diabolical glee, THE PEACE-MAKER.' We had quite as willingly see it take the lives of Upshur, Gilmer, Kennon, and Gardiner, as the lives of any similar number of Englishmen, Irishmen, Frenchmen, or Patagonians. We love the whole human race too well to desire the destruction of any of them by any such infernal contrivance; and we shall never stop to ask at what distance a man resides, or by what national cognomen he is called, before deciding whether we may lawfully blow out his brains, either to protect our person or avenge an injury. We hold all wars, and all preparations for war, in deep and lively abhorrence. To us the doctrine of the brotherhood of the human race is of incomparably greater importance, than the protection of any national flag from insult, or the redress of any national wrong.

It is the rejection of that doctrine that has divided the human family into hostile tribes, deluged this fair earth with blood, and made enemies of those 'who else, like kindred drops, had mingled into one.' Every national flag is a flag of universal defiance; every national war-ship is an invitation to bloody resistance; every standing army is a standing provocation to a belligerant world. We are for dismantling every such war-ship; we are for disbanding every such army. The more these abound, the more perilous the condition of mankind. Human safety, peace, happiness, prosperity, reconciliation, imperatively demand that they all be put away, at once and for ever.

Of the multitudes who will be startled by the shocking event now agitating the public mind, how few, comparatively, will heed the instructive lesson it teaches! The clergy,—with a few honorable exceptions, possibly,—will eagerly seize upon it to glorify the 'distinguished statesmen' who have fallen, to dwell with long-faced solemnity on the mysterious dispensation of Divine Providence, (as if it were not a very simple and natural affair!) and to piously whine over the awful uncertainty of life, and the importance of being prepared for death,—i. e. according to their ideas of preparation,—(as if the motive to do right and to abstain from all iniquity, should be at all modified by the fact that we know not what an hour may bring forth! as if, could we only be sure that we should live to an antediluvian age, it would be of comparatively little consequence how we lived!) But will they denounce the war system, root and branch? Will they represent the catastrophe in the light of righteous retribution? Will they call, in the name of God and bleeding humanity, for the beating of all swords into ploughshares, and all spears into pruning-hooks? Will they try to convince their hearers, that the army and navy are Satan's grand instruments to subjugate the world to himself? Will they exhibit the inhumanity and impiety of separating the human family, either by natural or artificial boundaries, into moral and hostile nations, tribes or clans? Will they make it an occasion to portray the meanness of worldly patriotism, and to show its utter incompatibility with a christian and brotherly spirit?

No, they will not inculcate such sentiments; for their reliance is on swords, bayonets, Paixhan guns. They love to hear the drum beat, the discharge of musketry, the roar of cannon, and to see garments rolled in blood. They hold to being 'armed and equipped, as the law directs, for military duty.' Bunker Hill monument they contemplated with divine satisfaction. Without a navy and army, how could the government of God be maintained? how could the human race be regenerated:

By an explosion of the Princeton's 'great gun,' eight human beings have lost their lives. The land mourns! And wherefore? Simply, for two reasons: first, because they who perished were American citizens: secondly, because the explosion was accidental. This is the whole story, told in a few words, and stripped of all pomp and circumstances.

Suppose the gun had been fired by design, and ten thousand foreign enemies' had fallen! Or suppose a hundred gun-ship, belonging to France or England, had been riddled by its balls, and had gone down 'full many a fathom deep'! That would have altered the case! Then the press would have teemed with eulogies upon the valorous exploit--the pulpit enjoined thanksgiving and praise--Congress unanimously adopted a vote of thanks to Capt. Stockton and his 'gallant crew'--and there would have been the ringing of bells, bonfires and illuminations, all over the land! Is it not 'patriotic' for a Christian nation to overcome evil with'-- Paixhan guns? to return bombshells for bullets? to annihilate its enemies by a single broadside, if practicable? Ask the clergy!

So far as the true interests of the country are concerned, the removal of Messrs. Upshur and Gilmer, in particular, will be no loss. Both of them were the deadliest foes of human rights; both were incorrigible slaveholders; both were for the unbounded extension and perpetuity of slavery and the slave trade; both were eager for the annexation of Texas, at whatever cost or hazard, and in defiance of all constitutional power on the part of Congress and the Government. Upshur was for enlarging the American navy to at least half the size of the British, for no other purpose, avowedly, than to give protection to the southern slave system. Humanity has no tears to shed, even over their sudden exit. Liberty, trampled under foot by them, and covered with blood, can heave no sigh, even in view of their mutilated remains. They were exalted to stations of eminence and power, and in their imaginations were as gods; but they have been cast down from their proud height in the twinkling of an eye, and all their sanguine anticipations have perished. The lesson is instructive, and the wise will lay it to heart.

Who will fill their places, it does not yet appear. Unquestionably, men as devoted to the slave power, as earnest for the annexation of Texas, as they were. We shudder to think of such merciless, rapacious, profligate tyrants exercising official mastery over this nation. Heaven knows best what can be done to arrest the progress of iniquity.
WHOLE NUMBER. 687.

avert such a calamity. The people have lost their virtue and their manhood, or they would sooner perish than consent to any such arrangement.

The genuine friends of 'peace on earth' should bestir themselves, at this solemn crisis, to bid the demon-spirit of war—making all possible use of the late catastrophe to impress the public mind with a sense of the wickedness and inutility of all warlike preparations. How is it that they are not more active in their sacred cause? Is it not precisely the time for them to memorialize Congress on this subject? Is not this country on the verge of a war with Mexico, which will be inevitable, if Texas be annexed to this Union? Is not a war with England an event to be expected at any moment, in relation to the Oregon territory? How shall the Government be intimidated from plunging the nation into the horrors of war, except by a strong moral demonstration on the part of the friends of peace, in public meetings, through the medium of the press, and in the presentation of remonstrances to Congress?