Lewisburg Chronicle

Pro-Slavery Tactics.
Deception and Darkness are always the
weapons of Error. To conceal the Truth,
and to impose upon the ignorant by Falsehood in its stead, is its mode of warfare.
The emissaries of the Slave Power publish, and persist in publishing, designedly,
false sentiments and expressions as the
sentiments of the Republican party—
trusting that those who unfortunately read
no other papers but their own, will be for
ever blinded by them. We do not know
of a Democratic journal in this region
that ever published the Republican Declaration of Principles, but they did publish
a batch of lying little scraps which they
imposed upon their deluded readers as the
Republican platform.
We recently exposed one of these impositions, found in the columns of the Argus,
directed against Hon. Joshua R. Giddings,
confronted with Mr. Giddings' refutation.
The Argus gets out of the dilemma by saying it was all a mistake—it was Mr. C.L.
Remond who made the "spit on Washington"
speech. (Very unfortunate, to
quote Giddings where Remond was the
man intended!) Whether Remond said
it, is a matter not worthy of inquiry here
as he is not a Republican, but an Abolitionist—a very different party from ours.
Mr. Remond was once a slave—and if "the
iron has entered into his soul" so as to ex-
tort such an expression, thanks to the
Slave system for it!
But the Argus is not disposed to let
Mr. Giddings off so easily. "The following," it says, "has been widely circulated
as an extract from one of his speeches:"
"I look forward to the day when there shall
be a servile insurrection in the South: when
the black man, armed with British bayonets
and led on by British officers, shall assert his
freedom, and wage a war of extermination
against his master; when the torch of the incendiary shall light up the towns and cities of
the South, and blot out the last vestige of slavery. And though I may not mock at their
calamity, nor laugh when their fear cometh,
yet I will hail it as the dawn of a political millennium."
Yes, that "has been widely circulated"
—AND THAT, TOO, IS A BASE FABRICATION, and was many years ago branded
by Mr. Giddings!
What a mean and desperate cause must
that be which continually resorts to such
low and villainous measures.
Now if we should procure a fresh denial
of this forgery, or challenge the proof of
its correctness, doubtless the Pro-Slavery
echoes would assert, "O, it was only a
harmless little error in the name only—
we meant Fred. Douglas instead of Josh.
Giddings"—and then spin out another
whole cloth fabrication and charge it upon
Giddings! It is therefore useless to attempt to expose all these premeditated
paper perjuries; we may occasionally impale one on the gibbet of popular scorn,
and leave others to the silent contempt of
all honorable men.
Look at it—a person accuses you of
burglary; you prove an alibi, when he
retracts and says it was another man he
meant, but publishes that you did commit
forgery. You give him a chance to make
the charge good, when he admits he was
mistaken, slightly—and next day declares
you are a highwayman for certain. You
prosecute him, but he begs off, and straightway turns about and swears you committed murder. And so on to the end of the
chapter—wriggling out of one false accusation only to project another!
As to WASHINGTON's hostility to Slavery, the Argus conceals from its readers
every word of our reasons—reasons with
which we should be willing to submit the
case—and harps dolefully upon Giddings'
expression, "less guilty." With all his
manly virtues, Washington was not perfect, and has his own sins to answer for as
well as other men. He was "guilty" of
slaveholding, be that guilt more or less,
just as each one may estimate it: but he
was not guilty—as our Democracy palpably are—of aiding plans to extend and
strengthen that dark evil. His views of
Slavery are identical with those of the
mass of the Republican party—he wanted
"a Confederacy of Free States!"
The Argus again alludes to Seward's
Speech, which it has not or dare not publish, notwithstanding its awful threat that
it would do so. Doubtless there are some
readers of that paper who really believe
that Mr. Seward uttered something for
which he deserves the rope of the traitor;
whereas—if they could see it they would
say it was true after all. The Argus
gains no credit by denouncing and yet
suppressing Seward's speech, authorized
by himself as genuine, while publishing
dirty little lies about Giddings!
Now, in respect to Mr. Giddings, we
have one serious offer to make the Argus.
We do not suppose its Editor would himself wantonly misrepresent him, yet it is
certain his party zeal leads him to copy
the charges of those who do wilfully falsify.
Mr. G. is a living man—a native of
our State—who can and does write out
and publish his own speeches. How easily, then, can the Argus get correct copies
of his real speeches, and publish them in
full—as we did Pierce's and Buchanan's
Messages, in all their awful length and
wickedness—for our readers to judge for
themselves how correct our criticisms are!
Mr. G. is an honest, fair, respectable man,
and kind neighbor. If the Argus means
to be honest and fair, we will use our influence to induce Mr. Giddings to send the
Editor copies of his most thorough anti-
slavery speeches, provided the Argus will
quote them with their full explanations
and connection. This would be a fine
opportunity—a batch of Giddings' speeches
under his own frank!—from which to fulminate speeches all through Union and
the "upper end," and to sprinkle your editorials with wholesome truths instead of
gross fabrications. What say you?