The Portland Gazette

MISCELLANY:

For the Portland Gazette,

MR. SHIRLEY,

Sir--With heart felt regret, and the most direful foreboding, we behold the time, when the spirit of liberty in this country, appears on the wane, and the horrors of slavery and servitude, are becoming more familiar to our minds, and less obnoxious to our sentiments!

What a humiliating consideration for every free-born American! What a reflection on the present state of feelings and morals!

Time was when most of the American people, looked on an attempt to enslave a portion of the human race, with sentiments of horror and detestation, and considered it, as directly opposed to the welfare of the country, inconsistent with the idea of a republican form of government, and militating with the best feelings of the human heart.

Who now is the monster in human form, that, without any compunctious visitings of conscience, can rivet the shackles of slavery upon a fellow being and compel him, like a beast of burthen, to drag out a miserable existence, for the mere profit and convenience of inhuman task-masters?

It is well known, that an attempt has been made in Congress (and to their eternal honor be it spoken) to prohibit a further extension of slavery, and that the advocates for doing away all restriction as it regards Missouri, are making uncommon exertions, and be it known to their eternal disgrace, that they are determined to oppose the admission of Maine into the Union--unless the members of Congress, from this section, will consent to admit Missouri without any restriction.

But, let that day be darkness, let not the sun shine upon it with its usual splendor, in which it shall be said, that a member from Maine, shall have so defiled his reputation and outraged humanity--and so abused and disgraced his constituents, as to have lifted up his hands as expressive of their sentiments, for the admission of Maine on this most unprecedented, unjust and diabolical condition.

Who can ever again wash those hands in innocence, which have been lifted, to consign to eternal slavery and wretchedness, a portion of his fellow beings?-- The crimson die must forever stain those polluted limbs, which, nothing but the tears of the most bitter repentance and remorse can ever obliterate.

If there should be any such, who are so lost to gentle sympathy and compassion, and have so far wandered from the straight path of justice, let his name be forever blotted from the records of merit, and the frowns of disapprobation show our sincere and just abhorrence of such a character, and evince our ardent attachment to the spirit of liberty, which our fore-fathers loved and cherished when they 'fought and bled in freedom's cause.'

It is a circumstance peculiarly happy and singularly propitious, that, in our exertions for the independence of Maine, such an uncommon unanimity existed in the minds of the people.

We are now about to erect a temple to freedom, but shall we rear it at the expense of the liberty of thousands of our fellow beings? Shall we pollute and defile the very threshold of this sacred edifice, by entering it ourselves, on this execrable condition, or by suffering those to enter it, who, (if any such there be) have been the immediate agents in this nefarious work? And whose unhallowed sentiments discover the corruption of their hearts, and the danger of their influence under a republican form of government? Can we pay our devotions at the altar on which have been sacrificed the happiness and freedom of thousands of the human race?

I envy not the disposition or feelings of that man, who advocates the propriety or justness of establishing his prosperity or happiness, on the miseries of his fellow beings: but I set him down as one, who will trample under foot every obstacle which obstructs his way to self aggrandizement.

A letter from Washington, says, 'it is calculated that all the delegates from New-England, (with only one exception) will vote in favor of the restriction of slavery in the state of Missouri.' And is this single exception, a man whom we have honoured with our suffrages and invested with honors and the power of legislation? How long then will the eyes of the people of Maine be blinded, to the destructive effects of misplaced confidence? How long will their ears be deafened to the salutary admonitions, which the events of almost every day afford us, to make us wise and prudent.

SENECA.