The Middlebury Register

For the Register,

Georgia and Vermont.

The attitude assumed by Georgia against the quiet little state of Vermont, in consequence of the Anti-Slavery proclivities of the latter, is an event at least in the history of the times. It seems too bad that the President should be called upon to send a body of Irishmen with directions to dig around the "thing" and float it into the Atlantic: and it would be still worse, if the suggestion of friend Walton, of the Watchman, "to make sail for the coast of Georgia," should be followed. The people who stir up matters after this fashion must be the same individuals who have contemplated digging away the Island of Great Britain, in order to widen the Atlantic.

Perhaps if that state could raise so large a force in the shape of Irishmen, it would be a good plan to employ them nearer home, after the manner of Major Starkie, whose case may be within the recollection of many of your readers, as reported among the agricultural experiments of the day.

This gentleman, who resided in Georgia, undertook the gigantic enterprise of reclaiming one of their shallow lakes or it might be some "dismal swamp," in that state, covering several thousands of acres, and succeeded in bringing it to a high degree of cultivation, and constituting a tract of immense value, wholly through the agency of these same Irishmen. If the man who makes two blades of grass grow, where but one grew before, is justly deemed a public benefactor, Major Starkie certainly deserves better of his fellow citizens, than the persons who had the chivalrous daring to drive away the white-haired and venerable Judge Hoar, of Massachusetts, though accompanied by his daughter when he went to Charleston, to test the constitutionality of the law authorizing the imprisonment of colored seamen while vessels lay in their ports. They certainly need not fear anything treasonable or disorganizing from the gallant little Green Mountain State, and it is not very courteous to bestow such treatment upon her, upon such slight provocation.

It has been customary for more than twenty years for Vermont, at the close of each session of the Legislature, to pass Anti-Slavery resolutions of a moderate stamp, and in this both Whigs and Democrats cordially united, though, as the majorities upon other questions usually averaged, it would not be strange if the latter were a little suspicious that the responsibility would eventually rest upon their innocent associates.

Now, custom has required that copies of these documents should be sent to the other party in such cases, for the reason probably that legislative bodies, as well as private individuals, claim the privilege of exercising the "courtesies and meannesses of life"—to use the language of the discriminating Mrs. Partington. Vermont once made an effort to repeal the clause in their Habeas Corpus act, which is supposed by some to conflict with the Constitution, but so many of the members understood it to be the opinion of Chief Justice Royce, that it might be as well to let it stand as it was, until a trial should show wherein it was defective, it failed of passing by about two to one. It is possible Southern people may be unwilling to trust the question in this way in the hands of the descendants of Judge Harrington, who once ruled that the only admissible evidence of ownership of Slaves, was a "bill of sale from the Almighty."

Vermont has paid Georgia, in her early history, a high compliment, and one not to be found in the case of any other state, in naming one of her towns for her southern sister in the confederacy, and it is no small honor that the Hon. Alvah Sabin, member of Congress, hails from there, and that it is also the birth place and early home of the late Walter Colton, Chaplain in the Navy, who, when the territory of California came into possession of the United States, held the office of Alcalde, or Chief Magistrate, of Monterey. This gentleman in official capacity made the report of the first discovery of the gold mines, to our government. While the documents which afford abundant evidence of his ability and statesmanship are to be found in their proper place at Washington, we trust that as a christian and philanthropist, "his record is on high." His "three years in California," is a book of rare interest, containing, like Dana's "Two years before the Mast," much in reference to the peculiarities of that country; and Bayard Taylor mentions the place where the constitution was signed, at Monterey, at "Colton Hall," a large and handsome edifice, built by convict labor, during his administration. A glance at the individuals who have represented Vermont, abroad and in our halls of legislation, ought to satisfy all concerned, that they have nothing unreasonable to apprehend at her hands, and that she is too "candid, and generous, and just" to disturb the tranquility of the nation. K