THE ILLINOIS FA-RMER. 



105 



and some of us salt water gentry concluded 

 Jesse's cliildren should be schooled. 



The foreign relations of the United States 

 are .again disturbed by the action of the Brit- 

 ish cruisers in the Gulf of Mexico in board- 

 ing and searching our merchantmen, who are 

 suspected of being engaged in the slave trade. 

 The sincerity of the English in suppressing 

 this traffic, none can deny who knows them, 

 but it is much vitiated in the eyes of foreign- 

 ers by substituting the equally criminal mode 

 of replenishing the labor of their colonies 

 through the introduction of Coolies. The 

 French too, wherever their interest is con- 

 cerned, have resorted, through private tr;i- 

 ders, to measures as barbarous as any that 

 have ever disgraced the slave trade. We 

 know of nothing worse than the fate of the 

 Coolie or indented laborer under the auspices 

 of either of these flags, from his first shipment 

 on board of a dirty, crowded, ill-ventilated 

 vessel, to sail very frequently over half the 

 circuit of the globe, and then fall into seni- 

 tude, from which there is no escape, or return 

 to his own land during the remainder of his 

 days. The heart of the English is against 

 slavery, but their interest, their very self- 

 preservation as a nation, depends upon their 

 commerce and its full integrity being niain- 

 tained in the markctsof their colonics. The 

 United States were the first nation, as we un- 

 derstand, to prohibit the slave trade, but 

 slavery is one of the institutions of the land, 

 and it may be reasonably expected, and 

 cannot be controverted, that we exercise con- 

 siderable lukewaimness in carrying out the 

 provisions entered into with Great Britain for 

 the suppression of the traffic. A majority of 

 the officers of the United States navy are 

 from the Southern States, and we think their 

 co-operation would not be so zealous for the 

 suppression of a traffic, the results of which as 

 exhibited in the \forking of their institution 

 among themselves, they look upon as a bene- 

 ficent ordination. A search .seems to an un- 

 prejudiced mind, the only certain way of de- 

 termininc: the character of a vessel or her 

 employment, — and as Amcricau clippevo are 

 notoriously used in the slave trade, are fitted 

 out from our port,^, are owned there, gener- 

 ally by naturalized citizens, they are the first 

 suspected, undergo examination, are detained 

 and put to other trouble — the officers of the 

 respective vessels become irritated, and when 

 it is remembered that the seizure of meu 

 from our ships in our weaker days caused the 

 war of 1812, is it a wonder that our pride and 

 honor as a nation are immediately aroused on 

 the report of an insult being thus ofiered to 

 our fiag? It Would appear that wc never 

 should have entered into joint conditions 

 with the other powers for the suppression of 

 the slave trade, the money expended on the 



coast of Africa to us has been sadly misspent; 

 the compromise with Great Britain to keep 

 up an armament on the coast of Africa under 

 the Ashburton treaty, was never required by 

 the Northern conscience; the Southerners in 

 their section hold their conventions for the 

 purpose of discussing the desirability of 

 opening the triide again; we unitedly place 

 ourselves in a false attitude before the world; 

 we lose our consistency and self-respect; and 

 the right of search will ever be resisted to the 

 bitter end; the most rabid abolitionist would 

 merge all his hatred of slavery into the more 

 intense and overwhelming sentiment of resis- 

 tance to the search of his vessel; and those of 

 our people who consider slavery the greatest 

 calamity would prefer to see the national ef- 

 fort fjr its amelioration and emancipation 

 directed to measures within rather than to any 

 outside interference. This visitation and 

 search of vessels has been a curse through our 

 history; every few 3'ears we are called upon 

 to get into a fever, to have our amicable feel- 

 ings disturbed, our prejudices renewed, to 

 build frigates and sloops of war, gun-boats 

 and forts, to call into the service of the gov- 

 ernment, men, and power, and money, that 

 are fast centralizing it, and will in time, un- 

 less arrested, make it an enemy to the liberties 

 of the people. Xo one can suppose that the 

 late rash actsb}'' the British eruizers without 

 any apparent premeditation, without any 

 outgivings or foreshadowings, would be borne 

 with by this people for a moment, whethe^ 

 the abstract or other right that might be be- 

 hind it. As the slave trade can be suppress- 

 ed in many ways, the remedy here insisted 

 upon sinks into insignificance in comparison 

 to the calamities of war. 



We bear of a vigilance committee in New 

 Orleans, and we think it was full time for the 

 more rci^pectable of the people to take the 

 government into their owu hands from the 

 hands of those who oiFe/ed no protection 

 against vice, crime and immorality. Vigi- 

 lance committees should be formed in all 

 places where society exists without law. 

 Criminab find almost any defense in the re- 

 fuge of the law itself, technics and devices to 

 waylaj'^ justice beingthe acknowledged tactics 

 of the piofc'ssion in many ofoiir larger cities. 

 Society in affording protection to casualty 

 and misfortune enlists the same aid into the 

 service of the abandoned. Every one is sup 

 posed to be innocent until proved guilty, 

 though every antecedent of the life teems 

 with crime. Lord Denman thought from 

 his exalted station that character had some- 

 thing to do in determining guilt, but our 

 sympathies side with it in these great cess- 

 pools of iniquity, the large cities, more espe- 

 cially in those whose population is not perma- 

 nent, who go and come as business prompts. 



Jurors make criminals insane, vagabonds of 

 standing and wealth get screened from jus- 

 tice, capital punishment is a dead letter with 

 much of our sensitive population — and politi- 

 cal life is loaded with abuBe;'the ignorant and 

 worthless always vote, think the country is 

 lost if they do not; the more orderly and intelli- 

 gent, many of them, keep away from the 

 franchise in disgust, others shrink from it, 

 some are too dignified to soil their hands at 

 such places, and thus we secure a standard of 

 government far below the average intelligence 

 and virtue of the population, and this bears 

 mort particularly on the cities under consid- 

 eration. This is a serious evil and requires 

 purification, if it comes by fire. Order reigns 

 in Warsaw — said a most desperate tyrant, — 

 and some think it reigns wherever there is 

 submission, but chaos is preferable to either 

 the one or the other of the conditions here 

 assumed. We do not pretend that the more 

 respectable of the community are not respon- 

 sible for this stat« of things; the ignorant 

 should be instructed, the intelligent and well 

 disposed should exercise more interest and 

 vigilance, the source of coiTuption would then 

 be reached, the worthless be taken care of. — 

 Now this latter are like Pharaoh's fat kine, 

 they swallow all the rest. Every patriot 

 may thank God that there is faith enough in 

 justice and right in this country to bring out 

 vigilance committees when these virtues are 

 all lost, when they are set aside, scorned and 



B. 



disgraced. 



The Last Month. 



In the first fifteen days of the last 

 month a vast amount of rain fell, not 

 only in all the Western States, but in 

 New York and the States of New Eng- 

 land. In Illinois the deluge of rain was 

 so heavy, that corn was only planted on 

 hilly or rolling land. The weather 

 cleared up the middle of the month, and 

 on many sections of level prairie "the 

 dry land soon appeared." Farmers 

 went to work with a will, planted all the 

 ground possible, and though there is now 

 much corn ground unplanted, we trust 

 that with the smiles of Heaven and the 

 labors of man, we shall yet secure a fair 

 crop. The advice of the soldier-preacher 

 in this case is quite appropriate — 

 **Bretliren, pray to the Lord, and keep 

 your powder dry." Brethren, bless the 

 Lord for fine weather, but keep your 

 plow going in your corn ! 



Plant potatoes yet. We fear that 

 you will find the potatoes planted early 

 destroyed by the wet weather. There 

 is time enough to make a good crop. — 

 Plant potatoes — get seed of good varie- 



