Our Harper's Ferry and Charlestown News.Cincinnati, Ohio, Enquirer [Democratic](3 December 1859)
Elsewhere we publish a letter and dispatch
from our special reporter at Harper's Ferry and
Charlestown. They disclose a great state of
excitement in Virginia. The arrest of those three
merchants on the cars is evidence of the extent
to which the authorities of Virginia have deemed
it necessary to go for the public safety. But
what a great wrong has been inflicted on Virginia
by her brethren of the North, that compels
her to resort to such extreme measures for her
safety. She has done nothing to merit such
treatment.
She is now as she was in the days of the Revolution,
at the adoption of the Constitution,
and has done nothing since to demand worse
treatment from the people of the free States
than she merited at these periods from those
with whom she was laboring for the liberties of
the people and the establishment of a National
Government. She was slave then; she is no
more so now. And the people of the free States
have entered into a compact with her not to
interfere in her internal domestic affairs, and if
any of her slave property escapes, to interpose
no obstacle to its return. Why, then, should
her peace be threatened, the lives and property
of her citizens jeopardized by citizens of the
free States?
We rejoice that old BROWN has been hung.
He was not only a murderer of innocent persons,
but he attempted one of the greatest crimes
against society -- the stirring up of a servile and
civil war. He has paid the penalty for his
crimes, and we hope his fate may be a warning
to all who might have felt inclined to imitate
his aggressive conduct.
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