..
I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now,something of ill-omen, amongst us.
... " At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? Ianswer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us
. Itcannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we mustourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, wemust live through all time, or die by suicide.
I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now,something of ill-omen, amongst us.
I mean the increasing disregardfor law which pervades the country; the growing disposition tosubstitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the soberjudgment of Courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for theexecutive ministers of justice. This disposition is awfullyfearful in any community; and that it now exists in ours, thoughgrating to our feelings to admit, it would be a violation of truth,and an insult to our intelligence, to deny. Accounts of outragescommitted by mobs, form the every-day news of the times. Theyhave pervaded the country, from New England to Louisiana;--theyare neither peculiar to the eternal snows of the former, nor theburning suns of the latter;--they are not the creature of climate--neither are they confined to the slave-holding, or the non-slave-holding States. Alike, they spring up among the pleasure huntingmasters of Southern slaves, and the order loving citizens of theland of steady habits.
--Whatever, then, their cause may be, itis common to the whole country. "....
