The editor makes light of this employment condition.
But it is obviously a reference to abolitionists who were coming south on pretenses to free slaves by force.
This activity, and the failure of the federal government to prevent it, was listed as a primary grievance in most declarations of secession."
That's an interesting observation, so I went back to look at the old "Reasons for Secession" documents.
You may remember, four seceding states wrote official "Reasons" documents before Fort Sumter -- SC, MS, GA & TX.
In them, none use the words "steal" or "rob".
Three do use the word "murder" a total of six different times:
- South Carolina: "In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia."
The reference is to John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, VA. and refusal of Northern states to prosecute Brown's men who escaped justice in Virginia.
- Mississippi: no mention of stealing, robbing or murder.
- Georgia: "Claimants are murdered with impunity; officers of the law are beaten by frantic mobs instigated by inflammatory appeals from persons holding the highest public employment in these States, and supported by legislation in conflict with the clearest provisions of the Constitution, and even the ordinary principles of humanity.
In several of our confederate States a citizen cannot travel the highway with his servant who may voluntarily accompany him, without being declared by law a felon and being subjected to infamous punishments.
It is difficult to perceive how we could suffer more by the hostility than by the fraternity of such brethren."This complaint regards slaveholders attempting to recover fugitive slaves in Northern states, not Northerners attempting to free slaves in the South.
- Georgia: "These efforts have in one instance led to the actual invasion of one of the slave-holding States, and those of the murderers and incendiaries who escaped public justice by flight have found fraternal protection among our Northern confederates."
This is a second reference to John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry, VA, and Northern states' harboring Brown's escaped associates.
- Texas: "The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; "
Murderous Mexican banditti, not Northerners hoping to free slaves.
- Texas: "They have for years past encouraged and sustained lawless organizations to steal our slaves and prevent their recapture, and have repeatedly murdered Southern citizens while lawfully seeking their rendition."
Texans (and Georgia) claimed that Southern slave-catchers in the North were "repeatedly murdered".
- Texas: "They have invaded Southern soil and murdered unoffending citizens, and through the press their leading men and a fanatical pulpit have bestowed praise upon the actors and assassins in these crimes, while the governors of several of their States have refused to deliver parties implicated and indicted for participation in such offenses, upon the legal demands of the States aggrieved."
A third reference to John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry, VA.
Outside of John Brown's raid, there were no complaints about Northerners coming South to murder citizens and free slaves.