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SLAVERY IN MASSACHUSETTS

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Mindwarp
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« on: March 22, 2009, 04:27:51 pm »

I am more and more convinced that, with reference to any public
question, it is more important to know what the country thinks of it
than what the city thinks. The city does not think much. On any
moral question, I would rather have the opinion of Boxboro' than of
Boston and New York put together. When the former speaks, I feel as if
somebody had spoken, as if humanity was yet, and a reasonable being
had asserted its rights- as if some unprejudiced men among the
country's hills had at length turned their attention to the subject,
and by a few sensible words redeemed the reputation of the race. When,
in some obscure country town, the farmers come together to a special
town-meeting, to express their opinion on some subject which is vexing
the land, that, I think, is the true Congress, and the most
respectable one that is ever assembled in the United States.

  It is evident that there are, in this Commonwealth at least, two
parties, becoming more and more distinct- the party of the city, and
the party of the country. I know that the country is mean enough,
but I am glad to believe that there is a slight difference in her
favor. But as yet she has few, if any organs, through which to express
herself. The editorials which she reads, like the news, come from
the seaboard. Let us, the inhabitants of the country, cultivate
self-respect. Let us not send to the city for aught more essential
than our broadcloths and groceries; or, if we read the opinions of the
city, let us entertain opinions of our own.

   Among measures to be adopted, I would suggest to make as earnest
and vigorous an assault on the press as has already been made, and
with effect, on the church. The church has much improved within a
few years; but the press is, almost without exception, corrupt. I
believe that in this country the press exerts a greater and a more
pernicious influence than the church did in its worst period. We are
not a religious people, but we are a nation of politicians. We do
not care for the Bible, but we do care for the newspaper. At any
meeting of politicians- like that at Concord the other evening, for
instance- how impertinent it would be to quote from the Bible! how
pertinent to quote from a newspaper or from the Constitution! The
newspaper is a Bible which we read every morning and every
afternoon, standing and sitting, riding and walking. It is a Bible
which every man carries in his pocket, which lies on every table and
counter, and which the mail, and thousands of missionaries, are
continually dispersing. It is, in short, the only book which America
has printed and which America reads. So wide is its influence. The
editor is a preacher whom you voluntarily support. Your tax is
commonly one cent daily, and it costs nothing for pew hire. But how
many of these preachers preach the truth? I repeat the testimony of
many an intelligent foreigner, as well as my own convictions, when I
say, that probably no country was ever rubled by so mean a class of
tyrants as, with a few noble exceptions, are the editors of the
periodical press in this country. And as they live and rule only by
their servility, and appealing to the worse, and not the better,
nature of man, the people who read them are in the condition of the
dog that returns to his vomit.

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