The Liberator (newspaper)/September 18, 1857/The Renegade John Mitchel
The Renegade John Mitchel.
That base Irish apostate, John Mitchel, has issued proposals for the publication of a Southern journal, in which he intends to advocate the renewal of the foreign slave trade, as a most beneficent enterprise! The New York Tribune satirically says:—
Mr. Mitchel, if we may judge by his Prospectus, has entered upon his new duties with commendable spirit. It is always pleasant to witness the fresh zeal of these novices. It is seldom that they stick at anything. They do not simply go the whole hog, but a whole herd of whole hogs. Slaveholders, born and bred in the midst of slavery, and who have heretofore supposed themselves to be pretty enthusiastic advocates of the institution, stand aghast at their own moderation when they listen to men who come among them, and who volunteer to assist them. When the visual orbs of such are purged of any remaining film of free notions, and the John Mitchels see slavery (as they say) for themselves, they always discover more beautiful things in it than were ever dreamed of by the slaveholder. To tell the truth, they generally overdo the matter, and are more rapturous that is absolutely necessary. When they say, as John does, that slavery is the finest institution in the world—that it is vastly more promotive than freedom of the prosperity of a State—that it is the best thing for the master and the best thing for the slave—why, they talk hyperbolical nonsense, and are regarded by Southern men who hear them with profound contempt. Those who have had the best and most extended opportunities of studying the institution, know that such talk is mere babble and bosh. The man who is listened to with the greatest respect is he who, while he sees no remedy for the evil, admits that it is an evil. Therefore, we conjure Patriot John, by all his hopes of a seat in Congress, by his love of many plantations, by his peculiar passion for corpulent negroes—by all these we conjure him to moderate his raptures. Otherwise, people will be apt to call him an Old Humbug.
In pursuance of our advice, we think Mr. Mitchel had better say nothing more of the re-opening of the African slave-trade. If one people are to go to Africa for slaves, why may not another people go to Ireland for the same commodity? We hope we shall not offend his Hibernian sensibilities by the question; but how would he like it, if a French ship should carry off from the coast of Ireland, and into slavery, a select assortment of his aunts, uncles, cousins,—in fact, the cream of the Mitchels family? But the Africans are black, and the Irishmen are white, when they are not very dirty. True enough; but color has not heretofore saved the Irish people from the most terrible oppression, as, we think, J. M. will admit. We suppose that a certain Town-Major Sirr—John may have heard of him—flogged white backs with as much gusto as John will flog the black ones when he has got them. But the Africans are shiftless and degraded. Well, we have heard it just intimated that some Irishmen are not, after all, models of smartness and prudence. But then, Africans can’t help themselves. We should like to know how well the Irishmen have helped themselves for many centuries. We have no desire to speak with the slightest disrespect of the many noble efforts of that people to throw off the yoke; but when an Irish patriot, as Mitchel professes to have been, argues that the black man is not fit for freedom because he is not free, it is perfectly proper for us to ask this Irishman why the rule is not applicable to the condition of his own countrymen? But, out of respect for an unhappy land, we will not pursue the subject. Many and grievous have been the burdens of Ireland; she has now another to bear, in the apostacy of a man whom she once delighted to honor.’