Irish in the North (Abolitionists & the Irish)

THE IRISH IN THE NORTH.– The New York Herald publishes a secret circular, which it is evident the abolitionists have printed in the North and sent an agent with it over the South to mail it in different towns in order to make it appear that it emanated from the Southern men. This circular is addressed to the Irish in the North, invoking them to burn factories and granaries in relation to the incendiarism at the South. The Herald conjectures that the objects of this were to disgust the Irish with Southern men, by the fact that they singled them out as capable of such atrocious crimes and to excite new indignation in the North against both Irishmen and slaveholders.

The Herald is right in supposing that such a document could never have emanated from the South. Incendiarism is not its mode of waging warfare. It is hard to tell which most to despise in these fanatics, their hypocrisy or malice. The Irish, thank Heaven, are everywhere in their way. From the first breath of abolitionism to this hour, not one Irishman, either North or South, has been anything but its bitter and uncompromising foe. Irishmen have been killed in the free States, in maintaining the rights of the South; but there was no Irishman in JOHN BROWN’S company, or any other abolition gang. Irish blood was shed at Harper’s Ferry, but it was shed in behalf of the Constitution and the South. We thank this gallant, generous and Christian people; we honor and respect them far more than natives who are false and faithless to the country.