Disunion Feed

"The Supreme Court of the United States is not the only power in this world. [...] Judge Taney can do many things, but he cannot perform impossibilities. He cannot bale out the ocean, annihilate this firm old earth, or pluck the silvery star of liberty from our Northern sky."

Asked how the decision affected him, Douglass answered that his hopes were never brighter. His reasoning was strategic, not consoling: a ruling this extreme could not be absorbed quietly, and would force the country to decide. The one voice in this feed belonging to a man the decision declared could never be a citizen.

Read it in the original — Two Speeches by Frederick Douglass (Rochester, 1857) ↗

Next post: Staunton Spectator, Oct 18, 1859 →

"Rumors reached this place last night, about 8 o clock, by telegraph, of a negro insurrection at Harper's Ferry. The dispatch was from the operator at Richmond, and stated that the negroes, under the lead of white men, had taken possession of the arsenal, and sent wagon loads of muskets and rifles to slaves in the surrounding country, and that large numbers had been killed.--They had cut and destroyed the telegraph wires. [...] These rumors may be exaggerated in some particulars, but there seems to be no doubt, from what we learn of Mr. Baskin, the operator at this place, of the fact of the insurrection. We think it probable, however, that a rebellion among the white operatives at the Armory has been mistaken for slave insurrection; though it is probable that some negroes may have been induced to join them."

First-night telegraph report in an Augusta County Whig paper, written before the raiders' identity was known — relaying the rumored slave rising while doubting it: the same report thinks it probable that a rising of white workers at the Armory has been mistaken for a slave insurrection. Fragments joined with [...]. '8 o clock' preserved as transcribed.

Read it in the original — Staunton Spectator, Oct 18, 1859 (Valley of the Shadow) ↗