and her aggressor; and abolitionists are
just seeking a soft pillow that they may "sleep o' nights."

It is selfishness, I tell you, all selfishness! The great whale when
she gives up her own large life to protect her young one, and the
little wren when she carries all the nice tit bits to her babies, are
as true to themselves as the old pig when she shoulders all her little
family out of the trough.

The whale enjoys death, and the wren her little fellows' supper, with
a better zest than an old grunter does her corn, and Wm. Gildersten in
spending money and laboring to prevent any more scenes of brutal
violence in his State, by punishing the one past, gratifies his own
loves and longings quite as much as Judge Grier in grunting out his
wrath against all lovers of liberty.

The one would enjoy being hanged for the cause of God and Humanity,
more than the other would the luxury of hanging him, even if he could
have _all_ the pleasure to himself,--be not only judge and
persecutor, as he prefers, but marshal, jailor, and hangman to boot.

More than this, every creature, so far as other creatures are
concerned, has a right to be happy in his own way. Nero had as much
right to wish for power to cut off all the heads in Italy at one blow,
as an innocent pig to wish for capacity to eat all the corn in the
world. Mankind has no right to punish either for the desire or its
manifestation. They should only make fences to prevent the
accomplishment of the wish.

Americans have no right to punish Judge Grier for wishing to persecute
everybody who attempts to enforce State laws against murderous
assaults by _his_ officers. They should content themselves with
fencing his Honor in, or, if necessary, putting a ring in his nose. He
has as much right to be Judge Grier as George Washington had to be
George Washington, and is no more selfish in following the instincts
of his nature, than Washington was in following his.

Without any great respect,
I am your friend,

[Illustration: (signature) Jane G. Swisshelm]

On Freedom.

Once I wished I might rehearse
Freedom's paean in my verse,
That the slave who caught the strain
Should throb until he snapt his chain.
But the Spirit said, "Not so;
Speak it not, or speak it low;
Name not lightly to be said,
Gift too precious to be prayed,
Passion not to be exprest
But by heaving of the breast;
Yet,--wo