“Some two or three weeks since we published, upon authority so respectable as to have been considered altogether unquestionable, an account of the unwelcome reception of the Rev. Captain Stuart, of Great Britain, in the town of Plainfield, Conn., together with a statement as to his rather forcible expulsion from that place. It appears that the account received by us was not altogether correct; but wherein it was incorrect, we have not been able exactly to ascertain. But for the style of rudeness with which we have been assailed upon this subject, we should have noted the inaccuracy of the account communicated to us before, although we had not the means of correcting it. All the papers contradicting our version of the affair, have admitted that disturbances did attend Captain Stuart’s visit to Plainfield, but have not informed us as to particulars. The Emancipator of yesterday, commences an article thus:—

“THE AFFAIR AT PLAINFIELD.—Our readers probably know that during the height of the late reign of terror in New York, the Editor of the N.Y. Commercial Advertiser, “more the organ of the Colonization Society than any other in this city,” endeavored to keep himself and his mob in countenance by a ludicrous and apparently approving account of a mob said to have taken place in Plainfield, Conn., in which the farmers of that place were described as literally driving Charles Stuart out of town with their cart whips. The story was not true. —But it was true that some unmannerly boys attempted, without success, to disturb the lecture. The following is extracted from an account given in the Brooklyn (Ct.) Unionist:

“We have called them gentlemen, though had they been strangers to us, had we not been personally acquainted with them, known their high pretensions, the respectability of their parentage, their advantages for learning what belongs to the character of a gentleman, and that on many occasions they show that they do know how to conduct with propriety, there is much reason to fear that their disorderly behaviour, their indecency and rudeness of language and action, would have led us to rank them with the lowest vulgar. As it is, however, the graduate of Yale, the undergraduate of another college, the students in the academy, the sons of wealthy and respectable citizens of Plainfield, of church members and zealous colonizationists, (for the parents of every Plainfield youth whom we noted in the rabble, are decided ‘Colonizationists’) must, we suppose, be called gentlemen, be their conduct what it may.— Much good may the name do them, and may they yet learn to deserve it, though we fear ‘twill be a hard lesson for some of them, [undecipherable] any truth in the maxims of moralists respecting the [undecipherable]

[undecipherable] than one exception, we know, and we think [undecipherable]{end of Unionist quote and, by implication, of Emancipator quote}

Now in the first place, the introductory remarks of the Emancipator are not true. Our account of the Plainfield disturbance was not published “during the height of the late reign of terror,” but when all was tranquil in the week following [it was published July 15 ^th];—and in the second place, the account of the Brooklyn Unionist, (an abolition paper published in the neighborhood of Plainfield,) represents the case, if anything, more unfavorably than we did.—Indeed our mistake seems to have consisted only in stating that the young men cracked their whips while Mr. Stuart was forcibly placed in his waggon [sic]. Upon this point, then, we stand corrected.

But a communication under the signature of Captain Stuart himself, which appears in the Emancipator, with the prefatory remark that it “was refused publication in the Commercial Advertiser,” calls for a few observations. It was not because he attempted to correct an error into which it is [indecipherable] fallen, that we objected to the publication of his article—for that we would very cheerfully [indecipherable] done at any time. Our objection arose not only from the inflammatory character of the communication, as a while, but from a more weighty consideration still. We entirely object to the visit of Captain Stuart among us, as being not only uncalled for, but highly improper; and it would be the highth of imprudence for him, again to appear before the public, on the subject of his mission, either in print, in the pulpit, or at the forum. He seems to be an amiable, and we doubt not a good man; but he has no business in this country on such an errand. How, for instance, would it be received for an American to repair to England, for the purpose of delivering lectures in favor of repealing the Act of Union between England and Ireland! Such interference in the internal affairs of another nation, would not be permitted, and any foreign agent attempting it, would very properly be prevented from opening his lips. The principle, it will be seen, is precisely the same.

But Mr. Stuart, it appears, is not long to be the only agent from abroad, engaged in the work of enlightening our country on the subject of its own domestic and social relations. He is soon to be joined by a Mr. Thompson, who is understood to be on his way hither as a Missionary from some excellent ladies of Glasgow. Mr. Thompson is said to be an able and an eloquent man; but we trust that on his arrival amongst us, he will perceive the propriety of withholding any displays, either of his talents or his rhetoric, on the subject of his mission.—Indeed—and we say it deliberately, though with all kindness—we hold that neither Mr. Stuart, nor Mr. Thompson, nor any other strangers from abroad, should be permitted to convoke and harangue an American assembly upon this question. We doubt not the goodness of their intentions; but they are laboring under a sad mistake, as to the path of duty. If they have feelings of kindness for the slaves of this country, let them remain in their own; or else, if they choose, let them imitate a King and a Van Rensselaer, and go among the slaves to preach the Gospel in a manner compatible with the laws and usages of those States. The truth is, these excellent, though misjudging, philanthropists, do not understand the real and inherent difficulties of the case, arising from the essential difference in the structures of our respective governments. The British Constitution is unwritten, consisting, in fact, of the common law of the realm. Parliament is omnipotent; and it had a perfect right, politically speaking, to abolish the slavery of its colonies at a blow, if it chose to do so.—Nor—residing as they do at a distance of four thousand miles from the colonies—could they understand or appreciate the difficulties, and the long train of evils, that must inevitably follow in the train of hasty and rash legislation, upon a question at once so important and so delicate.

But it is not so in the United States. We live under a written Constitution, conferring certain powers upon the general government, and specifically withholding others; and among the powers thus reserved, is that of interfering with the domestic relations of the several States. So that although the general government is paramount in some respects, neither it, nor the state governments, nor the people of the free states, have any more right to interfere with the slave question, than they have to interfere with the nobility and the serfs of Russia, or the manufacturers and their operatives in England, or on the question of repealing the Irish Union. The truth—and every day’s experience more thoroughly convinces us of the fact—that the slave question must be left with the state governments, and the people where the evil exists. They understand the subject better than we do; they best know how to mitigate its rigors; and, ultimately, to apply the means of cure. Meantime let the efforts of American Christians and philanthropists be directed in the best and most efficient, and yet legal and inoffensive manner, to the moral and social improvement of the slave population, with a view to their gradual and ultimate emancipation. Depend upon it, the true method of improving the conditions of the slaves, and preparing them for that freedom which they must one day be put in possession of, is to pursue a kind and conciliatory course towards their masters. To abuse and exasperate them, can have only the following effect, viz: that of binding the fetters of the slave more strongly—excluding information from him more rigidly—and protracting the period of his servitude indefinitely.

With these views we deprecate all improper interference upon the subject. It regard to Messrs. Stuart and Thompson, we would treat them with all possible hospitality and kindness. We could not allow a finger to be raised against them, nor a hair of their heads to be injured.—But they should neither of them be allowed again to make any public show in any town, city, or village, north of the State of Delaware, upon this subject. We desire that it may be perfectly understood, wherever these foreign agents may present themselves to agitate the slave question, that they shall not be heard. They have no business here upon such a mission. And measures at once the most peaceable and effectual, should be adopted to prevent them from scattering fire-brands, arrows and death amongst us.