Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1845-1854, 1848-08-23

, they supposed the cause of their defeat Il
conspirators dragged the slavery questio
for the first time in the history of the countr
3 in to the arena, and made it rally in
, point for discounted faction. -.
The hypocritical cry of "free soil, n
Y more slave territory" is that on wEic
this northern party has organized ii
, schemes of disunion, and it pretends to bas
, this upon constitutional right.
| The evil of slavery has been deplored b
all parties, north an south, since the forma
ton of the government; and those where ne
eroes, either free or in servitude, do not ex
ist, have one and all sought toprevent then
settling within their borders..E Where hard.
pioneers and enterprising settlers have over
come the wilderness, and made prairie
smile with the blessings of cultivation, they
have one and all sought to prevent tn
blacks from following, to blight with thei
presence the new homes Of the emigrants
As all the old free states have imposed disa
bilities upon the free blacks, so have the new
free states sought to prevent blacks from
coming within their borders. The black
are upon this continent not by their owl
fault. The eupidity of England in forcing
them upon the United States was the cause
of their presence here, ard is matter O.
equal regret with both free states OR slave
states. The whites of the former are no
dependent upon the blacks for service, ano
| they have shown a determination that the
blacks shall not be dependent upon them
for bread In the south the nature of the
industry has thus far kept the blacks EN-.
ployed. But the same anxiety to get clcal
of the negroes which prompted the south te
resist the imperial government, prompts the
north and west TO prevent negroes from &C.
cupying the lands at all. Hence, even be-
fore the formation of the constitution in
1887, an ordinance was passed, preventing
the introduction of slaves into territory north
of the Ohio. On that territory now exist
the states of Ohio and Indiana, Michigan
and Wisconsin; and as this ordinance adopt
ed by Congress in 1887 sought to prevent
slavery from being introduced there, SO
have those states in their constitutions,
sought to prevent free blacks from settling
there.
The people of Illinois, by an immense
majority, last year adopted the following
clause of the new constitutions:
"Articze XIV. The general assembly
shall, at its first session under the amende
constitution, pass such laws will efectu-
ally prohibit free persons Of color from i'm
migration to and settling this state; and to
effectually prevent the owners of slaves from
bringing them into this state, for the purpose
of setting them free. p"
This desire to exclude blacks from new
territory, north and south, has always been
strong on the part of the north, which has
sought to keep free blacks out of its own
states. as we'll as slaves out of southern
states. Since the formation of the govern
ment, II new states have been admitted
into the Union. These give 60 electoral
votes from slave states, and 63 from free
states. The population admitted as slave
states increased from l,l36 1882 to ,442,-
900, and in free states it rose from ,443, :
256 to $4,000. The increase has been
the Argest from free states. At each new
accession of territory, this question, in rela-
ton to the admission of slaves in the terrific
ry, has been renewed in Congressingal de-
bates, but it has never before been stirred
up as an electioneering instrument. The
excitement upon this subject ran highest in
1920, on the occasion of the admission OF
Missouri into the Union.
The question was settled at the time by
the "Missouri COMPROMISED which provi-
d.d that in the territory of Louisiana, there
should, except in the state of Missouri, be
no slavery nolth of the 36 deg. 80 min. of
north latitude, running to the ocean. This,
of course, left open the territory south of that
line to southern institutions. On the ad-
mission of Texas, that solemn promise was
sought to be violated but truth and justice
prevailed.
The position Of Mr.. Van Buren has now,
as we have seen, induced him to adopt this
notion of "free soil," as that on which to
form a sectional or northern faction, in Or
der to defeat the Democratic party. That
we may properly estimate the entire change
which the sentiments of that parsonage have
undergone since his rejection by the people
of the Union, we compare two letters, one
dated March 1886, and addressed to Aimes
and others of North Carolina, in reply to
questions as to his views; the other dated
June 10Th, lS4S, and addressed to a meet
ing Of his agents at Utica:
March, 1886.
"With only a generous confidence on
the part of the south, in their brethren of
the north, and firm determination on the
part of each to visit, with their severest dis
pleasure, any attempt to connect the sub
ject with party politics, those sentiments
cannot be overthrown. All future attempts
on the part of the abolitionists to do so, will
then only serve to accumulate and concen-
trate public odlum on themselves. That
there are persons at the north who are far
from concurring in the prevailing sentiments
l have described, is certainly true; but
their numbers, when compared with the
rest of the community, are very inconsider-
able; and if the condition of things be not
greatly aggravated by imprudence, many
of them have no doubt, will ultimately
adopt sounder views of the subject; and the
efforts of those who may persist in the work
of agitation may be overcome by reason, or
rendered reno imperative by conditional d Feme-
''In every view of the subject, therefore,
1t does appear to me, that, although there
certainly is, in the present condition OF the
country in relation to it, sufficient to excite
the most serious attention, there is nothing
! IN Cf-fn 81 IL - i