Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1849-03-09

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We believed that the step from Anti-Slavery
feeling to Abolition principle would with
sincere mem be a short and necessary one,
that men would see, as it was pithily express
ed the other day in the Chronotype, that there
was no essential difference between extend
ing Slavery in space and in time. We be.
lieve so still, and that the leaders of the Free
Soil party must advance to a better defined
and more commanding position. After excl
ting the enthusiasm of their followers, after
showing them the enemy and crying, chargel
they cannot stand still or they will be tram
pied to death. If to keep soil free be good,
then to make it so must also be good. II fet-
tiers must not be carried into Oregon and Cal
%ifornia, why should they not be stricken off
in Virginia and South Carolina?
Had anything been wanting to convince
us of the necessity of a purely moral Anti
Slavery organization, the result of the Free
Soil agitation would have supplied it. Po-
litical parties have their crises of enthusiasm.
Their zeal arises before an election and as
naturally subsidies after it. The course of
these things is as natural and as easily to be
foretold as that Of the tides. They have their
regular ebb and flow. An unsuccessful cleo
ton contest, moreover, is a defeat, and defeat
is d~iscouragement. During the long interval
U6LW66D tIeCtlOu dlu GleCtlOD, TIE IOTC6S Vi q
defeated political party must suffer the de-
moralization of ~inaction. Like the troops of
a partisan and irregular army, they gather
suddenly for an immediate object, and disap-
pear as rapidly. Their orators, wanting the
customary excitement of controversy, become
silent. 1t is quite a different thing 10 ha-
rangue a crowd of benches, and a crowd of
eager men.
Meanwhile a pure ethical Idea can never
be defeated. 1t cannot indeed be brought in
to conflict with material organizations, bu,
only applied TO them as an impartial test. 1t
cannot attract to itself the rancorous animos-
ity, nor the imputation of motives of person.
al ACKNOWLEDGEMENT, to which a political asso.
citation, however pure is liable. 1t does moi
present to the gross and indiscriminate popu.
lar eye a divided object. Its activity is no
sensible of any seasons of peculiar intensity
or depression. 1t is not restricted TO time anC
place. Its year-long caucuses are held in tht
family and workshop. 1t knows no distinc
tons of age or sex, but draws to itself tn,
yet undissipated sympathies of youth, anC
contracts indissoluble alliance with the fine
instinct and more persistent enthusiasm O
woman.
Two things especially absorb the admira
ton and sympathy of men,-practical sue
cess, and that weariless devotion which doe
not need the stimulus of success. The fol
mer is the key 10 the popularity of Taylor
the latter TO the power Of Garrison. Peopl
without ideas laugh at the man of one. Blu
these men are not so common as is general,
imagined. That mind is of no ordinary strait
which, through long years Of obloquy and de
rision, can still keep its single object as fresl
and attractive as at first. 1t is the man C
one idea who atiains his end. Narrownes
does not always imply bigotry, but sometime
concentration.
At the present moment the natural reaction
which has followed a crisis of extraordinar,
nti-Slavery excitement in politics, show
not only the policy but the absolute necessi
ty of a distinctly moral organization agains
Slavery. The Free Soil party lacks any a
t traction which might arise from success.
) has so cautiously secluded itself from ever
t imputation of fanaticism, that it has deprive
. itself of another and no inconsiderable eli
= ment Of strength. 1t has been diverted int
n many by questions and disputes with regar
= to the merits of individuals, and so, in grei
t measure, failed of concentrating the publ
/, attention upon things. 1t has not made itse
numerically terrible, and, by its necessal
!. devotion to a candidate, it has lost the pre-
e tige which belongs to devotion 10 an idea.-
S Already its best newspapers are failing, thu
giving to the movement the appearance of
e transitory convulsion, instead of a r~evolutio
and losing the benefit of that superstitit
with which the notion Of permanence enthra
o the fancies of men.
We say these things from no preiudic
but state them only as matters of fact, affor
. ing matter for reflection. The Free 81
movement has done as much as we expecte
If it has not broken in pieces the two G
parties, as we hoped it might, that consul
!! nation will be brought about at no dista
cl day by the administration of Gen. Taylor.
m But the necessity of renewed and continue
e~xertion on the part Of non-political Abe
p ~tionists is enforced by all the signs of t
" times. 1t is they who keep alive the SC
~ tered sparks which are famed into flame {
u ring the gusty days of electioneeiing excl
s- ment. Nay, at what altar was the irebra
u lighted which the Fox of Kinderhook CARR
A. into the standing corn of the Philistines?
-, j. r. L.