Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1850-05-16
7REEMAN, MONTPELIER, VERMONT, l

pnulu IL ue sdlu lnaL slavery VIII not 60 INTO
thehw territories, because it is improbable, |
ask mere is it profitable? Where is ignorance
so rdtable as knowledge? Where is ungodli-
ness ain, even for the things ofthis life? How
little the hand worth, at one end of an arm, if
there not brain at the other? Do not Mary
land, irginia, North Carolina, and other States,
furrns witnesses by thousands and tens of
tholsads, that slavery impoverishes. Yet with
what nthuiiiasm they cherish it. Generally,
ign1fSce is necessary concomitant of slavery.
Of whe persons, over twenty years ST age, un,
abletread or write there were, according to
the Ia. census, 58787 in Virginia; $4,000 in
NorthCarolina 58,4l3 in Tennessee, and so
FORTH have Il letter before Tie received this
mornir, dated in Indiana, in which the writer
says hremovEd from North Carolina in 1902,
whenb was Ia years old, and at this time he
had nter seen newspaper in his life. Can
theret genius, the inventive talent, or profitable
labor, there ignorance is SO dense? Can the
oppres0n that trampes out voluntary industry,
inteipnce, enterprise, and the desire of indie
pendeHe, conduce TO riches? Yet this is done
wherein slavery exists, and is part and parcel
of lis vrhing Is any other form of robbing
pro6tah ? Yet individuals and communities
have prcticed it and lived by it, and we may as
well rel upon "law of physical geography"
to arres the one as he other. 1t is not poetry,
but Ideal truth, that the breath of the slave
blasts Vegetation his tears poison the earth, and
his groas strike it with sterllity. 1t would be
easy ID how why the master does not abandon
slavery, even amid the desolation with which it
has suEunded him. There is a combination OF
povertyland pride, which slavery produces on The
doctrine Of natural dppetente, and which, there
fore it exactly fits. The helplessness of the
master Ii regsrd to all personal wants, seems to
necessite The slavery that has begottenit. All
moral ahj religious principles are lowered till
they coform to the daily practice. Custom
blinds colscience, until, without any attempt tC
emancipAe or ameiorate their victims, man car
preach abb pray and hold slaves, as Yotick jests
and sing lover gravcdiggmg.
But sAery cannot go into California Or New
Mexico, bcanse their staple productions are
not 'tobaCo, cane, cotton, or rice" p. "A -
There ah agricultural products. But is slave
labor confined to agriculture? Suppose thai
pre1iol slavery will not become common in the
new territories. Cannot mental? If slaves
cannot do field work, cannot they do hou
work? There is an opening for a hundred thous
purposes Of domestic labor And beyond this
let me ask, who possessed any such geological
vision that the distance of thousand mle
he can penetrate the valleys and gorges Of New
Mexico, and say that gold will not yet be founc
there as it is in Callfornia-not in sand and il
gravel only, but in forty eight Founders and il
fifty sixest This is the very kind of labor OF
which slates, in all times, have been so eXten
sivcly employed that very labor on which
million of'slaves IN fIispaniola lost their lives
within few years after its discovery by Colum
bus. Gold deposits are now worked With
twenty-five niles of Santa Fe. The last &C
count which have seen Of a company OF emf
grants passing from Santa Fe or California by tn
river Gila, announces rich discoveries OF goI
upon that flyer. A fellow citizen of mine ha
just returned home, who says he saw slav
sold at the mines in California, in Septembe
last. AS ye, the distance regions of the Gil
and the Colorado cannot be worked, because c
the Apache, the Utahs, and other tribes Of In
dians. Butadmit slavery there, and the powe
of the Government will be invoked to extormi
nate these lIdians, as it was before to extermi
nate the Cqaokees and Seminoles--not to driv
them beyohd the Mississippi, but beyond tn
Styx.
few days since a letter was published in tn
papers, datfcon board steamer descending tn
Mississippi which stated that a considerable
number oil sIves were OIL board, bound for Cal
tornla, unpe an agreement with their master
that they shnld be free after serving two year
assigned II Incorporating provision in tn
constitutional California, authorizing It's Legis
lature to PISS laws for the exclusion of free
blacks from The State, was, that slaves would b.
brought thee under this very form of govern
menl and, y and by, the country would be o
verspread b. people of color, who had bough
their freedom, The sagacious men who framed
the Calitorna constitution, came from all part,
of the territry, and being collected together or
the spot, haing surveyed all its mountains, hav.
ing rebathe its air at all temperatures, and urn.
ed up It's OGDEN so--these men had never dis.
covered any" law Of physical geography" which
the fell spir of slavery could not transgress.-
Slaves werccaried into Oregon, ten degrees Of
latitude higIer up. Its colonists re-enacted The
ordinance ol7S7, before Congress gave them a
territorial government. In the territorial govern
mcnt that WIS given to them, the prohibition was
inserted: AMI President Polk signed the bill
with an expess protest that he ratified this ex.
cluslon of shvery only because the county lay
north of the Missouri compromise line-but that
had it embraced the very region in question, he
would have etoed the bill.
Gen Cas- never took the ground that slavery
could not exist in the new territories and no in
considerable part of The opposition made to him
in Massachusetts, and in other Tree States, was
placed expressly on the ground that he would
not prohibit il. Mr.. Webster, in his Marshield
speech, Sept l, 2848, opposed the election of
Gen. Cass, because through his recrcancy to
Northern principle, slavery would invade the ter
rltories This was expressed with his usual
cearness and force, as follows:
Gle Gen Cass will surely have the Senate,
and with the patronage of the government, with
every interest that he, a Northern man, can
bring to bear, co operating with every interest
that the South can bring to BEAR we cry safety
before we are out of the woods, # ,Ce feel that
there IS no danger as 10 these new territories"
Yet Mr. Webster now says that to support the
"proyiso," would "do disgrace to his own un-
i! derstanding" p. 49,
During thesame campaign, also, the Hon. Ru-
tus Choate, one of the most eloquent men in New
England, and known to be the personal friend of
MIR. Webster delivered a speech at Salem, in
which the following passage occurs:
1t is the passage Of law to say that Calllor-
MIA and New Mexico shall remain forever free.
That is, fellow-citizcns, undoubtedly an object
OF great and tauscendent Importance; Tor there
is none who will deny that we should go up to
the very limits Of the Constitution itself, and
with the wisdom of the wisest, and zeal of the
most Jealous, shonld unite to accomplish this
great object, and to defeat the always detested
and forever to be detested object of the dark
ambition of that candidate Of the Baltimore Con
vention, who has yentured TO pledge hImsefln
advance that he will veto the future law of free
dom; and may God avert the madness OF all
! those who hate slavery and love freedom, that
,, would unite in putting him in the place where
this thrice accused pledge may be redeemed
! Is there whig upon this
floor who doubts that the strength of the wing
; party next March will insure freedom to Calitor
MIA and New Mexico, ifby the Constitution they
are entitled to freedom at all? Is there mem
Der of Congress that would not vote for freedom:
You know there is not one. Didnot every wing
, member of Congress from the free States vote at
the last session for freedom? You know, that