Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1851-05-22
Middlebury, April 90, 1851.
The Progress and Prospect.

The progress of Freedom is now evidently
onward. Every State that has spoken by the
ballot-box, since the enactment of the Fugitive
Slave law, has, in some way or Other, furnished
expressions that have gone IN rebuke of the
bold expressions OF the Slave power, and told
for liberty. Massachusetts having, from peculiar
circumstances, been made the more especial
theatre of action, has nobIy fought, and nobly
triumphed. Even in Ilunker, and almost hope
less New-Hampshire the powers of darkness
have been terribly shaken, and the prospect
there is suspicious of the eventual success of
free principles Rhode leland and Connecticut
have made evident advances from darkness to
light. Maine Is deeply agitated, and, from the
change of some of her presses from Hunkerlsm
to the principles OF liberty, and the sotened
tone of others. we augur favorahly for the result
of her next elections. In New York, if we can
tell anything by the movements of that strange
school of politics, Hunkerism is on the decline,
if her days are not already numbered. And
Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and other parts OF
the great West, almost every where give evidence
that they are in state of transition from the
blindness and indifference, which has so long
and so strangely possessed the public mind re-
speeding the covert dangers of slavery to our
free institutions, to something like a true appre:-
hension of the fearful realities of what has been
so often told them by phlanthroplst and early
statesmen. A revolution in the public senti-
ment on this momentous subject, indeed, seems
everywhere 10 be in silent but steady progress
throughout the free, and in very considerable
portions Of the slave States.
That revolutions do not 60 backwards seems
to be assumed as a political truth, even when
transporting among the benighted masses of Eu.
rope; and if of general application there, how
much less likely are exceptions to the rule tc
occur here, in country where all are capat le
of discussing and understanding principles, ant
where men are SO generally beginning to under.
stand, that their loved Republic, is nourishing
a canker in its core, which must be erudcated
or that Republic ultimately perish? Should the
opposers of Slavery then be discouraged p
Should they despair of seeing the great work o
abolishng this evil effected, because it canno
be accomplished in day or year? In its
abolition, great and peculiar obstacles are to be
Combatted. It is so deeply rooted over nearly
half of our country, as to have become intricate
ly interviewer with the habits, customs, thoughts
and civil regulations of all the people where i
exists; and what is still worse, it is made Il
constitute vast proportion of that which mel
are the last peaceably to relnquish-t prop
erty. England, France, and the other nation
of Europe, that have abolished slavery had nj
the same difficulties to encounter. With ther
slavery was colonial affair and at a distance
1t but little affected home interests, and Their
the Courts, Cabinets and legislative bodies, wer
not made up of interested statesmen and politi
clans, to defeat the enterprise. Here, the insti
tuition is in our midst, constituting half the capi
tai of nearly half of our national law makers
and those too ofan hitherto controlling infuenc
in our Government.
Is it any wonder, then, that progress towards
emancipation has been so slow? Is it not Oh
the contrary, matter of g,atuaton, that tn
advocates of freedom have effected so much un
der such formidable obstacles?
The late desperat, movements of the Soutl
to establish slavery more firmly, through thu
acts OF an Overawed or corrupted Congress
instead Of accomplishing the object, will dc
more we sincerely believe, to hasten the down
iall OF the slave power, than anything that eve
transpred. They have armed the friends q
hoerty with power Of truth and argument
which they have never before possessed, Which
already begins to tell visby on the natiopa
mind' and which must eventually triumph.
The friends of freedom, them have but :,
unite bring oil their strength into the field. pur
sue their advantages, and The victory will now
soon be theirs
AND with the dawnng of such prospects ont
Win the knowledge that without oxertons al