Richmond daily times. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1853, 1852-05-04

labored defence of Mr.. B. F. Hallett, against the
charge of freesoism. The writer very discreet
ly abstains from any alusion to the paragraphs
Gently quoted from the Boston Daily Advocate
paper edited by MIR. Hallett some fifteen or six
teen years ago. The sentiments embodied in
those extracts prove beyond a doubt that the pre-
sent Chairman of the Democratic National Com
mittee was at the period referred to not only q
free soler but an abotionist and anti-slavery ia
natic of the worst stamp. We cannot, therefore,
but admire and commend the prudence of Mr..
Hallett's apologist in passing this portion of
his public career sub silentio.
The writer's leading obsect is to defend Mr.. Hal
letts course in the Massachusetts Democratic
State Convention of 1s49 when as Chairman of
committee, he reported those famous free soil re-
solutions which were recently brought to light by
Mr.. Rantoulin the House of Representatives, and
which have since been so extensively quoted by
the Wing papers of the South. One of those re-
solutions is in the following words:
Resolved That we are opposed to slavery in any form
and colsr and In favor of freedom and free SOIL wherever
man lives throughout Gods heritage
Now to the plain intelligence of the reader
this resolution appears to be susceptible of but
one construction, and stamps its author as an un-
mitigated free soiler in the worst sense of the
term. But Mr.. Hallett's champion, nothing
daunted offers the following remarkable explana-
ton of its meaning:
was that committee, and know that this was as
sented to as being in the then of parties in the
Commonwealth merely offset to the pretence then set
up by Wings and Abolitionists las popular cry against
u.s. that they the erclsice friends of freedom and
SOIL In general and universal sense, as doctrine
OF liberty The cant phrase of reesoil had then be-
gun to be appropriated by party in Massachusetts, and
the worst that be said of this resolution taken
the time when 1t had much less meaning than it
seems to have that it meeting abstraction with
abstraction. In general sense and sentiment of
universal liberty, no republican, South North will
hesitate to say that he is opposed to of
slavery and in favor of freedom and free SOIL every
where throughout Gods heritage Surely the soil of the
South is free the soil OF the North and all is free
SOL IN republican government AS SENTIMENT there
fore aside from any local application to the domestic in
stutlons OF the South which was not intended it is
true and sound the declaration of the Continental
Congress that all men are created free and equal
Thus it appears that when Mr.. Hallett and the
Massachusetts Democracy declared that they
were "opposed to slavery in any form and color
and in favor of freedom and tree-soil'' every
where, they simply meant to avow general pre-
ference for free and republican form of govern
ment This is recurring to fundamental princi-
pies with vengeance, and the abstractionists of
Virginia must henceforth yield the palm of supe
riority to their Massachusetts brethren in that
species of humbuggery, which consists in the
lemn re-afirmation of undisputed truths and UNI
meaning generalities. Virginia Democracy may
re-assert the principles of the resolutions of '9S
and '99, but Massachusetts Democracy goes
bowshot further and in the seventy fifth year of
our existence as nation, readopts as part po
litical platform the principles of the Declaration
of Independence. But this attempt to explain
away the obvious meaning of Mr.. Halletts resolu-
ton, and to screen that individual from the
charge of free-soili is too far-tetched and RI
diculous to deserve serious notice. The word
Free-soil was meyer used, we will venture to as
sert either before since the presentation of the
resolution in question, but in reference to the ex
istence of African slavery in the United States,
and if the trainers of the resolution employed it in
apy other sense, it is manifest that they practsed
a shameless fraud upon the Convention that adop-
ted it. But the words 'we are opposed to slave
nv in every form and Color" clearly show that the
resolution was not designed as general declara-
ton in favor of universal liberty, but was aimed
specially at the institution of slavery in the
southern States
twill be recollected that Mr. Haett in his late
letter to the Hon. Geo. w. Thompson, denounced
Mr. Rantoul for having, as he said, dishonesty
garbIed one This resolutions. The writer In the
Union gives the resolution entire. 1t reads as
follows:
nResoired That are opposed to the extension Of
slavery 70 free Territories and III favor OF the exercise
Of ali Constitutional and necessary means to restrict 1t TO
tbe limitation within which 1T does or may exist by the
lcsIsu-s nj the states; tut resolved that these senti
nents are 40 universal the North as to belong TO no
pary being held in by nearly all men north OF
sectional line while they are repudated oy most men
tt0nai party test
The first half of this resolution was quoted by
MIR. Rantoul, and the latter, commencing with
but" omitted. But, a. we always suspected the