Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1852-12-30
The New Year.

After rendering to each and all of our kind
and indulgent patrons the compliments Of the
season, and sincerely wishing them every attain
able happiness and prosperity through the year
upon which we are about to enter, let us panse
for moment in this notch of time, to glance
back upon the past and forward to the future
and see what Of warning and instruction we
can find in the retrospect and what OF hope
and promise in the prospect
Well, what of the past year? We said last
year that the year then just gone had been
dark one, and that the only certain good to the
great cause of human freedom we advocate,
which we could see in the next year, was the
overthrow and probable destruction of one of the
two great political parties whose transgIessions
against Liberty and Right had made the past
wear what it was. And we now have to say Of
the year Just closed that it has been darker, if
possible, than its predecessor, the general gloom
having been relieved only by the meteor CLEANS
which the Kossu,hs and Summers OF the day
have thrown over it to make the surrounding
Aa.l.r,sa-- A. hla-A hhauGb the nre-
dicted event of the fatal rolt Of one of the two
great transgressing parties has been fulfilled in
q manner which is full of instruction and full of
warning to erring and treacherous politicians
yet the nroads which have been made on the
spirit of our Constitution, and both spirit and
letter of our Declaration of Independence have
b,,fora auJnniOua nd
alarming. The reactionary wave which common
ced its devastating influx upon Freedom, both in
Europe and America, in 1850 has continued to
roll up and up, till its black mountain billow, now
at the close oil 1852, stands balanced and qniv-
ering in its unnatural bulk and altitude. 1t must
be so. 1t is so. The foul tide can rise no high
er, and it cannot long remain stationary The
year 1853 will witness the beginning of the re-
ceding movement. Literature has been sowing
the seeds of Freedom broadcast over the land
as never before Reason has presented her I'M
answered and unanswerable argument, rolled up
her scroll, and stands proudly and canlden'Iy
awaiting the inevitable result on the nations
mind, and outraged Humanity and Religion have
sent up their coming led cries to high Heaven;
and are looking for response with that eye oil
faith which will spec Oily bring it. The fruits O.
all these are as certain as those of the natural
seeds which arc thrown inte the earth, and their
development can only be Il question OF time
The very faith and confidence, indeed with
which the friends of Humanity and Constitution
al Liberty are looking for the appearance of light
in the east, are among the surest of the indlca-
tions that the day is breaking. The immediate
future is evidently big with political events and
those events as evidently relate to the olsen
thralneDt Of the general mind from the mists
which the selfish but suicidal South have con-
tnued to throw over ito the restoration of the
old standards of republican rights taught by the
illustrious Jefferson, and to the final overthrow
of every system Of human oppression, and espe.
cially that thrlce accursed one which blackens,
blights, blasts, and threatens with ruin the last
hope of pol,t,eal Fsaedom in ttas sys.si''- s''-'
American Republic.
For these reasons we hail as suspicious the
day that ushers IN the year 1858.