The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1854-03-15
The Anti-Slavery Meeting Last Night.


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The Anti-Slavery Meeting Last Night.
John Van Burcn's meeting at the Tabernacle
last night was very pleasant good hulnored
affair The Van Buren, leaders judciously kept
themselves in the background, and thrust for
ward gentlemen whose personal and social
standing was probably supposed TO atone for
their lack of public experience and politica,
notoriety. The audience was composed Of the
regular scti-s(avery partisans who have cx-
tended steNay patronage 10 the lectures of
Bcecher, Garrison, Phillips, and Theodore Par
ker and as usual betrayed its character by re-
naming silent amd inattentiW when the consti-
tuition was mentioned, while it applauded vo-
ciferouely every onslaughtsupon slavery, aud
every SANDER upon the South. There was little
in heterogeneous that requires any special an
sweY ct this lste day in the campaign. Those who
have followed the debate in the Senate, aud the
controversy IN the press, will derive hut little
fresh information from slle speeches which are
given elsewhere. Mr.. King repeated all the
cid commoHplaces- ab@lt liberty which ought
by sbhis time, we think, to be tolerably familiar
to New York audiences. They took very well,
however; and when the speaker argued that
because the members Of the first Congress, who
| ought to have understood the constitution, rat-
fed the ordinance Of 1887, therefore that law,
| and those framed on its basis, must be consti-
tutional, Ills hearers were quite Of his mind.
1t would have served little purpose to have ex-
,plained to the admirers of Parker and Garrison
g
| under the pressure of very peculiar circum-
stances at the time: that the slavery question had
already threatened the dissolution of the infant
Union, and that our fathers patriotic men,
were extremely solictous that it should not
again disturb their harmony. Thus when vir-
ginia ceded the Northwest Territory, and,
knowing from its climate and position that ia
voluntary labor was not likely to thrive on its
soil, offered TO consecrate it forever to freedom
the new Congress hastily and nervously adopt
ed the inconsistent ordinance Of itspredecessor,
leaving it to future legislators to remedy the
evil when the foundations of the republic
should he more firmly established. That it was
I 0 the ferbearance, and not to the deliberate
g mction of the South, that that ratification
inn uediately afterwards Virginia ratified the
ordi nance by an act of her Legislature, but
expr, sesly, expupged from the act the section
forbid ding slavery. The Southern men, seeing
no Or. sotieal evil latent in the ordinance Of
1887. a : slavery was sure not to enter the
Northw at Territory, accepted it rather than
ieopardi. H the Union as the meeting OF last
night wo ald have the North now do
Mr.. Gun tie Noyes proved very satisfactorily
that preyi, ss TO the laws Of 1920, the whole of
The terrific. y acquired from France, including
Nebraska. K snsas, and Missouri, was constitu-
tionally omen tc.slavery. 1t was acquired as
slave territor, ': AID could not be free without
special leqislat. Gn-of what constitutienality we
shall see prest ntly-to make it so Well, in
course of time Ussouri fulfilled the conditions
essential to her admission as State. That
admission. to viii, h sic was undoubtedly enti-
tied, was refused L Y by the North, aud an en-
dcavor made to res, tict her rights to less than
those enjoyed by OF har States II was then
first pretended that congress had power ever
the domestic institutio MS of the people in the
Territories This of co, use rested uponn no word
in the constitution but solely on tibet unfortu-
maize ordinance of 1877 rhich the copciliatory
spirit of the South had Induced it 10 ratify
against its sober Judgment. The South was in
fact paying the usual pentuty of injpdicious
generosity. The North stormed terribly. Meet
ings were held; le. gislatures threatened; me
MORALS poured in; the whole country was IN
din and uprcar. till, a. often happens in similar
in private life, il was resolved to
patch the former wrong by fresh wrong. to
cover up the wound who y 1857 had Inflicted
upon the constitution win plaster under
which il might inlame and fe 'ter unseen This
plaster was the compromise OF 1877, win me
proviso that im territory norm
Of IS deg 80 min. slave labor sl, 't'id never DC
used. Congress might AZ legally ha We clucted
that shovels or wheelbarrows should never DC
employed there.
But we cannot further follow Mr. Gurus
Noyes, or his successor Mr.. Kaufman who
startled us with the intelligence that the C, r
man meeting few days ago did know wha.
they were about, and didn't suppose they we're I
voting against the Maine law. Our table
groans beneath manifold refutations Of their |
stcrcoyped nonsense.
II il more useful 10 noties TIE sne4aiyocal