The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1855-05-03


contrary, the fact cannot be disguised, that The
question of Slavery is the question dividing al
parties, and the only question in which the
mass of the people feel any interest. Wher
the Federal Government is divorced from
Slavery, and the responsibility for the existence
of the institution is thrown upon the States IL
which it exists then will be time enough for the
people of the North to take up other questions
OF less Importance. But until that end Is
reached, it is the imperative duty of every lover
of Freedom to stand aloof from all entangling
alliances with parties which are not organized
to carry out that object The Republican Party
of the North is the only reliable one |; it has a
broad Anti-Slavery platform, upon which all
haters of oppression can stand and labor. IL
is not so with the American Order. Thousands
and hundreds of thousands of honest Anti
Slavery men cannot stand upon its platform
nor enter its chapters. Nor could they do So
even if the organization was avowedly an Anti
Slavery one, because they are conscientiously
opposed to secret societies.
The tendency of the American Order, then,
is to divide and distract the Anti-Slavery forces
of the North, and, consequently, to strengthen
the Slave Power and to put afar off the day OF
the slaves redemption from bondage. We
advise all, then, who would see America speed
lily free, to stick to the Republican or Fusion
Party, until its objects are brought about OF
effected. For our own part, our mind is made
up. We will never again act with any political
party or society that does not boldly avow its
determination to oppose Oppression, and to
labor for Freedom. And this is the duty of al
Anti-Slavery men at this time, and at all times
so long as there is a slave in America or an
| inch of territory to be made free. More anon
\
| THE KNOW NoTHINGs-DANGER OF THE TWO
EXTREMES
We doubt whether we shall suit
the ultraists upon either side for there are
utras upon both sides of this question, who
are nearer each other than we are to either
of them. The one side would prescribe all fer
signers, however meritoriOus. The other would
deceive the foreigner into their support, whilst
pursuing course of measures more fatal to
his interests than any now proposed by the
Know Nothngs. The only inducement for
foreigners to come to this country is our system
of labor. Deprive the mass of foreigners that
come to this country of their labor, and you
deprive them of their bread. The Know Moth.
ings would deprive foreigners of their votes,
but they would not touch their children born
in this country. The Slavery-extensionists, by
giving slave labor preference over free labor,
would affect not only foreigners, but their chill
dren, from generation to generation.
There is nothing that shareholders hate so
bad as foreign laborer; because, as free la.
Dor increases, the price of slave labor dimin-
ishes. If foreigners go to Kansas, the Know
Nothings would not let them vote, and the
shareholders would not let them work. And
yet the shareholders are relying upon the un-
popularity of Know Nothingism among for
eigners, to enable them to carry out policy
which would have all ~ railroads, canals, and
other public works, constructed by slaves, and
all our new Territories settled by shareholders
We are free TO say, that we want to use all con-
stitutional means to drive slave labor from this
country. To do this, we must substitute free
labor for slave labor. And where is our free
labor to come from? Where else, but from our
foreign emigration? AS General Houston said
in Boston, Northerners have no slaves, because
they have good labor from the foreign popula-
ton, whilst the South is compelled to resort to
slave labor, because free labor is slow to go
where slave labor is, and consequently is slow
to crowd it out. No true AntiSavery man
will Cypress the foreigner, whilst every Slavery
extensionist and every tolerator of Slavery is
instinctively a worse enemy to the. foreigners
than the most prejudiced Know Nothing can be.
We have voted for a great many strangers
and great many foreigners, in our day, and
expect to vote for great many more but we
would consider ourself the vilest hypocrite, if
We protested to be a friend to foreigners, whilst
directly or indirectly encouraging the spread or
even the existence of Slavery, or belonged to
any organization which had for its object the
crowdng of foreign labor from Kansas by the
substitution of slave labor.
The great Irish patriot and orator always
refused to shake hands with STAKEHOLDER, how
ever high his position, and but a short time
before his death, withheld his hand from the
Hon. Andrew Stevenson, the American Min
lister at London, when introduced by one of the
British nobility. And it is to be hoped that
the countrymen of O'Connell will never allow
the siren song of AntiKnow Nothingism to be-
tray them into the hands of worse, because
more disguised, enemies than the Know Moth
inps