Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1855-04-05
TEL P, THOMPSON, Editor
THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE.

NO one who will be at the pains of taking
retrospective glance over the events attending
the struggle between Freedom and Slavery. can
sail to perceive how great contrast is presented
IN the state OF the contest twenty years ago and
The present time. Twenty years ago, or about
that period, the Anti-Savery movement was in
Its inception, and few honest, earnest men
only, were to be found who had the moral cour-
age to avow their convictions of the enormitv
OF Slavery, and still fewer to carry out those
convictions in their public action. And well
might common men shrink from encountering
the storm of obloquy, scorn and ridcule, that
was everywhere poured on tne heuis of that
brave little band who chen had the stamina to
stand up and openly proclaim their hatred to
the giant evil and wickedness Of Slavery. We
well remember the time when Jonathan P. Mil
Ter had to stand, with bludgeon in his hand, by
the side of an Anti Slavery Lecturer, in the old
State Heuse-in Montpelier, to protect him from
the fury of a mob headed by some of our most
influential citizens--we well remember, also,
when the first Anti-Slavery Representative, in
the person OF the unainching father Goodale of
Jamaica, took his seat in the Legisature-how
men turned up their eyes in wonder when it was
announced that man had been elected on such
principles, and how they sneered and tickled land
laughed him to scorn, us he stood up alone on
the floor of the Representatives Hall, manfully
doing battle for Freedom And we all remem.
Der how William Lloyd Garrison was seized,
while addressing female Anti-Slavcry Meeting,
by lawless mob, at which even the authorities
conniVed, and how the peaceful and helpless fe-
males CT his audience were Missed and hooted out
Of the house, and how he was dragged, with
halter around his neck, through the public
streets Of Boston. And, lastly, we all remem-
Der how struggled, fought and died the martyr
Lovejoy, whose blood is still crying from the
ground to Heaven for vengeance on the " Black
Power" which iustigated the foul deed, and all
those who, in this time of light, are still base
enough to justify Or extenuale it
Such was the Past. But oh what contrast
does it present when compared with the aspects
of the Present, when, as now, we see half the
Legislatures of the Free States giving public ex-
pressions Of sentiment against Slavery, as strong
and decided as ever Miller, or Goodale, or Gar
rison, Or Lovejoy proclaimed; and when we sec
score Of the determined champions of Freedom
In that stronghold of the Slave Power, the Con-
gress of the nation, and there fighting hand to
hand with the tallest of the emery,
Ay, what changc9 And who have been the
most instrumental in producing that change!
Who but that same little feeble band who were
thus prosecuted, pointed at in the Streets Kissed
and booted in the public assembly, and mobbed
and murdered wherever found congregated, in
almost every city and village in the Union
Old Liberty men find you no reward for
your tolls and sufferings, in the glorious fruits
now spread out before you, 1t is harvest
which has sprang up and matured from the seeds
of your own sowing.
But what of the future! Are the fruits of
which we have spoken secured for appropria-
tiona Though the harvest is white, is it gar
nered against the storms of the future, the por-
tents of which still darken the political skies,
and frown ominously in the distance In other
words, how is this widely extended and powerful
anti-slavery feeling to be concentrated and
guided to the great practical result for which it
was intended The clements, it is true, are nu-
merous and powerful but they are scattered and
divided Some of them are in action in the
separate organization Of the old Anti-Slavery
party-some of them in the more numerous
Free Deinocracy--some in the new association
Of the so-called Know Nothings, and some I'M
der the scarcely more definite name of Republic
cans How shall the whole mass be concentra-
ted and made to bear on the common object of
all This, it strikes US, is now the first thing
that demands the attention of the friends of
Freedom for if all these clements can be united,
an Amy will be formed which will 60 on con-
quering and to conquer, till the great object be
accomplished; but if they cannot, who sees not
the danger that not only nothing efcctual will
be done, but that the fruits of all that has been
done will be lost foreverl