Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1855-05-17
THE RESTORATION OF THE MISSOURI
COMPROMISE. ~

We perceive that many Of our professedly
free soil contemporaries Of the press, under the
lead of the N. Y. Tribune, are beginning to adj
vocate the restoration of the Missouri Compro-
mise line of 1920 as the best means of staying
the aggressions of Slavery, and of restoring the
country to the peace and quiet which was 50
disturbed by the passage of the Nebraska bill
of the last Congress.
10 such proposition we beg leave to enter
our dissent; and however great the temptation
of the Free State members OF the next Congress,
II large proportion of whom were elected IN the
anti-Ncbraska test, may be to rcpudiate the acts
of their predecessors by going for the repeal of
the Nebraska bill, and thereby show their oppo-
sition to tho aggressions of tho Slave Power,
we hope they will take Other, and more eff
Gent methods of exhibiting their anti slavery feel
ings than by expanding them in attempts TO res
tore that old line of demarcation between Freedom
and Slavery, and thus again throw around us
another of those fatal nooses by which we have
been so long entangled, in tho shape of the So
called compromises with slavery. When the
South effected the repeal of that line in the pas
sage of the Nebrask bill, they fully exhonerated
us from MI compromises with them in the matter
of slavery and now, since we are as honoraby,
as we are fully, freed from the entanglements of
those compromises, which have ever held in
check the antslavery action of the NORTH
shall We again suffer ourselves to be enclosed in
their tolls Never Our motto should now be
g no more compromises with Slavery-no more
| compromises or conpacts with those who make
them but to break them with the first event
which seems to promise them an advantage-no
more payleying with that Power which has so
plainly shown that, on her part, no truce or
treaty is sacred. And, after what has now pas
Sod, we would as soon enter into compromise
with the Prince of darkness, with the hope of
combining his operations to given portion of the
earth, as with the Slave Power of the South,
with the expectation of gaining anything in the
restriction of her darling institution.
Sncl refusal to enter ,nto any further COM
promises with the South on the SUI ject Of Slav-
cry, we believe to be the dictate of both Islicy
and principle Tho South would aevcr observe
any compromises were it not for their interest to
do SO and beside this, such an act on cur part
would involve us in completely with system
which all know, and great majority now
feel to be one of uamidgated oppression and
wickedness So that while we should gain
nothing, and less than nothing, probably. by a
compromise with Slavery, we should more than
ever become participant in It's crimes, and con-
senting to the continuance of its destructive in
iluence on the common liberties Of the country
We sincerely hope, therefore, that the next
Congress, even should they have the power, will
make no attempt 10 restore the old Missouri
Compromise; but concentrate their action fo
the protection Of Kansas and the repeal of tn
Fugitive Slave Law, which will be glery enough
for one session and If not, let them strike
blow for the emancipation of the District O
Columbia ; and there begin Oh the initiator
steps for abolishing, under the commerce claus
Of the Constitution, the detestable commerce i
human chattels now so extensively CARRIED o.
between the more Northern and Southern Slav
States to the inetiable disgrace of cur SO muc
boasted free Republic.