The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-01-31
No.. l..

NOs l.
The great subject before the people of the
United States, at the present time, ID the dis
turbing action of Slavery in the administration
Of their Government. Everywhere it is the
matter in debate, when men are talking poll
lies. The members Of the National Legisla-
ture met SIX weeks ago, but as yet there is no
National Legislature capable of doing business.
The law-msking power is in allegiance, and no
one guess how long it will continue so.
The reason is, that the more than twenty votes
which, by the three-fifths rule, represent slaves
aud Slavery, in the House of Representatives,
have oyerpowered that majority of the Repre-
senatives Of freemen, which would otherwise
have immediately chosen Speaker, and set
The wheels of Government in motion. During
the same time, we have been watching every
days mail from the Southwest for tidings of
civil war, which it seemed scarcely possible
that the mad outrages of the Slave Power in
That quarter could fail to kindle.
In all nations, in which republican govern
ment has either not been tried, or has ultimate
ly been overthrown, there has been some vigor-
Gus organization of privileged part which has
proved too strong for the liberties of the whole
'ar ancestors, who devised the Federal Consti-
luton, were men well read in political history !;
and when they inquired for the antagonists to
freedom, against which it would be prudent to
erect safeguards, they found two tt. be largely
treated of in the books, viz an order of Priest
hood and a ordar of Harad;+ory Noblo, IT,,
instructed, they took care to provide that no
uie Of nobility shall be granted by the United
"a'es'' Constitution, art l, 3 8, and that
congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment Of religion" - amendments.
an ~ But history gave them no warning in
respect to the subversiop of free institutions by
an arlstocracy constituted and organized on the
Dasls OF ownership of slaves. Such revolu-
NOh was without precedent; and against it &C.
cordlng y they failed to set up any express con-
sutuuonal defence
We are in the last stage of vigorous at
Tempt at q revolution of that kind. The slave
H0iding ohgarchy of the United States, consist
1s' according to the extremely suspicious
S'$'enents of the census, of three or four hum
lieu s' thousand in q population of twenty-five
unions, while others, On apparently good
sounds, believe them to amount to not more
'I'i onethird of that number, is aiming to
eOnurm aud consolidate, beyond recall, that
nloi over the Government of the country,
"-ieh' from an early period, has been passing
o'e and more rapidly into its hands. There
ps'lect fitness in the party designation racent-
assumed by its opponents. The Republican
"y intends that the Government of these
D. "''ea States shall be, and continue to be, a
..'p"'''ea" Government, in form and admins
and that no Slave Power Aristocracy
'' Sa'vert and supersede it.
such movements, until INSTRUCTED, must
h LIS 60 on with accelerating speed, it was to
APeeted, as has been the fact, that the most
0"' ume should witness the intensest action
-; p'alaest development of the power which
"us 10 PROSTATE US. The ten years Just now
He'' beginning with the passage of the act