New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1856-02-23

the question OF the tune. IL IS Pfhcucai, 'ltal'
urgent. Every man in the Executive or Lsgisla-
tive. and we may add, the Judicial Depart
ment of the General Government, Is called upon
10 have. and il may be TO express and act
upon an opinion touching the extension Of Slavery.
Indeed every public man must, at one time or
another be forced to say whether he does or does
NOT favor it. and whether he will will not act
as to widen the existing boundaries OF this fell
curse. No party therefore can avoid committing
itself upon the question. As things now stand, and
as they are DOW tending, the whole country is open
10 Slavery. Not only our uncultivated domain,
but the soil Of every Sta.e, according to the chief
law officer Of the Administration, and the leading
Northern iurists acting under its inspiration is
open tot the polluted tread of the slave trader with
his chained gangs of human victims at his heels
We might well stop here to ask Why does not the
North present an unbroken front, single voice OF
resistance to such state Of things AT least
every man and every party must have an
opinion and course Of action upon it. There
is no alternative. 1t is resistance or ac-
Quiescence. And the party or the man who
does not oppose it, is distinctly on the side
of Slavery and distinctly against Freedom. Sla-
very is in possession of the contested field. To do
nothing is TO leave it there. Acquiescence is oil
that Slavery needs and all that its advocates desire
of Northern men. If the KnowNothing party.
therefore is not willing to take position Of active
hostility against the extension Of Slavery, 1t be-
comes power in aid of the Southern privileged
class: a bulwark of their system. In that case it
II II. i. LII l. 81 ha
deadliest foe of Freedom, for its acts of hos
tility are covert and insidious and in the pecious
guise of neutrality.
The supreme purpose of the leaders in the Know
Nothing ranks is to destroy the cause of Freedom
without seeming to do so, to bring their party to
support the extension of Slavery without allowing
the Northern masses to become aware of 1t. 1t
is this dupcity alone which causes them any diff
| Guilty in handling the great question. Being
themselves not hostile to the spread of Slavery,
{ they wonld avow il in terms and adhere to such
policy if they did not fear that such course would
drive off many Anti. Slavery voters on whom they
count. There is body Of Anti-Slavery men
who have acted throughout with the Know
Notbings, and have aimed to carry the party
to the side of Freedom. Their efforts we have
watched always with interest, but never with
hope. These men have already been driven off
from the main body, by the action Of the National
Council in June last, many Of them not to return.
This last attempt at Philadelphia is, we presume,
the end of their endeavors to erect within the
Order proper platform for themselves and their
friends in the North. The present effort proves as
bootless as all that have preceded it, and they must
now retire at once discounted and disheartened at
the prospect of making the Know-Nothing party
even in the North, party of Freedom. We pre-
sume the great body of these men-we mean the
really earnest Anti-Slavery men-will now ally
themselves with the only organization that affords
any hope against the spread of Slavery and the
pernicious legal dogmas touching it, which are
being fostcred into life by the present struggle.