The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-04-03

origin Oh the hnON NOlning, OF American
party, like many other things about it, is un-
known. Whether it was cunning invention
of the counseIlors of the Slave Power, or
whether, with characteristic promptness of
sight and action, they seized upon it in ITS in
fancy 10 nurse it into q strength to serve their
purposes, is what the future NAV perhaps dis
close Certain it is, that nothing could have
been more opportune for them than its vigorous
birth at such turning point of their fortunes.
Numbers of impatient friends of Freedom at
the North, glad Of anything which promised |
to release the country from the bondage of par
ties which they had come to loathe, rushed |
into it without reflection, enrolling themselves |
in, and placing themselves at the mercy of, |
another Janus faced organization, ike that of
the now defunct Wing party, of which the |
Southern face was to wear all the smiles and |
frowns, and the Northern all the paleness and |
sycophancy. No more glaringly absurd pre-
tence could be set mp, on the part of the Slave |
Power managers than that of a fear Of immi-
grafton from abroad, as matter of domestic
concern for themselves. TT they dread it, 1t is I
because immigration comes to the non-slave
holding section, charging its power and wealth. |
But it was eminently to their purpose to fos-
ter a party erected on this basis in the North |
ern States, because it would Serve for them the
same use as the party lately dead, breaking up
the unity of Northern politics. and disabling
opposition to the dominant Slave Power. Ac-
cordingly, notwithstanding the recalcitration |
of numbers who went into it with better hopes, |
the American party is taking, more and more
manifestly every day, the form and pressure OF
the old Wing party under alias. Already
it dominates the Wing promoter and signer of
the Fugitive Slave Bill as its candidate for the
Presidency, and an obscure Tennessean slave.
holder for the second Office. To the friends of
Freedom who still adhere TO it. it now only re-
mains to yield TO such seductions as formerly
they withstood, or else make a second exodus
from Egypt.
The portentous encroachments of the ma
| tional Judges, nominees of the Slave Power in
the Presidential chair and in the Senate, on
the Common Law, and all the precious rights
the Common Law grew up to shield, are
lient feature Of the history of recent years.
Juries packed iurymen excluded from the panel
for the reason of simple avowal, when put on
oath, Of their being friends to human rights
| officers savagely threatened from the bench for
: serving State writ of hdbeds corpus-an ex
empary citizen imprisoned without limitation
of time for an alleged contempt, consisting of
a true and respectful return to q summons
these are proceedings which not long ago it was
little apprehended would again stain the judi
cial history of any branch of the AngloSaxon
race. Above and beyond all questions of pri-
vate and limited wrong, however revolting-for
one man can only endure wrong through life
time, and the motive for his oppression may
cease or be neutrality-suspicious. are now pend
ing before the Federal Judiciary, of unsur-
passed permanent importance to the nation, to
freedom, and to humanity. The danger is i'm
minent, that, in the train of the novel doctrine
which that tribunal seems to be contemplating
in connection with the Lennon, Wheeler, and
Gaines cases, at New Y ork, Philadelphia, and
Cincinnati, it may adjudge and decree the
right of slaveholding to be so universal and
paramount, that free States shall be made slave
States against their own constitutional will.
1t is natural that the recent and passing
transactions in Kansas should be watched with
singular interest, because of their conspicuous
theatre, and because OF the evident magnitude
of the interests Immediately at stake. But
I they should occasion no surprise to any one
who has intelligently regarded that course of
earlier events which has now been sketched.
The indisputable truth is, that we have been
moving through the successive steps of thor
ough revolution of the Government. We have
been gradually sinking the character of free
men, and becoming the lieges of an Oligarchy
We have been passing, by regular gradations,
under the dominion of Power, which Of course
will make us feel it more, the stronger, through
our declining strength and spirit, it becomes.
1t is not far from seventy years since William
! Pinkney, of Maryland, said, that if Slavery
should survive fifty years, it would "work q
decay Of the spirit of Liberty in the free States"
| Unless things mend very soon, the future his
torian will have the saddest Of commentaries to
write on that prediction-already. indeed. suf
fciently indicated. The proceedings in Kan
sas have been stupendously atrocious, no doubt
| But he must be uniformed or unrehecting, who
is astonshed at them, as if there was any VIC
| lenpa or any fraud which the Pouar that m GO no
to have "a helpless under it's feet, would shrink
from, for the furtherance of its object. If, in
that country, honest and peaceable lovers of
Freedom have been murdered by it in cold blood
they do not come near the aggregate number
Of those who, in past years. have met singly the
same fate, for the same. offence, in separate
regions of the sunny South. If armed bands
from Missouri have seized with red hand on
the Government of Kansas, how have the des-
tined subjects of the Slave Power in Kansas
Jared worse-eXcept for the rudeness of the
method-than ali of us twenty millions of
non-saveholders whose chief rulers the Slave
| Power has long managed to choose, every four
years? If pretended laws of Kansas make it g.
felony to refer in word or writing to the inioui.
ty of human bondage, what suppression of the
freedom of speech or of the press do those laws
contemplate more complete than is now enfor.
ced with or without law, in all the Southern
States of this UnionP And if the freemen of
Kansas have had to arm for the protection of
their homes, what is that different from what
every dweller in the Southern country would
need to do, if he intended to assert rights with
which the Constitution processes to invest him
or from what all we Northern people, or our
children, viii BE- forced at last to do, as surely
as time moves on, ualess we make haste to
avert the catastrophe by seasoHsbls peaceful
remedies, which, to be avaiing cannot be long
delayed or unless we become reconeied to the
chains which have been forging, and which, if
we consent to play with longer, after our recent
lessons, we shall we'll deserve to wear.
The character of the Federal Administration
for the next term, which is nightly to infu-
ence all succeeding terms, is to be determined
within the next coming eight months. Conse-
quences perfectly inestimable are suspended
on that decision. The peoples reform, when
they are ready for ii, sapst begin at the foun-
nhead OF administrative powe.. With the
election of a President worthy of the place, a
man of honor, truth, and intelligent patriotism,
new face will be put on affairs As John
Jay wrote 70 Washington, in the dark spring of
l779, Things VIII come right, and these
States will be great Snd tourishing." There
are not wanting suspicious signs, notyitn-
standing the oppressive blackness in the ma.
lign quarter of the sky. However eunSarrass.
ed, still, for concerted and concentrated effort
by distraction upon inferior issues, it is very
long tine since such large numbers of brave,
thinking, and upright men we're so moved by
one sentiment of patriotic alarm for the destiny
of their children and their country. Nay God
confirm the omen of recent triumph, inferior
in importance only to the decisive one. Weak
H. L., L. 49, IL. Eo~