True American. [volume] (Steubenville [Ohio]) 1855-1861, 1857-04-22

~ ne lOlloWlng from lne wheeling
Inlelligencer, which paper is daily taking
more bold and decided stand in favor Of
free white labor in the State Of Virginia,
embodies much sound sense and its con
clusionS are not truer than its prOphesies.
That man is blind and foolish who does
not see that slave labor is obnoxious to
the interests Of the laboring white man.;
or who thinks that it will not ultimately
yield 10 his instincts, sooner or later.
The RECENT ELEcTIoNs.--Since the
Presidential election last fall, Stale cleo
tions have taken place in New York,
New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connec-
Iicut, Michigan, Wisconsin: besides Mu'
nicipal elections in the cities in Maine,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois Missouri,
and louisiana. In these elections the op-
position have triumphed in almost every
instance. In many of them, they have
gained largely, and in several the majOri-
ties are overwhelming Although coun-
tY elections are not to be received as the
exact indices of the slate of national par.
lies, yet when they are manifestly one.
sided, they are quite significant. or
such character seems the late contests.
Among these, the triumph of the eman-
cipalionists in ST.. Louis is the most re-
markable. 1t is. undepiabIy, a marked
event, and sets The stamp Of destiny on
the future of Missouri. Like the mar.
tyrdom of Cranmer it has lit the candle
which will not be put out.
II is the part Of wisdom that men OF
all parties should turn about and face
such events as these, and throw aside
prejudice so far as 10 look reasonably and
philosophically into their meaning. -
There is no use in men, who have capa-
city and intelligence 10 think, shutting
out from their view the real signs of The
times, merely because they may be dis
tasteful to them. They may do so, but
they only will be the loosers thereby. A
partizan press may succeed, by artful
sophistry, in making the worse appear
the better reason to the people, and dri-
wing from them that equitable precep-
ton of passing events, which seem mate
in humanity; but it is only like the blind,
leading the blind andboth will fall into the
ditch eventually.
Those elections do demonstrate this
fact beyond a cavil, that the sentiment of
The great majority, of the people of this
Union Is irrevocably opposed to the ex-
tension of slavery: that they are deter.
mined, if overwhelming public sentiment
can avail anything, another slave State
shall not be admitted into the confederacy.
And why are they so determined Be-
cause they believe, and not only believe,
but see and know, that slavery is an un,
mitigated curse to the soil that suslains it.
They know this, because they see every
free State oulstripping every slave State
in all the elements that make people
powerful and prosperous because they
see the people in the one, educated and
thrifty, and in the other ignorant and
thriitless; because they have before their
eyes Stale like our own, once the very
Union itself, almost, in importance; TO.
day taking her rank as a fifth rate power.
These are facts at which the people
look, and disguised, tortured, and garbled
as they are by the casuistry and hair
splitting politicians Of the huslings and
the partizan press, they will impress them
selves on their " sober, second thought" "
The conclusion then of the whole mat
ter is, that dislike it, ridicule it, or perse-
cute it as we may, that great move
nent on the part of the people like this,
against the further extenlion of slavery
cannot be Put down. Like Banquo's
ghost it will not heed the bidding. Ii
will work out its end, and wha, that will
be, we do moi pretend to predict, but com.
mon sense, and history which is "phy
losophy touching by example," tells us
that it is not without purpose.