Bedford inquirer and chronicle. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1854-1857, 1857-04-24
THE sT. LOUIS STRUGGLE.

ing, as II did, IN tue election OK the ALii-
Blayery municipal ticket By % deeid. d a
majority. 1t is the frs. indication ever set
given on the part Of the laloring white
population Of any Southern slaveheldng
community of anything like just compre-
hension of the bearing Of the slavehpldng
system on themselves, aud their SOCIAL po-
siiion and economical interests. l. is, IN
fact, democratical uprising such as 10
Southern State has ever before Known
There has been great deal Of talk 1T tile
South about Democracy, bat hitherto il
has been only talk. IL every Souihern
State the planters have been everything,
and the laboriag men, merchants, nechau-
les, professional men, nothing may
say, in deed, less ttan nothing, aLuogaiing
themselves and their own interests to be-
come mere echoes Of the planters. In St.
Louis we see the commencement of process
BY which Slavery IS speedily To BE driven
from all the most enterprising and vigorous
Of the Slavehnldiug States. We have spo-
ken OF the AntiSaycry triumph IN that city
as the act of the laboring men. But they
were not the only actors. The moneyed men,
the business leaders Of The city, coucrrrea
and co-operatedin in it. The combined forces
Of capital, industry aud intelligence carried
the day oyer the lopg-estabishca authority
of the country planters. who have hitherto
ruled in ST. Louis with the same authority
almost as on their own plantations.
1t is observable that in Europe tue abo-
lition of Slavery and serfdon began with
the towns. As the spirit Of industry. pro-
duction and acquisition developed itself, free
labor came more and more into vogue. 1t
WAS soon discovered that slave labor was
Incompatible with the higher degrees of skill
and industry, and still more wih the higher
degrees of production aud consumption both,
Of which depend mutually en- each other. =
Throughout Europe tie towns, as they grew
in size and wealth, became the seats Of free
labor, and places of refuge to the serfs who
fed FROM the expressions Of their masters.
From the towns the same system of fre1
labor gradually extended itself into tie
country. It was shown in the vicmags Of
the cities that free labor had no less ad
vantage over slave labor in agriculture than
in manufactures and the arts, and hence, b.
degrees, the total abolition of slavery
throughout Western Eutopc.
It's in accordance with the nature Of
things that the advocacy Of free labor ana
elfectual opposition TO the slaveholding sys-
tom in our Southern States should fad lis
first fra points Of support in tue commercial
cities Of those States. The failure Of the
agitation SET on foot by Jefferson, and
courtenanced and supported by Washiug-
ton, Madison, Henry aud other distinguish
ed Southern statesmen of the Revolutionary
period, for the abolition OF Slavery, is mainly
TO be ascribed to the fact that, like
Arch,metes, they had no ground upon Which
to fix their machinery, aud whence to carry
on their operations. Hitherto, the planting
interest has beer entirely predominant
throughout tie South, and the mercantile
and town interest utterly insignificant
There we're no towns, or next tQ none, IN
which the advocacy of free labor could
organize itself Such towns as existed were
but mere points for collecting the produce
of the planters and furnishing tbem with
supplies, aud the men engaged in this basi-
ness sought to secure planter custom by out
doing each other in humble Submission and
Difference 10 planter dictation, St. Louis is
almost the first Southern town which has
outgrown, or which has felt itself to have
outgrowu, this condition of shop keeping
Yessalage. ST. Louis aspires to become a
great commercial city--a center of trade.
sealth, arts. literature, science, elegance
aud enighyorment--a focus OF civilization
and production; aud to become that, her
Inhabitants perceive not only the necessity
of freedom aud free labor for themselves and
within their own limits, but the necessity of
freedom and free labor for the country
around them. Comparing Missouri with
Illinois on tie east, and Iowa on the north,
the vast advantages Of free labor are too
palpabls TO be overlooked. The citizens Of
St. Louis do not desire that the State of
Missouri shoald become new Alabama,
| whence, after settlement offrom twenty to
thirty years, the inhabitants are now rushing
in masses from exhausted and worn out
plantations to find new lands in Arkansas
and Texas on which to repeat the same ex-
pertinent. The citizens of st. Louis have
the sagacity to perceive that a permanent
and progressive prosperity can only rest on
the basis Of free labor; and perceiyiug this,
they have had the courage and the spirit to
emancipate themselves from planter dicta-
ton, to proclaim their intention to act up