The Council Bluffs nonpareil. [volume] (Council Bluffs [Iowa]) 1857-1867, 1857-12-12
From the st. Louis Democrat.
Er..Ho.~. NJ shn GnmNA

The Free Soil element in the South, I'M
like the pro-slavery element in the North, is
mostly quiet and silent. 1t is latent heat
pervading the frontier States and the COM
mercial cities, and awaiting but the favor
able moment to break forth in light and
glory. In st. Louis alone, is the doctrine
openly avowed and acted upon, but many
signs presage, that the other great cities will
soon follow our lead. Why are all those
cities in opposition to the o-slavery De-
mocracy? Simply because they are savored
with the salt of freedom. Their opposition
may assume the organism of the American
party, but its vitality is derived from free
soil ideas, which are yet too timid to embody
themselves in an organization exclusively
their own. As yet, the free soil sentiment
expresses itself anonymously in New Or
leans, Louisville, Baltimore, Richmond and
other southern cities which are governed by
commerce, but the day is near when it will
come forward in its own name and assume
the responsibility as well as the honors of
its position and conduct.
But the free soil element derives strength
from other diverse causes. Not southern.
er travels in Europe whose faith in the d.
vinity of slavery is not shaken; not an i'm
migrant who crosses Mason and Dixon's
line from the north, or who touches the
banks of the Mississippi from the sea, but
carries with him sentiments hostile to slave
~. Every boat that goes down the river
bears other freight than that registered on
her books. Opinion is steadily progressing,
for discussion is becoming more general
What! will the winds of heaven carry the
seeds of the lofty palm hundreds Of miles
across the tropical seas to the desert coral
island, and refuse to burthen themselves
with the imponderous gems of freedom2 No!
they Turk in the Geographic dispatch, they
nestle in the newspaper, they are impaired
Willingly OF unwittingly by every traveller. A
New England farm, or New York harbor,
will almost make the planter convert on
FIRST sight to the cause of free labor: and
the dweller on the border, who sees every
year the superior crops which are drawn
across the river, is an emancipationist at
heart. Every lesson taught by nature and
BY art is hostile to slavery. Barefaced pow
er is the only agent which can extend it, and
this opens a new question.
The pro-slayery deluge which threatened
to overflow all the territories, has retired
never to return. 1t has ebbed SO far that
Virginia herself, the mother of states and
statesmen, of ofice-holders, offce-hunters,
and niggers, has been left high and dry. She
has been abandoned by the hard pressed
pro-slavery men of the cotton states, as
Britain was abandoned by the Romans. AT
least such is the plain declaration of the ul-
tra southern press, who place her with Mis-
souri, and Kentucky. Again, there is every
reason to think that the National Democrat
ic party will divide upon the Kansas ques-
ton. This will be the greatest victory
which the free labor cause will have achiey-
ed-the conquest and capture of large
portion of its avowed enemies. Virginia
and the National Democratic party unrelia.
BILE, and Kansas lost to Slavery, the area Of
free soil must widen rapidly, and the moral
force of free soil principles increase, The
cause is therefore declining in
spite of the political victories Of the party
which sustains it. .-. .--..