The Kansas herald of freedom., 1857-05-23

ana the dangers 10 WHICH our liberties
are expoSsd-thus presented in its
true aspect-the contest before US as
sumes dignity rarely given to human
affairs and imposes duties upon our
citizens as high and solemn as ever
appealed to the hearts and consciences
Of men. The question is before us
from its demands there is no escape.
Decide we must. either for the right or
for the wrong. Sooner or later the
verdict of this great Commonwealth
must be pronounced on the issues
forced upon the country by the sdvo-
Gates of human bondage. History
will record that verdict to her enduring
honor, or to her everlasting shame.
The repeal of the Missouri Restric-
tion, and the attempt to force slavery
upon Kansas by fraud and violence,
precipitated upon the country conflict
between the antagonistic systems of
free and servile labor. In the issue of
this conflict, is involved the Demo-
cratic character of our institutions of
government, and the independence,
dignity and rights of the free white
laboring man and his posterity.
Slavery is the deadly enemy of free
labor. The two cannot co-exist on the
same field of enterprise. Either labor
will vindicate its right to Freedom.
or it will sink into dependence and
dishonor. Free labor is clothed with
intelligence and power 1t stands out
in the dignity of true manhood
1t sustains by it's energies all the noble
institutions of refined and perfectly
developed social life. It is the source
of our prosperity and national great
ness, Slavery is labor in ignorance
and chains-a brutalized humanity,
stimulated to industry by the lash Of
q master. 1t makes the laborer an
article of merchandise, without aim
and without hope. In the place of an
intelligent citizen, ready to defend with
his life the honor and interests of his
country, Slavery gives to the State an
ignorant savage to be held in subiec-
tion. 1t endangers the social fabric
by coverting its great elements of
strength into an implacable enmity.
Never, in the history of partizan
warfare, were men more unjustly and
misrepresented than are
the opponents of the extension of
Slavery. This arises in part from the
intolerant nature of Slavery and the
weapons it is necessitated to employ,
and partly from the fact SO omnipo-
tent has the Slave Power become N
our Government, that support of its
every demand is made the single test
of party fidelity, and the only road to
official preferment. The citizen who
dissents in terms of earnest and manly
protest against whatever exactions
Slavery makes, becomes thereby, in
so far as the National Government
can impose disabilities, almost as
much as alien and outlaw as in the
slave himself. If the freemen of the
North consent to occupy such sub
ordinate position in the Government
of their country. the spirit of manly
independence will be crushed out in
their posterity. Our SONS will become
a submissive and servile race, strip
ped of manhood and of self-respeet.
The STAKEHOLDER, proprietor of the soil
and master of the Government, will
dominate over them with scarcely less
of arrogance and power than he rules
over his hereditary bondmen. To
this condition are the non-slavehold-
ing whites of the South already re-
iuced. They have to-day little more
power in the formation of public
opinion and in the affairs of Govern
ment than has the slave. The same
fate awaits our posterity if Slavery is
allowed to monopolize the virgin soil
Of this continent. 1t is the inevitable
retribution of Heaven on any people
that have not the courage and integri-
ty to maintain their rights.
1t is slander to say that the de-
tenders of the rights of free labor seek
the elevation of the black race to an
equality with the white. They do not
propose the emancipation of the slave,
but leave that question, both as to
time and the mode of accomplishment,
with the States in which Slavery ex-
lists. They wish to deal with this
great and embarrassing evil in spirit
Of friendly forbearance towards those
States but they cannot carry their
forbearance so far as to virtually be-
come slaves themselves-as to surren-
der the soil and government of the
nation into the hands of an aristocra-
~ founded upon property in slaves.
Free white labor has rights in the
soil superior to the pretensions of
Slavery. The Slaveholding capitalist
claims that his property being largely
invested in slaves, viii depreciate un-
less the field where he can employ it
be enlarged. The white laborer, also,
has property in his labor, quite as
sacred and as worthy of the care of
the Government and where is the
field upon which he is to make that
labor profitable to himself and family
if Slavery shall monopolize the fer
tile and virgin plains of the Vest
Labor is depressed almost to the star
wing point in the densely populated
of the old world, because of
the narrow field upon which it is i'm
prisoned. The demand for labor is
small, compared with the thousands
who have labor to sell. So It viii be
at no distant day in this favored land,
unless we keep our vast public do.
main as a sacred inheritance for the
free white laboring man and his pos
terity forever. In the soil Of our ex-
tended empire the toiling masses have
the only sure guarantee for their future
prosperity and Independence. This
the cupidity of capital would take
from them-and here lies the real Is
sue that the Slave Power has forced
upon the country. It is struggle for
land. On the one side stands the