Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1857-12-05
From the St. Lonis Democrat.
The Free Soil Element in the
South. ~

region approve Of Slavery, either in the
abstract or the concrete. But the dough-
faces or hireIing politicians, who think with
the North, but act with the South, are
powerful enough to mislead the people and
win elections, and numerous enough to
keep each other in countenance, and make
the individual pressure of their common
infamy less tolerable. A northern man
with southern principles is almost an i'm
possibility, but northern men who speak
and vote for the South,are plentiful enough.
They are, however, but mere ~stipendiaries
I-Sepoys, who will rise in mutiny, not
when the fact is forced on them, but when
it is kept from them. They will turn
their arms on their employers unless their
palms, as well as their cartridges, are well
lgreased.
The Free Soil element, ofthe South, I'M
like the ~pro-slayery in the North, is most
lv quiet and silent. 1t is a latent heat,
pervading the frontier States and the com
mercial Cities, and awaiting but the favor
atle 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 p~ro-slavery
Democracy? Simply because they are sa-
yored with the salt Of freedom. = Il x
AS yet the free soil sentiment expresses
Itself anonymously in New Orleans, Louis
Vile, Baltimore, Richmond and other south
ern cities which are governed by commerce,
but the day is near when il will come for
ward in its own name and assume the re-
sponsihility as we'll as the honors gifts pc
sition andCconduct.. z ~
In the commercial %centers
of the South, among the artists, merchants,
mechanics and artizans, this revolution, or
rather natural development, will be soon
seen unless the Consequences of cause and
elect are abolished.
< 1t is not too much to affirm
that the spirit of commerce is hostile to
aristocracy. 1t is but repeating IA truism
which every ancient and n)lern historian
Celebrates. An arietscracy like ours,
which has no parallel in the enlightened
section Of the earth, because it owns both
land AMI labor, whereas ether missionaries
own but the land only, must necessarily be
obnoxious 10 democratic ideas, and hencd
our commercial cities o.. the South arc all
Opposed to the National Democratic party.
because it is the sectional arist0crltic pa
ty. With the growth Of the cities this
sentiment must grow. this a1tagonisn
must deepen, and in proportion to the pro
gress of q country in The predominance of
f the cities.
But the free soil element derives strength
from other and divers causes. Not a
southernor travels in Europe whose faith
in the divinity of slavery is not shaken;
not an immigrant who crosses Mason and
Dixon's line from the north, or who touch
es the banks Of the Mississippi from the
sea, but carries with him sentiments hos
tile to slavery. Every boat that goc:
DOWN the river bears other freight than
that registered on her books. Opinion is
steadily progressing, for discussion is be
coming more general. What! will the
winds of heaven carry the seeds of the
lofty palm hundreds of miles across the
t tropical seas to the desert coral %islan,l, and
refuse to burthen themselves with the i'm.
ponderous germs of freedom? No; they
lurk in the telegraphic dispatch, they mes
tie In the newspaper, they are impaired
Willingly or unwittingly, by every travel
er. A New England farm, or u New
York harbor, will almost make the planter
a 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 emanci-
patlonist at heart. Every lesson taught
by nature and art is hostile to slavery
Barefaced power is the only agent which
can extend it, and this opens a new ques.
: ton. ~.
The pro-slavery deluge which threaten
, ed to overflow al the territories, has, re
Tired never to return. q 1t has ebbed so fa'
that Virginia herself, the mother of States
and statesmen, of office holders, office
hunters and niggers, has been left high and
dry. She has been abandoned by the
t hard pressed p~ro-slavery men Of the cottor
States, as Britain was abandoned by the
Romans. At least such is the plain dec
a ~laration of the ultra Southern press, who
/ place her with Missouri and Kentucky
t Again, there is every reason to think tha'
+ the National Democratic party will divide
upon the Kansas question. This WI be
9 the greatest victory which the free labor
cause will have ACHE yed-the conques'
and capture of a large portion of its avow
ed enemies. Virginia and the Nationa
Y Democratic party unreliable, and Kansa
lost to slavery, the area of free soil mus
widen rspidlysand the moral force Of free
,soil principles increase.
The pro slavery cause is therefore de
!, clining in spite of the political victories 9
! the party which s~ustains it. The South,
too, is isolated. Even Russia, which SSH
, has. SO extravagantlY admired hithertosl:
aboutto abelishseffaom hy-imperial nkase
aud the serf is going to, be, not only a fre'
man but a freeholder. Holland has pre-
$ coded Russia, and decreed the gradual e