The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1858-10-20
20

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ally recognize slavery as the ruling inter
est in our national policy, or we must de-
ny it the recognition Of any national right
and confne it to a merely local existence
under positive State legislation. This is
the alternative.
Now, bubble rs you will, devise side
issues and subterfuges, invent palliative
remedies, delude others and delude YOUR
selves with fictitious compromises: this
alternative will again aud again push a.
way all your Probabilities anu sophistries,
and say to you with the stern voice of in
exorable fate, Here am |! You have
not seen me perhaps, but here I am.''
And now there comes man like Mr..
Douglas, who ought to understand the
signs of the times, and gives it as his O.
pinion that slavery and democracy hav-
ING lived together side by sid these eighty
years, may 1--we on thus, and that he does
not see the incompatibility. Indeed! he
does not see it, The same man who
once in the name Of the SHAREHOLDERS cried
out to the champions of freedom in the
Senate: ''We will subdue you Ho
does not see that somebody and some
thing must be snbdued A Lind man
does not see the sun, and vet it shines.
A deaf man does not hear the thunder,
and yet he will feel the bolt of lightning
when it strikes him down. Ave, sir, sla-
very and democracy did live side by side
these eighty years, but how did they
live? Like two combattants who hold
each other by the throat, each watching
his chance to strangle the other. Is it
not so!
Has Mr.. Douglas seen or heard moth
;ng Of the din and clangor of that battle
which has ragged with but short and ap-
parent interlnissions since the time when
the ruling parties Of this Republic devia-
ted from the original policy of the Rev
dictionary fathers to CT Mine slavery with
in the narrowest limits, and to promote
its gradual abolition by federal and local
legislation? Does he know nothing of
the ridiculous failure of all the colnpro-
misses that were called final settlements?
May be he is not SO blind, but what he
sees perhaps does not suit him.
The conflict between Slavery and De
moeracy might have been settled in the
spirit Of Revolutionary times. But it was
not, and it springs up in its true aspect
when Missouri claimed admission rs a
slave State. 1t is represented to be fin
ally settled by the Missouri Compromise,
and there it is again lurking under the
tariff question. Ii assumes threatening
dimensions in the question of the annex
alton of Texas, and the territories acquir-
ed from Mexico. 1t is again said to be
finally settled by the compromises Of 1850
But there it rises again more terrible than
ever in the Nebraska Bill. Mr. Douglas
then claims to have finally settled it by
introducing his doctrine Of Squatter Sow
ereignty. But streams of blood and
smouldering ruins in Kansas give him the
lie. Then Mr.. Buchanan's election was
to settle it. But the poor old man had
hardly set his foot in the White House,
and the slavery question steps forth in
never seen turpitude at the hand of Judge
fancy. There it is. tits like Bunquo's
ghost, which rises from the ground again
and again, shakes its bloody locks and
sits down at the very head OF the banquet
table. aas Z.
And there are some simpletons crying
''peace, peace, stop agitation Who is
it that agitates it Who agitated it in
1920 but those wanting to extend slavery
into the free West? Who agitated it
when Texas was to be annexed, but those
who wanted to give slavery an unlimited
domain in the South and Southwest p
Who aeitated it by the Nebraska bill, but
those who wanted to break down the
last barriers to slavery? Who agitated
it by the bred Scott decision, but those
who wanted to make slavery the rule,
and liberty the exceptions! Who agita-
ted it by the Lecompton question, but
those who wanted to sacrifice the last
safeguards of self government to slavery
And all those who did so, were but obey
ing the lngic of things. For slavery can
not live unless it rules, and cannot keep
peace unless it dies. And still some sim
pletons are crying, "stop agitation. p
Where will you begin? Where will you
end? Stop agitation. The President
of the United States makes not the most
trifing appointment, bat the slavery ques-
tion.is touched upon in the cabinet. Con-
gress hardly makes the most inconslder-
able appropriation, without considering
matters from this point Of view, and it. is
ag.tatcd No Legislative assembly in any
Of the states ever adjourns, without dis
cussing slavery in some way, and it is az
itated Aye, the smallest log hamlet in
the West hardly elects q constable with
out considering what the mans views on
the subject Of slavery are, and it is agita-
ted. And now stop agitation, and cry
peace, pea ;el There is, and there will
be war in the cabinet of the President,
war in both houses of Congress, war in
every State Legislature, war in the small
est log hamlet in the West, aye, war in
every heart, until that all-absorbing con-
f1ict is settled. So
But we now stand before the awful
perplexing question: How is that con
flict of contradictory principles to be ap-
peased? How is the Slavery question tc
be settled? There are indeed some per.
sons, Democrats affecting to be philoso
piers, who reason thus: ssLet slavery
spread wherever Shareholders please te
carry it, let it conform the laws of the
land to its principles, and adapt them t
tbs sole purpose Of its protection; never