Preble County Democrat. [volume] (Eaton, Ohio) 1857-1859, 1858-05-20
The Position of the Opposition.

-ASdlhSI AL the ASS, all III Nalcula-
tions, prophecies, and hopes of the re-
publicans and outh Americans, their
Kansas policy has utterly failed them.
Raised up to the neutrality-suspicious. they
have fallen to the lowest dependency.
Kansas was opened as the visible organ
of ant -~slaveryism. The republicans,
upon the strength of the practical issue
of slavery or no slavery-their own is
sue-have fallen upon the measure
adopted as a means of efFecting a deci
sion, and have been utterly Frustrated
and degraded upon the main point
that political anti-slavery is necessary
to stop the progress of slave labor in the
Territories. If, in the regular course Of
population. it should be shown that the
people of the place desired slavery, they
would unquestionably establish it, and
thus render any action in Congress fruit
less and unavailing. If, on the other
hand, it should be shown that the peo-
| pie thus forming the new State should
be opposed to slavery, it would be Who'll
ly impossible to maintain that relation
In Kansas we have had a trial uIon
this point, and it has been SO conclusive
upon the folly of political anti-slavsry
as to drive the republicans themselves
to the adoption of another issue, even
before the affairs of that Territory had
reached a Legislative solution. Thus
has political anti slavery been practical
ly condemned as utterly powerless to eff
feet any end one way or another, SC far
as the destiny of new States is concern
ed.
We regard this question as n of
transcendant importance to the country.
1t involves the whole policy. character,
and purposes of the opposition. In 9th
err words, they have established or or
ganizcd a sectional party for the distinct
purposes of opposing slavery. If OK
pericnce has shown us that politics can
not reach the end desircd-if it is seen
that anti slavery beyond Il mere opinion
amounts to nothing-that though all the
members ofCongress and senators should
be opposed to slavery in any given Ter
ritory,t til y could not prevent its estab-
lishment on the one hand nor author
ize and sustain it on the other, then it
will be apparent that the republican or
ganization is absolutely useless as a
force operating against what is fam Lar
" called "thc creation of more slave
States"
And what else does the history Of
Kansas prove than that anti-slavery is
the most arrantpresumption; t at, while
it proclaimed freedom as the end of its
abors, it had not the least power in the
world tc control the subject in a partic-
ular place? Inseasons of epidemic and
pestilence communities which are en-
tirely free from disease become nervous
and agitatcd lest its poisons should be
| extended to them. In the midst Of the
excitement every one feels, the premon-
itory symptoms Of the fatal malady; and
the resorts to medicines to keep himself
in order, and ward off or rec IL the blow
when it shall come. This has been the
case with Il large portion of the people
Of the North within the last six or eight
years in reference to the proclaimed ap-
proach of slavery. They have bee: re-
ceiving remedies and preventives till the
public mind became nervous and agitae
ted, and in the mean time deeply excited
and prejudiced against what many hon
cstly believed 1.-The aggressions of the
Slave Power"
Right on the other hand, the South,
even more sensitive because their prop
erty and their pride and independence
were directly involved, have been led by
the formidable and threatening buster
of northern men 10 believe that there
was in organization a power, an irresisti-
BILE public sentiment in the North pre-
pairing to invade and beat down the
rights of the people of the South. And
it must be confessed, that inasmuch AZ
the latter section had all her great in
tcrests involved, that she had no power.
in Il controversy against slavery; to be
aggressive-that is, that there is no in
tcrest in free States which is so easily as
Sailcd-it is not rightly the subject Of
wonder that the people of the South be-
came ereately excited.
In this way and it is the only fruit
of the whole anti-slavery struggle-we
have built up the Sections-he North
and the South. We leave it to the coun-
try to say whether, as the North and the
South became more and more promi-
nent, the Union does not appear less
and les important and necessary? The
matter, perhaps, may be better solved by