The Yazoo Democrat., 1859-04-09
MBER 81.
J CITY. MISSISSIPPI SATURDAY MORNING, APRIL a. 1859
HE sUPp0 sED DECAY OF ABoLITIoNIsM.

THE SUPPOSED DECAY OF ABoLIrIoNIsM.
Some of our cotemporaries are beginning
to congratulate themselves upon certain signs
which they believe to indicate decline Of
the Anti Slavery fanaticism which prevails
in the Northern States. We believe that
they are deceiving themselves.
Abolitionism was from small beginnings,
but its gr5wth bas been steady and constant.
twenty-five years ago, when abolition socieS
ties we're frst established in the North by
British agents, their numbers might have
been couuted by hundreds. A few meagre
periodicals, sustained by foreign contrbu.
tions, were their only organs They were
odious to nineteen -twentieths of their fellow
citizens. Their meetings were broken up
by the expressions of Indignation and disgust
of those of the audience who did not sympa-
thise with their fanatcism. Their process
sions and gatherings were the sport and
mockery of young and old. The exercise of
any political power was then scarcely dream
ed Of 1t was apparently hard struggle for
the abolitionists to maintain their existence
as an organization, so great and so general
was the odium in which they were held.
hey, however, gradually increased in num-
bers. The few abolition periodicals began
to get some American support. The people
at large became weary of combating their
fanaticism. They were first tolerated, and
afterwards encouraged. Their meetings be-
came larger and more frequent Journal
after journal took its place in the ranks Of
abolition organs. Abolition preachers, at
first excluded from respectable religious So
cieties, soon obtained a footing in thousands
of wealthy congregations. The Anti Slavery
poison was cunningly and industriously
transfused through thousand sources,
Books for Sunday schools, as well as for
other schools; were skillfully impregnated
with abolitionism. The active sympathies
and fertile fancies of those who were then
children, but who are now voters, were Guns
ningly and successfully played upon. Abo-
/ litionism became sort Of fashion among
religious aristocrats and mania with thous~
ands Of weak-minded and noisy men and
women.
The steady and rapidly increasing num~
bers of Abolitionists led to the formation OF
political party on an anti-slavery basis.
Conventions were held and tickets nominated
for several successive years with only here
and there temporary local victory. There
were then three parties in competition for
popular favor in the North-the Wing, the
Democratic and the Anti Slavery parties;
but while the Democrats stood firm in their
ancient faith, it was evident to any observer,
long before the last Clay campaign, that
Northern Wings were becoming rapidly
tinctured with Abolitionism in the modified
form of Free Soil doctrine. As the lean
kline in the dream of the Egyptian Monarch
devoured the fat kline, so did poverty -strick-
en-, meagre, hungry Abolitionism sieze upon
and devour fat aud plethoric Whiggery in
the North. The deglutition was completed
after the Scott campaign and Northern Wing
conventions, Whig platforms, Wing journals
and Wing politicians ceased from off the
face of the earth.
/ The position which the Wings had filed
as opponents Of Democracy was taken by the
Black Republican party, whose leaders had
shrewdly tempered down the original Aboli-
tionism to the modified form of free soil, re-
serving enough of Anti-Slavery element to
leave little to be desired by the ultra Aboli-
tionists, yet making the new tenets as little
obnoxious as possible to the more conserva-
tive among the hereditary opponents of the
Democratic party.
The new, startling and pretentious Know
Nothing order was absorbed by the Black
) RepubE .ans in the same manner, adding
religious fanaticism and bigoted prejudices
to the other elements Of their strength and
at the same time acquiring the unique or
gauization of the Buntline wigwam. But
the amalgam retains scarcely trace of its
new components, if we except the hereditary
hostility of federalism aud the labid hatred
of foreigners and Catholics peculiar to the
! followers of Buntline.
This absorption of rival parties by the
; Black Republicans cannot be classed among
the evidences of the decay of Aboltionism.
The result of recent elections in the North,
the legislation of Northern States, the in
creasiug numbers and aourishing condition
of Northern papers inculcating Abolition
. doctrine, the vast increase of Abolition pub
tlCdtlUuS Vi u pCtt0ulOui uOOh iotihs NAO
Z steady incursion of anti>slavery tenets upon
all Northern religious organizations and
$ many kindred facts, prove that Abolitionism
q is now in the same steady course of progress
e that it has held from the beginning Ex.
5 traordinary circumstances may have given
e political Abolitionisma temporary strength
: which perhaps cannot be held under the in-
huence of reaction but the steady growth
: of that fanaticism and its firm hold on the
d Northern people leave US little to hope for
n on that score. Abolitionism is not decaying.
# nv. 0. Courier.
= Hoop-DE DooDEN.Do.-A new disease has
f made its appearance since the introduction
!. of hoops. 1t exhibits itself only in cold
\ weather, and then is only discoverable in