Pomeroy weekly telegraph. [volume] (Pomeroy, Meigs County, Ohio) 1860-1866, 1860-08-07

opposed to the Republican party are in
state of chaos. In the North they are
divided upon men and secondary alb
stractions into clashing factions, as hos
tile against each other as against the
common enemy; in the South, where the
exigency demands united people, act
ing under common impulse, tn at of self
preservation, the same factious discords
prevail. Nor is this all. The South,
like a strong man struck senseless by a
heavy blow, seems to have lost the con.
sciousness Of it's position, with the dis
ruption of the Democratic party. There
is a general apathy existing in the South
a confusion of ideas, relaxation of the
moral energies of her people, an i'm
becility of purpose, which may be
likened to the despairing condition of a
ships crew adrift upon the fragments of
their broken vessel, with neither land
nor sail in sight.
At this moment the anti-slavery Re
publican party of the North, representing
hardly one third of the popular vote of
the country, is morally certain of elect
ing its candidates for President and
Vice President, by majority of the
electoral vote of the Union. The only
party in the field limited to one section,
in being rigidly excluded from the other,
it is the only existing party which ex-
hibits anything Of positive strength,
unity, efficiency and confidence in it's
movements. This is very extraordi-
nary state of things, and is utterly be-
yond satisfactory solution upon the
ephemeral party organizations and party
platforms of the day. We can reach an
explanation only upon the basis of that
great overwhelming moral issue of
slavery, as an institution Of good or evil,
Of right or wrong.
And this is the exact issue, which,
though unrecognized or evaded by our
parties, factions and politicians, has pro-
duced this formidable anti ti-slavery coali
tion in the North, and this impotent di
vision of the political elements of both
sections opposed to it. This underlying
fundamental Northern idea, that the in
stitution of Southern slavery is sin;
that it is founded in error and against
right; that its fruits are poisonous; that
its pretensions are false and ,incompati-
BILE with our free institutions, and that
it must be hunted out of the country,
will account for this solid front of the
Republican party; so, too, the conflict
ing opinions of Democrats and Union
party men, North and South, upon this
broad question of good Or evil, of right
or mere usurpation of right, in refer
ence to slavery, will account for the in
durable divisions of the forces opposed
to the Republican party.
Before the invention of the cotton gin,
slavery North and South was almost
universally considered an evil. Its ad-
vocates rested their defense upon the
plea that it was necessary evil, under
the circumstances which surrounded
them, but that time would provide a
remedy. Soon after the invention of
the cotton gin slavery began to assume,
not only the features of permanent es-
tablishment, but the form of con-
trolling agency in our political affairs.
This was strikingly made manifest in the
Missouri agitation of 1860. Some
eight or ten years later the first of our
Northern Abolition societies were set in
motion, including newspaper organ in
Boston, and another in this city, daily
paper, call the Journal Of Commerce,
started under the auspices of Arthur
Tappan, David Hale and Gerard Hal
lock; that paper, with all its variations
of thirty years, has stood fast to that
primary idea to which it owes it's origin,
that slavery is an evil, and that emanci-
patton is duty.
1t was not, however, until 1871, that
these Northern anti-slavery movements
entered actively and decisively into the
work of our Presidential elections, as a
Northern political balance of power
In that year Mr.. Clay, although in SEN
timent an anti-slavery man, was regarded
by the abolitionists as a Southern apol-
ogist of slavery, and upon this test some
fifteen thousand whig votes in this State
we're thrown for Birney, the antislavery
candidate for President, whereby the
election was decided in favor of Polk,
the. pro-slavery Democratic nominee
But upon the same general issue the ta-
bles were turned in 1913 against the
Democratic party by the Independent
free soil Buffalo organization, with Mar
tin Van Buren, as their Presidential
champion. Thus, by the division OF
the Democratic vote OF this State, Gene.
raj Cass was defeated, and General Tay-
lor was elected President. And it is
not the least singular feature of that
election that the line which was then
drawn by Van Buren through the cen
tre Of the Democratic party OF New
York has never been obliterated, but
will account for the line drawn through
the Democratic party of the Union at
the late Charleston and Baltimore Con-
vention.
In 1852, upon the platform of Mr..
Clay's compromise measures OF 1880,
there was an overwhelming reaction,
North and South, in favor of peace upon
the slavery question. Under this con-
servative reaction the old whig party
was prostrated and dissolved, and the
anti-slavery agitation, it was hoped,
were rendered powerless for at least
twenty years to come. But In 1894,
Messrs. Mason, Jefferson Davis, Atchi-
son and Douglas, of the United States
Senate, and poor Pierce, hit upon that
desperate Presidential and new Slave
State experiment, the Kansas-Nebraska
bill; and from that day to this hour, the
aroused and fve-times multiplied anti
slavery legions of the North have been
steadily advancing toward the White
House, until their occupations of it on
the 4th of March next appears to be an
inevitable event.
The simple truth is, that the contest
is between the anti-slavery sentiment of
the North and the nrn=slaNer sentiment