Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1860-03-31
EXPANSION or EMANCIPATION.

Was aellNeFeu llSD Week by R4F. CURRY Oh
Alabama. He wished TO conceal nothing
and awarded correctly all that was claimed
by the opposition. lie admitted that the
Republican party Of the presenS day enter
tains the same idea held by the fathers and
the same as the Declaration Of Independ-
ence and Constitution represent; he admit
ted that the Constitution framed by The
fathers, if interpreted as they intended,
would abolish slavery BY peaceable ever
throw. Mr.. CURRY further admitted the
minds and intents Of the fathers were right
enough at that time, bat very dangerous
now, and that the time had passed for safe
" practieing what was taught by the faith
ers. The slave population, he argued, had
increased from 500, 1000 ia '87 to 100000
at present; cotton had increased in the same
time from almost nothing to 4,25O,000
bales annually--thereby changing moral,
social and political evil in 81 to vast good
in 80.
Mr.. CURRY then went on to admit that
the Republican party entertained no tho'ts
Of meddling with slavery or abolishing il
in the States; that the Republican was a
Constitutional and law abiding party, but
that the slave interest and policy requires
slavery extension - the expansion and
building up of new slave States. He af-
irned that the Democratic party had its
whole existence in the idea Of extending
slavery, and that without such idea it
would have sunk under the vast weight of
men and measures Of the old whig party
twenty years ago.
The Dred Scott decision. Mr.. CuRRy
contends, establishes the right of slavery
under the Constitution to go wherever it is
not prohibited by State laws; and he holds
the doctrine Of unlriendly legislation " to
be as much at variance with true Democ-
racy as that Of Congressional prohibition.
Aside from this assumed Constitutional
right, Mr.. CURRY presents the following as
an additional argument in favor Of the
Democratic doctrine Of expansion:
The South needs expansion, now or
hereafter. The right, the liberty, must
not be gainsaid or restricted. We legislate
for the future. A decade, century may
be but span in the nations history. He
is a poor Statesman. and worse philan-
thlopist, who will do nothing for posterity
because posterity has done nothing for him.
Keeping slaves, increasing rapidly, within
cifcumscribed limits, while the whites di-
minish by emigration, is the memorable ef-
feet or purpose Of the merciless policy which
denies us expansion. The unmerciful as
cendancy of the blacks, or the vast dispro-
portion Of the races, with the exhaustion
of the productive capabilities of the soil,
viii render emancipation certain, or slavery
improbable, or the establishment of an
other Jamaica but question Of time;--I
where, according to late English work,
(Trollope's,) there are three hundred thou
sand blacks, seventy thousand colored peo-
pie, and only fifteen thousand whites; and
the African breed, though the parliament
tary system and the elective franchise has
the control Of the government.
Mr.. CuRRY states correctly the policy of
the Republican party as respects slavery
1t does not make war upon the institution;
it recognizes the right of the States in which
slavery exists to manage it in their own
way; its policy is wholly repressive; it seeks
to prevent new communities from becom-
ing involved in the evils Of slavery by con-
fning it within its proper limit. Mr.. Cur
Ry is right; and he is a good witness as to
the effect Of this policy. 1t must result Ill
timately in the peaceful end Of the institu-
ton by the action Of the States. Their
viii require it.
Mr.. CURRY said he had no respect for
the leaders of the Northern Democracv
who denied the real ir.t.ents of me party !:
it was the Practice C the Northern Democ-
rscy to deoily that the party favored the eS-
tension Of slavery. by annexation ofMexico
and South America and by fostering new
territories into States and admitting them
into the Union, and at the same time dis
couraging by every means the addition Of
new free States He would not fellowship
Democrats who denied this well known
and time honored policy Of The Democrat
&c party. Such denial and equivocation on
their part had begotten most Of the disaf-
fiction between the North and South; it
was their dishonesty which had paralyzed
the party.
A BOOK ON HUMBUG.