Lewistown gazette. [volume] (Lewistown, Pa.) 1843-1944, 1860-11-01
The Democratic March Towards Sla-
VARY

Inc democratic NJ arch towards Sla-
very.
Hon. II. NJ. I. Hunter, in late speech
at Charlottesville, Va, gave review of
political affairs, from which the following
extract is quoted, giving a singularly faith
ful picture Of that change in the course of
politics which has called the Republican
party into being:
When | first entered the Federal Coun-
ellis, which was at the commencement of Mr.
Van Buren's administration, the moral and
political status of the slavery question was
very different from what it now is. Then the
southern men themselves, with bat few ex-
ceptions, admitted slavery to be moral evil,
and palliated and excused it upon the plea of
necessity. Then there were few men of any
party to be found in the non s!aveholdng
States who did not maintain both the consti.
tutlonahty and expediency of the anti-slavery
resolution, now generally known as the VIII
mot proViso. Had any man at that dav ven
tured the prediction that the Missouri re-
striction would ever be repealed, he would
have been deemed visionary and theorst of
the widest sort. What a revolution have we
not witnessed in all this! The discussion
and the contest on the slavery question have
gone on ever since, so as to absorb almost en-
tirely the American mind. In many respects
the results of that discussion have not been
adverse to u.s."
1t is only about twenty four years since
the time referred to, when, according to
Mr.. Hunter, who is high democratic au-
thority, the general sentiment of this coun-
try was precisely what is now advocated by
the Republican party, yet there is not a pa
per, nor an eight by ten orator of so called
democracy, who does not denounce these
sentiments as abolitionism, leaving the in
eyltable inference that even long after
1886 the whole democracy Of the lTniCn
as we'll as wings were abolitionists We
also lind the same sentiment prevailing in
this State as late as 1S49, for the democrat
lc State Convention which assembled at
Pittsburgh in that year, and to which II.
j. WALTERS, Esq, and DR.. GEO. V.
MITCHELL were delegates, adopted reso-
luton censuring the extension of slavery
as Incompatible with our institutions in
language quite as strong as that passed at
Chicago.
These are facts which cannot be dispu-
ted, and the question then naturally arises
1rho has chongcd9 The men who contin-
ue to advocate the doctrine that slavery is
the creature of local law, OF those who, fol-
lowing the lead Of southern nullifers and
dlsunionists, set up the despotic claim that
slavery is national? The most simple mind
needs no prompting for an answer-it is as
plain as b C. And yet, for continuing to
hold these sacred principles, we are told
that the south will dissolve the Union if
Mr.. Lincoln is elected President in the
mode and manner prescribed by the
Constitution, and that the unhung traitors
will set up a confederacy for themselves
and plunge the country into civil war. If
this is to be the case, the sooner it is done
the better; if mere handful of restless
spirits in the South are to dictate to North
ern freemen for whom they should vote,
and even designate the man to be voted
for for President, it is time we should know
1t, SO that, instead of being freemen, as
most folks have imagined themselves to be,
we may act according to what patent demo-
cratic newspapers would make US, namely,
the mere tools of Southern politicians who
hold up the spread of that relic of barba.
rism, slavery, with its polygamy and neces-
sarily cruel and unjust laws, as the idol
whom all men are to worship.