Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1860-11-15
The Presidential Election.

One of those events, the momentous impor-
lance of which we are apt to forget, has just
TRANSFERRED. We refer, as none will need be
told, to the election of President of the Uni
ted States the selection and elevation of
man to the head of the Nation, to reflect the
sentiment, to watch the import of events, to
guard our liberties, our institutions, and set in
motion the whole government machinery which
keeps each part perfect in its operations, and
cireulates to and returns from every State, town
and precinct in the glorious Union. The
President is the heart of the Confederacy, from
which the pure blood flows, and to which it
returns from the extended limbs of the Coun-
try. lis true, as free people, we live as
though no one was over us, and in this is the
secret CT our power, prosperity and morality.
The Government is but an auxiliary to our for
tunes. 1t is but the servant of our manufac-
lures and agricultural pursuits. 1t has no
business but to regulate all the public relations
so necessary to the success and happiness of
private Life
For thc.past eight years the Government has
been created by a sectional party, and for q
sectional Purposc-that Of fostering and pro-
mitigating The accursed traffic and dcmoraliz-
ing institution Of Slavery. For the past eight
years the Government has paid no sort of atten.
ton toEthe demands of the Nation-nono to
the demands of the Industry of the North but
mas wholly gigen its attention to the one all
absorbing interest of the South-that of PEG
pling the whole Nation with slaves 1t has
used all its persuasion, all its threats, all its
patronage, to bring the people to a willingness
to extend Slavery, and to promote the interest
of Slave labor and harrass and neglect the in
dustry of free labor.
The election of President then, at this time,
has greater significance, greater importance
1t is the election of "a servant who is to inaugu-
rate different system altogether. Not that
the interests of slave labor are to be neglected,
but that the interests Of free labor are to re-
ceive just as much encouragement not that it
IS going to abolish Slavery, bat that it is going
to relieve the free people of the North from an
involuntary seryitude to the South j.; not that it
is going to lessen the value of Southern pro.
duets, or increase the value of Northern. but
that it will restore the Government tc the poll
cy of its founders-equal and exact justice to
all men, and the greatest freedom to the great.
est number 1t proposes no further extension
Of an evil which now curses one-third Of the
territory of the Nation. 1t does not propose to
rob these persons of the property they have in
vested in slaves, but it proposes to, peacably,
if possible. forciby, if ii must, to persuade the
people of the Country to invest their property
in different kind Of merchandise. The tone
and influence of the General Government is all
that can be.Cxercised at present. for the opposi-
ton have majority in both Houses of Con-
gress. But that influence in the appointment
of officers to the Territories and the disburse-
ment of patronage, is an immense power, and
honestly welded, will redeem the Country, and
place it in position where the friends of Free
dom need have little fear of the result. Four
years holds an immense number Of atoms in
its round. The results, however quickly they
come, are Of immense importance, To old
men it is but a few days of the young, and
passes quickly away. People who saw the
incoming of Pierce's Administration hardly
imagined the corruption and venality to which
the Country would arrive in 1856. So in the
election of Buchanan. Let us hope that he
who writes such reflections as these in 1864
will not do it with the mantlings OF shame for
the past Administration, while so doing,