The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1860-01-12

Anti-Slavery proyiso from its first inception, re-
ceived votes from Virginia and Maryland, and
was finally adopted By unanimous vote ofthe
Congress of the confederation, which was co.
eval with the Convention which framed the
Constitution. Among the first measures Of the
new Government, under the Administration of
the illustrious Washington, was the re-enactment
and Reinforcement of this Anti-Slavery ordi-
nance. 49,
Here, then, is great fact, which Mr.. Curry
has entirely lost sight of; and he arraigns the
Republican party for standing by the principles
and policy of Jefferson, Washington, Franklin,
and Jay.
We plead guilty. The Republican party is
Anti-Slayery, and the efforts of the degenerate
Democracy to reverse the principles on which
our institutions are founded, has enabled the
Republicans to arouse the dormant love of Lab
erty among the people the North. The party
to which Mr.. Curry belongs, by its Pro-Slavery
policy, by its abandonment of the principles of
Jefferson and Madison, has made necessary the
embodiment of the Anti-Slavery sentiment of
the country in political party.
| At the formation of the Federal Constitution,
Republicans and Federalists stood on common
ground as it regarded Slavery 1t was not
party question, nor sectional question, except
as to South Carolina and Georgia The great
leaders of both parties agreed that Slavery
should not be extended. They expected it to
die out, and deplored their inability at that Pc
Rod to abolish it. Washington, Hamilton Jay,
and Adams, the great lights of the Federal
party, were decidedly against Slavery, as
moral and political evil; but Jefferson, the
| founder of the Democratic party, was far more
deeply impressed with the moral, social and
| political evils of the system, and embodied his
convictions in language as imperishable as the
English tongue. Mr.. Curry is too intelligent
and candid to dispute these historical facts, and
we will not stop here to adduce the proofs of
them.
Here, then, was the starting point. The
| Government was founded by Anti-Slavery men,
and they inaugurated an AntiSlavery exten-
sion policy.
But the cotton gin was invented, and the
production of cotton became source of great
profit to the Southern people, causing a rapid in
crease in the value of slaves. The consequence
was, an abandonment of the generous policy of
their fathers, and change of sentiment in re-
gard to Slavery. The first exhibition of this
change was made when Missouri applied for
admission into the Union. The North insisted
on carrying out the Jefferson policy of exclu-
ding Slavery. The South resisted; and although
her statesmen refrained from defending the in
stitution as blessing, they found various ex-
cuses and reasons why it should not be restrict
ed. Chief of these was the suggestion, long
since ascertained to be false, that the diffusion
of the system would tend to its amelioration
and extinction. After debating the question
through two or three sessions of Congress, which
served to arouse Northern men to a conscious
ness of the change in Southern sentiment, and
the rising power of Slavery as political ee-
ment, compromise was agreed upon, for which
almost every Southern member of Congress
voted. That compromise fully recognised the
right of Congress to restrict Slavery. The Ter
ritory north of 360 3O/ was to be forever free,
while that south of it was to remain without
restriction, but still without any guaranty of the
institution. The condition of the compromise
was the immediate admission of Missouri with
Slavery.
Here was one source Of Northern agitation"
springing from the abandonment on the part of
the South of the non-extension- Slavery prin-
ciple
| The next prominent fact in the history Of
| Slavery aggression was the colonization of
Texas by shareholders. That system of col
onization, looking to annexation, and with a
view to strengthen the slave power in the Fed
eral Government, commenced as far back as
1928 or 1929. In 1886, the colonists, aided by
flibustering parties from the Southwest, sue
ceeded in throwing off the Mexican yoke, and
in 1916 the slave interest succeeded in adding
three hundred thousand square miles to its
area, with the Congressional guaranty that it
shall be divided into FIVE States.
| Here, as Mr.. Curry knows, was another most
prolific source of" agitation and irritation. But
the slave interest was still unsatisfed. 1t had
acquired complete control over the Democratic
party. 1t remoulded the principles of that time
dates for Office, not only in the South, but in
the free States. No man was permitted to
aspire to Office who would not agree to suppress
his Anti-Slavery convictions, and vote uniform
| ly for ProSlsvery measures. The slave power
felt that it was omnipotent, and its easy tri-
umph in the acquisition of Texas caused it to
look with longing eyes to other Mexican prov
inces. 1t was not difficult to find cause for
quarrel, although it should be such as that
which the wolf urged against the lamb. Texas
claimed for her boundary the Rio Grande, al
though the Nueces was the welknown limit of
her Western frontier. Mexico, while succumb.
ing to the superior force of the American Union,
in acquiescing, under protest, in the annexation
of Texas, resisted this further encroachment on
her rights, and attempted to assert her authori-
| ty up to the line of the Nueces. This was pre-.
cisely what the slave power desired, and James
K. Polk, their President, although Congress
was in session, Immediately ordered General
Taylor to cross the line, and repel the Next
| cans from their own territories, without con-
sulting that body A war ensued, and Califor-
MIA, New Mexico, and Utah, were annexed to
| the Union.
Here was another fruitful cause of Northern
| Anti-Slavery agitation, for which the Slavery
extending policy of the slave power and the
Democratic party is alone responsible. The
| Wing party resisted it, and was shattered to
atoms in the Southern States As the fruit of