Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1862-05-02
Emancipation Question IN missouri,


The celebrated Charles James Fox was
always in debt, and always postponing i'm
Fortunate creditors to some more conYeni-
eut season. On one occasion a party of
duns, who had got Wearied out with the
constantly recurring answer '.some other
day" agreed to insist on definite pay day,
aud accordingly made their reasonable re-
quest to the spendthrift statesman that he
should name some time for them to call and
get their "lnonish." "Name the day, > was
the demand. "Gentlemen," said the dila-
tory debtor, al name the day of Judg.
ment." "But that may be busy day for
all of us" said the spokesman.
"Well, then" reioined Fox, s'suppose we
say the day toLLoUiRg."
In discussing the question of emanci-
pating Missouri from slavery, we meet not
a few who are quite ready to say that
"slavery is an impediment to the prosper
ity of the State; that its removal would be
an incalculable benefit; that the institu-
tion in Missouri must ultimately be got rid
Of, butt will not do to agitatO the sue-
ject now" There is the same nervous
dread of instant pain, the same desire to
put if off till tomorrow, which patient
suffering with a cancer feels to its extirpa-
ton. He would rather try emollient plas
ters or resort to quack remedies-anything
rather than to consent to an operation nOlp,
though he knows it Is inevitable at some
future day unless he would die from the
continuance of his malady.
More than sixty years ago, Thomas JEFF
ferson wrote to his friend st. George
Tucker, on the subject of slavery in yfr-
ginia, thus:
"The sooner we put some pIdH under way, the
greater hope there Il that It may be permitted to
proceed peaceably to It's ultimate effect. Bat II
a N ia "A
murdOrers Of our own children. . 1--we ha 4
begun sooner, We might probably have been allowed
lengthier operation TO clear ourselves but every
days delay lessens the time may take for eman-
ciPatiOnln ~
Happy would it have been for Virginia if
she had listened to the counsels of the
Statesman of Monticello. For though the
precise fears which he felt at that time
were not realized, the continuance of slave
~ in the Old Dominion is now drenching
her exhausted soil with the blood of her
sons, In a manner other than that which
he anticipated, those who made Virginia
the great slaXe-breeding State for the
fields of more Southern sections became
] truly tsthe murderers of their own chill
dren,"
Nothing is more certain than that Mis-
souri, must ultimately be n free State. OF
1 all those who discuss the subject with any
l pretenSion to intelligence, there is, not Oas
i -
in an hundred, but asserts or assents to
4 that proposition. Slave labor is intrinsi.
cally unproftahle 10 Missouri, to those who
use it. 0nr staples now are not those in
tue production of which that species of
flabpr can be employed to advantage on
any scale. The favorite " "isothermal d"
theory of some advocates of the system
excludes our State from the semi-tropical
paradise, where they suppose slavery could
a
wealth. Still more, the peculiar natural
resources of Missouri are such as to invite
Isktll, enterprise and free labor, and there
fore to render undesirable system which
tends to shut those out.
The present is. in fact, most auspicious
tune to inaugurate policy Of emaueipatioa
in Missouri None more favorablG is ever
likely to occur. Mems minds are now en-
gagged with the subject. They ayssbefore