The Portland daily press., 1864-03-05
Saturday Evening, March 9th,
The working OF Freedoms Leaven.


The following apalogue or Illustration from
the New York World is one Of the straws in
dicative of the pressure Of public sentiment
upon the organs of a copperheaded democra-
cy. Like Mr.. Brooks and the Express "the
World moves" 1t puts its illustration thus
81 keep In my house a small aquarium and a
few canary birds, and my neighbor, whose
taste differs from mine, is snake-iancier He
keeps q cage OF poisonous serpents, whose
breath infects the atmosphere of his apart
ments and impairs the health of his family. /
have no more right to enter his house and
kill or lineage his serpents than he has to
enter mine and break my aquarium. But sup
pose he has disturbed the peace of the neigh
borhood and committed homicide upon one
of my children; although caunot enter his
house, the officer of the law may, and if / am
summoned as one of posse to assist in the
arrest and the criminal resists, his snake-cage
may be broken to pieces in the melee, and the
life trodden out of the Kissing monsters,
without any grounds for an action of tres
pass. No magistrate could have issued
warrant for killing the serpents; but the Off
Ger of the law, once legally in the house, is
not responsible for any damage which may in
cidentallybe done in overpowering resistance.
Whether 1t be the noxious snakes or costly
the same. And SO, when our armies are
legally within the southern states for the pur-
pose of overpowering resistance, those who
make the resistance have simply to thank
themselves whether it is their crops, their
commerce, or slavery that is incidentally des-
troyed."
Thanking the World for the frankness and
ingenuity of its illustration, the Evening Post
Justly adds: "Slavery is, indeed, cage of
venomous beasts; 1t poisons the air breathed
"by those who maintain it; and it is dan
"gerous to the whole neighborhood in which
it is maintained. But the analogy, we think,
between the two might have been made a
" shade nicer If the writer had supposed that
the man who kept the snakes, not satisfied
with retaining them on his own premises,
should insist upon turning them loose in the
streets or upon the public common. For
that was what slavery did when it insisted
"upon going into the territories, which were
"our highways and commons; and that, too,
" was precisely the origin of the dispute be-
tween the North and South. The North
:" did not like snakes as general thing, either
:" for companions or playthings, while the
South held that we ought to like them and
" 60 and live with them IA tho r-~-;o--n
The article in the World from which the
above apalogue is taken, enters solemn pro-
test against the common and hitherto just al
legation, that the Democratic party is the
party of slavery, whereupon the Post says:
1t is impossible TO read an article like the
one we have cited, in the columns of an ear
nest If not violent opposition journal, without
being impressed by the changes which public
opinion has lately undergone. No demo-
crat" would talk in such tone If he did not
suppose that public sentiment required 1t /;
the very effort to defend his party from the
charge of proslaveryism is evidence that pro-
slaveryism is no longer reputable: it is on the
other hand a reproach, and one from which
men who respect themselves endeavor to clear
their associations. But may we not make
another inference from this article; to wit,
that the discerning, serious, fair-minded mem
bers of the democratic party are getting
ready to dispose of the whole question OF
slavery by the constitutional method? Dis
approving of the methods which have been
already adopted or urged, and yet seeing the
necessity of some decisive action, may they
not be able to overcome all the difficulties of
the case, and unite and lead public sentiment
by the regular form OF an amendment to the
organic law?