The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1883-12-06
SAVING THE NATION.
T(nu{;,,ueJ from, 81 yoro I

market Wives, husbands, and children were
separated. The evils of slavery increased.
Many poor white people in Virginia, North
Carolina and Kentucky, who felt the degrade
ton of labor, would not stay where there were
slaves and so packed up their goods and set
tied in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.
CONSCIENCE.
A great moral force began to make itself felt
as never before-the force of conscience. When
Virginia was settled everybody thought it
right to hold slaves, but as the years went on
people began to see that slavery was wrong.
England liberated her slaves in the West In
dies, and informed the world that wherever
the flag of England fioated there was freedom
for every human being
Some of the people of Virginia, Alabama,
Kentucky, and Georgia, who held slaves, felt
the power of conscience and liberated them,
but the raising of cotton was so profitable and
1t cost SO little to rear slave boy or girl that
would bring one thousand or fifteen hundred
dollars in New Orleans Charleston, that
slavery began to be looked upon as blessing
instead of curse by those who were enjoying
the benefits of unrequited labor. The Consti-
tuition recognized slaves as inhabitants and as
members OF Congress were apportioned on pop
ulation, slavery became great political force.
EMIGRATION.
About 1920 the poor people of Ireland, Ger
many, Sweden and Norway began TO emigrate
10 IDe ODlCeu states. IN OnlO lnulana lii
nois and Michigan there were fertile lands
where they could rear their families and edu-
cate their children. So many came that the
population of those States increased very rap
idly. There was good land in the Southern
States, but they would not settle where there
were slaves and where labor was regarded as
degrading. With the coming of so many emf
grants the Southern politicians saw that after
awhile they would lose their power to decide
the affairs of the Nation, and they laid their
plans to extend and perpetuate slavery. When
we study in detail the causes which brought
about the war, we shall see that slavery was
the one great melting cause.
ASTI-sLAyERY SOCIETIES.
It would make this letter too long were to
write of the many events that transpired dur
ing the thirty years immediately preceding the
war; can only speak of a few. The slave
holders were greatly irritated when a few peO-
pie of the North formed "a society in Boston to
bring about the peaceful abolition of slavery.
q The people of the North are neddling with
that which is none of their business" they
said
Slavery is wrong. 1t is not only an evil,
but sin against God, said the abolifi lists,
who demanded tho immediate emancipation Of
the slaves in the District of Columbia and the
Territories, where Congress had sole authority.
| They sent petitions to Congress, and there were
hot discussions over their right to petition.
There were riots and mobs in Northern cities.
Free discussion was stifed, printing offices and
newspapers destroyed, men shot or put in
prison, schools where colored people we're taught
We're broken up.
The shareholders saw that the great States Of
the northwest were gaining SO fast that ere
long the free would outnumher the slave States.
Determined not to lose their power, they an
nexed Texas which brought about a war be-
tween the United States and Mexico and the
territory embraced in New Mexico, Arizona,
Nevada and California was taken from Mexico.
DISCOVERY OF GOLD II CALIFORNIA.
But all the plans of those who wanted slavery
extended TO those States were suddenly upset
in a way which nobody dreamed Of Mr. SUIT
ter, of California, was building a saw-mill.
| The men who were digging the sluiceway sud
denly discovered shining particles in the sand.
$ / wonder what that shining stuff is, said
James w Marshall, as he threw up spade
full of earth; 81 wonder if it is gold?"
| II guess it is brass" said one of the men,
who knew very little about brass or anything
| else
| Dir. Bennett took some of it to Mr. Hum
/ phrey, who had worked in gold mine In Geor-
| gia. at is goIdn said Mr. Humphrey
| Then came the rush of thousands of people
| from every State-more from the Northern
| than from the Southern States-hard- working
men, who voted that California should be a
/
ern boundary of the State of Missouri, which
| had been agreed upon in 1920 as the line be-
| tween the free and slave States.
If California is admitted as free State we
viii dissolve the Union" said the Shareholders.
| FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
Bitter speeches were made in Congress The
/ shareholders complained that their slaves were
escaping to the Northern States; that the peo-
| pie were running them off by the under
IL -
Constitution. After great excitement COM
promise was agreed upon. California was adj
nittcd as free State, and fugitive slave law
/ was passed, which was to be executed by mar
shals, judges appointed by the President. The
law made it crime to aid slave to escape ,
/ 1t was also a crime to refuse to assist mar
i shall.
! pie of the Northern States.
1t is just and right. If the Constitution
will not protect our property we will go out of
| the Union" said the shareholders.
More than thirty thousand slaves had es-
capped. People in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New
York, and in all Northern States were helping
them carrying them from place to place at
night, secreting them from the officers who
were on their track There were frequent
fights, riots and mobs, the friends of the slaves
| resisting the marshals.
KANSAS.
In 1854 bill was introduced into Congress
repeating the compromise of 1920 which pro-
! hibited slavery north of the southern boundary
of Missouri. The object of the repeal was to
enable the Shareholders to take their slaves
| into Kansas. The people of the free States
| fastened into the Territory. There was much
fighting, which intensified the bitterness be-
! tween the North and the South. Kansas be-
came a free State. The shareholders saw that
their political control of Congress was gone,
and prepared to carry out their plans to secede
from the Union.