Norwich bulletin., 1920-04-24

sfave act merely thrust before northern eyes moving picture of siavery Tn irs | more horrld aspect "a with or | ncers Of the federal government drag | g1lg a felloWV.an through the streets In | irons, to banisn him from liberty and de- | port him into bondage. AS a logical con | sequence the underground raiiroad'' sprang into existence ana organized anu I ,.verrised better facilities than ever for
 the easy escaiJe ot s4dNes rom the south l into canada. 1 When Clay and Webster sponsored 1 Fillmore slgned that fugitive slave act,
 the whig partly prayed its last C..lS. m \ the slavery game. Northern business ill- terests, the manstsy Of the wings, Were faithful anies of the southern business in l Slaves. But after that fugitive siaSe I act, those cotton wings of the north could no longer hold in cneck the con I science" wings and the party was spIft | Wide open.
 This meant that a new party would l have to be started, and naturally would be an antisiavery party unless the public mind could be drawn away from the subject. That was easily 1 done by raising furious outcry against the foreigners. It is a familiar ruse. Whenever any wrong among ourselves is in danger of exposure, the first thing
 that it votaries do it to- attempt to
 change the subject by appealing to be
 primitive preJudice against strangers.
 To distract the northern peopie from
 the slavery question, the losing whig politicians took up with the American or 1 -knownothing" party. Its passwords, its
 secret oats and mummeries and its cow 1 ardly mobbings of the laborious, unof- lending Irish provided a timely, though happily a. brief, diversion from the real question. Fears Of the slave power at
 home were all but lost in fears of ! the Pope at Rome for few years.
 In the midst of that mid distraction , the Missouri Compromise was easily re- pealed by the politicians of both sections. l This left the free soil of the virgin West
 wholly unprotected against slavery for , the first time since 17S7. The Supreme , Court hastened to complete forever the , work of destruction by declaring, in it's
 Dred Scott decision that neither Congress nor the states Rad power. to keep slav- l cry out of any part of the country. 2 From that judgment of the court of 5 last resort there remained no appeal ex- T cept to the sword. To that tragic pass
 the politicians in the White House, in l congress and on the bench-and the l the people as a whoie-had brought the I country at last.( Politics utterly had
 failed to solve the problem, and that
 failure made necessary, made unavoid-
 able violent solution of it.
 The spineless president of that = e glorious period were thoroughly repre- sentative of their generation, and they 3 have conveniently served as scapegoats :. But why blame Tyler and Polk, Fillmore f Pierce and Buchanan for doing the . things they were chosen to do and for l. leaving undone the things they were y chosen to avoid? They are dust The - American people still live. They ought e to take their share of the blame as 8
 warning against making the same costly e mistake some other time on some othei l. question.
 e MOnday-New England's Latest Pres e ident.
 e Possibility of the Future. e We may yet hear the exciting new,