Shall Slavery Take Possession of the Nation, or shall Freedom Rule?

Newspaper Title

Ohio State Journal

Publication Date

3-11-1857

Publication Place

Columbus, Ohio

Event Topic

Dred Scott

Political Party

Republican

Region

free state

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Quote

Many good-natured, Union-loving men hoped that the administration of Buchanan would be an improvement upon that of Franklin Pierce.

Document Type

Article (Journal or Newsletter)

Full Text Transcription

Many good-natured, Union-loving men hoped that the administration of Buchanan would be an improvement upon that of Franklin Pierce. We were not of that number. We at one time believed that the administration of John Tyler would stand forever in the history of this country, as the worst that could be, so far as the rights of the Free States were concerned. We were mistaken. The Slave power has increased rapidly ever since that time, and now it has reached a point which is fearful to contemplate. First, it subdued the Executive Government; second, the Legislative; and now it grasps the Judiciary. The grand object of the oligarchs has been perfected. They have made Slavery National, Freedom Sectional.

According to the recent decision of the Supreme Court, there is not one foot of free territory belonging to the Union, outside of the free States. The Wilmot Proviso applied to Oregon and Minnesota, has fallen lifeless to the earth, and slaves can now be taken there and worked, with the shield of the Federal Constitution to guard and protect their masters in the management of this, their property. The Territories have become one great slave pen. How long it will be before this power will apply the same principles to the States? Colored men are now declared not to be citizens of the United States, they are outlawed from all claims to citizenship in the land of their nativity, in the home of their fathers. Like the Bohemian Magraubin, "they have no home, no country." They are simply property; they are as horses and cattle. They can be bought and sold, but they cannot be citizens.

Buchanan's Inaugural foreshadows his policy. His administration will carry out the "principles of the Constitution" as expouned by a slave-holding Supreme Court. Even Squatter sovereignty has had fetters put upon its fetlocks by the Inaugural. It now means that the people of a Territory can only exclude slavery when they came to make a State Constitution, not before. Until that hour arrives, there is no power in our government, or in the people to prevent the extension of the curse, and when that hour arrives, they will be strong enough to have slavery acknowledged and protected. To carry out this infernal doctrine, the whole power of the general government during the administration of Buchanan will be brought, and if the people of the free States submit to it, all is lost. But they will not submit. From this day forth, the spirit of resistance, legal, constitutional, popular resistance will be organized. Even the most prejudiced of the Democratic party must see that unless the North speaks, unites, resents, acts, in opposition to this aristocracy of slaveholders, the whole government will become a mere instruments to oppress poor, downtrodden humanity, and to cover our whole continent with slavery, as the waters cover the sea.

Edited/Proofed by

Entered by Lloyd Benson. Proofed by Katie DeLong

Identifier

ohsjds570311a

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Shall Slavery Take Possession of the Nation, or shall Freedom Rule?

Many good-natured, Union-loving men hoped that the administration of Buchanan would be an improvement upon that of Franklin Pierce.