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Voting For Slaveholders

Voting For Slaveholders image
Parent Issue
Day
23
Month
January
Year
1847
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

The N. H. Patriot and other organs of dough-fucedom and slavery, seeni uiterly frightened out of iheir wits, beca use, at the last Independent State Cónvénlion, it resolved that the North should no Ion ger "support slaveholders or the supporters of Slavery, for any office of trut or honor." " Such a sentiment," says Isaac Hill, " is treason to the constituiion." - "Tre.ison!" echoes Treadwell, in the old Patriot. " Disur.ion ! " faintly shouts Billy Butterfield, in his Nashua Gazette. li Last War Federalism l " sings Charles Lañe. And so on to. the end of the chapter. The idea that slnveholders are no'longer to rule tliis country is one thnt freezes dough-facedom to its IowpsI soul. U is to plungent once the whole race of dough-faces into that "deep bevond the lowest deep, " from which only the slave power holds them up. So wholly are these Texas org.mssold body and soul to oppsession, that they have well nigh brought thcmselves to think, with their masters, that slavery is, n truth, the great corner stone of our Republican edifice. So well have they fed and grown fat on the oflfal of their owner's stables, that thay have lost the idea that an independent, free man, vvhdse bread is eaten in the sweat of his own brow, can have the right to stand on the equal, nnd more ihan oqual, of him who fatens on the unpaid labors of others. - ín their creed, southern slaveocrats are born " booicd and spurred ; " while, nol only such dough-faces as themselves; but all northern laborers, come into the world saddk'd and bridlcd, ready to be mounted and ridden wherever these slave pampered despots will. If these pimps of tyranny would confine their saddles and bridles te their own backs and mouths, wc, for one, would be the last to complain. We are perfectly willing they should be ridden to their hearts' content. And so are the hard-working yeomanry, whose rights dough-facedom has betrayed. Such men, who are &t once traitors to their country, and a libel upon their race, cannot be ridden too fast, nor too long. They are fit asses for such riders. But we do object, and the freemen of New Hampshire do object, to being like thom, beasta of burden t the worst"I isiocracy that curses the eaith. We do deny that either bythe " Grace of God," r the " Grant of the Devil," slaveholders have a right to rule over Northern freemen. We do deny that they may command either our votes or our labor. We do assert, and we will assert, that, as Ccee, independent men, we are bound not to select, lor our rülers, eiiher tyrants or or slaves. I f we would preserve the institutions left us by our fathers, and diO as we were born, free, we must have rulers who are free and the friends oí freadom. Such is not the slavëholder. Ha is at once a tyrant and a slave. But says the Patriot, " by refusing to vote for slaveholders, you disfranenise all the people of the South, and upon the way to disunion at once." We do no such thing. We merely say that eer tain men who live in open and daily violation of the great foundation stone of American Kepublicanism, human equality, are unfit to administer our government. The people of the South are not all slaveholders - nor even a majority of them. By say ing, therefore, tkal we will not vote for a slavëholder, we no mor disfranchise the North, when we rcfus lo vote for a drunkard, or a gambler. One primary article in the Democratie cred is, never to vote for a Whig. Is not that disfranchising eve;-y Whig in the country ? No. It is merely disfranchising certain doctrines held or