Franklin Repository

The Missouri Republican State Central Committee in its late address says:--There are now in Missouri at least fifty thousand men who cannot get full employment for their energies and enterprise, owing to the depression of the past two years, and there are now in Missouri more than one hundred thousand slaves, occuping [sic] and filling the most lucrative agricultural and mechanical positions of the interior. It is the demand of the Republican party that slave labor shall make room for free white labor, and take itself away.

The spectacle says, the N.Y. Tribune, of Douglas holding on by the balustrade of the Revere House, and bemoaning before a Boston audience the agitation of the Slavery question in Congress, and the consequent neglect of the material interests of the country, finds its only parallel in Pecksniff, holding himself up by the bannister of Mrs. Todger's third story, and, under the stimulating influence of Mrs. Todger's punch, uttering moral precepts, in maudlin tones, for the instruction of Mrs. Todger's young lodgers.

Everybody praises Mr. Douglas for his courage and energy. Few dispute his rare powers as a debater. Some of his ardent admires have even ventured to call him a statesman. But his blindest worshippers, when trying to invest him with every virtue, never could find a man among them with effrontery enough to call him modest. The salient feature of his character, standing out beyond all others, and challenging the attention of everybody, is audacity. For example: In every speech he has delivered during his present stumping tour for the Presidency, he specifies, as the great grievance of the times, the neglect by Congress of the material interests of the country, in order that it may devote its energies to discussions upon the Negro Question. In his Boston harangue, he says: "For the last few years, all the time of Congress has been employed in the discussion of the Slavery question, to the exclusion of important business affecting the whole country;" and he waxes earnest and eloquen [sic] over the shameful disregard by the National Legislature of the subjects of the Tariff, the Pacific Railroad, the Mail service in the old States and across the continent, and cognate matters.

True, most true Mr. Douglas! But where is the man to whom, more than any and all others, the waste of time by Congress is due? Help us, Mr. Douglas, to place our finger upon him, and we assure you the country will put in every honest hand a whip to lash the rascal naked through the land.

When the Ethiopian changes his skin, and Mr. Garrison turns professional Union-Saver, and Gerrit Smith advertises hounds to catch fugitive slaves and Satan puts on a monk's cowl, then Stephen A. Douglas will witness transformations of character and conduct as miraculous as his current condemnation of Slavery agitation in Congress. Let us refresh his memory with a bit of history which the country has not forgotten.

A controversy concerning Slavery, which had convulsed Congress and the country for three or four years, terminated in the adoption of the Compromise measures of 1850.--This result was not wholly satisfactory to the extreme wing of either side of the combatants; yet, the thing being done past help, there was a general acquiescence in or submission to this disposition of the matter in issue. In 1852, both the Whig and Democratic parties, with some dissenting voices, ratified the measures of 1850 in their platforms, and agreed to abide by them. No man was more ostentatious in his avowals of fidelity to "this final settlement" of the Slavery controversy than Mr. Douglas. In the Senate, and before popular assemblies, he invoked maledictions upon all who should attempt to disturb the repose of the country by reopening the Slavery agitation, either in or out of Congress.

So much for Mr. Douglas's professions. Now for his practices. In the session of 1854, when irritation growing out of the contests of 1850 had subsided, Mr. Douglas startled the country by proposing to repeal the prohibitory clause of the Missouri Compromise, and throw the vast regions lying north of 36° 30' open to Slavery. This venerable landmark, reared by conflicting sections as a monument of the final adjustment of a struggle that had imperilled the Union, was held as sacred as any compact of the Constitution. Its proposed destruction immediately precipitated Congress and the people upon a sea of agitation, seemingly without a bottom or a share. After a conflict which has no parallel in our history, Mr. Douglas, spurred on by the hope of outstripping all competitors for the favor of the Slavery Extensionists, succeeded, by his tireless energy and force of will, in prostrating this old landmark. And from that hour till now, Negro agitation has been the ruling element of American politics. Mr. Douglas has always boasted, and with entire truth, that this repeal was his own handiwork. No other man in that fatal Congress had sufficient vigor, skill, and audacity, to do the deed.

A conspiracy to plant Slavery in Kansas, by fraud and force, was partly the moving cause, and partly the resulting consequence, of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. During the three years when the attempts of the conspirators involved Kansas in civil war, of the many black and bloody crimes perpetrated in their efforts to force slavery upon her people, none were black and bloody enough to extort a rebuke or even a regret from Mr. Douglas; but, on the contrary, he was the ablest champion in Congress, and the loudest declaimer before the People, in behalf of this infernal scheme. History will blush to record that the policy of Pierce and Atchison and their myrmidons, which stuffed ballot boxes, forced election returns, drove legal voters from the polls at the point of the bayonet, installed bogus Legislatures under the protection of cannon, fired dwellings, outraged female virtue, cut throats under cover of the night, shot men down on the highways at noon-day, and, in a word, for nearly four years gave Kansas up to anarchy, pillage, and butchery, because she would not accept Negro Slavery, found its wiliest apologies and ablest vindication in the speeches and reports of the man that now declaims in favor of "Non-intervention by the Federal authorities in the Territories!" The Lecomption Constitution, with the villainies that clustered around it, was the natural fruit of the tree which Douglas planted in 1854, and assiduously cultivated throughout the following three years. His political existence being then at hazard, he feared to pluck and eat the fruit of his own doings. Like Danton, whom Douglas resembles, he was about to be consumed by the fires of the revolution which he had himself kindled; but, unlike Danton, he had neither the courage nor the manliness to die like a martyr, and so he ran away like a coward and has ever since been boasting like a braggart.

Now, does Mr. Douglas flatter himself that the people have forgotten this damning record, because he finds it convenient to ignore its existance? Does he fancy that they will withhold the retribution they have in store for the author of this absorbing agitation in Congress, because it suits his interests now to feign to lament over its consequences? We assure him that he lowers himself in the public esteem by such canting and whining. In the Kansas- Nebraska bill, he represented to the North the box of Pandora. Let him not wonder nor wince when some of the serpents he then sent out return to sting him. To descend nearer to the level of our theme, the actor who has been recognized and applauded as a star of the first magnitude, in the higher walks or tragedy, on the metropolitan boards, ought to be ashamed to now go through the provinces playing the farce of "Agitation," "Sectionalism," "Disunion," and kindred roles, along with such worn-out performers as the Brookses and the Hunts. When he entered the Presidential ring, and made straight at the Champion of the Negro Propaganda, hitting out right and left with might and main, he won the plaudits of the masses. But now, when he skulks to his corner, and sits upon the knee of his backer, and affects to deplore the "noise and confusion" incident to the fight, and discourses upon the iniquities of the P.R., we tell him he excites only contempt for his hypocrisy, and disgust at his whimpering.

The Southern States, although comparatively weak in population, and with her elements of wealth undeveloped--in a great measure, destitute of internal improvements, those great arteries of trade and travel--almost without institutions of learning of any kind--in a state of semi barbarians, so far as regards the advancement of the manufactures and the mechanic arts- -yet, with all these disadvantages, we repeat, the Southern States have dictated the policy, both domestic and foreign, which has controlled the administration of this Government for the last sixty years, with very slight intermissions!

The reason of all this is:--A union of sentiment and a concert of action on the part of the Oligarchy--the Slaveholders--who number, exclusive of minors and females, say about 200,000 influential men out of the 7,000,000 of the white population of the Fifteen Southern States. There are altogether some 400,000 Slaveholders in the South, who own from one slave up to one thousand; but among these, it must be remember there are many females as well as minors, and these exert no influence, politically, in their several communities. Deducting these, and we would not have more than one-half, or, as we before said, 200,000 influential persons left.

This insignificant number, devoting their time and attention exclusively to politics, and possessing the principal part of the wealth of the South, are thus armed with an overpowering influence, which is always directed to secure the political promotion of those of their own class while the non-slaveholders are kept in the back-ground or overshadowed by these lords- of-the-lash. Their numbers being small and their interests identical, a union of political effort is easily secured, and by a perseverance in this course, they have secured and maintained their ascendancy in the control of the General Government, aided, of course, by the divisions in the Free States, which they have contributed to keep alive.

The so-called Democratic party of the Free States, heretofore, was the mere beast of burden--the catspaw of the South. The fifteen Slave States, with their sparse white populations, have thirty Senators; the eighteen Free States, with their teeming millions of white Freemen, have thirty-six Senators. But by their concerted action, which, we have referred to, aided by such miserable dough-face leaders of the Northern Democracy as Bigler, of Pa.; Pugh, of Ohio; Douglas, of Ill.; Rice, of Minn.; Fitch and Bright, of Ind.; Gwinn, of Cal., and Thompson, of N.J., the South has managed to shape the policy of our Government to suit its own particular section, regardless of the interests of either section--nay more: by the aid of the Democratic party of the North, the South has stricken down the North, paralyzed her industry, and like Samson shorn of his locks, she is bound hand and foot, and now lies powerless at the feet of these Southern Philistines. This has been accomplished by a steady perseverance and concert of action, aided and abetted by their Northern Democratic Deliah.

Northern Democratic Presidents, such as Pierce and Buchanan, prove more serviceable, in the hands of Southern politicians, to advance their ambitious and dangerous projects and their selfish schemes, then would men from their own quarter. A Northern dough-face is one the meanest creature that infest the Free States. They have proven to be quite a injurious to the cause of Freedom and Free Labor in this country as did the Tories to the cause of the Revolution--but the latter were overcome and driven out, along with the common enemy, and, by persevering effort, the former will be also.

The Free States are entitled to 183 votes in the Electoral College, while the Southern States have but 120. To elect a President by the people, 152 votes are necessary, so that the Free States can elect, and have 31 votes over. We hold that it is the duty of the Free States to exert their influence in the Government. Their power heretofore, has been wasted by division, and by treacherous doughfaceism, whilst the South has been a unit on all questions that have concerned its peculiar interests.

We should practice a little more after the example of our Southern brethren. The people should study politics a little closer, and elect men to the Presidency and to seats in Congress who would die rather than wantonly trade off the cherished interests of their constituents. They have it now in their power to elect "honest ABE LINCOLN," than whom a more worthy disciple of HENRY CLAY cannot be found. In MR. LINCOLN we have a truly National man--one who, while protecting the interests of Freedom and Free Labor, would also be found defending the local interests if the South. We make no war upon the "peculiar institution," so long as it is not sought to spread its baneful influences beyond its present boundaries; but whilst we wage no war with it where it is, we are opposed to its defenders dominating exclusive in the Government. The Free States hereafter, owing to the interests involved, should control the affairs of the partnership. We have permitted a miserable, sectional minority too long to override and insult the majority; and if it is permitted to continue, and if by our supineness we consent to the declaration that, "Freedom is section and Slavery national," by allowing the Republican party to be defeated, then we tacitly admit that the interests of Slavery in this Republic are paramount to those of Freedom.

On Saturday last a German was lodged in jail, charged with committing a burglary at the residence of MR. JOHN HORN, near the Grindstone Hill Church, in Guilford township. The circumstances, as we have learned them, are about as follows: The door which was bolted, he forced open, and entered the house with a large stone in his hand. Mrs. Horn was the only person in the house, who of course was much alarmed by the violence of the intruder, and she escaped from the Dwelling. Before he had time to pillage the house, he was arrested by some young men of the neighborhood who happened to be passing at the time.

These traveling vagrants are a great annoyance to our rural friends. They never leave their homes without entertaining fears that their families will be intruded upon and insulted by them in their absence; or in the absence of the whole family, on their return they frequently find their premises plundered.

A remedy for such evils is not so easily procured, unless the females of the household, are resolute and determined. In that case, we would recommend that they be furnished with a good Revolver, and when such a customer is seen approaching, prepare to receive him. If he offers insult or injury, let him or them be immediately and peremptorily ordered off; and if they refuse, let the Revolver be presented by way of intimidation, and used if necessary.