Surely, when we find the majority against us reduced from 58 to 6, we need no new incentive to perseverance.
Another circumstance which marks the progress of constitutional liberty, is the gradual diminution in the number of our northern serviles. The votes from the free States in favor of the several gags were as follows:—
| For Pinckney's | 62 |
| For Hawes's | 70 |
| For Patton's | 52 |
| For Atherton's | 49 |
| For JOHNSON's | 28 |
There is also another cheering fact connected with the passage of the RULE which deserves to be noticed. Heretofore the slaveholders have uniformly, by enforcing the previous question, imposed their several gags by a silent vote. On the present occasion they were twice baffled in their efforts to stifle debate, and were, for days together, compelled to listen to speeches on a subject which they have so often declared should not be discussed.
A base strife for southern votes has hitherto, to no small extent, enlisted both the political parties at the north in the service of the slaveholders. The late unwonted independence of northern politicians, and the deference paid by them to the wishes of their own constituents, in preference to those of their southern colleagues, indicates the advance of public opinion. No less than 49 northern members of the administration party voted for the Atherton gag, while only 27 dared to record their names in favor of Johnson's; and of the representation of SIX States, every vote was given against the rule, without distinction of party. The tone in which opposite political journals denounce the late outrage may warn the slaveholders that they will not much longer hold the north in bonds. The leading administration paper in the city of New York regards the RULE with "utter abhorrence;" while the official paper of the opposition, edited by the state printer, trusts that the names of the recreant northerners who voted for it may be "handed down to eternal infamy and execration."
The advocates of abolition are no longer consigned to unmitigated contempt and obloquy. Passing by the various living illustrations of our remark, we appeal for our proofs to the dead. The late WILLIAM LEGGETT, the editor of a Democratic Journal in the city of New York, was denounced, in 1835, by the "Democratic Republican General Committee," for his abolition doctrines. Far from faltering in his course, on account of the censure of his own party, he exclaimed, with a presentiment almost amounting to prophecy, "The stream of public opinion now sets against us, but it is about to turn, and the regurgitation will be tremendous. Proud in that day may well be the man who can float in triumph on the first refluent wave, swept onward by the deluge which he himself, in advance of his fellows, had largely shared in occasioning. Such be my fate; and, living or dying, it will in some measure be mine. I have written my name in ineffaceable letters on the abolition record." And he did live to behold the first swelling of the refluent wave. The denounced abolitionist was honored by a democratic President with a diplomatic mission; and since his death, the resolution condemning him has been EXPUNGED from the minutes of the democratic committee.
Of the many victims of the recent awful calamity in our waters, what name has been most frequently uttered by the pulpit and the press in the accents of lamentation and panegyric? On whose tomb have freedom, philanthropy, and letters been invoked to strew their funeral wreaths? All who have heard of the loss of the Lexington are familiar with the name of CHARLES FOLLEN. And who was he? One of the men officially denounced by President Jackson as a gang of miscreants, plotting insurrection and murder—and, recently, a member of the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society.
Let us then, fellow citizens, in view of all these things, thank God and take courage. We are now contending, not merely for the emancipation of our unhappy fellow men, kept in bondage under the authority of our own representatives—not merely for the overthrow of the human shambles erected by Congress on the national domain—but also for the preservation of those great constitutional rights which were acquired by our fathers, and are now assailed by the slaveholders and their northern auxiliaries. That you may remember these auxiliaries and avoid giving them new opportunities of betraying your rights, we annex a list of their dishonored names.
The following twenty-eight members from the Free States voted in the affirmative on the recent GAG RULE.
| MAINE. |
| Virgil D. Parris |
| Albert Smith |
| NEW HAMPSHIRE. |
| Charles G. Atherton |
| Edmund Burke |
| Ira A. Eastman |
| Tristram Shaw |
| NEW YORK. |
| Nehemiah H. Earle |
| John Fine |
| Nathaniel Jones |
| Governeur Kemble |
| James de la Montayne |
| John H. Prentiss |
| Theron R. Strong |
| PENNSYLVANIA. |
| John Davis |
| Joseph Fornance |
| James Gerry |
| George M'Cullough |
| David Petriken |
| William S. Ramsey |
| OHIO. |
| D.P. Leadbetter |
| William Medill |
| Isaac Parrish |
| George Sweeney |
| Jonathan Taylor |
| John B. Weller |
| INDIANA. |
| John Davis |
| George H. Proffit |
| ILLINOIS. |
| John Reynolds |