between the sections are generally well sustained; the books which expose the evils of our institution are even read with avidity beyond our limits, but the ideas that are turned to the condition of the South are intensely provincial. If, as things now are, a man should rise with all the genius of Shakspeare, or Dickens, or Fielding, or of all the three combined, and speak from the South, he would not receive enough to pay the costs of publication. If published at the South, his book would never be seen or heard of, and published at the North it would not be read.So perfect is our provincialism, therefore, that enterprise is forced to the North for a sphere-talent for a market--genius for the ideas upon which to work-indolence for ease, and the tourist for attractions."

This extract exhibits in bold relief, and in small space, a large number of the present evils of past errors. It is charmingly frank and truthful. DeQuincey's Confessions of an opium eater are nothing to it. A distinguished writer on medical jurisprudence informs us that "the knowledge of the disease is half the cure ;" and if it be true, as perhaps it is, we think the Standard is in a fair way to be reclaimed from the enormous vices of proslavery statism.

"Now, by St. Paul, the work goes bravely on."

As well might the oligarchy attempt to stay the flux and reflux of the tides, as to attempt to stay the progress of Freedom in the South. Approved of God, the edict of the genius of Universal Emancipation has been proclaimed. to the world, and nothing, save Deity himself, can possi bly reverse it. To connive at the perpetuation of slavery is to disobey the commands of Heaven. Not to be an

abolitionist is to be a wilful and diabolical instrument of
the devil. The South needs to be free, the South wants
to be free, the South shall be free!

The following extracts from Southern journals will show that the glorious light of a better era has already begun to penetrate and dispel the portentous clouds of slavery. The Wellsburg (Va.) Herald, an independent paper, referring to the vote of thirteen Democrats from that section, refusing, in the Virginia Legislature, in 1856, "to appropriate money from the general treasury for the recapture of runaway slaves," says:

"We presume these delegates in some degree represent their constituents, and we are thereby encouraged and built up in the confidence that there are other interests in Virginia to be seen to besides those pertaining to slavery."

A non-slaveholding Southron, in the course of a communication in a more recent number of the same journal,

says:

"We are taxed to support slavery. The clean cash goes out of our own pockets into the pockets of the slaveholder, and this in many ways. I will now allude to but two. If a slave, for crime, is put to death or transported, the owner is paid for him out of the public treasury, and under this law thousands are paid out every year. Again, a standing army is kept up in the city of Richmond for no other purpose than to be ready to quell insurrection among the slaves; this is paid for out of the public treasury annually. This standing army is called the public guard, but it is no less a standing army always kept up. We will quote from the acts of 1856 the expense of these two items to the State, on the 23d and 24th pages of the acts:-'To pay for slaves executed and transported, $22,000;' 'to the public guard at Richmond, $24,000. This, be it noticed, is only for one year, mak

ing near $50,000 for these two objects in one year; but it can be shown by the present unequal plan of taxation between slave property and other property, that this is but a small item of our cash pocketed by the slaveholders; and yet some will say we have no reason to complain.",

"Allying ourself to neither North nor South, on our own hook we adopt the following platform as our platform on this question, from which we never have and never will recede. We may FALL on it, but WILL NEVER LEAVE IT.

The severance of the General Government from slavery.

The REPEAL of the fugitive slave law.

The REPEAL of the Nebraska Kansas Bill.

No more slave territories.

THE PURCHASE AND MANUMISSION OF SLAVES IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, OR THE REMOVAL OF THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT TO FREE TERRITORY."

Says the Baltimore Clipper :

"The South is contending for, and the North against, the extension of slavery into the territories; but we do not think that either side would consent to dissolve the Union about the negro population-a population which we look upon as a curse to the nation, and should rejoice to see removed to their native clime of Africa."

The National Era, one of the best papers in the country, published in Washington City, D. C., says :

"The tendency of slavery to diffuse itself, and to crowd out free labor, was early observed by American patriots, North and South; and Mr. Jefferson, the great apostle of Republicanism, made an effort, in 1784, to cut short the encroaching tide of barbaric despotism, by prohibiting slavery in all the territories of

the Union, down to thirty-one degrees of latitude, which was then our Southern boundary. His beneficent purpose failed, not for want of a decisive majority of votes present in the Congress of the Confederation, but in consequence of the absence of the delegates from one or two States, which were necessary to the constitutional majority. When the subject again came up, in 1787, Mr. Jefferson was Minister to France, and the famous ordinance of that year was adopted, prohibiting slavery North and West of the Ohio river. Between 1784 and 1787, the strides of slavery westward, into Tennessee and Kentucky, had become too considerable to admit of the policy of exclusion; and besides those regions were then integral parts of Virginia and North Carolina, and of course they could not be touched without the consent of those States. In 1820, another effort was made to ar rest the progress of slavery, which threatened to monopolize the whole territory west of the Mississippi. In the meantime the South had apostatized from the faith of Jefferson. It had ceased to love universal liberty, and the growing importance of the cotton culture had caused the people to look with indifference upon the moral deformity of slavery; and, as a matter of course, the politicians became its apologists and defenders. After a severe struggle a compromise was agreed upon, by which Missouri was to be admitted with slavery, which was the immediate point in controversy; and slavery was to be excluded from all the territory North and West of that State.

"We have shown, from the most incontestable evidence, that there is in slave society a much greater tendency to diffuse itself into new regions, than belongs to freedom, for the reason that it has no internal vitality. It cannot live if circumscribed, and must, like a consumptive, be continually roving for a change of air to recuperate its wasting energies."

In the Missouri Legislature, in January, 1857, Mr. Brown, of St. Louis, proved himself a hero, a patriot, and a statesman, in the following words :

"I am a Free-Soiler and I don't deny it. No word or vote of mine shall ever inure to the benefit of such a monstrous doctrine

as the extension of Slavery over the patrimony of the free white laborers of the country. I am for the greatest good of the greatest number, and against the system which monopolizes the free and fertile territory of our country for a few slaveholders, to the exclusion of thousands upon thousands of the sinewy sons of toil. The time will come, and perhaps very soon, when the people will rule for their own benefit and not for that of a class which, numerically speaking, is insignificant. I stand here in the midst of the assembled Legislature of Missouri to avow myself a Free-Soiler. Let those who are scared at names shrink from the position if they will. I shall take my stand in favor of the white man. Here in Missouri I shall support the rights, the dignity and the welfare of the 800,000 non-slaveholders in preference to upholding and perpetuating the dominancy of the 30,000 slaveholders who inhabit our State."

The St. Louis Democrat, in an editorial article, under date of January 28, 1857, entitled itself to the favorable regard of every true lover of liberty, by talking thus boldly on the subject of the "Emancipation of Slavery in Missouri":

"Viewing the question as a subject of State policy, we will venture to say that it is the grandest ever propounded to the people. If it were affirmed in a constitutional convention, and thoroughly carried out without any violation of vested rights, Missouri, in a few years subsequent to its consummation, would be the foremost State on the American continent. Population would flow in from all sides were the barrier of negro slavery once removed, and in place of 80,000 slaves, we should have 800,000 white men, which, in addition to the population we would have at that time, would give us at once an aggregate of two millions.

Is Missouri ambitious of political power?-a power which is slipping away from the South. The mode of acquiring it is found. We are not rash enough to attempt a description of our condition if the element of free labor were introduced. The earth would give up its hidden treasures at its bidding as the sea