FREMONT AND DAYTON

   The readers of our journal will observe that the honored names which, for some time, stood at the head of our columns, as its candidates for the president and vice-president of the United States, have been withdrawn and although no other names have been or shall be placed at the head of our columns, we deem it proper frankly to announce our purpose to support, with whatever influence we possess, little or much, John C. Fremont and William L. Dayton, the candidates of the Republican Party for the presidency and vice-presidency of the United States, in the present political canvass.
   To a part of our readers, this announcement, considering our previous position, will be an unwelcome surprise. We have, hitherto, advocated to the best of our ability, a course of political action inconsistent with our Present course. It is, therefore, eminently fit that we should accompany the foregoing announcement with something like a statement of reasons for our newly adopted policy.
   1. A step so important as to lead to a separation in action, at least, between ourselves and of loved, honored, and tried friends, should not be hastily or inconsiderately taken. In full view of this truth, we have with much care examined and re-examined the subject of our political relations and duties regarding Slavery and the colored people of the United States. Our position, as well as the suggestion of wisdom just referred to, very naturally cause hesitation. The name of Gerrit Smith has long been synonymous with us as genuine, unadulterated Abolitionism. Of all men beneath the sky, we would rather see this just man made President. Our heart and judgment cling and twine around this man and his counsels as the ivy to the oak. To differ from him, and the beloved friends who may still intend to vote for him at the approaching election, is the result only of stern and irresistible conviction, the voice of which we cannot feel ourselves at liberty to disregard.
   2. The time has passed for an honest man to attempt any defence of a right to 6ange his opinion as to political methods of opposing Slavery. Anti-Slavery consistency itself, in our view, requires of the Anti-Slavery voter that disposition of his vote and his influence, which, in all the circumstances and likelihoods of the case tend most to the triumph of Free Principles in the Councils and Government of the nation. It is not to be consistent to pursue a course politically this year, merely because that course seemed the best last year, or at any previous time. Right Anti-Slavery action is that which deals the severest deadliest blow upon slavery that can be given at that particular time. Such action is always consistent, however different may be the forms through which it expresses itself.
   3. Again, in supporting Fremont and Dayton, we are in no wise required to abandon a single Anti-Slavery Truth or Principle which we have hitherto cherished, and publicly advocated. The difference between our paper this week and last week is a difference of Policy, not of Principle. Hereafter, as hitherto, we shall contend for every principle, and maintain [mutilated] the platform of the Radical Abolitionists. The unconstitutionality of Slavery, the illegality of Slav r ' v' the Right of the Federal Government to abolish Slavery in every part of the Republic, whether in States or Territories, will be as firmly held, and as sternly insisted upon, as hitherto. Nor do we wish, by supporting the Republican Candidate in the approaching election, to be understood as merging our individuality, body and soul, into that Party, nor as separating ourselves from our Radical Abolition friends in their present endeavors to enforce the great Principles of justice and Liberty, upon which the Radical Abolition movement is based. Furthermore, we here concede, that upon Radical Abolition grounds, the final battle against Slavery in this country must be fought out-Slavery must be seen and felt to be a huge crime, a system of lawless violence, before it can be abolished. In our Paper, upon the Platform, at home and abroad, we shall endeavor to bring slavery before the People in this hateful light; and by so doing, shall really be upholding the Radical Abolition Platform in the very ranks of the Republican Party.
   4. Beyond all controversy, the commanding and vital issue with Slavery at the approaching Presidential election, is the extension or the limitation of Slavery. The malign purpose of extending, strengthening, and perpetuating Slavery, is the conclusion of the great mass of the slaveholders. The execution of this purpose upon Kansas, is plainly enough the business set down for the present by the friends of Slavery, North and South. And it cannot be denied that the election either of Buchanan or Fillmore would be the success of this malign purpose of Slave Power. Other elements enter into the issue, such, for instance, as Northern or Southern ascendency of the Slave power in the Councils of the Nation, the continued humiliation of the Northern People, the reign of Terror at Washington, the crippling of the Anti-Slavery movement, and the security and preservation of Slavery from inward decay or outside destroying influences. The fact that Slaveholders had taken a united stand in favor of this measure, is, at least, an argument why Anti-Slavery men should take a stand to defeat them. The greatest triumphs of Slavery have been secured by the division of its enemies, one party insisting on at. tacking one point, and another class equally in earnest bending their energies in another direction. Were it in our power, the order of battle between Liberty and Slavery would be arranged differently. Anti-Slavery in our hands, at the ballot box, should be the aggressor; but it is not within our power, or within that of any other man, to control the order of events, or the circumstances which shape our course, and determine our conduct at particular times. All men will agree, that, generally speaking, the point attacked, is the point to be defended. The South has tendered to us the issue of Slavery Extension; and to meet the Slave Power here is to rouse its most devilish animosity. It is to strike hardest, where the Slave. holders feel most keenly. The most powerful blow that could be given at that point would in our judgment, be the election to the Presidency and Vice Presidency of the Republic the Candidates of the Republican Party.
   5. Briefly, then, we shall support Fremont and Dayton in the present crisis of the Anti-Slavery movement, because they are, by position, and from the very nature of the organization which supports them, the admitted and recognized antagonists of the Slave Power, of gag-law, and of all the hellish designs of the Slave Power to extend and fortify the accursed slave system. We shall support them because they are the most numerous Anti-Slavery Party, and, therefore, the most powerful to inflict a blow upon, and the most likely to achieve a valuable victory over, the Slave Oligarchy. There is not a trafficker in the bodies and souls of men, from Baltimore to New Orleans, that would not crack his bloody slave whip with fiendish delight over the defeat of Fremont and Dayton. Whereas, on the other hand, the moral effect of the Radical Abolition vote, separated as it must be from the great Anti-Slavery body of the North, must, from the nature of the case, be very limited for good, and only powerful for mischief, where its effect would be to weaken the Republican Party. We shall support Fremont and Dayton, because there is no chance whatever in the present contest of electing better men than they. And we are the more reconciled to accepting them, by the fact that they are surrounded by a Party of progressive men. Take them, therefore, not merely for what they are, but for what we have good reason to believe they will become when they have lived for a time in the element of Anti-Slavery discussion. We shall support them by pen, by speech, by vote, because it is by no means certain that they can succeed in this State against the powerful combinations opposed to them without the support of the full and complete Abolition vote. Bitter indeed, would be the reproach, and deep and pointed would be the regret, if, through the Radical Abolitionists, victory should perch on the bloody standard of Slave Rule, as would be the case if Fremont and Dayton were defeated, and Buchanan and Breckenridge elected. For one, we are not disposed to incur this reproach, nor to experience this regret, and shall, therefore, vote for Fremont and Dayton. In supporting them, we neither dishonor our Principles nor lessen our means of securing their adoption and active application. We can reach the ears and heart of as great a number within the ranks of the Republican Party as we could possibly do by remaining outside of those ranks. We know of no law applicable to the progress and promulgation of Radical Abolition Principles which would act less favorably towards our Principles inside the Party, than outside of it.
   6. Another reason for supporting the Republican Party at the ballot-box and thus supporting the Anti-Slavery vote as a unit, is, that such action conforms exactly to the facts of our existing relations as citizens. There is now, evidently, but one great question of widespread and of all-commanding national interest; and that question is Freedom or Slavery. In reality, there can be but two Parties to this question; and for ourselves, we wish it to be with the natural division for Freedom, in form, as well as in fact.
   7. It seems to us both the dictate of good morals and true wisdom, that if we cannot abolish Slavery in all the States by our votes at the approaching election, we ought, if we can, keep Slavery out of Kansas by our vote. To pursue any other policy is to abandon at present, practical advantage to Freedom in an assertion of more comprehensive claims, right enough in themselves, but which reason and fact assure us can only be attained by votes in the future, when the public mind shall have been educated up to those claims. We are quite well aware that to the foregoing, objections of apparent weight may be urged by those for whose conscientious convictions we cherish the profoundest respect. And although we do not propose to anticipate objections, but intend to meet them as they shall be presented in the progress of the canvass, we will mention and reply to one. Most plainly the greatest difficulty to be met with by a Radical Abolitionist in supporting Fremont and Dayton, is the fact that these Candidates have not declared and do not declare any purpose to abolish Slavery by legislation, in the States. They neither entertain nor declare any such purpose, and in this they are far from occupying the high Anti-Slavery position of the Radical Abolition Society. But let us not be unreasonable or impatient with the Republican Party. In considering this defect in the Anti-Slavery character and creed of the Republican Candidates, it should be borne in mind that they stand now in respect to this doctrine precisely where the Liberty Party stood ten years ago. The Right and duty of the Federal Government to abolish Slavery everywhere in the United States, is entirely true and deeply important; and yet, it must be confessed that this doctrine has been made appreciable but to a few minds, the dwellers in the mountain peaks of the moral world, who catch the first beams of morning, long before the slumberers in the valleys awake from their dreams. This new doctrine, we think, may very properly be left to take its turn in the arena of discussion. Time and argument will do more for its progress, and its final adoption by the people, than can be done for it in the present crisis, by the few votes of the isolated Radial Abolitionists. In further extenuation or apology, it may be very properly urged, that while the Republican Party has not at this point adopted the Abolition creed, it has laid down principles and promulgated doctrines, which in their application, directly tend to the Abolition of Slavery in the States. But the conclusive answer to all who object upon this ground is the indisputable Truth, that neither in Religion nor Morals, can a man be justified in refusing to assist his fellow-men to accomplish a possible good thing, simply because his fellows refuse to accomplish some other good things which they deem impossible. Most assuredly, that theory cannot be a sound one which would prevent us from voting with men for the Abolition of Slavery in Maryland simply because our companions refuse to include Virginia. In such a case, the path of duty is plainly this; go with your fellow-citizens for the Abolition of Slavery in Maryland when they are ready to go for that measure, and do all you can, meanwhile, to bring them to whatever work of righteousness may remain and which has become manifest to your clearer vision. Such, then, is the conclusion forced upon us by the philosophy of the facts of our condition as a nation. A great crime against Freedom and Civilization is about to be perpetrated. The Slave Power is resolved to plant the deadly Upas, Slavery, in the virgin soil of Kansas. This great evil may be averted, and all the likelihoods of the case, the election of John C. Fremont and William L. Dayton, will be instrumental in averting it. Their election will prevent the establishment of Slavery in Kansas, overthrow Slave Rule in the Republic, protect Liberty of Speech and of the Press, give ascendency to Northern civilization over the bludgeon and blood-hound civilization of the South, and the mark of national condemnation on Slavery, scourge doughfaces from place and from power, and inaugurate a higher and purer standard of Politics and Government. Therefore, we go for Fremont and Dayton.