Annexation of Canada [pp. 397-412]

ANNEXATION OF CANADA.
this will be the case with regard to Canada. Many of the Northern
papers seem to be favorable to the annexation of the province just beyond the St. Lawrence. Especially is this the case with the New.
York " Tribune" and " Courier and Enquirer," the two master-spirits
of the iNorthern press. The New-York "Evening Post," which
speaks as well the sentiments of the Free.soilers as any other paper,
seems to be favorable to Canada's union with the United States. Why
is it that a party, or that parties, so generally opposed to acquisitions of
territory now seem to favor it?
There are several reasons for this. The Abolition party proper, is
willing to do anything which will give them the ascendant in our national councils. There is a kind of giant mania gotten hold of them
by the hand, which influences their walk wherever they go. Utterly
regardless of every other consideration, they are going forth armed with
the club of Hercules to crush that, (to them,) many-headed monster,
ycelept Slavery. If they are candidates for seats in the national Congress, they infuriate their constituents with double-distilled fanaticism,
upon a subject of which they are as ignorant as they are of the cogita.
tions of the man in the moon, and call upon them to break off the manacles of the negro who is, to all intents and purposes, a greater participant of the blessings of life than a majority of the people of the world
who are of the same color, as those whom they address. Do they go
to church on the Sabbath? They go up to worship with their hearts
aching, and their faces gloomed, over the cruelty exercised towards the
black man of the South, and call down the avenging wrath of heaven
upon the heads of those who hold the scourge, when master and servant
are at that time both worshipping the God of their fathers under the
same roof. Do you tell them that the bible allows f slavery? Away
with your bible, say they; and straightway they unfurl the black banner
of atheism, and invite those who cannot get over the permission of the
bible to hold slaves, in any other way, to rally around the standard of
infidelity. Do you tell them that the constitution of the United States
gives Congress no power over the subject of slavery? Their answer
is, tear the great charter itself into shreds, light the torch of civil war,
place the battle-axe in the hand of rebellion, burn down the temple of
our government, and murder woman and her infant in the bed of repose, turned into the bed of death. Do you still tell them that the black
race of the South are not prepared for their liberty, and that they are in
a very good condition and are happy? They show you pictures of the
naked, manacled slave upon his knees, with the scourge raised above
him, and the blood trickling down his back. They tell you of dungeon
walls, handcuffs, chains, and all the infernal enginery of torture and
the rack, and such other things as exist but in their own crazed imaginations. These, of course, will go for annexation, if for nothing else under heaven, but they may obtain an ascendancy in the halls of Congress.
It matters not whether there is any probability of their profiting by this
ascendancy or not. They must have the ascendancy, and have it they
will, think they, if they have to move heaven and earth to attain it.
But in addition to the abolition party proper, there is a portion at least
of the Northern Whig party and Democratic pa,rty, who are very bitter
against the institution of slavery. The Tribune and Evening Post-one
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