"Watchman, What Of The Night?"

A better and larger spirit of liberality and freedom is swaying reformers, and reform movements. But a little while ago, and all who labored for universal freedom were deemed, and forsooth, denounced as "fanatics." No party owned fellowship with them. All sects bated them with hot scorn. They were considered low, selfish, coarse, and base as well as common! But now they have their presses, their representatives in church and State, and Legislatures defer to them, and Congress stops to consider them, and all parties and sects in politics, or christianity, think it worth while to enquire, what they mean, and whither they tend? A great victory this! The presage of a greater to be run! Only let the friends of freedom be true, be wise in action, and wide in spirit, and they will so leaven society as to command all. Men will not stop to ask - Congress and Legislatures, and sects and parties will not pause to enquire - if this be so - what they mean, but they will proceed to do what they wish. There is enough of virtue and courage in our country, to meet every demand which humanity can make; to remedy the social wrong; to enlighten and elevate labor; to crush intolerance, and master every remnant of feudality. For this end, we have only to concentrate - to possess unity of feeling, and move with unity of action - to be the worthy advocates of truth, and speak for her as if we feared no foe, and knew no taint. A courage and virtue like this will win the day against all odds, and triumph, gloriously, over all difficulties. A brighter promise yet, consists in the greater willingness of all parties possessing power to consider it use and abuse. A few years ago, and no man in the South, dared to present to the South the evil or the wrong of slavery! A few years ago, and it was not safe to discuss this subject even in the free States! This prejudice and hatred is not wholly silenced; they manifest themselves in most sects, and in every State. But there is a power which awes them into silence, and is confining them within narrower and narrower bounds. Every where we see or hear the declarations: the issues are made, and must be met; and the spirit of opposition - of simple antagonism - is rapidly dying out, as one side, in christian spirit, urges reforms, and another, in christian temper, consents to consider them. "I agree with you when yon declare," says a generous slaveholder, an Alabamian, "that the day has gone by in which evil can be justified by law, or wrong defended because it is a vested right." "The difficulty" says an aged Carolinian, "is in making a break; if that be done and Kentucky and Virginia assert freedom as the law, even our State, (South Carolina ) will go ahead more rapidly from being forced, and kept so long, unnaturally, in an ultra position." Persuade a people to hear, and the battle is more than half won! Set them to consider, as well as hear, and we cannot fail to indoctrinate them with the great truths we advocate! And North and South, the fetters of a heathen tyranny are so far broken, freedom so far advanced, so vitalized, that the public ear is opening and the public mind willing to listen - thoughtfully to reflect - upon whatever is essential to human liberty, or human progress. [Examiner.]