r, 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.

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