He had taken sides with the South in 1820 on the Missouri question.
George Julian
The Public Record
George Washington Julian was a politician, lawyer, and writer from Indiana who served in the United States House of Representatives during the 19th century. A leading opponent of slavery, Julian was the Free Soil Party's candidate for vice president in the 1852 election and was a prominent Radical Republican during the American Civil War and the Reconstruction era.
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He had no sympathy with the struggle of Adams and his associates, against the gag and in favor of the right of petition, and regarded the discussion of the slavery question as unconstitutional.
Yet my conscience presses me on; let me but die upon the breach.
Channing had styled it, was the unalterable purpose and unquenchable desire of the slave-holding interest, and its accomplishment was to be secured by openly espousing the principle that the end justifies the means, and setting all…
The diplomacy through which the plot was prosecuted was marked by a cunning, audacity, and perfidy, which, in these particulars, leave the administration of John Tyler unrivalled in its ugly pre-eminence, and form one of the blackest pages…
The momentous question was now upon us; and on the dawning of the year 1844, all parties saw that it was destined to be the overshadowing issue in the ensuing presidential campaign.
In his earlier years, he had been an outspoken emancipationist, and had always frankly expressed his opinion that slavery was a great evil.
But on the subject of slavery, though it had escaped my attention in the hurrah of 1840, I was thoroughly aroused.
Being perfectly sure that annexation would lead to slavery-extension and war, I thought it my clear and unhesitating duty to resist the election of Polk with all my might.
I think it was everywhere and pre-eminently a struggle between the men of brains on either side.
The fight was more ably if not more hotly contested than any preceding national struggle, raging and blazing everywhere, while the forces marshaled against each other were more evenly balanced than in any contest since the year 1800.
The Abolitionists deserve to be damned, and they will be," said a zealous Whig to an anti-slavery Quaker; and this was simply the expression of the prevailing feeling at this time, at least in the West.
Their organization four years before was neither untimely nor unnecessary, but belonged to the inevitable logic of a great and dominating idea.
A party was absolutely necessary which should make this idea paramount, and utterly refuse to be drawn away from it by any party divisions upon subsidiary questions.
Although they were everywhere totally misunderstood and grossly misrepresented, they clearly comprehended their work and courageously entered upon its performance.
They were anything but political fanatics, and history will record that their sole offense was the espousal of the truth in advance of the multitude, which slowly and finally followed in their footsteps.
This open and insolent defiance of the national authority could not fail to strengthen anti-slavery opinion in the Northern States.
These were pregnant events, and especially the triumph of Hale, who became a very formidable champion of freedom, and a thorn in the side of slavery till it perished.
But another conspiracy against freedom was now hatched; and if the Senate had strangled the Wilmot proviso, it was gratifying to find the House ready to strangle this monster of senatorial birth.
This was to be the great question of the ensuing national canvass, and the roused spirit of the people of the free States seemed clearly to foreshadow the triumph of freedom in the organization and government of our Mexican acquisitions.
The power of party discipline and the tempting bait of the spoils were to be employed as never before in swerving men from their convictions.
The South, of course, was a perfect unit, and fully resolved upon the spread of slavery over our Territories.
He had been thirsting for it many years, and had earned it by multiplied acts of the most obsequious and crouching servility to his Southern overseers.
Again and again he had crawled in the dust at their feet, and, if they could not now reward him with the presidency, it seemed utterly useless for any Northern man to hope for their favor.
The times are bad, and want curing; They are getting past all enduring; Let us turn out Martin Van Buren, And put in old Tippecanoe.
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