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- all these had said over & over again that
- the repeal of the Missouri compromise would
- doom Kansas to slavery & they were not
- ready to admit after the passage of the bill
- that there was any possible chance of
- saving her to freedom by any
possible - efforts of the Emigrant Aid Company, or of any
- body else.
- The causes which led to the apathy or hostil-
- ity of these two classes of honest haters of sla-
- very will become apparent upon a little
- examinations. The antislavery politicians
- & journalists had been accustomed to
- contend against slavery by legislative pro-
- hibition or in other words the “Wilmot Proviso.”
- This was their God; & without his help
- it was not considered possible for freedom
- to keep pace with slavery. Every year
- it became more and more apparent that
- this deity was being pushed harder &
- harder like Poe’s man,
- “Whom unmerciful disaster
- “Followed fast and followed faster
- Till at last he was utterly destroyed by
- the repeal of the Missouri compromise.
- These politicians had always called
- the Wilmot Proviso “the bulwark of freedom.”
- It did not occur to them thus freedom,
- god-given, was a giant who needed no
- bulwarks for his protection & could find
- in them nothing but an obstruction & a
