Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1859 — The Extension of Free Sentiment in Slave States. [ARTICLE]

The Extension of Free Sentiment in Slave States.

Among the signs of the times, the late straight-out Republican speech of Hon. Francis P. Blair, jr., of St. Louis, at St. Joseph, Mo., and that of Hon. Cassius M. Clay, at Covington, Ky., may be regarded as most striking. Mr. Blair addressed an audience of some five hundred men. embracing slaveholders and non-slaveholders, and although interruptions were occasionally attempted by the former, he was for the most part listened to with respectful attention and though some of his remarks were hissed by the slaveryites, yet the applause was far more frequent and got the better of the hisses. It was the first Free Soil speech ever delivered in St. Joseph, and considering the circumstances, was more successful than could have been expected. It no doubt accomplished some good, laying down to the auditors, as it did. the great gospel of Freedom in plain, practical words and arguments. The fact that the Free Democrat —a Republican paper recently established—bids fair to be a permanent institution in St. Joseph, and that, at a late “indignation” meeting of citizens to consider the rescue from jail and escape of Dr. Roy, who was convicted of aiding slaves to escape, a resolution to “suppress” the Free Democrat, was voted down by a strong majority, and another resolution that the paper le sustained, was almost unanimously adopted, shows that the Free Soil sentiment has a powerful strong hold in that slaveholding city. t The Republican speech of Cassius M. Clay at Covington, Ky., was received, we are told, with “silent attention,” which is more than could have been expected in that slave-holding locality. It is now almost certain that at the next Presidential election, the Republican party will have regular organizations and electoral tickets in Kentucky and Missouri, which it had not in 1856. In both of those States, we predict, the slaveholders will be surprised at the number of votes that will be polled for the Republican candidates, in case the leaders of the cause there will come out boldly and take a firm and determined position in the canvass.