" BEDFORD GAZETTE. i B. F. MEYERS, EDITOR. FRIDAY, ~ : : : ' t : : MAY 16, 1862. tGTThe new church on th land of Jarob Dibeit in Bedford township, will b dedicated to the ser vice of the Triune God, on Sabbath, the 25th, inst. The public are respectfully invited to attend. DELEGATE ELECTIONS. The Democratic voters of the several election "districts of Bedford coimfy, and others who in tend to act with them in good faith hereafter, ■are hereby requested to meet on SATURDAY, 21 ST OF JUNE, NEXT, at the hour and place to be appointed by their respective Vigilance Committees (who are here by requested to give written notice of such time ' and place of meeting) for the purpose of elect ing two persons as delegates to the Democratic County Convention which is to assemble at the Court House in Bedford, on TUESDAY, 2-lth •JUNE, NEXT, at 2 o'clock, T. M., to put in nomination a County ticket to bo voted for at the ensuing election, appoint conferees to meet ronfereos from the remaining counties of this Congressional District to nominate a candidate for Congress, and attend to such other matters as may be proper to be transacted for the bene fit of the party. It is also particularly request ed that active and earnest Democrats be elected Vigilance Committees for the ensuing year and that their names be carefully reported to the President of the Convention. By order of the Don. Co. Com., JOHN S. SCI I Chairman. • Buying Freedom for the Slaves. It is generally admitted by all conserva tive men that the abolition ot' slavery in the District of Columbia, was not only ill-timed and impolitic, but a positive insult to the Union men of that gallant little State to which the Federal Government is indebted for the soil upon which Hands the Capital of the nation. But, strange as it may ap pear, the conservative thinkers of the North, have almost entirely failed to take the view of that question which is pointed out so clearly by the well-established maxim, "Charity he gins at home." They tell us of the outrage "upon tire sensibilities of the people of the Border States, of the deteriorating influen ces exerted upon Southern "loyalty," of the encouragement given to the rebellion, I by the adoption of this unfortunate measure by Congress and the President; but they j seem to forget that we of the North are more j directly and pointedly insulted, and that Northern society is much more dreadfully threatened, by the enactment of that mea sure, tlran the jieople of the Border States, or slave-holders anywhere. Why, is not the Government by the terni3 of this pre cious emancipation law, to pay S3OO per head for every negro slave in the District? and where is it to raise the money hut from the people of the North? And what is to become of the slaves when liberated ? Where will they go ? The people of Bedford coun ty, can answer that question without any trouble. They will coine North. They will be east upon society to mingle with the whites and to be maintained at their expense. Many of them superannuated, others disea sed and decrepid, and the remainder accus tomed to the control of a master, they will lieeome a black lazzaroni, living upon the charity, or the taxes, of the white people, and cursing and blighting the industry and enterprise of the laboring man. Hence, we arc not only buying the freedom of the slaves, paying for their liberty out of our pockets— but we arc also to maintain them at our own expense, when we have thus purchased their freedom. Could Congress and the Ihcsi dent have offered to the people of the North a more degrading insult than this ? To place the African slave side by side with the white laborer of the North, compelling the latter to jiav for the social elevation of the former and to toil for the sustenance of the pur chased serf! What a picture! Shame to the fanatics and demagogues whose work is this! Shame, and shame again, to the man whom accident, false pretence and folly elevated to the Presidential office, and whose accidental policy, false pretence and folly are dragging down the American Republic to a level with the status of his own statesmanship. The Rebellion. The splendid success of the plans of Gen. McClellan, has put a new phase upon the rebellion, and whilst we cannot yet discern the probable issue of the wax, we can dis tinctly sec that the Secession leaders will ei ther have to change their programme, or dis band their army and succumb to the Federal power. That they will hardly do the latter, is indicated by the fact fhat they arc daily destroying millions of dollars worth of prop erty,'blowing up their vessels and even burn ing sorii'e of their towns. This yoqld seem •.to .show, that they axe desperate and intend - reallyd'C in the last ditch." We bc "licVd; "Therefore, that it is their design to change their mode of fighting, to abandon the idea of building forts, to move away from navigable streams so as to keep aloof from our gun-boats, to draw our armies af ter them into the hot climate of the Gulf States, and thus to prolong the war, if pos sible, until, as they say, our Government "shall be bankrupted." Sanguine people, of course, will not credit this theory. It may not be correct, and we hope it is not.— But whatever may be the result of the war, McClcllan has done his share to bring it to a successful close, and should it fail to restore the Union, it will not be because the war was not properly conducted on the Federal side, but because it was not the remedy for the disease to which it has been applied. SHADE Tr., Somerset Co., May 7, 'O2. Mr. Editor: , I am an ignorant man, living on the Al leghany mountain, and I solicit information from you and your numerous correspondents. I have lately received a copy of our glorious "Consti tution of the United States." I read the fol lowing passage in Section lit: "Treason against the United State.*, shall con sist only in levying war against them," <&e., &c. Now I ara an humble peasant, an unsophis ticated mountaineer, and T wish to know, how any one can bo guilty of treason properly and constitutional/;/ speaking? Treason consists in * keying war against the United States; but if sev en or eight States secede from the formerly Uni ted States, 1 want to know how you can make, or prove, any one to be a traitor in ihc seceded States. The States are no longer " United therefore, no treason and no traitor can be found. I am a poor man on the Alleghany mountain, and I want information. I cannot l>e proved a traitor, even if 1 should speak against the pre sent state of things,—for it is treason only to speak against the United States. QUEUE. RKMARKS. Our correspondent, however "unsophisti cated,"' must know that there is no Consti tutional right of secession; that the so-call ed "Confederate States" which have preten ded to secede from the Union, had not the power, under the Constitution, to do so, and are no more out of the Union to-day, "Con stitutionally speaking," than they were when they denounced the disunion secessionists of the Hartford Convention 50 years ago. The Union is, theoretically, as perfect and com plete at the present moment as it was when the Constitution was ratified by the States. And it is to the theory of our Government that wc must look for the determination and punishment of orimcs against it. That the ory is contained in the fundamental law, or in other words, the Constitution. There fore, as that law, that Constitution is still just as binding upon the people of (lie Sece ' ded States as it would bo, had they never I adopted their ordinances of Secession, and, I as that law, that Constitution is the tie that holds the Stutca together, it follows that we have still, theoretically, and, therefore, for all judicial purposes, Thirty-four United States. Hence the taking up of arms by citizens of the would-be independent States in th