—
SPEECH OF
HON. A. V. LARRIMER,
Delivered before the Council Bluffs Demo-
cratic Association.
(SATURDAY EAENING FEB 28th, 1863.)
It has been said that any form of govern-
ment is better than no government at all.
Since the wants and fears of individuals
first suggested the necessity of some form
of governa.ent, different theories have Leen
tried ; some have succeeded, sorue have fail-,
ed, often from the system dévised, oftner
from the manner of administration. “With
us the executive, legislative and judicial offi-
cers of the government hold their respective
places by virtue of our written, ratified and
established Constitution; By accepting those
© respective places, for the performance of a
public trust, these different officers of the
Government acknowledge the supremacy of
our Constitution, and before entering upon
their duties, take an oath to support all iis
provisions,
The people when acting under the Consti-
tution and laws in selecting execulive, legis-
lative and judicial effizers, so act, with a
view that their public servants will faithful-
ly discharge the several trusts to them com-
mitted, and those trusts to be faithfully ex-
ecuted, are, simply, to consummate the ob-
jects for which the Constitution was ordain-
ed and established. The ends for which the
government was instituted ani the Constitu-
tion adopted, are not left to us enshrouded
with mystery or veiled in uncertainty. We
have it all in the preamble to the Constitu-
tion—s0 plain that he whe runs may read,
and not only read but understand—and it is
this: —
«+ We, the people of the United S ates
iinerder to form a more perfect Union, es-
tablish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
progde for the eommon defense, promote
theygeneral we'fare, and sccure the blessing
«of liberty to ourselves ana our posterity, do
asain and establish this Constitution for
the United States of America.”
hat Constitation, to which this is the
preamble, provided for three great depart.
ants of Government- -the Legislative,
which was to pass the laws, the Executives
which was to approve aud execute them,
and the Judicial, which was to expound and
enforce them. The Constitution so framed,
was submitted for ratification to the Con-
ventions of the States, and after being rati.
fied by the States according to the terms on
which it was submitted, became the sppreme
law of the land. By the terms of the Con-
stitution the powers delegated to those three
great depart: ents of government were
clearly expressed and defined. Under this
Constitution and theory of government, the
legislgtive power can pass laws, but it can-
not approve nor execute them, neither can
it expound and enforce them, for this would
require an exercise of executive and judi-
cial power which it does not have. The ex-
ecutive can approve, and execute laws only
after they are passed by the legislative, and
after they are approved. The executive can-
not expound aud enforce them, for this
would require an exercise of judicial power
which the executive does not have, The
judiciary can only expound and enforce
such lawg as have been passed by the legis
lative and approved by the executive.
Under qur theory of government, a law
is the written will of the legislature, which
has received the approval of the Executive.
There is no warrant under our Constitution
for the legislature to exercise executive or
judicial powers, neither is there for the ex-
ecutive to exercise legislative or judicial
powers. The exercise of powers by one
department of the government belonging to
another is a crime and misdemeanor, for
which the party offunding is Liable to im-
peachment and punishment. The written
will of the executive, assuming to prescribe
rules of civil conduct, by which he com-
mands what he believes to be right and pro-
hibits what he believes to be wrong, has no
validity whatever as a law, for it is but the
will of one individual, expressed in defiance
of law and in utter disregard of the Consti-
tution. If the executive is to judge when
he may exerpise legislative power, he may
also determine when he may exercise judicial
power. If he may exercise the one power
upon any exigency, he may the other, and
thus consolidate in one department of the
government, executive, legislative and judi-
cial powers. But the framers of our Con-
stitution wisely provided against such des-
potism by dividing and separating those dif-
ferent powers—creating a different depart-
meus of government for each, and placing
it b¥ond the power of the executive, under
any pretence whatever, to unite them.
We cannot believe that the Amerigan peo.
ple, naw or hereafter, will yield up without
a struggle our present system of govern-
ment and accept another which contemplates
a centralization of power without any lmi-
tation whatever upon its exercise, in utter
disregard of the aims and objects had in
view by our forefathers atthe adoption of
our {onstitution, }
As | said before, these are clearly set forth
in the preamble to our Constitution, And
now let us gee how faithful or unfaithful the
party in power have been in administering
the government for the objects for which it
was instituted—who have been for the gov-
ernment pnd who have bsan against it.—
Have the teachings and practices of the Re-
publican pa ty, from the time of its organi-
2yjign jp to the present been “in order to
A a A TNA ait an
form a mgre perfect Union?” &c. No!
They proclaimed their sentiments of disu-
nion from the first and sought to array orfe
portion of a common country against the
other. When the Constitution was runnirg
the gauntlet of adoption before the conven-
tions of the several States, no human tongue
then condemned it, because it proposed a
union of States, which when thus formed
would be part slave and part free—no, it re-
mained for disloyalty to the government and
treason to the” Constitution nearly three
quarters of a century after 'ts adoption to
proclaim it as a ground for the dissolution of
our-Union. As a result, that country —once
the land, of every land the pride —is now
rent with civil feuds and drenched with fra-
ternal blood, ¢: Establish justice!” Their
rule has exiled justice from the land. Our
courts no longer dare expound the law or
enforce their decrees. “insure domestic
tranquility !” When or where will we look
for domestic tranquility ? Alas, the votaries
of frenzy, fanaticism and hate, are the ene-
mies of quiet and repose ; they rejoice over
civil war and would add to it the horrors of
a servile one. * Provide for the common
defense !"' The strength of the nation is rap-
idly being exhausted, by the inconsiderate
slaughter of its sons io fruitless battles,
while other nations are willing spectators of
the national suicide, ‘* Promote the gener-
al welfare!” Why. every calamity that war
can entail upon a nation, bears heavily upon
ourhopes and efforts to exist in peace even as
the part of a former nationality. Individu-
al welfare and self aggrandizent, have been
the ruling passion of thos: in power, white
the public welfare has been wholly discar-
ded. ln addition to these objects, had in
view by the framers of our Constitution,
there was yet another, and that was to se-
cure the blessing of liberty to themselves
and their posterity. Yes, we who live in
this, the latter part of the nineteenth centu-
ry, are that posterity fur which our fathers
thought, by the adoption of the Constitution,
they had secured the blesrings of liberty be
youd the reach of despotic and arbitrary
power. We should have been loth to be-
lieve a few years ago that the liberty of the
citizen would ever depend upon the will of
executive ministers; we should have scouted
at the idea, that a time would ever arrive
in our history while we were pretenamg to
live under that constitution to which is at-
tached the names of Washington, Hamilton,
Franklin and others, whose memories are
hallowed in our affections ; ‘when American
citizens would be hurried off to loathsome
prisons by the minions of arbitrary power
without any charge of crime being preferr-
ed against them, or any other warrant than
the wili of those who had taken a solemn
oath to preserve, protect and defend the
Constitution—which declared in letters of
living light that no such crimes should be
perpetrated in the name of liberty. With
a free and enlightened people the exercise
of despotic power is of brief duration, for
t e consciousness that man has rights which
no despotism can extinguish, which no tyr-
anny can take away, soon applies the rem-
edy. The people may suffer their rights to
be invaded, but that inyasion will not be of
long duration. There is a principle in man
which will ever be at war with the exercise
of despotic power, and that war, when once
declared, will ever be triumphant, In days
gone by, this principle has been the moving
spring ot revolutions, has moved the foun-
dations of mighty thrones, has accelerated
the downfall of empires, has sounded into
the ears of despots and tyrants the fearful
moanings of coming storms, and it will ever
go forth at ita gppointed time as the bright
angel of God, to unbar the prison door, suc-
cor the needy, relieve the oppressed and
pour a flood of light and love into the dark-
ened and dreary intellects of those who have
felt-and suffered from man’s inhumanity to
man. It is a truth verified by the history
of other governments, that no State can ex-
ist without being soon exhausted, which
maintains over the one hundredth part of its
members in office, in arms and in idleness.
It cannot be expected that our govern-
ment will be an exception to this inexorable
law, which, when once violated, must speed-
ily result in exhausting the means and re-
sources of our rational existence, We see
swarms of public officers in cur midst eat-
ing out the subsistence of our people, near-
ly & million of men in arms under the pay
of the government, a part of the memal
population supported at the public charge,
with a command from the President to the
remainder of this latter class, to no longer
serve their masters, but become a burthen to
the people, as sre those now fed and ration-
ed by order of the Administration.
That this state of things will bankrupt
the nation, if it kas not already, is a ques-
tion which no reasonable mmd for a mo-
ment entertains a doubt. A government:
hke everything else, has its price; it is
more. But the price of government is the
reverse of the common standard. The bet-
ter the government the less cost to the peo-
ple ; the worse the governmenc the greater
the cost to the people. If principles of right,
questions ¢f interest and pomts of honor,
require extraordinary expenditures and sac.
rifices of human life, 1t may be well ; but
when the Administration disregards the
rights, the mterests and the honor of the
| government as. well as the people; - the peo-
| ole have no other alternative left, than the
establishment of an order of things, which
to them will seem most likely to effect their
safety and happiness.
worth just so much, and it is worth no.
We do not believe that mortal man could
devise a better rorm of government than the
one we have, and when we speak of the g.v-
ernment we do not mean the administration;
but 1f the administration has so disarranged
and broken up ‘he machinery of the govern-
ment so that it can never be put into suc.
cessful operation again to serve the ends for
which it was established. the sooner we cast
its broken and dishonored fragments aside,
and estat lish a new order of things, giving
to each peculiar people whose interests are
identical, a government by themselves, the
better. We cacnot sce that the toiling mil.
lions of our people are likely to receive any
corresponding benefits for the sacrifices they
have already made, and that they will be
required to make for all time to come, by
the crusade carried on against the institution
of slavery by the administration, under the
pretence of admibistering the government.
Neither can we see onc single ray of hope
for a Union of the government by a contin.
uation of this policy,
The present administration by acting in
disregard of our Constitution, perverting
the war, from a war for the restoration of
the Union, to a war for the emancipation of
slaves, may have gratified the hate and
granted the demands of those who desired
the state of affairs now existing in our un-
happy land, but by so doing it has rang the
death-knell of the Union There is no man-
ifested feeling of Union cither at the North
‘or the South, the East or the West, but
there is a feeling of hate not guided by rea-
son nor restrained by law, which looks to
the prostration and ruin of all things. It
is darkness, frenzy, fanaticismand hate.—
¢ Of all things including therein, the upper
saps which it exccrates. It does not under-
mine in its hideous crawl, merely the social
order of time—it undermines philosophy, it
undermines science, it undermines law, it
undermines human thought, it andermines
civilization, it undermines revolution, it un-
Cermines progress. It gues by the naked
names of theft, prostitution, murder and
assassination.” It 1s frenzy and hate desir-
ing chase. For moral power it appeals to
ignorance, for physical power it appeals to
arms. Sirs, when the administration of
this Government was placed in the hands of
those who sought to administer it with the
S0je VIEW Of WIaKing vvery HICivor ana culls
sideration yield to the single ohject of de-
stroymng the relation of master and slave.
the fountains of society, law, order, justice,
humanity, were broken up and the end is
not yet. The historians tell us that when
Mark Antony was returning from ‘he Par-
thean war, his soldiers about the base of
the mountains of Armenia ate of a certain
herb from the effect of which they were de-
prived of memory and judgment and became
possessed of the single idea that beneath
the stones scattered over that country there
were immense treasures which would make
them rich and happy. They had no desire
for anything but this imaginary treasure—
they forgot that they bad & country to de-
fend, a standard to honor ; ne threats could
induce them to return to duty, Their minds
were in twilight ; reason had lost its lordly
hold ; conscience nq, longer pointed out the
duty they owed to themselves or their coun-
try, and day after day they were found prone
to the earth upturning the stones in search
of an imaginary blessing, until death or the
Parthean arrow put an end to their suffer-
ings snd their folly.
If the unexpired term of the present ad-
ministration is employed in upturning, the
social order of time—undermining Consti-
tutions and laws, establishing chaos and an-
archy, under the hallucination, that we
must have liberty to the slave or death to
the Union ; we may look for its fate certain
and deplorable, as that which was inevita-
ble to the soldiers of the Roman general,
when maddened aud crazed by the love of
gold. We may destroy the Union, but we
may not liberate the slave. We may subju-
gate our own people to peonage, and fail
to subjugate those who ware in arms
against us as a separate and distinct nation-
ity.
4 we are to judge the futme by the past,
the prospect of subjugating the South by
arms, is rather remote and contingent.—A
people determingd on Independence, and a
nationality, are but seldom subdued by
arms. England was never able to smhjuzate
Scotland, although she had the numerical
strength, and overran the country with an
armed soldiery. As soon ais her army was
withdrawn, Scotland was again in arms, and
80 it continued until the battle of Banuock-
burn, when the Scots under Bruce, with 30,-
000 men, defeated an English army treble
their number, and placed Bruce upon the
throne, with England willing to recognize
their Independence. Poland, dissevered
and shared out as the spoils of nations—tao-
day is still Poland in arms. Hungary, bear-
ing as an incubus upon her heaving bosom,
the weight of one-half of Europe, is still
Hungary determined to be free. Italy, af-
ter six centuries of disintegration, has at
last thwarted the purpose of the French
Emperor with one hand, and Austgia and
Russia with the other, and to-day stands
forth to the world as Italy united and free.
I do not pretend to say by this, that the
preponderance of manhood is with the South;
but if they continue to manifest as brave
hearts and determined wills as they have al-
ready evicced in the cause which they as a
people believe to be just, the historian who
writes the history of these times and of this
contest between the North and the South,
BELLEFONTE, FRIDAY MORNING, APRIL 3, 1863.
will but re-write the history of England as
to Scotland, Russia as to Poland, Austria as
to Hungary, sud the Italian history, if this
contest be of much longer duration. FEng-
land was unable to terminate the war of the
Roses by crimsoning her soil with the blood
of the best citizens of the realm, and it was
only by a union of the Houses of York and
Lancaster that the Government was restor-
ed, peace established, and a termination ef-
fected of the horrors of that civil war which
had deluged England with blood for near a
century. This aaministration and govern-
ment peculators may desire war, but the
people desire peace, and with peace a resto-
ration of the government, which can only
be accomplished by a cessation of hostili-
ties.
He who would calm the troubled ocean in-
vokes an abatement of the storm; he who
would have peace and a restoration of the
Union, asks war's sad havoc to spare the
precious heritage from final destruction, I
believe there is a power more potent than
the sword for the preservation of Constitu_
iional republics —and that power is the re-
sult of reason and thought directed aright—
with the concession of equal and exact jus-
tice to all parts and sections of a common
country.
The present administraticn came into
power avowing hostility to the interests of
one section of the country. As the first fruits
of that disposition to disturb the peaceful
relations before existing, about to be con-
summated by the exercise of Federal power,
the President elect steals into the Federa'
Capital in disguise, and in that city bearing
the name of Washington, surrounded wiih
glittering bayonets, is inaugurated Presi
dent of the United States. No President
elect had ever before approached the Feder
al Capital in disguise, or, as executive, had
taken the oath to preserve, protect and de-
fend the Constitution of the United States,
surrounded by an armed soldiery ; for none
before had been elected to that high posi-
tien, pledged to the pursuit of a ‘policy,
having in view the destruction of the Union,
and the untold miseries inflicted by the con-
summation of thatobject. Disguise, stealth
and force at hand, are befitting precautions
10 one about to beeome the doer of dark and
evil weeds, The people plead for peace;
LUCY UCard tae formed solllnga SAR ——
ing storm, but there wasno hand to save,
Republican loyalty demanded blood — it de-
manded plunder, it demanded a dissolution
of the Union, it demanded ¢ freedom to the
slave or death to t“e Union." We have
had war that these demands might be grant-
ed--one which has been accomplish’ng its
work of destruetion and riveting chains of
slavery upon our people for nearly two
years, and to-day its authors are unwilling
to acknowledge the true cause, cr tell our
people why it is that numerical strength
does not prevail in this contest, supported
as it has been with everything that a free
and prosperous people had at their centrol
at the commencement and during the con-
test, as the result of constitutional govern.
ment previous to Republican rule. The best
form of government ever devised by man is
but an experiment, and like every other ex-
periment, from some canse or other, may
fail.
That our Goverpment should have been an
exception to that decadence which, sooner
or later, overtakes every work of mortal
man, was the hope, not only of loyal citizens
here, but of the friends of human liberty
throughout the world. When our Govern-
ment was at peace with the world and at
peace with itself, the sweat of an honest
man’s brow only being exacted to provide
food and raiment for himself anc those who
by nature had claims upon him, with the
additional exertion required to support le-
gitimate government, which was no bur-
then, all loyal citizens of this Government
of ours, said it was well, When we enjoy-
ed such prosperity as the world never be-
fore had witnessed, when the Emblem of our
Nationality was respected in every land and
on every sea, wherever its broad folds were
unfurled, when we were justly proud of the
position we occupied among the nations of
the earth, loyal citizens desired no change,
and said it was well, With the enjoyment
of individual and national prosperity, some
of the States of the Umion maintained the
institution of African slavery, which had no
existence 1a some and had been abolished in
others : a relation and condition of society
which the friends of revolution, the enemies
of law and order, declared should no longer
continue. We must become all one thing or
all the other —be all slave or all free States.
Such was the language of disloyalty, nor
was it long in manifesting itself, in many of
the States already alienated from the Con-
stitution and Federal Laws, by the passage
of what they terined Personal Liberty Bills,
which was in opposition to both. The dis-
position to disturb the existing order of
things gave itself form and shape by the or-
ganisation of what was called the Republi-
can party, the leading snd fundamenta]
principle ot which party was hostility to
the institution of slavery. Men of profli-
gates lives and desperate fortunes, with
those who were craged upon the question of
slavery, united their efiirts to place the
Federal power in the hands of thet party
which in advance of the Presidential elec-
tion, had declared its infidelity to the Gov-
ernment: It was denounced as revolution-
ary and dangerous to the peace of the coun-
try, by a large majority of the American’
people, in the Northern states, misled and
deceived, together with a desire of change of
Admnistration, committed the execntive
authority of the grvernment. to an expo-
nent of this radical revolutionary party. —
What we have already experienced of Re-
publican rule, attests the fidelity of that
party toits promises before the election ; not
ta preserve but to destroy, not to protect but
to assail, not to defend but to utterly disre-
gard the plainest provisions of our Nation-
al Constitt tion.
If loyal citizens, before the presidential
election, rightfully and trathfully denoun-
ced this party as hostile to our national
Government, as yot they have no ground to
change that opinion. [If ther theory was
wrong then, their practice is wrong to day,
and cannot receive the endorsement of
those who would be consistent. Ifit was
wrong for a political party asking fcr the
administration of the Government, to de-
clare hostility to State institutions, is it
wrong for that party when in power to ex-
er ise that power in waging war against
those stitutions, We believe with those
who pledged their lives, their fortunes and
their sacred honor to the cause of American
Independence, and attestad their sincerity
with their blood on every battle field. of
the Revolution, that Government derived
their just powers from the consent of the
governed.
We do not believe that a minority par-
ty, obtaining power under false pretences,
have the right to disregard the expressed
wish of the majority, and that party and
its minions of power will yet find that there
is a terrible retribution for all who prefer-
red and brought about the state of affairs
now existing, rather than the institution of
slavery should emist in some States ot our
former Union. While we acknowledge
hostility to slavery, asa principle of the
Republican party, we do not forget that the
leaders of that party, as a general thing,
were more thoroughly imbued with dis-
loyalty to the Government, and a de-
sire of sclf-aggrandisement upon the
ruing of their country, than they were of
ameliorating the condition of ther fellow
man.
Philanthropy does not demand, for the
success of 1ts purpose, a dismemberment of
Government, or that a country like ours,
* An la. had “hala
be drenched with fraternal blood, It does
not derrand the infliction of a greater evil
upon the hu nan family thaf the evil sought
10 be remedicd, nor as great. Tt does not
demand that the sworn eonservators of our
State and national authority should violate
their solemn oaths of office, by trampling
upon and disregarding the plainest provis-
10ns of those Constitations which they had
taken an cath to support and defend. Tt
does not demand that twenty mullions of
American freemen should be made peors,
the slaves to debt, which is slavery in its
most horrid form, for the purpose of libera-
ting from servitude three millions of negroes
or that the sweat of a white man's brow
should be exacted to provide food and rai-
ment for those negroes after they are liber
ated, as is now being dune by the order of
the Republican administration at Washing-
ton Neither does it require as a contrast
to this, that American citizens should be
arrested withont warrant, tried without ju-
ry, and be committed, without process, to
loathsome prisons.
The philanthropy of the Republican par-
ty may require all this and more, but that
philanthropy which teaches peace on earth
and good will toward all men, from the be-
giming Las denied the orthodoxy of the Re-
publican theory, and condemned its practice
as a stupendous iniquity sought to be im-
posed on moral and political principles.—
A majority of the American peeple con-
demned Republicanism in the beginn‘ng,and
if wgong then, it is wrong to day, The con
dition of our eountry at the time of the or-
ganigation of the Republican party, and its
condition to day 1s a sad commentary upon
true politieal policy, if the policy of that
patrly, is the policy on which eur Gov-
ernment should be administered. We be-
lieve that when men violate tho laws of
their eountry, they should be punished, and
with us the law has provided a penalty. We
believe that when the exceutive transeends
the rule of action prescribed for him by the
supreme power of the Government, he
should be punished.
We believe thai when public servants
violate their trusts, and persist in such vio-
lations they should be made to know and
feel that the people are eonscious of their
infidelity. With us the people sre, or rather
have been, the beneficiaries, and it ia their
legitimate province to sees to it, that their
public servants do not destroy the aims and
objects for which the Government was in-
stituted.
The advocates of the administsation say
that our executive is an honest. man ; that
the policy he has pursued was with a view
oi aceomplishing good ; others justify his
acts. It has eyer been thus; every wale-
factor who violates the law of his country,
when brought to trial either justifies the
act, or disclaims any criminal intent, but
that crime may not be committed with im-
punity, it has ever been the policy of the
law of every well regulated State to hold the
offender responsible when he aots withoat
legal justification or excuse. If there is no
legal justification or excuse, for the action
of the present administration in a wanton
AMEE rete Been ate at
disregard of the Constitution and laws it is
certainly neither virtue, loyalty nor patriot-
ism, 1n any one tc undertake to shield it
from the odium and guilt of which it stands
convicted to day before the world. Before
this administration came into power, every
Joyal man. declared against the radical and
revolutionary policy proposed by such men
as Wendell Phillips, Greely. Sumner, Beech-
er ard that class of men, yet to day when
the national or rather Republican adminis-
tration is undertaking to do precisely what
these fanatics and disunionists said it should
do these abolitionists and their converts
cry ont Joyalty, - Loyalty to what? to tho
Government? No ! to the Constitntion? No!
to an economical administration of the Gov-
ernment? No ! to the Union? No! for loyalty
to any of these ohjects is treason to aboli-
tion rule. The original and genuine aboli-
tionists have one virtue, if you may call it
such, to which their converts cannot lay
any claim, and that is consistency ; they
are advocating the same doctrine to day,
they ever have, and that doctrine to day, in-
volves as it ever did, disloyalty to the Gov-
ernment, by a violation of Constitutional
rights and obligations. That the chief ex-
ecutive of our Government has become pros-
elyted to the iraquitous vagaries of abolition
ism, is our misfortune. not our fault. “The
first converts to the Wendell Phillips theo-
1y of administering the government, more
zealons than their leaders, were desirous of
dividing the people into two clases, and
by changing the acceptation of certain terms
they and their leaders such as Greely, Beech-
er, Phillips, and such like, were to be call-
ed patriots, all others traitors. Now so far
28 & mere name is concerned, we will call
them anything they like, but we fear the
scent of the nigger will cling to them still.
The mouidering 2shes of Clay, Webster,
Calhoun and others, may fret in their cof-
fins when we begin to call such men as Ho-
race Greely, Wendell Phillips, and their
followers patriots, but if they will only re-
nounce their treason, support the Constitu-
tion as it is, and the Union as it was, we
will do it. This class of patriots formerly
known as abolitionist and secssionist, are
now divided, each following the skeleton of
a representative Government, but if to day
they will unite with us, we may yet give
peace to this distracted country, But we
Baoan on dil me aan
of Congress relieving the President and
those acting under his authority from ail
penalties attached to the violation of the
laws, and the assurance by Federal harpies
that the President is an honest man, the
votaries of frensy, fanaticism and hate, pur-
sue the evil tenor of their way. The Er.
glish Government made it a fundamental
maxim of their law, that their King could
do no wrong, but the English people at
times have thought their King did wrong.
Charles the I, by dispensing with Statutes,
which had long received the assent of the
English people,assumed the Supreme suthor-
ity of the commonwealth, and, by the ex-
ercise of the proclamation power in utter
disregard of the will and wishes of his peo-
ple, lost his head. Yet, there were those
who claimed that Charles was an honest
man. Robespierre had the character of be-
ing an upright, honest man, but he deman-
ded too many victims for his bloody puillo-
tine—the people became sickened and hor-
rificd at his honesty of purpose, and invited
him to a realization of that refined instru-
ment of death with which he had shed the
be t blood of France.
It has ever been the part of wisdom, to be
governed to some extent, by the history of
the past, and this Republican Abolition par-
ty who took control of the Government with
the avowed purpose of destroying it, would
do well to take timely notice and govern
themselves accordingly. They can accom-
plish nothing but ovil, in the policy they
avowed before they came into power, and
which they have practiced since, for the
simple reason, that in the pursuit of that
policy, they have violated every principle
of our Constitution, have inflicted evils ten
thousand fold greater, upon every man, wo-
man and child in the land, than the evil
they proposed to remedy—nave extorted
blood und treasure, to establish a despotism,
and gratify hate, which will soon, if it is not
already, be as abhorred at the North, as 1t
is at the South—they have inflicted a wrong
upon eur Government and our people, which
no human power ean remedy, and if they
persist in their mad carcer, Birnam Wood
yet may come to Dunsinane. A Congress
called together, by the President of the
United States on the 25th day of July, [861,
declared that the war was not waged for
conquest, or subjugation, or for mterfering
with the rights or established institutions of
the Sates, but to defend the supremacy of
the Vonstitution. with their rights and equal
ity under.it .nimpaired, and as soon as
these objects should be accomplished the
war ought to cease. The people relying on
this solemn assurance. were willing to make
any and every sacrifice for the Government
they loved and adored.
It is needless for me to say, that the ad-
ministration from the first to the last, has
violated this solemn assurance given to the
people on the part of loyal men in Congress
who intended what it declared, as to the ob-
jects of the war, but which has been used
to cheat and delude the people into the sup-
port of a policy, which would not bear an
avawal, at the time men and means were
wanted, to carry out the policy of Republi-
ronan frm manhihame -
can rule We believe that more can be
Rin i
NO. 13.
done to unite the Union by peace than by
war. No Union has ever yet ‘been formed
fo continue, when united by so unnatural a
bond as hatred, and the Union thus formed
is unworthy of preservation. The people of
the North may be willing to support legiti-
mate Government, but we much doubt
whether they would be willing to bear the
burthen impo ed by governing 10,000,000
of people against their consent. So far as [
am conoerned 1 have never felt that interest
in the people of the revolted States, that f
would have imposed upon the people of the
Notth, the bondage and servitude of debt,
to extend a Government over them, against
their consent ; nor has the relation of mas-
ter and slave been so abhorrent to me, that
I would at any time dnring the existence of
the Union, have disturbed the peace arid
harmony of the Government, a single hour,
to have liberated every slave in the land. —
1 have no more kindiy feelings for those who
are dictatorial, proud. and arrogant, from
whose skin is white, than I have for those
who are dictatorial, proud and arrogant,
from wealth accamulated by the labor of
one whose skin is black. It may be l.ss
offensive, to those who would be the cham-
pions of freedom, to call the one an opera-
tive and the other a slave, but hers. where
you ard I have cast our destinies, we: do
not eat our bread from the sweat of opera-
Lives or slaves, nor do we expect, for all
time to come, to pay tribute to the demands
of those who do, If the South valued sla-
very more than the Union, and New Eng-
land valued it less than the liberty and the
political, and social equality of the slave,
we valued it more than either, for we made
neither of these demands upon it. We
would have avoided the war by compromise
and conciliation ; we would terminate the
war and restore the Union by the same
means, Failing in this, I know of no better
policy to pursue than that proposed by Mr.
Conway, a Republican member of Congress
from Kansas. It was that both houses of
Congress, should adopt the following reso-
lutions :
“ Resolved. By the Senate and House of
Representatives, §c., That the Executive be,
and is hereby requested to issue a general
order to all commanders of forces in the
cavar:l military di nartmonte of tha Taitad
States to discontinue offensive operations
against the enemy, and to act for the future
entirely on the defensive.
Resolved, Thatthe executive be, and is
further requested to enter into negotiations,
with the authorities of the Confederate
States with reference to a cessation of hos-
tilities, based upon the following proposi-
tions : 1. Recognition of the independence
of the Confederate States. 2. A uniform
system of dutics upon imports. 3. Free
trade between the two States. 4. Free nav-
igation of the Mississippi river. 5. Mutual
adoption of the Monroe doctrine."
A prosecution of the war may be profita-
ble to New England, but we are not New
England. Our cup of misery, has already
been filled in order to gratify those who de-
sired and demanded the inauguration of a
war as necessary to have been ccmmenced,
asit isnow for jt to be continued. If it
must continue in order to gratify cupidity,
party strife und blina ambition, we have no
furcher interest in its prosecution, and would
infinitely prefer a Government of our own
providing against African Slavery on the
one hand, and against the poli-ical equality
and citizenship of negroes on the other ; and
thus constituted without the African elo
ment either as slave or free, with the de-
portation to New England,of all in our midst
who claim that they are the political and
social equals of the negro, and for whose
opinions in matters of this kind we enter-
tain the highest regard, enter upon the
race of empire, with the South and East as
our competitors, having no fears as to which
would ultimately triumph.
Sirs, if I thought the policy of the pres-
ent administration would restore the Gow~
ernment, would give us a govermmens off
unity and peace, my voice should be for
war, but I do not 80, believe. I heheve this
Government is dying and that before the ex-
piration of ‘this administration it will be
dead. There are things in the physical world
that seemingly div and pass away—but. re.
turn again clothed anew with the emblems
of immortality; but & Government is not one
of these—whem once dead, it is dead forever.
The frosts of autumn have destroyed the veg-
etation of summer, and winter left no trace
thereof, but the rejuvenescence of spring,
now near at hand, wili again clothe the
earth with verdure and beauty, and all ap-
pear as once it was, but for you and I,
there ia no such hope for our Governmens..
We may invoke the recognition of our Con-
stitution by those who are in power, and a
prosecution of the war te defend its suprem-
acy with the rights and equality under it
unimpaired, but thst invocation will be in
vain, in the fature, as it haa been in the
past. A war prosecuted against the 'Con-
stitution ag itis. and the Union ag it was,
is a war for the destruction of both, and if:
continued will ultimately succeed in the des-
struction of both the Constitution and the
Government. :
[77 A tiger got out of his cage and took.
a leisurely walk in Oincinnati lately, budly
frightening 8 woman by trying to get into +
her kitchen.
ec ria
077 Some of the drafted men in Detroit *
Lad to be taken to camp in®chains.
wesltn accumulated by the labor of one -
‘s