w
Sitacee Koy, £<,
~ @he Democratic
i
The Huse.
Jtiseellaneons.
Written for the Watchman. ]
UNREQUITED LOVE.
BY JOHN P. MITCHELL.
In scenes of joy, in scenes of grief,
I ever meet thine eye;
The memories thy presence brings
Will never, never, die.
Upon my heart they ever beam,
With magic in their glow;
Ard ever whisper me of bliss
My soul can never know.
From Heaven’s light they take their glow,
With Heaven's fires they burn ;
And deep within their depths of blue
Love’s mysteries I learn.
But all in veir my love for thee,
In vain my spirit’s sigh ;
The voice of Fate hath bade my love
In secret sadness, die, . -
Another’s smile hath gained thy love
Another’s heart hath won
‘I'he gem to which my spirit turns
As planets to the sun.
In music sweet I hear thy voice,
In every zephyr's breath;
But, tuned to whisper love to him,
To me, it whispers—death!
My harp is strung, by grim despair,
To wail the dirge of hope ;
For all is fled, and I am left,
In darkness deep, to grope.
Alas! that love should ever bring
Such anguish to the heart ;
Alas! that we, for loving well,
Should see each hope i®part.
Alas! that love can ever live
Without a full return;
Alas! that unrequited love
In human hearts should burn.
Alas! that Fate skould e’er allow
True love, in vain, to sigh ;
Alas! that in a hun:an heart
The purest thought should die.
Oh! if thy heart responsive beat,
And gave back sigh for sigh,
’Twere pleasure, such as Heaven gives,
To meet thy beauteous eye.
The mem’ry of thy fair young face
Would never bring me pain
If half the love I bear for thee
Were but returned again.
But now, the deepest agony
My heart can ever know
Speaks, thro’ the gloomy shade which falls,
In deep, but voiceless, woe.
Oh! would that it were only true
That Jove is but an art;
A dream of bliss, a fleeting shade,
To cheat the trusting heart.
1 then could hope, in future years,
Some other bliss to find, .
When time should wear this love away
And bring me one more kind.
Tis happiness that is a dream,
And innocence a lie—
The love which burneth in my soul,
Will never, NEVER, die!
I've heard that once the god of love
With Death exchanged a dart;
I would it were the fatal shaft
Which quivered in zy heart.
Full half the misery of earth,
The pain, the death, the woe, -
The endless tortures of the soul,
From Cupid’s temple flow.
His court-yard is a place of skulls,
His palace built of bones ;
_ His pools, the blood of human hearts,
His musie, human groans,
Deceit and flattery with him
Are ever to be found ;
And in a coach—the devil's gift,
He driveth them arqund.
His victims are the pure and good,
Who fall an easy prey,
And, when they are securely bound,
He steals their hopes away.
Their groans are heard in every breeze,
And yet, they say, that love
Is given to humanity—
A type of joys above.
When, in the vales of Paradise,
True love first had a name,
Some purity it might have had
Before the devil came ;
But, when oid Satan tempted Eve,
He taught her mystic arts,
Which all her daughters since have used
To ruin trusting hearts.
But I defy the boasted power
Of Satan, Love and all,
With every kindred curse which came
With father Adam’s fall
Thine eye may beam upon my sight
Until its glazed in death ;
And I will curse the power of love
With my last earthly breath.
My harp hath wailed a mournful strain
Its last note now iso’er;
1°11 twine itround with eypress leaves,
And sweep its strings no more.
Howarbp, Pa.,
Aug. 28, 1863. }
Co.
.
NOT DEAD.
Hurrah! hurrah! the sale is closed !
«She was not dead but sleeping.”
Dear friends, our Liberty still lives,
She was not dead, but sleeping,
Oh, blessed news! spread through the land,
Go forth like lighting leaping,
‘Wherever patriot hearts are sore,
And patriot eyes are weeping !
And tell them Liberty still lives,
She was not dead, but sleeping.
SPEECH
op’
JOHN H. ORVIS, Esq.
Delivered at the Democratic Meeting, in
Bellefonte, Pa., August 26th 1863.
MR. PresmuNe AND FeLrow Crrrzens :
In umes of great public excitement, when
the very existence of the government, as
well as the liberties of the people are in
jeopardy, citizens should not 11 their politi-
cal meetings, expect to be entertained with
humgrous anecdotes or trifling witicisms at
the expense of their political opponents.
At all times, in fact, should the discussion
of public questions, questions involving the
happiness of millions of the present genera-
tion, and of countless millions yet unborn,
be conducted with the candor and temper-
ance befitting the magnitude of the subject,
and the importance of the interests involved,
But especially at this time, we want no un-
becoming levity, and no artificial excite-
ment, The passions of the people are arous-
ed, their feelings are excited, and their
natural impulses and instincts are stired up
to the highest possible degree, What we
now need, are carefnl investigation, sober
reason, and deliberate judgment. A fearful
crisis is upon our country ; our duty as
citizens, is to fully understand the exact na-
ture of this crisis, and the proper means to
be employed to meet it.
For the last fifteen years, but more espe-
cially since 1854, has there existed in the
United States a fearful and bitter excite-
ment on-the subject of negro slavery, This
rapidly assumed the character of sectional-
ism, until a majority of the Northern people
were arrayed in antagonism to the whole
population of the South. We have upon
former occasions, traced the course of this
agitation step by step, and demonstrated its
natural and inevitable results to be disun-
ion and civil war. We have shown that|
those Northern fanatics who forced this agi”
tation upon the country are justly responsi-
ble for all the evils we are now suffering.
We shall not at the present time, weary you
with a repetition of the facts and arguments
then predueed; hat will pass over all the
causes, real and imaginary, ..s..cu uave pro-
duced our present complications, in order to
learn if possible, whether the proper course
has been pursued by those, who for the time
kerpirg and control. :
Soon after the elections of 1860, the peo-
ple of the Southern states, inaugurated the
movement for taking those states out of
the Union, and forming them into an inde-
pendent government or cenfederacy, in pur-
suance of their oft repeated declaration, thag
they would not remain ia the old Union af-
ter the people of the North should solemnly
declare through the ballot box their determ-
ination to make the anti-slavery views of the
New England school of politics the control-
ling ideas and principles of the federal gov-
ernment. The right of one or more states to
secede from the Union was generally denied
by the people of the non-slave-holding
states, though admitted and vigorously sup-
ported by most of the leading men of the
anti-slavery party. Horace Greely always
maintained the right of secession till the
commencement of the civil war, as is eyi-
denced by the following extracts from the
New York Tribune for November aud De-
cember, 1860 and Feb. 1861:
Nov. 9. “If the cotton states shall Dbe-
come satisfied that they can do better out of
the Union than in it, we insist on letting
them go in peace. The right to secede may
be a revolutionary one, but it exists never
less. * * * Whenever a considerable sec-
tion of our Union, shall deliberately resolve
to go out, we shall resist all coercive meas-
ures designed to keep them ia. We hope
never to live in a republic whereof one sec-
tion is pinned to another by bayonets.”
Nov. 26. ¢If the cotton states unitedly
and earnestly wish to withdraw peacefully
from the Union, we think they should and
would be allowed to do so, Any attempt to
compel them by force to remain, would
be contrary to the principles enunciated in
the immortal Declaration of Independence,
contrary to the fundamental ideas on which
human liberty is based,”
Dec. 17. ““Ifit (the Declaration of Inde-
pendence) justified the secession from the
British Empire of three millions of colo-
nists in 1776, we do not sce why 1t would
not justify the secession of five millions of
Southerners from the Union in 1861.”
Feb. 23. «We have repeatedly said, and
we once more insist, that the great princi-
ple embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration
of American Independence, that governnients
derive their just powess from the consent of
of the governed, 1ssound and just ; and that
if the slave states, the cotton states, or the
Gulf states only, choose to form an independ
ant[nation, they have a cleaismoral right to do
so. * * * Whenever it shall be clear that
the great body of the Southern people have
become conclusively alienated fro the Un-
ion, and anxious to escape from it, we will
do our best to forward their views.”
On the 4th of Dec. 1856, Benjamin F.
Wade, mn the United States Senate, advo-
cated the right of any portion of the people
of a country, whenever their government fail-
ed te protect their rights, to withdraw from
such Government, and set up a new one Im
its stead ; and made the revolutionary par-
ty the sole judge of the character and con-
duct of the old ‘government! The following
extract will be found on page 25, vol 34,
Con. Globe, 3rd Sess, 34th Con:
«If they (the Southern people) do not feel
interested in upholding this Union—if it
really trenches on their rights—if it en-
dangers their institutitions to such an ex-
tent that they cannot feel secure under it—
if their-interests are violently assailed by
means of this Union, I am not oneof those
who expect that they wiil long continue
under it. I am not one those who
would ask them to continue in “such a {n-
ion. 1t would be doing violence to the plat-
form of the party to which I belong. We
have adopted the old declaration of inde-
pendence, as the basis of our political move-
ments, which declares that any people, when
their government ceases to protect their
rights, when it is so subverted from the
true purposes of government as to oppress
them, have the right to recur to fundamental
principles, and if ne:d be, to destroy the
the government under which they lived, and
to erect on its ruins another more condusive
to their welfare. I hold that they have
this right. I will nct blame any people for
exercising it, whenever T#ny mmnk the con-
tingency has come.”
As early as Jan. 12, 1848, Abraham Lin-
coln asserted thc seme doc‘rine in & more
genersl and woliciited manner. In a speech
in the House of Representatives (page 94
Vol. 19, App. Con. Globes, 1, Sess. 30. Con.
Leuvs:sthe following remarkable and sweeping
language :
‘Any people, any where, bsing inclined,
and having the power, have the right to rise
up and shake oft the existing* government,
and form a new oue that cuits them better.
This 15 a moct valuable, a most Sacred
right—a right which we hope and believe is
to liberate the world. Nor is this right con-
fined to cases in which the whole people of
an existing government may choose to exer-
cise it. Any portion of such people that
can, may revolutionize, and make their
own, so much of the territory as they in-
habit. More than this, a majority of any
portion of such people may revolutionize,
putting down a minority intermingled with
or near about them. who may oppose their
movements.” .
We have selested the above from a mass
of similar productions, because the authors
were the representative men of their party,
gave it character, and claimed the right to
speak for it. - Notwithstanding this was the
position of nearly all the leading anti-slavery
agitators, yct the n asses of the Northern
people did not recognize the right of the
Southern States to secede, and consequently
few, if any, complained of the President for
refusing to recognize theirindependence,
In justize to Lincoln, it must be admitted
that the government was placed in an em-
ergency, at the ime of his nauguration
had found if." "LIVEHMNg SiR IHiAkiRY
passed ordinances of secession, and claimed
to be independent of the Federal govern-
ment. That a man, almost entirely inex-
when called upon to discharge the responsi-
ble duties of Chief Executive magistrate at
such a crisis, commit some serious errors,
was naturally to be expected. Under the
circumstances, the people would have been
inclied to pardon those minor faults and
errors, which are generally used as weapons
to assail an admimstration and its - party,
bad Lincoln been willing to pursue a mag-
nanimons and pririotic policy, —such a pol-
icy as all statesman had agreed could alone
save the country, :
The new President, for a ume, apparent-
ly hesitated as to the policy he would pur-
sue. We say apparent’y hesitated, for
many believe that from the beginning he
and his party determined to use no means
or egency but military force, to meet the
difficulties ; and that his, non-commital
course in his inagural address, and for some
weeks thereafter, was intended only to luil
the fears of the Northern people and
lead them gradually into a war, from which
they would have started back in horror, had
it been openly announced from (he first.
There were three and only three courses of
action, which could have been pursued by
the new administration : 1st, Compromise;
20d, Recognition of the independence of the
States ;'and 3rd, War and subjugation. No
one complained because Mr. Lincoln did not.
choose the second of these, although many
of the ablest men of the North believed that
even that course would have been far prefer-
able to the one he did select. Indeed, eve-
ry patriot, every christian,every right-think-
ing man and woman, then believed, and
must ever believe, that in a country like
ours, a civil war of such immense magnitude
and inevitably attended by such incalculable
sacrifices of men and means, snd Ly innum-
erable acts of eruelty, outrage and barbar-
ism, would be the sreatost curse that could
possibly afflict a peeple, not even e:tcenting
territe.izl dismemberment.
The great and lamented Douglas, who al-
though always an’ uacompromising oppe-
nent, of the anti-slavery fanaticism which
was the giound worl: of the Republican
party, cannot justly be accused of any ea-
mity towards the administration of Mr. Lin-
coln, nur of any undue favoritism to ti.e peo-
ple of the South, in the last oficial act of
his life, the speech delivered by hun in the
Senate, March, 15th 1863, stated so clearly
the different propositions from which the
administration had to select; and ‘heir re.
lative meri(s, thatwe Lere quote his remarks
upon this point :
«I repeat it is time that the line of policy
was adopted and the country knew it. In
my opinion we must choose, and that
promptly, between one of three lines of pol-
icy.
ys The restoration and preservation of
the Union, by such amendments to the con-
stitution, as will insure the domestic tran-
quility, safety and equality of all the states,
and thus restore peace, unity and fraternity
to the whole country.
2. A peaceful disolution of the Union, by
recognizing tke independence of such States
as refuse to remain in the Union, without
such constitutional amendments, and the
establishment of a liberal system of com-
mercial and social intercourse with them by
treaties of commerce and amity.
3. War, witha view to the subjugation
and military occupation of those States which
have seceded, or may secede from the Un-
ion.
dn my opinion the first proposition is the
best, and the last is the worst.”
After proceeding to show Low a compre-
mise could be made, which would be Just
aud equitable to both North and South, he
says :
“I repeat, whatever guarantees will sat.
isfy Maryland and the border States [the
Olates now in the Union] will create. a
Union party in the seceded States which
will bring them back by the voluntary uc-
tion of their own people, You can restore
and preserve the Union in that mode. You
can do it an no other. Waris disunion. —
War us final, eternal separation. Hence, dis-
guise it as you may, every Union man in
America must advocate such amendments
to the Constitution, as will preserve peace
and restore the Union, while every disunion-
ist, whether openly or secretly plotting its
destruction, is the advocate of peaceful
secession, or of war as the surest means of
rendering reunion and reconstruction im-
possible |
As the unconditional supportersof Lincoln's
administration, who indorse all its acts and
every feature of ils policy, are so fond of
quoting sayings reported to have been ut-
tered by Douglas on his sick bed, they
ought to-have given respectful consideration
and earnest heed to the arguments and
warnings contained in this last great effort
of tthe Giant of the West.’ But Douglas
was not the only one of our great statesmen
who held the same doctrines and uttered the
same warnmgs. Gen. Jackson whose name
15alsoinvoked by the subjugationists, as hav-
Ing set the example of coercion in 1833, af-
ter all bis experience with nullification, and
after more than four years, aditional ex-
perience, observation and reffection, came to
the same conclusion which Douglas reached
namely . that concilliation and compromise,
and not military power, were the only
means by which our government could be
perpetuated. In his Farewell Address he
says:
‘But the Constitution cannot be main-
tained, nor the Union preserved, in opposi-
tion to pulhe feeling, by the mere exv1tion
of the coercive powers confided to the gen-
eral anvernment.
The fanndation. mua he
security 1t gives to life, liberty, character
and property, in every quarter of the coun
4'y ; and in the fraternal attachments which
the citizens of the several States’ bear to
being, had the national destinies in their |, jon00d in the affairs of the nation, should, | one another, as members of jone political
family, mutually contributing to promote
the happiness of each other.”
We are not however compelled to relysalore
upon the teachings of the great dead of our
own party,in support of this proposition, how
ever high our opponents may pret:nd to
esteem their memories ; although this we
might safely do ; for notwithstanding the
men opposed to us politically, do now as
they ever have dene, villify and abuse
in outrageous terms, every living democrat
yet they are ever willing to do full justice
and honor to them, when they are number-
ed with the “mighty dead.” TUgon this one
point threre never was any conflict of opin-
10n, until within (he last three years. Al-
exander Hamilton, in a speech delivered * in
the New York convention, on the 20th of
June, 1788, States the same doctrine in the
following strong and nervous language.
It has been observed, to coerce the States
is one of the mudest projects ever devised.
A failure of compliance will never be con-
fined to a single State. This being the
case, can we suppose it wise ‘to hazard a
civil war, Suppose Massachusetts, or any
large Stata should refuse, and Con-
gress” should attempt to compel them, weuld
they not have influence to procure assis-
tance, especially from those States which
are in the same situation as themselves ?
What picture does this idea present to our
view ? A complying State at war with a
non-complying State ; Congress marching
the troops of cue State, into the bosom of
another ; this State collecting auxiliaries,
and forming perhaps, a majority against its
federal head. Here is a nation at war with
itself. Can any resonable man be well
disposed towarde a government which makes
war and carnage the only means of support-
ng itself—a government which can only
exist by the sword ? Every such war must
involve the innocent with the guilty. This
single consideration should be sufficient to
dispose every peaceable citizen against such
a government,”
When we remember that Gen. Hamilton
was ous of the most ardent, active, and efii
cient supporters of the present Constitution:
that he possessd the unlimited confidence of |
the “Fataer of his country ;” aud moreover
was the strenuous advocate of a strong,
centralized government, and persistently op-
posed to the end of his life, the doctrine of
State rights as advoented by Jefferson, Mad-
ison and other great leadars of the demo-
cratic party, his testimony ought to have
no incousiderable influence with our pohti-
cal enemies. We could add to all this, the
opinions of all, or nearly all of taeir own
representatives men, but shall content our-
selves with one or two quotations, Ben-
jamin F. Wade, in the speech before refered
to, says i
“You cannot forcibly hold men in this
Union, for the attempt to do so, it seems to
me, would subvert the first principles of the
government under which we live.””
W. H. Seward in the last important
speech delivered by him in the United States
Senate, stated that it was aseless to go to
war, for the pending question could not be
settled in that way ; but would have to be
settled by compromise, even at the elose of
later, when he became Secretary of State,
in a dispatch to our Minister to England,
he declared that & war upon the seceded
States would be in violation of ‘the fanda-
mental principles upon which cur govern-
ment was founded. That the American
Republic had not ita foundations laid upon
military power, but upon the enlightened
consent of the people, and that 1t must be
maintained and perpetuated, if at all, by a
strict adherance to the principles upon which
it was based.
Without one dissefiting voice from any
great American statesman, of whatever
party, as to the only means by which the
federal republic could be maintained; with
all the great lessons of history, corrobora-
ting these great men; with the experience
of other governments in cases of rebel-
lions and revolutions, such as the American
Colonies, Ireland, Vendee, Greece, Poland,
and Circassia, proving the same thing; how
could Mr. Lincoln have blundered as he
did, in his choice of means for effecting his
ostensible purpose, the maintenance of the
Union ? It can only be accounted for upon
the supposition that those who influenced
hin and controled his policy, were infatua-
ted with the Abolition dogmas of their party
and self-deceived as to tie powers of endur-
ence and resources of the Southern people.
Charity asks us to believe that it was a
mistake, a terrible blunder, though wany
are of the opinion that Lincoln deliberate-
ly chose Lhe course he took, because he be-
lieved with Douglas, that war was disurion
final, eternal separation.
It cannot besaid in extenuation of Lincoln's
choice, that he had no alternative but waror
recognition —that Congress having rejected
the Crittenden Resolutions, there was no
compromise which would satisfy the South
that could be made. Future genera-
tions will not so read the history of those
few terrible months. ILineoln’s friends
alone were responsible for the defeat of the
Crittenden proposition. This fact is fully
established by tne records of the last ses-
sion of the 36th Cungress, besides the testi-
mony of Douglas, Pugh, and other Norihern
men who supported these resolutions. One
word from Lincoln before, or at the time of
his inauguration, would have changed the
position of the republican party upon that
anestion Haq ha haldle neanlaiypiad. that
the more than twenty five thousand offices
within his gift, until some proper and jnst
compromise was agreed upon, by which the
stability and harmony of the Union could
be maintained, and at once called an extia
session of Congress for that purpose, fuch a
popular pressure would have teen brought
to bear upon the Republican Senators and
members, that one week would not have
elapsed after the assembling of Congress
before the Crittenden Resolutions or some
similar proposition would have been adopt-
ed by the requisite majority. of two-thirds
of cach house ; and all the horrors and suf-
ferings which this nation has endure! and
witnessed for the last thirty months been
averted ; whiie Lincoln's friends could then
have justly claimed for him the title of the
«Second Washington”.
Two fatal delusions seem to have taken
possession of the clouded brain of the inex-
perienced President. He appeared satisfied
in the first place, that nothing was going
wrong, there was no danger ahead, no ensis
was upon the country—every thing was
peaceful, prosperous and promising. In the
second place, whateever the future might
have in store, he had unbounded confidence
that the party which elected a President
was abundantly able to take care of him.—
Therefore, contented, and jovial when every
one else was fearful and desponding, he
did not decm it necessary to distinctly d e-
clare his own policy but left the people to
gather it from mystified propositions, and
loose and obscure questions, while at the
same time, he left the country to drift into
civil war, desolation and utter ruin. But
one explanation can be given of all this.—
Lincoln in common with his party hated the
South, its people, and their iustitations.—
Instead of recognizing Southerners as part
of the great American people, for whose
benefit in common with our own, this gov-
ernment was established and ought to be
administered, he looked upon them only as
enemies, over whom it would be a pleasure
to triumph. Believing them to be wesk
and helpless, through utter ignorance of the
ac'ual condition of that half of the repub-
lic, he hailed with deli ht any act of folly
or madness of theirs, which he supposed
would place them in his power and at his
mercy.
Having thus distainfully rejected every
means which Statesmen believed adequate
to restore and preserve the Union, and ac.
cepted the worst possible remedy for exis-
ting political tronbles. [if remedy it was at
all] the people had a right ts require this
remedy to be used in the most affective
manner, They had a right to demand tkat
the war, being the only agency Lincoln would
conseut to use for the restoration of the Un-
jon, should be so conducted as to gain the
greatest possible number of the Southern
people over to the Union side of the contest.
Every effort should have been made to pre-
serve the friendship and alliance of that por-
tion of the South, which had not yet been
committed to secession. Every motive and
facility should have been offered to <¢hose
who had taken that fearful step, to return
a war of two or three years duration. Still
and join forces with us, so that our num-
bers would have been steadily increased,
and our foes as steadily diminished. Every
motive which controls human action st ould
have been appealed to—reason, interest,
passion, and prejudice, should all have
been made auxilaries to our er
mies, The victories won by these allies,
through bloodless, would have been far
more noble and honorable, and far more en-
during in their consequences, than the most
brilliant and bloody victories of the battle
field. That portion of our enemies whom
our policy drew over to our side of the con-
flict, swould have required no exchange nor
parol, but have been the most efficient and
successful supporters of our cause. No portion
of the South thus conquered, would require
garisons or standing armies to protect it, bui
on the contrary, become a powerful weapon
in our own hands to prosecute the struggle
in a similar spirit against the balance of the
South. But no! Lincoln would listen to
nothing of this kind, A revolutionary
movement, growing out of deeply seated and
long continued prejudices, passions and prin-
ciples, participated in by five millions of the
white inhabitants of a republic, assisted by
the physical labor of three millions of negro
slaves, must be treated as an ordinary riot
of acity mob, and suppressed by officers with
the posse conutatus! He would tolerate no
flags of truce, no exchange of prisoners. no
recognition of the official character of those
commanding the oposing force, for this would
be: a semi-offical recognition of the insurg-
ents as betligerents and their. organization
as a government de fucto ! Not ene word of
concilliation could be uttered, for th:
fanatics and fools had declared that
no ‘compromises should be mad: wth
traitors with arms in their hands.” Baron
Macaulay, the most philosophic of English
historians, animadverts with becoming se-
verity, upon this spirit pervading the brain
of short sighted and narrow minded
in the following caustic language.
“ We know of no great revolution which
might not have been prevented by compro-
wise early aud graciously made. = Firmness
is a great virtue in public affairs, but it hs
its proper sphere. Conspiracies and insur-
rections in which small minorities are en-
gaged, tke outbreakings of popular violence,
unconnected with any extensive project or
enduring principle, are hest repressed by
vigor and decission. To shrink from them is
to avalia dpa, fered LY, Tit one, tote
the focal irritation. ~No wise raler will reat
the deeply seated discontents of a great
party, as he treats the conduct of a mob which
destroys mills and power-looms. The neglect
of this distinction has been fatal even to
governments strong in power of the sword.
* * * Jp all movements of the human
mind, which tend to great revolutions, there
is a erisis at which moderate concessions
may amend, coneiliate and preserve.”
If fate has decreed that this government
is never more to resume its proud position
among the nations of the earth ; ttheglorious
old Union of our fathers is never to be re-
stored to its former grandeur; if this peo
ple may never again enjoy the peace, pros-
perity and harmony of by-gone years, but
on the contrary be ever subject to the civi!
commotions, revolutions, counter-revolu-
tions and anarchy which have cursed other
lands, with what terrible emphasis will some
future historian of America apply this lan-
guage to President Lincoln and bis advisers.
An entire misconception of the character
and magnitude of the revolutionary move-
ment inaugurated in the South ; the selection
of the worst possible means for meeting and
counteracting it ; and a willingness to take
counsel of the worst prejudices and most
malignant passions of the human heart, in-
stead of being guided by a serene and cle
vated philosophy; we conceive to be the
first great mustake "of Lincoln’ Administra.
tion. .
By the election of Lircoln, and the s2ces-
sion of the Cotton States, the Republicen
party obtamed full control of the Federal
Government. Republicans alonecould com-
promise with, they alone could make con-
cessions to, the South. Democrats were
powerless to act in the premises. We gave
the moral weight of our party influence in fa-
vor of compromise. We openly declared
for conciliation, and proclaimed our want of
confidence in the bloody and barbarous doc-
trines of coersion and sul jugation. But all
our efforts to prescrve peace were scornfully
ri jected, and the collivion came. We saw
that force, physical force. atid that alone
wou'd Lincoln consent to use agairst the
South.” No choice was left to us, but to as-
sist mn the use of that forse, or refuse to do
anything at the moment of our country’s
most imminent peril, Patriotism and par-
ty principles, alike required one course,
We could not follow the pernicious example
sct by our political opponerts in other wars.
As we could not preven: the war, we must
if possible make it successful. We deter-
mined that the new President should have
a full and fair opportunity of trying his ex
perument untrammelled by faction or party
opposition. We conceded to him the entire
resources of the North. When in April,
1861 he called for seventy-five thousand men,
they were furnished in less than a week.
and thousands morc were offered. When
three months later he asked for five hundred
t housand, they came faster than he could
arm and equip them. When in 1862 he de-
sired still six hundred thousand more, he ob-
tained them all, unless it might be a few
thousand from the intensely abolition states
of the East. He has required untold sums
of money and it bas all been furnished,
rulers
History will record the fact, that the demo-
cratic states of New Jersey. Pennsylvania,
Indiana, and Illinois, have not been behind
any of their sister states in responding to
the various calls of the President for men
and money. The most malicious dare not
deny that democrats have done their full share
in furrishing the means for carrying on the
war from its begining. All this a sense of
duty constramed us to do. But knowing
the fearful, tatal consequences of entrusting
such vast military power to men, if that
power should be misused or abused, we
would have been reereant to our duty ag
freemen. we would have been forgetful of
our obligations as citizens, we would have
been false to cur trusts as sentinels on the
watch towers of liberty, had we failed to
watch with jealous anxicty the manner in
which this immense power was applied,
and the purposes for which this almost
countless army was used.
When the President gradually changed
his policy from the originally declared pur-
rose of eanducting the war for the restora-
tion of the Union, the supremacy of the
Constitutation and the enforcement of tho
laws, to a crusade against the long estab-
lished inst tutiens and constitutional rights
of States; when we caw all those great
principles of personal liberty for which our
Saxon ancestors struzgled in the field and
senate for six centuries to establish, one by
one, assatled upon the thread-bare plea of t, -
rants, ‘public necessity ;’ when we hear |
that portion of the Northern people wh.»
differed in political sentiment from the a '-
ministration, threatened by men high in the
camp and cabinet, with extermination, as
soon as tue sriny could be spared for that
porpose from battling with its southern foe ;
when we saw s ates refused readmission ii -
to the Union uw less their inhabitants would
aboli-h ins itutions believed by them to
highly useful and necessary ; when leading
mer, men standing Ligh in the confidence of
the President, declared that the old Union
should not be restored under the Cunstitu-
tion as it is; when we saw systematic ef-
forts made by the adherens of the feder-
al administration, to inculcate and enforce
the monarehical dogmas of ‘passive obeci-
ence” and ‘‘wunconditional loyalty ;*
when we saw the President willing and
ready to sacrifice every principle of public
liberty, every feature of ane nrocant Consti-
dds damental 1deq, upon which
lusive fantom of territorial unity, we natur-
ally took the alarm, and refused further to
follow whither the President was leading.
Then for the first time we hesitated about
complying with every demand made upon
us by an administration which repudiated
the Constitution and trampled up every
one of our individual rights. .
Vast territorial extent is undoubtedly a
great destderat:m with every nation. There-
fore our party favored the acquisition of
Louisiana, Florida, Texas, California, and
everv other addition which has been made
to our area during our governmental exist-
ence. The great and paramount reason in
support of such acquisitions, was, that by
this means we were extending the principles
of free government over countries previously
the theater of despotic rule, or anarchical
confusion. It was not merely for the pur-
pose of laying the foundations of a mighty
empire ; it was uot as the means of building
up a ccllossal despotism, whose ponderous
wheels would crush to atoms the liberties of
the people more certainly than are the devo-
tees of Krishna crashed under the wheels of
Juggernaut, that we made these several ac-
quisitions.
Every motive that ean opera'e on the ha-
man mind, every consideration that can in-
fluence human conduct; appeals to the dem-
ocracy of Peansylvama to favor the restora-
tion of the old Union, the re-esiablishmens
of the old government, over every one of the
thirty-four States, We are determined that
this great end shall be accomplished if pos-
sible. We are willing to sacrifice our own
convenence, we are willmg to give any
amount of money. we are willing to sacri-
fice any n' mber of lives, if we can be assur- |
ed that such sacrifi'es will restore the
States to their former relations of Union,
friendship and concord. We are anxious
and determised to maintain the principles
of the Constitution in all of the Swtes if that
can be accomplished : but we are deterniin-
ed to maijatain them in Pennsylvania atall
hazzards, We are willing to sacrifice every
thing for the sake of Union, but our own
liberties ; these with the help of God, we
will surrender upon no pretext whateeer. —
These liberties we new believe to be in
dauger. The fundamen‘al principles of re-
publican go: e nm nt are put in Jeopardy,
by the course of the federal Administration.
The great question is not over how many
square milrs can any kind of go crument
be maintained in America ; not how many
millon acres of ‘forest p:sture and ara-
ble” can be cluded within the boundar-
ics of one government, wh thor free or
despotic ; but can those great principles of
free government recognized and establ shed
by our fathers, be maintained at all or ni t2
In failing to appreciate the true nations of
the crisis which is now upon the country,
in failing to understand the real question
at issue and fb use the proper means for
obtaining the desire . solution of it, Presi-
dent Lincoln is committing another mistake
equally as fatal as his first,
Having as far as time will permit, examin.
cd these national questions, let us sec how