It has been the labored purpose of the editors of the Patriot and Union,
during the past and present political contests, to misrepresent every
circumstance connected with Republican men or measures. - In this particular it
has resorted to falsehood and forgery, and with a persistent baseness peculiar
to men who stake their living and hopes on the pecuniary gains of a political
contest, they have not hesitated to insult even those with whom they are in
daily business intercourse. One of its meanest acts was in regard to the
election in Ohio, charging that the result in that State was produced by the
fact that 14,000 negroes had voted the Republican ticket. When this statement
was published, it was with the deliberate design of insulting the Republicans of
Harrisburg, by associating them with a degraded race, and for no other purpose
but that of wounding the feelings of decent men. In order to show how piously
correct the editors of the Patriot were on this subject, we quote the following
from the Cincinnati Gazette:
`By this Constitution of Ohio, none but white males over twenty-one years
can vote; but the Supreme Court decided that a man less than half blood was
white; consequently if the judges of elections should decide that a light
colored mulatto was less than half, they might admit him to vote. Now the number
of this class is not one-third the whole amount, and of the 5, 927 colored males
over twenty-one, not more than two thousand could possibly come within the legal
right to vote.'
We ask the people of Dauphin county, the business men and Republicans, to decide whether a journal guilty of the perversion and falsehood which the Patriot has heretofore practiced, should be hereafter confided in as an exponent of business or politics?"
"There are some men perverse enough and so blinded by their prejudices, as not to believe that Pennsylvania will be materially affected for good or evil by the result of the Presidential election. Such as these never allow their observation to extend its vision beyond their personal feelings or interests and prejudices, or they would discover that of all the other States of the Union, Pennsylvania has in reality the largest interest involved in the coming Presidential contest. Her resources depend for success on protection. Her labor cannot rise to that strength and power necessary to compete with a foreign trade, unless fostered and protected by special legislative enactment, which would not only shield and encourage the industry of this Commonwealth, but also extend its influence to the labor of other States, until the mechanics and laboring men of the Union could be placed in a position from which they could bid defiance to the pauper labor and compulsory servitude of all nations and communities. Admitting the truth of this, and it is as true as any palpable fact can be to the discernment of a thinking man, Pennsylvania has an important and a stupendous interest involved in the Presidential election just approaching, because if Abraham Lincoln is not successful, success will be banished from all our walks of industry and every department of production. - From either of the other three candidates, Northern labor has no right to expect either care or attention. They are either bound up in the progress and development of slavery, or so completely subsidized by the commercial aristocratic classes of our commercial emporiums, that they could not, if they were even disposed, devote a single thought or deed to the labor and producing classes of the nation. Outside of the Republican organization, every candidate that is before the people of the Union has been more or less committed to the interests of the institution of slavery. In the South, at this very moment, the friends of John C. Breckinridge commend him to the support of the people because he is committed to a slave code for the Territories, and the opening of the slave trade. In the same locality, Stephen A. Douglas proclaims himself publicly indifferent to the voting up or down of the institution, while he privately asseverates his devotion to and approval of slavery. On the same subject, in the same States, John Bell is no less servile and cringing - while the friends of all these candidates, with the candidates themselves, treat Northern labor and Northern interests in every section with perfect indifference. With such a condition of affairs, we should be pleased to know if there is not danger to the laboring and mechanical interests of the whole country, should either Breckinridge, Douglas or Bell be triumphant? We should like to know whether Pennsylvania and the North would not suffer in all their relations of business, industry and trade with a pro-slavery candidate in the Executive chair? We might as well declare that the peasantry of Austria do not suffer from the reign of Francis Joseph, or that the Czar of Russia is the companion and sympathizer of those who delve in the mines and forests of his empire.
We have no notion or idea that Abraham Lincoln will be defeated as a candidate before the American people for the Presidency of the United Sates, but if such a calamity should occur, it would be the worst blow that ever was inflicted on the laboring men and mechanics of this country. It would arrest our progress in every improvement, by opening all the paths of industry to the competition of foreign and domestic slavery. Who doubts this can be convinced of its truth by referring to the experience of the past. The administration of every Democratic President, from the inauguration of the government, has inflicted more or less injury to the labor of the country, either in the shape of treachery such as Dallas practised, or by the open and shameless acts of aggression perpetrated by James Buchanan. The facts are on the record to prove the antagonism of modern Democracy to free labor and free institutions. The same record also proves their devotion to slavery and free trade. If any man doubts this, and desires to be convinced of its truth, he can become so by passing through trial and tribulation if he votes against Abraham Lincoln. If any man desires to see labor prosper - if any Pennsylvanian hopes to see the interests and resources of the old Keystone recognized and protected, he must vote for Abraham Lincoln. A vote for any other man will produce an opposite effect by entailing poverty on the country and misery and idleness on our countrymen. Who will hesitate in such an emergency to vote for Lincoln?
"The election yesterday throughout the country for Chief Magistrate was another of those sublime spectacles which the people of the Old World do not understand, and which bestows a privilege which is not so highly prized by the people of this country as it should be. Nearly five millions of people peaceably assembling for the purpose of choosing one for among their number to rule the land. - With those people spread along the shores of two oceans, pursuing their avocations in extreme latitudes of hot and cold, making and proclaiming their laws in one language, yet transacting their business in half-a-dozen dialects, with varied interests, tastes and pursuits, yet firmly held together in the bonds of a union that is as strong and as holy as the ties of consanguinity, teaches a brotherhood an a unity alone by the force of religion, liberty and order. The history of the world does not present in the career of any nation a spectacle of more moral worth of political grandeur. The assembling of the armies of Rome, in the palmiest days, dwindles into insignificance when compared to the spectacle presented yesterday. Nothing in ancient or modern history is like unto it for force and influences, nor can we describe such an occasion better than to term it the real independent action of a free people, asserting the policy of the government which exists by their will, quietly and effectually at the ballot-box.
The result of the election yesterday is another subject which must strike the reflecting man, without any respect to the party he upholds or the principles he professes. The issues were clear and definitely defined. The contest was open and frankly conducted, so far as the Republican leaders were concerned, and the result now proves how much an organization can effect that is animated alone with a desire to do good, and a motive to secure the establishment of impartial principle in the administration of government. The two great issues of liberty and labor were the animating ideas of the contest. For liberty the Republican party struggled as men struggle for life and religion - while their efforts to maintain the rights of labor, were no less zealous or ardent. And the result, ABRAHAM LINCOLN's triumphant election, proves that the sentiment of the American people is in favor not of the name of liberty alone, but of its practical operation among all men, and determined to make labor the standard by which to judge the merits of men, as well as recognize and protect it as the source of our national strength and wealth. To establish this policy, the Republican party were refused a hearing in many of the States of this Union, but a majority of proud Commonwealths have declared in favor of the principle, and to-day it is firmly established in the policy of the government, to be maintained there forever as a cardinal and imperishable doctrine of Republicanism.
We have no time at this hour to particularize in referring to the result. Sufficient for us to know that Abraham Lincoln will be the next President. Sufficient for the present for Republicans of Pennsylvania to know that the old Keystone State has done her whole duty in casting her electoral vote for Lincoln. The Union is now safe. Labor will be recognized and protected. Let us thank God, therefore, that he has so directed the judgment of men as to prompt them to right political action, as well as patriotic forbearance and fairness!"
We have received returns enough to indicate that the Republicans have achieved one of the most brilliant victories every gained, by any party, in this country. At the present writing - twelve o'clock Tuesday night - our sanctum, and the street in from of the TELEGRAPH office, are crowded with jubilant Republicans who make the welkin ring with cheers, as the reports roll in over the magnetic wires from every direction, bringing the glorious intelligence that State after State has gone for LINCOLN, rendering certain his election to the Presidency. The indications are that the Republicans have made a clean sweep in the free North, carrying every State by immense majorities. The majority in Pennsylvania will more than double that of Curtin last month. The Wide-Awakes are parading the streets, in uniform, with music and brightly burning torches, cheering enthusiastically as they pass through the city on their triumphal march.
The people of the Union have decided that ABRAHAM LINCOLN, the pure patriot and statesman, shall administer the affairs of government for the next four years. As far as heard from he has carried fifteen States, giving him one hundred and sixty-nine votes in the Electoral College - seventeen more than necessary. In all these States the majorities are immense, ranging from twenty to seventy thousand. Upon this result we congratulate our Republican fellow-citizens,a nd we congratulate also those who have from earnest convictions of duty opposed Mr. Lincoln's election. For in sober truth, and they will themselves admit it when the first feelings of disappointment is gone, it is best for the whole country that the result of the election should be what it is. It is impossible to conceive of any other that is so likely to give peace and quiet to the country. The next best result would probably have been the election of Mr. Bell, but that would have given no such quietus to agitation as the election of Mr. Lincoln will. His election settles all the issues that have entered into the contest, slavery extension, secession, and what just now is probably still more vital, the equal right of the free with the slave States to share in the administration of the Federal Government. Now that the contest is over, and such false alarms can no longer be made to do party service, we shall probably hear no more in this locality of the cry of secession or disunion. We sincerely trust that those who raised and repeated it here for mere party ends may not themselves feel the ill effects of it. It was an unpatriotic and unwise movement, and had it proved so far successful as to throw the election into the House, very unfortunate would it have been for the interests of the business community, and for the welfare of the country generally. But the good Providence that has so long watched over the destinies of our country has averted this mischief also. The threatened evil has not overtaked us, and it is not our choice to dwell upon the errors of those whom the popular voice has already so signally rebuked. As for secession at the South, it also has received its quietus, if in any State except South Carolina the purpose was ever yet seriously entertained, which we do not believe. Even South Carolina, now that the people of Virginia and other Southern States have unmistakably given their verdict in favor of the Union, will contest herself with a few very variant resolutions declaring what she would have done if something had occurred that has not occurred, and indefinitely postponing any overt set in the way of secession. Right glad are we that `the long agony is over.' We trust that on both sides the bitter feelings and the estrangements that the contest has created will be henceforth entirely and forever forgotten. With every element of commercial prosperity existing among uss, it will be the course of wisdom, as well as of patriotism, for every one to bow to the clearly expressed sentiment of the majority of the people, and to cooperate cheerfully in maintaining and strengthening the government and institutions of the country. We all owe a duty to the Chief magistrate of the Republic, for above all personal preferences or prejudices. Let us all meet that obligation - respecting the officer for the office's sake - and we may be the most prosperous and the happiest people on earth."
There is another `tempest in a tea pot' away down in the little Palmetto State. The people, following the lead of their Governor, are holding meetings, passing secession resolutions, and making treasonable speeches. Let the chivalry amuse themselves - the farce will soon the `played out.' In reality, says the New York Commercial Advertiser, South Carolina has yet done nothing towards secession as a State. That a live Yankee raised a Palmetto flag o n his trading vessel in the port of Charleston, and that a couple of officials sacrificed a quarter's salary for the sake of popularity with their fire-eating friends, are not steps towards secession, and are such truly ludicrous substitutes for such steps that even telegraphists cannot make capital out of them. True, the telegraph adds taht the State Legislature has met and talked of secession. It has done that before. A motion was made to postpone the calling of a convention, and it failed. The same thing has occurred before. In this instance we suspect that it barely failed, for the report is silent respecting the vote. At any rate it is plain that the Legislature is not composed entirely of fire- eaters. We are told that a convention will certainly be held. So has a similar convention assembled before, and what did it amount to? Just what it will again amount to: A great deal of talk that will not drive sensible men into any overt act of secession.
In fact the evidences are abundant that already the long talked of `crisis' is over, and that the system of agitation so madly pursued, having failed in its object, and proving painfully inconvenient to those who engaged in it, is already being abandoned. To this effect is a letter from our Washington correspondent, and his views are corroborated by Southern manifestos and newspapers. Even the Washington Union, whose malicious innuendoes we yesterday commented upon, is compelled to take the back track. The organ which, on Wednesday, asked the Southerner whether he would `tamely submit to the rule of one elected on account of his hostility to him and his, or whether he would struggle to defend his rights, his inheritance, and his honor,' on Thursday now coos gently as a sucking dove, denies that it has `attempted to suggest what the conduct of the South should be' asserts that its remarks on Wednesday did not mean to recommend secession and disunion, and thus throws the wet blanket over the embers of a fire that no paper did more to kindle than itself. That this would be the course of things after the election we have always affirmed. That the disturbers of the public peace would so soon draw back from their position we scarcely anticipated. We rejoice the more over this early evidence of returning sobriety. Fortunatley there has been only talking, and words only and not actions have to be taken back and forgotten. All the way through Southerners have not acted as though they meant to secede. Legislatures have elected United States Senators and the people Representatives in Congress; planters and merchants have made their business arrangements; one of the boldest talkers of disunion has sent his family on to Washington for permanent winter residence; the most violent disunion newspapers at the South fill their columns with Northern advertisements - not a single l ink of the bonds that unite North and South has really been broken. In fact, disunion is a thing that cannot be, and though we cannot commend the raising of that cry as either honest or honorable, we can and do rejoice that at the promptings of a resuscitated patriotism it has already practically ceased."
"The secession demonstrations of the chivalry in the cotton States are rather amusing than otherwise. They certainly do not alarm the people of the North. We have only to say that if South Carolina, Georgia or Alabama, or all of them, desire to withdraw from the Union, `let them slide,' the sooner the better. In the language of a sensible Kentucky editor, `let them form a Republic or Empire, or anything else they may fancy. Let them enclose themselves within a Chinese wall, if they want to, and here is one who will contribute his mite towards furnishing the requisite rocks. Let them do it as they please, and when they please, with one solitary condition, viz: that their separation shall be final. Their absence would be an incalculable and invaluable relief to the balance of the people of these United States. We should escape large quantities of quadrennial gas and noise and confusion and stuff. At every Presidential election, these political filibusters reminds us of the poor Frenchman who locked himself in a room with a rich debtor, and threatened to blow his own brains out and charge the rich one with the murder, unless the latter gave him then and there five hundred dollars. Every four years these Southern Quixotes swell up with bad whiskey and worse logic, and tell the balance of the people if they don't do so and so, that they - the Quixotes - will secede. Let them secede and be - blessed. We are tired of their gasconade, their terrific threats, and of their bloody prophesies. They were never calculated for any higher destiny than that of frightening old women and young children. They have been revived and repeated until - to use an expressive vulgarism - they are played o ut. Their bombast is absolutely sickening.'"
In view of the opinions of political economy entertained by Mr. LINCOLN, and the party which he represents, we feel justified in the expectation that the administration of the National Government for the next four years will not only be the most truly national that has marked the history of the country for many years, but will place the real principles of self-government upon a firmer basis than they have occupied since the great parties of the country have assumed their present aspect. Among the prominent and most beneficent features of the incoming administration we may mention the permanent settlement of the power of Congress over slavery in the Territories. This question, never raised until the insolent ambition of Mr. Douglas called it forth, will at last be settled on the broad principles of the Constitution, without regard to the sophistical dogmas of any party or man. It will n o longer be considered and acted upon as an isolated idea, district from every other interest of our people, but as a principle of our form of government, occupying its legitimate station with all others, and based upon the authority of the fundamental principles of our national action. Casting aside the theoretical chicanery of private demagogues, pro or con, the incoming administration will govern itself by the powers expressly delegated to it by the Constitution. At the same time it will maintain and preserve the several States of the Union all their rights as sovereign and co-responsible communities. Another distinguishing feature of the coming administration will be its adherence to the principle of a proper and discriminating protection to the different branches of home industry, as a means of developing our domestic resources and energy, thereby forwarding the interests of our own labor, and contributing to the chief item of our national prosperity. This end will be attained, not only in guarding against the baneful influences of unpaid foreign labor, but in securing to the agricultural portion of our population the benefits of a homestead on the public domains, thereby securing to every real producer the opportunity of achieving his own success, and furthering the domestic well-doing of the country at large. In addition to these, we may mention the great principle of internal improvements, by which the commercial interests of the Union are brought into close connection, among which is the project of the Pacific Railroad - an establishment absolutely demanded by our commerce, and which, despite the strongest efforts of the Republican party, has been unsuccessful under Democratic rule. In short, we may now promise to the people of the United States a season of unexampled quiet and public prosperity."
"An able and independent journal, published in a slave State, introduces some extracts from Mr. Lincoln's speeches on the subject of slavery, to show his conservatism, and remarks that `the true remedy for the excitement which prevails in a portion of the country, will be found in Mr. Lincoln's own utterances and declarations. Throughout the campaign just closed, he has been portrayed by most of the newspapers and stump orators of the anti-Republican factions as an Abolitionist -`a fanatic of the John Brown type' the slave to one idea, who, in order to carry that out to its logical results, would override laws, constitutions and compromises of every kind, nor shrink, if necessary, from overturning the whole fabric of society, like another Robespierre. never was a public man so outrageously misrepresented. The picture of his character, drawn by his enemies, is true to no one lineament. All who know him bear witness that he has the calm wisdom, and patriotism withal, characteristic of practical statesmen, and that his convictions though deep rooted, are entirely free from the slightest tincture of fanaticism. With regard to slavery, his views are identical with those common to the first and greatest generation of our statesmen - identical with those professed and, in later days, generally acted upon by Clay, Benton and Webster - and, in no essential, particularly different from the doctrines professed both by the Whig and Democratic parties, until the Calhoun heresy arose. The best way, therefore, to minister to the extreme South is to give wide publicity to these views. No one can say the method proposed is empirical, not that the opiate is prepared for the occasion. Lincoln expressed himself fully two years ago - and when he had not expectation of filling the Executive Chair of the Republic. As he is arraigned for his opinions, let his opinions be cited. Let not his enemies shirk the trial which they clamor for by substituting their base calumnies and wild fancies for the authentic record. We are far from admitting that the opinions of any man legally chosen to the Presidency, however extreme they might be, would furnish the shadow of a pretext for rebellion - but at the same time we deem it our duty to present the truth to our Southern friends. We would rather conciliate than irritate - rather explain than threaten. Magnanimity should go hand in hand with victory; and the Republican victors will but add another to their many claims to popular esteem by holding out now with no reluctant hand the olive branch to their excited fellow-citizens in the South, and by laboring to disabuse the Southern mind of the gross prejudices and chimerical fears with which it is possessed.'"
"The Union demonstrations now taking place in the South, strengthens us in the belief we have always entertained, that the mass of the people in that section are conservative and patriotic. The secession feeling is likely to be localized in South Carolina, with other nuclea of discontent in Georgia and Alabama. But before it can find time to act, the conservatism of the other slave States will have spoken, and the secessionists will find themselves far less important than they now suppose. It is, we believe, a mistake to attribute all this commotion to the election of Mr. Lincoln. In South Carolina the sentiment of disunion is forty years old. It is a sort of general creed there, believed in so long that it will need a revolution to bring them to their senses. It seems likely that in that locality positive outbreak will occur, of some sort, to be met, in due time, by positive action on the part of the federal government. But, elsewhere, there is no such danger. When Virginia. Delaware, maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, North Carolina, Louisiana, and as we hope, Mississippi and Texas, shall have spoken for the Union, the impossibility of any scheme of general secession will fully exhibit the folly of localized attempts. One cause of reaction in the present excitement has not yet had time to operate. While the South is arming, levying heavy taxes, incurring vast financial burdens without the outside credit to sustain them, the North is quiet. No extra sessions of the Legislatures are called; no minute men are organized; no sudden arousing of military spirit is evident. Somebody will ask the question `why?' by-and-by. And then people will discover that all the danger, the bloodshed, the cost, fall on the seceding parties. The North, the East, the West, the Central States, the Canadas, will go on quietly in their everyday work of life. They have no fears of servile insurrection. No horrors of invasion menaces them. And nothing of the kind needs menace the South, if it would only awake to a true sense of its position in the Confederacy. Pennsylvania regards herself as a Sovereign State. South Carolina mistakes herself for a subjugated province. She will find out the difference by-and-by.
"Our readers are aware that during the progress of the late campaign, it was charged by the Patriot and Union, and other Democratic papers of the same stripe, that the Republicans were in favor of indiscriminate negro suffrage, and the elevation of the colored population to a social and political equality with the whites. This charge was repeated day after day, although unscrupulous Locofoco editors who gave it publicly knew it to be false. At the recent election in New York, the question of extending negro suffrage was voted upon. Under the constitution of that State, negroes who own property worth $250 are privileged to vote. The question was to amend the constitution so as to extend the privilege to all adult negroes, so as to place them, in that respect, on a footing of equality with the whites. The majority for Lincoln in the State is at least 50,000. It may, therefore, be taken for granted if the Republican party of new York be in favor of negro equality the amendment has been adopted. So far the returns indicate that not only has it not been adopted, but that it has been rejected by an immense vote. Probably none but the white and colored abolitionists cast their ballots for the amendment. We find that it received by 1,630 votes in the city out of an aggregate of nearly 100,000. We have no doubt there are at least 1,630 radical Abolition votes in the city. Lincoln's vote there was 32,797, and the vote against the amendment was 37,431, from which we may infer that some Democrats, as well as the great body of the Republicans, voted in the negative. The design of the Fusionists was to let the question be carried by default, with the view of using it to the detriment of the Republicans hereafter. The result shows that the amalgamated factions were as much at fault in their calculations in reference to this matter as in reference to all others. Thus the imputation of being in favor of establishing negro equality, which has been urged against the Republican party with such venomous pertinacity, is shown to be utterly false. Tried by the crucial test of the ballot box, it is proved to be without the shadow of a foundation. This is all the more notable in the State of New York, where SEWARD is supposed to exercise supreme control within the Republican organization. He is avowedly in favor of obliterating all distinctions between classes and races, so far as the privilege of voting is concerned. His maxim is that where the ballot box rules every man should be entrusted with the ballot. Yet we find that the party, of which he is a leader, refused to accept that maxim, even in his own State. We recently quoted Mr. Lincoln's opinions on this subject, and now that they have received the endorsement of the Empire State, we trust that the anti-Republican organs will see the futility of persisting in the reiteration of the stale slander."
"There can be no mistake as to the progress of Republican feeling in the Southern States, notwithstanding the bluster of the fire-eaters. A gentleman who spent some time in Georgia, and recently returned to the North, yesterday informed us that he had heard expressions on the subject of slavery in Savannah and other Southern cities that would be regarded as `fanatical' in Pennsylvania. Everywhere, among all classes and interests - among slaveholders and non- slaveholders - are found men who are unmeasured in their abhorrence of the effects and tendencies of the `institution.' They do not of course blazon their opinions to the world. They do not - because they dare not - assail the oligarchy in public; but their sympathy for the cause of freedom is all the more profound because denied outward utterance. This sentiment of opposition to the tyranny of the fire-eaters is likely to become more determined and outspoken in the future. The election of Lincoln emboldens this large and respectable class of Southerners to assume a more positive attitude. The New Orleans Courier informs us that a paper is about to be started in that city for the avowed purpose of sustaining the Administration of Mr. Lincoln. Judiciously conducted, such a journal would exert a potent influence over the public mind in that section."
The little volcano of South Carolina being now in the midst of one of her violent eruptions, belching forth such quantities of fire and melted stones as to terrify the timid lest the Union should be swept away in general conflagration, it may not be amiss to examine her past history and see how frequent and harmless have been such eruptions heretofore, and what trifling causes are sufficient to excite her smouldering fires. It is summed up briefly by a contemporary as follows:
The protective tariff of 1833 excited her still more than Lincoln's election. A Convention, authorized by the Legislature, assembled and passed the celebrated ordinance nullifying the tariff and prescribing measures to prevent any collection of duties within the limits of the State; and further declaring that in the event of any attempt on the part of the Federal Government to enforce obedience to the Acts of Congress, there would follow secession and the formation of an independent government. Gen. Jackson firmly and promptly met this treason, issuing his famous proclamation, and urging upon Congress the passage of such laws as would enable him to preserve and protect the Union. The result was the passage of `The Force Bill' which authorized the President to collect the revenue and protect the Government offices, by the employment of whatever military and naval force might be necessary. South Carolina fumed and fretted for a while, mounted cockcades and made bombastic speeches - but finding old hickory earnest and determined, she eagerly took advantage of Clay's Compromise Tariff, and receded from her position.
Again, in 1835 a few philanthropists in the North formed Emancipation Societies, which for a time promised another serious eruption. A Southern Convention was called, and Calhoun recommended espionage of the mails, and the suppression of Abolition documents - but Calhoun and his supporters were badly handled in Congress, and secession was once more postponed, till in 1836, the presentation of certain petitions opened the crater again and gave escape to much black smoke, but very little fire.
After this, until 1838, having had the entire control of the Government, the belligerent little State remained in comparatively tranquility, only hinting vaguely at disunion in certain contingencies, and holding it out as a penalty for the refusal to admit Texas, or for the passage of the Wilmot Proviso; but in 1848 Oregon was organized into a Territorial Government, with a clause in the organic act prohibiting slavery, and another harmless erruption was the consequence.
Again, in 1850, California came in as a free State, and South Carolina saw in this cause to secede from the Republic, and the air was hot and thick with the lava which was thrown from her crater; but, as usual, the eruption, though violent, was brief and harmless, and the Compromise measures were accepted as a perpetual adjustment.
And now the election of a President by a constitutional majority has given vent once more to the volcano, and a Convention has been called as in 1833, and all the incidents which for thirty years have characterized the chronic inflammation have been reiterated. But the time has come when these fiery ebullitions are estimated at their true worth, and the American people have for the last time been diverted by them from pursuing their plain path of duty."
In an article under the above caption, our neighbor of the Patriot and Union attributes the present condition of affairs in the South, and the tightness of the money market in both sections, to the election of Lincoln. This is all gammon. The `panic' attempted to be raised now was brought about by just such northern journals as the Patriot and Union, the New York Herald, the Pennsylvanian, and others of the same stripe. These papers have been howling over the election of Lincoln ever since the freemen of the North expressed their sentiments in November last, and whine like whipped children because their far Government jobs are about to be taken away from them. The truth is, and it cannot be disguised, that the demagogues who control northern Democratic papers are the real instigators of disunion. As a contemporary justly remarks, these journals never make a statement which is not either directly or indirectly a libel upon a great and powerful body of northern voters, composing a majority of the most intelligent, calm-thinking and conservative citizens. These false and malicious statements are eagerly copied by southern Democratic journals, and read by southern people, and thus they contract the prejudices and hostile feelings towards the North, which we find so general in that section. These southern incendiary sheets are eternally warning the South of impending ruin in case of the success of the Republican party, and that its object is to wage a war of extermination against their rights and institutions. The millions of respectable and law abiding men who constitute a party which is no more radical on the slavery question than the old Whig party, and which has elected a President who treads in the footsteps of the gallant old leader of that glorious old party, are invariably and constantly denounced as `Black Republicans,' `Abolitionists,' `Nigger Stealers,' `Negro Equality Men,' and so on; and thus the seeds of sectional animosity and civil discord are sown. We have too good an opinion of the masses of the conservative people of the South, to suppose that if they correctly understood the policy and purposes of the Republican party, any serious cause of dissatisfaction would exist in the consequence of the election of a Republican President; but not even a glimpse of the truth is allowed to reach them through these Democratic journals. They not only falsify and distort northern opinions themselves, but will not contradict the grossest and most mischievous falsehoods on the part of their Southern contemporaries."
"In the present crisis the attitude of the State of Pennsylvania is watched with peculiar interst by the people of the whole country, and in the midst of this solicitude, as well as the suggestions of those who do not know the people of the old Keystone State, the question arises, What Should Pennsylvania Do? Shall she give up her integrity and independence in order to appease the wrath of a few fanatics, or should she maintain both and let consequences take care of themselves, abiding by her ancient devotion to the Constitution as a justification for any position she may assume in the present heated and excited state of public feeling in every portion of the Union. Certainly Pennsylvania has as much to lose as any other State by a dissolution of the Union, but she had better lose her all now than be hereafter eternally subjected to the fluctuations, expansions and contractions of business growing out of periodical ebulitions of Southern passion and resentment such as now distract the whole country, because a union existing only in animosity and aggression had better be dissolved at once than be continued only for the creation of new wrongs and the exercise of increased oppression. If the whole country is to submit to the error of a particular section, binding its energies to the sloth of others, halting in the great path of progress to pander to ignorance and prejudice, and giving up all the rights guaranteed by laws both human and divine, the Union had better be dissolved - the right left to its energies, the wrong allowed to waste its strength on itself, freedom be untrammelled, labor made free, and all things and all men equalized so far as their efforts prove their merits, and this jarring between free and slave institutions on this hemisphere would not last a month, because freedom would triumph as sure as the sun would illuminate its path to victory. In the contemplation of such a result we do not discern the awful effects of a civil war or mob violence. We do not mean to insist in violently forcing one section to submit to the demands of another, but we do declare that the sentiment of the people of the whole country is opposed to the principle, the meaning, the spirit and the intent of the institution of slavery. But while thus being opposed to an institution which has become interwoven with the social condition and existence of a large class of American citizens, we must see that the rights of this class are not infringed, that their possessions are not destroyed, and that their property in whatever shape it appears is not given up to the ruthless ravages and loose uses of those who now oppose slavery as amoral as well as a political evil. To do this, it is not necessary to grant any new guarantees to the Southern people, nor is it necessary or proper that the people of Pennsylvania should make any new concessions. All that is needed is the repeal of any law which encourages the nullification of a law of the United States. Let Pennsylvania prove her devotion to the Constitution by enforcing its provisions on her soil, and the concession will be ample and sufficient to ensure the people of the South that we are loyal to law, however much such law may be repugnant to our conceptions of right. What more could be granted - what more should be granted? The granting of any new security would be the admission of weakness which the might energy and enterprise of the people of Pennsylvania are not prepared to make, while it would be only lowering its sovereign dignity as a commonwealth thus to acknowledge before the world its weakness."
The Constitution guarantees to the citizens of every State the full protection of personal liberty and property in all the States. The citizens of each State have the right to pass into, through, transact business in, all the others. The freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, and the freedom of religion are rights guaranteed to all alike, and without which there can be no real liberty. The real disunionists and nullifiers are those who impose restrictions upon the free passage of citizens from one State to another, who imprison free seamen who enter their ports; who threaten, tar and feather, hang, burn, and otherwise ill-treat gentlemen for the mere expression of opinion; who break open the mail bags of the United States and open private letters; who destroy newspapers, and make it a penal offence to circulate them; who hang a minister of the Gospel for the mere possession of a letter, of which he was robbed for the purpose of destroying him; who drive away a poor printer for expressing a political opinion; who drive back and refuse the privilege of work to mechanics and laborers from other States; and who thus deny the liberty of speech, the press, and religion. Democratic papers, North and South, have boasted, and gloried in the infamous boast, that Abraham Lincoln, the President elect, could not safely travel through one half of the Union, making a merit of what it should be a shame to assert(?). The Constitution of the United States is practically annulled in every State where any citizen of the United States cannot freely speak his opinions, and transact any respectable business. The Constitution of the United States is a charter of liberty, and its framers would n to allow it to be stained with the name of slave. The Constitution does not recognize slaves as property- but the Constitution, the laws of Congress, and the Courts, recognize only persons owing service or labor. And there is not Northern State that has by law forbidden the United States Courts and officers to arrest and return persons owing service to those to whom such service or labor is proved to be due. No penalty is imposed by the laws of any Northern State upon any citizen or official who aids and assists the officers of the United States in the discharge of this duty. Whoever asserts the contrary is guilty of ignorance or falsehood."
"The duty of the people of the North in the present crisis is plain. If Southern State will secede - if nothing short of humiliating concessions and submissions on our part to the demands and dictation of the Slave Power will satisfy them - why then let them seceded and take the consequences. The time has come when the whole South should know that the North are Unionists - that they desire and prefer the Union to remain intact. But if the Southern States are bent on secession, the North can, and will, take care of herself. In the present crisis nothing can be gained by fawning and truckling - but everything depends on taking a firm position on the principles of justice and freedom, which are the basis of our constitutional law. During the political canvass the great issues were brought before the people; and with these issues before them the States have elected, constitutionally, the candidate who is to be President of the United States for the ensuing four years. And this is being made the occasion of secession by some of the Southern States - for the election of Lincoln is not the real cause. The spirit and inclination and desire and impulse of secession have been cherished by politicians South for years - and now they seize on the Republican triumph as the occasion for inaugurating and popularizing their movement. We have a right to presume - it were unjust to make any other presumption - that the Administration of Abraham Lincoln will be constitutional. The principles embraced in the Republican platform, the antecedents of Mr. Lincoln, and the Constitution which he will be oath- bound to execute faithfully, will all preclude his official interference with the institution of Slavery in the States. So far as the measures of Government have an application outside of the States, he will doubtless favor freedom - and for the very good reason that Freedom, and not Slavery, is the genius, the spirit and the life of our National Government. Let the people stand firmly by the Constitution and the Union of our country, and the storm will pass and bring good weather in due time."
"We notice, with regret, that some of the public journals of the country, which heretofore pretended to be Republican, are now, since the triumph of the party, talking about concessions and compromises. We reiterate what we have frequently asserted before, that nay departure from the principles upon which the Republican party stands, or any concession which affects the practical benefit to the country of those principles, is not only a virtual desertion of them, but a betrayal of the confidence of the people. A few years ago, our party existed only in the immutable truths which form its creed. Those truths, founded in the nature of our governmental institutions, needed no appeal to the reason or passions of our people. They found an endorsement in the conscience of every community where men were free to think. Being axiomatic, they are invincible. Promulgated by a few brave men, without any prospect of success save their inherent merit, they have commended themselves to the good sense of the American people, gaining by virtue of their own strength, until a majority of our intelligent citizens, uninfluenced by any motive save the prosperity and reputation of our common country, have acknowledged them as the rules by which the republic should be governed. At the ballot box, that people have imperatively demanded the recognition of those principles, in the administration of our government. If the people are the sovereigns, the people have a right to say in what manner the affairs of the country shall be conducted, and inasmuch as this demand has been explicitly made, our representatives in the National Legislature have no right to disregard it by any departure from the platform for which their constituents have asked their support. If the principles of Republicanism were matters of mere expedience, instead of absolute truths, having their existence in the fundamental theory of our institutions, there would be less in this view, and less reason in deprecating any conciliation of opposite factions, which can only be made by a sacrifice of some portion of the ground upon which we stand. But as we now stand, we cannot retreat before the aggressions of our assailants, and yield, in the least, to their selfish and arrogant demands, without casting aside the whole fabric of our national policy and pulling away the corner-stone of our liberties - the power of the people. In truth, we are inclined to the opinion that this backing-down policy has its origin in something besides a desire to strengthen the incoming administration. That idea could not have influenced such a movement. We are confident that Mr. Lincoln's course will need simply the candid attention of our citizens, to become acceptable to all parts of the country, and all classes of our population. At all events, it would be far better to try the experiment, before heedlessly(?) casting aside all the advantages sustained(?) from it."
The white working men of the country should not fail to note the recent action of the Republicans in Congress in preserving the public lands as homes for free white men, and that their first act on re-assembling in Congress was to re-enact the Homestead Bill. This law is but an earnest and instalment of that legislation which shall protect and bless the free labor of the country by giving every industrious and wiling man an opportunity to make himself and his children independent and comfortable. This sort of legislation is better than talking about slavery and making new laws for its extension, according to the habit of the Southern Democracy."
"We hear it frequently said that secession is revolution. It is revolution, but in a far wider sense than is generally understood. The St. Louis "Democrat," published in a slave State, says that secession will lay bare all the depths of Southern society. It will let loose the conflicting theories of the politicians as well as the passions of the people, and it is difficult to say which are the more destructive. How will it be possible to build a Southern Confederacy, when the right of each State to secede is to be the corner stone of the structure? Dissolution, and not organization - anarchy, and not order - must be the immediate result of such an undertaking, to be followed in due time by some new form of monarchical despotism. The secessionists are preparing a Pandemonium for themselves, the like of which the world has not yet seen, in fact or fable. The disfranchisement of the poor whites, especially of foreigners, will be one of the structural characteristics of the new republic. The aristocratic idea once fully recognized, it will develop itself in the formation of castes. The grand principle of the Declaration of Independence repudiated, we shall see all the gradation of rank and class established by law. If the cotton lords carry out their own logic, working men of the white race will be the Pariahs of the Southern Confederation. Property and birth united, will be the joint standard of political rights and social privileges. He who has been born an alien will die an alien. The power to confer citizenship on foreigners will be denied to the legislative power. Democracy will fly from the recreant land, and hardly leave the traditions of her glory and beneficence behind. The great subdivisions of society will be slaves, foreigners, plebeians, and patricians - the last, as a matter of course, the owners of the first. The avatar of the cotton States, which is to succeed the dissolution of the Union, will e mainly a reproduction of forms of society, which it was supposed had passed away forever, and which are all but known, except to the antiquarian, or the traveler who has wandered and mediated on the banks of the Ganges, the Nile and the Tiber. No doubt the new birth will be distinguished by lineaments entirely original; but such as will impart to it neither nobleness nor dignity. Society will unfold itself from the elementary organism of the plantation, exclusively - Manners, laws, institutions, governments, sects, and systems, will be developments of that primal entity, in form as well as in spirit. All things heterogeneous and dissimilar will be eliminated; the freedom of the press, the pulpit and the rostrum will be formally, as they are now practically, abolished; and the slavery idea will overarch all, like the grim canopy of Tartarus. The aim of the government will be suppression and repression. Freedom will have no wider temple than the soul of the individual, which will also be her prison. There will be no growth, for growth is only possible by differentiation, which is only possible by virtue of freedom, which is the very sun of the intellectual world. Hence the richness of variety which distinguished all free countries - variety in productions, in literature, art, philosophy, occupations and associations - and the dreary rigorous uniformity which prevails wherever despotism rules - dreary and rigorous in proportion to the despotism of the ruling power. This explains the immutability of China and India for thousands of years, and it is into such a Dead Sea that Southern society will plunge if it escape the destructive forces which Secession will be sure to liberate. The whites of the cotton States - the plantation caste - will realize in themselves the fable of the Lotus Eaters; bur for all others nothing will remain but toil and suffering combined with political impotence - an unenviable destiny, if, as we are told, to be weak is to be miserable, doing or suffering."
"It must now be conceded taht the Union is in the most perilous position known in the history of our country. never, since the organization of the Federal Government, has the immediate separation of the States, and the destruction of the Republic, been so imminent as at the present hour. The mass of the people do not seem to realize this fact, nor will not, we fear, until the sad calamity of disunion, ruin, and general distress is brought to their very doors. We have been so used to the hypocrisy and false alarms of partizan warfare - have so often listened to the threats of disunion which we knew would die away after the decision of the ballot-box - that it is difficult to realize the present alarming condition of the country. Says the Cincinnati Daily Times, we now find treason boldly proclaimed by those holding important positions in the Government, and at Washington, and throughout the States, federal office holders announce their readiness to assist in the dismemberment of the Union. And the Government itself seems to be paralyzed, and possesses neither the patriotism nor the courage to meet the sad emergency. The President quails before the threats of the Secretary, whose mismanagement of the federal finances, purposely, perhaps, has brought the Government to the verge of ruin, and with fear and trembling shrinks from the advances of the nation's foes. The miserable old man, responsible, to a great extent, for the dangers which now encompass the Union; selfish, unpatriotic, and seemingly without moral courage, dare not do his duty to his country, and shrinks from the responsibilities of his position. Evidently all he hopes to accomplish is to avert the calamity until after the close of the Administration, and then, for aught he may care, the Union can go to pieces. In fact, his policy makes him open to the suspicion that he is ambitious to be the last President of the United States, and will rejoice if the nation is divided at the close of his distressing Administration.
Congress, we fear, is not equal to the emergency. There are a few patriots there, but how many are steeped in the corruptions of political life? See them now, when States are in arms, and have announced their determination to secede within a fortnight, discussing the probable effect of compromise suggestions upon their partizan organizations at home! They seem dead to that lofty patriotism which destroys self for the country, and which is ready to sacrifice even life, if it be necessary, for our great and noble union. Like NERO, they even delight in the destruction and ruin which the demoralization they have brought to public life has caused, if amid the ruin their selfishness can be gratified. Sad as it is, we cannot hid the fact the Federal Government itself does not possess the virtue, patriotism and courage which this solemn hour demands, and hence it is that traitors to the Republic preach treason with impunity, and dare the federal authorities to interfere with their scheme to dissolve this Union of States.
It is time for the people to be moving. Commerce and trade of all kinds has already felt the first blow of the approaching calamity. At a period of great national prosperity, at a season of bountiful provision, at a time of national glory and pride, the politicians, the demagogues, the political leaders, have brought the Republic to the verge of total ruin. Nothing can save the Union but a prompt uprising of the patriotic people, who do not love CAESAR less but Rome more. It must be done, and done quickly, for in a short time the grandest Government the world ever saw may be utterly ruined, and the genius of Liberty, with saddened heart, will weep over the irreparable wrong to human freedom and human progress."
Every mechanic and laboring man who is thrown out of employment this winter should remember that he is particularly indebted to the administration of James Buchanan and its satellites for the act. Never has there been a time when the country contained as much money as at present. The great West yielded immense crops of grain and provisions the last season, while in Europe the crop was short. Consequently they have had to buy of us, and the balance of trade being largely in our favor they are compelled to remit us the specie, over six millions of which arrived last week, and the average will probably reach a million per week for the next month. With all this gold in the country, yet trade is stagnant. And why? Solely because the Democratic party which has so long been in power, had become so corrupt, that the people determined on a change of rulers, and they refuse to quietly submit to the change. Rather than to permit others to wield the power they have so long held and abused, they prefer to see the Union broken up. The Democratic party of the North by vilifying and misrepresenting the Republican party to our Southern brethren, have stirred up a spirit of bitter animosity and rebellion to the incoming Administration. This has paralysed trade, and thrown thousands out of employment, at a season when its effects are most keenly felt. Let every mechanic and laboring man remember these facts, for the day of retribution will surely come."