The pilot. [volume] (Baltimore [Md.]) 1840-1840, 1840-04-17

vice. aud looking up to the President as
their commander-in-Chief as the Consti-
tuition, in that case, provides and directs.
| know Of but one precedent for so pro-
found continuance, and that was in the
days of the English commonwealth SO
called, when that willy statesman, Oliver
Cromwell, divided the kingdom into
twelve military jurisdictions, just as the
Secretary now proposes to divide the Uni
ted States into eight military districts; and
under cover of organizing the militia,
caused them to be enlisted or recruited
under the proper officers, and regular pay
distributed among them; which, the histo-
rian says, the Lord Proctor found to be
most efectual, resource for REFRESHING
his political enemies, but which all reas-
enable men considered 'as throwing aside.
the mask ofliberty,' and parcelling out the
people in so many sub-divisions,of slave
ry.' have no disposition to question
the originality of the Secretary, but insin-
uating that he may have derived the hint
of his plan from so celebrated an author
ity.
Let us now see what are the public
principles and opinions, the life and char
acter, of Gen. Harrison, the sole oppo
sing candidate for the Presidency, and if
they do not present better guarantee for
the safe republican administration of the
government. 1t has been the singular for
tune of Gen. Harrison to have been more
misrepresented and consequently misun-
derstood, particularly in his native State,
than any other distinguished citizen of
our country. The reason of this is, doubt
less, to be found in the circumstances that
for the last twelve years Of his life he has
been withdrawn from the scenes of active
political employment, and that, while his
name was before the country for the last
Presidency, exposing him of course, to
much denunciation and misrepresentation
from his political adversaries, the attention
of the opposition party of the south was
mainly directed TO distinguished citizen
Of their own section, so that there Mas no
party interest felt at that time in the south
in detecting and exposing the numerous
and gross misrepresentation of which he
was made the subject by an INSCRIPTIONS
press. From this state of things it has a.
risen, that in the south generally, and in
Virginia particularly, the most unfounded
charges have been widely propagated in
regard to his public principles and con.
duct, and till lately without efficient con-
tradiction and xposure-thus imposing
on many good citizens, who will be ca
ger to repair the injustice they have done
him. The most prominent of the charges,
which is still wantonly repeated, is that
Gen. Harrison is an dboIitionist. have
recently Investigated with care, all the ev-
licences of his principles and conduct on
this, as we'll as other important public
questions, and am convinced that if there
be one man who has entitled himself to
the gratitude ofthe south beyond all 9TH
ers, by the noble and disinterested zeal he
has at all times manifested, the sacrifices
he has feely made, the single heartedness
with which he has exposed himself to per-
secution and political prescription in de-
fence of the constitutional, rights of the
south, and the peace and safety of their
fire sides, against all interference whether
of faDaticism or political ambition, that
man is William Henry Harrison, Of Ohio.
You have doubtless read the speech
made by him at Vincennes in the State of
Indiana, in 1885, in which, in the face of
a non-save holding audience, he gallant
ly volunteered to defend the rights and in
terests of the south, Where can be found
even in the productions of any Southern
statesman, more energetic and unspar-
ing denunciation of the schemes of the
abolitionits? He pronounces them to be
"weak, presumptuous and unconstitu-
tional'--'ilegal, prosecuting and dan
gerous," and after depicting in glo-
wing language the fatal consequent
es to which they must lead, he calls
upon his audience with indignant earnest
ness, to 'frown upon measures which
are to be deprecated.o He lays down in
the broadest and most unequivocal terms,
the fundamental principle that the subject
of slavery is under the sole and exclusive
jurisdiction of the states in which it exists,
that neither the general government nor
the non-save holding states have any
right whatever to interfere with it.; and he
moreover contends that discussions upon
the subject in the non-slave holding states
tending in their consequences, as they do,
to leopard the peace and impair the rights
Of the slave holding states are an abuse