Carroll free press. [volume] (Carrollton [Ohio]) 1834-1861, 1847-04-16
From the National Intelligencer.
What we are Fighting For.

The breaking up and dispersion Of Congress,
not TO re assemble for many months, has left US
time to breathe more freely and at least deliber-
ately. if painfully, 10 look around upon the COM
plexity ofpublic disaster which must attend all
wars, even when (unlike the presently sanctioned
bv some strong necessity, some legitimate policy
or at least some plausible justification. The
Legislative power-to which, in our anu-mon-
archical institutions, was jeaously reserved the al
ways dangerous and often fatal faculty Of war
making-the Legislative power, which, even
where that faculty is left Kingy prerogative,
still holds, in the control of supplies, a check up
on Monarchs and Ministers SO absolute and so
sure to be used that no where in Europe can
the Throne DARE TO originate awar without first
consulting it-has finally arrived at its periodic
dissolution, without vndcating, in any cffectual
way, its own high privilege which has been sub.
verted the limitations of the Constitution which
have been trampled on; our public policy ofPeace
and Justice which has been given to the winds; or
even the ordinary prudence and everyday duty
/ Of sobery considering what are the true objects,
and what is the probable event, Of the perilous
national enterprise in which the country has been
unwittingy and most unwilingly involved.
In word, the maorities of the two Houses of
Congress have chosen that this war-no matter
| how, by whom, or for what begun-shall pro-
ceed let its origin be ever so much in deroga.
ton or destruction of all those principles and
powers on which hangs the safety of our plan oi
freedom; and they have, thus refusing TO look
back to the past, equally chosen to set the future
at naught, to shut their eyes to all consequences,
and bIindly to push forward TO its eyent-which
at this moment, more than twelve months after
our army was ordered TO advance into the dispu
ted territory and sit down before Matamoras, nC
human intelligence can any more loresee than
has pleased the headong majority in Congress tc
scrutinize the commencement. Every man
reasonable or unreasonable, must confess tha
the prospect darkens as we advance; that we nov
seem much further from the termination of thi
war than we did at its outset that the million
and the lives which have been lavshed have rem
dered nothing certain but still more profuse eS
pendi ture of more millions and more lives; an
that. meanwhile amidst all this thckening gloon
of fatal party compliances to Executive usurpa
!tions, all this desolation, all tits iIlegaily, a
this domestic waste; all the corruption and al
the imperial stretch of direct power or elicit il
fuence that are growing up from this contest
and must be its consequence if they are not il
real aim, both the causes and the objects for whiC
we are fighting have, so far as the allegations o
disclosures Of those conducting the conflict ar
concerned, constantly grown more and more OBJ
scure and contradictory.
When a war is necessary, these and the 9th
er evils inseparabe from it must be borne; AM
!, we know from experience, will be cheerful
encountered by an intelligent people. But S
, far from such being the character Of the preser
war, it would be difficult matter to find any tw
men, even among those who support the wa
: who will agree as to what it is we are fghtin
| for,
, 1t fell in our way, some weeks ago, TO expires
: our own individual opinion-for which opino
: we protested that nobody else must be held n
2 sponsibIe-that, IN the language Of Edmun
Burke's speech on the American war, tive are
l this moment fighting for phantom" Furtht
| examination and reflection have deepened ii
r pursuation then avowed into the strongest col
: Yction that in its beginning this war had no ju
cause nor right policy; and that, in its progres
n it has become neither juster nor more expedlen
c The objects aledged by its advocates as thos
d which commanded that il should be begun, or
those which recommend that it should be furtht
d prosecuted, have been all the while shifting an
t changing delusive as the dancing lights ofa sun
: mer's eve, intangible as shadows, they che
about like the wind; they elude the grasp like som
dream; and it is in this sense that 1--WE repeat) "
. are fighting for phantom, if not for somethir
: worse. The proposition may appear to many
!. one of that sort which is much easier to asse
It than to prove; but, if they to whom it appears
that light will favor us with then candid atte