Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1845-1854, 1848-09-20

uncalled for. That your duties closed with
orders for the maintenance of our laws
and our treaty stipulations. And why did
he tell you this? Because you had been fa-
miliar with the abuses of power in Cana
da! Because you knew of the di$tranchise.
ment of the French part of the population
of those provinces, and the restriction of
the Constitutional privileges of the Ang To-
Saxon! Because you knew that Imperial
Parliment, trampling upon the constitutional
rights of the people, had illegally arroga-
ted to itself the right of seizing upon the
public treasury and of distributing its con-
tents among irresponsible officials. Be-
cause you knew of the solemn essemblages
gainst the tyrannical proceedings of their
government, and pledging their faith unto
each other, as did our fathers, to resist furth-
er encroachments from their ruling despots
Because you had before you the horrible &C
counts of the battle of ST. Dennis and ST.
Charles, and the terrible massacre of St.
Eustache, with the bleeding remains of that
nobleman of our nature, JEAN OLIVIER
CHENIER, cut in four quarters, avith
his heart ripped from has breast lying
NAKED IN THE MARKET HOUSE,
aohilst aOonaen, both old md going, acre
openly polluted in the churches, an their
oavn houses, in the fields, on the high
uOays and by-ways, by the BRITISH
SOLDIERY! Because you knew of these
accumulated scenes of horror on this Amer
ican continent, and within hailing distance
of our shores, when the steamboat Caroline,
an American boat, with American owners,
and lying at an American wharf, with the
stars and stripes of your country floating at
the masthead, was cut from her moorings,
her crew ruthlessly slaughtered, she fired
and sent adrift over the Falls of Niagara
Because you had before you the heart
stirring narratives of naked and hungry
refugees, many of them with helpless fami
lies, rudely cast out from their homesteads,
seeking temporary asylum in that coun-
try aohose constitution and people (al-
though her President did not) gave their
guarantee cf protection; many of them
hunted like wild beasts of the forest, COM
PEELED to leave their wives and children, and
property to the cruelty, and lust, and avar-
ice of an embruted soldiery! Because you
allied yourself with a government lost to all
senses and app; eciation of a national faith,
under the laws of neutrality, and was sensi-
BILE of their gross violation, Heretofore, (fresh
in your memory,) by Great Britain, in the
circumstances Of the slaughter Of the Turks
by England and France, conjointy, in Ma
varino Bay, whilst in profound peace with
the Sultan; in the unjustiha BILE assumption,
by England, in openly putting down Don
Miguel, with her troops in Portugal; in the
British Parliament sanctioning the legion at
Sebastian, against the Spanish Prentender
Carlos; ard in this unnatural massacre of
American citizens on board the Caroline,
whilst in profound peace with the United
States.
Honest, honest, Iago"
Instead of noticing this last degrading
insult and outrage to your country, you
manifested your solicitude for oppressors by
issuing your celebrated denunciary procla-
nation. And this when all reference to the
causes Of Justice cf foreign quarrel, in
which American citizens evinced DISPOSE
ton to embark or engage, or to the rights,
wrongs, or means of either of the contend
ing parties, was supererogation, wrong, and
inconsistent with your duty to the people
and to the dignity of your high Office. You
travelled out of your official and appropriate
path to express yovr individual opinion
upon the character of the contest, and the
means of the revoutionists. You assumed
an interference in their quarrel, which you
forbade and denied the individual citizen to
exercise. You forbade all countenance to
the Canadians, all expression in their favor
by the people, but yet assumed to pass Judg-
ment between an oppressed people, making
daring effort to break their chains, and
the British Government-telling them that
government was Just and that they were too
weak to contend against it. You caution
ed all American citizens who might aid them
to expect no protection from our government.
You denounced the conduct of those who
even sympathised with them as netarions
and avowed that every American who would
ioin the Canadians, would be "reproached
by euery uirtuous feHoao citizen!" You
ordered us shot down within our own wa
ters. You kept your spies in the pay of
government to watch our movements and
/ give information to the British. And by
your orders we were, when unarmed, fired
upon, in our own waters in the neighbor-
hood of Detroit, and suffered the loss of life
and limb.
But we have little more space for you
this time, and in speaking of you it cannot
be wondered that we are at loss for Ian
guage, for contempt loses its powers OF ar
gament. You have now absolved yourself
from all political ties, all old affections, all
parties, and thrown yourself into the arms
of disunion fanatics, renegadoes and politi-
cal hucksters from the ranks of all, with
YOU motto rule or ruin, shouting for the
: seperation of the American Union, and the
l downfall of the Constitution
= uBlack spirits and white blue spirits and grey,
Mingle, mingle, mingle; you that mingle may"
= Sir, in consequence of your shameful anti
! American conduct, sixty thousand Demo
: cratic voters, lining the frontier from Mich
: loan to Kenebec, whose names we have
now before us, banded together in 1910 and
9 turned their backs upon you, either refus
i ing to vote at all or voting against you. Il
i was this host that lost you the democratic
g states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan
M Al.