Sunbury American. [volume] (Sunbury, Pa.) 1848-1879, 1849-03-31

would loosen, poisoning every blessing it
would bestow; and SO filling his whole
case with elements of hopelessness, explo-
sion, and evil, that the heart shudders whilst
it weeps to look upon it. What are they
who cherish and direct this spirit? Friends
of the slavea They are robbing him of eve
ry vestige of liberty he has left. Friends
Of humanity9 They are stalking it, ruth
lessly stalking it, upon the issues OF massa-
ere and convulsion. Friends of the coun-
try! They are rapidly becoming its iron
homicides, cleaving down its Constitution
with a murderous arm, and tearing it limb
from limb!
Should it ever happen as the result of
any interference and action here, that some
insurgent ebullition of the slave will break
out among us, the blood of our people will
be made to stream in our dwellings, and
ooze up from the bosom of the soil that feeds
it. 1t will cry aloud, like that of Abel, for
vengeance against the brothers. hand that
shed it; and vengeance would be had,
though every drop that was left should be
poured out in one angushed and dying ef-
fort to obtain it. Nothing but Heaven
could stop people so lashed up to phren-
zy by rage, and suffering, and wrong, from
sending back upon the fresides and the
fields of the guilty that visitation of calami-
ty and death which had first been sent to
desolate their own. Spare, oh spare US the
curse of broken brotherhood-of ruined,
ruined, ruined country. Remember that
there are no groans like the groans of ex-
piring liberty-no convulsions like those
which her dying agonies extort. 1t took
Rome some three hundred years to die
With far deeper vitality than hers, our end,
when it comes, will come with far Keen
pr, crueller, and btterer pang.
Give up our common and united country
give it up at the call of some sectional
interest-sacrifice it to the phrenzy of ia
naticism or of passion-let it 60 down,
down, under some monstrous and horrible
struggle of brother with brother--and you
will get it back as you have it now-the
home of happiness, the city upon hill
towering up for the light and for the heal
ing of nations-you will get thus again
when the "shadows shall go back upon the
dial of fAhaz''-when he who sent out the
luminary of day upon his march shall again
put forth his hand and stop him in his path
way of light.
1t is said, sir, that at some dark hour of
our revolutionary contest, when army after
army had been lost, when dispirited, beat
en-, wretched, the heart of the boldest and
faithiulest died within them and all for an
instant, seemed conquered except the un-
conquerable soul OF our father-chief-it is
said, that at that moment rising above all
the auguries around him, and buoyed up by
the inspiration of his immortal work for all
the trials it could bring, he reused anew
the sunken spirits of his associates by this
confident and daring declaration "Strif
me (said he) of the detected and suffering
remnant of my army-take from me all tha
l have left-leave me but a banner, give
me but the means to plant it upon th'
mountains of West Augusta, and will We
draw around me the men who will lift VI
their bleeding country from the dust, an'
set her Free" Give to me, who am sol
and representative of that same West Au
gusta, give to me as banner the propitiou
measure have endeavored to support, hell
me TO plant it upon this mountain top o
our national power, and the land of Wash
ington, undivided and unbroken, will b
our land, and the land of our children
children forever. So help me to do this a
this hour, and generations hence, some fu
ture son of the South, standing where
stand, in this same honored Hall, and i
the midst of our legitimate successors, vii
bless and praise and thank God that he, toe
can say of them, as of you, and of al
around me-these, these are my brethren
and this, this, oh this, too, is my country