The mountain sentinel. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1844-1853, 1850-11-28
The Session of Congress.

ou hOuudy HeAt, DeC "a, lIlc llrly-
first Congress of the United States will
re-assemble. Ii has high, solemn and
essential duties 10 perform-duties more
important than any which have devolved
upon any Congress since the first-duhes
upon the honest, self-sacriicing discharge
of which depends, perhaps, the future of
our country. The eyes of the people,
not only of our own nation and the Amer
lean continent, but of the civilized old
world, will be directed upon this Congress
and its members. Upon every Senator
and Representative a weighty and mo-
men;ous responsibility rests. If any one
of them shall advocate departure from
the rules of the plainly expressed Consti-
tuition and the Laws; if any one shall give
up to passion, prejudice, pride, or person
al political ambition and trickery, what,
by the genius of our institutions, was in
tended for the benefit of our common
country, and an example 10 mankind; if
any one shall refuse to lift up his hand
and voice against fanaticism; if any one
| shall forget his character as an individual
member of great republican and self
governing government, and persist in small
and local ideas, SO as to eudanger the
union of the mass, and thus, at the crisis
of the greatest experiment for the sake OF
human happiness which the history of the
world has ever exhibited, attempt to
lhwart its success; if any member of this
Congress, shall do these things, or any OF
them, or anything having such tendency
be he whom he may; TO whatever party,
whether Democrat, Whig, Free Soil, or
any party in which he may class himself;
whatever may have been, or is his repu-
tation, personally, socially, or politically.
he will leave the thirty first Congress
with the mark of treason 80 his country
ON his brow, as indellible as the mark oil
CAIN of old, and in after life, he will fee
the tortures which the conscience inf1icts
upon "ihe traitor doomed" despised by
the people and destined to sind into the
lobscurity of contempt, or TO raise to the
unenviable prominence of indignation and
lscorching ridicule. Assured as we are
that in this respect, we represent the
voices, the hopes and the wishes of gooe
old Pennsy ylvania, from her local and po
litical position, aptly styled the keystone
of the National Arch-the mother o
States-the model of future republics
desirous under the influence of reason
prove herself the barrier, to roll back the
waves of fanat:cisrn, whether they ap
proach from the North or the South, ant
TO be the umpire between :he zealots o
her contending neighbors-let US invoke
euery member of Congress to resume hi
t post in a spirit of moderation and fratern
ity. Let us invoke him to read and reflec
) upon the compromises which from thu
{ very foundation of our government, ant
without a rigid adherence to which, in tn,
letter and spirit, the great human expert
ment must fall TO pieces like rope o
sand Let US invoke the shades OF ou
i great revolutionary sires 10 look dowI
upon him and smile upon his deeds. lie
us invoke him, to cast behind him, as ht
willingly would pestilence, all prepo
{ sessions and local agitation. Let us invok,
him 10 rem ember the name and fame o
j his ancestors, his own. and that which HI
n ought TO transmit to his descendants; ant
I with forhearance and magnanimity. pledge,
Ill heart 10 the cause OF his country, Il