Cooper's Clarksburg register. [volume] (Clarksburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1851-1861, 1852-09-29

not to take his stand as the mistaken adj
yocate OF the Union. and of the mutual
steps Of compromise which that great OBJ
iect unquestionably demanded. The GER
cest, the least scrupulous, and the most
consistent of those who battle Against sla7
very recognise the same fact that he does.
They see that merely human wisdom and
human efforts cannot subyert it, except
by tearing to pieces the constitution,
breaking the pledges which it sanctions,
and seyering into distracted fragments
that common country which Providence
brought into one nation, through con,
tinued miracle of almost two hundred
years, from the first settlement OF the
American wilderness until the revolution.
In the days when, young member OF
Congress, he first raised his voice against
agitation, Pierce saw these perils and
their consequences. He considered. too,
that the evil would be certain, while the
good was, at best, a contingency, and Ito
the clear, practical foresight with which
he looked into the future, scarcely so
much as that, attended, as the movement
was and must be, during its progress,
with the aggravated injury of those
whose condition it aimed to ameliorate,
and terminating. in its possible triumph
if such possibility there were-with the
ruin of two races which now dwelt toge-
Their in greater peace and affection, it is
not too much to say, than had ever else
where existed between the taskmaster
and the serf. no
"Of course. there is another view of all
these matters. The theorist may take
that view in his closet; the philanthrupist
by profession, may strive to act upon il
uncompromisingly amid the tumult and
warfare of his life. But the statesman OF
practical sagacity-wholov loves his country
as it is, evolves good from things as they
exist, and who demands to feel his firm
grasp upon better reality before he quits
the one already gained-will be likely
here, with all the greatest statesmen of
America, to stand in the attitude of a con-
sentative. Such, at all events, would be
the attitude of Franklin Pierce.
owe have sketchcd some of the influ-
ences amid which he grew up, inhcriting
his fathers love of country, mindful Of
the old patriots valor in so many conflicts
of the revolution. and having close be-
fore his eyes the example of brothers and
relatives, more than one Of whom have
bled for America, both at the EXTREMIST
north and farthest south himself. too. in
early manhood, serving the Union in lis
legislative halls, and, at II maturer age.
leading his fellow-cilizens, his brethren,
from the widest sundered States. 10 red
den the same blttle-tields with their kim
dred blood, to Unite their breath into one
shout of victory, and perhaps to sleep,
side by side, with the same sod over them.
Such n man, with such hereditary recol-
lections, and such personal experience,
must narrow himself to adopt the cause of
one section of his native country against
another. He will stand up, as he has al
ways stood, among the patriots of the
whole land. And il the work of anti-sla-
very agitation. which. it is undeniable.
leaves most men who earnestly engage in
it with only half country in their aztec
tions-if this work must be done, let 9TH
crs do it,
"Those northern men, therefore, who
deem the great cause of human welfare
all represented and involved in this pres
ent hostility against southern institutions,
and who conceive that the world stands
still, except so far as that goes forward
these, it may be allowed, can scarcely
give their sympathy or their confidence 10
the subject of this memoir. But there is
still another view, and probably as wise a
one. 1t looks upon slavery as one of
those evils which divine Providence does
not leave to be remedied by human con-
trivances, but which, in its own good
time, by some means impossible TO be an
ticipated, but of the simplest and easiest
operation, when all its uses shall have
been fulfilled, it causes to vanish like a
dream.
"There is no instance, in all history, Of
the human will and intellect having per-
fected any great moral reform by methods
which it adapted to that end but the
progress of the world at every step, leaves
some evil or wrong on the path behind it,
which the wisest OF mankind, OF their own
set purpose, could never have found the
way to rectify. Whatever contributes to
the great cause ofgood, contributes to all
its sub divisions and varieties, and on this
score, the lover of his race, the enLhusi-
asst, the philanthropist OF whatever theo-
ry, might lend his aid to put a man, like
the one before us, into the leadership of
the worlds affairs"
In the following extract, Mr.. Haw-
thorne gives his version of the Atw God
overthrow, in 1850, which has furnished
a weapon of assault to the enemies of
Gen. Pierce ever since, with what justice
our readers will now have better oppor-
tunity of judging than they ever had be-
fole:
In October, 1850, democratic con.
vention. held at Concord, nominated Mr..
Atwood as the party's candidate for gov
ernor. The Compromise, then recent. was
inevitably a prominent element in the dis