The star of the north. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1849-1866, 1855-06-21

sed. II is also universal truth, that the
spread of that disease will, sooner or later,
affect the more living members. Make any
class of men, for instance, an exception in
society set them apart in way which shall
exclude them from the more vital circula-
iiors Of that society place them in relations
which shall breed in them sense OF aliena-
ton and degradation at the same time--and
they must become either bloichers, or para.
sites, which corrupt 1t; OF else band oi
couspiralors, more or less active, making
war uron It's integrity.
Let us suppose that some ruler, n Louis
Napoleon or DR.. Francia, should decree that
all the inhabitants of certaip country. of
obiique VI defective vision, should be rigidIy
confined to one of the lower mechanical oc-
cupations, would not all The squint-eyed
and short-sighted people be Immediately de.
graded in the estimation of the rest Of the
community? Would not the feeling Of that
debasement act as in perpetual rriant to
their malice-lead them TO hate the rest and
10 prey upon them-and so feed an incessant
feud-open or sinister, as the injured party
might be strong or weak-between the stra-
bismic families and those of more legiti-
mate ocularity? In the same way, but with
even more certainty and v:rulence of effect,
any legal distinctions among people, found
ed upon differences of birth or race must
generate unpleasant or pernicious relations,
which, in the end, could only be maintain.
ed by force. Say to the quarter million
Of foreigners who annually arrive on our
shores, that, like the metoikoi and perioikoi Of
the Creeks, they may subsist here, but moth
ing more; that the privileges of the inside of
the city, suffrage, office, equality, ambition,
are closed TO them; that they may sport for
our amusement in the arenas, look on at our
courts, do our severer labors for us, and rev.
eren,ly admire our greatness: but that they
shall have no part nor lot in that political lie
which is the central and distinguishing life
of the nation, and SO forth; you convert them,
infallibly, into enemies-into the worst kind
Of enemies, too because internal enemies,
who have already effected lodgment in the
midst of your CITADEL Coming as an inva-
ding .army-these thousauds-wiih avowed
unfrendly purposes-they might easily be
driven back by our swords but coming here
TO settle and be transmitted into a caste-in-
to political lepers and vagabonds-lhey would
degenerate into moral plague which no
human weapon could turn away. Proscri-
bed from the most important functions of the
society in which they lived, they would cher
ish an interest separate from the general in-
terest, and, as they grew stronger, form Them
selves into an organized and irritable clan
ship. Their just resentmenis, or their in
creasing arrogance, would sooner or later
provoke some rival faction into conflict and
then The dssp.sealed, fatal animosilies ofrace
and religion, exasperated by the remem-
brance of injuries given and taken, would
rage over society like the winds of the sea.
History is iull of warnings 10 US on this
head. No causes were more potent, in sun
derlng the social lies of the ancient halions,
than the fierce civil wars which grew out of
the narrow policy of restricting citizenship to
the indigenous races. No blight has fallen
with more fearful severity on Europe than
the blight of class domination, which, for GEN.
turies, has wasted the energies ard the vir-
tues, the happiness and the hopes oftbe mas
ses. Nor is there any danger that threatens
our own country now-scarcely except sla-
very-more subtle or formidable that the dan
ger which turks in those il-suppressed ha-
treds Of race and religion which some per-
sons seem eager to foment into open quarrel.
Already the future is walking in to-day. The
recen, dsgraceful exhibitions in this city
the armedand hostile bands which are know
10 be organized-the bitter taunts and en-
coun ,ers OF their leaders-the low crimina-
tons Of the Senate House-the pugilisiic me-
lee, ending in death-tAe instant and univer-
sal excilement-lhe elevation OF a bully Of
the bar-room into the hero of cause.-The
imposing funeral honors, rivaling in pageant
ry and depth of emotion, the most solemn
obsequies that nation could decree its no.
blesl benefactor--all these are marks ofsore-
ness which needs only to be irritated 10 sup
purate in social war.
Our statesman at Washington are justly
sensible Of the dangers of sectional divisions;
but no sectional divisions which il is posi-
BILE 10 arouse arc half SO much to be dreaded
as an infamed and protracted contest between
natives and aliens, or Catholics and Protest.
ants. The divisions which spring from ter
ritorial interests appeal 10 few of The deeper
passions of the soul, but The divisions of race
and religion touch cord in The human
heart which vibraies 10 the iriensest malig-
nifty Of hell. Accordingly, ihepen of the his
torian registers many brutal antagonisms--
many lasting and terrible wars but the most
brutal Of all those aniagonisms-,he most las
ting and terrible of all those wars, are the
antagonisms of race, and The wars Of reli-
gion.
twill be replied 20 what we have hitherto
urged; that our argument proceeds upon an
assumption tha, aliens are 10 be totally exclu-
ded from polilical life, whereas nobody pur-