Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1856-12-18

GFThe National Inteni9encsr cannot 60
the President Message. 1t is too much
FOR even that paper which is of all others
most unwilling to condemn any body or any
thing connected with the Government so
long as it can withhold. In respect 10 that
part of the Message where wholesale denun-
nunciatiou is hurled upon the North, the
Intelligeneer says:
sTa this part Of the Message we would
Willingly take no exception. The remarks
Of tie President on the principles and struc-
ture 6fthe Government, the supremacy of
the Constitution and tbs cOrrelative rights
and zies Of the States are enlightened,
Just md forcible. But, however reluctant
to find any fault with Message n which
there IS 50 mutffto commend. we must in
cando4<k keSssue with the President on enc
of bis positions. He assumes that associa-
tions have been formed "inflam,d with a
desire to change the domestic institutions
OF existing States,'' 10 change he relative
condition of the white and black ra es in
the slaveholding States-in i r words, to
abolish slavery thersin-which h,. correctly
urges cannot be effected BY Y peaceful
instrumentality, and that the ony p.th TO
its accomplishment is "'hrOueh burning
cities, and ravaged fields, and slaughtered
population;" picture dreadful II coutrm-
plate. and which would prove Il d re- reality
if the full purpose ascribed to tioe s,ocia-
tions were real. But we cann agree with
the President that so airociCus arpo-e is
meditated or desired by any puriiau of our
Northern population. beyond p,'ss hi, a few
insane fanatics in certain iJcali.i
Whatever repuguance may be leit in the
free States, north and west, to slavery in
the abstract or to its practical exfens on
north of the line prescribed to it by the g
islative act of 1920, we have too high an
opinion of The general respect felt in those
States for the Constitution and its rompro-
misses, and for tie inlefeasible rights of the
Southern States. TO give credeuce TO the
sweeping charge of the President. 1t is as
unjust, we think, to attribute to them any
such sentiment or purpose as it would be to
impute TO the patriotic people of the South
a desire to overthrow the Government be-
cause one or two Rewspapers and few
monomaniacs in a psfticular locality rail
against the uni$hFof the States and advo-
cate It's dissolution. There are doubtless
causes of complaint, not all of them imagi-
Eary, both North and South, but we have
fait in iNua lru of
both sections TO admit the justice o. the
Presidents allegation. In the most violent
debates Of the last session We heard Mr.
thern Senators, distinguished for their ex-
treme opipions on the Kansas question, not
only publicly repudiate the remotest wish
or intention to interfere with slavery in the
States, but avow their readiness ID shoulder
their muskets to defend the people of ths
South if need be, in minimizing their au-
thority at home.
We are not extenuating the extrava-
gancies of fanatics in the North or in the
West; but, with all reference to the Pre-
5 ident, we must say that he has gone too
far in imputing revolutionary sentiments or
designs to so large portion OF the Free
States. 1t is not to be wondered at, per-
naps, that the President should feel warmly
and speak strongly on a subject in which
his own official course has been So severely
but when the angry conten-
ions of the day shall have subsiied the un-
of many present views will
be rectiied. and among them the one ad-
Vanced in the Message from which We now
feel constrained in justice to di-sent, and en-
which we will say no more. We will only
add that We should be happy TO see The day
when neither the word slavery nor aLy al
lusiou to the institution will lind place IN
the Presidents Messages to Congress.