St. Charles Republican intelligencer. (St. Charles [Charles City], Iowa) 1856-1857, 1856-12-18

doCoiHpHsh tHeH OpJectS, Iney ueulCate
themselves to the odious task of de-
preciating the government organiza-
tion which stands in their way, and of
eliminating, with indiscriminate in
vective. not only the citizens of partic.
ular States, with whose laws they find
!, fault, but all others of their fellow cit
, izens throughout the country, who dc
not participate with them in their as.
saults upon the Constitution, framed
, and adopted by our fathers, and claim
{ ing for the privileges it has secured
T and the blessings it has conferred the
steady support and grateful reverence
of their children. oa r~ 3a
They seek an object chthey well
know to be revolutionary one. They
are perfectly aware that the change in
the relative condition Of the white and
black in the slaveholding States, which
they would promote, is beyond their
lawful authority that to them it is a
foreign object /; that it cannot be eff
fected by any peaceful instrumentality
of. theirs; that for them, and the States
of which they are citizens, the only
path to its accomplishment is through
burning cities, and ravaged fields, and
slaughtered populations, and all there
is most terrible in foreign, complica-
ted civil and servile war and that
the first step in the attempt is the for
cible disruption of a country embrac-
ing in its broad bosom a degree of lib
erty, and an amount Of individual and
public prosperity, to which there is no
parallel in history, and substituting
in its place hostile governments, driv-
en- at once and inevitably into mutual
devastation and fratricidal carnage,
transforming the now peaceful and fe-
licitous brotherhood into a vast perma-
nent camp of armed men like the mon
arches of Europe and Asia. Well
knowing that such, and only such, are
the means and consequences Of their
plans and purposes, they endeavor to
prepare the people of the United
States for civil war by doing every
thing in their power to deprive the
Constitution and the laws of moral au-
thority, and to undermine the fabric
of the Union by appeals to passion
and sectional prejudice, by indoctrina-
ting its people with reciprocal hatred,
and by educating them to. stand face
to face as enemies, rather than shoul-
der to shoulder as friends. I
1t is by the agency of such. unwar-
rantable interference, foreign and do
mestic, that the minds of many, other
wise good citizens, have been so in.
famed into the passionate condemna-
ton of the domestic institutions of the
southern States, as at length to pass
insensibly to almost equally passion
ate hostility towards their fellow citi-
zens of those States, and thus finally
to fall into temporary fellowship with
the avowed and active enemies Of the
Constitution. Ardently attached to
liberty in the abstract, they do not stop
to consider practically how the objects
they would attain can be accomplish
ed, nor to reflect that, even if the evil
We're as great as they deem it, they
have no remedy to apply, and that it
can be only aggravated by their vio-
lence and unconstitutional action. \
question, which is one of the most diff
ficult of all the problems Of social in
stitution, political economy and states
manship, they treat with unrcasoning
intemperance Of thought and Ian
guage. Extremes beget extremes
Violent attack from the North finds its
inevitable consequences in the growth
of spirit of angry defiance at the
South. Thus in the progress of events
we had reached that consummation,
which the voice Of the people has now
so pointedly rebuked, Of the attempt
of a portion Of the States, by sec
tional organization and movement, to
usurp the CONTROL Of the government
of the United States.
l confidently believe that the great
body Of those, who inconsiderately
took this fatal step, are sincerely at
tached to the Constitution and the Tn
ion. They would, upon deliberation,
shrink with unaffected horror from any
conscious act of disunion or civil war
But they have entered into a path,
which leads nowhere, unless it be to
civil war and disunion, and which has
no other possible outlet. They have
proceeded thus far in that direction in
consequence of the successive stages
of their progress having consisted of
a series Of secondary issues, each Of
which professed to be confined within
constitutional and peaceful limits, but
attempted indirectly what few men
were willing to do directly, that is, to
act aggressively against the constitu-
tional rights of nearly one-half Of the
thirty-one States. .a..... s
In the long series of acts OF. indi-
rect aggression, the first was the stren-
uous agitation, by citizens Of the
northern States, in Congress and out
Of it, of the question Of negro cman-
cipation in the southern States,
The second step in this path Of evil,
consisted of acts of the people Of the
northern States, and in several instan-
ces Of their governments, aimed to. fa-
cilitate the escape Of persons held to
service in the southern States, and to
preventtheir extradition when reclaim