The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-11-20

nao iasneo tnem INTO Wild fury OF fanaticisn
and rage. Their passions were inhamed anG
their reason chained to the car of a morbid
riotous excitement.
With these men, the physical argument baf
to be used. Shrieks for bleeding Kansas
had to be answered by shrieks for q bleeding
Union. To these men, the law had to be laic
down in plain, unmistakable English. 1t wa.
necessary they should know that there toas q
South, cruellywronged, injured, oppressed
| yet unsubjugated and highspirited South, de
termined not to ford the deep of degradation
which Yankee insolence, folly, and fanaticism
were about to present to her. And this neces
sity was supplied by the Resistance Party, til.
true Union men Of the country They came
to the rescue, and announced in plain terms
that the South would never submit to Fremont'i
Administration. That let the North elect him
and he could never administer the Government
for us-that, if elected, it was at the expense
OF the Union of the States. And these bold
and manly words, spoken but by few at first
were caught up by the multitude, went home
into the Southern heart, and there mellowed
and ripened into quiet determination to make
up the issue with the North on this point.
This feeling it was which, flying through
the South, made its print on Northern fanati
| clsm. 1t caused 1t first to pause then to con
slider, finally to back down. 1t saved the Union
and elected Buchanan.
From the South Side Sval Democrat edited by A.
| Banks and II. c. Thorbston November TO- 1856.
THE GREAT DIsUNIoN VOTE AT THE NORTH
The smoke has nearly cleared away from
the field; and while it is evident that Mr.. Blu
chsnan is elected by a clear majority of the
Electoral College, it ought not to be disguised
from our readers that the signs of the times
are inauspicions for any settlement of the vexed
question which constituted the great issue Of
| the late contest.
Conspicuously prominent amongst the phe
| nomena connected with the result ia the start
| ling and significant fact that one hundred and
| twenty-five of the Northern electoral vote has
been recorded for a dissolution of the Union.
We mean what we say. Every vote polled for
Fremont was a vote registered in favor of sew
ering the present Union of States. Fremont
was the image of this idea. He was the repre-
| sentative man of disunion, blood, and carnage.
The nominee of sectional Convention, in
which the South was never asked to partici.
pate and in which she could not have partici-
pated without a total sacrifice of her honor
and selfrespect, he cordially endorsed its plat
form of dogmss, which, carried into practice,
would have degraded her people to a condition
of the most abject servitude.
To his Government, under such circum.
stances, the Southern people would never have
submitted. A large majority of them, in the
event of his election, were ripe and ready for
revolution, and free people like ours, with
arms in their hands, could not have been easily
conquered. If any of.those men who voted for
Fremont did it under belief that the Southern
States would have scquiesced in his Admins
tration, they labored under most egregious
-. Il
tocsin of resistance from the shores of the Poto-
mac to the Rio Grande.
In stating these things, we do it for the bene-
fit of those men at the North, if there be any,
who, though they voted for Fremont, still desr-
ed to preserve the Union of the States; and
never did set of people run a greater risk
than those who love the Union, and yet thought
his election would not endanger it.
From the standpoint at which we view the
result, we cannot see in it aught else than
simple truce for four years. Would to God it
were otherwise. Would that the spirit of Judi.
cial blindness now throttling and obscuring the
Northern mind could be removed, and it could
be brought to look calmly at the chasm into
which it is rapidly drifting. But when we scan
the past, when we scrutinize the actual present,
we confess there is little left to hope for in the
future.
We have no doubt that Mr. Buchanan, in
his administration of the Government, will do
all in his power to allay the fercely raging
flames of sectional strife. He has narrowly
escaped destruction from them himself, and
reaches his present exalted position with his
garments scorched. But unless history lies,
unless the book of the past affords no text for
the philosopher to write of the future, this fire
is not likely to be extinguished.
Alone of all the bonds that once knit the two
sections together, but one remains-the balance
have been gradually gnawed in twain by the
angry tooth of fsnaticism. This single ligament
is the Democratic party at the North-still pow
erful, but, we fear, slowly yielding to the same
baleful influence.
1t is this great party that has, in this election,
rescued from sectionalism New Jersey, Indiana,
Pennsylvania, and Cslifornis-that has given
the South an armistice for four years-that is
now the last ray of hope for a preservation of
the Union of these States.
How long it will be able to sustain itself
against the odds that asssil it, we cannot under
take to predict but on its shoulders rest all hopes
of peace and good understanding between the
sections, and with its downfall perishes our
present form of Government.
AT all events, the South has lease of protec
ton from invasion for four years, and her peo-
pie will be guilty of faulty unequalled in the
worlds history, if they do not meanwhile sedu-
lousy employ all their energies in preparing to
meet the impending issue, which, after that
period, is likely, aye, almost certain, to stare
them full in the face. The political zodiac in
dicates that four years hence we are to have
presented to US the solemn question of degra.
dation or revolution. Let us get ready to make
the answer of freemen