Weekly Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1853-1861, 1856-01-10
meekly Stats Sentinel.
Pir.t Fruits of seotionalism.

The second month of the session Of Con-
eress has come and is. going, and still the
House Of Representatives is without a presid-
ing officer. Two or three hours are each day
spent in angry debate, and two or three more
a balloting, when the members adjourn to
heir comfortable quarters, and the people are
eft to foot the score-amOunting to thou
snds Of dollars a day. Never before was
uch a scene Witnessed at the seat of govern
aent. The country has many times since
5 organization Witnessed the strifes of con-
ending parties. Angry debates on the floors
4 Congress have frequently occurred. But
i all the strifes and contentious of parties,
s~ctional feeling had little to do. The men,
srs of Congress were the representatives OF
ne or the other of the two great national
arties which then had an existence. They
struggled Tor the triumph of great measures
which thew believed calculated to advance
the prosperity Of the country and the haPpi
ness Of the people, without regard to the sec
zion in which they lived.
Blu. what do we now witness? A violent
struggle IS progressing, in which more than a
hundred members are endesvoring to elevate
to the Speakership Of the House a MN
whose only recommehdat:on to their support
is his bitter hatred Of the Southern half Of
our c~onfsderscy. On no other question than
this does he agree in sentiment with the ma
iorty of those who support him. They were
Bank men; he is nti-Bank. They were high
tariff men: he is an ultra free trader. They
were opposed to tho Independent Treasury;
he was its advocate. On all the great ques-
tions oil the day, in fact, he is and always has
been the antipods Of nearly all those who are
supporting him. They adhere to him with
the most stringent pertinacity, and it is one
of the wonder of the day, and an alarming
evidence Of the signsGff the times, that there
IS not a single Representative South Of Mason
and Diroa's ljne for 1hom these hundred and odd
members cuI or pill vote. What viii be the
natural and inevitable effect of this state OF
things, il not frowned down? Surprising
that the feeling exhibited by these Northern
Representatives should be the rule of con-
duct of their constituents, what would be
the result7 No Northern man would hold
intercourse with a Southern man-would re-
fuse to vote for him, buy from him, or inter
change the ordinary c~ivilities Of life with
him. Mutual arrangements between the
people of the two sections would ensue, and
a dissolution Of the Union would not only be
inevitable but desirable; for we hold that
when the people Of the North and South can
no longer act together in harmony and con-
cert, they had better sever those ties which
exist only in name and not in reality.
It must now hs quite evident to all nation
al men that the only refuge from this state
Of things is in the Democratic party. No
other does or can present a common platform
upon which all its members, of whatever
section, are able to stand. In the triumph of
the Democratic party rests the only hope of
staying the mad tide of fanaticism which in
1854 ragged over the country and filled the
halls of Congress with men of one idea and
no principle-men who isolate themselves
from ths Southern people and their Repre-
sentatives, aud whose greatest ambition is to
embrvil the o sections in violent quarrel.
The boasted nationality of the Know Moth
ing parts has proven to be a will-o'-the-wisp
-sfgment Of the imagination. Those who
had hoped that that organization would pat
an end to sectional strife have been disappoin-
ed, and 50 viii al be who think there is
nope frr sucha result from any other than
he Democratic party of the country.