The Empire County argus., 1856-10-18
To the People of the United States.

FELLOW CITIZENS There are circumstances which
call for the appeal we make to your most earnest at
tentlon. The times appear to us startling and crit
ical There are aspects in the pending contest for
the Presidency, which very unusal and important
we can not therefore, forbear freely to communicate
some OF our apprehensions before we separate here
and to call upon you at once to look full in the face
any danger which may seem to impend over the
greatest popular government on earth.
Two Of the political parties in the country have
pitched Presidential battle upon sectional issues
and OF so fearful character as to stir the deepest
passions OF the American people. Though in SEEM
ing conflict, it can not be disguised that those par
ties have In such sort cooperated as to press upon
the country one exciting issue after another until by
dnt OF continual eXasperation, they have nearly
ceeded in arrayng, in hostile columns one half of the
States OF the Union against the other. They appear
mutually to have employed all the energies of party
power to engender sectional dstrust prejudice and
elimination, and now, for the first time in the history
of the government, we find truly formidable party
fully organized, and using every effort in their power
to combine the non-slaveholding against the slave
holding States of the Union, in struggle for the
executive power of the Confederacy. In that organ
ization are included men who supposed to be con-
servatve and national, but who are believed to be
led, by excitement or msconception, into movements
which, in their cooler moments, they not but re-
| coil from as they would from pestence and famine.
Its management has been essentially controlled by
leaders who, under all circumstances, have steadily
kept up an active, unceasing and mpacable warfare
upon the institutions of the slavehOldng States
Should such party unfortunately succeed, in the
present distracted state of the public mind, in elect
ing sectional President, supported alone by the vot
ers OF the non-slaveholdng States have too much
reason to apprehend that there might instantly spring
into existence a movement of resistance the conse
quences Of which no human wisdom can foresec, and
no lover of his country friend of popular govern
ment any where could fall in all coming time, sadly
to depore.
We do not believe they can succeed, but we may
be really treadng upon the brink of volcano, that
is liable at any moment to burst forth and over
Whelm the nation
But the Republican party is not alone responsible
for those appalling issues, is its the only
danger to the stability of the Government in its pres
ent form. The Democratic party has eagerly and
rashly seized upon these momentous issues and wed
ed them as the thunderbolts of party warfare They
have strven to madden the South, and to concen-
trae Southern votes upon their candidates, as the
Abolitioniss have striven to madden the North and
to concentrate Northern votes upon their candidates
When their extreme measures are resisted they
taunt national men, in the South, as submssionsts -
or worse than submssionsts, as the Aboltionists
taunt national men in the North doughiaces or
worse than dOughaces
They have apparently struggled to bring about the
formation of geographical partes such the Father
OF his Country so emphatically warned us against,
based upon questions Immediately tending to split the
Union asunder; and they have seemingly done this
for the petty purpose Of securing temporary party
triumph. The Union, in form at least, we think,
would survive the success of such party for the
present; but its triumph would probably keep the
furnaces of sectioal passion red hot, and ultimately
and it may be at no distant day. its rash errors wod
engender storm of sectional conflict beneath which
the government would sink into ruins. We think
| they too, will fail.
But we believe the time has come when the COM
mon safety requires that the raging sectional heats Of
those parties should be cooled. The time has come
when national conservative men, Repeating the Con
stitution, true to their whole country, and indig-
nantly frowning upon the first dawning of disunon,
should stand shoulder to shoulder, and unite in placing
at the head of the government Chief Magistrate
in whose capacity, honesty and patriotism all conde.
The National American party have now presented
such man-One who has been tried and found faith
full in every trust-who, having been suddenly called
upon to take the helm of the government at time
when the heavens were lvrid with the angry tempest
of 1S49-50, so successfully rode out that storm,
faithfully and galantly secured the safety Of the
bic ship of State, to win from an admirng people
the most heartfelt plaudts, "Well done, thou good
and faithful servant"
We point you to another fearful cancer on the
body politic-the humiliating struggle now going on
between the Democratic and Republican parties for
the foreign roe and to the tremulous apprehensions
expressed for the fate Of the one or the other of
those parties as the uncertain movements of the
German or Irish oscillate between them. We warn
you that the fate of this great government may soon
be equally dependent upon the unstable movements
Of those mighty masses fresh from the monarches of
Europe. Large portions of our Union are already
overdowing with foreign population-a population
such as has shown itself utterly incapable of sustain
ing popular governments in the Old World. So i'm
mense is the influx that we can scarcely be re-
garded as the same or the descendants of the same
people we were twenty years ago. Where, and in
what is this to end? Millard Fillmore alone, of the
candidates for the Presidency, has refused to court
this gigantic and growing element of power While
he has no hostility to foreigners he frankly warns his
countrymen that it is safer for American-born cit
zens to rule the destnies of America. Having wit
messed their deporable condition in their father
lands he would share with them all the privileges
and blessings of ours save the single privilege OF
sezing the regns of government and overturnng the
car of State in which are passengers We be-
seech you to see the dangers we have briefly glanced
at. and to shun them before it is too late forever
We urge You to unite with us in support of the
patriot statesman who has always fearessy outspo-
ken his sentiments-who has ever made the Constitu
ton his guidingstar-who has risen from an appren
tice boy to the Presidency-who, when President
frowned upon disorganzers and radicals, North and
South and with the aid of conservative Wings and
Democrats, bravely restored peace to distracted
country-who has just said off there be those
North or South who desire administration for the
North as against the South or for the South as