Weekly Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1853-1861, 1856-07-03

MOSCOW 10 sulldole punt ioi d idIlJ Vi Oh0 |
three counties of Rush, Shelby and Decatur,
and arrangements have been made to call out
the people.
From the New York Freeman's Journal
The Crisis.
Foreigners say that the American people
are remarkable for their disposition to go
ahead" We readily concede the business of
this remark, abstracting it from the many
hasty and absurd ones which have been haz-
arded upon the people and the country
Crockett was the man who started the motto
into circulation, in this form: i" Be sure you
are right, and then 90 ahead Analyze it
carefully, and something of this sort may be
got out of it: When you think You are
lorsng, stop"
For some time we have been noting in
these columns, the progress of certain religio
political movements, and predicting a catas-
trophe as their natural result. We even fan
cied that the people concerned would come
themselves to suspect that their speed was a
tIife too rapid, and could suffer abatement
without serious damage to anybody. But
truth compels the avowal that there was no
apparent misgivings on their part as to the
entire safety of their headlong, fool-hardy
career.
Does any plain, sober man of common
sense doubt that this country has, for num-
Der of years, been steadily tending towards
revolution? Is it necessary to cite evidence?
Shall we summon the writings of Garrison
and Garrett Smith, the abolition journals,
the rank sectionalism of the Tribune and the
LINES, the Uncle Tom Of Mrs. Stowe, the
~ De- of
the Know Nothings? Or shall we call to sad
recollection the dying struggles of the inn
mortal Clay-the broken heart of the peer
less Webster? This ceaseless assault upon
the foundation of the government canuot so
on so forever. Nobody ever imagined that
the Constitution can survive the alienation of
the affections of the people of the United
States. 1t was never meant to be bond to
bind together hostile sections in hatef ii
discord. If the people are dissatisfied with
their governmental its principles and its
original compacts are become odious to them,
if they cannot conscientiously live under it.,
and are seriously bent upon something better
or differentiation the system has already
failed. We are in the closing scenes of the
great drama, and disaster is all that remains
behind. Was it ever before known that a
nation unassaled by disease, unvisited by
the first touches of decay, in its pride Of
strength, in the buoyancy of youthful vigor,
met an end so mournful and so shameful p
l And how? The welfare and hopes of
twenty-four millions of white men sacrificed
on account of three millions of black men-
the whole confederation of existing States
shivered to fragments for unpeopled terrific
ries. Such inevitably must be the dis grace
ful record of this Union unless the America al
people shake off the nightmare which besei
them.
/ We have amongst us a body OF men who
are the malignant enemies of our govern
ment. Their daily avocation, their mighty
dream, is self aggrandizement They are
pursued, beset, possessed by that devil, the
: love of power. They have mounted upon
the neck of the American people, as the Old
Man Of the Sea got upon Sinbad the Sailor,
and there is no taking them of. With de-
iestble dexterity these incarnations of mis-
chief seize upon every impulse of the popu-
| lar feeling, and direct it to the profit of their
/ own importance and advancement They
are spectators gam blers-as much so as the
dealer in stocks of fare-and some Of them
have amassed large fortunes, and others are
amassing them by administering to the ex-
citability and gullibility of the people. The
recent unhappy Gaming affair at Washington
/ has been for them a fortunate hit-just as
| the woolly horse was to Barnum. Protesting
more purity, greater wisdom, higher patriot
| ism than the founders of the republic, they
are at the bottom the courtiers of popular
government the flatterers snd parasites Of
power, wherever it may reside, and they have
pushed the country to the verge of ruin
The consummation Of Intercourse is at hand,
and it can be stayed only by the aroused in
dignation and energy of the people.
How long will the people tolerate this tam
pering with the life strings of their confeder-
acy How long permit individuals among
them to cultivate latent treason as an art,
and to follow up agitation as the chief end
of man ?" When is the Constitution to be
let alone When are the attacks upon it
to cease ? Is there such crime in State as
suicide, or such right as political self-de-
| fence Shall the man who strikes down a
single life be branded as q murderer, while
| the enormous villain who foments civil war
escape all retribution? This must not and will
not be. The time is gone by when the mas
SEES of the people could be hurled into con-
| fict and mutual discussion, while the pro-
isctors of the mischief passed unscathed. An
intelligent and injured people will seek out
with faultless sagacity the true authors OF
their undoing. They covet high place DO.
fore the excited multitude, they may i've
to mount one higher than they bargained for.
The heads of Danton, Marat and Robespierre
| fell at length by that guillotine which had
so long dripped with the blood of theiI
victims.
Are these gentlemen endowed with that
degree of desperation which is needful to the
game they are playing? Mr.. Theodore Par
/ ker, full of brave words, and fluent in fierce
'deruEcGtioD, grew pale at the sight of blood,
and humbly supplioated for protection by
that law he thought he had hated The
men who rush into excited mass meetings al
the whirlwind of gutta percha stick, and
| who whisper in alarm at the smoke of one
Kansas village, are not yet strung TO- the
mood which is fitting to encounter the terri.
bic agonies of an expiring State. These
fanatics who are perilling everything for Ills
| all, belong to the class of mock heroes whose
courage mounts with the absence Of danger
It is one thing to Gull the vocabulary OF
abuse and play the Thyrsites of the press at
leisure. and safe distance. and it is another to
stand where blows are falling, where sudden
| death leaps from the fold of cartride, OF
flashes from the point of bayonet. We
say that the emergency which is Fastening
on demands this sort of determination. Hot
words and reckless writing are about to issue
! into stern deeds. There is no ground to be-
Iieve, and we do lot believe that the people
of one quarter of this Union possess higher
courage or resolution than those Of the other
part of it. The essential difference will be
the rectitude of the cause alone. The rim
pire will be the constitution and the laws.
We do not desire to see the issue adiourn-
ed, evaded or escaped, but met, We desire
to know, once for all, whether we live under
government able to protect itself, or wheth-
er demagogues and fanatics are our lords and
masters. For this reason we trust the diff
Guilty with England will pass by, and not
Foperate as diversion of the more important
question. We pray that the force of the