The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1859-12-07
Speech Of Hon. Joha Cochrane.

~ocratic meeting recently in Brooklyn, N. V,
with his wonted ability and eloquence. We
copy that portion of his address which refers
to the "irrepressible conflict"
Fellow-citizens, you have heard what has
been denominated theirrepressible conflict. 1t
is of that character that you cannot restrain it
even in a mass meeting of our fellow-demo-
Gratis. 1t has been pronounced by a celebra-
ted republican leader that this country is en-
gagged in an irrepressible conflict of free States
against slave State. If this be so, it is requi-
site and necessary that we should know it; for,
in that case, you who stand here tonight, stand,
if not with arms in your hands, yet with spirit
in your body opposed to your fellow-democrats
in the South. We, as members of the demo-
cratic Iarty, never have understood that we
are to be arrayed against our fellow-citizens of
the South. We have understood that we were
common citizens of one common land-a land
which under its nationality had invited from
foreign lands its oppressed, and afforded them
an asylum upon our shores, and that when they
are naturalized as our law provides, we adopt
them into one common family, and all are equ-
ally citizens without regard to birthplace or
geographical divisions of North or South But
this leader of the opposition host has fulmina-
ted the doctrine that an irrepressible conflict
is nox in the act of being waged, and they who
have lived heretofore in peace and harmony
together are to be arrayed in hostility. and that
there should be no cessation of hostilities until
all the States had become free, or all the States
become slave. If this doctrine is to be sustain
ed, 1 would ask you to infer within your own
minds what would be its legitimate and neces-
sary results? Why you would say that this
body of men here tonight should be necessa-
rily edgagcd in arming themselves for a war
like incursion upon their brethren in the South.
and that warlike incursion should be for the
purpose of emancipating the slaves and carry
ing murder and rapine into the bosoms of the
families of their fellow citizens of the South
that if that doctrine be true and honest doc
trine you would be pronounced to be laggards
unworthy of the name Of men,, derelict in
your duty ifyou remained here one hour long
er without taking your march Southwark and
plunging your bayonets into the bosom of those
who occupy the Southern States. Is this a.
theory or am 1 supported in the facts? [ point
your attention to what has occurred atHarper's
Ferry, in Virginia, where you see the full
working of what has been denominated the ir
repressible conflict. Can the assertion be sus-
tanned that the instruction there-the murder
and bloodshed that have occurred-are not at
tributable to the proposition of Mr.. Seward ?
What can be a more natural sequel of a cause
than that atrocious fact? If l declare that l
shall march to the other side of the city this
evening, and call upon my friends to enter my
neighbours house, and sack 1T and murder its
inmates, and set it on fire, and you should learn
by to-morrow's papers that these events have
occurred, will you not say that these events are
the natural consequences OF my proposition !!
You would hold me responsible, as would any
covrt of law, any judge, any jury of twelve
men, hold me responsible for that bloodshed,
sacking, and plllage. 1t is in vain for repub-
lican friends to disclaim the act. They like
the treason, but denounce the traitor. We
must hold the traitor to the consequences of his
treason, and not permit the party which, pro-
claims treason to escape its effects.
We, democrats, who have always maintained
the opposite side of the issue, must hold our
adversaries to the consequences of their treach-
cry. The issue was made. 1t is no longer a
hypothetical theory urged by the advocate or
the speaker from the tribune, but a fact that
in the dead Of the night a band of armed men,
black and white, seized upon the property of
the United States-sized upon the free per-
sons of citizens-took then into arrest and held
them under terror of arms proclaimed to a
peaceful village martial lava village occu-
pied by women and defenccless children and
unarmed men, proclaimed freedom tothe slave
and emancipation to the South. What means
this expression if it does not mean treason to
the Constitution and ruin to the South In
that dark night was done this deed of dread
full note, and the wings of the ensuing morning
proclaimed that fact throughout this Union,
calling upon honest men everywhere to come
forward to the support of property and life,
and men everywhere, as if by common consent,
raised the banner Of their resolution, having
inscribed upon it, "down with the insurgents,
suppressed be the sedition, supported be the
law, and indicated be the honor of the coun-
try" Loud cheers.
Ard then, forsooth, was it that they who
had proclaimed this dogma, who had prompt
Il III fIo f-o,eonoh1a oot aainr |
the dread devastation and its consequences,
declared that they are not accountable for it
that they who perpetrated it are poor fanatic
that Old Ossawatomie Brown of Kansas
who did their work in screeching and fighting
in Kansas, was a crazy and %fanatlcal Old Brown
at Harper's Ferry. [Applause+l Why is it that
insanity is attributed by these people to Old
Ossawatomie, and that he is made the scape-
goat of this atrocious villany at Harper's
Ferry? Old Brown was a good old fellow to
the Republicans in Kansas, but he is a crazy
old fellow in Virginia. The reason is that the
works of Old Brown in Kansas were a capital
for the Republicans in 1856, and were hoped
to be made a capital in 1860, but they do not
perceive how they can make the murderous
and rapine perpetrated by Old Brown in Vir-
ginia available in any period of their future
career. (Renewed a2plause) The Democrat
ic party has engraved upon its escutcheon free
thonght, free action, local liberty, and State
rights and in that enunciationi of local liberty
end State-rights, rests the pronunciation of
the doctrine which creates the issues to which
1 have directed your attention. The South
ern STAKEHOLDER, under the compromises of the
Constitution, is as we'll protected, and should
be as we'll protected in the security OF his
property, as are you at the North in the en-
ioyment of yours. It is law that gives to you
property and the means of enjoying it. With
out law your neighbor could strip you of your
real estate, as we'll as personal estate, if he
should possess the physical superiority, but the
weakest in physical organization may, if he
come honestly by them, enjoy his millions un-
der the broad wing and shadow of the Law
So it is that, under the law, they who hold
cIavos at the South ore entitled to retain them