The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1859-05-18
rhe Great war-our Position.

Two of the military monarchies of CONT
mental Europe appear about to plunge into a
desperate, deadly strife, and already we see
attempts to enlist the feelings of the American
People on the side of one of the belligerents.
In common with the Republicans of Europe,
we protest against this ENHANCEMENT. Neither
the Austrian nor the French despot has any
claim on. our sympathies, nor is there any proba-
bility that the forsworn assassin of the liberties
of France will hereafter deserve more from the
advocates of Human Rights than the assassin
of the liberties of Hungary. Have the two
not Wed with each other for years in uphold
ing the priestly despotism which blasts and
scourges central Italy? When the Roman Re
public fell, pierced to the heart by French
bayonets, was the voice of Louis Napoleon
raised in remonstIanee against the fratricidal
crime? How can he who has rendered France
one vast prison, with a gagged press, a eorrup-
ted soi,diery, and a manacled people, be expect
ed TO strike the chains from the limss of Italy?
Even the hope is monstrous.
We hope, indeed, for great advantages to
the cause not of Italian merely, but Of European
Iteration, from the struggle now beginning. but
not through the goodwill of either of the chief
combatants. God. "who causes the wrath of
man to praise him." has, we trust, great
purposes of good to be effected through the
medium of this war. But, in order that the
Republicans of Europe should be in a position
to profit by the opportunities which this war
is likely to bring them, they must give earnest
heed to the Scriptural injunction, "Put not
your trust in princes" No despot can ration
ally be expected to lavish the blood and treas
ure of his people in the championship of the
Rights of Man, whether at home or abroad
least of all, a despot who has waded to his
throne through rivers of blood, or even crossed
those rivers on pontoons of perjuries and lies.
The complete triumph of Napoleon III. cannot
plausibly be expected to result more favorably
to the cause of Liberty than did that of his
avowed exemplar and patron saint, Napoleon
I. And what was the effect of his European
autocracy, let Switzerland, Holland, Germany,
Poland, and even Italy. attest.
The notion that Louis Napoleon is impelled
to his present course by sympathy for Italy,
writhing under the heel of Austrian despotism,
is preposterous. Can the world be expected
to forget that a large section of Italy has for
years been held quiet in a hated bondage by
the orders and the arms of this same Louis
Napoleon? Can they forget that the noblest
of the Frenchmen who, on the restoration OF
the Republic in '48, removed the interdict
which forbade his return to France, have since
been killed or banished to penal colonies by
him, where so many of them as have not yet
fallen victims to pestilence OF famine still
remain? Must not that Republican have
resolved to forget everything and learn nothing
who pins his faith to the sleeve of any Bona-
parte whatever
Ner can any but the w~illfully blind fail to
see that this quarrel has been skillfuily pro-
voked by Louis Napoleon, though he has had
the address to make his adversary begin it
His menace to NJ. Hubner on the list of
January was clearly meant to produce all that
has followed. He laid his train adroitly, and
has compelled his adversary to fire it or be
blown up by it. If he should now see the Sar-
diniau Army hurled over the Alps a shattered,
decimated mob, leaving its artillery, munitions
and stores in the hands of the Austrians, the
King and Court leading the flight, and leaving
the people to respond to war contributions and
to the license of a ruthless and triumphant
soldiery, he may be driven to suspect himself
less clever than he has hitherto imagined.
To our countrymen we~say most earnestly,
Hands off! Let US keep perfectly coel. The
belligerents seem about equal in capacity to
do each other mischief, and are quite equal in
the badness of the cause they respectively up
hold. The Austrian Emperor has no right to
tyrannize in Italy any more than he had to
crush Hungary. Louis Napoleon cannot really
design or desire to give Italy that freedom
which he denies to France; and the-choice
be we IN one desrots n and mother is not worth
a hundred of the million lives that this war is
likely to destroy. The triumph of neither of
these despots can result in lasting good; but
the injury they are about to inAict on each
other may be of great benefit to the People,
whose turn il to come next. Let no Republi-
can willingly shed his blood in this war of
autocrats; let no Republican embark in it, even
his sympathies. We are forcibly reminded by
this quarrel, of the words of a little poem
which appeared in a Liberal Paris journal of
1924, when the French Bourbons were
about to send. into Spain an army of one hun
dred thousand, led by the Due d'Angouleme,
to put down the Constitution and restore the
absolute rule of Ferdinand VII.
A Spaniard to a Frenchman cried
1T was from a Pyrenean BROW
Where are your country's, glories nop;
He checked his tale of days gone by,
Of yict'ries won, but now forgot:
"There is but one true victory
IT is to be FREE-and you are not"
-NeU York Tribune.
nR-Notes of the Seneca County Bank, Tihip,
Ohio, must be presented or sent to L. j. Clay
pool, at Columbus, by the 18th of June next,
or they viii be of no value.