Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1860-03-30

RtfAHfaN't ~ ''t' 'iAthtli iNhN ] t*tu DttI-
qnpnce ~ arc ,i'air'y concerning lln. Nalh.
ern or IIepnblic,p representatives hcse ~
any ou' | knuv their public hauus ad
heir prvrc ways. We ars not a lr,sii,e
/ Hrpul'ic. or representatives of one. We
go Ter together, but unly US the organs oi
every party 10, and must DO IN u 20 oiriua,
system which obligcs us TO act sometimes
as partisans while it r, quires us always ia
be patriots and statesmen. Differences Of
opinion, even on the sublocs of slavery, with
us are political, not social or prr.onDI diff
fcrences. There IS not one dismionlst cr
d,sloyalist among IA all. We are altoaeths
er unconscious of any proGesa Of dlssolu,
tlnn going on among US or around us, Wa
have never heon moro patient, never loved
the representatives of other sections mopa
than now. We bear the same testimony
for the people around us here, who, though
in the very center where the bolt Of dis
uninoa must fall first and and he most fear,
iul in its effect, seemed never less disturbed
than now. We bear the same testimony
for all the districts and State we represeHf.
The people Of the North are not cn.mics,
but friends and brethren, Of the South, faith.
iu' aud true as in days when death has dealt
his arrows promissuously among them on
common hatefelds of freeIom.
We will not suffer ourselves here TO dwell
on any evidences of different temper in
the South; but we shall be content with
expressing our belief that hostility that 10
not designedly provoked, and that cannot
provoke retaliation, is an anomaly that must
be tr ced 10 casnal cxcitemeats, which can,
not perprtuate alienation.
A canvass FOR Presidential election, Il
some respects more important, perhaps, tha,
any since 1900, has recently begun. The
House of Representatives was to be orgaa-
lied by majority, while no party could
cast more than plurality Of votes, Tho
gloom of the late tragedy In Virginia rest.
ed on the Capitol from the day when Con,
gress assembled. While the two great po-
lilical parties were peacefully, lawfully and
constitutionally, though zealously, conduct
ing the great national issue between free
labor and capital labor for the Territories
to its proper solution, through the trials Of
the balo', operating directly or indirectly
on the various departments Of the govern
meni, band of exceptional men, contempt-
nous equally of that great question and OF
the parties TO the controversy, and impatient
of the constitutional system which confines
the citizens of every State 10 political ac-
ton by suffrage, in organized parties with-
in their own borders, insp red by an cnthu-
siasm peculiar TO themselves, and exasper-
a,ed by grievances and wrongs that somo
of them had suffered by inroads Of armed
propagandisis of slavery in Kanzas, unlaw-
full as their own retaliation was, attempted
to subvert slavery in Virginia by conspira-
cy, ambush, invasion and force. The meth
oil we have adopted. of appealing TO the rea-
son and Judgment of the people, to be pro-
nounced by suffrage, is the only one by
which free government can be maintained
anywhere, and the only one as yet devised
which is in harmony with the spirit Of the
Christian religion. While generous and
charitable natures will probably concede
that John Brown and his associates acted
on earnest though fatally erroneous convic-
tions yet all good citizens will nevertheless
agree that this attempt to execute an un-
lawful purpose in Virginia by invasion, in
volving seryile war, was an Act Of sedition
and treason. and criminal in just the extent
that it affected the public peace and was
destructive of human happiness and human
life. 1t is painful reflection that, after so
long an experience of the beneGcent work.
ing Of our system as we have enjoyed, We
have had these new illustrations in Kanzas
and Virginia of the existence among US Of
class Of men so misguided and SO desper-
ate as to seek to enforce their peculiar prin-
ciples by the sword. drawing after it a need
for the further illustration by their punish
ment of that great moral truth especially
applicable in Republic, that they who
take up the sword as weapon Of contro-
versy shall perish by the sword. In the
latter case, the lamented deaths of so many
citizens, slain from an ambush and by sur
prise-all the more lamentable because they
were innocent victims of a frenzy kinded
without their agency, in far distant fires
the deaths even of the offenders themselves,
pitiable. although necessary and just. be-
cause they acted under delirium, which
blinded their judgments to the real nature
of their criminal enterprise the alarm and
CONSERVATION naturally awakened through
out the country, exciting, for the moment,
the fear that our whole system, with all its
securities for life and liberty, was coming
to an end--a fear none the more endurabla
because continually aggravated by new chi-
meras 20 which the great leading event lent
an air of probability; surely all these con-
slituted sum of public misery, which ought
10 have satisfied the most morbid appetite
for social horrors. Biit, as in the case OF
the gunpowdpr plot. and the Salem witch
craft, and the New York colonial negro
plot so now; the origir al actors we're swift
iy followed by another kindred class, who
sought to prolong and widen the public dis
tress by attempting to direc, the indignation
which it hal excited against parties guilt
less equally of completely and Of sympathy
, with the offenders.
Tos'erity viii decide in all the recent
cases where political responsibility for pub
lie disasters must fall; and posterity will
eive little heed TO our instructions. It was
not until the gloomy reign Of Dcmitian had
ended, and liberty and virtue llal found as
surcd refuge under the sway Of the milder
Nerva, that the historian arose whose mar
rative of that period of tyranny and terror
has been accepted by mankind.
The Republican party being thus vindi-
ea'ed against ihe charge Of hostility to the
South. which has been offered in excuse for
the menaces Of unconstitutional resistance
-. I