Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1860-12-07
THE PRESIDENTS MESSAGE.


document, but subioin few extracts from
that portion of it devoted to the present
crisis. The message commences with the
following passages
Throughout the year since our last
meeting, the country has been eminently
prosperous in all its material interests.
The general health has been excellent, our
harvests have been abundant, and plenty
smiles throughout the land. Our CON-
merce and manufactures have been prose-
cuted with energy and industry, and have
yielded fair and ample returns In
short, no nation in the tide of
time has ever presented a spectacle of
greater material prosperity than we have
done until very recent period.
"Why is it, then, that discomfort now
so extensively prevails, and the union of
the States, which is the source of all these
blessings is threatened with destruction
The long-continued and incorporate inter
ference of the Northern people with the
question of slavery in the Southern States
has at length produced its natural effects
The different sections of the Union are
now arrayed against each other, and the
time has arrived, so much dreaded by the
Father of his country, when hostile geo.
graphical parties have been formed |
have long forcseen and often forewarned
my countrymen of the now impending
danger. This does not proceed solely
from the claim on the part of Congress or
the Territorial Legislatures to exclude
slavery from the territories, nor from the
efforts of different States to defeat the ex-
ecution of the fugitive slave law. All or
any of these evils might have been en-
dured by the South without danger to the
Union Gas others have been) in the hope
that time and reflection might apply the
remedy. The immediate peril arises not
so much from these causes as from the fact
that the incessant and violent agitation
of the slavery question throughout the
North, for the last quarter of a century
has at length produced its malign infu-
ence on the slaves, and inspired them with
vague notions of freedom"
After continuing this rehash of the
common clamor about the wrongs which
the South receive from the North, he pro-
ceeds thus:
"And this brings me to observe that
the election of any one of our fellow citi-
zens to the office of President does not itself
afford just cause for dissolving the Union.
This is more especially true if his election
has been effected by mere plurality and
not a majority, Of the people, and has re-
suited from transient and temporary caus-
es which may probably never again oc-
cur. In order to justify resort to revo-
lutionary resistance the federal govern
ment must be guilty of deliberate,
palpable, and dangerous exercise of pow
crs not granted by the constitution. The
late Presidential election, however, has
been held in strict conformity with its
express provisions. How, then, can the
result justify revolution to destroy this
very constitution? Reason, justice, re-
gard for the constitution, all require that
we should wait for some overt and danger
GUS act on the part of the President, be-
fore resorting to such remedy"
The President then goes on to enumer-
ate the specific grievances of which the
secessionists complain, and while virtually
admitting that these would justify seces-
sion in case that they had actually been
perpetrated, insists that the only viola
ton of the rights of the South which has
yet occurred, is the passage by the Terri
torial Legislature Of Kansas of an act
abolishing slavery in that Territory but
he insists that the courts will nullify that
act, arguing upon the bred Scott decision
that such an act can give no good reason
for dissolution of the Union, and thus
proceeds;
The most palpable violations of con-
stitutional duty which have yet been CON-
mitted consist in the acts of different
State Legislatures to defeat the execution
of the Fugitive Slave law. 1t ought to
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