The Van Buren press., 1860-01-20

-~4.--.
cut g different from tAat Of tl,e other New
England States aud New York. But Il i'll
an affair Of our own. not theirs. And Whist /
ever differences there may be among our
selyee, there would be but one opinion
among rs. should some other John Blown
and his marauders make strike upor ma At
midnight, and with rides. pixies and reyol-
vers IN their hands, and provisional con-
stitution in their chiefs pocket, undertake
70 give us new constitution and q new
law for our coIored population. loud and
long continued cheers.
There are. / am aware, many who look
upon tho Harper's Ferry foray as small
sdair-onlY twenty two men concerned in
It, AL told. haye never been able to take
that view of it. There were, it is true, but
twenty-five who showed themselves--but
how largo > number Of reinforcements
whose arrival had been calculated upon and
who promised to come, bat from causes we
know not, failed to come, we have no means
Eof eetermining. That estensiyc pfeparx-
lions had been nads OF crins and sunaf 80
OF war for large body OF men no one In
deny. 1t is stated in his place by one Of
the Senators from Virginia who resides
near the scene of action, that the value
Of those warlike preparations captured is
from $4,000 to $4,000. Who furnish
ed the funds ? And If munitions to any
thing like that amount, were under all the
difficulties OF transportation, and the nec-
essity OF secrecy, gathered at the point of
attack, it is not unreasonable to suppose
that even more extensive supplies had been
provided at other points ready to be removed
when once successful stand should be
made. The leader of the expedition had
been nearly two years in preparing it :. he
was man Of too much sense and too large
experience IN strategy to strike with his
twenty-five men unless he had arranged for
reserve, and had a good reason to expect
1t. His own conduct shows that he had ex-
tensive confederates. His declaration short
ly before his death, that "his boys would
have rescued him, had it. not been for the
largo military force suifS ifSuSding the Jail and
the place selected for his execution. And
more particularly his last words of admo-
milton to his comrades, as he left them in
Jail, shortly before he was taken to the
place OF execution : Don't betray your
friends" was his language to each-the
one thing that seemed uppermost in his
mind. Who these friends were, and how
numerous, we have no means of knowing.
but they were evidently important enough
and numerous enough to be the all absorb
ing topic of his thoughts, when the scenes
OF this world We're about to close upon
him.
1t could not be reasonably expected in a
confederacy of thirteen distinct sovereign
ties, as We were at the beginning, or thirty
three. as we now are, extending from tho
far east and north to the southern gulf, and
expanding westward from ocean to ocean
that we should all agree in regard to our
domestic policy. The fathers of the re.
public saw that when the constitution was
formed, and they, therefore, wisely and
well, left all domestic questions to the diff
ferent state authorities, each to mind its
own business, and leave that of other
States, whether of its distant neighbors, or
of the more distant members of the nation
al family to be regulated as each should for
itself decide.
Many of the most sagacious statesmen of
Europe, and some Of our own were appre--
hensive that our limits, even when confined
to the old thirteen, were too large, and that
our danger was in disruption. But it has
pleased Providence to shower blessings up
on us from the beginning, and as our ex-
pansion and growth progressed, the devel-
opments of the age have come to our aid,
and have made, and are making the thirty
three states that we now have, more COM
pact and more convenient for all govern
mental purposes, than the old thirteen orig
inally were. And 1t would be SO if we had
sixty-three instead of thirty three. Look
at our progress in the point oflight that l
am now viewing it. There was first the
application of steam to navigation, by Full
ton, overcoming all navigable distances,
north, south, east, west, and dividing as it
were, the great lakes, or more properly
speaking, our Mediterranean seas. Still
later the multiplied and multiplying rail-
roads, binding us together more firmly by
our mutual interests than their iron bands.
Then again, the crowning invention of our
own Morse, educated here in our midst--the
lightning telegraph-which brings the most
distant settlements into conversational
neighborhood, and turns continent into
whispering gallery. Immense applause.
Is not country like this worth living in
and living for and worth preserving in
the fraternal spirit in which it was found
led Yes, yes, yes.
We are nov the great power of this con-
tinent. The Spanish American republics
south of us thought they could improve on
our model, and instead of building their
government like ours ON the white basis,
they have from the first gone on the princi-
pie of amalgamating the different races. po-
litically and socially. But they have all,
all miserably failed. Their parti-colored
chiefs are half the time issuing pronuncia-
mentos against pronouncjamentos, and the
other half cutting each others throsts.--
Their best men hope yet to profit by the
example of our wide spread and successful
confederated republic.
1t is the light of the north to which they
look for guidance. Extinguish that light
or suffer the constellation that sheds it, to
fall assunder, and the best hopes of man are
blasted from Canada to Cape Horn. Long
continued applause.
| But it will not, must not, cannot be-
Never, no never. The tempest may how
around Us the storm may rattle on th.
! constitutional roof above us; midnigh
darkness may rule the hour; but have a