St. Charles City Republican intelligencer. [volume] (St. Charles City [Charles City], Iowa) 1857-1861, 1860-03-15

successors have added twenty more !;
even we, who are here, have shaped
and elevated three Of that twenty,
and all these are as firm and as stead
last us the first thirteen and more
will yet be necessary when we shall
have rested from our labOrs. Some
among us prefer for these columns a
pure white marble. Our fathers and
our predecessors differed in the same
way, and on the same point. What
cXecrations should we not all unite in
pronouncing on any statesman who
heretofore, from mere disappointment
and disgust at being ovcrruled i'll his
choice OF materials for any new col
umn, should have laid violent hands
on the imperfect structure and brought
1t down to the earth. there to remain
a wreck, instead Of a citadel of
worlds best hopes
| remain now in the opinion | have
uniformly expressed here and else
where, that these hasty threats of
dISunion are 50 unnatural that they
will find no hand t. execute them. We
are OF one race, language, liberty,
and faith engaged, indeed, in varied
industry so diversified, that it brings
us into more infinite relations with
each other than any other people,
however homogeneous, and though
living under consolidated govern
mcnt, ever maintained. We anguish
throughout, if one Joint of our federal
frame is smttpn, while it is certain
that a part discovered must perish.
You may refine as you please about
the structure "t the government, and
say that Il breach by one of the states
or 10y Congress, Of any one article,
ahsOlvcs all the members from allie
glance, and that the states NAV scpa-
rate when they have, or fancy they
have cause for war. But once try 10
subvcrt, and you will find that it is a
government If the whole pcople--as
individuals, rs well as a compact of
states that every individual member
Of the body polite is conscious of his
interest and power in it, and knows
that he will be helpless, powerlcss,
hopeless, when it shall have gone
down.
Mankind have a natural right, a
natural instinct, and a natural capaci-
~ for scli-Govcrnmcnt and when. as
here, they are sufficiently ripcncd by
culture, they will and must have self.
government, and no other. The fra,
mCrS of our Constitution, with a wis
dom that surpassed all previous I'M
dcrStandImg among men, adapted it to
these inherent elements of human ma
turc. He strangely, blindlv misun-
dcrStands the anatomy of the great
system, who thinks that its only bonds,
or even its strongest ligamcnts, are
the written compact, or even the null
tiplicd and thoroughly ramiiicd roads
and thoroughiarCs of trade, commerce,
and social intercourse. These arc
strong indeed, but its choicest instru-
mcnts If cohcsion-thosc which render
it inscparable and indivisiblc-arc
the millions of tibers of millions of
contcntcd, happy human hearts, bind
ing by their affections, their ambitions,
and their best hopes, equally the high
and the low, the rich and the poor,
the wise and the unwisc, the learned
aud the untutorcd, even the good and
the bad, to a government, the first
the last and the only such one that has
ever existed, which takes equal heed
always of their wants, their wishes
and their opinions and appeals to
them all, individually, once in year
or in two years, or at least in four
years, for their expressed consent and
renewal without which it must cease.
No, so where you will, and to what
class you may, with commissions for
your fatal service in one hand, and
your bounty counted by the hundred
or thousand pieces Of silver in the 9th.
e., Il thousand rcsistcrs will rise up
for every recruit you can engage. On
the banks equally of the St Lawrence
and OF the Rio Grandc, on the Allan.
tic and Pacific coasts. on the shores
of the Gulf of Mexico and in the dclls
of the Rocky Mountains, among the
fishermen on the banks of Newtound.
land, the weavcrs and spinners of
Massachusetts, the StcvcdurCs of New
\ ork, the miners Of PENNSYLVANIA.
Pixies Peak and California. the wheat
growers of Indiana, the cotton and
the sugar planters on the Mississippi,
among the voluntary citizens iron,
every other land not less than the ma
tive born, the Christian and the jew,
among the Indians on the prarics, the
contumacious Mormons in the Desert.
the Africans free, the Africans in bond
age, the inmates Of hospitals and aims
houses, and even the criminals in pen
ltcntiarcs, rchearsc the stOr, of your
wrongs and their own never so clo.
qucntly and never so mourufully, and
appeal to them to rise They will ask
you, " Is this all 2" " Are You more
jus; than Washington, wiser than
Hamilton, more humane than Jeffer-
son ?" What new form of govern
mcnt or of union have you the power
to establish, or even the cunning to
devise, that will be more Just, more
safe, more free, more gentle, more
bcneiicent,or more glorious than this z"
And by these simple heterogeneous
You will be silenccd and COMPOUNDED.
Mr. President, We are pcrpctually
forgetting this subtle and complex,
yet obvious and natural, mechanism
Of our Constitution and because we
do forget it, We are continually won.
dcrlng how it is that Cunfcdcracy of
thirty and more states, covering re-
gions SO vast, and regulating inter
ests ST. various of so many millions of
men, constituted and conditioned SO
adversely, works right on. We are
continually looking to see it stop and
stand still, or fail suddenly into pieces.
But, in truth. it will not stop it can
not stop 1t was made not to stop, but
to keep in mOtion-in motion always,
and without force. For my own part,
as this wonderful machine, when it
had newly come from the hands of its
almost divine inventors, was the ad-
mlration of my earlier years, although
1t was then but imperfectly known
abroad, so now, when it forms the cen
trail figure in the economy of the