Union County star and Lewisburg chronicle. [volume] (Lewisburg, Pa.) 1859-1864, 1860-05-18

the lower Southern States most resolutt
and earnest spirit of resistance to the Re
publican party; that he percsives a seusi
bic loss Of that spirit of brotherhood and
that feeling Of loyalty, together with thai
love for common country, which are a.
last the surest cement of the Union ST
that, in the present unhappy condition oi
affairs, be is almost tempted to exclaiu
that We are dissolvipg week by week and
month by mouth; that the threads arr
gradually fretting themselves asunder
aud q stranger might suppose that the Ex
ecu,ive of tue United States was the Pres
ident Of two hostile Republics. 1t is moi
for me to raise doubt upon the correct
ness of this dark picture, so far as the
Southern groups upon the canvas are con
cerned, but l must be INDUCED in the
opinion that can pronounce as accurately
concerning the Northern or Republican
representatives here as any one. l know
their public baunts aud their private ways.
We are not a hostile Republic, or repre-
sentstives of one. We confer together,
but only as the organs of every party do:
and must do in a political system which
obliges US TO act sometimes as partisans,
while it requires US always to be patriots
and statesmen. Differences of opinion, even
on the subject of slavery, with US are po,
litical, not social or personal, differences.
There is not one dsunionst or disloyalist
among US all. We are altogether uucon.
scious Of any process of dissolution going
on among us or around U.s. We have new.
er been more patient, and never loved the
representatives Of other sections more than
now. We bear the same testimony for
the people around US here, who, though in
the very ceDter where the bolt of disuuion
must fall first aud With most fearful effect,
seemed never less disturbed than now.
We bear the same testimony for all the
districts and States We represent. The
people of the North are not enemies, but
friends aud brethren of the South, faithful
and true as in the days when Death has
dealt his arrows promiscuously among them
90 common battle-felds of freedom
We will not suffer ourselves here to
dwell on any evidences of different tenn
per 10 the South; but we shall be content
with expressing our belief that hostility
that is not desiguedy provoked, and that
can not provoke retaliation, is an anomaly
that must be traced to casual excitemeuis,
which can not perpetua,e alienation.
A canvass for presidential election, in
some respects more important, perhaps,
than any since 1900, has recently begun.
The House of Representatives was to be
organized by majority, while no party
could cast more than a plurality of votes.
The gloom Of the late tragedy in Virginia
rested on the Capitol from the day when
Congress assembled. While the two great
political parties we're peacefully, lawfully,
and constitutionslly, though zealously,
conducting the great national issue be-
tween free labor and capital labor for the
Territories to its proper solution, through
the trials of the ballot, operating directly
or indirectly on the various departments Of
the Government, baud Of exceptional
men. coutemptuOus equally of thar great
question aud of the parties to the contro-
versy, and impatient of the constitutional
State to political action by Suffrage, in or
ganized parties within their own borders,
inspired by an enthusiasm peculiar to
themselves, and exasperated BY grievances
and wrongs that some of them bad suffered
by inroads OF armed propagandists of slavery
in Kansas, unlawful as their own retaliation
was, attempted to subvert slavery in Virginia
BY conspiracy, ambush, invasion, and fcrce.
The method we have adopted, of appealing 10
the reason and Judgment Of The people, 10 he
pronounced by suffrage, is the only one by
which free government can be maintained
anywhere, and the only one as yet devised
which is in marked 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 convictions,
yet all good citizens will nevertheless agree,
that this attempt TO execute an unlawful pur-
pose III Virginia by invasion, involving SER
vile war, was an act of sedtion and treason,
and criminal in Just the extent that II affected
the public peace and was destructive of hu-
man happiness and human life. 1t is PAIN
full reflection that, after SO long an experience
of the beneficent working of our system as
We have enjoyed, We have had these new H.
lustratIons IN Kansas and Virginia of the eS-
istence among us of class Of men so mis-
guided and SO desperate as TO seek to enforce
their peculiar principles by the sword, draw
ing after il need for the further illustralion
by their punishment Of that great moral truth,
especially applicable in Republic that they
who take up the sword as a weapon OF con,ro-
versy shall perish by the sword. In the latter
case, the lamented deaths of so many Citizens,
slain from an ambush and by snrpri>e-all
the more lamentabie because they were in-
nocent victims of frenzy kindled without
their agency, in far distant fres-the deaths
even Of the offenders themselves, pitiable, al
though necessary and just, because they ac-
ted under delirium, which blinded their jufe-
ments TO The real nature Of their criminal en-
terprise; the alarm and CONSERVATION natu-
rally awakened throughout the country, excl
ting, for the moment. the fear that our whole
system, with all its securities for life and lIb-
eriy, was coming 10 an end-a fear none the
more endurable because continually agra
vaied by new chimeras to which the great
leading event lent an air Of probability; sure
ly all these constituted a sum Of public mis-
cry, which ought to have satisfied the most
morbid appetite for social horrors. But, as
in the case of the gunpowder plot, and The
Salem witchcrafi, and the New York colonial
negro plot, SO now; the original actors were
swiftly followed by another and kindred class,
who sought 10 proiong and widen the public
distress by attempting TO direct the indignation
which IL had excited against parties gultless