New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1861-12-11
The Treason of the North.


4 ~ y H from the London Morning Herald isS1
Lincoln and Seward, their Secretaries and their
Generals have all held the same language ), have
all asserted as solemnly as words can affirm any-
thing, that they have no desire to interfere with
slavery; that they are fighting, mot to emancipate
the negroes but TO enforce Consultation which
binds the States to assist in maintaining and per-
petuating the system of negro seryitude-a Const-
tuition which embodies, in most carefully worded
clause, a distinct and unequivoeal fugitive slave
law. g384 SGD y Se,g5 " II hstagSsHE g41sl
( The men Of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts
cared as rule very little about the domestic in
'stitntionn Of the South until this war broke out
The merchants of New York were bitter partisans
sof slavery. But the fronmasters of Pennsylvania
and the manufacturers Of New England have taxed
ne south for their benefit SO long that they cannot
bear the thought Of losing the power of doing SO
for the future, the brokers of the Empire City are
furious at the prospect of seeing their lucrative
trade diverted to- Charleston or New Orleans and
carried on with English capital. The lust of money
has had ten times more to do with the sudden pa
tri9tism Of the North than their love of liberty b
Every act of Mr. Lincoln's, since the taking of
Fort Sumter, has been q violation of that fnnda-
mental law of the ,AngloSaxon race beyond the
Atiantlc Or Wonld be so, but that the eonstitu-
tion has ceased to exist and, therefore, cannot be
correctly said to be violated. Secession perhaps.
is unconstitutional but coercion ia equally 50. Mr.
Davis governs by the authority Of successful
authority which forbids everything that he does
and cannot help doing, and if the constitution were
in vigor, he must be impeaehed for high treason.
without chance Of defending himself, ana would
be liable at the same time to actions for false i'm
prisonmept which would ruin a Rothschild, 49,
He has ordered his officers to set at defiance the
Snpreme Court of the Republic. He has suspended
the habeas corpus. He has proclaimed martial
law. He has set up new Legislature in Western
Virginia, in opposition to the authority Of the law
fal Governor. He has suppressed the Constitution
and imprisoned the collective Legislature Of Mary.
land. He has put down freedom of the press and
annulled the right of petition. In a word, he has
committed many hundred distinct acts of high
treason, or what would be such had America any
longer b law or legal government.
Are we, then, to believe that war undertaken
IN defiance of every constitutional principle ia a
war in defence of the Constitution-that President
Ministers and Generals are fighting for q law. the
operation of which, ifreally enforced, would be to
hang them all? We waive the obvious impossible
ity Of eonstltntionally governing the South if re-
conquered, because the contingency is too i'm
probable 10 be worth discussion. But we think it
Y too bad to accuse Sir John Packington of ha
tired to free Institutions" because he desires to see
stop put to the war. In the first place. free in
situations 10 the North mean mob law, and in the
south vigilance committees; what we understand
py the phrase is nowhere known in the United
states In the next place, the necessary effect Of
the restoration Of constitutional law in the North
would pc to stop the war at once.