The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1861-08-07

nessee? How can steady followers of
Jackson. who shouted approval of his
proclamation against South Carolina,
crammed with the broadest Nationalism,
the most peremptory denials of the right
of Secession, even affect to regard as fun
damental and self-evident the Calhoun
doctrines which they have always hitherto
secuted as the most barefaced perversions
of the Constitution ? The life long Cal
hounites may be honest F.; these new lights
can not be. They have simply launched
upon tide which they felt that they
must ride or be engulfed by. Their Dis
unionism is not based on conviction nor
replete with noble daring-lt is the fruit
of cCwardice and grecd-Of cowardlce that
shrinks from mob violence and ambition
that prefers self to eountry.
But far deeper and more fatal mis-
apprehension is that of Northern charac-
ter by Southern Chivalry. The typical
Southron, accustomed from childhood to
brawls in which deadly weapons are at
once employed, and taught to regard
readiness to fight duels as the touchstone
of gentle breeding and sentiment, can
imagine no reason than cowardice for de-
clining to wash ont an insult in the blood
Of lis author When Northern Senator,
bludgeoned to deaths door for words spo-
ken in debate, turns with loathing from
the mi>creant who thus rlangled him, and
disdains descen. to his level whether to
waylay or to challenge him, the Southron
can imagine no impulse to this forbear-
ance but pusillanimity. Hence the all
but universal delusiou among the ignor-
ant masses of the Slave States that the
Nederal Government might be defed and
the Union broken up with impunity-for
the North, (they bilndly assumedl could
not be kicked into a resentment of insult
or injury. The bleeding head of Sumner
has lured more men TO untimeIy graves
than any false light ever raised to draw
deludcd seamen upon treachcrous sands
or roaring breakers.
| Yes, for cur imperilled country there
is, there can be, no deliverance from her
deadly foes bat through battles. If in
the Providence Of God she is doomed to
disruption and ruin, it is fit that her
winding sheet be bloody as the covering
of her cradle. From high hearts the life
current flowed freely 20 bear her up to
place among the nations of the earth, and
hearts as noble stand ready to give their
last drop to uphold her in that proud po-
>itieu, or to dignity her fall. To have
succumbed tamely, abjectly, to insolent
treason would have been baseness-impo-
tence--suicide te be stricken down
while manfuily struggling against it can
at the worst be but misfortune, such as
may befail the noble>t and worthiest. If
it be decreed that this country shall pass
through the valley of humiliation, let her
preserve at least her own self respect.
Tie greatest nations have encountered
overwhelming defeats, aud risen stronger
and worthier from the momentarily stun.
Ming blow: they have touched the earth
like Antaus ouly TO rebound from it more
snewy and sturdy than before. Rome
saw with calm self-con6dence Brennus in
her Capitol and Hannibal at her gates,
yet was mighticr thereafter than ever be-
fore. A ua,ion's greatness is guaged by
the souls of her people-Hindostan will.
over hundred millions is inferior to
Switzerland with but handful. If the
spirit that burned in the breast of our
Revolution ary fathers-which tracked
with their blood the frozen roads of New
Jersey and lrradiated with their untrain-
ed valor the field of Saratoga-be still
living in their sons, the Nation can not
die. And if the soul be gone, what mat
tiers the deserted body? If corruption
and sensuality, greed and sin, have made
this land a whited sepulcher, fair and
good without, but hollow and loathsome
within, let Us not hope to escape the fate
of all that has been weighed in the bal
ance ar6 found wanting.
But the American Republic cannot die.
Tried and torn it may bet is-for it
has at times been tempted to forget that
! its foundations were laid in everlasting
righteousness and that it's Cornerstone is
the Inalienable Rights of Man-of euery
man. But 1t must be SO, despite its grie-
vous faults, that its Providential mission
is not yet completed-that it is still
longer to be Phafos of the nations, not
wreck to warn them from the sunken
] rocks which impaled it. 1t must be that
the All Mercifal will permit it to be yet
again praise among nations and a Joy of
the whole earth. May its ordeal be so
shortened that hope and heart shall not
fail-so that the blackness of the tempest
being past, the Bow of Promise shall
span once more the horizon of its future I!
VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE One of the
most agreeable consequences acknowledge