Wabash express. [volume] (Terre-Haute, Vigo Co[unty], Ind.) 1841-186?, 1861-01-16
rERRE HAUTE. IND.


WEDNESDAY 80. JANUARY is. 1861
u Every despatch that now comes
trembling over the telegraph wires is read
with the greatest avidity. The American
people never had surrounding them such
important events. The casting off the yoke
OF bondage which our fathere brsks when
they declared this nation Of freemen, was
not equal in Importance to dissolution of
The American Union No event in the
history of the past or in the teeming future,
can be Of more Importance. All over the |
wide world will the throb OF freedom, the |
thrill Of liberty and the hopes of universal
emancipation be weakened, when the
Union Of these States is discovered. When
that stupendous event takes place, there is
not a despotism in the old world but will
rsjoice. not a freedsm-loving being but
will mourn. Liberty goes back to the caves
and the mountains to be nursed by the
heroic and the brave, until other times and
other men again call her forth. Never in
the history Of the human family-never in
the history ofthe world was man advancing
SO rapidly, making such gigantic strides,
a. they have under the Federal Constitu-
ton. Intelligence was fasl becoming uni
versal and human happiness on earth
pleasing reality. The thraldom which has
almost since the creation of man oppressed
the human mind, was, under the light of
free institutions fast being dispellsd. Re-
ligion, Christianity aud fraternal feeling
were cultivated among men, and the highest
type Of animal creation was rapidly culmi-
mating to perfection.
Amid all these delightful surroundings
amid this grand progress of human de-
vslopment-when the whole world was
looking to the American Union as the
asylum for the oppressed, and to the
American Constitution as the shield against
kingIy prerogative, the spoiler came, and
1.-THE cherished hopes ofths humanitarian,
the fondest desire Of the lover of his kind,
and the encouraging dreams of the phi
lsnthropist are about to vanish into thin
Or,
Disunion, dissolution, fraternal war,
ard servile instruction with all their train
of horrors. blood and rapinc appear to be
just before US. Nothing will stop it-noth-
ing can stop it. The dread necessity is
upon us-it IS forced upon the North, and
the North, If she is true to herself, must
meet it. The Stars and the Stripes will be
planted upon the dividing line. and he who
10 the bravest, the most heroic, the strong
or viii claim them as his own. The Star
SpaDgled Banner will be sung only by
those who still love and yenerate the Con.
stitution our fathers gave US. and adhere
with all the courage Of true manhood to
the government that was proclaimed from
Independence Hall on the 4th of July,
l776. You may rob a people Of their
government. but you can never deprive
them Of their national airs.
Shall this government be preserved in
tactf Shall the Constitution which our
fathers gave us be forever prsserved-prs-
served though secession despoils us OF
States and contracts our geographical lin
itsi Shall we stand firm as free men, low.
ing free institutions and Disappointing
with all the generous feelings of our ma
lures human servitude-human bondage?
Shall we make Slavery national as is con-
templated by the Crittenden amendments,
now when seventeen out of the thirty tw O
States desire free institutions, when our
fathers refused to do SO, at time
when there was but one free State
among the original thirteen? Are we the
decsndents of Revolutionary sires asked TO
do this, when our fathers would not per
mit even the word slave to be written on
the parchment which contained the en-
crossed copy Of the Federal Constitution ?
We Dsald Be slaues iceye zoe e thus sct-
Freedom is national, world wide, all laws
and constitutions to the contrary notwith-
standing. The normal condition of every
human being is freedom and the law is an
arbitrary one that makes slave. Some
may have more capacity to enjoy freedom
than others. still by nature one is only as
free a. the other, if not, why was an in
Independent wish ever planted in the
mind"