Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1861-03-30
Peace or War,
NJ HORACE oRKELY.

On the verge of great calamity whose
dimensions no man can calculate, whose end
none can foresee, it is mpertive that no eff
fort be spared to brush away illusions, to
lay bare every sophistry, and to expose the
cnIpable authors Of that disaster to the
slings of conscience and Ithc frown of man.
KIND. Let US consider, then, with all posi-
BILE calmness, the current pretenses of Sena-
tor Douglas & bis compatriots that our new
Presidents Inaugural leaves them in doubt
whether his policy will be one of Peace or of
War.
Government is universally recognized, if
not as OF Divine ordination, at least as
social necessity. The instances are very rare
in which communities have even ATTEMPTED
to do without it and in those the expert
ment was made by men in the very lowest
stages of barbarism. A wandering tribe of
Esqumaux or Digger Indians may contrive
to get on with very little government but
they have no arts, no regular industry, no
cities, and scarcely any property-in short
they have little or nothing to steal
Transform those very Savages into even
partially civilized men, with clothing, houses,
grain, fenced field, hocks and herds, and
they will inevitably be found to have ceased
to be mere tribe and become in some sense
q state, nation, with laws, magistrates,
and recognized civil rule Bad as govern
ments may be, and often are, the very worst
that ever existed is practically better than
anarchy
Now Governmet implies not merely au-
thOrfU will 70 nne ;t,s s,;,
but stability. A nation may be conquered; !;
it may be violently dismembered but it
does not commit suicide. He who needless,
ly draws the sword against legally constitut-
ed authority-who says in effect to the na-
tion's chosen rulers, II disown, | coudemn,
| contemn, l defy you"--is the author of
the bloodshed which naturally results from
such defiance. He may deceive himself in
to a sort Of blind belief that he is warred
upon by the authority he thus outrageS
but he cannot deceive History nor the civil
Iized world If the Wisky Rebels of West.
ern Pennsylvania had fought till their last
man was unihllated, the judgement of man
kind would have laid the blame of their de
struction not on Washington but on them
selves.
He, therefore, who affects to doubt wether
the new Administration will pursue poll
cy of Peace or one Of War, trihes with the
popular understanding and makes himself an
accomplice Of treason. He knows-having
read the Presidents Inaugural, he cannot
but know-that our Government is pervaded,
is mpelled, by an absorbing desire 10 escape
the fearful necessity of shedding blood, and
that it will push its fOrbearance to the ut
most limit compatible with the dictates Of
imperitive duty If collision and carnage
shall ensue, it will only be because wick
ed, wanton Rebellion insults the majesty of
Law.
II treachey like that by which Gen.
Twiggs has demoralized, stripped, and oil
but disarmed, the largest division of our
country's little Army, if pranks like those
which Secession has played with Federal
mlnts, sub'treasuries, arsenals, and fortress
es throughout the Cotton States are to re.
main unrebnked----are in fact, to be com
mended aud rewarded-,then our government
is hollow mask, grinuing lnockery OF
power, an empty, shameless lie. A country
wherein such crimes are committed with I'M
punity would not be 6t for honest men TO
live in. We call on those who prate OF
'Coneilliation, Reconstruction etc., on the
basis of the perfect equality of Loyalty with
Treason. TO say explicitly how they would
have the President deal with such men as
Twiegs. and Chase, and Breshwood, and
a hundred others, who, after eating the
bread OF the Union for half o lifetime, are