Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1861-01-30


and Lancaster. They hate each other! Ii
their constituents could see how the Freesoil-
ers of the North and the Radicals of the South
lived here together, they would not bell a
word of it. They only hate each other, when
the ssins'' have to give way to the ssouts, when
the army Of officeholders take up their bag
and baggage and make way for their trium-
phant successors. He was willing to make
any sacrifice TO save the country. He would
even accept James Buchanan for another term.
and allow the ssOld Public FunctioDary'' to
administer the Government for four years
more. He said he was willing to lend his
sanction to anything that would heal these dit
ficuites. But failing in all, he would go
home and would there meet Disunion with
torch in one hand and sword in the other;
and so help him God, so long as the Stars and
Stripes f1Oated over him and his State, he
would never yield to disunion. 1t had been
charged that the North wished to give equali-
ity in every respect to the negro. He did
not believe this, but separation would not
change any opinion on this subject. To show
how unfounded was this charge, he noticed
that at the last election, the people of New
York refused, by majority of twenty to one,
to extend universal suffrage to the negro. Up
to 1884 free negroes had the privilege of suf-
frage over certain white men in Tennessee.
Who assisted in making the constitution of
that State? Andrew Jackson! and before it
President of the United States. Political
equality as to white and blacks also existed
in North Carolina twenty years ago, but does
not now. He asserted, what was matter of
history, that every solitary act of the Consti-
tuition was ordained after public discussion,
and was voted for by statesmen Of the South,
and either passed by them or received the
sanction and approval of their States and the
very policy under which Lincoln should be
inaugurated was the very policy of the Demo-
cratic party of the South, and which they
gave to the country, and demanded and re-
ceived their approval. The House knew that
when the Government was ordained, when the
Declaration of Independence was proclaimed.
that our Western boundary was the Mississp-
pi River, and that from that very day, at the
instance of the South, at the instance Of slave
holders, the area of the Government had
been enlarged and expanded. Every foot of
soil that had been acquired at the instance of
the South, the North, with its numerical pow
er and strength oyerst,adowiug the South, has
willingly yielded. Florida and Louisiana had
been thus purchased at the instance of the
South. Florida had been purchased at cost
Of SIS 200, 600, and at a cost of $50 000, 900
more to remove the savages, millions more to
to build fortifcations and towns along the
deep to guard Southern commerce. And after
all this, little Florida, with less than half the
population he represented, goes out of the
Union, with the Notifications, with the pub
lie lands, with untold millions, and, worse
than all, carries with her the prestige Of the
unity of these States. Little Florida secedes,
self from the aligators without the aid of the
Federal ops-Tlaughterl- this very Florida,
purchased at the instance Of the South, with
Northern money and Northern blood. He
then noticed the annexation of Texas, also at
the instance of the South, and paid eulogy
to Gov. Houston OF that State. In 1850 the
South demanded Fugitive Slave law. They
bad got that. They first demanded the Mis-
souri, Compromise. They got it. They then
demanded its repeal. They got that. They
had demanded nothing which they had not got.
But now they demand that Slavery should be
protected in every inch of the Territories of
the United States. But that question was de-
cided against them, in most unmistakable
manner, at the ballot box and even the Sou
thern States themselves had pronounced a
gainst that demand. The Government had
been in operation nearly eighty years, and up
to this time no Member of Congress had even
so much as introduced a bill to protect Slavery
in the Territories. But now they proposed to
dissolve the Union because vast majority Of
the people had replied to their demand for
protection of slaves in the Territories that all
they should ever have was non intervention.
And that was all they ever would obtain One
disunionist said that he wanted protection for
Slavery for the purpose of expansion, that
Slavery was increasing, and that in fifty years
they would have twenty millions of negroes,
and consequently they must have room to ex-
pand. But the truth was that they needed no
expansion, and if they did even, they could
not get it. But, as he said before, Congress
should adjourn the quarrel to the people, and
if they failed to do so, in less than eighteen
months it will adjourn itself. He, for one,
was not afraid TO trust the people, and that APP
peal must be made. In answer to Mr.. Val
landigham, he said that's persistent had been
the Misrepresentation of men throughout the
Union with regard to Northern men and the
principles of the Republican party, that the
people OF the South were willing to believe
lie and be damned. 1t was a matter Of his
tory that few weeks ago a gentleman Col.
Memminger) proclaimed from the steps of the
Capitol OF Milledgeville to gentlemen lawyers,
doctors, shoItboys, and everybody that stood
around, that Hannibal Hamin, or ,as he is call
ed there, "Cannibal'' Hamln, was mulatto !;
that the North had elected an Abolitionist to be
President, and mulatto to be eVice-President.
Mr.. LEAKE (Dem., Va.) asked whether Mr..
Etheridge speaking on the side of the
North or on the side of the South.
Mr.. ETHERIDGE-I am speaking on that side
which has too few representatives on the floor
am speaking on the side of my country. APP
plause.l Already in the South bold men, ed
| ucated men, chivalrons men, were drilling and
disciplning the military forces. Men were
excited with all the pomp and circumstance
of war. Men believed that Lincoln and his
cohorts were going to the South to apply the
torch to towns, and hamlets, and dwellings,
and these things arose from Southern misap-
prehensions of Northern men. To allay this,
to stop the tide of revolution he would vote
for the Crittenden propositions. He would
vote for the proposition he had submitted him.
self, he would vote for the report of the gen.
tleman from Ohio, he would vote for anything