The Kingwood chronicle. [volume] (Kingwood, Va. [W. Va.]) 1861-1861, 1861-07-27
THE REBELLION.
Patriotic Speech Of Hon. Joseph Holt.

Patriotic Speech Of Hon. Joseph Holt.
| On the evening Of July 18th, Hon Joseph
Holt, OF Ky, made speech to the people
OF Louisville upon the absorbing topic Of the
day-the great rebellion We extract as
follows:
Could one, an entire stranger to our coun-
try, now look down upon the South and see
there a hundred or hundred and fifty thou
sand men marching in hostile array, threat
enlng the capture Of the Capitol and dismem-
berment Of the territory Of the Republic ;
and could he7look again and see that this ar
my is marshalled and directed by officers re-
Gently occupying distinguished places in the
civil and military service Of the country; and
further, that the States from which this army
has been drawn appear to be one vast seeth-
ing cauldron Of ferocious passion, he would
very naturally conclude that the Government
Of the United States had committed some
great crime against the people, and that this
uprising was in resistance Of wrong and out
RACES which had beenaborne until endurance
was no longer possible And yet no conclu-
sion could be further from the truth than
this The Government Of the United States
has been faithful to all its constitutional OBJ
legations. For eighty years it has maintained
| the national honor at home and abroad. and
by its prowess, its wisdom, and its justice, has
49, ~
elevation among the nations Of the earth
which the citizens Of no republic has enjoyed
since Rome was mistress of the world I'm
der its administration the national domain
has stretched away to the Pacific, and that
constellation which announced our birth as a
people, has expanded from thirteen to thirty
four stars, all, until recently, moving undis-
turbed and undimmed in their orbs Of light
and grandeur. The rights Of no States have
been invaded; no man property has been
despoilel. no man S liberty abridged, no man 5
1 life oppressiyely jeopardized BY the action Of
this Government Under its benign mfueil-
ces the rills Of public and private Prosperity
have swelled into rivulets, and from rivuets
into rivers ever brinming il their fullncsS,
and everywhere, and at all periods Of its his
toty its ministrations have fallen as gently
on the people Of the United States as 40 the
dews of Summer S night On the flowers and
grass of the gardens and fields.
Whence then, this revolutionary outbreak
Whence the secret spring Of this gigantic
conspiracy, which, like some huge boa, had
completely coilcd itself around the limbs and
body Of the Republic, before a single hand
was lifted to resist it? Strange and indeed
startling as the announcement must appear
when it falls on the ears Of the next genera
ton the national tragedy, in whose shadow
we stand tonight, has come upon us because,
in November last John G. Breckenridge was
not elected President Of the United States,
and Abraham Lincoln was This is the whole
story And | would pray now to know on
what was John c. Breckenridge fed that he
has grown 80 great, that Republic founded
! by Washington and ccmcntcd with the best
blood thot has ever coursed IN human veins,
is to be oyerthrown because forsooth he can
not be its President? Had he been chosen
we well know that we should not have heard
of this rebellion, for the lever with which it
is being moved would have been wanting to
the hands Of the conspirators. Even after
his defeat could it have been guaranteed, be
yond all peradvcnture, that JEFF. Davis or
some other kindred spirit would be the sue
cessor Of Mr., Lincoln presume we hazard
nothing in assuming that this atrocious move
ment against the Government would not have
been set on foot So much for the principle
involved in it. This great crime, then, with
which we are grasping, sprang from that sin
by which the angels fall an unmastered
and profiigate ambtion-an ambition that
would rather reign IN he'll than serve in hea-
ven that would rather rule supremcly over
shattered fragment of the Republic than
run the chances Of sharing with others the
honors Of the whole.
THE conspirators of the South read in the
election Of Mr. Lincoln a declaration that the
Democratic Party had been Frustrated, if not
finally destroyed, BY the selfish intrigues and
corruptions Of its leaders; they read, too,
that the vicious, emaciated, and spawned
hobby of the Slavery agitation, on which
they had 50 often rode into power, could no
longer carry them beyond given geographi-
cal line of our territory, and that in truth
this factious and reasonable agitation, on
which 50 many Of them have grown great by
debauching and demoralizing the mind Of a
people naturally gene, Gus and patriotic, had
run its course, and hence that from the ma
tional disgust for this demagogneing, and
from the inexorable law of population, the
time had come when all those who had no
other nnlitical canital than this. would have