Holmes County farmer. [volume] (Millersburg, Ohio) 1857-1926, 1861-01-31

its energy, its activity, It's enterprise, its life.
Coercion, therefore, must fail to save the
Union. II cannot possibly produce good -
1t will be the parent Of more woe than status
the annals Of all recorded time.
1t will be fatal to republican institutions
founded upon "the consent of the governed"
Coercion must be either successful or unsuc-
cessful; that is TO say, it must either conquer
the seeding States or fail to do so. IL sue
cessiul the seeding States are ~ longer Tree
and sovereign, but sibjugatcd Provinces
This, therefore, would be fatal to liberty, as l
have shown in a foregoing paragraph. II un-
successful, then our civil strife will destroy
our gratcness and we shall fall an easy prey
to foreign invasion, or become the restless
victims Of ceaseless revolutions, like the un-
happy people of Mexico and Central Ameri.
ca. In either case the sun of liberty must go
down in blood. The Black Republicans, in.
fuenced by the wretchcd fanatics Of Exeter
Hall, may contemplate such a picture with
pleasures but the true flieeds of humanity, and
freedom, of civilization and religion, will turn
from it with sckened hearts. Despots every
where, will rejoice over our downfall, as evil
dcnce of the incapacity of man to govern
himself; as the evidence that popular institu
tions are failure; as the evidence that
crowns and thrones are Necessary TO the exis-
tence Of society and the welbeing Of mankind;
as evidence of the "Divinc right of kings"
In HIS wise dispcnsation, God has COM
mittcd to the people Of the United States,
the conservation of an inestimabe boon to
mankind. That boon is Popular Sovereign
ty. Our fore efathers indicated it by the
sword and baptized it in the blood of the
revolution. After they had achieved the in
dependence OF the colonies, the momentous
question for them to solve was, how codld
they best perform the great trust confined TO
their keeping7 They were weak each being
incompetent to maintain itself as a seperate
power. Therefore, they found federal com.
pact, for defence against foreign attack and
invasion, To render the Confederacy efficient
an army and navy were necessary; foreign
commerce must be maintained and defended;
treaty relations established and the proper
embassies created. Hence, they organized
General Government for the Union and cloth
ed it with the war making and taxing power;
and to prevent the injury to foreign COM
merce, which might be produced by conflict
ing regulations of the various States, they
also clothed it with the power to regulate
commerce among the States. Such was tho
great purpose of the Federal Government -
1t was established mainly for the adminstra-
ton and conduct of foreign affairs and rela-
tions. 1t was never designed that it should
interfere with the great doctrine of popular
sovereignty; but every restraint is laid upon
it, necessary to prevent its trenching upon it,
and every power delegated, was to be eXer-
cised for the protection of every State in the
full enjoyment of this fundamental principle
of American liberty. In fine, they decided,
that federal Union was the best form, in
which the principle could be embodied for its
preservation. But it does not follow, that
the maintenance of the form of the Union, is
no ~ ~ fh, tinn nf hn nj
That Union may be used Us an instrument to
destroy the principles and therefore when
thus used, termination of the Union may be
the best and only way to save the principle
Are not tho platform and policy Of the Re-
publican party of the North directly antago-
nistic to the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty,
and are they not striving to use the Federal
Government, as the instrument Of enforcing
their principles, and policy If permitted
to proceed, without opposition. where will it
land usi 1t will bury us beneath the ruins
ofthe constitution, and erect over our dis
honorcd political grave colossal structure Of
consolidated empire. I do not make these
remarks to justify hasty and precpitate Sc
ccssion. ! think every constitutional means
of redress in the Union, should be exhausted
before resorting to the ultima ratio regium; art
in the case now existing, have strong hope,
that such redress might be had, if the South
would wait for the effort But l make these
remarks, first, to draw special attention to
the great duty Of considering, as permanent
consideration, the principle Of Popular Sow
ereignty, which God has committed to MS,
Tor the benefit of our posterity and the world;
and secondly to show, that dissolution is not
necessarily destruction of, but perhaps the
only mode by which that important trust can
be faithfully executed. Therefore let not
friends of liberty despair, Popular Sover-
eighty may be safe in some other form than
that of the federal Union 1t is our duty to
see to it, that it shall be; if within the scope
ofpossibility. Lctus not get into an uncon-
trollable passion with each other. North and
South, and 60 to fighting and shedding each
others blood. That will destroy popular
sovereignty, as I have shown; but let us
rather cast around, in all earnestncss and f.
deity, to ascertain how it may be crystalized
into other forms more enduring, If possible,
AMI less liable to be abused by fanaticism.
am treating dissolution as a fixed fact. 1t
is difficult to realize it; it is paiufnl to confess
| it. Therefore, the future concerns us most.
A new order of things must inevitably super
vcne. The dssideratum is to adjust ourselves
to it, with the least possible shock to trade,
industry, labor, capital and social relations.
| yield to the temptation to make single
remark on this head, and then | shall close
this long rambling communication. The
present crisis will certainly eventuate in two
new governmental organizatons-it may, in
several There must inevitably be one North
and one South. There may be an Eastern,
| Western, Northern, Southern, Pacific and
Middle. The present Federal Union, is the
outgrowth-the form, which, in its vital en-
crgy aud instructive effort, Popular Sover-
eighty has elaborated for its own preservation
The destruction of that Union, is not death