The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1861-07-25

our commerce and navigation through fear
of a kindred fate. Industry arrested,
families pining in hunger and misery be-
cause of the sudden withdrawal of their
means of subsistence, and thousands sink
ing through want into vice and crime
such are among the inevitable conse
auences of such a struggle. This war
cannot be ended so soon that it will not
have cost our people One Thousand Mill
ions of Dollars, or about the actual cash
value of all the property in the State OF
New York. A few years of peace will en-
able us to recreate this property but who
can feel confident that the moral disasters
of the conflict can be repaired so speedily! !
We shall have borne these trials to less
than their proper profit if any one of the
lessons deeply imprinted on the National
heart by them is pot profounder, intenser
loathing of war, and of the dreams of con-
quest, of extended area and of imperial
domination. wherewith political asplrants
are too apt to drug the National conscience
and debauch the popular heart
III. Another lesson which this war is
calculated to teach land of which no people
ever stood more in need than ours, is that
of respect for constituted authority and
obedience to the mandates of Law. We
have been sadly deficient. in this regard,
and the punishment of our transgression
is now upon us. Our habits of free and
fearless criticism Of public men and meas
ures have tended to this lazity, but in de-
fiance of the plainest and most necessary
distinctions. You do not assume the
piety, genius. wisdom, benevolence, or
Integrity, Of the constable whose summons
you deier to he may within your knowl-
edge be personally knave, Ounce, or a
sot but you recognize him in bis official
capacity as a representative Of the State
messenger and minister Of her will en-
bodied in Law-and you obey the precept
of which he is the bearer in Difference not
at all to him but to her. And so the man
Pierce, or Buchanan, or Lincoln, may be
ever so worthy or Indifferent; but his
personal deserts or demerits in no degree
qualify the obedience which you pay to
the President of the United States, and
which you canrct refuse without clear
defiance of Christian ethics and patriotic
datY.
These are very simple truths, but a lack
of clear conceptions of their scope and
force is now costing this country thous-
ands of lives and millions on millions Of
money. Our National existence having
originated in a successful resistance to
overstrained authority, tendency to con-
found authority with usurpation has ever
since been latent in our blood, as
Shay's Rebellion, the Whisky Ensur-
rection, and some less matured manifesto
tions of the same spirit, have too painfully
attested. But we must teach our chill
dren to distinguish clearly, in the Ian
guage of Burke, between the extreme
medicine of the Constitution and its daily
bread. Armed resistance to lawfully con
stituted authority is the last, desperate
resource Of a people to whom all other
escape from intolerable oppression is con-
clusiveIy denied. Toappeal from an open
and free ballot box to a revolt is like APP
pealing from the Supreme Court of the
United States to a mass-meeting at the
Five Points Even though the result of
an election be clearly wrong-nay, be-
cause it is wrong.-there is hope that the
next will reverse and redress that error.
1t must be realized and taken to heart by
our people that an unnecessary revolt Is
a heinous crime; and this eYentful year,
so full of disaster and woe, should be made
to impress that moral. Restless, disap-
pointed ambition, desperate fortunes,
bankrupt hopes, and all forms Of unthrift,
are naturally too ready to appeal from
Law to Force they must De taught that
this appeal is from adversely to ruin.
" Beware of entrance into quarrel, "
SAYS Polonius to Laertes in substance;
" but being IN, bear thyself so that thine
enemy shall beware of thee" The Nation
has now, in generous measure, given heed
to the former Of these admonitlons it is
about to give full effect and emphasis to
the latter. Unless this rebellion is so
dealt with that We shall Dot be troubled
with another for at least two or three
generations, much precious blood will
been shed wastefully if not wholly IL
vain.
One GOOD TURN DESERVES ANOTHER.
Our young friend, Harry Turn, recently
married his cousin of the same name.