Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1861-03-09
LINCOLN'S INAUGURATION, AND HIS
INAUGURAL.

The many rumors of tho dark and terrible plots
Of LincOln's intended assassination, which sprang
into being no one knows how, and have been in
dustriously circulated, were equalled only by the
threatening letters and mysterious hints that a lit
lie more than a twelvemonth since threw Gov
Wise and Virginia into an artificial panic. The
execution of Brow and the otkor imprisoned
heroes of ~IIarper's Ferry, gave a quietus to the
fears of Gov. Wise, as has the peaceful Inaugural
ton of the President ~dispelled the apprehensions
of Lincoln's friends.
The Inaugural, which has been so anxiously
looked for, has been spread before the people, and
if they are satisfied with the policy it fOresbadOws,
perhaps a small minority need not complain. The
Pittsburgh Gazette says,
Every word goes straight to the mark; and he
announces his own high and solemn duties in Ian
guage at once so firm, so calm, so kind and piter-
nal, that mono con doubt his stern resolve to do
what he says"
We elsewhere publish a portion Of the docu-
meut, though we presume most of our readers will
have seen it before our weekly reaches them. lie
commences by assuring the South that :heir prop
erty, their peace and their personal security will
not be endangered by the success of the RepuGli-
can party, which is of course very gratifying to
the holders Of four million of slaves; he then
quotes that portion Of the Chicago platform in
which is branded as grave crimes all such at
tempts to deliver the oppressed as Lafayette and
Kosciusko inaugurated in 1776, and John Brown
continued in 1859. Mr.. Lincoln had ~prJbabiy
read some speeches of abolitionists 10 which it was
intimated that ne owed his election to the hatred
Of slavery which John Brown had awakened, and
desired at the very outset to disfellowship all men
who, by obedience to the Higher Law, are accoun-
ted traitors by the lower law.
Next follows some very sensible remarks upon
the rendition Of fugitive slaves, which, however
to the consciences Of Republicans with
anti-slavery tendencies, they will swallow, as they
did the candidate who reasserts in his Inaugural
what he declared previous to his nomination, con-
Tossing himself the very Constitutional slave
hound that Wendell Phillips gibbeted, and pre-
senting sufficient facts on which to base the lOgi.
deduction, that his party supporters are like
unto him. While treating upon this subject il
would, perhaps, have pleased some of his admir-
better, had he asserted that in the law provid-
for the return of fugitive slaves the freeman
should have thrown around him The safe
guards Of liberty; and that while the rendition Of
is provided for, the rights of tie citizens
Of each State should be guaranteed in all the
States. But instead of asserting this, he threw
these points into the crooked, ungainly form of a
note of interrogation, as though the propounder
of the questions was afraid boldly to affirm, what
he tremblingly suggested.
In his talk upon the Union, be declares "Tbe
Union is much older than the Constitution" IL
might be considered impertinent to enquire wheth-
,r Mr.. Lincoln means to affirm that the present
Union is older than the Constitutions Union
which did not exist until eleven seeding States
orsook a perpetual union, and formed ga more
perfect unioD," or whether il is some other union
han the one we have that is 60 ancient. It does
ieem the veriest child's play with words for Mr..
Lincoln to talk as he does about ''the Union" be- !
ng older than tho Constitution. If he wished 10
connect venerable age with the idea of union, wby
he not talk of the union which existed between !.
he colonies and the mother country in 1860, or
ven have gone further back to the union Of the !
Iormans and SaxonsS There would be as much
in doing it, as to go back beyond the !
firth of the union which now exists, even for a
ew years. The Union of which Mr.. Lincoln
alks, and the Buys jacknife which remained the
anne knife although it had had a dozen new han
les and as many new blades, are to be classed in +"
he same catalogue of curiosities. 8
In regard to coercion and invasion and all that r
ind of thing, he begs the South to set its mind AT a
eat; assuring it that he will only use the pow i.
r con6dcd to him to bold and protect the public q
and collect duties and imposts-that is q
Il. So if tie Confederate States Of the South, six m
sixteen, as the case may be, should establish a Al
lrif for themselves, they may probably object to sc
aging duties also to another government, IN Y