Indiana State sentinel. (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1861-1865, 1861-08-14

resented by the Journal, and who now profess to
regard il very unpatriotc to discuss the cost Of
the war" There is one thing that the Demo
Gratis will insist upon, however, and that is that
the money raised to pay the cost of the war shall
be legitimately and honestly applied. They will
oppose extravagant and loose expenditures for the
purpose of enriching Republican army con-
tractors who may happen to be pets of the Ad-
mnstraton or the members of the Cabinet. AL
ready immense sums of the peoples money have
been thus lavished and there are yet enormous
leaks of this kind in the public treasury. A day
of reckoning will come and then the men
in power, who have enriched their friends,
ism, will meet with the just rebuke
of an indignant people. But this is not
the point we started out with. Our object
in quoting from the extracts of the Journal was
to show that wicked men often condemn them
selves. Now, we desire to demonstrate that the
Journal man has done exactly those things which,
with we'll affected virtue he severely censures in
others. Look at the picture he has drawn of
those who balance personal honor against CON-
pensation," and balance patriotism against tax
ation," and we will point out one individual who
sat for the portrait. But few months ago the
Journal editor, in a number of articles, estimated
the cost of a civil war-a war to force States to
remain in Union to which they were opposed,
and which hey thought oppressive-not only in
money and blood, but question of principle
and il pronounced that the sacrifice of each in
the attempt to do so, would be more than the OBJ
ject to be accomplished was worth. We give an
extract from one of those articles to-day, written
at period free from excitement, and after the
election of Mr.. LINCOLN, as evidence that the
Journal in It's present postIon-conducted by the
same man then as now-is not merely grossly in
consistent, but is dishonest and hypocrtical. The
Journal of the 26th of November, 1860, says:
We deem it superfuous to orgue that popular
Government can neverbe preserved 10y force. The
act of compulsion changes it to deSpotism so far
as the parties affected by it concerned. 1t is
no government of theirs any longer, and despotism
is simply government that the governed don't
create. Consequently if coercion" preserves the
body, it surely destroys the life, of this great
popular Government. 1t secures US an Union
without unity, AN aggregation of States without
sympathy. And il does no more Whether that
is worth purchasing at the fearful price of civil
war; it is hardly worth while to argue to sensible
men. Not one solitary advantage OF real Union
can be preserved by compulsory union. except
the wretched little pittance of revenue that
be saved from smugglers BY force of revenue
cutters costing four times the revenue they can
save BY chastIsing South Carolina we can save
about S40) 900 of revenue annually, if we will pay
three or four Government ships to lay off the har
all, the good South Carolina can do Union into
which size has to be phipPed. Is not the Union
better off without her. il she can only be kept i'm
ut such cost for such an advantageg We say
no. Practically, then, coercion costs us a good
deal, and gives nothing. Theoretically il costs
still more. for il costs our consistency Secs
sion is revolution. We, having established our
Government by revolution, on the right of "a peo-
pie at any time to change government which is
oppressive to them, can not deny that right to
those who deliberately declare our Government
oppressive. What we claimed as our right we
can not deny to those who claim il of us and help
ed us to assert our claim at the outset They may
be mistaken. In our judgment they are fatally
mistaken, but we can not Judge for them whether
the Federal Government is too oppressive for en-
durance any more than England could Judge for
us. We know how eloquently may be urged the
GLORY of this great country and ''the Union
cemented by the blood of our fathers but it is all
wasted beside the one plain. simple fact that if
any State in this Union feels the Union to be in
furious and oppressive a civil war won't change
her opinion in fact is not calculated to change it,
and if she toiI not stay i'm the Union it will be
cheaper and kinder to let her go. The argument
that secession is unconstitutional and involves
ever many violations of law and PAL ty pledges,
is little better than trifiing with serious sub
ject Men do not treat a revolution as they would
/ n md for. of Al
Constitution 4 remedy for secession, is lust rs
wise as urging man whose house is on fire. 10
keep 1t in good repair.
Look upon this face of the Journal and then at
the other, and what do we see? The leading Re-
publican organ of Indiana identifying the seces-
sion of State by pronouncing it revolution and
Iustifying the act if the State regards further
connection with the Union injurious and oppres-
sive to her. ltaso declares thata Union which has
to be maintained by coercion is not worth pre-
serving South Carolina and the other States
of the Southern Confederacy have left the Union
seeded therefrom-upon precisely the grounds
that the Journal says they would have a right to
separate. Yet the same Journal now declares it
the quintessence of meanness for any one to esti-
mste the "cost of war" to compel State or
States to remain in Government which is
no longer theirs, which "act of compulsion
changes it (the Union) to a despotism !"
And the print has the impu-
dent assurance now to charge men as traitors
with treason-who sustain the Government, but
who simply demand that the war shall be confined
to constitutional purposes-that it shall not be
war of subjugation, every Republican in Con-
gress voted it was not, and that the money raised
to carry OH the war shall be honestly and egit-
mately expended. With such record as the
Journal presents, if its conductors had particle
of honor or manliness, they would be ashamed to
look honest man in the face if they ever applied
the words 'rebels' or straitors" to even a South
Carolinian, much less to the people of the North,
who, while performing their whole duty to the
Government as loyal citizens, under the teachings
of the Journal, regard the war as unnecessary
and unnatural. And the Republican party of In
diana is equally culpable with the Journal, in
permitting its central organ, after the triumph of
their party in Presidential election to represent
that the party was willing that any State who re-
garded the Government as oppressive to depart in
peace, or to quote its own words: "If any State
WILL go from US, let it 60 The price of retain
ing, if it is to be paid in blood, is far greater than
the worth of it when we have got it," Aud yet
after such expressions by the Journal. which re-
ceived the assent of the Republican party of In
diana, that same paper and that same party have
the brass to denounce patriotic citizens who esti-
mate ''the cost of the war; as those who are
willing to balance patriotism against taxation -
Was there ever greater impudence and wicked