Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1861-01-16
THr NATIONAL TROUBLES,

them rs malefactors Tor the purposes of extra
dition. l therefore declined to surrender
them.
TEE NATIONAL TROUBLES,
You assemble at a periol Of extraordinary
interest to the country. For eighty years the
people Of the several States of the C,nfsd IRA
cy have lived in peace with each other. Fra
ternal ties have bound them together, and
fraternal Offices have been mutually dis
charged 10 their mutual prosperity and hap
piness. During this period the nations pro-
gress has been uninterrupted The great
purposes of its formation have been IN sea
dy process of conSumatioa- The wise policy
by which, for the most part, II has been gov
erned, in eherishing our resources, and in
~cultivating peace with all the world, has els-
waited our character abroad and confirmed
our prosperity at home. From people feeble
in numbers and resources st the beginning.
we have become one of the leading powers
/ Of the world. In agricultural, manufactures,
commerce, and navigation, in all the useful
arts, we are in the front rank of nations,
while the influence of our civil institutions,
founded on the consent of the people and rec
ugnizing the equality of all men before the
law, and their inalienable rights tn life, lib
erty sni the pursuit of happiness. is mJder
avs nv ~ tfoNAoil vi OlLS SJhGAu iucl4l~
and a~rousing the oppressed natonalities of
the world TO the assertion o. their rights. At
home tbs Republic has given to its citiz .n>
an extent of pro .perity and happiness not en-
joyed by any other people, while abroad the
title it confers of American citizen isa nobler
credential than was that of Roman citizen
when thu Caesars ruled.
But great, prosperous, and powerful as Is
the R-pIbilc. a. p FACE with all nations, AMI
the deserved object of universal admiration,
it Is now threatened with imminent psril'
from internal Discussions. Tae pIblic tran
guilty is seriously disturbed. The patriot
ism OF the Country is justly alarm i. The
unity OF the Government Is denie1. Doc
trineS subversive of il existence are boldly
advocated and made the basis of State action
Under the pretended right Of u State to Sc
cede from the C0nfederacy at its plea -ure, in
peace Or war, constitutional libsrty is im,er-
lied, revolution is meditated, aud treason is
justified.
We may well pIuse to inquire, why these
discontents, these hostile demonstrations
againet the Federal Government.
Ambitious men in Republics who find their
aims thwartei by the regular and peaceful
workings of government, always secs pre-
texts to disturb its easy progress, however
drospAroIs-Party, sectional, personal prcju-
diees, the growth Of diversitles in local ia
situations, habits, and pursuits, are seized
upon by such men to create hostilities between
the various CLASSES ia country, strongly uni
ted by common interests, but whose union
gives them u grandeur too imposing to be
grHsped by malcontents, who without m 1rit,
10 reach the highest authority in a great
Commonwealth, would reduce il to fragments
to become masters in q part. Su.h consplrA-
tors never disclose the secret motives of their
discomfort, but fabricate pretenses for disSat-
~isfaction am ing the IN Uses they wJall move,
by appeals to their pride, their ~jealosuy, their
envy, q%uIckened by o narrow. mistaking. yet
honest patriotism for the locality Of its birth,
which from popularity in domestic insutu-
tons, has lost the vantage groun1 of superb
or political influence, once held in the Con-
federscy.
The vast disproportionate incrsAsa OF p0-
liticAl power of the free States over that of the
slave States, especially Of these where the
wealth flows from an industry and q species
of agricultural which expels the white race,
and SccumulsteJ another fatal to all progress,
has created a prepondsrance TO the Northern,
Western and Middle States which has Sc
cured to them the permanent control Of the
government.
During the FIRST forty years Of tha Rcplb-
lie it had its impulse, for the most part, from
the great heart beating in its central region
Except the two from Massachusetts,. sill its
Presidents may be said to have bern Virgin
ia Presidents, for Jackson and Van BIren
ware chosen through her influence. DIrins
tbs Administration of the elder Adams, her
star dominated over the Congressional coun-
els in the person of Vice-President Jeffer-
SON.. During that Of the second, it rose again
in both branches of Congress through the
prestige impaired TO her candidate, jackson,
By the commanding eloquencs Of her Sena-
tors and Representatives.
Throughout the almost half centu ~ of Re-
publican rule, under the auspices of Virgin
is. the free States were not merely content,
but with the exception of a paroxism grow
ing oat of the commercial difficulties con
trived by Great Britain, dissipated by the wa
she provoked, and the momentary panic qui-
eted bv the Missouri C1RprOmise gave it
that Jealous support which rendered this era
so happy and prosperous for the whole coun-
try. Slavery, the anomly in our Institu-
tons. was looked upon throughout this periol
as a distressing excrescence, tbs result of the
woke we had worn in our infancy, and which
the strength of our Constitutions would in
Tins throw of.
It was not until the Premis rship of Mr..
Calhoun, which opened the designs Of Slave
~ propagandism. that serious alarm arose
among the friends of Republican govern
ment, that the power of q sectional interest.
founded on slavery, was mediating the means
Of contesting its supremacy over the CONT
nent. The free States accorded 10 the South
al the territory in which slavery previously
existed, to opsn up and drain off the sources
of its malaria By the African labor it pos
ssssed. They trusted thatas the Anglo-Saxon
race of freemen multiplied and overlooked
from the north and middle regions, the infe-
rior race would recede further South, and
make this whole continent the abode of free
dom. But the demand that acquisitions offree
territory should be consigned to slavery: that
California should barejectcd from the Union
because sho came with free republican con
s~titution in her hand, unveiled the deception
prasticed in the pledge, given by leading ad-
vocates of the annex ,tlon of Texas, that 1t
would open the way for the withdrawal
of slavery from the temperate zone upon its
march to mingle with the freed blacks in the
tropics of Central America. The comprOm-
ise of 1850, providing for the admission Of four
additional Slave States from Texas, cnnsecra-
ted that portion added from the New Mexi-
can conquest cast of the Rio Grande and north
of the Missouri Compromise line TO freedom
although claimed by Texas-and left all
the rest Of the territory acquired, to the con-
struction of the Mexican law which had abol-
ished slavery at one time existing there
This was the second hard-won pacihcation by
which Mr.. Clay hoped to lay forever the spec
tire of disunion, founding it on the principle
of the Ordinance of 1877, which had resign
ed to slavery all the territory which properly
sppertained to the domain of the slave States,
reserving that belonging to the United States
for settlement by freemen exclusively. The
leading parties in their presidential platforms,
in which they submitted their claims for the
sanction of the popular vote at the immedi-
atsly ensuing election, ratified this settlement
Of 1850, adding q new sanction &c the Mis-
souri, Compromise. But both these compscts
between the States for the settlement Of the
great sectional issues were nullifed by the
- IL LII nLs- L--,,l - H.