Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1861-10-18
Gbr National Crisis.
TuE AMERICAN WAR.


The fact may be ignored or forgotten
in the White House, and in the residuum
of Congress that sits in the still unlin-
ished Capitol at Washington, but North
and South do not stand towards each
other in the relation of sovereign and
subject. Abraham Lincoln is neither
king, emperor, nor dictator. He does
not inherit from long line of royal an
cestors, like most Of the sovereigns of
! Europe; neither has he made throne
for himself, like Napoleon l. or Victor
Emmanuel. He is no more than the
chief magistrate of a republic, the adj
mlnistrator, not the fountain, of law;
and no one owes him any greater loyalty
or allegiance than we in this country
owe to a lord mayor or alderman elected
by the people, or to a justice Of the peace
duly appointed by the sovereign The
people made him what he is. Any feal-
ty they owe him is solely due to the po-
sition they gave him; and # one section
say, for instance, that of the North
chooses to invest him, in fit of passion,
or even from cooler considerations of bu-
siness, with extraordinary powers, ano-
Their section may, without imputation of
disloyalty, refuse to .acquiesce There is
no treason and no disloyalty in the case
The South has as many inherent rights
as the North and the North as many as
tho South. 1t is not king and subject
who have quarreled, but brother and
brother.
They ought not to have gone to war;
they would have done much better if
they had held firmly together, and con-
tinued to show themselves, by their ami
ty and concord, and unsurpassed resour-
ces, great nation; but the South had
certainly, if it felt itself aggricved, and if
it suffered, Or imagined that it suffered
in its feelings, interests, and comforts,
by the pre-existing compact, as much
right to put an end to it, as the United
States had originally to put an end to
the connection between themselves and
Great Britain. The North may cont
nue. to talk Of the rebellion" but it
is not rebellion. The word is an as
sumption of prior as well as a greater
right, which ceased to exist, if it ever
existed at all, at the very>moment that
the South found itself strong enough to
deny and repudiate it. In fact, the state
of affairs is what the South, truly calls
It'd secession And however much tho
North may regret the consummation, and
struggle to avert it, there will be honce-
forward two confederacies, instead of the
one great @epublc of the United States
Indeed, the signs are not few that, if the
war continues for twelvemonth, third
confederation will arise out Of the tur-
MOL. The North cannot see these things,
because its leaders and people are blind
cd by passion; but they are seen distinct
ly enough in the South and in the West,
and are obvious and palpable in Europe
to the meanest capacity.
The North is in fair way of losing
far more than the unwilling-and did it
know its own interest, the Improbable
partnership Of the South We do not
speak of the loss of the battle Of Manas-
sas, which was bad enough-or of its
second repulse, near Springfield, in Mis-
souri,, which has inflicted almost as great
blow upon its military character, for
these are reverses which it is in its pow
er to retrieve. But worse than tho loss
Of battles worse than the loss ofmillions
Of money per day, is the loss of liberty,
that most inestimable privilege of peo-
pie, and which, up to the outbreak Of
this unhappy dispute, every citizen Of
the United States has fancied his ina
lisnable birthright. Liberty no longer
| exists in the Northern half of the repub-
lie. Military law, by a stern and irwin
chile necessity, rides roughshod over the
civil law whenever the two come into
collision Congress in a panic, which it
mistakes for yigor, votes away, without
comment, the dearest rights Of the peo-
pie; overIhrows by vote that is almost
unanimous, and that would be entirely
so were there not few secessionists still
left among it's members, all the securities
that formerly guarded the purse and the
person Of the citizen; squanders money
with recklessness that has never been
equalied in the worst wars of the Old
World; and in all its doings gallops at
such pace as to suggest to Americans,
as well as to Europeans, that the day Of
\ dictator is at hand-of dictator who /
will make permanent that deprivation Of
liberty which is now alleged to be tenn
porary.
The very press Of America I'M
chartered liboriine, whose liberty sUg-
gested license rather than qaw.--has ac- /
tually, under the fatal spell Of this un-
happy contest suggested to the generals !
in command that its own wings should be 1
clipped, and that it should not be allowed /
to throw the full light and glare Of pub
licity upon the events Of the war and the
condition of the country. Such is the I
blighting influence of the struggle, that
the people Of the Northern States seem
perfectly willing to enslavc themselves,
if they can but enslaye their Southern Z
brothers. They throw discredit upon De- I
mocracy, and are doing their Utmost to
root out republicanism from the New
World, as eifectually as il has been rooted
out Of the Old.
Ropublicanism in America may be
destined 10 last but not If this fratrici-
nal war be not speedily brought to
close. Military despotisms inevitably
grow out Of such seeds as are now sown
broadcast over the land. The North,