The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1861-07-13
WHOLE No. 1919.

petted darlings whom no aliurements can
seduce, are denounced, next instant, as
fends whom a whisper can madden. North
ern sympathizeTs are first ridiculed as i'm
beetle, then lynched as destructive. Either
position is in itself Ineligible, but the
combination an absurdity. We can under
stand why the proprietor of powder house
trembles at the sight of flint and steel !; and
we can understand why some new journey
man may regard the peril without due con-
Germ But we should decide either to be a
lunatic, if he in one breath proclaimed his
gunpowder 20 be incombustible, and at the
next moment assassinated visitor for light
ing cigar on the premises. A slave pop
uiation is either contented and safe, or dis
contented and unsafe il cannot at the same
time be contented and hostile, blissful and
desperate.
The result described is inevitable. should
the Seeessionists dare to tempt the ordeal
by battle long enough. If it stop short of
snis, it viii be because heprestige of South
ern military power is SO easily broken down
that there is no temptation to declare the
Adams policy. But even this consumma-
ton must have the most momentous results,
and entirely modify the whole anti-slavery
movement of the nation. Should the war
cease to morrow, it has inaugurated a new
era in our nations history. The folly of the
Gulf States, in throwing away political
condition where the conservative sentiment
stood by them only too well, must inevita-
bly, recoil on their own heads, whether the
strife last day or a generation. No man
can estimate the new measures and combi-
nations to which it is destined to give rise.
There stands the Constitution, with all its
severe conditions-severe or weak, how
ever, according to its interpretations -
which interpretations, again, will always
prove plastic before the popular will. The
popular will is plainly destined to a change +;
and who dare predict the results of its
changing? The scrupulous may still hold
by the letter of the bond but since the
South has confessedly priced all legal guar
antics only for the sake of Slavery, the North,
once free to act, will long to construe them,
up to the very verge of faith, in the interest OF
Liberty. Was the original compromise a Shy
lock bond ?-the war has been our Portia
Slavery long ruled the nation politically. The
nation rose and conquered it with votes
With desperate disloyalty, Slavery struck
down all political safeguards, and appealed
to arms. The nation has risen again, ready
to meet it with any weapons, sure to con-
quer with any. Twice conquered, what
| further claim will this defeated desperate
have ? If il was disturbing element be-
fore, and SO put under restriction. shall it be
spared when it has openly proclaimed itself
a destroying element also? Is this to be
the last of American civil wars, or only the
| first one ? These are the questions which
will haunt mems minds, when the cannon
are all hushed, and the bells are pealing
peace, and the sons of our hearthstones
come home. The watchword "Irrepressiblt
Conflict" only gave the key. bit Var has
flung the door aOide open, and FOUR MILLION
SLAVES STAND READY TO FILE THROUGH. L
| is merely question of time, circumstance,
and method. There is not statesman SC
wise but this war has given him new light
nor an Abolitionist so self-con6dent but
must own its promise better than his fore
sight. Hencefortk, the first duty of an Amer
lean legislator must be, by the use of al
| legitimate means, to weaken Slavery. De
ienda est Servitudo. What the peace which
the South has broken was not doing, thu
war which she has instituted must secure.