The Shasta courier., 1861-05-04
The Crisis.

| py, Is now plunged into civil war. We have
too long indulged in the vain hope that some
measure of adjustment might be adopted,
would meet the approval of the border slave
holding States, and at last bring the seeded
States back into the Union
All feel and acknowledge that this is the
most vital crisis known to the American peo-
| pie since the revolution that severed the
thirteen original colonies from the mother
country. The great question of the day must
be looked boldly in the face, and dealt with
according to its magnitude. Let us notclose
the eye to the light of the monday sun, nor
lend our judgment to the delusions of vain
hope The day of compromise to re-unite
the thirty four States of this country under
one Government is past The cotton States
have all seeded and formed confederate
Government. Virginia has seeded, and as
the excitement of civil war increases. it re-
quires no prophetic eye to see that all the
slaveholding States, except, possibly, Della
ware and Missouri, will unite their fortunes
with the Southern Confederacy, and stand
arrayed against the Government of the Uni
ted States.
The population of the Southern States is
some ten millions-more than three times as
much as was the population of the old thir
teen when they declared their independence
and took up arms against Great Britain. The
Union men in the South, with very few ex-
ceptions, are only conditional Union men,
They are Union men if they could have GER
tain guarantees secured to them in the Con-
stitution. In a civil war the South will be
united as one man. Can ten millions of
Americans be conquered? Can fifteen States
of this Union be subjugated by force of arms
and made to love the Union at the point of
the bayonet? No, never. The American
people, East, West, North and South are
a brave, proud, spirited people. One
portion might exterminate the other, but new
er could conquer it.
We will not attempt to raise the curtain Of
the future, and endeavor to portray the hor-
rors ola fratricidal war in the United States.
No pen can sketch it. Such war will be
terrible beyond the dreams of the most pro-
life Imagination. 1t should be the study of
every lover of his country honorably to avert
sible, let the slave-holding States 90; let
them depart in peace. This can be done le-
Ultimately without the overthrow of the pre-
sent Government. Congress meets on the
4th of July next. Let it pass an amendment
TO- {la x,-h, oh abal do for
the withdrawal of the slave holding States
from the Union. Let this amendment be
submitted to the Legislatures of the respect
i've States at the earliest practical moment,
or to Conventions of the several States called
for that purpose.
Wea are aware that objections will be urged
against this plan that grave and intricate
questions arise as to the division of the pub
lie property, the free navigation of the Mis-
sissippi, and many other matters of vital
interest. But we believe all these great ques-
tions can be settled upon fair terms of nego
tiation. Let them be settled by the pen
rather than the sword and by the sword
only as the last resort. We are aware that
the great statesmen of the country have always
been united in the opinion that there could
never be a peaceablc separation of the States
of this Union. Washington, Madison, Jack
son, CLAY and Webster-a fearful weight of
authority we admit-all warned their coun
trymen that separation without war, and
perhaps the loss of our liberties, was impos
siblc. But the lesson of experience teaches
that the wisest human Judgment is not infal-
lible. What an array of talent thirty years
ago believed that the destruction of the United
States Bank. and the failure to re-charter
another. would forever ruin the financial in
terests of the country! Many of the best
inanciers Of the country predicted that the
tariff of 1916 would utterly ruin New Eng
land and Pennsylvania, and yet it scarcely
impeded their steady march to prosperity and
greatness When De Witt Clinton embarked
in the magnificent enterprise of constructing
the Erie Canal, Mr.. Jefferson, one of the
most sagacious, progressive statesmen of his
time, said that the enterprise was a halfcen-
tury in advance of the age! We should not
despair. Since separation is inevitable, let
us strive to direct it and make it legitimate
and peaceful. Nothing should be left untried
that can be honorably done to avoid the ter
rible calamity of a civil war.
The people of the Pacific coast should re-
member that they have duties to perform
corresponding to the blessings they enjoy
Let no wild fantastic scheme of a Pacific Re-
puDllc uccpN lnem from tnc Dcdteil pain Ol
patriotic duty, nor shake their fidelity to the
Constitution and the Union. Here upon the
shores of the Pacific let the stars and stripes
proudly wave in triumph, unsullied by seces
sion and revolution. And above all. let not
this, the State four adoption, raise suicidal
arm to strike down the best Government on
earth, under the pitiful pretence of the tenn
porary, partial success of an obnoxious polit-
ical party. Let not the lovers of civil and
religious liberty throughout the nations of the
earth ever behold the golden star of Califor-
MIA fall from the armament and plunge into
the dark, unfathomable gulph of revolution
and civil war. In the dark and troubled
hour that awaits us. if we are not struck
with judicial blindness we shall cling to the
Constitution as the mariner wrecked upon
the ocean clings to the last plank when storm,
and tempest, and darkness gather about
him."
MR. TRACY, agent for Wells, Fargo & Co.
at this place, has received orders from the