Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1861-06-22
From the ". Y. Indspenasni.
The Nation in Arms,
BT HORACE GRESt1T.


Half Million Of our countrymen are
now armed or arming for deadly encounter
in fierce civil strife No foreign power
threatens, no devastating host nvades our
extended frontiers. Canada on the one
side is stirred by q generous sympathy for
the seeming peril of our uuion, while Mexi-
co on the other pauses in her rarely inter-
mitted intestine warfare TO observe and
marvel at our gigantic imitation Of her
bad example. The tones Of compassionate
superiority and self.sufficiency in which we
have for forty years descanted on the
chronic incapaci!y Of our Spanish -Ameri-
can contemporaries for self government are
hushed by sudden access Of humility or
drowned iu the hoarse roar Of cannon
Flashing as it leaps from wire to wire, crawl
ing more slowly up the secluded valleys anG
over the yet unpeopled prairies, the iiding,
have at length settled into all hearts that
we are at war, and that the contest involves
the life of the nation For The Union dis
Comfted is the Union dissolved--it now
seems, beyond the possibility Of reconstruc.
ton. Had the slave states been permitted
and willing to leave Us without violence,
without resistance, it is not improbable that
the two nations might, at some remote era
and under u radical change Of conditions,
have been once more welded iuto tolera.
BILE compact whole; but, if separated by the
shock of battle, it is scarcely supposable
that they can ever cohere again
"For never can true reconeilement grow,
Where wounds Of deadly hate have pierced so
deep"
Switzerland, torn from Austria's side by q
popular uprising against tyranny, culmina
ting in successful war, remains Switzerland
evermore-at all events, never Austrian
though the deserted and crnmbling cradle
of the Hapsburgs still testi6es that they
are of Swiss origin; and the Spanish A mer-
lean republics, having once triumphantly
expelled their old Castilian master, may
pass through q thousand revolutions with
out becoming Spanish colonies again. 'Revo-
lutions move not backward : aud We may
nationally hope to experience in the future
almost aught beside sooner than that which
has been.
Aha your magnificent experiment Of
self government has failed ? exultingly
shouts the Old-W orld aristocrat or king
ling we knew it would be Republics
are very well in theory, but they don't do
iu practice. They are paper boats that
sail brayely in summer breeZes on smooth
lakes, but which the first rough weather
capsizes and wrecks. Didn't we always
tell you that your Constitution and Union
couldn't stand strain, but would give way
at the first serious trial ?
Certainly, gentlemen! yon have told us
this often aud often we remember it quite
well ! Now we are TO see whether you
were true or false prophets ! Please not
to assume that the Union is destroyed be-
cause 1t is assailed--that it is condemned
because it is on trial Even you will admit
that the test is q severe one--a government
under which to plot aud inaugurate the
rebellion partly trailorous and pal tly im
beetle one hundred thousand ofice-holderl
in place of whom large majority more o
less openly, actively sympathiEed with tn
couspirators the governments OF lively
or thirteen states wholly in their hands
an inexperienced Administration installed
in the midst of these troubles which receiv
ed The votes of but two ffLhs Of the peo
Pile, while ninety ty-nine-hnndredth OF th'
Army and Navy Intensely deprecated ~
triumph aud a great pecnniary interest
valued al Three Thousand Millions Of Dol
lars, stung to extreme IseDsiIiVeness by ah'
moral .reprobation Of mankind and regard
ing the accession to power OF our new rn
lers as a defiance of It's pretensions and
menace of its overthrcw-you surely vii
admit that, if selfgoverDment was eve
nlaced on trial under circumstances emphati
eally favorable to its adVersaries, IL is 81
here aud now. ... ..... ID. ...f
i And be il ever considered that il on
seIf-goVernment were consistent and perfect
it would not now be subject to trial at al
Ii is the dead ay in our ointment, the skelG
ton 10 our closet, the aagrant cOntradictio
presented by one Of our institutions 70 OF
fundamental principle, that causes all Il
trouble. Had ours been pure republi
though Of the EXTREMIST democratic pa
tern, we should have had 40 great rsbellio
l Shsy's explosion in Wostern MAssachusett
I the Whisky outbreak in Western Pesnsy
vanls, the protesting suhmissioe oi Ne
J EDgland to the JeferSonlan Emoare