Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1861-09-25
NORTHERN sEcEss1oN1srs.

The promise was made to Mr.. Yancey, at
the Breckinridge meeting in New York, held
at the Cooper Institute during the last Presi-
dental canvass, that, should Lincoln be elec-
ted, an army of fifty thousand men would rise
| up in the city of New York alone to assist the
South in opposing his Inauguration. Similar
| threats were uttered all over tho Northern
| States. They were not only uttered in polit-
cal gatherings, but embodied in printed reso-
lutions, and sent to the slaveholding States,
and thrown broadcast over the whole Union.
The Southern party of disunon believed in
these promises, threats, and published state
ments they relied on them as indications of in
fallible success in their unholy enterprise !;
for they confidently believed that united
South could readily prevail over a divided
North In overthrowing the free Constitution
of our fathers, and in reconstructing out of
the fragments of the old Union new confed :
eracy which should have slavery, and not free
dom, as its basis
This was the idea that made the disunion
party so impacable and determined at the
Charleston Convention. twas this that caused
them to resist and reject every overture from
the friends of Mr. Douglas. Mr.. Douglas was
willing to give slavery an equal chance in the
government with freedom. According to his
Interpretation the Constitution of the country
was neither to give aid nor to raise any obsta-
Gle to the spread of slavery over all the free
territory of the nation, but the people of every
State and section were to exercise their natural
right of receiving or rejecting the institution,
as they might themselves determine. This
concession was not enough for the pro-slavery
party of the North and South. They main
tanned that the Constitution recognized slaves
as property; that that recognition was as wide
as the jurisdiction of the instrument; and that
the people must acknowledge this recognition
by electng administration having the ma
tionalty of slavery as its basis, or they would
Al
Mon. This was the theory OF the pro-slavery
party, and twas as openly avowed at the North
as ia the most rampant of the cotton States.
Mr.. Buchanan, an old politician, had listened
to such threats frequently, and seen them
so often quieted by the concessions of the
North, that he honestly believed in their eff
cacy at the time of Mr.. Lncon's election. He
believed, think, that the usual amount of
buster would wiring from the Republicans such
submission as had always been made under
similar circumstances by the older parties He
therefore, without any doubt, encouraged the
o-slavery party to repeat and even to aggra-
vate their threats. They took him at his word,
expecting to see an uprising of their pro-sla-
very partisans of the North, and resolving
then to make the most of the impression thus
produced. But they were doomed TO an i'm
mediate disappointment. SomeN Orthern news
papers did echo the noise and menaceS OF the
South, but the people generally returned from
the canvass to their customary occupations.
The newspapers and political leaders then told
the South that their Northern allies would not
rise till the matters between the two sections
were brought TO 4 crisis. ''Just show your
Northern friends that you are in earnest" said
the Neic York. Ne,rs, ssand they will show you
where they stand" The advice repeated
by about a score Of Northern papers, and it
was finally taken at the South Sumter was
cannonaded. The war was opened. But the
party of the South were destined to second
disappointment. The people OF the North
rose, it is true, but it was against, and not for
this bold enterprise of cOeicing the Republi-
can administration to yield to the dictation of
this pro-slavery conspiracy. The masses of
every section of the country were astounded
and Immediately united. There was small
portion of the Northern people, it is true, who
still adhered to the Southern party, though
now in open rebellion against the government
part of our own population OF the N North to
(which the rebels yet look for a final reaction
in their favor and which is doing more than
the armies of Beauregard and M'Culloch to
keep up the hope, spirit, and perseverance OF
our enemies. Let it be once understood that
the North is unit on the question of main
tanning our national integrity that twenty
four millions of people, including the yet 10y
al slaveholding border, are determined that
the remaining six millions shall not subvert
the Constitution for the benefit of the three
hundred and fifty thousand Shareholders, and
the rebellion will as rapidly vanish as it rose.