Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1861-01-30

lent passions. As they planted, so they reap
ed. Now that victory had been won by the Re
publican party, ard Government must be ad-
| minlstered upon a national policy, the assures
| in the ground occupied by them became
apparant, and hence there would necessarily
| be large detection in its ranks among the
more ultra of its adherents, who were as a
! general thing, ideal, speculative and not prac-
tical men. Out of actual power a party was
apt to be radical. Vest it with power, and it
became conservative. This was the ordeal
! through which the Republican, like all other
parties, was now passing, and he hoped for
the peace of the country, and the triumph of
practical rather than ideal policy and meas
ures. Herein consisted the almost insupera-
BILE difficulties of coming to any feasible ad-
Justment upon the existing dscOntents. The
bulk of politicians, North and South, were
| bound by past record and past professions.
They were, in fact, thinking all the while
sswhat Mrs. Grundy would say.'' The people
themselves understood the cause of the diff
Guilty, and if they but once iDterfered, the
country would bu saved. What the diff
| Guilty now? He appealed whether it was not
that in the hands of ultras North and South
thesslaveholder had been used as shuttledore,
who, for purposes utterly dissimilar, had been
banded from South Carolina to Massachusetts,,
and from Massachusetts back again to South
Carolina, until now the last point OF endu-
ranc had been reached. Every violent word
uttered North had been sent South, and the
South had responded in the same spirit.
After describing the exultation OF the ultra
Abolitionists over dissolution of the Union.
Mr.. Clemens gave statistics of population and
Slavery in the Border States and the Gulf
States, fol the purpose of showing, as he said,
that there was an irreversible law of popula-
tion governing the question, and that the
South wanted population and capital rather
than territory. If secession were allowed to
ha nar in6 hax 1chn hon, Snnf h
ern Confederacy from which every man would
turn back affrighted and pale, because it
would be on the bloody haud that his rights
of property would have to depend. Slavery
cannot expand rapidly, either within the u
nion or without the Union, so long as slaves
remained at their present high prices. The
only mode by which Slavery could ever ex-
pand was to reduce the price, and have new
source of supply. That was in fact, the real
design of the coast States. Mr.. Clemens, in
proof of this, referred to all the Southern
Conventions of late years, and cited the admis
sions OF Messrs. Miles, Bonham, McRay, and
Crawford, in the House to show that the OBJ
iect was the reopening of the slaye-trade.
Suppose, said he, that they do not get, out of
the Union, this equality which they now claim
That is little problem in the rule of three
which will be ciphered out if these events are
much longer pending. The border Slave
States might well be prepared first as last
was Slavery to expand If the South left the
Union she would never get much of the
pesent territory as he could grasp in his hand.
war of thirty years would never get it back,
nor could there ever be extorted from the
North treaty giving the same guarantees to
Slavery that it now had. Where was Slavery
10 expand Not the Central America, for
England exercised sovereignty over half of
her domain. n NOt TO Mexico, for England had |
caused the abolition of Slavery there also. |
Their retiring confederates ought not to for |
get the event of 1884, when George Thomp- |
son, the English Abolitionist, was sent to en-
Tighten the dead conscience of the American |
people. In this connection he cited letter
from Thompson to Murrell of Tennessee, in |
which was this sentence: s'The dissolution |
of the Union is the object to be kept steadily |
in view." In the event of a Southern Con- |
federacy there will be, beside the African |
slave trade, other elements of discord and ag- |
itation. Slavery was the great ruling interest |
of the extreme States, while the other States
had other interests which could not be light |
ly abandoned. 1t would be for lhe interest of |
the Coast States to have free trade in manu-
factured goods; but how would that operate |
on the mechanical and manufacturing indus
try of Missouri, Kentucky Virginia, Mary |
land, and Delaware2 There would be, there
quite great as there ever has been in this. /
But if manufactures were to be protected and /
encouraged in the border Slave States, their /
white population would increase SO fast that |
they would be but nominally Slave States,
and would finally become Free States. He |
appealed to the North to guarantee by con-
stitufional enactments the principle secured |
by the decision of the Supreme Court in the
Dred Scott case. Let us feel, he said, that we
have a country to save instead of geograph-
ical section to represent. Let us act as men
and not as partisans, and the old Constitution,
now in the very trough of the sea, with bat
tered masts and sails, will weather the storm.
Mr.. LUCAS (Dem., Ill.) made some retort to
this, and there were appearances of some ang-
ry feeling, which, however, did not eventuate
in anything serious.
Mr.. MARTIN (Dem., Va.) during Mr.. Clemens
excitedly expressed the hope that
the member would not be allowed to continue
his traitorous remarks.
Calls for s.Order" were loudly made, and
there was much confusion, but it soon subsidized.
->>~~------
GEORGIA CoMMERCE.-The Savannah Repub-
lican. OF the 10th, says: Savannah is present
ing a busy appearance at this particular time,
at least so far as the carrying trade is con-
cerned, having to do the work of both Charles
ton and herself. The arrivals of vessels ex-
ceed those of almost any former period, and we
are informed that 26 were cleared at the Gus
tom House yesterday. The business OF the Gen.
trail Railroad is also pressing upon the Com
pany, and taxing every wheel that can be put
in motion. The present high price of cotton,
and the uncertainties of the future have induced
planters and merchants to throw every bale
into market, and convert it into cash forthwith.
A well-informed correspondent of the Louis
vile Journal writes from Frankfort, Kentucky,
giving warning that there are in existence
through the State a large number of secret So
cieties. whose ayowed object it is to precipitate
the State into secession. Mr.. Breckinridge,