Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1861-08-21
THE UNION AND ITS ENEMIES.

SetS Iortn most trutnfully the position OF the |
Breckinridge leaders in the loyal States, who
are trying to control the Democratic party
and comfort the rebels. If it had been written
especially for the Breckenridge leaders in
Clearfield county, it could not have described
them any better:
Gradually, the leaders of the Breckinridge
movement in the free States, in 1860, have
abandoned opposition to the Southern conspi
rators, and are now busily engaged in giving
them aid and comfort. When Andrew john
son of Tennessee, who supported Breckenridge
last year, saw that the latter was willing tool
in the hands of the enemies Of the country,
he manfully confessed the modification of his
disappointment, and planted himself boldly on
the side of the Constitution, resolved to stand
or fall with it. Not so with the Breckenridge
leaders IN this and other States. In proper
ton as the Southern traitors have increased
in their outrages upon the flag in proportion
as they have heaped new insults upon the Gov
ernment in proportion as they have exhibited
their determination to excel in every manner
of barbarity upon our people-these leaders
seem to have renewed their hostility to the
war, and their determination to disgrace the
cause in which the whole civilized world is so
profoundly interested. They forget how the
people of the loyal States sunk all party con-
siderations in the dread hour when Sumter
fell During that memorable crisis the Ameri-
can masses did not think of Mr.. Lincoln as
Republican President. They looked upon
him the embodiment of the national senti-
ment, and demanded that he should at once
proceed, without waiting for Congress to as
| semble, to put the army and the navy on such
a footing as would avenge and wipe out the
jgnominy heaped upon our sacred cause. In
fact, it acas the feeling that grep up ,chen Sum-
ter fell that inspired Inr. LINCOLN TO that rigor-
ous policy Which has called so splendid an army
into the field, and lrhich has only recently been
almost unanimously sustained by The representa-
tires of all parties in the Congress of the United
States.
| We have only to examine few of the pre-
texts of the Disunionists in our midst to ex-
pose their culpabe designs. They denouncc
the President conducting a war of subjuga-
tion upon the South in the face of the unani-
nous declaration to the contrary of all his
friends in both branches of Congress-. They
declare that the irrepressible conflict led to
hoStilities, when history, with her inexorable
pen, has already affixed that stigma upon the
rebels themselves. They labor to bring the
| country into discredit and to embarrass the
operations of the army, on the plea that the
Democrats have no sympathy in that cause;
when they know that many of the soldiers un-
der our flag are Democratic citizens. They
declaim against the suspension of the writ of
habeas corpus, after having justified martial law
in the case of Gen. Jackson at New Orleans.
precedent which Mr.. Lincoln and his Admin
istratiOn have wisely and faithfully followed.
They falsely denounce corruption in the army
contracts, after having sustained corruptions,
| frauds, and peculation under Mr.. Buchanans
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS as have had no parallel
in any Government on the face of the earth.
Is it possible that men so debased, so abandon
ed and so reasonable, can be sustained by any
portion of the American people?
In the State of Maine so infamous has the
language OF the Breckinrdge organs become
that the populace have gutted the printing
office of one OF their leading papers-following
the example set by the returned soldiers who
visited the same vengeance upon a similar
journal at Concord, New Hampshire. In New
York, the Brooklyn Eagle, the Day Book, the
Ne,cs, and the Albany Argus & Alias unblush-
ingy insist that peace shall be made with the
men who are destroying our commerce, and
are arresting and matreatng unoffending
Northern men and women. At the late
meeting of the Breckinridge men in Berks
county, in this State, the vote of their Repre-
sentative, Ancona, for Vallandigham for Speak
er of the House of Representatives OF the
United States, was unanimously endorsed, ,and
we perceive that industrious preparations are
being made to drive the organization of the
Democratic party in this State upon the plat
form of peace with the rebels, or recognition
of the Southern Confederacy.
In 10 single instance has any newspaper that
supported Stephen A. Douglas for the Presi-
dency in 1860, been found in cooperation with
these internal traitors, and we think it may be
the voters who sustained Breckinridge in the
free States last year, will, when the fitting
opportunity comes, be found ardently on the
side of the Government. The Breckenridge
leaders alone aspire to the disgrace Of compli-
!, city with treason.
, True Democrats, in such an exigency, can
take but one course. To use the language of
Douglas, in his last speech at Chicago: ssThe
conspiracy to break up the Union is a fact now
known to all. Armies are being raised and
war levied to accomplish it. There can be but
! two sides to the controversy. Euery man mast
be on the side of the United States or against it,