The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1861-06-17

prosperity. she should ask herself, not once,
but many times, WHY do l go, and WHERE
am I going? In view Of what has been
said, it would be difficult to answer the .
FIRST branch Of the inquiry; but to answer
the second part is patent to all, as are the /
consequences which would follow the move /,
ment. In giving her great material and /
moral resources to the support Of the South /
ern Confederacy, Kentucky might prolong /
the desolating struggle that rebellions
States are making to overthrow q Govern
ment which they have only known IN It's I
blessings /; but the triumph of the Govern
ment would nevertheless be certain IN the /
end. She would abandon Government /
strong and able to protect her, Tor one that
is weak. and that contains IN the very ele-
ments Of its life, the seeds OF distraction and
early dissolution. She would adopt, as the
law Of her existence, the right OF secession
"a right which has no foundation IN Juris
prudence or logic, or in political history
which Madison, the father of the Federal
Constitution, denounced which has
been denounced by most Of the States
and prominent statesmen now insisting
upon its exercise which, in introducing
principIe Of indefinite dsintegratlon, cuts
M ali Confederate Governments by the
roots and gives them over prey to the
caprices and passions, and transient inter
ests Of their members, as autumnal leaves
ry,-----4--4l------.- .l4iAh blow upon them
In 1914, the Richmond Enquirer, then, as
now, the organ Of public opinion in the
South, pronounced secession to be treason
and nothing else and such was the doc
trine of Southern statesmen. hat was
true then, is equally true now. The pre-
valence Of this pernici0us heresy is mainly
the fruit Of that farce called g State rights
which demagogues have been so long play
ing under tragic mask, and which has done
more than all things else to unsettle the
foundations of the republic, by estranglng
the people from the Federal Government,
as one to be distrusted and resisted, instead
of being, what it is, emphatically their own
creation, at all times obedient to their will,
and in its ministraton the grandest reflex
Of the greatness and benefcence of popular
power that has ever ennObled the history Of
our race.
Said Mr. Clay: 81 owe a supreme ale
glance to the General Government, and to
my State a subordinate one" And this
terse language dIsposes Of the whole con
troversy which has arisen out of the Secs
sion movement in regard to the allegiance
Of the citizen AS the power of the State
and Federal Governments are in perfect
harmony with each other, SO there can be
no conflict between the allegiance due to
them each, while acting within the sphere
Of its constitutional authority, is entitled to
be obeyed but when q State, throwing of
all constitutional restraints, seeks to destroy
the General Government, to say that its
citizens are bound to follow it in this career
Of crime, and discard the supreme allegiance
they owe to the Government assailed, is
one of the shallowest and most dangerous
falacies that has ever gained credence
among men.
Kentucky, occupying a central position
in the Union, is now protected from the
scourge of foreign war, however much its
ravages nay waste the towns and cities up
on our coasts or the commerce upon our
seas; but as a member OF the Southern
Confederacy, she would be a frontier State,
and necessarily the victim Of those border
feuds and conflicts which have become pro-
verbal in history alike for their 6erceness
and frequency. The people of the South
now sleep quietly in their beds, while there
is not a home in Infatuated and misguided
Virginia that is not filled with the alarms
and oppressed by the terrors of war.
In the fate Of this ancient Common
wealth, dragged to the altar of sacrifice by
those who should have stood between her
bosom and every foe, Kentucky may read
her own. No wonder, therefore, that she
y
fortunes with those of the South, and to
lay down the bodies Of her chivalric sons
as a breastwork, behind which the South
ern people may be sheltered. Even as at
tached to the Southern Confederacy, she
would be weak for all the purposes of SELF
protection as compared with her present pO-
siton. But amid the mutations incident to
such a helpless and self disintegTating league,
Kentucky would soon find herself adhering
to a mere fragment of the Confederacy, or
it may be standing entirely alone, in the
presence of tiers of free States with popu-
lations exceeding by many millions her
own. Feeble States thus separated by
powerful and warlil1e neighbors by ideal
boundaries, or by rivers as easily traversed
as rivulets, are as insects that feed upon the
lions lip-liable at every moment to be
crushed. The recorded doom of multitudes
Of such has left us a warning too solemn and
impressive to be disregarded.
Kentucky now scarcely feels the contri-
button she makes to support the Govern
ment of the United States, but as a member
Of the Southern Confederacy, Of whose
policy free trade viii b. q cardinal principle,
she viii be burned with direct taxation to
the amount of double, or, it may be triple
o. quadruple that which she now pays into
her own treasury. Superadded to this will
OUTLAWS necessary for the creation Of a navy,
the erection of forts and custom houses
along a frontier of several thousand miles;
and for the maintenance of that large stand-
ing army which will be indispensable at
once for her safety, and for imparting to the
new Government that strong military char
acter, which, it has been openly avowed,
the peculiar institutions Of the South will
inexorably demand.
Kentucky now enjoys for her peculiar in
stitution the protection of the Fugitive
Slave Law, Loyalty enforced by the Govern
ment; and 1t is this law, effective in its
power of recapture, but infinitely more
potent in its moral agency in preventing the
escape Of slaves that alone saves that in
stitution in the Border States from utter
extinction. She cannot carry this law
with her into the new Confederacy. She
will virtually have Canada brought to her
doors in the form of free States, whose
population, relieved ofall moral and consti-
tut;onaI obIivafiOus to deliver I'D fugitive