The Alleghanian. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1859-1865, 1861-05-23
'EIae Point An Issue.

tween the SHAREHOLDERS anu INC CulIeu
States, says the New York Independent, is
not perfectly obvious to all There are
many pretexts put forth which do not
furnish the slightest help toward explana-
ton. The real issue is the right Of tie
slaoehozzers to goue1n the United States, be-
cause they can.
1t was at first pretended that there was
a right of secession inherent under the
Constitution. But this was soon aban-
doned, because the Constitution makes it
self and the laws and treaties made pursu-
ant to it to be "the supreme law of the
land"
Then they fell back upon the Declara-
ton of Independence, which recognizes
the right of the people to change their
government; and they argued that, from
the nature of the case, the people them
selves must be their own judges as to the
exercise of that right. But the Declaration
of Independence recognized the right OF
revolution only for just cause-whenever
the existing government "becomes destruc-
tive" of the ends for which alone it has
a right to exist. And the act Of putting
forth the Declaration was an appeal by
our fathers to the judgment of the whole
world, and to 'the Supreme Judge of the
world" as to the justice of their determi-
nation, and the validity of the grounds on
which it was based. The shareholders
know that they cannot stand moment
before either tribunal, on the ground of
the justice of their complaints against the
Government, because no government in
the world has answered its proper end
better than ours, and the shareholders, at
least, have received not the slightest
wrong.
Then they fall back upon their alleged
superiority as race, and their consequent
natural right to rule. But this is so
clearly contradicted by the whole course
of history, that the pretext is plainly a
mere rhetorical flourish. The "felon
fathers" of Virginia, the unbreeohed
Scottish serfs of North Carolina, the ex-
lied mechanics of Gascony, the forlorn
followers of Oglethorpe, which formed
the basis Of that boastful brood, have been
nearly or quite equaled in numbers by
emigrants and their posterity from the
North. 1t would be instructive to examine
the statistics and see how large a part of
the impelling or guiding force in this in
surrection is, by birth or parentage, a rem
egade of the North, or of modern Europe
There is no use in chasing these quib-
bles. 1t is better to look the real issue
in the face. The authors of secession
neither have nor ask any justification to
their own thoughts but this alone-..We
have right to govern, because we can"
Every step they have taken is based upon
this, and to make good this claim is the
explanation of their whole policy They
governed the country through alternate
parties as long as they could. They then
governed awhile through the Democratic
party until that broke under them The
secession and the Confederacy are change
of means only, and not of purpose.
Their whole course proves this. They
never asLcd anything of the United States
Government; they ouly den,aneyed They
first proceeded to seize forts, arms, treas
uries-because they could. When they
had gone their length in this, and found
that Congress did not submit to their
terms, they organized their Confederacv
and then proceeded to more methodical
war. As soon as they thought themselves
able to coerce the Government, they de-
manded to be recognized in their indepen-
dence, and to have the forts of the United
States surrendered to them as of right
,on no pretext but because they were de-
manded All this time they were relying
upon the fidelity of their Wing and Dem
ocratic friends at the North to insist
clamorously that the shareholders should
never be "coerced" 1t was a solecism.
they assumed, that they who had such an
inherent light 10 coerce, should themselves