The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1861-08-21

B9~It is puerile and sickening to read
and hear the assertions Of the Breckin-
ridge press and people, says the Harris
burg Telegraph, that the administration
of Abraham Lincoln suffered the time
for compromise and settlement in this re-
bellion to pass by unimproved, just as if
the legal representatives of law and order
should stoop to discussion of the policy
of obedience with those who are AFRO
gantly engaged in armed rebellion. When
Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated, he
took possession Of the government and
its p roperty by virtue of the oath impos-
ed upon him by the Constitution. lie
found one portion of the people in open
rebellion to the laws he was sworn to
maintain and enforce. While he had
scarcely been in power two months, when
the leaders of this same rebellion violent
ly seized the public property, impiously
assailed the flag of the nation by as i'm
piously assaulsing the civil and N ilitary
representatives of our nationality. Was
it just and right the Chief Magistrate of
powerful people should cringingly be-
seech the leaders of mad insurrection
to propose terms of peace? Would it
comport with the dignity and grandeur
of the Presidential officers to seek inter-
views with traitors, implore them to de-
sist from their attacks on the legitimate
power Of the government, and retrace
their steps to the loyalty they had desert
ed, by laying down their arms, returning
to their homes, and once more becoming
patient and obedient people to wise rulers
and just laws? This course might have
been justified toward an excited and i'm
pulsive mob-but to band of consider
ate traitors, who had been celebrating
and organizing for years, and who were
armed and sworn to labor for the COM
plete success of their treason, such a
course would have been foolish and sui
cidal. 1t would have damned Abraham
Lincoln to the latest moment in the his
tory Of this government. 1t would have
degraded the people of the great free
states-and made mockery of the power
the heroes Of the revolution died to Gre
ate, and jest of the authority for which
we have been demanding and enforcing
the respect and the confidence of the ma
tions of the world The idea of offering
any terms but complete obedience to trai-
tors, is simply ridiculous. Those who
conceive and proclaim such notions do so
from motives Of real sympathy for treason.
Between the traitors and the Govern
ment there can be no more diplomatic
intercourse or interviews. There can be
no terms offered or accepted, but complete
and implicit obedience to the lawful au-
thority of the government. If theTebels
refuse, they must be forced and subju-
gated to obedience. If the federal power
is unequal to this task-if there is no
force in the arms and intelligence of the
| free masses now in the field-then the
government must perish, and with it must
sink the hopes of mankind, and the eter-
nal prestage of civil and religious liberty
in this world. To compromise would
not alter this result, while it would add
to our humiliation and disgrace. To
submit to the dictation of traitors, would
be to bow to the destruction of the fairest
principles in free institutions, and yield
up every inalienabl right of life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness.