Columbia Democrat and Bloomsburg general advertiser. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1850-1866, 1861-01-19
The National Crisis.

reflections of every American citizen, who
is not as yet thoroughly blinded by fanat-
icism, to the growing perils and calamities
which, from the North as we'll as from the
South, threaten to overwhelm the Union
and the prosperity of the States in one
common ruin.
If we had entertained any doubts as to
the ultimate unanimity of the Southern
States in the present secession movement,
this message of the Governor of one of the
most conservative States of the South would
dispel those doubts and force upon us the
conviction that, before the 4th of March
next, the fifteen Southern States will have
declared themselves out of the Union.
Governor Harris, after having grouped
in his message the numerous encroachments
and aggressions of the North upon the
South, and suggested the constitutional
amendments which, if adopted by the
North, might restore peace and harmony
to the Federal Union, solemnly protests
he truly says, could not uphold ga const'-
"tuional Union, being Onion of consent,
sand not eftorce, OF peace and mol Of 6iOoa
"composed Of soueregnttes free and 2'oiit-
"icaAy equal; but if successfully carried
Hout, could but enforce q Union, not of
"tguals, but of the uictorS and the van-
I"quished pinned together By the bayonet
sand congealed tn bloolm
We fear that the day of compromise is
passed; the delusive speech of Mr. Seward;
the dogged determination of the Republi-
can party to make no just or adequate
concessions to the South will unite the
South as one man in the determination to
protect their rights out of the Union, and
the only question which in but few weeks
shall have to be decided, will be, not if
the little State of South Carolina shall be
whipped into the Union, but if eighteen
Northern States shall, under the lead of
minority party, attempt to coerce, at the
point of the bayonet, fifteen Southern
States, who refuse any further allegiance
to violated compact, under which they
can henceforth expect nothing but aggres-
cion instead of protection.
The question must soon be decided wheth.
er the Republican party--sectional in its
views and habitation formed without re-
gard to the last paternal warning of the
Father of his Country; acting in violation
of the spirit and letter of the Federal
Constitution; lcagucd with the fanatics
who denounced the Constitution as "com
pact with hell' and the Union as a curse
whether the Republican party, itself
tainted with abolitionism, will have the
brazen effrontcry sacreligiously to invoke
"the Union" while they, under the stars
and stripes, declare war of cxtermina-
ton against one half of the Union wheth-
er under the false cry of "the Constitu-
tioD," they will renew, on large scale,
the invasion Of John Brown, and by their
proclamations stimulate the southern slaves
to insurrecton, rapine and bloodshed, and
thus realize the bloody schemes of the
ultra abolitionists I! If such be the unholy
purposes of the Republican party, let them
seriously calculate the cost of such step
before they have lighted the flames of civil
war. Let them reflect that the National
Treasury is bankrupt; that the revenue
from Custom House duties will dwindlc
down to paltry sum- that armies sufi-
cient to conquer the South would cost hun
s--a---e nut ---,,;-,,- ~~-,a no s,,prl:,-
! only by direct taxation at time when th
people would be least able or willing t.
meet the exigencies of the treasury le
them remember that free trade among thu
States has heretofore been the life blood
of our national prosperity, and that state
of war with the South would interrupt fire.,
intercourse and produce in the North
general stagnation of busincs, followed b,
bankruptcy and piuching distress; lie
them beware that in blockading Southern
ports they may soon involve themselves il
a war with some of the principal powers o
| Europe.
Rather than adopt so cruel and suicida
a policy as coercion and all the calamtie
of war, let them, if the South secede il
mass, acknowledge this great movemen
of ten millions of their fellow citizens as
revolution already successfully accomplish
, ed. Let them hold out the olive branch
and treat with our Southern neighbor.
either for a happy reunion OR for
peaceful separation, securing to both sec
tions the mutual advantages of commerce
trade and free intercourse. But if tn
5 Republican party, deaf to the voice G
patriotism and humanity, resolve upo
coercion and violence, and attempt to dc
luge the country with fraternal blood
thew will find in tba south n ITNTTLI