Fremont journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County [Ohio]) 1853-1866, 1861-04-12

from the New fork Tribune.
The last dispatch of our Secessionist friend
at Montgomery leaves no room for hope of
peaceable adjustment of our country's intestine
troubles. The JEFF. Davis Confcderacy has re-
solved to wage offensive war on the Government
of the United States, and win assault open fire
on Fort Pickens forthwith. Meantime, the linn
tied daily supply of fresh provisions hitherto
allowed by Gov. Pickens to be furnished to
Fort Sumpier has been stopped, and we may
hear at any moment that this fort, too, has been
carried by assault or is so pressed that it must
speedily surrender Within a few days, at
farthest, the cannon of the insurgents will be
battering down the deienses and slaughtering
the defenders of the American Union
Let us pause moment and consider.
Slavery makes open war upon that Union
which has so long been its protection and
security.
For thirty years the opponents of Slavery
have borne the imputation-which not one in a
hundred of them has deserved--of seeking their
end through the dissolution of the Union.
In all this time, not squadron has charged,
not platoon has fired on the National flag and
forces under the inspiration of anti-slavery sem
timent Its advocates have been beaten at
elections, hunted out of halls which they had
hired and paid for, mobbed and manned in the
Slave States, and generally prescribed and
stgmatized in the Free without being goaded
into hostilities. Only in Kansas when COM
PEELED to choose between resistance and annihi-
lation have they been moved to repel force
by force.
The Slave Power after enjoying undisturbed
sway for half a century has at length lost an
election. Hereupon it proceeds to treat that
election as a farce and nullity, and to defy
those whom it invested with authority.
1t has, while in power, loudly vaunted its
fidelity and devotedness to the Federal Consti-
tuition. Losing power, it deliberately repudi-
ates that charter, and adopts one radically
different in its stead
The Union, the Union forever" !" has been
the vociferous cry of its servitors. Having lost
an election, they treat that same Union as
hated curse, passing ordinances and raising
armies for its overthrow.
Let the law be enforced 20 it was thundered
whenever the consciences of freemen revolted
at the inhuman atrocities of slave-hunting in
Free States. But the moment the enforcement
of the laws has devolved on Republicans, Sla-
very denounces it as "coercion," and insists that
it is inaugurating civil war
And in fact to very many, North as well as
South, Slavery is above the Union, above the
laws, above the Constitution. Rebellion, in their
view, is opposition to Slavery; while love of
! CrI. ~.
They plead for Peace, meaning that there be
no further resistance to Slavery. "National
Unity, in their vocabulary, means universal
agreement that Slavery is eminently right, and
that it ought to be diffused universally and
maintained forever
And what is to be the attitude of the North
en opponents of the Republican party in the
new era now opening before us?
They have professed to sustain Slavery so far
as the Constitution required and no further
Slavery now repudiates the Constitution, breaks
up the Union, and makes war on the Federal
| Government If Northern Democracy allows
itself to follow Slavery into treason how shall
it conceal, even from itself, the evidence of its
own reereancy
| 10 HOb lIGlclSS NldL tHc ISucIdl
Government has done or refused to do anything
whereby this rebellion is justified. 1t has been
pacific, forbearing, and most anxious to avoid a
collision. 1t has allowed its troops to be dis
armed, its arsenals to be robbed, its forts to be
seized, its money to be stolen and its revenues
to be collected and appropriated by its open en-
emies. Through these high-handed villainies
a whole frontier has been opened to savage in
cursiOn and massacre until even Mexico threat
ems an invasion 1t has seriously lost ground
with its friends by vainly seeking to conciliate
it's implacable foes. AT length the great Slave
holding Rebellion is ready to unmask its batter
les and open fire on the most exposed and isola-
ted of the National defenses. The challenge
of its opening cannonade will soon reverberate
over the country. The Union flag on Fort Sum-
ter is to be shot down by the rebel batteries un-
less speedily lowered by the devoted garrison
The American Republic now enters upon the
gravest perils it has known since the treason o.
Arnold God grant that it pass through then
with undoubting reliance on the omnipotence o.
Justice, and emerge at length however tried and
tested, unwavering in its loyalty to Freedom
and the Rights of Man
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