Indiana State sentinel. (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1861-1865, 1861-05-15
From the New Harmony Advertise
The Approaching Campaign.

William H. Seward has written, under date of
April %. to the Governor of Maryland, All Off
cial letter, in which he Informs that magistrate,
that the force now sought to be brought through
MARYLAND sis intended for nothing but the de-
fense of the capital"
This has been construed by some newspapers
into an intmaton that the policy of the Admin
isiration, in carrying on this WAT, will be purely
defensive. In strictness, however, it amounts to
no than this, that, for the present, the Gov
ernment will restrict itself to the defense OF
Washington The question whether the Govern
ment. at some future time, will or will not invade
the South, is not determined by any such de Ia
ration.
But the declaration itself has called forth from
certain ultra journals, whose editors look rather
to the satisfaction of excited feeling than to the
calm dictates of prudence, considerable animad
version. They declare it to be injudicious, "a
vain attempt to compromise with the rebellion in
MARYLAND" !" and so on. And they urge that moth
ing will satisfy the North but to carry the war
into every seeded State; "to attack the enemy
everywhere and to subdue them by the most Wig
orous means"
No Government, entering upon a war, can be
properly expected to declare aloud, except in
general terms, what its policy will or will not be,
under contingencies that may change every "a
hours. To say that, throughout the present con-
test, the Federal Government will always act on
the defensive, or to proclaim that it will act on
the offensive, would be equally imprudent. Cir
cumstances must TO very considerable extent,
determine it's course. But there things which
may be said, and which ought to be said, in ad-
vance; becaus, 10 circumstances can Influence
an opinion as 20 their propriety or their impro-
priety.
1t may, for example, properly be said, in ad-
vance as by the President it has been said, that
the war shall be conducted with humanity and
with the strctest regard to the safety of tie lives
and the property of non-combatants.
Just properly might it be said. that the rec
ommendat;on by these hot headed journalists to
overrun and subjugate the entire disaffected South
is a course winch, supposing it possible, would
be certain to result in injury redeemed by no cor
responding benefit, and i'll disaster alike to the
assaants and assaed.
A monarchy especially despotic monarchy,
may subdue, BY force of arms, revolted provin-
css. Having subdued them, it may proceed to
maintain its authority there by the sword to
hold them in subsection by troops permanently
stationed among them. But a republic cannot
do this and remain republic. The danger of
such position, supposing it possible that the
! tire slave States could be subdued would lie as
fatal the liberties of the controllers as of the
controlled.
| Let US say nothing of the proverbial dangers to
freedom of standing army; let us pass by that
| imminent peril And let us ask ourselves whether
these re folted provinces thus held, by the quar-
tering of troops among them. to forced alegi
ance, are to have representatives and votes in
Congress or not If they are to be represented
in the Federal Legislature, what sort of votes may
we expect from men degraded to a position
scarcely better than that of their own slaves? II
they are not to be represented if they are to bt
taxed without their consent; if they are to bt
made to obey laws in enacting which they had nc
share; with what mockery of republicanisn
would we be replacing those glorious principles o.
independence for which, eighty four years ago
patriots from North and South pledged alike the
lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor
The endeavOr, by those who are not on the
spot-who can not possibly know all the fact
which the President and the Cabinet have befor,
them-to precipitate the country into a war of in
vasion, is equally to be lamen;ed and to be repre-
hended. Mono but msdmen, (madmen for thu
time being, angry men always are,) woulC
urge line of policy without looking through th'
present and the qualification of its momentar,
feelings of anmosity, to the future and its Ger
tain miseries and calamities.
This is the view of the case, under the suppo
sition, that il we attempt to overrun the whole o
the seeding StateS-one may say the Stare States
for such an invasion of the South will, in al
probability, determine the border States agains
= us-we shall succeed III subduing them. Tn
~ probability u that II Is as impossible Tor US Z
subdue them as for them to subdue us, ,TceJf II
one terrible contingency. The extreme proba
bility is, that the ten millions occupying the sav
States can never be reduced to suhjection uneS
five millions of their number-thc African por
tion-rise in insurrection; re enacting among
them the same demonac scenes of wholesal
murder which once dyed the rich fields of St. Do
mingo with the blood, not of men alone, but o
helpless women and children. He who con
template, without unmittigated horror, the posi-
bility of such a catastrophe is unworthy to lIv
where civilization prevails or Christianity is pro
fessed. None such we hope and believe, are +
; be found amongst US.
What we may expect reasonably to do by wal
> fare is to bring the seeding States into such
: frame Of mind that treat on reasonabl
terms; as the President has reminded us we sha
have to do before war or after it. The unann
ity shown by the North at the present momer
must have its effect. But one decisive battle, a
J least, may be necessary before we can begin {
talk of accommodation.
In the meantime those who, sitting Mt hOmt
: talk lightly of sweeping the entire South froI
\ Charleston to New Orleans. and who seem di'
posed TO twit the Government with their inc
iciency if any thing less than this enters into tn
plan of the present campaign, would do well t
remember that old General Scott knows a goo
deal more about the matter than they do; an
that the first object of every faithful citizen Ougl
be. not to ruin any part of our common countr,
but if practicable, to bring all portions of it I
reason and 10 reunion, at the least possible e.
pense of suffering and of lives. X. ID. o.