Pomeroy weekly telegraph. [volume] (Pomeroy, Meigs County, Ohio) 1860-1866, 1861-06-21


with direct taxation to the amount of
double, or it may be, triple or quadruple
what she now pays into her own treas
ury. Superadded to this will be re-
auired Of her share of those vast outlays
necessary for the creation Of navy, the
erection Of forts and custom houses
along frontier of several thousand
miles, and for the maintenance OF that
large standing army, which will be in
dispensabie at once for her safety, and
for imparting to the new government
that strong military character which, it
has been openly avowed. the peculiar
Institutions of the South will ineXorably
demand, -
Kentucky now enjoys.'ffor Her pecn-
liar institution, the protection of the
Fugitive Slave Law, loyalty enforced by
the Government, and it is this law, et'-
fectiye in its power of recapture, but in
fuitely more potent in its moral agency
in preventing the escape of slaves, that
alone saves that institution in the border
States from utter extinction. She eau
not carry this law with her into the new
Confederacy. She will virtually have
Canada brought TO her doors in the form
of powerful Free States, whose popula-
tion, relieved of all moral and constitu-
tional obligation to deliver up fugitive
slaves, will stand with open arms, in
yiting and welcoming them, and defend
ing them, if need be, at the point of the
lbaYonct Under such influences, slavery
viii perish rapidly away in Kentucky,
as ball of snow would melt in sum-
mer's sur.
Kentucky, in her soul, abhors the
African slave trade, and turns away
with unspeakable horror and loathing
from the read affairs Of King Dahomey.
But although this traffic has been tenn
pora,ily intcrdicted by the seeded
States, it is we'll understood that this
step has been taken as mere measure
of policy for the purpose Of impressing
the border States, and of conciliating
the European powers The ultimate
legalization of this trade, by Rupubl;c
protesting to be based upon African
eervitude, must follow IS certainly as
does. the conclusion from the premises
ola mathematical proposition, Is Ken
lucky prepared to see the hand upon the
dial-plate of her civilization rudely
thrust back century, and to stand be-
fore the world the confessed champion
of the African slave hunter? Is she,
with her unsullied fame, ready to be-
come pander to the rapacity OF the
African slave trader, who burdens the
very winds Of the sea with the moans OF
the wretched captiyes whose limbs he
has loaded with chains, and whose hearts
he has broken? / do not, | cannot, be-
lieve it.
For this catalogue Of what Kentucky
must sufferin abandoning her present
honored and secured position, and be-
coming member of the Southern Con
federacy. what will he her indemnity
Nothing, absolutely nothing. The i'll
weayed ambition Of seme of her sons
may possibly reach the Presidency Of
the new Republic; that is all. Alas! FOX
that dream Of the Presidency ola South
crn Republic, which has disturbed SO
many pillows in the South, and, perha ps,
some in the West also, and whose lurid
light, Ikea demons torch, is leading 4
nation to perdition
The clamorthat in insisting upon the
South obeying the laws, the great prin-
ciple that all popular governments rest
upon, the consent Of the governed, is
violated, should not receive moments
consideration. Popular government
does, indeed, rest upon the consent Of
the governed. but it is upon the con
sent, NOT Of al, but Of n5qjority Of Me
governed Criminals are every day pun
ished and made to obey the laws, GER
tainly against their will, and no man
eupposes that the principle referred to
is thereby invaded. a bill passed by a
Legislature, by the majority OF a single
vote only, though the constituents Of all
who voted against it should be in fact,
as they are held to be in theory, op-
posed to its provisions, still it is not the
less operative as law, and no right of
self government is thereby trampled
upon. The clamor alluded to assumes
that the States are separate and inde-
pendent governments, aud that laws en-
acted under the authority Of all may be
resisted and repealed at the pleasure Of
each. The people of the United States
so far as the powers of the General Gov
ernment are concerned, are a unit, and
laws passed by majority Of all are
binding upon all The laws and Con-
stitution, however, which the South now
resists, have been adopted by her sane
tion, and the right she now claims is
that of a feeble majority to repeal what
a majority has sadopted. Nothing could
be more fallacious.
Civil war, under all circumstances, is
a terrible calamity, and yet, from the
selfish ambition and wickedness of men.
the best governments have not been able
to escape it. In regarding that which
has been forced upon the Government
of the United States, Kentucky should
not look so much at the means which
may be necessarily employed in its pros
ecution as at the Vaccinations by which
this national tragedy has been brought
upon US. When / look upon this bright
land, a few months since, SO prosperous,
$50 tranquil, and so free, and now behold
it desolated by war, and the fresides OF
its thirty millions of people darkened,
and their bosoms wrung with anguish,
and know, as I do, that all this is the
work of score or two of men, who, over
all this national ruin and despair, are
preparing to carve with the sword their
way to seats of permanent power, can
not but feel that they are accumulating
upon their souls an amount of guilt
hardly equaled in all the atrocities of
treason and OF homicide that have de-
graded the annals of our race from the
foundations of the world. Kentucky may
rest we'll assured that this conflict, which
is one of self defense, will be pursued on