The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1861-01-10

citizens are sold into hopeless slavery.
/ will wait until they cease to murder
and maltreat innocent citizens from the
North, without even the forms of
trial until the freedom of speech and
of the press, guaranteed to us by the
Constitution of the country, is restored
in the Southern half of the Union, and
until the reign of terror and mob vio-
lence Is over.
When the madness which rules the hour is past,
aud treason has been rebuked and crushed when
the Southern States, now threatening rebellion
shall have returned to their loyalty to the national
constitution and government, and to obedience to
the laws, then no doubt the State will be willing
to do towards them, not only all that is Just, but
said by eminent men in the free States, that we
must repeal these laws not because the South
threatens u.s. nor becatise we wish to appease their
wrath, but because the laws themselves are wrong
Yet it must be admitted, that even if we were to
confess the wrong, which, on the contrary we deny
our Observation-Disclosures would seem to have been
quckened at very peculiar season. Whatever
we may claim about it, if the Personal Liberty
laws are now repealed; the judgment of the country
will be that it is done under the smarting of the
Southern lash, and that judgment will be correct
Instead of such course tending to restore peace
in the country, its effect will be exactly the con-
trary. 1t is not concession that is needed now; it
is patriotic firmness and decision. All the present
evils either arise from, or are greatly aggravated
by the weak and compromising policy of timid
men, in the past. Treason has been abetted and
encouraged by humiliating expedients until the
mal-contents of the present, feel secure in the
temporising precedents of the past. Let us have
an end of compromises, and appeal only for con-
stitutiona rights. Besides it is not claimed or
even pretended that the Personal Liberty laws
have in fact had the effect to prevent the execution
! of the Fugitive Slave law in a single instance.
They have stood as mere protest on the statute
book And whenever an appeal has been made to
the courts to enforce that law has been uniformly
done in good faith, though some of its provisions
are extremely distasteful to the people. 81
! 1t is not at the personal liberty laws that the
secessonists aim. They openly scout at the notion
that their repeal will satisfy them. Their war is
upon the Constitution of the United States. That
instrument does not answer their purposes, and
| they demand its amendment or its overthrow. Its
great doctrine OF government by majorities stands
in the way of the establishment of the great slave
| Empire which they have set themselves to erect,
with the infamous African slave trade for one OF
| its pillars, and one way another it must be
destroyed. Governor Pettus, of Mississippi, in
his late message to the Legislature of that State
sums up his reasons for secession with this preg-
nant question: "Can the lives, liberty and pros
perity of the people of Mississippi be safely en-
trusted to the keeping of that sectional majority
| which must hereafter administer the Fedral Gov
1
one. Shall the Government continue as our fathers
made it? Shall it be administered by maorities
or shall new one be constructed to be ruled by
minorities. The people have, in a constitutional
and legal manner, chosen eminent citizen of the
State of Illinois, President of the United States
and the South demand that we shall repent for it.
| That act has been accomplished by a wilful
majority, and it is demanded that we give up the
great principle of free government-the rule OF
the majority. We do neither the nor the
other. We are satisfied with the Constitution OF
our country and will obey the laws enacted under
it, and we must demand that the people of all the
other States do the same. Safety lies in this path
alone The Union must be preserved and the
laws must be enforced in all parts of it at whatever
cost The President is bound to this by his oath,
and no power can discharge him from it. Secession
Is revolution, and revolution, in the over act, is
| treason, and must be treated as SUCH The Federal
Government has the power to defend itself and do
not doubt that that power will be exercised to the
utmost. 1t is question of war that the seceeding
States have to look in the face. They who think
that this powerful government can be disrupted
peacefully, have read history to no purpose. The
sons of the men who carried in the seven
years war with the most powerful nation in the
world, to establish this government will not hest
tate to make equal sacrifices to maintain it. Most
deeply must we deplore the unnatural contest.
On the heads of the traitors who provoke it,
must rest the responsibility. In such contest
the God of battles has no attribute that can take
sides with the revolutionists of the Slave States
! recommend you at an early day to make mani
fest to the gentlemen who represent this State in
the two Houses of Congress, and to the country,
that Michigan is loyal to the Union, the Constitu-
ton aud the Laws, and will defend them to the
uttermost; and to profer to the President of the
United States the whole military power of the
State for that purpose. Oh, for the firm, steady
hand of Washington, Jackson, to guide the
Ship of State in this perilous storm. Let us hope
that we shall find him on the 4th of March
Meantime, let US abide in the faith of our fathers
=" Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now
and forever if1
.....- .r. ~ f.-.-r AUSTIN BLAIR.
Executive Office, Lansing, JAM q 1861