Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes County, Ohio) 1856-1865, 1861-02-14

much good sense, perhaps magnanlmlty,
TO act over again Webster's sullen part
when Taylor stole his rights.
Still Mr.. Seward, thought philosphic,
though keen to analyze and unfold the
theory of our politics, is not cunning in
plans. He is only the hand and tongue;
his brain lives in private life on the Hud-
son river side. Acting under the guidance,
he thought Mr.. Lincoln not likely to go
beyond, even if he were able to keep, the
whole Chicago plantform. Accordingly
he said, l will give free rein to my natural
feelings and real convictions, till these
Aboiitionists of the Republican ranks shall
cry-"Oh; what mistake We ought to
have nominated Seward; another time we
will not be baked" Hence the hot elo-
quence and fearless tone of those prairie
speeches. He returns to Washington, finds
MIR. Lincoln sturdily insisting that his bond
is pledged to keep in office every promise
made in the platform. Then Mr.. Seward
shifts his course, saying, "Since my aboli-
tionism cannot take the wind from my
rivals sails, I'll get credit as a conserva-
tive. Accepting the premiership, l will
foreslall public opinion and DO all possible
to bind ;he coming administration to a
policy which | originate" He offers to
postpone the whole Chicago platform in
order to save the Union-though last Oc-
tober, at Chicago, he told US postponement
never settles anything-wbether it is a
lawsuit or national question, better be beat
and try again, than postpone.
This speech of Mr.. Seward I regard as
declaration of war against the avowed
policy of the incoming President. #
Lincoln were Andrea0 Jackson, as has
friends aver, he Would dismiss Mr.. .SeW-
ard from has Cabinet. The incoming
administration # honest and firm, has two
enemies to fight, Mr.. Seward and the South.
His power is large. Already he has
swept our Adams into the vortex-making
him offer to sacrifice the whole Republican
platform-though Us events have turned, he
has sacrificed only his personal honor. Fif
teen years ago John Quincy Adams prophe-
sled that the Union would not last twen-
years. He little thought that disunion
when ii came, would swaAow his sons
honor in its guy:
When this Union goes to pieces, it is a
shock to the hopes of the struggling mill
ions of Europe. All lies bear bitter fruit.
To-day is the inevitable fruit of our faith
er's faithless compromise in 1887. For
the sake of the future, in freedoms name,
let thinking Europe understand clearly why
we may sever. They saw Mr.. Seward
paint, at Chicago, our utter decentralization
church and state, government and people,
all classes, educated and uneducated-
brought by the slave power, he said, to
to think slavery blessing, and TO do any
thing to save it. So utter did be consider
this decentralization, that he despaired of
Native Americans, and trusted to the
hunted patriots and the refuse of Europe,
which the emigrant trains bore by his house.
for the salvation of the valley Of the Miss
issippi. To-day they see that very man
kneeling to that slave power, and begging
her to take all, but only consent to grant
him such Union-Union with such a
Power! How, then, shall Kossuth answer,
when Austria laughs him to scorn? Shall
Europe see the STAKEHOLDER kick the reluc-
tant and kneeing North out of such a Un-
ion? How then shall Garribaldi look in
the place of Napoleon?
Why do set so little value on the Un-
ion? Because l consider it failure; GER
tainly, so far as slavery is concerned, it is a
failure.
Under it public morals have been so lower
ed that while, at its outset, nine men out of
ten were proud to be called abolitionistsnow
it is not only an insult, but pecuniary inju-
ry to be charged with being so. Ever since it
existed its friends have confessed that to
save it it was unnecessary and proper to
crush free speech. Witness John Adams
sedition laws. Witness mobs of we'll
dressed merchants in every Northern city
now. Witness one-half of the Republi-
can party lamentng free speech, this hour
throughout the North. =
A Union whose despotism is so cruel
and searching that one-half of our lawyers
and one-half of our merchants stifle con-
science for bread-in the name of Martin
Luther and John Milton, of A Igernon sgd
uey and Henry Vane, of John Jay and
Samuel Adams, declare such Union a
failure.
1t is for the chance of saving such a Un-
ion that Mr.. Seward and Mr.. Adams
break in Washington all the promises of
the canvass, and countenance measures
which stifie the conscience and confuse the
moral sense of the North. 4 X
Mr.. Stewards picture of the desolatioh
and military weakness of the divided States
if intended for the North, as the emptiest
lie in his speech. l said Ie-I meant it.
| will tell you why. Because one William
H. Seward said, last fall at Lansing-"We
are maintaining standing army at the
heavy cost of one thousand dollars per
man, and standing navy-for what?
To protect Michigan or Massachusetts,,
New York OF Ohio? No; there is not a
nation on the face of the earth which
would dare attack these free States, or any
of them, if they are even disunited. We
are doing it in order that slaves may not
escape from slave States into the free, and
to secure thosa States from domestic in
surrection; and because, if we provoke a
foreign foe, slavery cries out in its danger"
Surely, the speaker of those words has no
right to deny that our expenses and danger
will be less, and our power to meet both
greater, when the slave States are gone.