The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1862-02-01

PSibou, tuo NOTtu ID III STIuS 10 Ell
force mutual dependence and nationa
obligation; the South, for absolute
personal independence, and the security
of perpetual serfdom, by birth OF
cast. to be held by an arbitrary code
of ohivalry and yet these causes have
:neir direct bearing from the back.
ground. Freedom and Slavery are in
bloody conflict on the question. Has
La~, made by the people, the posoer Q,
holding them? The political eoono.
mist sees at a glance that personal lib.
erty, unsupported by civil power, is
worthless, and that such power has its
existence only in the full devotion OF
the people; but while in his field, or
Office, or shop, or counting room, bus
led in the affairs of personal, domestic
and social comfort, he little dreamed OF
the insecurity of home and State, till
the country was convulsed in mortal
agonies. And new, the hardy, unsus-
pesting freemen of the North, who
twelve months before could not have
been persuaded that any occasion could
induce them to fight, when the first sig
nal of disloyal strife broke on their
ears, took but one great glance at the
oountry's unbounded prosperity-ber
institutions of learning, religion and
morals,-her free school for all classes,
her free-worship for each conscience,
her general benevolence and morality,
in all, the best human condition on
Earth, armed himself and rushed to
victory or death. And it is notewor-
thy that never before in the history of
the World, was there, in so short a
time, such voluntary rush to military
service.
But, however just the cause, and
laudable the patriotism of our brave
soldiers on the field Of battle, it is
war; and we may turn to view it on
every possible side and see nothing
that we love; we have the miserable
alternative of war or anarchy and the
people, with hope to future peace,
are unanimous for the war. From it
we must expect to have great amount
of evil and suffering as necessary con-
comitants following in the bloody wake.
The field of battle must ever be con-
templated with feelings of deepest hor-
ror, from which the masses of christ
ianized people would turn with sickness
of life; the bestial alone might be
found to delight in it; and some less
cruel hearted, even, might pause to
witness the frightful play of carnage
with cold, insipid qualification. In
fact, the people generally seem elated
in hearing of great losses of the ene-
my; but when the misery of such hav-
oc strikes us in detail-when we see
vast columns of men, armed with the
most hurtful and deadly weapons that
an ingenious people can devise, closing
in mortal combat, each authorized and
commanded to rival in the bloody work
when fully inspired with rage, we are
appalled, with the inevitable result
-one scene of unmitigated cruelty
of indiscriminate and wholesale mangle
and murder. But it is incorrect to sup.
pose the battle field the greatest calam-
ity of war; it is probably the mostfright.
ful, and to the spectator the most pain.
full; but to the one engaged, the actual
suffering must greatly diminished by
the terrible enthusiasm, and the woun.
ded and dying are much less affected
that their tender, anxioos friends a,
home might presume. Besides, the or
binary vicissitudes of a military cam
paign-campings, watches, wakings
marches, alarms, hunger and thirst, in
heat and cold, have hardening ten
dency on body and mind in fact, the
hardening commences on the very day
of enlistment; the intelligent volunteel
has acquainted himself with the stern
unfeeling features of his duty when he
enrolls his name, and he Immediately
begins ty inure his mind to "the ser
vice." He calculates to puddle while
in the turbid waters of the lower plane
of being to regulate the tide of human
life and this is the great evil, that the
masses will be incapable of extricating
themselves from the slough after the
work is done. And this evil will mo-
be confined to the soldiers; the Who'll,
country partakes largely of the feeling
of animosity, as under lisence SO tt
do, where otherwise they would no
feel permitted and to temper the feel
ings to concur in any evil, has an une
qualed tendency to paralyze and wreck
4