Holmes County farmer. [volume] (Millersburg, Ohio) 1857-1926, 1862-09-18
And overcome us like summer cloud.
Without our snecinl Wnnhnr2J

UHOOSTUctCu tuUS.
----- ----"Can such thipps be-
;it,, "a overcome com us IKE summer cloud,
If crime or disloyal practices have been
committed by Democrats or Others. lei
them be punished ;Jm punish according Il
tie Constitution and Lars. The Demo.
cratic party as loyal and law abiding cit.
liens. demand this, and nothing more,
and they will not willingly submit to an
thing less. This thing is done an / only
can be done through violated Consti-
tuition, and by tho arbitrary assumption
of power unknown to the executive branch
Of the Government. These times, gen.
tlcmcn, are testing our political institu.
tions. Our greatest statesmen of other
days--the ablest commentators of tho
Constitution--and the great mass of the
people themselves--have labored under a
most signal misapprehension in regard to
to the working, if not the natural ten
dency, of our political institutions in
periods OF great pressure and excitement.
30 Tar from the executive office being
too weak and inefficient, as against the
checks and restraints of the coordinate
branches of the Government, as has
been supposed by some of the greatest
men who have both framed and admins
tered 1t, modern times and recent in
stances of It's exercise, have proved it to
be one OF the strongest departments fpo-
lltlral power known to any Government
OF limited powers on the face of the earth.
with whatever restraints and limita-
tons the exercise of delegated power has
been cur6cd-however exactly and har-
moniously may have been adjusted the
complex machinery OF the Government
with interest weighed against interest,
and a system Of checks and balances
provid against every supposed possible
abuse Of rower-there still exists beneath
all this splendid apparatus of laws and
regulations, as incident to all human in.
Stltutions, tile gigantic energy Of Me pas
sion, which, when arouse into phrenzy,
brush away like cob-webs the most sa-
gacions contrivances to hold its vibratory
point true to the magnet of the common
veal.
What is it that has brought about the
terrible crisis which is now upon the
American people, crushing out their
national prosperity, loading them down
with burden of taxation unheard of in
modern times, and deluging their fairest
fields with fraternal blood 1t is the in
sane fanaticism Of an abolition pulpit on
the one side, and the internal treason of
the political clubhouse on the other.-
These two instruments have worked to-
gether for more than thirty years in bring
ing about the great calamity which is
now shaking the continent as with the
mighty throcs of an earthquake. 1t is
remarkable fact, that, John Quincy Ad-
ans and Jno. Caldwell Calhoun, the two
representative men of these excited fac
tionS, thirty-one years ago, first suggest
ed those twin ideas of political heresy,
abolition of siavery by Congress, and the
secession Of States from The Contederated
Government By Legislative ordinance. 1t
was in 1881. that Jno. Quincy Adams
first introduced into the Congress of the
United States, petitions from the clergy
of New England. and other religious en-
praying for the abolition of sla
very in the District of Columbia; and it
was during the next succeeding year that
the State of South Carolina, through tie
influence Of John G.. Calhoun, passed her
ordinance of notification. From that
day to the present, these two factions
have worked in harmony together, for the
same common object-the dissolution of
the Union and the destruction of Ameri-
can nationality. This collision between
fanaticism and treason at last became
painfully manifest to the American peo-
pie. They both convergcd to the same
centre : a rupture of the polite
al relations which had become alike irk-
some to both. The one exhibited its ultra.
ism in the nomination of Biographies
and the adoption OF a section
al platform against the explicit and sol
emn warning of the Father Of his coun-
try the other blew the counter blast Of
treason, and boldly proclaimed the doc
trine of secession as the rightiul remedy
for such abuse Of political power. In
this state of feeling, and in such a contro-
versy, Abraham Lincoln became Presi-
lent of the United States. In such cri
sis with such field for the exercise of
broad minded patriotism, and with such
an opportunity for great, and good, and
wise cOunscls, to sustain the Union SEN
Iiment in the South, and save the border
slave States, what destiny for hmsel
and for his country, before that single !
man The world never witnessed such
onjunction of time and opportunity for
good. Such a pivot-point of great ma
tioTal interest, of terrific public dangers
and of resulting influences upon the des-
tines of the remote future, for millions of
unborn human beings, never before exist
ed. But he was unequal to the great oc-
cason he misunderstood, or disregarded
the high, the awful trust committed to
his charge. Instead Of disarming the re-
bellion by discharging his duty to the
1ohoie country and the whole people, he adj
ded to its strength, while he crushed out
the remaining Union sentiment in the
South, by calling around him, as his Con-
stitutional advisers, men Of the most VIC
lent sectional views, and who were the
prime movers of that fatal controversy
which at last arrrayed the sections in un'
lying hostility to each other. That fatal
ittleness of mind, that narrow and mere
partizan survey of the troubled polit- !
cal field before him, and the subsequent
adoption of policy so clearly condemned