Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1862-08-07
HOW is TIP


Village sets forth that the present rebellion
might have been avoided If the Republican
Members Of Congress had accepted, in the
winter Of 1860, the so called Cntteuden |
Compromise as the basis of adjustment Of
the differences between the North and South,
We deplore the passage Of such a resolution
by any body of Northern men, because it
falsifes history and casts the responsibility of
the present gigantic civil war upon shoulders
entirely innocent Of the great crime, While |
foreign nations are in open sympathy with |
the South, and are reproaching the North as
the authors of this wicked war, and while
traitors in arms declare to the world that
they have been driven into rebellion by the
intolerance of free State fanaticism, we can
not divine how it is that men are found in the
loyal North to join in this hue and cry of
traitors and their foreign sympathzers.
We desire to call the attention of those
who attended the County Democratic Con-
vention, Composed mainly of the former
supporters of Douglas,) to plain statement
of facts.
/. The Crittenden Compromise so called,
as proposed by him in the winter Of 1860,
conceded to the South and to slavery every
thing, and euen more, than was claimed, by
| the Breckenridge Democracy in the last Pres
idential campaign; for whereas, the Breckin-
ridge Democrats only insisted that slavery
should be guaranteed as constitutional right
in the territories at present belonging to the
Union, while the Crittenden adjustment pro-
vided that slavery should be permitted in all
territories hereafter to be. acquired. The
| Crittenden adjustment repudiated Popular
Sovereignty, and was founded squarely upon
the dogma of the bred Scott decision. If,
therefore it was the duty of Republicans to
accept this " compromise as the basis Of
peace, it was surely the duty of Douglas
Democrats to have yielded to the Southern
dictators in the Charleston Convention. And
yet these same men who in late Democratic
Convention held in this village, reproach the
Republicans for not having accepted the
Breckenridge platform as the basis Of the tu-
ture policy Of this government, are the very
men who utterly refused to stand upon tina,
platform in 1860 What reproach Repub
licans for not doing what they ,could not, an,
der any consideration, do themselves. They
chose to rend the Democratic party in twain
rather than submit their necks to such hui
initiating yoke and yet they coolly tell us
that the Republicans might have arrested
the war if they had meekly accepted the
Brekinridge platform, intensified by addition.
al pro-slavery provisions If the South had
the right to demand such concession from
the North why did the Douglas Democracy
refuse to 90 with her? And why shoult
Douglas Democrats reprove us as recrean
in the very particular thai they themselve
were
2. But this is not all. The Democrats ha
clear majority in both Houses of Congress
in 1860, and might hare passed the Crittende
, Compromise If they had chosen so to do, nth
out the aid of a single Republican votel Blu
Southern Senators and Members of Con
gress,-conspirators against the Union,-de
liberately withheld their votes, when by We
ting, they might have carried any measure t
t their liking. Instead of remaining in thei
, places and endeavoring to save the UnioI
| they left their seats, for the purpose of de
, stroying it, by rendering any attempted al
justment utterly hopeless. Senator Dougls
| overheard Mason of Virginia saying to on
, of his fellow conspirators in the Senat
5 Chamber, that they must prevent the passag
/ Of any compromise And yet we have me
J. in Vermont who will persist in casting tt
guilt of the war upon their Republica
Q neiehbors Let us see how many votes
: Vermont will endorse that sort of defence
Q treason.
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