The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1862-10-08
Inllgnity offered to the Revolutionary Fa-
Tiers. F. o. J. Smith VS.. Thomas
IafInr<on

The concluding portion of the editorial lead
er In Mondays Advertiser, should not be al
lowed to pass without careful notice. It
seems to us that, were the flesliless bones of
our Revolutionary sires gifted with conscious
ness, such ulterances as thai article contains
would disturb their rest, and cause them to
rattle with indignation in their mouldy sepul-
chres Alter recapitulating some of the ne
cessarily stringent measures which the FEEDER
al government has been forced to adopt, to
meet the terrible necessities of "deplorabie
civil war forced upon il by the dsunionsts of
the South"-measures without the adoption Of
which the government would have fallen in
ruins before the vandal power of rebellion
the author of that article impiously says;
1t was the same principles OF intolerable OPP
preston and arbitrary rule that reused our ia
theirs TO a resistance to tibet Mother Govern
ment OF Great Britain, and which, in order
more clearly then, and forever, to warn the
world against, Ms well as for purposes of self
justification, they set forth In the immortal
Declaration of Independence.
We knew that the Wigtall's, and Keitts, and
other graceless cut-throats of the South, dis
regarding the truth set forth by such men as
Alex. II. Stephens,-that SLAVERY "rds
the immediate cause Of the rupture and pres
emit reroiution;" disregarding the statement
of one Of the distinguished actors in the South
ern rebellion to another,-that .'the real con-
test Is betreen the ttco forms Of society ,chich
haze become established, the one at the North
and the other at the South" and that siacery
HAS BEEN THE VITAL AGENT OF
THE GREAT CONTROVERSY disre-
famed history, outraged facts, and insulted the
memory of the fathers, by instituting compar-
isons between the colonies struggling against
Lord North and the Mother Country, and the
rebel States, in their mad scheme to blot out
the sun Of republican liberty. We knew that
shameless contemner of everything really free
and democratic-the London Times-had
urged the same thing, and had tried hard to
win the sympathy Of all hearts yearning for
freedom, in Europe, for the rebel cause, by
drawing parallel between the seeded States
and the thirteen colonies of the British crown
and impiously pretending that the struggle OF
our sires for independence of the British yoke,
finds its likeness in the struggle Of slave Oh
igarchy to break up the freest government on
earth, TO tighten the letters of the bond
man, and to restrict the area of human free
dom. to establish a government on the
barbarous idea Of negro slavery
But it remained for us to see citizen of
Maine, late in the nineteenth century, and in
the columns of Portland paper, offer so gross
an indignity to the memory OF our Revolution
airy sires, as that of comparing their holy strug-
gle to the wicked rebellion which has been
precipitated upon peaceful country by trail
tors baptized in fraternal blood Our fathers
pere not rebels; they did not rise up against
the authority OF the Crown, until that crown
attempted, by force of arms, to tighten the
bonds which were already CALLING the limbs Of
as loyal people as ever worshipped God Our
fathers petitioned to government which tax
ed them without allowing them representa-
ton; which compelled them to submit to op-
pressive laws in whose enactment they could
have no voice; and could their reasonable Pc
titions have been needed, and answered In pa
ternal accents instead Of the ring of murder
Gus musketry, there would have been no Rev.
olution; there would have been no Declara-
ton of Independence; there would have been
no "Fourth of July;" there would have been
no severing of the cords which bound the in
infant colonies to their proud and aristocratic
mother.
Compare the Southern rebellion to this =
The thought is blasphemous. And yet it is done
by a citizen Of Maine, in paper of Portland!
The rebels at the South petitioned for no
abatement Of grievances, asked for no relaxa-
ton Of laws, complained of no onerous bur
dens. The Constitution they would subvert
was the joint-work of their fathers and ours
the law they would resist were enacted by
their representatives; the burdens they spurn-
ed rested with equal weight upon our Shout
ders; and to no duty were they called not
labor were they asked to perform, not sac
rihce to make, not an exaction to submit to,
Chat did not come home to us with equal force
and press itself upon us with equal imperious-
ness There is not a point of resemblance
between their cause and that of our ante-rev-
olutionary sires; not an element common to
the two struggles; not the slightest analogy
between either the principles involved in the two
contests, or the parties engaged in them; and
he who will insult the memory of the past, and
treat with indignity the pure patriotism of an
Adams, ora Hancock, and Franklin, by CON-
pairing their cause TO that of the present re-
bellion, or their names with those of JEFF.
Davis, Toombs, and Yancey, must be sngu-
larry warped in judgment, or perverted in his
political and moral sentiments.
The article In the Advertiser contains an
extended extract from the Federal Constitu-
ton, evidently copied for the mere purpose of
making the following remark, obviously intend
ed as fling at the present administration:
We will not say who has violated. or who
are seeking to violate these sound safeguards
of constitutional liberty, by construction or
by deed.
Asserting thus by inuendo that President
Lincoln has violated the Safeguards of con-
stitutioualliberty" either by construction or by
deed" the editor of the Advertiser continues:
What we do say and ask all our fellow-citi-
zens to rally to our support in, is this, that we
are for these great principles of Government
under all circumstances, and amid euerv ne
cessity; and we are against everybody who.
under any pretert uhdteoer, shall attempt to
supplant, suspend, or abolish them
The doctrine laid down in the emphatic
language here quoted is, that under no circum-
stances, and for no possible pretext whatever,