The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1862-05-15

the one right that does not lie against
the other. l go further: insist that
since, in the seeding States, all local
constitution, all laws, all government
known to the Constitution of the
United States, have, de facto, been alb
Dictated and abandoned, so that the Fed.
eral Government cHnot take notice OF
them, that ligament, so far as we are
concerned, is already dissolved. 1t
was cut by the same sword that severed
the. Unions ,andif the slave, by force
or.fraud, escapes from his master, he is
free; for the local law having ceased,
Ne resumes lfis natural rights of free
dom, of which he cannot afterwards b.,
deprived by the Government of the
United States. va.
aOne, word as to the justice and ex-
pediencyi of the proposed confiscation.
And here am compelled to say that
l.desire to make determinations among
the rebels. cannot reconcile myself
to the thought OF stripping every man
who has borne arms against the Gov
ernment of his property. / am not un-
mindful that multitudes have been, al
most unconsciously to themselves,
drawn into the rebellion; some under
the wide spread terror that has lowered
over their land--a terror never yet sur
passed in intensity, in vindictive pas
sion, in reckless Injustice, and actual
violence, in the history of any commu-
nifty, not excepting the prescriptions of
Scylla, or the reign of terror under
Robespierre and st. Just. Multitudes,
deluded by the false clamors of design
ing demagogues, have taken up arms
under the idea that the Federal Gov
ernment was about to take away their
slaves, and that they were fighting for
their property. i svsfs s'i 'i.s.-
There can be no doubt whatever that
this cunningly.desised delusion, adj
dressing itself as it did to sectional pre-
JUDGES and tanning sectional passions
into fame, has done more to drive
the masses of the southern people to
arms than any other cause 1t was
the supreme artifiee Of inventive dem.
agoguery. 1t was the dreadful agency
which General Jackson, nearly thirty
years ago, foresaw and predicted would
be seized by Calhoun md his followers
TO dissolve the Union. 1t was with
that terrible instrument of falsehood
and deception that the Wises, the
Masons, the Toombses, the Jefferson
Davises, the Yanceys, the Slidells,
have, for long years, wrought upon the
popular mind of the South. Slave
holders, especially in the cotton States,
credited their tales and thought them
selves menaced with the universal
emancipation of slaves in the States
by Congress, although no oct of that
body was ever passed, and no bill or
even resolution had ever so much as
been introduced into either House for
that purpose; and although no such
measure was everrecommended By any
State Legislature or any popular con
vention. Surely no people was ever so
grossly trepanned by noisy leaders !;
never was imposture so stupendous
practiced or essayed upon any commu-
nifty. And SO far was it carried that
the non-slaveholding whites were Sc
duced by its multiform irisinuations
into the belief that one object of the
North was, by freeing the blacks, to.
make them the equals and competitors
with themselves in the various fields Of
labor and industry, and by legislative
pressure to bring about an amalgama-
ton the two races. Sir, even Satan,
Disgusting his horrid form, and 80,
'.Squat ike toad f st by the ear of Eve''
practiced no more deliberate deceit
upon the sleeping mother of the race.
They alarmed The fears of the timid
and unthinking; they aroused the Wig
lance which ever presides over prop
erty !; they stirred up the gall and bit
terness of the bigot and fanatic, who
deduces the right of slavery from
the Gospel itself; they inhamed
the sectional pride of those who
mistakenly claimed personal and heroic
qualities superior to. those of Northern
men; addressing the rich planter, they
scoffed at labor as fit only for slaves
they spoke of the rapid increase of
population in the free States as an
alarming portcnt and sorrowed deeply
over the prospect of being compelled
to submit to the will of majority.
Finding that by their incautious haste
in forcing the Northern Democracy to
adopt obnoxious, measures they had
united the northern people to resist the
further triumphs of their ambition and
had thus lost the balance of power,
they invoked eloluently the memories
OF. their former domination and wept
over its decline.
AT every public gathering the air
was burdened with their impassioned
appeals to the masses to rise and resist
the imaginary wrongs threatened by
the North, or, as they derisively called
the friends of the Government, Yam
KEGS. Every courthouse, every church.
every foreground, was vocal with trail
toreas eloqrence, and Gods innocent
air was loaded with exccrations against
Government, the work of their and
our fathers, which had never harmed a
hair of their. heads, and whose only
fanlt-shown in the compromise meas
ures of 1888, was that it had not loved
them wisely bnt too well.
To speak in favor of the Government
was to incur from the nimble tongue
of sedition the charge OF abolitionism,
and to be threatened with indictments
o,1 ;,,or;son,oant for endeavOriuu to