Indiana State sentinel. (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1861-1865, 1862-02-10
A Stumbling block.

The senior editor of the New York Express,
writing from Washington, says:
1t is my impression, however, that the leading
AbOlitonists, and the masses Of these Abolition
lists also, do not desire the restoration OF the Uni
ted States they lDeTe-and that they do not wish
to re extend the Federal Government and Federal
Constitution from the Rio Grande to the Potomac,
unless il can be what they call hOmOeenou Gov
eminent of free States only; or, in other words,
they are deliberately conducting this civil war,
to forever break up this Union, and this form
of government. A thousand incidents, signs and
things in Washington now confirm all thls l
may make them the theme of future letter Just
now it is only necessary to point to the way they
have conducted the War and Navy Departments
in the matter of expenditures. In about six
months only they have destroyed the credit and
pecuniary character of the GOvernment-its cur
rency its mercantile honor and now, having ef
fected universal suspension of specie payments,
they organizing to make their mere paper is
sues, the legal tender OF coin, contemplated by
the Constitution. Not unaware of all this-in-
deed as well aware of it as we are-they really
doing little or nothing TO better the pecnniary
crisis they have created. The Chairman of their
Ways and Means committee is reading abolition
speeches in the House of Representatives by the
hour-as if in utter mOckery of the august inter-
ests of commerce, currency, banking, taxation,
ETC., intrusted to his custody 1t with the
greatest difficulty that some of Us in pre-an-
nouncing the magnitude Of this rising rebellion,
awoke these men to the comprehension OF it. 1t
has been with yet greater difficulty. that we have
warded off from our country defeats and 6esOla-
ton by resisting their wild paper campaigning for
war before were half ready for il. Ii is
impossible now, just now, to make these men act
upon the great fact-that in finance in currency,
aye, in almost everything-we are becoming
bankrupt and that if in less than ninety days.
5000 900 900 in taxes are not judiciously levied,
one hundred cents will not be worth seventy five
cents in their paper money. Now the President
alone can set these wrong things right He has
the power. he has the will, | think. He means
so to do, believe-but he needs the pluck, the
iron will No monarch in Europe now has half
his power or his patronage. Our Constitution
created President for peace. but war converts
that President into an lmperator, an Emperor,
Caesar, Kaiser As had the Romans in the
reign of their republican Caesars, the forms of
ser ateS, consuls, tribuneS, &C., so have we-but
the reality of the Government is now that Of
Democracy intensified into Despotism. No
Government on earth is now stronger than this.
If any be so strong. Happily, OF unhappily, as
the case NAV be, the President is not aware of
his own Samsonic power. But nevertheless the
power exists-and If he will but use il for Law,
for ORDER, for the CONSTITUTION, as IL as, he can
break down this civil war in six months, by dem
onstratng TO the South that what il is fighting
for it already has, under the Constitution, he has
taken his oath TO protect, and that therefore it is
swapping itself for a chmera In principle, while
it follows the bloody ambition of its wicked mill
tary leaders.