Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1862-09-03

be carefully read and reflected upon by every
true patriot who has the interests of our coun-
try at heart, and who desires the success of
the Union cause and the defeat of the south
ern rebels and their northern sympa, ,hisers.
The Union az 1t was
This phrase, which is now becoming so COM
mon in all Democratic newspapers, resolutions
and addresses, demands something more than
passing notice, for it has deep significance
| OF some kind at this time. No one now hears
these parties speaking of the Union as it is.
They are for ssthe Constitution as it s," that
is as the Dred Scott decision interprets it !;
but the Constitution, pure and simple, as it
| was understood by those who framed it, meets
with no favor at the hands of these would be
| exponents Of Democracy. As for the Union
| Internationally, that is something entirely
out OF their books, and might as well be
| searched for in the London Times.
| Setting aside for the moment their view of
the present aspect of things, let us cast a
glance at this new w-fangled idea of theirs-ad-
herence to s.the Union as it was We have
looked carefully through all their tulmina-
tions to ascertain what they desire to be un-
derstood as meaning. They have nowhere
laid it down explicitly, and beyond the mere
phrase we have nothing to indicate their OBJ
ject; but as they reiterate it with a care and
perseverance, somewhat remark able, we feel
more and more desirous of knowing some
thing definite.
There was the Union, as it existed for some
v.ars u;tbopt o,v national conutifntion That
was league Gem tented by the strongest ties
OF affectionate regard and common interest.
Those who formed that Union were driven to
it by common danger. The States they
represented were poor and rude, but they
fought, by means OF that Union. through years
of bloody war against one of the mightieSt
Powers of Christendom, and successfully, too.
Still the Union, as it was then, had no consti-
tuition. 1t cannot be that which the Demo
cratic politicians are now anxious to re-
store, as they repeat with emphasis their ex-
elusive devotion to ssthe Constitution as it is"
We may, therefore, set it down as certain that
this sort of Union is not what these politi-
clans are after. ,..sr
Then there came period when the Union,
| as it was established, had as its governing pol
| icy the gradual abolition of slavery, and in
! that benignant era New England and the mid
die States got rid of their slaves, and the
northwest was guaranteed to freedom by JEFF
| ferson's ordinance of 1887, under which Ohio.
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin
came into the Union. That was the period
which Land broad and deep the foundations of
our national greatness, for the north, which
has achieved such prodigious progress, was
rendered free of slavery by it. Yet the o.
nion, as it then was, cannot be the ardentiy
longed for Union of the current Democratic
horrors of abolition. ..
Then there was another period of the Union
as it was, when the Jetfersonian policy was
extended by Clay in Lis Missouri Compromise,
which guaranteed to freedom all the terrific
res north of the parallel of thirty six degrees
| thirty minutes, an immense area. Under that
act Iowa, Minnesota, and Oregon have come
into the Union as tree States, and had it been
continued in force many more must have
come in also free. That was an anti-s slavery,
or what the Democratic managers now call an
abolition era, and hence it cannot be that these
politicians refer to that status as the one TO
| be restored.
This brings US down to 1880, when a new
era arrived. That period brought into the
Union the whole Of California as free State
in defiance of I he pro slavery party which
threat aned secession and rebellion. The ad
mission of that State destroyed the equiibri
um OF the free and slave States, by giving the
prepouderance to the former, and so ended
forever the traditional policy of pairing off {
free and a slave State for admission. Is tina
the Union as it was, TO which the Democratic
politicians now refer with SO much admiration
and fond regreti
We do not think that any of these can b
the periods referred to, and yet they cove
the entire history of the republic from its in
ID ception down to the year 1854, career Q
ri. lady and Irresistible progress toward free
at swel Never for moment did the natio
l'' day whelr' its pathway of liberty, from tn
do nies recognno was declared and the colo
he dread hour when = independent until tn
II. by the repeal of the sa's box was openc
At. If, then, the Union as it wasri Compromise
a it ought to mean-the Union'ken for wins
N. from the time it was organized dow existe
nd lit is quite clear that it expresses the idsS5
he steady progress toward the suppression
:. slavery.
of But it would be folly to suppose that
n. Democratic politicians mean anything of Il
ot Kind, eaten up as they are by an idolatry
slavery, and therefore they must mean to sh
mr. this great fact which stares everybody in
n. face from every page of our national histt
. down to 1854, and refer only to the Union
n it was under Pierce and Buchanan. 1t wo,
have been q great deal fairer and honester