Civilian & telegraph. [volume] (Cumberland, Md.) 1859-1875, 1862-01-16

stltutlOnal remedies winch are aUoldeu LOT
every grievance and oppression, should at
tea pit to withdraw from the Union, it is the
right and duty of the General Government
to protect itself and the other States from
the fatal consequences of any such attempt
And, although We had but just emerged
from an animated Presidential contest in
which the people of Maryland were nearly
equally divided, and party spirit displayed
its usual influence in our Legislative As
semblies, no such spirit in those days was
suffered to encourage blow aimed at the
integrity of the Union, and the House OF
Delegates passed these resolutions with but
one dissenting vote. The manifest aversion,
therefore, of Southern sympathizers to the
title Of Seccssi0nists, is but proper ack-
nowledgment Of that practical common sense,
which, with but few exceptions, has hereto
fore marked the course of our public men in
their construction of the Constitution.
We have been at all times, and are stills
iealousy alive as any people to all the rights
which under our system Of government justly
belongs to our State but we cannot shut
our eyes to the fact that there are other
rights from which all the States are as pos
itively excluded, and when the Constitution
provides, as it does, that mo State shall
enter into any alliance, treaty or confedera-
tion," grant letters of marque or reprisal"
center into any agreement or compact with
another State" and "that the Constitution
and laws made in pursuance of it, shall be
the supreme law Of the land, and the judges
of every STATE be bound thereby, anything
in the Constitution or laws Of any State to
the contrary notwithstanding :" no sophistry
has been ever yet invented under the gulse
of State sovereignty or q supreme State al
legiancc that could so distort these plain
provisions as TO make them in our view
susceptible Of two interpretations
Standing, therefore, as Secession does, in
the face of objections SO unanswerable that
its acknowledged allies are constrained to
dsavow il, it can hardly surprise us to see
it seek to establish its power BY resort to
means even more Objectionable STILL
Such has been systematically its course
It's leaders, not context with involving us in
the unavoidable calamities of a causeless and
unnatural war, have aggravated these calam-
ities by the manner in which they wage it.
Private property, property on land and sea
has been seized and sacrificed under circum-
stances that must characterize the proceed.
ings as mere acts of wanton spoliation. Our
own State has suffered seriously by injuries
thus inflicted, and our great lines of internal
improvement have not only been efrectually
interrupted, but when that interruption WAS
completed, and the necessities of war no
lorge palliated the proceeding, the work Of
destruction has been continued until prop
erty to tho amount of many thousands has
been mthesslv sacrificed.
Not only the property but the persons Of
our citizens have been made the subject Of
these unnroyoled aprressons: and at the
very time that hundreds of rcfuyccs-late
citizens of VIRGINIA. driven BY the most re-
morseess prosecutions from their own State,
for no other cause than that they loved the
Union too well to allure it--sought and
found shelter within our borders, our own
citizens, wholly unconnected with any mill
tarv organizations charged with no offence
whatever, have been seized IN their quiet
homes by armed bands from the other side
of the Potomac, put in irons, carried out of
the State aud committed to feon's prison.
| should hardly think it Necessary to nd-
vert to these outrages now of such common
occurrence, wherever Secession bears sway,
but for tho fact that the Chief Magistrate
Of the State the principal theatre of these e.
normities-the once proud, now devastated
Commonwealth Of Nirginia-in recent re.
markable message 70 her Legislature, indulg-
ed in lamentations over the condition Of Mary
land, and ventures to promise his aid "in eff
fecting the deliverance of the people from
the tyranny that now oppresses them. -
Well informed as we all are OF the regions
wherein tyranny Las been busiest with v
expressions Tor the last nlne months, n"to'
rious as it is TO every one the comparative
condition at this moment OF the people or
the opposite side OF the Potomac, deris,or
which the affected commisseration exclte'
cflec'nally rrecludeS the more serious notice
of it. We shall doubtless have ample TINT
to realize the value Of the proposed deliver
ance whilst Secession Is shifting its lighting
line from the Potomac to the Susquehanna
If there is anything connected with SO
cession more grossly fallacious than its CLAIM
to be considered constitutional right, 1t is
especially SO far as Maryland Is concern ed
lis adaptation as \ remedy for existing evils
Tnat we Lave endured heavy losses OF sisv
property--that these losses have Frequent
occurred under circumstances well calculate
to irritate and provoke our people, no one
wo pr sumo, will deny. But even in mo
ments of greatest evaporation, growing on
| of these grievances, IL never entered into tn
! Imagination of any man in Maryland tina
such evils could he averted by dissolution
| of tho Union OF nil the thirty. four State