The southern aegis, and Harford County intelligencer., 1863-07-31

and iron while the Southern States, with
their bright. soft climate and congenial
soil raised up those great staples of cotton,
tobacco, sugar, rice, corn, which are the
life of commerce and manufactures and
the vast regions of the West grew to be
the granaries of Europe and America !;
and still further on was revealed the land
of gold and silver, on the remote shores
of the Pacific. =. Ss M
These were the material elements of
our national power, each State with its
difference Of interests cooperating with
the whole. And SO the various European
races co-existing here, though differing in
blood, religion, temper, the Protestant and
the Catholic, the Puritan and the Cava-
lier, yet, by their very differences Of char
acter, afforded the mental aud moral ele-
ment of the power Of the Union. Glori-
GUS, sublime above all that history records
of national greatness, was the spectacle
which the Union exhibited to the world,
so long as the true spirit of the .Constitu-
,tion lived in the hearts of the people, and
the Government was Goverhm ents of
men reciprocally respecting one another's
rights, and of States, each moving, planet
like in the orbit of its proper place in the
armament of the Union Then we were
the model Republic of the world-bonor-
ed, loved, or feared where we were not
loved, respected abroad, peaceful and hap
py at home. No American citizen was
then subject to be driven into exile for
opinions sake, or arbitrarily arrested and
incarcerated in military bastiles--even as
he may now be-not for acts or words of
imputed treason, but if he but mourn in
silent sorrow over the desolation of his
country-(applause)- mo embattled hosts
of Americans were then wasting their
lives and resources in sanguinary civil
strife; no suicidal and parricidal civil war
then swept like a raging tempest of death
over the stricken homesteads and wailing
cities Of the Union. Oh, that such a
change should d'ever come oyer our country
in day, as it were-as if all men in every
State of the Union75North and South,
East and West-were suddenly lsmitten
with homlcidal madness, and "the custom
of fell deeds" rendered as familiar as if it
were part Of eur inborn nature |; as if an,
avenging angel had been suffered by Prov
lence to wave sword of flaming fire
above our heads, to convert so many mil.
lions. Of good men, living together in
brotherly love, into insensate beings, saw
agely bent on the destruction of them
selves and of each other, and leaving but
a smouldering ruin Of conaagration and of
blood in the place Of our once blessed
Union, = ..F fa,....-. aa s.g.a y.ra
l endeavor sometimes, as I have no
doubt you do, TO close my ears TO the
sounds, and shut my eyes to the, sights
of woe, aud to ask myself whether all this
can be-to enquire WI ich is true, whether
the past happiness and prosperity of my
country are but the fattering vision of a
happy sleep, or its present misery and
desolat on haply tue delusion of some dis
turbed drean. One or the other seems
incredible and impossible; but alas, the
stern truth cannot thus be dispelled from
our mind. Can you forget, ought I es.
pecially be expected to forget, those not
Remote daysinlthe history Of our country,
when its greatness and glory shed the re-
fection al least of their rays upon all our
lives, and thus enabled us to read the les
sons Of the Fathers and their Constitution
in the light Of their principles and their
deeds? Then 9 war was conducted only
against the foreign enemy, and not in the
spirit and purpose of prosecuting nom
combatant populations, nor T burning un-
defended towns or private dwellings, and
wasting the fields Of the husbandman Or
the workshops OF the artizan, but OF sub!
DUNG armed hosts in the field: Then. The
Congress of the United States was the
great Council of the whole Unior and Of
all its parts. Then the Executive admin
istration looked with impartial eye over
tho, whole domain l.of the Union, anxionst
to, promote the interests and cbnsuh the
honor and just pride Of all the States, ,isee,i
ing no power beyond the law, and devout'
lysobediept to the commands of the. Com
stitution. j. How is, all this changed ?4-l
And why? Have we notisbeen toldsinl
this very place, not two weeks agu,iby the
voice; of an authoritative expositor ;adOwe
not know that the cause Of our scalamities'
is the vicious interueddling Of too many
Of the citizens of the Northern States, CO.
operating with the discoutents lot the peo-
pic, of those. ,Statesia Do we not, know
that the disregards, of,lthe Constitution,
and Of the security which it affords TO the
rights of the States and of individuals,
has Been the conses sof. the ealamity which