The mountain Democrat., 1863-02-21
Go1 Help Our CoantryI

Truly we are In the midst Of q revolu
tion, and revolutions, philosophy tells US
"never 20 backwards" There would
seem to be in progress nothing more nOI
less than the overthrow Of the American
republic, as it was made, fought for, sus
tanned, and handed down to us for preser
vation by our forefathers, and the subSti-
tuition Of radical civil and military des.
potism in its stead. .OuE liberties are in
gradual process annihilation. Our most
sacred rights are trampled upon with con.
tumeIy. Our laws are laughed at Our
public moneys are wasted. Our brave
volunteers are sacrificed in the field. Our
most effective generals are prosecuted and
dismissed from service. The constitution
of the United States is Of no more conSe-
quence than so much waste paper in the
hands of the sectional demHgogues who
have possession of the present Congress,
and President Lincoln is rapidly becoming
nothing but supple instrument of mis-
chief in the hands Of those disorganising
extremists. When Senator Wilson pub
licly "thanks" the President for arresting,
without due process of law, any American
citizen Of the loyal States, and denomi-
mates such deliberate usurpatiOns Of su-
preme power a powerful means of pre-
serving the government )" when Senator
fields boldly declares that the govern
ment has only been too lenient" in such
assumptions of despotic authority; when
Thaddeus Stevens announces, like gen
uine sans culotte, that congress is the
sovereign power now in the United
States, notwithstanding the political text
that has always taught US that sovereign
power belongs exclusively to the people ;
when President Lincoln claims and exer-
cises, "under the war power" authority
TO set aside the constitutional rights Of
States and individuals ; when his special
adviser, the chairman Of the House Com
mittee of Ways and Means, solemnly JUS.
ti6es acts done "not by virtue of any
provisions of the constitution, but under
our absolute power which the laws Of war
give us;" when this same man exclams,
in the broad daylight Of American inteli-
gence
"This talk Of restoring the Union as il
was under the Constitution as it is, is one
of the absurdties which have heard re.
peated until | have become about sick
of IT.;
when these acts Of treason to the Union
are gl0ried in at tie White House and the
national capitol, the truly patriotic heart,
which knows no geographical lines in its
honest Americanism, and believes in nc
"higher law" than the fundamental law o
the land, may well sit down in semi de.
spair and murmur: God help our un-
happy country !"
We say it with grief and we soy it in
all sincerity, that We arc losidg all hope Of
witnessing anything but dissolution OF
the Union under the rule of the present
Congress and the present Administration.
We INDUCED for some time in the belief
that Mr.. Lincoln, with all his ignorance
and all his folly, was possessed of at least
sufficient patriotism to ignore, in crisis,
all partisan feeling and resist tho ultra
demands Of all rabld factionists. We were
mistaken.
Mr. Lincoln, who could see "nobody
hurt," even whilst his country was writh
ing in the preliminary convulSions Of a
coming civil war, has never yet been al le
to appreciate, in all its frightful magni-
tudc. the slaughter character of this
domestic conflict, or the frightful respon-
sibility of the share he has assumed in its
initiation and continuance. Mr.. Lincoln,
who has never evinced the slightest capa.
city to become a statesman, has fallen, at
length, below even his accredited status
Of political Joe Miller.
He has become, we fear, the tool, if not
the dupe, Of small body of irreli iouS
and INSCRIPTIONS fanatics who have an
nually denounced the Rible in New York
and made bonfire, in Boston, of the fed.
eral constitution.
These fanatics, Of whom (Scripturally
speaking) John Brown was the Christ and
Thaddeus Stevens is the anti Christ
these political and theological heretics,
who fear neither God nor the devil, and
love no man but themselves and the negro
have succeeded at last in intimidating
his irresolute nature and leading captive
his infirm understanding. The consr-
quences are apparent in their dictatorial
course and arrogant airs of authority. 1t
is OUR absolute power which the laws Of
war give us" that Mr.. Stevens speaks of,
as though he were the sclf-constituted
conscience keeper of the President, and a
"royal plural" as the mouth piece of the
government.
tits obvious enough that, whatever may
have been Mr.. Lincoln's original catholi-
city, as an American, he is now little more
than the executive minister of bigoted
cabal of demagOgueS, whose avowed ob.
ject is the overthrow Of the constitution,
or, in other words, q dissolution Of the
Union-for one event would as inevitably
follow the other as night would follow the
blottiBg out of the sun from its place in
the firmamcnt.
The war on the constitution has begun.
The radicals have commenced it. The
President endorses their armament. The
present Congress is preparing to SFow
the whole weight of its majority. aud to
pervert the entire resources of the nation
in one grand coup -d'etat in the same di-
rection. ltremains for the American peO.
pie, alone, at such moment, to stop the
wheels of revolution in their progress. -
1t remains for them to decide whether we
shall have misrule or proper government,
anarchy, or good order. 1t remains for
them to say whether the Union we have
been so long proud Of shall ignominiously
perish, in the hands of these political
madmen, or be perpetuated in the hands
Of a patriotic conservatism. If they in
sist upon the latter, every patriot must be
up and doing Is the former, we can'but
,reiterate, God help our country!
THERE is town out West where the peo.
pie Aave lived so long on pork, that they
are beginning to contract some of its hab.
its. When . neighbOr dies, they lay him