Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1863-04-29
By SAMUEL J. ROW .
CLEARFIELD. Pa. APRIL 20, 1853.
A STRANGE SORT OF A DEspor1sM.

A STRANGE SORT OF DEsPoTIsM
The rebel press of the south and the copper
heads of the north, remarks contemporary, a
like endesvor to make credulous people be-
ieve that the measures OF Congress and the
policy of our national Administration have e.
rected the government into gigantic dospot
ism. more centralized and consolidated than
any in the world. Yet this very government
is openly assailed, day after day, with perfect
freedom, by newspapers and public speakers
all over the free States, in language which no
daspotism would tolerate, and with fierce
and maievdient spirit which foreign govern
ments and rebel organs both interpret to
mean sympathy with the rebellion, and an in
tcntion to aid it as far as practicable.
Thus, charged with destroying the liberty of
the press the government tolerates degree
of LICENSE never before known to the press in
any age or country, and totally inconsistent
with patriotism, or desire for the success
Of the national and canse. Charged
with interfering with the liberty of speech, it
permits the open propagation of treason at
public meetings, and waits patiently for the
intelligence and common sense of the peoph>
10 repudiate the traitors and their doctrines.
Charged with usurping moneyed power be-
longing to the States, it has, ever since the
outbreak OF the war, allowed the State banks
to double and treble their paper circulation,
and cause an imitation of which itself has had to
bear the blame, and only now tardily and re-
luctantly comes forward under the act of Con
gress TO do what Jefferson says in his letters
itself of the right to establish national paper
currency, which right is plainly granted to it
by the Constitution.
This issue of paper currency is the ordinary
expedient Of all great nations in protracted
aud expensive wars, and, so far from being
despotic is unavoidable. Yet traitorous
northern lawye ers, in the eager desire to weak
en- the national government and help the re-
hcllion, magnify this power into an enormous
usurpation, and essentially despotic. That
the government is strong does not admit of a
doubt. 1t is just exactly that very thing
which the slave power, for its own purposes,
endeavored to prevent its becoming. The
government the rebels have themselves set up
at X Richmond has become all that they would
sorbed all the power In the south, that the
States are now mere forms. But they wanted
10 keep our government weak and~the States
seperale in order that we might not he able to
oppose their conspiracy with success.
Nationality is not despotism. 1t is the vital
principle with rs. In strengthening it, so tar
from converting the government into a des
poiism, We contribute to the .permanence of its.
liberties aud independence. At such time
the effort to-set up State sovereignty as an OPP
posing element is not in any sense for the de-
fence of the liberties of citizens, but is wholly
designed to weaken the only power capable of
making head against the rebe llion. While this
war lasts, every northern State is strengthened
Just in proportion the national cause pros
pers. To Introduce any element of disintegra-
,ioD is TO humble every individual northern
State in the face of the common enemy, and
in the estimation of the world. AS now con
Quoted, the national government usurps no
powers not always freely granted to it by en-
6ghtened national statesmen, and
authority not perfectly consistent with the
freedom guaranteed by the Constitution. The
prevalence of civil war on an unprecedented
scale renders the use OF the national power me-
cessary to the full extent, but that power has
always existed, aud so far from being now
created is merely reasserted.
E