The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1863-10-07
WHO DIyIDED THE UNION?

eral ordinances of secession passed by their
state conventions. But what led to such a
state of public feeling in the South that the
passage of these ordinances of secession be-
came possible This question goes to the
root OF the subject, and a correc ct answer TO
it must fix the ultimate responsibility for dis
solution on the abolitionists. True, there have
long been -demagogues in the South who con-
sidcred dissolution desirable. But who gave
to these demagogues their power? who sup
piled them with arguments I who enabled
them to convince a majority of the active and
influential classes in the Southern States that
thew ought not tc remain in the Union ? What
Roadway could the secession demagogues have
made without Mr.. Stewards "Higher Law -
without the abolition mobs for resisting the
rendition of fugitive slaves /; without the ssper-
sona1 liberty bills" passed to defeat a plain re-
kquirement of the Constitution ; without the
ayowed and recorded abolitionism of the great
Republican oracles without the vituperation
and ISLANDERS of the Tribune, the underground
railroad, the ''irrepressible conflict" and John
Brown raid ? These are the things which
alarmed the southern mind these the steps
of the ladder by which southern demagogues
climed to their ascendency. He who digs un-
der my house, deposites the gunpowder, and
laws the train, is as wicked as the incendiary
who applies
line eVASiFe ingenuity ny HHlcu Tue aDOl-
tionists seek to escape this responsibility is all
in vain. No change of party names, no at
tempt to restrict political discussions within
the period since MIR. Lincoln's election, can
blind the people to the broad fact that if there
had been no sectional Republican party there
would have been no war. This fact stands up
in bold relief, like the Alps against the sky,
and no a~rtiice can obscure it.
The Union was not held together by merely
political bonds, nor was it dissolved all at once
.by merely political action. The real dissolu-
ton was in the alienation of feeling and Sec
tional bitterness which preceded the severing
of political ties. 1t is notorious to all the world
that it was the abolitionists that soved the
seeds of this alienation, that fomented this
bitterness. Slavery was the sore and .sensi-
tive spot on the social body of the South,
and the rough. handed abolltionssts kept rub
bling it. The greater the irritation they caused,
the more the object of their torture WINGED,
the better they seemed pleased. Much of the
zest of such books as Mrs. Stoves "Unclc
Toms Cabin" Ca book which was heightened
and respectable compared with the great mass
of abolition libels and pasquinades), consisted
in a perception of the sting they would infict
on southern sensitivencss 1t WIS like the
pleasure felt by a mischievOus boy who sits
ON a shed and shakes a red flag at a mad bull.
This reckless abolitionism had no respect for
persons, nor places, mort sacred things
It entered the church of Christ with its wran-
giles and its frebrands, and succeeded in sew
er ng that before it dissolved our political
Union. The churches of all the great de-
nominations Except the Catholic) were or
ganized very much ike our political i%nstitu-
tions. They all had their several state asso
~ciations. wh+ch were represented in a general
convention Just as the several states are rep
resented in Con .ress. Abolitionism first en-
tered the -Methedist church, as Satan, the au-
Thor of die ord, entered Eden, presently that
great body was DIVIDED, and the two sections
into litigation growing out of their
claims to their common property. The Bap-
church was next suDdered by the same
means and then the Presbyterian. 1t is true
that In all these divisions 1t was the South
that seeded, but it is also true that the ques-
lions on which they divided were thrust into
the several conventions by the abolitionists.
1t cannot be pretended hat this separation of
the churches was the work of ambitious dem
agogues, or that the seceders were hurried in
to acting aeainst their deliberate judgment II
The great sectional schism in the churches
pu.ely IKE work of lobtrusive abolitionism i
Though it preceded the political separation
by several years, the analogy and connection
is such as to show that they resulted from a
common cause You may say, to be sure,
that the South was insane on the subject Of
bat that is merely a different way of
saying that their opinion on that subject diff
fered from yours. You attempt to domineer
over their opinions, and to ~overturn their So
cial and industrial system, is what broke up
the Union. You may say, again, that this
was only a pretext but it still remains true
it was the aboiilionists who gave them
this pretext in the face of repeated warnings
of the use thew would probably make of it.
And our honest rail-splitter at Washington
is still swinging the enormous abolitiol beetle
and delivering his sturdiest blows on the same
wedge by which the states we're separated
Union is as yet only q partially cleft log;
if the abolition wedge were knocked out the
sides would spring together aud leave only a
scam. When, by and by the Democrats rem
der this service, let the abolirionists look out
their fingers ale not in the cleft.