North Branch democrat. [volume] (Tunkhannock, Pa.) 1854-1867, 1863-10-07
| LETTER TO EDWARD EVERETT.

you before political society of Boston called
the Union Club" 1t is indeed sad time
for our country, when men of your intellect
and standing turn their backs upon the prin
ciples and professions of life time, and con-
sent to become the special pleaders for an ad
ministration which is clearly seeking to over
throw not only the Union, but the very form
of the government established by our fathers.
Up to the hour of the beginning of this war,
you occupied the position of a wise, conserv-
ative patriot, and were, therefore, an enemy
10 our Northern fanaticism, which you long
foresaw was driving the ship Of state upon
the rocks. Often did you warn these mad
men that the end of their sectional agitation
would be the dissolution of the Union. You
cannot unsay the many noble words of truth
and patriotism you have uttered. There
they stand, and there they will stand when
you are dead, an everlasting rebuke to the
real authors ofour country's ruin, and a pro-
test against the closing acts of your own
liie, when you went over into the ranks of
intolerant and bloody tanaticsm, and turned
your face away from the wise and honorable
records which your manhood had made
You, who stood SO long at the top and radi-
ance of conservative truth, seem to have
plunged to the very bottom of radical aboli
ton falsehood. Allow me respectfully to
call your attention to some of the sophis-
tries of your late speech.
| You aSStl,ne that fhara 10 No rroy Of On
the Union but by fighting; and that all who
are opposed to the are in favor of letting
the South go.
! Your whole argument is based upor this
sophistry. You do not offer single word of
proof that it is possible to save the Union by
fighting. You assume it. But, sir, hun
dreds and thousands of your countrymen as
sumo just the reverse that it is impossible
to save the Union by fighting. This is the
question to be discussed. You do an njus-
tlce to your fellow citizens by assuming that
they " are in favor of letting the South go,''
because they are opposed to this barbarous
war. They do not propose to let the South
60, as long as there Is left one reasonable
hope-one possible chance of retaining It,
But they believe, with the Iamented Senator
Douglas, that " war is dissolution-fnal and
eternal separation" You believed the same
two years ago. In letter which you wrote
to meeting in Fanueil Hall, dated at Wash
ington Feb. I'd, 1861, you said:
"To expect to hold fifteen States in the
Union by force is preposterous. The idea of
a CIVIL war, accompanied as it would be bv O
servlle insurrection, is too monstrous to be
| entertained for moment. If our sister
States must leave US, in the name of heaven,
| let them 60 in peace"
Sir, majority of the people of the North
now believe just as You did in February,
1861. They believe that the idea OF holding
the South in the Union by force is preposter.
ous-nay, impossible. They believe that a
continuance of this savage war will make the
separation final and eternal. They hope
ton. The position of the peace men is there
fore one of patriotism, and not Of sympathy
with secession, as your remarks before the
Boston Club would imply. Were you, sir
any less patriot in 1861 than you are now 2?
We're you traitor to your country in Feb
ruary, 1861? 1t seems to me that you do
your character an injustice, and insult your
own intelligence, when you lend the weight
of your name to the silly and false assump
ton of the Administration, that the peace
men are enemies of their country. You, sir
If you have not lost your intellect know
that it is not SO. The present attitude of
parties shows it, too. On one hand you see
the fanatics, whom you have always renounc-
ed as the foes of the Union, madly shouting
war ! war war On the other, you behold
the party which has ever resisted the disun-
ion schemes of these fanatics, and which has
ever been the conservalor of the cons titution
and the laws pleading for peace. Sir, re-
peat again that you know they are for peace,
because they hope through peace to save
their country. You know that the motives
of those who seek peace are patriotic. They
stand, in principle, precisely where you stood
IN 1861. They are patriots now as you
were then. They have not sauted off their
principles and their patriotism together, and
inglorously skunk away into the cesspools
of abolition treason. You and they were to-
gether on the same platform when you utter.
ed the following glowing words of patriotism
and wisdom:
"The suggestion that the Union can be
maintained BY the numerical predominance
and military prowess of one section, exerted
to coerce the other into submission, is, in
my judgment, as self-contradictory a. it is
dangerous. 1t comes loaded with the death
smell from fields wet with brothers. blood
If the vital principle Of all republican gov
ernment " is the consent of the governed"
much more does union of CO equal sover-
eign States require. as its basis, the harmony
Of its members, and their voluntary co oper-
| alton i'm it's organic functinnsO