Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1863-11-11
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| sion produced by the contest for Governor OF
pennsylvania has brought 10 light many i'm
! portant facts, and has given an index TO the
! future of the contestant parties.
! The Union party, under the lead of Gov.
| Curtin, has for three years steadily adhered
| to the national policy to maintain the govern
| ment and restore peace to the country. The
earnest with which the support of Pennsylva-
MIA TO the national cause has been rendered by
our State Executive only promises what will
be the future course and policy of The Union
party-t0 maintain the national integrity, pre-
serve our institutions and privileges, and by
crushing out treason restore the country to
permanent peace. This is a broad platform,
sustaining the very principles of our govern
ment, and the only which promises per-
petuty to our nationality.
But it is TO the opposition policy that we de-
sire to direct public attention That party
which has sought, in the late contest in this
State, and in the contest in Ohio, the election
of W oodward and Vallandigham to the Chief
Executive offices of these two great States,
are welded to policy in direct dntagonism
to that OF the Union party. The Democratic
State Central Committees Address TO the peo-
pie of Pennsy lvania. last year, of which Com
mittee Frank W. Hughes was Chairman, ar
raigned the North us the party in rebellion "a
gaiuSt the Constitution of the United States
and said that the war could only be termiua-
ted by making war upon Abolition Col. Bid
dies Address, this year, reiteTates the same
thing. These Addresses regard the Southern
people in arms lighting against Abolition and
Tor the National Constitution. they endorse
all their views against the anti slavery senti-
ment of the North, aud join in their hue and
cry that it is an Abolition war; that the Sc
cession of the rebel States was caused by the
antls slavery agitation at the North, and in
deed all over the country. They do not, how
ever, recognize the fact that this agitation did
not contemplate in Interference with the in
stitutious of the States, but only sought to
educate the public mind against giving sane
tion to the spread of slavery. Judge w ood-
ward, the representative man of the Democra-
cy in Pennsylvania, has pronounced his oppo-
Sition 10 slavery aggression the sSmalignant
tanaticism that caused Secession.' That this |
IS the application he desires to be made of |
this idea, though taken by itself it is some |
what ambiguous, is evident from the follow |
ing extracts from his Independence Square |
speech, at the commencement of the war:
s'Everywhere in the south the people are |
beginning to look out for the means OF self. de-
fence. Could it be expected that they would |
be indifferent TO such scenes as have occurred ! |
that they would stand idle and see measures |
and carried forward for the annihi-
lation, sooner or later, of their property in
slaves3 Such expectations, if indulged, are
not reasonable"
.sWhen you combine all in one glowing pic
ton, the produce of slave labor, has been one
of the indispensable elements OF all this pros
must be an indispensable element in
all our future prosperity. [ say it must be.''
The law of selt-deience includes rights of
property as well as person, and it appears to
me there must be time in the progress of this
conflict, If 1t indeed is irrepressble, when
shareholders may lawfully fall back on their
natural rights, and employ in defence of their
property whatever means of protection they
possess or can command. They who push on
this conflict have convinced one more south
ern States that it has already come.''
s.The providence of that good Being who
has watched over US from the beginning and
saved us from external toes, has so ordered
our internal relations as to make negro slavery
an ncalculable blessing to rs. Whoever will
study the Patrarchal and Levitical insttu-
tions will see the principle of human bondage
iivinely sanctioned if not divinely ordained"
These extracts dlspe' the sophism of the
charge of 'smaguant fanaticism' made by
dr. Justice Woodward against the opposition
o slavery. But, to make the matter still
more clear, let us again quote from the same
speech:
..We must arouse ourselves and assert the
lights Of the Shareholder, and add such guaran-
ees to our Constitution as will pr otect his pro-
,erty from the spoiation of religious bigotry
nd persecution, or else we must give up our
Constitution and Union. Events are placing {
he alternative plainly before us Constitution
1 Union and liberty, according to American |
aw, or else extinction of slave property, negro |
reedom, dissolution of the Union, ana anar-
hy and confusion"
Is not all this plain? The s'malignant fam |
tciSm'' OF the North in opposing by the pow
r of reason, the spread of that "sincalcuable |
lessing," human slavery, is a violation of '
he Constitution and the southern rebels $
Tho first sought to spread this ssdivinely sane
lOned If liyineiV pr1ainR6', inf :
ver free territory, and then rebelled against t
ne government because they could not a. I
hieve their ends by peaceful means, are act
1g strictly upon Constitutional grounds This r
the argument. Now for the means of Civ !
lg to these Rebels their rights, which Judge 7
oodward tells must assert. Less than ,
year ago, he said to Judge Cunningham, OF
eayer county:
81 am in favor OF, and if had the power, l It
oud raise the blockade of the Southern L
orts, and withdraw the armies of the United
tates from every portion of the soil OF the d
outh-bring them this side of Mason & Dix
MS line, and then offer terms of compromise .
peace to the Southern men,"
So much Tor Woodward. Seymour of New
ork ,Seymou ofConnecticut, Vallandigham of :,
hio and others who are claimed represen- L
tive men of the Democracy ,have persistent ~
opposed the war, and still oppose 1t. These {,
en- tell us that the South cannot be conquer h
l-that we must coax them back into the u ot
on. Other leaders of the sham Democracy ir
III MS that the election of Curtin in Pennsyl ~
mia will close the line of Governors in this Ia
tate and j. Clancy Jones, Woodward W
emocrat, in a speech in Amity township,
erks county, Oct. 3, 1868, said
ssIf we cannot carry the election this fall, is
len there is nothing left US but rebellion as
Here, then, we have in the assertion of j 10
lancy Jones the positive avowal of the de-
animate result for which the Democracy are
bnrino George " WOODWARD saws We dt