Indiana State sentinel. (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1861-1865, 1863-02-09


battle field.
Now, let it be observed, right here, that the
Democracy have no objection TO the abolition of
slavery, no objection to Liberation of the South
negroes, in the abstract but their objection is
TO Its being-efected by the power that assumes
I in the present case to declare and to the mode
adopted to accomplish the liberation.
lay ii down a safe proposition in morals
that an end which cannot be accomplished but
by usurped authority and destructive means, is,
in the given case, bad end, whose accomplish
ment should not be thus attempted. An often
sive war TO enforce moral or religious Ideals
never right Take the case of Utah, to illus
I trate. She has followed the laws of the Jews
and sanctioned polygamy which the Aboliii0nists
class as the twin evil to slavery; but while Utah
fuflls all her Federal obligations, ought Indiana
TO organize force to march to her borders, and,
by fire and sword, compel her citizens 10 sever
ally put away all wives but one, and change
their laws SO as to prohibit the having of more
than one in filture2 And what right has Indiana,
or the United States, to dictateGby force the do
mestic institutions of South Carolina or Louisi-
anal If their local institutions are wrong. they
are accountable, not TO us, but to God, there
! for.
Who made pickpocket-brained New England.
or the Northern Abolitionists, ruler and judge
over the South in such matters7
In following the course of time and events we
have now arrived at point the great event of
which we contemplate with unutterable pain. In
November, 1860, Lincoln was elected President,
though by minority of million in the popular
vote. The day of his election was the saddest,
/ IN Its consequences, the country ever expert
enced. Some four months were to clapse, how
ever, before he could receive the wand of power;
and, as he had been elected by the Abolitionists,
whose views and political purposes we have
already delineated and as he had himself de-
clared that slavery must be put in the process of
extinction, as the United States could not re-
main part free and part slave, and that he would
not respect the opinion pf the Supreme Court on
the Territorial question, the South being alarmed
for the safety of her institutions and rights, i'm
mediately applied for guarantees that those rights
should be respected after Lincoln's ascension to
power. No State seeded till after such applca-
ton had been made, and but few till after re-
peated applications had been presented and de-
MED, In my judgment great crime was COM
mitted VIXEN those guarantees refused. In
my judgment there was enough in The past his
/ tory and the then attitude of The Republican or
Abolition party to justify the apprchensions of
the South and the subsequent acts of that
party, in power, have established beyond doubt,
the business of those apprehensions. If a man
threatens TO do you an injury, and is putting him.
/ self in q position 70 enable him 10 inflict it, it
jusiifies Won, at the common law, in at once pre-
pairing for your defense; and, though in it
you inflict the first blow, he is considered the
aggressor. Or, instead of making your defense,
you NAV have this threatening aggressor put
under bonds, guarantees, to keep the peace to-
ward Won, TO abstain from infringing upon your
rights / think il was necessary under the
circumstances that then existed, for the Repub-
Leans, looking TO the future, to offer such guar
antees to the South, to enable them to stand be-.
! fore high Heaven and the civilized world without
fear and without reproach, in sending, aud that,
/ too, in violation of pledges, reinforcem ,nts to
Fort Sumter, and thus beginning the war to re-
1 duce ''other States" to obedience Gin th, Ian
guage of Governor Morgan, above quoted, to
/ the Constitution. That the most extreme men
of the South would, between Lincoln's election
and inauguration have been satisfied with the
/ Crittenden guarantees, is beyond doubt Sen
ator Pugh, of Ohio. stated this to the Republican
/ Senators, and Senator Douglas, in his place in
the Senate, said officially reported in the Con-
/ gressional Globe: II can confirm the Senator's
declaration that Senator Davis himself IJeff
! Davis when on the Committee of Thirteen was
ready, at all times to compromise on the Critten-
den propositions. will 90 further, and say that
Mr.. Toombs was also"
/ WRONGS on THE PART OF TIE SOUTH
/ SO far we have found all the wrongs TO be on
the side of the Abolitionists. 1t is true that it
was charged, at one fimc that the South claimed
that under the Constitution, she could carry
slavery into ali thefree Safes but says the truth
ful and honorcd Douglas in his Freeport speech,
when Il denounced it in the Senate, Mr.. Toombs,
of Georgia, got up and replied thai there not
one man, woman or child south of the Potomac,
in any slave State, who did not repudiate any
such prctension Mr.. Lincoln knows that that
reply was made the spot"
The South claimed only that her citizens had
a right to settle in the common Territories, with
their slaves. But she did commit a wrong, and
a great one, in seeding. Our Union, with ifs
glorious memories and multiplied benefits ought
not to be severed: and though the Abolitionists
were unspeakably guilty in refusing TO give guar
anteeS, still as they were in the minority among
the people in Congress- and in the Judiciary, they
could not have perpefIaied Immediately any new
overt actof wrong, without usurpaton on the part
of the Executive; and the idea of such usurpation
such wickedncss, on the part of Lincoln, ought
not to have been supposed, ought not TO have
been anticipated. And tic South, had she re-
manned in the Unicn and united with the De
mocracy of the North, would have enabled us
perhaps, 10 crush out political Abolitionism for
ever, and thereby remove the di~traciing element
from the nation.
But this fact in no manner excuses the Abo-
litionists from refusing guarantees.
1. Because it right in itself that they should
be given.
=. Il ne ADoltlOnlStS cannon excuse tlem-
selves on the plea that il was in the power of
others, possibly to prevent tie execution of their
threatened outrages.
8. Because an easily performed act of justice
would have prevented the present calamitous
war.
4. 1t was possible that Lincoln, by means of
the patronage of the Government, might secure a
majority of Abolitionists in Congress before the
expiration of his Presidential term.
Al
a collision between the Abolitionsts and the Sc
cessionists, both parties being in fault BY the
common law in such case, between private in
dividuals neither could recover for the injury,
because neither would have the force of moral
rectitude to sustain him.
THE WAR FOR THE REsToKATIoS OF THE UNION.
But the Abolitionists, after having ridiculed the
Democracy for years, "a being Union savers"
by the earnest advocacy of an observance of the
Constitution, now assumed the ofice of Union
restorers, by war, wa which the patriot Douglas
had deliberately declared TO them was, in itself,
eternal disunion and who subsequently,, after
having acquiesed in the war for the putting down
the rebels in arms, said in his speech at Chi
cago: That if the war was converted by the
Republicans into an Abolition war he would OPP
pose it." And now; how have they conducted
the war for the restoration of the Uniong Why,
upon the avowed policy of making it the instru-
ment of destroying the domestic institutions of
the South, converting her States into govern
ments of Stree American citizens of African de-
scent, and entombing in Bastiles all Northern
Democrats who did not concur in the monstrous
iniquity. We are told by writers on internation-
al law that civil wars must be conducted by the
same rules as other wars, and so our fathers in
sisted and practiced in the Revolution; and the
laws of war forbid any outrages upon the persons
or property of ofnon-combatants, and forbid resort