Evansville daily journal. (Evansville, Ind.) 1863-1866, 1863-10-21

ried by three majority. This year they
are beaten in every county but Wander
burgh and Spencer, which they have car
ried on an aggregate vote.
A True Prophet but False Man.
Alexander H. Stephens was an earn
est and staunch opposer of secession
doctrines. He could not fail to see the
inevitable consequences of the measure.
though by q strange hallucination he
afterwards covered his eyes, Joined the
infatuated company of conspirators
against Government which he had Just
exonerated from all reproach, and leap
ed into the abyss of which he had i'm
rlored them to beware. Here in his
speech, delivered in the convention call
ed to determine if Georgia should secede,
Mr.. Stephens said:
That this step once taken could never
be recalled; and all the baleful and with
ering consequences that must follow, las
they would see, will rest on the Con
vention for all coming time. When we
and our posterity will see our lovely
South desolated by the demon of war
which this act of yours will inevitably in
vite and call forth; when our green fields
of waving harvests shall be trodden down
by the murderous soldiery and fiery car
of war sweeping over our land; our tenn
pies of justice laid in ashes; all the hor-
rors and desolations of war upon us; who
but this Convention will be held respon-
sible for it? and who but he who shall
have given his vote for this unwise and
ill-timed measure, Gas I honestly think
and believe shall be held to strict ac-
count for this suicidal act, by the pres
ent generation, and probably cursed
and execrated by posterity for all COM
ing time, for the wide and desolating
ruin that will inevitably follow this act
you now propose to perpetrate2
Pause, ] entreat you, and consider for
a moment what reasons you can give
that will even satisfy yourselves in calm
er moments-what reasons can you give
to your fellow sufferers in the calamity
that it will bring upon us? What rea-
sons can you give to the nations of the
earth to justify it? They will be the
calm and deliberate judges in the case
and to what cause or one overt act can
you name or point, on which to rest the
plea of Justification? What right has
the North assailed2 What interest of
the South has been invaded? Whas JUS
tice has been denied? And what claim,
founded in justice and right, has been
withheld? Can either of you to-day
name one governmental act of wrong,
deliberately and purposely done by the
Government of Washington, of which
the South has right to complaint /
challenge the answerl While, on the
other hand, let me show the facts, land
believe me, gentlemen, / am not here
the advocate of the North; but am here
the friend, the firm friend and lover of
the South and her Institutions, and for
this reason l speak thus plainly and
faithfully for yours, mine, and every
other mans interest, the words of truth
and soberness,) } of which wish you to
judge, and will only state facts which
are clear and undeniable, and which
now stand as records authentic in the
history of our country. hn $3.50 s
When we of the South demanded the
slave trade, or the Importation of Afri-
cans for the cultivation of our lands, did
they not yield the right for twenty years?
When we asked three-ffth representa-
ton in Congress for our slaves, was it
not granted? p? When we asked and de-
manded the return of any fugitive from
justice, or the recovery of those persons
owing labor or allegiance, was it not in
corporated in the Constitution, and again
ratified and strengthened in the fugitive
slave law of 1850?
But do you reply that in many instan-
ces they have violated this compact, and
have not been faithful to their engage
ments9 As individuals and local com
munities they may have done so; but not
by the sanction of Government Again,
gentlemen, look at another act: when
we have asked that more territory should
be added, that we might spread the in
stitution of slavery, have they not yielded
to our demands in giving us Louisiana,
Florida and Texas, out of which four
States have been carved, and ample ter
ritory for four more to be added in due
time, if you by this unwise and impolitic
act do not. destroy this hope, and, per-
haps, by it lose all, and have your last
slave wrenched from you by stern mill
tary rule, as South America and Mexico
were; or by the vindietive decree of a
universal emancipation, which may rea-
sonably be expected to follow.
But, again, gentlemen, what have we
to gain by this proposed change of our
relation to the General Government
We have always had the control of it,
and can yet, if we remain in it, and are
as united as we have been. We have
had majority of the Presidents chosen
from the South; as well as the control
and management of most of those chosen
from the North. We have had sixty
years of Southern Presidents to their
twenty-four, thus controlling the Exeeu-
tive department So of the Judges of
the Supreme Court, we have had eighteen
from the South, and but eleven from the
North; although nearly four-fifths of the
Judicial business has arisen in the Free
States, yet a majority of the Court has
always been from the South. This we
have required SO as to guard against any
Interpretation of the Constitution against
US. In like manner we have been
equally watchful to guard our interests
in the Legislative branch of govel nment.
In choosing the presiding Presidents
Cpro. tenn of the Senate, we have had
twenty-four to their eleven. Speakers of