Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1863-03-25
49,
True Repnblicanism on It's Trial.

The last hope of Republican g'yernusnt
is undergoing its test ordeal before mankind.
Here in the American States It had found u hsme
every way pr6pitious to its growth and expansion,
and WIS, in fact, m o%bjec.'of wonder toFthe ns-;
tious Of earth. But the parracidl arm hrs been
raised aguiust its essential existencer and, u%nfoss-
stayed by r~sturnins views of right and justice,
the boon Of civil liberty may: possibly; be lost for
ever urAilss a chaos of Wild political passiOnsand
degenerate political oreedt.
While the tempest ID bowling horribly around,
and the beginning of the end of Republican Lib
er,y is ulr.ady heralded from land to.lnnd. can
not the men of America yot pause and consider
tho anonymity of error and wrong, to Themselves
their children, and the world at large, Of which
they are Mt this moment the frenzisa perpetrators.
The Uniun Of thess States is irr'msdiah'y dis
solved but ia that y reason for the downfall Of
our American System of Republican Freedom
Was it necessary that tho United States Of 8 past
day should remain a perpetual Political Associa-
tion, to secure the full vitality of that System and
to preserve the full enjoyment of th"t Freedom !
On the contrary, has not the light OF q PLAIN OK
p~erioncs taught US that evils were thickening
around the Syster, under its original form which
could only he permanently avoided BY d''mem-
befraent and reorganization? And what was
there, in the name Of justice and truth, to pre-
vent that reorganization for the 'ory purpose
(above all oihers) of preserving, ny, of enobiing
and strengthening the great cause Of Republican
Liberty Here we stand in the light OF this
Christian er,, professod freemen on either part,
| spilling tho life-blood of all the manhood of AMER
ica,--on the part of tho South for a rational inde-
pepdenee,-on the part of tho North, not for the
reality Of Republican Liberty, but for a super
animated Name and a no longer practicable Asso-
citation Of Collaborating Soyereignties. Thedis
solution, long forotOld, has occurred and but 'or
free1nen themselves, Freedom would now have a
two fold homo onthe American Continent, and
new pillars Of strength would be erected in two
great free Copfedoracies to ensure tho reality Of
her e~1isteucu snong men for ages and asss 10
come. Admit that the result Of this !eqrgzniza-
ton will be the creation of three or mure new
Republican Confsdsraciss,--what isthere in the
prospect that initiates against the hopes OF Free
Government? Already ir one Of them, the Sogth-
ern Confedsracy,- a fixed ~.faet;-already has IT.
strength been developed with marvellous atrides
towards invincibility agains. opposing lifheultie:
which no new government ever cpntsnded Sitn
since the world began ;-already has it proven
that no humsn power oau susjugate Free Ameri-
cans. 1t ISIS demonstration of tho valae and
might of Republican Government. The Same in,
yincibility must be accorded to-th6, Narthern poo.
pie, sad, in their turn, to the North Wssiern pso'
pie and the people who look out towards the
brOaG Pacific. Cannot the free men of America
learn wisdom from the Mighty Prss'"t? This
fearful struggle is all in vain, if looked to as a
means Of restoring the "Union as it was:' fol
any such restcra.ion Is both = moral and Q physi,
cal impossibftity.9 Buff, in It, awful proportions,
it shall strike the conviction Of truth to tho hearts
of frecmen, North, South, East and West-if II
shall give pause to the bloody hands that seek to
immediate tho very Genius IF Liberty before the
gaze of az astonishsd wor!d,-if it shall teach,
even by it, CHASTITY woes, that tho right OF self
government in America is irrsprossibls,-and If,
~guailing before its irrsfutable testimony, FAnati-
cism shall fly in diimay to its wicked Businesses
while the American heart shall once more burn
with the generous emotions Inherited from our
common ancestry of l77s,-thsn indeed will oar
| trials have become gilded with the promise Of 3
new and unprecedented advance In all that per-
tains to the good of our race. The soale" will
fall from the eyes of Europe, and Republican
Freodom-the right and the might of sslf-goSern-
ment-will stand forth in its grandeur, and sweep
before it all the d%ynasties Of Earth. God help
benighted America.