Holmes County farmer. [volume] (Millersburg, Ohio) 1857-1926, 1863-03-19

hood; for a Union based on the rights
guaranteed to us by our Fathers, such a
Union as the sword can never purchase,
establish or maintain.
Fellow-citizens | will detain you no
longer. There are a thousand things
which the crisis demands should be said
and they may be said as we get further
in the campaign. am in for this cam
paign, and trust it may be a successful
one. You have suffered much for opin-
ions sake since the clash Of arms was
first heard, and have had some expert.
ence in the dark days which civil war
brings on ones country. Some Of you
have been often reviled, prosecuted and
abused in your business, and in your
neighborboods--and even threatened with
violence. But possessing your souls in
patience, you have risen above all this,
and are now rewarded by change Of pub.
lie opinion. which brings with it the hope
Of better days. True, it is winter yet
But The spring is not fqr off,
Our birds of song are silent now,
There are no flowers blooming;
Yet life beats in the frozen bough,
hnd f1cedom5 spring is coming!
And freedoms tide comes up alway,
Though we may stand in sorrow,
And our good bark, aground to-day
Shall float again to morrow
Having done with occurrences which
preceded the war. let me briefly advert to
what has since taken place. The war hav-
ing been inaugulated we were told that
it was to be war for the Constitution
and the Union. deny that it has been
a war for either. This denia! you will
find sustained by almost every leading
act of the Administration since the first
blow was struck. From the moment
troops were first ordered to Washington,
in April. 1861. the Constitution has
scarcely been regarded at all by the men
in power. Some OF their most Jealous
supporters more than half admit this
But they say, the South have broken the
Constitution, we are no longer bound by
it. ! his confession, if it amounts to any
thing al all. is virtual i'm mpeachment Of
their President, who has taken the oath
to support, maintain and defend the Con-
stitution of the United States. Nothing
has occurred, that know of, since he
took that oath, to release him from its
solemn obligations. repeat it. this has
not been war for the Constitution and
the Union, but one fearfully destructive
Of both. Look for moment at the mon
strous violations of the Constitution, to
which we have all been witnesses, in the
past year, and tell me how much is there
left OF that instrument, or how much near
er are we to restoring the Union than the
day the battle cry first went forth? If it
strange that the people of the South sho d
hesitate about returning to government
which is continually striking down the
dearest rights of the citizen? The m o.
ment the "war power" began to make
itself felt. State rights were set at naught
We had daring illustration of this early
in the contest, when the Federal authori-
ties directed the seizure of telegraphic
dispatches order which ought to have
been resisted by an appeal to the Courts.
But this is nothing to what followed
next we had arbitrary arrests, the search
Of houses. and seizure of private papers,
without authority Of the law then came
the suspension of the habeas corpus
and, lastly, martial law, which is no law
at all, but the will Of some despot, was
extended over people remote from the
theatre of war. And as if these things
were not enough to break down a free
people, bill is introduced into Congress
which threatens to take from them what
little is left of their liberties. / refer to
the Senate's Military Bill, for the organ
iuation of the miitia-a bill which, if it
should become law, would annihilate all
State sovereignty, and place our citizens
at the feet of an Executive power. If
fellow citizens, the spirit of our patriot
fathers yet burns in your bosoms, your
indignant remonstrance against these
things should be loudly proclaimed.
should be glad to say something Of ar
bitrary arrests. of the Imprisonment Of
unoffending citizens in our American Bas-
tiles, dark chapter in the history of this
afflicted country; but what ] would say OF
these outrages must be reserved for fu-
ture occasion. They were borne in silence
for long while, and the wonder is that
they were. 1t seemed for while as il
the people were dead, almost, to sense
of their rights and liberties. and incapa-
BILE of asserting either. But they were
aroused at last.
But, sir, we might have gone on in this
way, regardless of the true condition Of
things, but for another act of supreme fol-
ly, or something worse. The people lay
PROSTATE in the dust, hugging the chains
that bound them. cheated into the belief
that this chastisement was for their
good, and beguied by the falsehood that
the war was not waged for the purpose of
interfering with the domestic institutions
of the South, or the rights of the States,
but for some other purpose; they might. 1
say, have gone in this way, making any
and every sacrifice for the cause. as ex-
painsd to them, il it had not been for the
Abolition Proclamation OF the 22d of Sep
tcmber. That opened their eyes; that
a. .oused their indignation. and that it is
which has done something-nay, it has
done much-toward correcting public
opinion as to tho character and real pur-
pose of the war.
But, gentlemen. the proclamation has
not been exposed as it orght to have been.
1t has only been occasionally denounced.
when it should have been everywhere, Of
ten. and loudly rebuked, lpropose say
ing few words about it before take my
seat. There are two features of it which