The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1863-05-22
THE MILITARY USURPATION.
THE POLICY OF ExAsPERATIoN.
From the New York World, 7th.

THE POLICY OF Evaporation.
From the New York World, 7th.
The policy of 4 determination urged
against the rebellious South, is rapidly en-
forcing its logical consequences in policy
of evaporation adopted against the loyal
North. The Administration at Washing
ton, having chosen deliberately to sepa-
rate itself from the declared and over
whelming sentiment of the northern people
in it's prosecution of the war, finds itself
compelled to fall into the wake and to i'm
itate the course of all governments which
despise the popular will. 1t must resort
to intimidation as the alternative of i'm
becility, and seek from the craven selfish
ness and disintegrating fears of the people
that abject acquiescence in its passionate
caprices which manly and honorable re-
spect for the convictions and feelings of
American citizens mi ht so easily convert
into frank and liberal support of its le-
gitimate authority.
How far the system thus inaugurated
may lead men who have drifted into it, it
is neither easy to foresee nor agreeable to
imagine. But it is as certain as anything
in the domain of historical law can be that
such system, if successful in its incep-
ton, will be limited in it's results only by
the ambition and the personal force of
those who commit their fortunes to its tide.
The people who permit their liberties to
be taken from them under the pretence of
zeal for the public service will have no
right to be surprised when that pretence
comes to be thrown aside as superfuous
and wearisome, and power boldly asserts
itself to be, like beauty, sits own excuse
for being" ...4s:
The events which are daily occurring in
the Northwest not only justify but compel
the most serious concern for the future of
free institutions in America There is
no exaggeration in this language, and it
gives us no pleasure to employ it. We have
not the least disposition to charge upon any
man or body ofmen in this country that de-
liberate design of subverting the frame work
of our government through an insidious
abuse of its forms, which Washington sad
ly foresaw might one day be an inevitable
fruit of the unbridled strife of parties in
the Republic. Accusations of treason are
weapons Of political warfare which we
prefer to leave to the thunderers of the
radical press. But there are certain acts
and series of acts which enslave the ac-
tors and drive them, like Greek Fate,
blindly and irrevocably into course from
which their will would have shrunk in hor-
ror had they confronted it from the first
with open and intelligent eyes. The ter
rible war which we are now waging is so
near and vivid an illustration Of this truth
as may well dispense us from seeking 9TH
ers in the past. The catastrophe of 1861
came upon us in despite OF those whose
policy had made it inevitable. Neither the
fanatical disturbers of the North nor the
seditious mis-leaders of the South had ever
contemplated as possible the relative atti-
tudes in which they find themselves array
ed to-day. They fancied themselves mas
tiers of events till with remorseless logic
events had mastered them, and with them
the interests, the passions, and the hopes
of millions Of their fellow men.
In like manner the men at Washington,
who have entered upon course of policy
at the Northwest which can have but one
inevitable ending, doubtless imagine that
it will be always possible for them to rein
in the rush of things after it has driven
them on to the critical point at which they
must make their election between personal
ruin and the ruin of their country's liber-
ties. They are precipitating themselves
into revolution of their own making
may we'll be unconsciously, so profound
is their evident ignorance of the sequences
of cause and effect in politics but SO palp-
ably and with such rapidity that the ma
ton will prove itself to be as blind as its
rulers if it do not at once interfere to ar
rest them. Throughout the whole region
of the northwestern States the agents of
the government, the military subordinates
who have men charged with the task of
enforcing martial raw beyond the limits of
the war and by the hearthstones of the
people, are sedulously at work to convert
dissatisfaction with the administration into
dissatisfaction toward the government, and
to infame political opinions into personal
and sectional passions.
That there should have been many pec-
pie at the Northwest who disapproved of
the war at the outset, was natural and to
be expected. Some parts of that region
were largely settled from the Southern
States, and it would have been contrary to
all experience had the prejudices and the
sympathies of their origin become totally
obliterated from their minds in the time
which has elapsed since the territories of
the Ohio and the Mississippi grew to the
rank of mighty States. Connections of
Commerce and of intercourse as well as of
blood between the jewellers upon the Upper
and the Lower Mississippi have tended to
keep those prejudices and those sympa-
thies alive. And tn. impartial student of
the history we are making will be less
amazed to find that peace party was pos
sible in the Northwestern States during our
great civil war, than he will be to learn
how limited were its original proportions,
how rapidly it was absorbed by the patri-
otto passion of those great communities,
and how easily it might have been reduced
to utter practical insignificance by calm
and considerate administration of the ma
tional authority.
A year ago the notion of danger to the