The southern aegis, and Harford County intelligencer. (Bel Air, Md.) 1862-1864, 1864-02-26
Frog, the Venango Pa Spectator.
The Misfol tune of the Country.


y mall great struggles for national life or
national s.supremacy on the part Of any
people, as history has recorded them,
men have arisen, from obscurity--called
forth By, the times aud equal to the occa-
sion. Such was the case in our own Re.
volution, when the eloquence of Henry
astonished bis fellow citizens, and the
military skill of Green and Knox and
Morgan and Marion passed into history
as evidence that the Providence Of God
could raise up instruments to defend a
'virtuous people determined to be Free
Then public virtue was the rule and the
want Of it the exception. We behold the
great Washington struggling through a
long aud gloomy period of disaster with
no Thought Of self to mar the pages that
record his virtues, his courage and bis
prudence. We look upon him as history
has passed him down to us, devoted to
the service Of his country and that only
his massive and perfect character nndim-
med amid the darkest periods of the strug-
gle, and crowned with the glory of self.
denial when the victory was won and
nation born. There were heroes in those
days-heroes given to a feebleand strug-
Cling people, let us believe by the fat Of
God Himself There were statesmen
then-men whose ideas Of public duty
! were as rigid and as. stern as the rules
that govern honest men in the transac-
lions Of private life. Behind all this off.
cial integrity of the men who guided our
councils in Revolutionary times, aud upon
which they leaned for support, and to
which they owed their positions, stood
like wall of granite the virtue and in
telligence of the people.
In those days the chief executive power
Of the country was not vested in the hands
of a retailer of bad jokes. Joe Miller di-
luted was not text book. A systematic
plundering of the public treasury had not
made robbery respectable. If the soldier
suffered privations the cause was found in
the poverty of the people and not in the
dishonesty of shoddy contractors. That
wasa war that did not canonize theft, nor
heap public honors upon men grown rich
by plumber.
To-day in warsuch as the world never
saw, and which inperils our national ex-
istence, how lamentable to usis the con-
trast. We have civil power that seeks
its own perpetuation rather than the saliva
ton Of the country. We have an Admin
istration whose adherents are held togeth-
erbythe cohesive power of public plumber,
and whose differences relate to the ques-
ton of succession, and not to the safest
and surest mode of restoring the country
to Prosperity and peace. The great prob.
lem with our officials at Washington is
not how to put down the rebellion, but
how to retain power. The great question
is who shall be the next President, Lin
coin or Chase.
: By che petty ambition of the men who
hold in their hands the reins of govern
ment, whole armies have been sacrificed
and the best military talent of the country
driven into retirement. Under their ma
nipulations even victory has been the pre-
cursor of calamity. If the venality of
our rulers is a reflex of the apathy Of the
people, we may well despair Of the repub-
lie. 2.. '.- -,