Democrat and sentinel. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1853-1866, 1864-11-16
A S a d Picture
OF TIE
uNorthern United States v--Popular
Liberty Gone--The War Growing
More and More Envenomed.
OF THE
New York Cor. London Times. |

New York Cor. London Times
The fiery ordeal of war has tried the
stability of the Institutions on which pop
ular liberty seemed TO repose, and found
them insufficient for the day of peril
The longer the war lasts the more enven-
omed it grows North and South are no
longer free Republics fighting against each
other for a principle OF honor-but hos
| tile despotism, ignoring the rights of the
people-the one striving to exist, the
other to dominate Liberty and war are
found to be as Incompatible on one side
as on the other The law of might is
the only law recognized. Mems passions
are intiamed to the fever point, and mad
ness takes the place of reason. Thieves
and swindlers in high places grow fat
upon the plunder of the army and the
people. Commerce III the Federal North
is demoralized, and, having made up its
mind for high prices, shudders at the
prospects of peace and reconciliation, re
mote and shadowy as they are, and
curses the victories, real or supposed,
which the Government and generals in
the field announce, because they bring
down the premium on gold, reduce
price, and if continued much longer, will
ruin thousands of SPECTATORS, large and
small, and produce financial collapse, per-
haps national bankruptcy, even though
they might not in the long run be found
stable and productive enough to produce
the pacification of the country. Party
feeling is venomous, and as the day of
election for the President draws near,
brings into play the worst characteristics
of human nature, and should the contest
prove close, threatens to introduce a new
element of revolutionary convulsion into
the seething caldron of popular passion.
The existing Administration is at its wits
end TO catch the wavering favor of the
muliitude-lies by itself, or its agents, on
every event of peace and war that it can
twist or exaggerate into a reason for the
perpetuation of Its power. The working
Glasses are sullen and discontented, scowl
ut the idea Of forced consCriptiOn, al
ways threatened but never attempted in
any populous community, and clamor for
an amount of wages in deprecated paper
which will represent the purchasing power
of the wages in hard money which they
received before their hands, or those Of
their sons, were imbrued in the blood of
their Southern brothers, and up 10 this
time clamor. and are likely 10 clamor,
in vain. States ms large as European
Kingdoms are governed under martial
law by attorneys and mule drivers,
who seem 10 think that the more horrible
the atrocities they commit on their political
opponents the greater service they will
render to the government that employs
them. And over and above all these
sources of evil broods the dark, iniqui-
tous conviction that if the North cannot
conqner the South, or the South the North,
and that the Union cannot be restored by
a civil war. q foreign war against France
or England, unprovoked although it may
be by either Of those Powers, may af-
ford the last desperate chance of preserv-
ing what these proud Americans call
50 the life OF the nation nation, how
ever, that has never yet existed, and
which if the civilized world was wise,
and awake TO its own interest and security,
would never suffer to exist, if the formal
recognition of the south as an independent
power We're sufficient to prevent, or even
to retard the consummatiOn. If the Union
be, indeed, moribund-which the North
ern Americans passionately and contin-
uously deny-it dies hard. The strong
man disbelieves in his own dissolution.
All things are mortal but himself Rome
and Greece may be dead, England may
have approached her last hour, but the
Union is in its vigorous and rampant
youth. and neither insidious disease nor
sudden calamity shall strike 1t down.
He feels that no external hand has aimed
a blow at her vitality and cannot believe
that in his rude and lusty frame there
exists a poison that he can neither eradi-
ate nor neutralize, andthat the same phys
ical laws which apply to other living be-
ings apply also to him. He curses his
doctors, repudiates his remidies, and even
in the last agony thinks vigorous ma
turity and green old age are before him.