The mountain Democrat., 1864-04-16

FELLow.CITEzENs A few days will
bring you to the most important election
that ever has occurred, perhaps that ever
viii take pace, IN the State Represent.
ing one Of the great parties, whose candi-
dates appeal for your suffrages, we desire
sOlemnly and earnestly to address you !;
because the actual condition, and impend-
ing future Of our distracted and bleeding
country, demand the exercise Of all your
wisdom. II is manifeStly the interest Of
every citizen Of lowe, Of whatsoever pO-
litical persuasion, to rescue the State, and
thereby contribute to the rescue of the
country, from the distressing and perilOus
Situation in which they have been placed.
How this is to be most readily and Ger.
tainly accOmpliShed,i is the absorbing ques-
tion Of the hour, on which We now address
you; and for our cause, and your own vel.
fare, We invoke your serious and candid
attention.
We look for n solution Of the problem
through political reformation. We seek
to influence your action at the polls only.
We ask your aid, TO effect q change in the
legislative, executive, and judicial men
and measures of Iowa; to rescue the Off
cial power OF the State from the keeping
Of q sectional party, from whose short ca.
reer has been realized all the calamitieS
prophesied and warned against by Wash
Ington and Jack soE-a Scheming party,
which lately called itself republican, but
which now strives to perpetuste its ruin.
ou> ascendency, under the alias Of Union
ism, with which its governing principles
are at hagrant war, unless a mercilesS
consolidated despOtism is to be accepted
for the Union Of our fathers We nppeal
TO history-now written in fraternal blood
when we here, at the outset, accuse the
magnates OF this party in Iowa, with
much Of the responsibility Of Union
broken, land deSOlated, a community op.
pressed, and all the guarantees Of peace
ful society endangered or destroyed. And
with serious concern, we nsk you, men Of
all parties and conditions, whether you
will longer sanction, by your Eulfrages.
t &c administrative evils and false political
theories, from which, as citizens Of the
State and nation, you have 80 seriously
suffered. and have so much t. apprchrnd
Nearly two aud half Years ago, tins
peaceful and hitherto favored land, WIS
plunged Ia u drs"latlng civil war, which
l. >u!i uprern"St IN all our thoughts, aud
Is proving itself, as we predict, Il 1t wOnid,
the dnr>t calamity ~hlch human agency
could lntlict upon our country. 1t ought
IL have been avoided {; and. with states
ma">hip. coupled with reasonable political
hon etv, among our rulers, could very
II, a D,,k oil 0,f.,a
mauship and honesty were wanting Why
1t was not avoided may not have been ap
parent 10 every one at the commencement,
but las now become sufficiently obvious
to Us all. The pride and supposed inter
e>ts Of the party to which we have alluded
were at stake. The war was therefore
welcomed IN the interests Of party, by
ITS reckless leaders; and rivers If the best
blood, and billions OF the toni earned treas
ure OF the nation, have since deluged the
land; hundreds of thousands Of hearth.
stones have been made desoate the wall
ot the stricken widow, and bitter tears Of
the orphan and the childlpsS, have filled
the nation with endless and all.pervading
sorrow, and the fair temple of our govern.
mental fabi ic itself seems to be tumbling
into a shapclcss ruin beneath its contin.
ued and ucsolating ravageS
Whilst this destructive tempest Of un.
reasoning passion is raging around uS, We
Of the North are told by its primal authors
in authority that, under the menace Of
broken heads and unlimited imprisOn
ments, we must pretermit all inquiry INTO
its causes. and withhold all suggestion as
to its direction or its end, which does not
tiatter their vanity, OF minister to their
lactious aims. Nay, more than this even.
for the President warns us in his Albany
letter that silence itself is constructive
treason, and that we must approvingly
indorSe his every act, under pains and
penalties, unusual and unlawful, it is true,
but to BE- Inflicted, nevertheless, as they
have been, in his supreme unlimited dis
cretion
We may pour out our blood, and empty
our pockets, and surrender our kindred to
disease and death, on the behalf of his
crude and destructive political theories,
but We must beware how We entertain or
express our own, however sound and pa
triotc they may be. We could, perhaps
safely, acQuiesce in this emf reed but dan.
gerous silence if these vindic,ive madmen
were competent TO lay the storm which
they have created, aud were not continu.
ally applying the original cause as their
only sovereign remedy, for the disorder.
But to US, it is equally and logically mani
fest, that, ." political abOlitionism caused
di>union and produced war, so politico
military abulitioniSm has aggravated, com
plicated, prolonged, emhittered, and bids
fair to render the controversy interInina-
ble, or worse than nugatory.
1t is, evidently, last giving such shape
to the contest, which it evoked, that under
its guidance, We can neither GO forward
with safety nor pause with honor; since
the full success Of its strange pretenSionS
would utterly revOlutionize and destroy
our governmental system Of co equal
States, and reduce US to an Austrian deS.
potism; whilst a failure would give US a
divided Republic, with scarce possibility
,, of reunion. In their incompetent hands,
then, whether We go forward or stop, we
seem to be equally in peril
The secession of the southern States
was made the pretext of the war. To
cOerce them back, as States, was its off
cally declared object. for President Lin
coin repeatedly asserted in his messages,
; that the secession ordinances were v"id
and would be treated by him as nuliiticS
A few words upon each point.
) The seeding States unwisely and lille
gally Withdrew, by sovereign conventions
and by votes of the people themselves
, because, from the incoming Federal Ad
rninistration whose higher law mem
bers were publicly pledged to their sp"la
tiOn-they apprehended nnbearable lnva