The mountain Democrat., 1864-04-16

o1etoAiVo EStNuSS4 ~ - Beu9soA ~
suit II b Q revolution In governmeHt,
which, through Federal force, annihilates
) Vp,sI iUesitutiop and regulation within .
given State which may b distasteful to .
Numerical majority (Or, a. 10 this casa. .
small minority Of the people Of the other
States. Il Is the visible commencement
of consolidated Empire, and the proepec.
tive end Of Federal UniOn-for no sensi.
BILE man may doubt that, to-day, and for
ever hereafter, there is greater diversity
of interests and population between the
grain.growing West and peddling New
England than between the latter and the
Gotten producing South, ,On which section
al partisanship may strike for territorial,
political, or religious empire; and the
Federal discovery Of dominating the mu-
nicipal affairs Of State about negroes, or
any thing else, reduced to practice by force,
is the end Of the system Of 1887, whose
chief corners stone was non-intervention.
Under the ministrations, then, Of this
pharisaical, intermeddling, higher law
faction, we have been brought, amid the
din and smoke of battle, face to face with
the great problem which SO perplexed, in
theory only, the American statesman and
patriots Of the two preceding generations,
namely: whether the compound s0ver.
eighties Of the Federal and State govern
ments are compatible. They have hither-
to happily proved to be so, in the hands
of the democratic strict constructionists
and Of the more latitudinarian but con.
scientiOus wings, because, being honest
ly interpreted and enforced, their inherent
harmony was undisturbed. In the hands
of our higher law revolutionists, they
will not be, because, in the exigency Of
any quarrel which this latter school will
be certain to precipitate, Federal and
State constitutions will be alike wholly
disregarded, by the assumption Of unlim-
tied and unlicensed power. That has A.
ready occurred, and the republican par.
ty, in accomplishing the only destiny Of
which it was capable, has, so far as it
could do it. stamped failure upon our
political system.
The question for the democracy, upon
their restoration to power, is one Of re-
generation.
This phase IF the question did not ap-
pear-at least it was not avowed-at the
commencement Of the present struggle;
but it has been forced by the unc0nstitu-
tional and extra-const;tutional pretentions
of the abolitioniSts, until the problem Of
the present situation seems to be, not
whether the seeded States shall he held
by them to the specific Union into which
they entered, but whether any State or
section, in Or out, with which an unscru-
pulou> Federal administration may choose
to get up an unjust dispute, can safely
accept the conditions Of the amended I'm
ion promised in Gen. Buffers plan Of
modern improvements which improve
ments are to be periodically dictated by
Federal bayonets, to q portion only Of the
parties to the compact. Our present ex-
perience, we think, demonstrates that the
Union of the constitution, and the contin.
ued ascendency of political abclitionism,
are entirely incompatible, because the
higher law, reduced to practice BY pow.
er, gives US only territorial supremacy
or empire, in which every essential Attri-
butte Of separate State existence is ex.
tinguisbable at the mere pleasure Of the
general government.
The life Of the Federal Union, then, is
only to be preserved by the official death
of the dominant abolition faction for, as
vital governing forces, they cannot cock.
ist. This has been predicted Tor more
than a generation, and is now being veri-
fed by actual events. To northern polit-
ical abolitionism, then, all genuine Union
men must necessarily proclaim an ever.
lasting quietus, and over its dishonored
grave, 10 view Of its sanguinary career
and its tyranuical excesses while in acci-
dental power, we may we'll inscribe the
fitting epitaph:
Here sleeps the murderer of its coun-
try's peace, and the convicted enemy Of
constitutional free government
But, fellow citizens, whilst we desire
this emphatic expression Of your judg
ment in respect to the management and
end of this bloody civil war, which has
already depleted Iowa Of more than half
the productive labor, and mortgaged her
for one-fiith Of the entire property valua-
ton Of the. State, yet there are other just
grounds Of arraignment against the Fed
eral ani State administrations, which, II
/ possible, affect more nearly every citizen
of the Commonwealth.
! Their fanaticism and their blunders
have not only plunged US into labyrinth
Of present calamities; and greatly endan-
gered our future relations with the south.
ern people, but their reckless usurpations
have seriously invaded and still menace
our inalienable home bred and fireside
liberties; all those cherished, personal
| concerns which are so carefully and ex.
plicitly guarded in our constitutional
bill of rights Assuming for themselves
the infallibiity of all tyrants, and deny.
ing us the peaceful exercise of private
judgment, they proclaim that the legality
nay, the expediency even, Of their ofticia
acts, are not the subjects Of discussion OF
review by the people; and that slAvish
and silent submission to whatsoever they
may unlawfully exact or deny, eitheI
North or South, is all that will be tolera'
ted from courts or citizens. And with
deep humiliation and alarm, we record
the indictment, that while we write
thousands Of American citizens are hope
lessly pining in political dungeons or il
compulsory exile e penalty unknown Il
American jurisprudence), for . conscien
tious. manly, patriotic exercise Of th'
God, given rights Of private judgment anC
temperate freedom of speech upon publi'
affairs and that military satraps. withOu
brains, dominate the elections Of peaceful
States with Federal bayOnets! Nay, NOR
than all this; for. with irrepressible in
dignation, we accuse the Chief Executive
Of Iowa of conspiring with usurping Pres
idential secretaries, to rob uRofendinl
citizens of his own State Of their persona
freedom under the law, Ito force them
unheard and unaccused. into foreign has
! tiles, beyond his Jurisdiction 4
| nlnca thair neacefiII political opinions un