The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1864-10-07
How Lincoln Drives States out
Of the Union and Recruits
the Rebel Armies.
Speech of Hon. Emerson Etheridge
in Philadelphia.

At the celebration of the anniversary
of the adoption of the Constitution at
Philadelphia, Hon. EMERSON ErHER1DGE,
late Clerk of the House of Representa-
tives, made a speech, from which the fol-
lowing is an extract
A broad acre of men are here before
me tonight, resolved, with strong arms
and willing hearts, to save the constitution
Of the country. l have lived all my life
among the people of the Southern States
There have / spent my childhood. The
vigor of my life has been spent among
them. l will tell you that in Missouri,
Kentucky and Tennessee alone are 1,OOO,-
900 men and women who are between
eighteen and fifty years of age Gentle
men, you framed and brought them up in
the schOols-you have learned them what
were their duties and their rights. Now,
throughout this war, how have these peo-
pie respected the government? They
have resolved to stand by the constitution
and the Union, and look for endorsement
and protection from their brethren of the
free States of the North. LOheers.1 They
wait with patience the result of the popu-
lar verdict in November next; they wait
what you will do. If, by force or fraud,
Abraham Lincoln is reelected, and he is
thereby permitted four years more of his
ruinous policy, fatal to the country, to the
constitution, they will know that all gov
eminent is gone forever
When the time comes when it is an
nounced to them, they will look around
for their own safety and in these times,
in view of rebel pretentions, it would not
be hard to tell where they will go: l do
not say where they ought to go; l only
tell you where they aciW go. Mr.. Lincoln
can never invoke throughout the whole
world men or money enough to subiugate,
exterminate, disgrace, and enslave them,
even in unequal combat in this age of the
world. Applause In my state We will
have no vote. And Why? Just because
Abraham Lincoln has used the army and
navy of this country for two years and a
half to keep us out of the Union and dis
franchised sixty or seventy thousand citi-
zens. [ tonight arraign Abraham Lin
coin as the best cOmmssary, the best re-
cruiting officer, the best friend that rebel
dom ever had. Sirs, that man is arrest
ing citizens for discouraging enlistments.
I tell You Abraham Lincoln has not dis
couraged enlistments, but has encouraged
them, south Of Ohio river, for the rebels
| will tell you more that he has done. He
has stified more Union sentiments, since
the beginning of the war, than any fifty
men in Richmond and he has done less
to ennoble and more to disgrace the hui
man race than any creature that walks
the earth. [Ohesrs.l Fellow citizens, I
speak with no fear Of power, and say
only what know. When the war broke
out, a large majority of the people of Ten
nessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mary
land were opposed to the rebellion. The
large majority believed in the voice of the
ballot-box. They believed secession was
madness in policy in war it was crime.
They stood by the law and the constitu-
ton. What were the promises made us?
Sirs, Abraham Lincoln never made prom
Use but to break it; Applause j never
made single effort to maintain law or to
protect the people after he had deprived
them of all power of defence. GCheers.
When this war broke out, the issues were
sharply defined. There was war, intestine
war; Questions of boundary, the desire
for the success Of the rightful Union, and
the restoration OF the supremacy of the
law-against all these the South took
firm stand, in revolution. What is a
revolution? 1t is resistance to the law;
and in that attitude Jeff Davis stands to-
LAY. His confederacy was organized for
the purpose of overthrowing this govern
ment. Lincoln tried to meet the issue. He
knows men come to call in far greater
number than he wanted. You may talk
of the populace springing to arms with
wild ardor. You know that one million
of men rose against him, and that he re-
ceived two millions of soldiers, more men
than he got votes in the last Presidential
What did be do? In the first Congress
he pledged himself to the people of the
North that this war should be prosecuted
for the sole purpose of putting down the
rebellion, enforcing the laws, and main
tanning the supremacy of the constitution
This was bis pledge it was for this par
pose you all took your arms, for this pur-
pose your sons, and your brothers, and
your fathers went into the field as soldier
or buckled on a sword. [Oheers, long
continued Gentlemen, please keep quiet
[ cannot talk in this uproar. As 1 was
saying, General Buell. and General
George B. Mcclellan organized our
armies. A whole year was spent in Or
ganizing the campaign of 1851, under, as
/ have said, the direction of Buell. and
Mcclellan. Between February and the
spring of the summer of 1862, Fort Henry,
Fort Donelson, Island No. 10, and New
Orleans proclaimed the triumph of our
armies. We rested in our career of en-
pire-an important part of the rebel
country was ours. In the summer of 1861
we were flushed with prospects of success.
The rebels were beaten and had lost a
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