Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1865-08-31


HIS Confidence in Them - Discusses III,
Duties arising from the Results of M,
Var Vie,oS as to the Relations of M,
SOuth- Suggestions as to the Finances o.
the Nation. ....
The following is full report Of Major
ten. Coxs great speech at Warren, Trum.
bull county,. Tuesday, August 18th:
FELLOW CITIZENS AND NETGuBoRs. -
Nearly four years and half ago parted
from you at the country's call, to become sol
bier Of the Union in the terrible conflict which
was to determine whether American Re-
publicanisnl was success or failure on
this CONTINENT whether the Federal Govern,
ment had the power Of fselfpreservation and
the right to defend its existence, or was a
loose compact, to be broken whenever mi.
norities might seek in secession remedy
for defeat at the polls. My last civil duty
was to deny, as your representative, the
right of rebels to dissolve the Union, and to
urge upon the Ohio Legislature the duty of
unfolding the Government by arms
To day we resume in some degree our
civil relations, by comforting together upon
the present condition Of the country, and
discussing some of the questions of impor.
tance pressing upon us for settlement
When we parted, it was in the great az.
ony of our first realization that civil war
was upon US, rearing its horrid front here
in our own land, where we had believed
that our republican institutions gave US per-
petual immunity from tho convulsions
which, from time to time, have shaken the
communities of the old world. We meet
again in triumph; the foes of the Union
have been vanquished; the rights of the
Govornmeut have been indicated; and the
banner of the rebellion, which was lately
Haunting in our faces on hundred battle
fields, is now seen only where it hangs in
our national halls as trophy of victory.
Between that parting and this meeting
there is an awful interval, full of mingled
hope and gloom, rejoicing and mourning,
for those who were at home, though faith
in the ultimate triumph of the right lin
this case emphaticaly ''the evidence of
things not seen, y kept the hearts of the
loyal people frcm sinking; while for those
who were in the field it was full of excite.
dens of the contest lighter after all than for
those who watched and waited at home.
FOUR YEARS AGO
Let us review the position which we then
occupied politically. We were warning
dSdiuoJ tuo tAl6uSlOu VI SldVeTy. ne I1e
publican party had for years been opposing
that system. First, because it was a crime
against human nature and a dreadful wrong
against another race. 1t was condemned by
the judgment of the whole civilized world,
Humanity aud philanthropy both demand
Cd Of US, as We believed, that we should by
every means in our power, free the Govern,
ment and our country from every responsi.
bility for such a wrong. Second, because
1t was dragging down the poor and non
ssveholding whites at the South to con
ditior little better than that of the slvaves
themselves. We praved from the asser-
tloDs OF the Southern statesmen and the
testimony Of witnesses whose statements
could not be controversial, that virtue was
broken down, intelligence reduced almost TO
nothing, thrift vanishing, and every thing
which goes to make laboring population
either honest, industrious, or patriotic, was
disappearing before the influence of this
system upon those whites who were too
poor to swn slaves, and were forced to rely
upon their own labor and their own thrift
for their advancement. We opposed it also,
in the third place, because wherever the
system existed, all the material interests of
the country were sacrificed to it; manufac-
lures and commerce became of little worth,
and instead Of that progress in wealth and
civilization which had been so marked
feature in our Northern States, we beheld
simply au agricultural aristocracy, using for
their own luxury the product of slave.l labor,
and becoming, apparently, incapable of un-
derstanding even the advantages Of that
spirit of progress which we had regarded as
the peculiar pride Of our race. We saw, in
short, that slavery was in irrecencilable an
taO fN oil fran institutions. that itc
tendency was toward barbarism, and that
the Republican Government our fathers
had founded could only be preserved by its
overthrow. The irrepressible conflict be-
came yearly more engrossing, and in spite
of all our efforts to avoid it, we were obliged
to make the issue whether our country
should ultimately be all slave territory or
all free territory. So long, however, as tho
Shareholders kept the peace, and relrained
from violent opposition to the Government,
we recognized their right, under the Con
stitution, to freedom from any interference
on the part of the Federal Government in
The concerns OF the States themselves, or in
their domestic institutions there. We re-
eognized the fact that our powers could
reach the system only in the common Ter
stories belonging to the nation, and that
by preventing the extension only could We
properly oppose it, We believe that in
the end, this girdling Of the tree would de-
stroy its life-that the progress of opinion
and the contrast in prosperity between the
free and slave States would assist the re-
suit We hoped for, by getting in Southern
minds a desire to emulate that progress
which tho Northern States were making.
WHY THE REBELLION WAS BEGUN.
The propagandists of slavery at the
South, welded to theii system, and fore
seeing its overthrow in the Union, at last
determined upon open rebellion against the
government and the establishment of confed-
eracy, avowedly based upon the system itself.
The result was war-war deliberately de-
terminsd upon by the leaders in the seces-
sion movement, and urged forward in hot
haste lest, by some agreement, or some
compromise, the opportunity for that dis
ruption of the government, which they
sought, should be lost to them; and, what
ever may have been tue Of the masses OF
the Southern people, wehave abundant ev.
idence that their leaders fully measured the
sreat crime which they were committing,
and went-into its commission with their eyes
open to all the possible horrors and disas-
ters which it must bring upon the country.
They doubtless had lingering hope that
ths mere show Of force would overawe the
-owas.o.art and an ahla fham IN ,a aka th Al