Holmes County farmer. [volume] (Millersburg, Ohio) 1857-1926, 1865-02-23

Southern people the names insurgcnt and
rebel. IL is in effect to abandon or deny
the essential claim of every executive decla-
ration, proclamation and manifesto, and all
the recegnitions Of the administration party
from the first act of secession down to the
present time. 1t is to acknowledge the
power of secession, and TO declare the exist
ing war, on our part, to be one of aggres-
sion. All parties, in the present Federal
sion are null and void, and that the sover-
eighty of the Constitution was bindingly
fixed upon all the people of the realm. To
enforce this universal idea of substituting
unity in law of all the States, the Union
loving people, without respect to party,
have responded to all the calls of the mil
itary administration, and allowed their blood
to be poured out on many battc-fields, and
public debt which for many years, with its
crushing weight, must task the ability of
the nation, to be fixed upon them and their
posterity. Crush out the rebellion-re-
store the Union" we're the battle-cries on
every field Has great predominating
party, holding, for the present, such tre-
mendous issues in its hands, and have you,
gentlemen, as representatives of that party,
determined to change your front on this
vital question? If so, you cannot reason
ably expect your conservative representa-
tives in Congress to follow your example. -
Is the war hereafter to have no object but
conquest and determination a Second
sober thought is often needful but now,
a first sober and rational thought seems to
be in danger of supersedence. We should
still insist that the rebels return to their
allegiance, and that the rebel States return
to their proper position in the Union, and
M nt N ~ ta hal h,,o bnr ynl
or revolutionary process the Government to
which we claim their subiugation, and thus
give them an apology for resistance. While
we carry "A bloody war professedly against
aggression, let us not show to the world that
our purpose is aggressive.
1t is clear to perceptive mind that the
Union might be restored upon its original
basis, and our once great and powerful, but
now divided and distracted, country reunited
by simply honest declaration ofthe North
ern people, through the ballot box, in favor
of return to strictly constitutional admin
istration Of the Government. Let such
declaration be made in a proper authorita-
tive way, and the States and people will re-
cohere by natural and habitual proclivity.
But so long as that policy shall be re-
fused, they will be kept in severence. Up
on no narrow, selfish, sectional plan, can
the symbolic stars of the republic be re-
consolidated upon our flag These consid-
erations press with great force upon the
minds of large majority of your represent
Fatives in Congress, and they regret and won
der that you do not perceive and regard
them IN the same light.
At the present time the indications are
much stronger than they have heretofore
been of an inclination on the part of the
Confederate people to abandon their project
OF separate government, and to restore
their respective States to the Union upon
the principles of their original confederation.
| hold that such desire OH their part ought
to be encouraged by us. But any one not
politically blind can see that to strike down
without their concurrence their present
State rights would be certain to incite them
to continued resistance and to foreclose all
| hope of restoration or peace. No more un-
propituous time for such blow against the
national hope could possibly have been Sc
| lected, nor could a more injurious blow be
given. The chain of policy of which this is
a link, demonstrates that the Republican
party is utterly averse to restoration of the
| Union.
You have undertaken, in that peculiar
part of your legislative composition called
preamble, to define and declare the facts and
principles upon which you require fourteen
representatives from Ohio to sacrifice their
opinions and convictions to yours. 1t seems
proper therefore, that the propositions so
laid down by you should receive sufficient
consideration to enable us to determine
whether they are logical and true, or sophis-
tical and false. Among those propositions
are some which have always been taken as
axioms; but they are mixed and confound-
ed with others which are so manifestly false
as to stand in clear repugnance to all our
national history. In fact / regard it as one
Of the most comprehensive issues of false
hood ever penned.
You say, among other things, that slavery
is "a disturber of the Union and domestic
tranquility, hindrancc to the common de-
fense, spoiler of the public liberties, has
inaugurated civil war, and is the cause OF
our national calamities. " This is a pomp.
GUS declaration, but subject to the objection
that there is no truth in it. Your Demo.
cratic representatives in Congress have
marked well the history and incidents and
effects of the anti-slavery controversy, and
each one of them is living, competent wit.
ness who well knows that slavery in the
States was not, of its inherent qualities, a
disturber ofthe Union, nor of domestic tran.
guilty, nor hinderance to the common de-
tense, nor spoiler of the public liberties
} nor did it inaugurate civil war, nor is it the
} cause of our national caamities; but that il
was wickedly seized upon as an instrument
in the hands of fanatics and selfish politici
ans to secure the partisan object of all dis
senters to Democratic principles, in the pre-
dominance of a political organization whicl
it was seen must ever be powerless until i
could successfully assail the vital principles
Of the Government and the compacts of tn,
Union. In the steady pertinacity with
which this baleful INSTRUMENT was used, con
tinuous and unremitted opposition, in al
effective ways, to the original, reserved anC
constitution guaranteed rights of the South
ern people because the fixed policy of tn,
ti-savery party, which finally predominant
: ed, and still holds sway in the non-slave
holding States.
= 1t is useless at this point of time and o
our calamities to inquire whether any othe
cause could possibly have provoked tn,
crimes of secession and rebellion. "Suffi
cient unto the day is the evil thereof,
= whose malign efficiency was foreseen anC
contemplated with dread and apprehension
by our best and wisest statesmen; some 0
whom died uttering rational but vain expos
tulations to their countrymen against thei
; sectional policy. In view of these con
siderations | deny, with the support of al
our previous history and experience, tina
the institution of slavery, as established b,
law in the States, is the cause of our nation