The western Democrat. [volume] (Charlotte, N.C.) 1852-1870, 1866-11-13
THE NEXT CIVIL WAR.

The following is an extrast, from recent
speech of DIR Vallandigham in Ohio:
The late war is over-the next is to come
Shall digress q moment to tell you how? IT'S
easily told. They have proclaimed it already
Bingham, Wade, Stevens-the leaders of the
Republican party everywhere. Under pretence
of impeachment Of the President, they mean to
depose him.
I do not say iupeach-that is mild, gentle,
constitutional word-though it is absurd in the
extreme to talk of impeaehing President for
supporting the Constitution aud maintaining the
Union. They will depose him by violence,
though under the pretended violation of law;
add let me here say very emphatically that upon
the fundamental maxim Of Lincoln's admins
tration they have perfect right to do So
What was it (? He boldly and repeatedly pro-
claimed, and mercilessly he acted upon it from
the beginning to the end, and sustained all his
underlings everywhere in executing it, that he
had a right, and that it was his duty to remove
every obstacle, Of whatever kind, human ma
terial-men, things, or ipstitutions-wbich he
believed stood in the way of the successful
achievement of what he called patriotic purposes:
And in this monstrous claim he was supported
in the beginning by the great mass of the peo-
pie in the States North and West, and through
| out by majority of them with recklessness
and bitterness, and a severity, too, never before
exhibited by free people in any country or 10
any age
vigorously practiced upon, the Radicals have
right to remove the President from his office,
and to imprison, exile or even to put him to
death-upon the pretext that he is believed to
be an obstacle in the way Of the successful exc
cution of their plans and policy for what they
choose to call the public good. And do not
know that any one who, in Lincoln's time, gave
sanction to the execrable doctrine, could have
| any right to complain.
would have that right The Democratic
party would have it-and here aud there a
solitary wayfarer, marching out of place with the
Republican hosts. But no matter; let me warn all
COZ eerued, that this pretended impeachmet t, this
intended deposing of the President will be re-
sisted to the last extremity. He is President
under the Constitution, and has precisely the
same right to exercise the duties of the Office to
the end of his term, March 4, 1869, that the
members of the Senate or House, or any other
of the officers of Government have, and these
will find million hearts of oak and arms of
steel to defend him in the enjoyment of that
| right. We want more war-above ALL Go
more civil war but if they will force it, it shall
be, will be "war to the knife, and the knife to
the hilt."
But to return. The recent civil or sectional
war is over. The Confederate armies have sur
rendered and been dispersed, and the Federal
army, twelve hundred Thousand strong, has been
diminished to less than fifty thousand. The
war is over, but the Union is not restored. Did
war restore the Union Let every soldier and
every officer answer If war restored the Union,
what were they doing here advocating the Pres
idcnt's policy? They all did their duty like
brave men. 1t was no fault of theirs that their
work did not restore the Union. They broke
down the armed hostility to the Federal Gov
erDmeut, and i: was because, in the eternal
nature of things, by the decree of the Omnipo-
tent God, force could not cement Union made
by consent, that the Union was not restored;
and now the entire Democratic party is where
it has always been, and every soldier aud officer
who fought in that war should come forward
and unite with the Democratic party in seeking
to accomplish through the ballot the work that
war could not accomplish.