The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1866-02-04

AN OLD WARFARE.

be advised of the bitterness of feeling cher
ished by Southern traitors and Northern sym
pathizers against New England, and the un-
measured denunciation indulged against Mas
sachusetts and her great representative man,
Senator SUMNER. 1t may be that some of our
readers think that this hostility against
New England, and the vituperatiye assaults
on Massachusetts and her great men are of
recent growth, and spring from the slavery
agitation, in which Massachusetts has been
somewhat prominent. A few historical ref
erenees, however, will serve to dispel any
such illusion, and show that the chivalfy
were Just as bitter and denunciatory OF New
England. of Massachusetts, and of DANIEL
WEBSTER, the then conservative embodiment
Of New England, as the present generation
of fre-eaters and sympathizers are against
abolitionized New England, and Massachu-
sets, and the radical Senator, CHARLES
SUMNER.
To avoid lengthy citation from historical
writings and documents, we appeal TO the
testimony of DANIEL WEBSTER himself, who
is authority now in all conservative schools,
and quote from his famous speech in reply to
Senator HArsE, of South Carolina, delivered
in the Senate of the United States on the 26th
of January, 1880, before the Inauguration of
the slavery agitation" and before the Pc
riod that General JACKSON wrote his letter in
denunciation of the nulli6ers, and predicted
that they would resort to the negro question
as means of promoting their project of dis
union.
But in that speech of 1880, Mr.. WEBSTER.
it is clear, is contending against prejudice
of long standing existing in the South against
New England and against himself, in refer
ence to this same slavery question, and while
denying that there was any foundation for it,
he gives the following statement of its origin:
"When 1t became necessary, or was thought
so, by some political persons, to find an un-
varying ground for the exclusion of Northern
men from confidence and from lead in the
affairs Of the Republic, then, and not till
then, the cry was Used, and the feeling in.
dustriously excited, that the influence of
Northern men in the public counsels would
endanger the relations of master and slave"
At that time, be it rememb cred, the slave
holding States, powerful as they were in
Congress, did not vote in solid column, and
hence, those political persons resorted to
the slavery question for political capital, and
through its influence, sought to exclude such
men as WEBSTER and EVERETT. and other
Northern men of ability from the Presidency
from the Cabinet and from positions of DIT ON
inence abroad. Such is the testimony of tn
conservative oracle, DANIEL WEBSTER. and
there are many facts to corroborate it, if his
words needs confirmation.
Further along in his speech we learn from
Mr.. WEBSTER something of the bitterness and
the style of warfare urged against New Eng
land
Thepoiitics Of New England became his theme;
and II was IN this part of his speech, | think
that he menaced me with sore discontinue Dis
comdture! Why, sir, when he attacks anything
which 4 maintain, and overthrows il. when he
turns the right or left of any position which take
up, when he drives mc from any ground l choose
TO occupy, hemsy then talk Of discontinue hut
no till that distant day. What has he done Has
he maintained his own charges? Has he proved
what he alleged Has he sustained himself in his
attack on the Government, and on the history of
the North. in the matter Of public lands, Has he
disproved fact, refuted a proposition, weakened
an argument, maintained by me Has he come
within beat of drum of any position of mine, o.
no; but he has carried the war into the enemy's
country 2" Carried the into the enemy's coun-
try Yes, sir, and what sort ofa war has he made
of it2 Why, sir, he has stretched a drag net over
the whole surface Of peffshed pamphlets, indis-
erect sermons, frothy paragraphs, and fnming
popular addresses; over whatever the pulpit in its
moments of alarm, the press in its heats and par
ties in their extravaganza, have severally thrown
of in times of general excitement and violence.
lie has thus swept together q mass Of such things
as, but that they now old and cold, the public
health would have required him rather to leave in
their state Of dispersion. For good long hour or
two, We had the unbroken pleasure Of listening to
the honorable member, while he recited with his
usual grace and spirit, and with evident high gus
TO. speeches, pamphlets. addresses, and all the
e eeteras of the political press such heads
produce in warm times and such il would be
discontinue indeed, for any one, whose taste
did not deghtin that sort of reading, to be obliged
TO peruse. This is the This is to carry the
war into the enemy's country. Ii is in an invasion
Of this Sort that he fattered himself with the ex-
peetation of gaining aurels Gt TO adorn Senator's
brow.
Ard again we have his response for Massa
chuset;s, showing how ruthlessly she had been
assailed, and how triumphantly and with what
reserved dignity she might be defended:
Mr.. President, shall enter ON no eneomiuu
upon Massachusetts,; she needs none. There she
is. Behold her. and judge for yourselves There
is her history; the world knows it by heart The
past, at least, secure. There is Boston, and Con
cord and Lexington, and Bunker Hil and there
they will remain forever. The bonesof her sons,
falling in the great struggle for independence
lie mneicl with the soil OF every State from New
England 10 Georgia. and there they win lie for
ever. And. sir, here American liberty raised its
hrst voice, and where its youth nurtured and
sustained, there it still lives in the strength Of its
manhood and full of its original spirit lfdkcord
and disunion shall wound it, if party strife and
blind amhision shall hawk ut and tear it, if folly
and madness, IL uneasiness under salutary aud
necessary restraint shall succeed In separating it
from that Union, by which alone its existence is
made sure, it will stand, in the end by the side of
that cradle IN which its infancy was rocked it
will stretch forth its arms with whatever of vigor
1t may still retain over the friends who gather
round it; and it win fall at last IL fall it must,
amidst the proudest monument of its own glory,
and on the very spot of its origin.
Thus, it will be seen that the Assaults on
New England, upon Massachusetts, and upon
Massachusetts, Senators, are no new thing
provoked by her recent attitude, but they date
back into the historical ages of the past.
And the war waged upon them then was just
as earnest and of precisely the same character
as that now carried on. But there Massachu-
setts yet stands, with thirty-fve years of added
history of that past, which is now "secure,"
and 1t she falls at last, it viii be among proud
er monuments of her own glory, than even