Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1867-08-15

Great political movements always have
some adequate. cause.
THE BASIS OF DIsUNIoN IN THE SOUTH.
Now, on what did the conspirators who
plotted the destruction of the Union and
the establishment of a Southern Confed-
eracy rely? In the first place, they
taught u false construction of the nation
al Constitution, which was miscalled
State rights, the essential part of which
was that ANY State of the Union might
secede from the Union whenever it
liked" This document was the instru-
ment employed to destroy the unity of
the nation. The fact which gave strength
and energy TO those who employed this
instrument was that in the Southern
half of the Union, society, business,
property, religion, and law were all based
on the proposition that over four millions
ofour countrymen, capable of civilization
and religion, were, because of their race
and color, $50 far inferior that they had
no rights which the white man was
bound to RESPECT" The practice found
ed upon this denial of the Declaration of
Independence, protected by law and
sanctioned by usage, was our great ma
tiOnal transgressiOn, and was the cause
of our great national calamity.
FORMATION OF PARTIES ON THE ISSUES
MADE BY THE SHAREHOLDERS.
In country where disunion was free,
sooner or later, parties were sure to be
formed on the issues presented by the
shareholders. The supporters of the
Union and of human rights would band
together against the supporters of dis
union and slavery. For many years
after the struggle really began the issues
were not clearly defined, and neither
party was able to occupy its true and
final position, or to rally to it's standard
all who were in fact its friends. Old
parties encountered the ground. Men
were slow to give up their old associa-
tions, and leave the discussion of obsolete,
immaterial, or ephemeral issues.
AT last the crisis came. In 1850 Mr..
Lincoln who was unfriendly to slavery
and faithful to the Union, was elected
President. The party of disuuion and
slavery were prepared for this event.
Their action was prompt, decisive and
defiant. They proceeded to organize
Southern conventions, and formally to
withdraw from the Union, and under
took to establish new government and
u new nation on the soil of the United
States.
Prior to 1860 the party calling itself
Democratic had gathered dunderone name
and one organization almost the whole
of the secessionsts of the South, and Il
large body of the people of the North,
many of whom had no sympathy either
with secession or slavery. In 1860 the
secessionists were SO arrogant in their
demands that the great body of the Dem
ocratic party in the North refused to
yield to them, and supported Mr.. Doug
las in opposition both to Mr.. Lincoln
and to the disunion and slavery candi-
date, Mr.. Breckinridge. But it was well
known that many leading Democrats
Unsupported Mr.. Douglas leaned strong
ly toward the Southern Calhoun Demo-
cracy, and that their sympathies were
with slaveholding, or at least with slave
holders.
OPINIONS AND ADVICE OF MIR. PENDLE-
TON.
The evidence of this is abundantly fur
nished in their recorded opinions. The
most distinguished, and perhaps the most
influential Democrat now actively en-
gagged in politics in Ohio, who presided
over and addressed the last Democratic
State Convention held at Columbus, Mr..
Pendleton, delivered q speech in the
House of Representatives on the 18th of
January, 1861.
You will recollect how far the slave
bellion at that date. Mr.. Pendleton him
self says:
To-day, sir, four States of this Union have, so
far as their power extends, seeded from IT. Four
Stutes, as they are able have annuled the grants
of power made TO the Federal Government; they
have resumed their powers delegated by the
Constitution; they have cancelled, SO far as they
could, every limitation upon the full exercise of
all their sovereign rights. They do not claim
our protection; they ask no benefit from our
laws; they seek none of the advantages of the
confederation. On the otherhand they renounce
their allegiance;, they repudiate our authority
over them, and they assert that they have as
sumed-some of them that they have resumed
their position among the family of sovereigns,
among the nations o6the earth. .
To-day even while nm speaking, Georgia is
voting upon this very question: And unless the
signs of the times very much deceive us, within
three weeks other States will he added to the
number.
Mr.. Pendleton might also have said
that prior to that date forts, arsenals,
dock yards, mints, and other places, and
property belonging to the United States,
had been seized by organized and armed
bodies of rebels; the collection of debts
due in the South to Northern creditors
had been stopped; South Carolina had
declared that any attempt to reinforce
Fort Sumter by the United States would
be regarded by that State as an act of
hostility against her and equivalent to a
declaration of war; the Star of the West,
an unarmed vessel, with the American
flag floating at her mast head, carrying
provisions to the famishing garrison of
Fort Sumter had been fired on and driv-
en- to Charleston harbor; in short, at that
date the rebels were engaged in actual
war against the nation, and the only rca-
son why blood had not been shed was
that the national Government had failed
in its duty to defend the nations 'sproperty,
and to maintain the sacredness Of the
national flag.
At that crisis Mr.. Pendleton deliver
ed and sent forth speech bearing this
significant motto: "But, sir, armies,
money, blood, cannot maintain this
Union-justice, reason, peace, may. y
The speech was according to its MOTTO
Accustomed, rs he is, to speak cautiously,
and i'm scholarly and moderate way,
we cannot be mistaken as to his drift
On the authority of the National Gov
ernment, he says:
Now, sir, what force ofarms can compel State
to do that which she has agreed TO do? What
force of arms can compel a State to refrain from
doing that which her State Government sup
ported by the sentiment of her people, is deter
mined to persist I'm doing?+ Sir, the
whole scheme of coercion is impracticable IL
is contrary to the genius and spirit OF the Con-
stitution!
These extracts sufficiently and fairly
show Mr.. Pendleton's notion of the duty