The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1867-09-21
Tnformation.
The PrOphesles Of the LATE stephen
A. Douglas.

The Prophecies ofthe I.nts stephen
A. Douglas.
The severance of relations between the De-
suocrary, North and South, will throw the whole
arrangement of public affairs into the hands OF
men whose object will be as much to punish the
Southern people as TO preserve the Union
Should the South withdraw under such circum-
st,,nces the struggle would be fierce and pro-
tracted. A great civil war and the continuance
Of slavery are in my judgment. utterly incom-
ratible. The men who have been ready at
s.uy time to sacrifice the Union to emancipation.
Will have exclusive control Of the Government.
1t is folly to suppose their efforts will be limited
60 the restoration of the Union.
1t will not be careful inquiry whether they
possess legal authority, by virtue OF the Federal
Constitution, to do that which they have ever
been ready to do in contempt of that compact
sFhev will make new law suitable to the ends
shey seek to accomplish while professedly enga.
ced in the great work of restoring the integrity
Of the Union. The formost evil of such a state
of things ia that which shall bring into power
that nomadic class of mind, those wandering
humanitarans those fierce and turbulent spirits
whose atmosphere of life is hurricane and the
storm. Starting with the conviction that civili-
eaton and good governments are long way be-
hind them they have no respect for constitu-
Sicns, however wise, and no regard for rights
however sacred. Suspicious and ungenerous in
mind, viudictive and cruel in resentment, pro-
ascriptive and unprincipled in action, and tyran-
nital and merciless in the exercise Of authority,
their subugation of the South will leave us an
inheritance of evils scarcely less appalling than
those inseparable from struggle to maintain the
integrity Of the Union.
The attempt will be made to confer upon two
races equal political rights and privileges. am
isrsvocably opposed to any such policy. This is
q white mans Government, and it can never be
anything else and preserve the public peace. The
abolition Of slavery is one of the most probable
events of the future, but that will only exhibit
the folly of all attempts to confer political power
upon the negro race. The latter by the consti.
tuition Of their nature are a dependent people.
They are entitled to protection and if made free,
either by their own vindcatiOn-an event have
never cOntemplated-or by the commissions which
would inevitably attend an effort to break up the
Union, would regard it the duty of the United
States. as it would be the dictate of justice and
philanthropy. to extend over them, rs we have
extended to the Indian tribes, the vigiant guard
ianship of the National Government.
In regard to the negro race, l hold that we
have done quite enough for them by giving them
an asylum, field for labor, and the protection of
our laws. repeat again. and have everywhere
proclaimed, our institutions were made for white
men, and must be maintained exclusively for
.heir benefit and advantage. Ny faith in the
policy that looks to the exclusion of the blacks
from all political rights is stern and unbend;ng.
i see nothing but evil in attempts to equalize
the race politically, or to bring them upon terms
sfsocial equality.
But when the rebellion shall be put down. an
attempt will be made by the men in power to
confer upOn the negroes canal po1itical r;uhts
The secession of the South will be the transfer
of all the agencies and means to them The Gov
ernmont will be in the hands of Il class of men
least qualified of all American citizens to admin
lister its affairs. Their protective tariffs, their
grand project of internal Improvement, their
bankrupt laws--in short contempt of all sound
principles OF political economy and of Constitu-
tional restraints, give us no promise that after
s..o..:..,: tbs general authority of the Union
they will be more mindful of its future welfare
aud integrity to these reflections the
wide spread disorders Off civil war, the consum-
NATION Of their long cherished schemes of eman-
cipatiOn their hatred of State rights, their hab-
itual disregard of Constitutional limitation upon
the legislative power, and we shall be able to
comprehend some of the difficulties in the way
of the restoration Of the Union, even when all
Southern opposition shall have ceased-This il
not my theory of justice to either. Nor is it the
theory of the Government OF the Union.
trust and hope we may never be called upon
to adopt or reject this Utopian scheme of equal
atty. The revOlutionists and disnnionists of the
North will become the exclusive guardians of
the National integrity-a class of men who have
again and again avowed their readiness to sacri-
acc tine Union to their schemes of emancipation
Autumnnl lDISeusns