Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1867-11-21

MistenaneuHs &eading.
AN ELOQUENT SPEECH.
A Democratic ratification meeting was held at
the Cooper Institute, New York, on the night oi
the 3lst ultimo. At this meeting Hon. ID. W.
VOORHEES,, of Indiana, was the principal orator,
and he came fully up to the occasion. delivering a
speech rarely excelled in power. We extract from
it the following sad but truthful deineaion Of the
oppression of our country: .ai
''In our school books we learned to mourn over
the cruel fortunes of Poland, and to fame with in
dignation against her great barbard executioner
the funeral and wailing shadow of murdered Hun
gary convulsed this continent few short years
ago. and made the name of Austria hateful to the
ears of the civilized world the, ,perturbed spirit
of Irish Liberty walks the earth at all hours, in
all its distant four quarters adding every disciple
of freedom in every cline beneath the sun to their
train of followers, and pointing to England as the
odious assassin of people entitled to be free; but
at our own doors, under the folds Of our own flag,
q vast and magnificent portion of the American
Republic lays this hour in a condition beside
which Poland, Hungary, and Ireland are the radi-
ant homes Of happy freemen-it lays there vic
tim to needless, vengeful and remorseless tyran-
ny, beside which the worst tyrannies Of the old
world are liberal and respectable forms Of govern
ment Instead Of ten States existing in their orr
ginal beauty and strength, as our fathers made
them, we have incorporated into the same work of
the American Republic, five military districts en-
tirely unknown to the Constitution, and utterly
inconsistent with the first and plainest principles
on which our Government was founded. Not a
vestige of civil liberty remains beneath the shadow
Of this stupendous usurpation. The great muni-
ments of freedom-those high and adamantine
walls Of personal security for whose erection gener
ations have toiled with bloody sweat, have all per-
ished under the destructive and reasonable as
saults of Congress. The right to the writ of hu-
beas corpus that resplendent right Of freemen b.
which the hand of unlawful power can alone be re-
strained, now lies dead, powerless and despised on
the very battle plains where its enjoyment was Sc
cured by the surrender of Cornwallis to Washing
ton. Trial by Jury is mockery, delusion, and
a snare at Eutaw Springs The Cowpens and
Guilford Court-Ho Over the sunken graves
of the Revolution a standing army, at the behest
of Congress, controls elections and dictates the use
of the elective franchise at the mouth Of the can
non and with leveled muskets. Aye, the South
ern sky of the American heavens is shrouded in
black. Once it was filed with stars more radiant
and lovely than Arcturus, Orion, or the Pleiades.
Our fathers of immortal memory planted them
there. They burned with the light of liberty regu-
lated by law. But they burn no more. Rayless
and quenched they wander in dark and trackless
void. The balefl wrath Of Radicalism, coming up
thick and poisonous as the ''dimest smoke of he'll,
has extnguished one-third Of the constellation Of
the American glory. Who Will question the 6deli-
ty of this picture? Who so bold as to deny that
Congress has overturned every institution Of free
tgUveTuuTuC TVgIUIIs HOW ueIu py mllltary
bower? And who dares to say that he finds q
warrant for this action in the Constitution which
an oath requires him to support? But the stable
and miserable answer to this terrible accusation is
that the people of the South have been in rebel.
lion and deserve no better at the hands Of victo-
rious power. Does this fact, even if it were So
Justify revolution, usurpation, broken oaths and
deliberate treason on the part of Congress? Ad
NIT that the South attempted to reVolutionize thu
Government and destroy its institutions, does
that mitigate the crime of the North in compile
ting what the South labored for in vain? No
Nor can this destructive and despotic policy be
pursued with impunity to the North ITSELF While
| it is only your neighbor who is PROSTATE by the
wayside, bruised and bleeding, the priest and ths
levite of Radical vengeance will pass on needless
of his groans While the South alone suffers ir
chains, the North may still sleep softly on the bee
of its luxurious wealth. But the day is close a
hand when the blighting influences of standing
army and military power in one section Of the coun
try will spread and be felt over all. Indeed, thu
day is already now upon us. The public mind O
the North is almost fatally accustomed to acts
Federal usurpation. We have stood by with fold
ed arms in species of astonished apathy, while
pillar after pillar of the temple of our institution
has been torn away, until fear, at times, that i
the sacred edi6ce itself should fall, We would b.
content to emerge from the ruins with no presen
intention of rebuildingits glorious proportions.
wandering Committee of Congress is now travelling
at the public expense over the face of the country
commissioned to enquire whether certain States
some of whom were born with the Revolution
have republican forms Of government. The pub
lie mind scarcely heeds such monstrous proceed
ing. This committee is as lawless in its formation
and with no more legal power to enter upon such
mission than so many italian Banditti, and so al
men know; yet they are at their work at the hom'
and grave Of Henry Clay and by the tomb o
Pinckney, preparing to destroy other and NOR
States and subject them to the increasing and in
satiate demands of military force. .
REGISTRATION.
The Charleston Courier says the following is tn
.o.,,.., &C ro nistration in this State aS re