American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1867-10-02
Forewarned is Forearmed.

The experience of the last six years
should have taugh US that even in the
United States there IS no security against
civil troable. A mora appalling intro.
ducsion to il no nation ever had. Yet
to the very moment of the actual blow
it was considered impossible. The re.
public was charmed. Other countries
had suffered, but We were exceptional.
Wars were oyer, and however loud the
threat of violence it would pass as an idle
word. The method of the Southern
madness was not needed. The plainest
declarations we're regarded as political
s'gag." The most evident preparations
were unseen or uuminded. It was said
that Senator Seward would rise in his
place, and in the midst of the most cour>
teous but crushing anti-slavery, speech,
turn to Senator Butler, who sat behind
him, and bold out his thumb and
finger for pinch of snuff The Caro-
lima Senator, averting his head, would
extend his box to his colleague from
New York, who still could not see any
thing in the Southern speeches but par
ty capitol. 1t was supposed that they
would view secession aud disunion until
after the election, and then nobody would
be so sound and earnest Union man as
Senator, Stewards excellent friend from
Georgia, Senator. Toombs. 1t is only a
cry of wolf wolff said comfortable pubs
Tic opinion But one day the wolf came.
1t is wotth while to return tothat ghast-
ly self deception of six and eight yeats
agoY Is it auy more foolish to believe
that the President win push the present
extremity to an armed solution, il he can
than it was to believe that the secession,
lists would take arms at the first favorable
moment? Andrew johnson is at bay !.
He is conscious of the eontemptuods
condemnation of his country, and of the
doom to which history will consign him,
He is ignorant, passionate, aud head
strong. He is surrounded by the worst
demagogues-by Fernando Wood, Jea-
emiah Black, aud men in sympathy with
him. He is the constitutional comman.
der-iu chief of the National forces, and
he has told us how he interprets the Con-
stitution. After long and exasperated
struggle with Congress, in which it was
supposed that he had been so bound by
tn laws as to be poweress, if not to have
acquiesced in the inevitable, he suddenly
assumes the defensive, de6es the un-
questionable public opinion of the coun>
try, quarrels, and under polite phrases,
with General Grant, and knows that with
in ninety days Congress will assemble and
will probably impeach him. Has he
done all this for the sake oe being i'm.
peachedl Has he done it with the in
teution of placidly yielding when he il
impeached, and going hnmbly out o
Office !? Or does he mean, if possible, to
provoke an armed crisis
We learn, upon good auth ority, that
there are ten thousand men in Maryland,
called militia. armed and under the com-
mend of re bel officers Not long belors
Mr.. Stanton was suspended requis-
ition came from the Governor of Mary
land to the War Department for bat
teries, which the Secretary refused. Fo
what purpose is such a body of men so
armed and so officered !? We do not
mention this to excite foolish alarm
but an alarm which is not foolish. L
may be an untrue story, but it is not ID
the least improbable that the President
intends some action hostile to Congress
1t may be in the guise of resistance
to the process and results of mpeach-
ment. 1t may be in pursuance Of plan
to issue an amnesty aud to assemble new
Congress. The wildness of the plan
and its futility do not make it improba
BILE. If the President knew the feeling
of the country he mighht pause. But
he does not know it. He cannot know
it. He is surrounded and led by men
who misrepresent it and to Genera
Grant, the true friend of the country in
the Cabinet, he does not listen.
The times are grave. No man sh ould
deceive himself, or "deride," with the
New York Tribune, the imminence Of
trouble. TO be fore#arned against dan
gar must be forear med. We need OF,
indeed, imagine that we are already
Mexicanized but we ought certainly to
reflect that in revolutionary period
when the country still trembles with
civil war, and peaceful order Is not yet
restored, desperate, ignorant and obsti
nate Chief Magistrate may plunge us into
very serious difficulty Hdrper's Weekly
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