Litchfield enquirer., 1868-10-29

ooo 'iiooiioo ol totitte flSutS, that ne made ln reference to this subject one of the few mistakes to be fonnd in his book, but a very grave mistake. So slight was the pow
 CT of the General Government. he thonoht
 and so feeble the sentiment of nationality as compared with the strength of the sen arate States and with the local attachments
 of their citizens, that, in case of 8 serious attempt made by any of the States to break up the Union, he expressed the opinion not oEly that the central government would have no power to resist such rebellion, but that It would not even make d serious ef- fort to resist It and to avert the threatened dissolution.
 THE SHAREHOLDERS REBELLION,
 We had known all along that Slavery was the most potent of dissolvents in all politi- cal organisms. It could not but act the same part in our polity, and the great mass ot the people, North, South, East and West nad for generations long been responsible for the evil and for it's continuance. Many years the baleful poison had been working, untli throughout great section of the country 1t had eaten but that respect for nationality which is the most noble and Vital part of any organized form of associa- ted humanity, and the leading characteris- tic of the present speech in the world s history. And at last the outbreak came. The slave power, the most distinctly mark cd ollgarchy ever known to mnknd plant ed itself squarely across the track of the great Democratic principle to which this Union owes the breath of life. State sov- ereignty, from harmless and bombastic phrase, seemed to become for time a most formidable fact; for it was under the form of State sovereignty that the eligar- chlcal antl-Republican principle of slavery disguised itself for the struggle so long inn pending. The attempts to destroy the mild and beneficent Union in order to ex- tend and perpetuate human slavery, was by one of the most terrible mockeries ever conceived of, declared to be an uprising for liberty against tyranny. History has nev- known such profound irony as this. The splrlt ot liberty was never so strangely travestled before as when 1t was made to inspire and to consecrate that confederacy. Dujl5 according to those awful words which Wlll forever remain historical upon the corner stone which the builders rejected, the corner stone of negro slavery. The effort to destroy the Union was serious enough, Heaven knows. Never did human belngs ln the holiest cause, display more brilliant courage, energy, endurance, pa tlence, tanatical selfsacrifice than the Re bels in their mad struggle against the inex- orable Law. Had their cause been good, had the Rebellion been just, it would have been impossible to subdue them. But the Union represented the cause of Democra- cy, of nationality, of equal rights to all mankind, the sacred reign of Law The nobleness of the canse insniral tha ITninn became soldiers, with a valor and deyO- tion, an inventive genius, a reckless and generosity of treasure and Of blood never surpassed in the history of mankind. The world has found out at last whether this is a nation or not; wheth CT the central government can protect itself or not against a serious effort to destroy 1t; whether the American people will acqui- esce or not in their political dissolution; j; whether the great Republic will lie down to die like lamb,as soon as theaknife is fiourss ished at its throat. Perhaps 1t needed this spasm, this sudden apparition of political death to real to the people the depth of their attachment to the Union. No effort likely to be made again to destroy the cen tral government; Yet the very qualities which our late misguided enemies, soon to become our fellow citizens, havo manifest ed in the cause of Slavery, give Us the right to hope for prouder and more prosperous future than has ever been granted to any political community.
 THE QUESTION OF SUFFRAGE.
 This is not the time to examine the uues- tion of suffrage from an priori point of view. The right to cast Q vote should en- tail upon it's possessor tho corresponding duty of understanding the subject voted upon, and an educational suffrage for a whole population, whatever its colors, would perhaps be the most reasonable con- dition. But doubt whether in present circumstances any better way of protect ing the freedman in his civil rights can be found than by giving him the vote. The end justifies the means. To refuse the franchise to man not because he is igno- rant, but because he IS black, seems to me as preposterous as to deny it to him be- cause he is not six feet high. As to what is called negro supremacy, I con- fess this to be a subject, beyond my comprehension. I suspect that the consummate politicians of seeding States will find even less difficulty in ma nipulating the negro vote of the South than they did for 30 years or more in con- trolling the majority of white voters in the North. Negro supremacy may be Q good phrase to conjure with in these regions, but l doubt whether the white citizens of the Slave States are much appalled, by the sound. We are told that ''the Southern people are not hostile to the negroes, and would not oppress them if they had the power to do so; that they have grown up among the whites who have been accus- toned to look upon them with kindness. J So much the better. Now that kindness to the negro is to be manifested in some bet ter ways than by holding him in perpetual slavery, by selling his wife and children before his eyes, by tracking his fugitive steps with bloodhounds, by refusing his testimony in courts of justice, dy depriying him of every right of a human creature; it is perfectly possible that better relations between employer and laborer may ere long be established. But doubt whether any one seriously expects that the negro will obtain political or intellectual suprem
 acy in any part of this continent; or that
 the Caucasian race anywhere needs dis
 eliminating legislation in it's favor to pre-
 vent 1t from lapsing into subjection to the African. If We can protect these unfortu
 mates. who have ever trusted us, and whose
 hopes of deliyerance have ever pointed tt the North star, against the possibility O
 falling into some kind of bondage and dis
 ability agin; if we can give the means O self f-protection by putting the ballot il