The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1874-01-01

ton and took it. as a lamp to their feet
and a guide to their path command none
of your respect. Jefferson, che great
apostle of liberty. secured and regulated
by law, is summarily set aside, and his
modern disciples" who have kept their
oaths, are east into deep shadow" by the
founder of an opposing school which
makes systematic perjury the corner
stone of its policy. The expression of
sucn sentiments by a man like you is a
deep injury TO the cause of liberty and
justice.
You know what the Irrep-essible Con-
flct was as Mr.. Seward uttered it at
Rocheste ! present an analysis which
you will admit to. be accurate. He an
nounced that:
l. There was then a conflict between
the North and South-not merely a con-
flct of interests, opinions, and feelings to
be determined peaceably by reason or
law; but,
9. 1t was a conflict between the cp-
posing forces of the Northern and South
ern States. Actual war already existed;
the relation of the parties was that Of
belligerent enemies.
3. The determined purpose eff this war
on one side was to plant slavery in the
NOrth by force, and on the other to abol-
ish it in the South by similar means. This
Of course involved the complete subjuga-
ton of the defeated party.
1. The conflict was iITepTeSSi6te. The
dogs of wal were loose and could not be
chained up again.
3. The conflict should not be stopped;
it must go on until all the rights OF one
section should be trampled down under
the hostile feet of the other. Woe to the
conquered
You are of course aware that this was
q mere invention There was no such
cophlct as be described. The wish Of
himself and his party friends to visit the
South with FIRE, sword, and famine may
have been very strong. but the declara-
ton that the Southern States were using
their forces, or intended to use them, for
the purpose of introducing African slave
ry into the North was such an offence
against the known truth as admits of no
/ palliation or excuse
Yet 1t was believed and taken into the
hearts Of thousands and tens of thou
sadds. Large bodies of men combined
together in sects or parties are often ex-
cited to q kind of madness. In hat con-
dition their appetite for falsehood Is un-
sppeaSsble, and the gluttony with which
they swallow it down is incatcuIable.
One-haH the English people believed the
transparent lies of Titus Oates, about the
"Popish Plot" and the other half did not
dare to contradict it. "Know-Nothings"
without number believed the frightful
stories of Maria Monk and her coadlu-
tors. And the Abolitionists believed Mr..
Seward. He understood them and had
taken the exact measure of their credu-
lily. This time be made no "miscalcula-
ton Of the passions" he would stir. Be
lieving him, they saw in the South a
cruel enemy preparing to crush out their
domestic institutions, TO subvert their
State governments, and to smash up the
whole framework of their society.
On the minds of the Southern people
the effect was still worse. To my certain
knowledge it made more secesslonists
than all other causes put together. To
every persuasion we addressed them IN
favor OF legal obedience, union, and peace,
Stewards speech furnished an answer
How was 1t possible, they said, for them
to obey a Constitution which we treated
as a dead letter? Could one party keep a
compact if the other wantonly broke 1t?
"rhe Unionl aconhiet 8 not union; and,
as to peace, your foremost man has told
us that there is no peace" The terrible
difficulties Of their situation paralyZed
their Judgment. Evaporation took the
place Of that cool fortitude which had
carried them through previous trials.
Wisdom forsook their counsels. They
gave up to their domestic foes the ship
which they had often defended against
foreign enemies and trusted their destiny
TO secession
--thst fatal, that perhdious bark.
Built in the ecliOse and rugged with curses dark.
Did Mr.. Seward know what he was
dong when he started this irrepressible
conflict If he did not, how can you feel
any respect for his Judgment But his
newspaper organ at Albany (the EOening
Journal said, for him hat he did intend
what happened; and he himself, about
1865, Dragged that he had privately pre-
dicted the battle of Gettysburg many
years before the war broke eut. The CIR
repressible conflict" was then, on his part,
a col1-blooded and deliberate. preparation
for tho sacrifice, of life and property on q
scale Of enormous magnitude, involving
men, women, and children Of every class
and color IN the North as we'll as the
South. You think him wholly unlike
Cleon, as being vastly better. But what
did that u~nprincipled tanner ever do, or
propose to do, that wa comparable to
the atrocity of the irrepressible conflict?
You will say, as you rave said, that Cleon
''stimulated the passions of the Atheni-
ans to the massacre Of the male popula-
ton of Mitylene.' But remember there
were only about 5000 male MityleD@ans
all told less than 1000 actually sufferedl
and they were foreigners and enemies,
On the other hand that population which
Mr., Seward "stimulated the passions" of
the a%blitionists and negroes 10 mass acre
were his fellow-citizens, living with HIM
IN the bonds of sworn amity, snder a COM
mon government, which owed equal pro-
lection to them and himself. Perhaps
you will plead for Seward that the South
ern people We're Shareholders and poor
white trash" whom IL was no harm to
kill, but l reply on the part Of Cleon that
the Mitylenaons were slavehplders also.
Your contrast between Seward and Cleon
Is almost as much a failure as your snalo-
gy between him ana Pericles.
Before you. asserted that Mr. Seward
saUed the country you ought to have re-
membered that if the nation had been
saved from him and his followers, and the
irrepressible conflict which they created,
1t would have needed no other salvation.
+. Now as to the little bell. The same
higher law which gave the Federal Coy
eminent power to legislate against the
States in defiance Of the Constitution
would logically justify any Executive
outrage that might be desired for personal
or party purposes on the life, liberty, and
property of individuals. Such was Mr..
Stewards theory, aud such vas the prac-
tice of himself and his subordinates and
some OF his colleagues. 1 will not pain
yon by = recital Of the wAntoh cruelties
they inflicted upon n~noffending citizens
I have neither space nor time nor skill to
paint them. A life,size picture Of them
would cover more canvas than there is on
the earth. You were abroad as Minister
to England when most of them were
done; bat every wind bore you the reports,
and you must have blushed for your
country when you saw her degraded in
the eyes of the whole world. Since the
fall of Robespierre nothing hiss occurred
t. cast SO much disrepute on republican
institutions.
When Mr.. Seward went into the State
Department he took a hue 6eH to his
office in placa of the statute book, and /