Litchfield enquirer., 1878-01-31
State Pride.

COuletnlng HRe HI Irlsn wake was pfOgecte0 into the Senate yesterday. That body was lu- gubriously eulogising William King, the first Governor of the State of Maine the immediate proyocation being the unyeiling of g statue of the dead statesman in the old hall of the House. Into this decorous solemnity Senator Blaine suddenly introduced an attack on Mass achueettg with allusions to the war of 1872, and other historic events. Precisely why Sen ator Blaine, who never saw Maine until he was old enengh to run for Congress, should be 90 zealously affected for the honor of the Pine Tree State in an ancient controversy, does not appear. The suggestion that the Senator re- members that he was wounded by Massachu- sett in the Cincinnati Convention has weight. At any rate, he is avenged.-N. 7. Ttn!es, JGss. 23
 Nothing could be in worse taste than Sena- tor Blaine's attempted belaboring of the Mass achusetts Reform Republican of to-day over the shoulders of ~his great grandfather, the Massachusetts Federalist of 1912, at 6 ceremo- ny where peace and harmony are usually con sidered desirable, except, perhaps, the kind of defence adoptedby Senator Dawes in reply. This was in the most offensive style of Con- gressional pettifogging, wherein the Honorable Member from Buncombe rises to deny that Buncombe ever did anything wrong, or ever could do anything wrong, whereof he puts himself on the country for triali and then mails copies of his great speech, "Vindicating the Honor of Buncombe," to every doubtful voter in that Congressional District. Now the truth is that the record of Massachusetts in the war of 1872 is neither creditable, nor patriotic, and the time will come when the doctrine of State infallibility, now so popular with Con gressional orators, will be abandoned as un- candid and absurd Great Britain has grown great enough to feel and acknowledge her frightful blunder in the war of 1776. Will Massachusetts never grow large enough to ad- init her blunder in 1872?
 While there can be no defence of the unpat- riofic cQaFse pursued by New England in that war there are many palliative facts. The spirit of nationality was then of recent growth among us, and was still extremely weak. There had been no sort of legal bond of union between the English Colonies in America. They were connected with themother country, but not with each other. The war of 1776 was not a struggle for union, but for mere indepen- dence Throughout that entire contest, each state was distinct nation, held together by outside pressure, and by slender bond of con- federation. The moment the pressure of war was removed, the country seemed on the point of going to pieces. All the energy, patriotism and foresight of the able body of men devel- oped by the Revolution were needed to bring the people at large to consent to the formation ot a real nation out of the chaos of states that preceded it. For years there was noticea- ble tendency in the country, when put to any hard strain, to dissolve into the old chaos of States. This was first apparent in Democratic Virginia and Kentucky under the Federalist ad- ministratiOn of Adams, and it is from the eel cbrated resolutions passed by those states at that time, that John c. Calhoun evolved his doctrine of Notification and prepared the way for the Secession of 1861.
 In like manner Federalist New England no sooner deemed herself wronged by the rule of Jefferson, Madison and the Democracy, than her people began to look back with longing eyes to the comparative freedom of their cen tury and more of colonial existence, and to the ten years of actual independence under the Confederation. The truth is that the idea of secession was common to every political party and to every section of the country during the first forty years after the adoption of the Con- stitution, though undoubtedly growing weaker, year by year as time demonstrated the useful ness of our Great Charter. Seizing upon this ides. John C. Calhoun constituted himself the High Priest of reaction against the real in tent of the Constitution, which, in the course of the following quarter of century, drove all true national feeling out of large part of the territory where Slavery was strongest The mighty attacks of Webster in the Senate, and the plucky patriotism of Andrew Jackson, completely destroyed the heresy throughout the North. and temporarily even in the South i; but it never lost it's hold on South Carolina and. as anti-slavery settlements rose higher and higher. the counter faith of Secession stole gradually into the hearts of it's defenders It was the notion of the superior allegiance of State over nation that gave the movement such an impetus in the few months between No vember 1860 and April 1861 ,and which finally banded nearly the entire South in arms against the old Union which many of her people still loved
 Aside from the destruction of Slavery, the war of '6l was worth all it's tremendous cost, in making LES 6 nation. The idea of f-dismem- boring these United States no longer occurs fx.t tkaa fa0u ufIalo r1OHa Ot redresaiBg political or sectional grievances Just nOw there is much bitterness of feeling between West and East regarding the curren cy. bat neither the rabidest bi-metallist from the farthest West nor the solidest gold cprren ~ man from due Northeast whispers of pos sibiIity of dividing the Union." Twenty years ago the feeling even at the North wa very different Such dissolution was 8 sac and an imminent danger. Let us be thankful that. now, the remotest of all dangers is tn danger of Secession but let us not falsify his tory and deny that New England ever sinned agaimaa the Constitution As we'll might W, deny that there were once slaves among us.
 John Bright has been easing his mind re. garding British rule in IHdis, He says that their famines are the direct result of mjsgov. ernment- Notwithstanding her reputation tol wealth he declares that India is really coua try of great and abiect poverty; that her 25( millions of people are taxed to the last limit o endurance by handful of Engiishmen, witl out any pretepee Of representation; and tha nearly three million persons have perishe' there during the last ten years fron starvation He says that the true remedy for these famine is more efficient means of irrigation, and urge the division of the country into several pres deDcies, in place of the present single goverr ment by few Engiishmen at Calcutta.
 The Winsted Press tells a touehllZ little ste " about Miss Mary McCargar, one of th teachers drowned at Tarifyille. A few year ago she was to have been married to a worth