The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-08-20
The Argus Pet Statesman.

The Argus Pet Statesman.
The Argus in its regular and campaign
editions is sending into all parts of the State
the speeches of Senator VOORHEES, of Indi..
ana thus implicitly recommending Mr.. Noor-
hees as wise and safe political teacher for
the people of Maine. Can it be that the Ar-
gus has forgotten who Mr.. VOORHEES, is? Or
does it believe in him in 1879 because it be-
leved in him in 1864? Lest the argus has
forgotten Mr.. Voorhees, record we propose
to refresh its recollection by calling its atten-
ton to a speech delivered in the House of
Representatives March 5, 1864. The author
of that speech was Mr.. D. w. Voorhees,,
then Representative from the State OF lndi-
ana. He is the same Mr.. Voorhees, whose
later speeches the Argus is scattering over
this State.
Probably the Argus will recollect that
during the war there existed class of men
in the North whose chief occupation was
stabbing their, country in the back. This
class flourished in every Northern State but
was especially numerous in Indiana. Mr..
Voorhees, was their chosen spokesman in
the House of Representatives. In him they
found man after their own heart. Like
others of his class he was especially bold in
1864, and on the fifth of March, rising in
his seat in the House, he voiced the senti-
ments of himself and all the secret traitors
of the North in an elaborate speech which
gives evidence of careful and deliberate prep
aration. He said:
Mr.. Chairman: 1 arise to address the House
today with feelings of profound depression and
gloom. 1t is melancholy spectacle to behold
free government die Sir, IN
ny hours of seclusion and study have, to .be
best of my humble capacity, held up the lamp
of the past to the face of the future, and call
God to witness that would be recreant and
faithless to my own conscience II l did not pro-
claim, as far as my voice will reach, that a daI-
ger is this hour on the American people more
deadly than the juices of hemlock or the bite
of the asp. This Government is dying, sir, dy-
ing. We are standing by its bed of death, and
will soon be wretched mourners at the tomb
unless the sovereign and heroic remedy is
speedily applied.
What was this ''danger to the American
people more deadly than the juices Of hem
lock or the bite of the asp? Did Mr.. Voor-
hees fear the Union would be broken by the
triumph of the rebels in arms and was this the
danger he was warning his country against?
Oh, no. The danger lay in another direc-
ton. Some of his Northern copperhead al
lies had been arrested and placed where they
could plot no more treason against their
country The exile of Vallandgham and
the crushing out of treason in Indiana by
Burnside, were the wrongs that ranked in
his bosom. They were the only signs OF dan
ger which he could see. He could look calm
lv upon Union defeat, but the arrest Of
the ''American statesman and Christian gen.
tleman," Vallandigham, excited him to
rhetoric like this. Does the Argus think
that Vallandigham was martyr?
The American Republic was established in
order to accomplish avowed and specific pur-
poses The objects of its creation were left in
no uncertainty Its mission was clear and dis
tnct by the terms of the Constitution. 1t
came into existence in order to form more
perfect union, establish justice, insure domes-
tic tranquility, provide for the common de-
fence, promote the general welfare, and secure
the blessings of liberty to that and all succeed
ing generations Sof American citizens. Who
will dare to rise in his place and say that this
last three years in mode even tending toward
the accomplishment of these grand results?
Has the establishment of justice been main
tanned? The sword has been thrown into the
scales of justice, and there is not this hour
court between the two oceans left free to de-
eide the laws as they have uniformly been de-
cided in England and America for the last two
hundred years.
Not one right which constitutes the freedom
and safety of the people but what has been
Prisons ilp1
without indictment and without warrant; long
and bitter punishment inflicted without trial
or conviction; the whole jury system aDolShed
by stroke of the pen in the hand OF the Exec
utive or his subordinates in crime; no witnesses
brought to the face OF the accused; no counsel
permitted to appear in his behalf; his home
broken in upon and his papers searched in the
midst of his palid and terrified wife and chill
dren; such are some of the evidences which ex-
ist on every hand that our free institutions are
Fastening to their overthrow.
Have we in the West forgotten Burnside and
and the infamy of his reign in our midst? VIII
the inhabitants of the Western circuit OF Eng
land ever forget the monster Jeffries, and the
murder of Alice Lisle? Will some poor crawl
ing sycophant and tool of Executive despotlsm
dare to say that I shall not pronounce the name
of Vallandigham? The scandal and stigma OF
his condemnation and Punishment have filled
the civilized world; and the lethean and obliv-
ious waves of a thousand years will not wash
away the SldIne blQ I0pTOdCll VI tIdt ulloCl duiO
scene from the American name. Some men
on the other side of this Chamber have at
tackled with fierce clamor the great American
statesman and Christian gentleman who suf-
fers his exile in the cause of liberty on for
eign soil. So the basest cur that ever kenneled
may bay at the bidding of his master the Gagged
lion in the distance.
Mr.. Voorhees, warmed up as he proceeded.
Like Jeff Davis and every other Southern
Democrat in rebellion he attributed the
cause of the war solely to Lincoln and his
supporters. They were described as dane
ing in hellsh glee around the bubbling
cauldron of civil war and refusing all over
lures of peace. Mr.. Voorhees, was as sweet
on Confederate brigaders then as now.
Was the Argus, which is so fond of his
speeches in 1879 as fond of this in 1864?
But the domestic tranquility, has it been in
sured? When the present party came into
power the road to an honorable peace on the
basis of the Union was still open. Before the
Inauguration of Mr.. Lincoln his friends and
supporters held the issues of life and death,
peace and war in their hands in the Capitol
The records of the last session of the Thirty
Sixth Congress are immortal. They cannot
persh and as the woes and calamities of the
people thicken and magnify by the frightful
war in which we are engaged, they increase in
value to posterity more rapidly than the leaves
of the sibyiline book. The baleful brood of
political destinctionists who now llnhappily
possess the high seats of national authority,
did not then want public. tranquility. They
invoked the storm which has since rained
blood upon the land. They courted the whirl-
wind which has Frustrated the progress of a
century in ruins. They danced with hel!ish
glee around the bubbling cauldron of civil
war, and welcomed with ferocious Joy every
hurtful mischief which fickered in its lurid
and Internal flames. Compromise, which has
its origin in the love and mercy of God; which
made peace and ratified the treaty on Cavalry
between Heaven and the revolted and rebel
lious earth; which is the fundamental basis OF
all human association, and by which all Gov
ernments the world ever knew have been
created; compromise, which fools pronounce a
reasonable word, and skillful knaves cover
with reproach, because they are enriching
themselves at the expense of the National sor-
row and blood, was discarded by the North
and accepted by the South when offered by Mr.;
Crittenden. By it domestic tranquility could
have been insured. But an ulterior and de-
structive spirit held the hour and flooded the
Nation with misery. And since the breaking
IN of +bo foupto;pc Of t,a oraat dam who Of