Year: 1861




AIsssrs. Edirors:-


The reason why our people have treated
treason with so much Ienicncy hitherto,
may be accounted for on the ground that
they have never yet comprehended the
fearful magnitude of the crime. And the
reason why they have not comprehendedit,
is the fact that this is the first time that it
has been brought home to them as a
practical reality. Our people had heard
of treason and rebellion by the people
against the despOtic governments of the
Old World, but it seemed so absurd and
unreasonable, nay, insane, for men to con-
spire to overthrow and destroy a govern
ment, by force ofarms, which was made and
administered by themselves. The thing
seemed absolutely impossible. Even our
statesmen have failed to comprehend the
subject although it seems TO me to be so
plain that a child might understand it.
Every writer on the Union side that l
have seen yet denies the right of secession,
but admits the right oil revolution. Now l
most emphatically deny the right of both
the one and the other. What, in the name
OF reason and common sense, let me ask,
| can induce men to, destroy by armed rebel
lion, a government made and administered
! by themselves? We present to the world
to-day the humiliatiug spectacle of men in
armed rebellion against their own authori-
ty. Is it any wonder they laugh at us and
shout the great bubble of American Re-
publicanism has burst? If men will dress
themselves in FOOLS coat, they certainly
have no right 20 complain if they shall be-
come the objects of ridicule and even
scorn.


Now let us look at this right of revolu-
ton which has been admitted by Union
men On what does it rest? 0, say they,
our fathers overthrow the government of
Great Britain because it was oppressive,
and, therefore, if our government should
become oppressive we have Il right to
overthrow it. This would be unanswera-
BILE, provided the cases were analogous, but
there is no more analogy between them than
there is between between darkness, and light.
The argumeutvanishes into air. Who made
and admin stored the laws of the colonies
against which your fathers rebeIled? The
King and Parliament of Great Britain. The
colonial laws were made by the British
Parliament and signed by the British King
ard your fathers were no more represented
in that Parliament than you are now. They
did not vote for the men who made their
laws


And in regard to the laws passed by the
Colonial Legislatures, it was no better
They were null and void unless ratified by
the Governors, and they were the crea-
lures of the King, appointed ny him, and
removable ut his pleasure, rs they were
all of foreign birth. The King not only
appointed the Governors of the Colonies
and removed them at his pleasure, but
while they held office they received their
instructions directly from him, so that if
any law of the local legislatures did not
meet with his appreciation he had only to
instruct his representative, the Governor,
to withhold his assent, and that was the
end of it. The King of Great Britain,
then living on the other side of the Allan
tic Ocean, a distance of more than three
thousand miles, did, in fact, make and ad-
minister the laws under which your fathers
lived, as he appointed all the Judges also,
so that he exercised both legislative and
executive and judicial powers over them.
This was the kind of a government that
your fathers rebelled against and revolu-
tionized. y government of taxation with
out representation. If law was oppres-
sive, their only hope of relief to petit
ton the King for its repeal, and if he did
not choose to grant the repeal, they had no
redress but rebellion against the irrespon-
sible authority of the tyrant, and revolu-
tionize.


Now, to argue because it was right for
your fathers to rebel against such gov
erument as that, which was to them ir-
responsible despotism, that, therefore, it is
right to rebel against or revolutionize
representative Republican Government
such as ours, is to me perfectly inexplica-
bic, except on the ground of deplorable Ig-
uorance, mental imbecility, or moral obli-
guilty. Yet this is the sandy foundation
upon which this whole superstructure of
| treason and rebellion rests. Eeither its
advocates are demeuted, OIL they are noto-
riOusly ignorant, or they are abOminably
corrupt. Upon one of the horns ot this
dilemma they must hang. They can take
their choice.


The argument by which the Southern
traitors and their aiders and abetters, here
in Wheeling and elsewhere, have imposed
upon themselves and hope to impose upon
others. is this. They say they are imitat-
ing the example of the fathers of the reyo-
luton. 1t may be cruel in US to dissipate
this illusion, but we cannot help it. Let
us look at it, In the Colonial Government,
against which your fathers rebelled. the
British King was the sovereign and ruler.
In our present representative government
the people are the sovereigns. Your leg
islators who make the laws, the Gov
ernors of the several States, and the Pre-
sident of the United States, whose
duty it is to see that the laws are
duly and properly executed, and the Judges
who preside in your courts of justice, are
all elected by the people, except in the
United States courts, and consequently
are your servants. Aud should they re-
fuse to make or administer the laws rs the
people desire, remedy as potent as can
non balls, and yet as harmless as DR..
Hughes little pills, is within their reach,
namely, the ballot box. These public SER