Year: 1861

Of Secession.


Contrary to the predictions, and to the
secret hopes, doubtless, of the rumorizers
equal rights people, Mr.. President Lincoln
was peacefully inaugurated on the fourth Of
March. There was no "attempt to take the
capital" no assassination" no excitement
different from that which attended the inaug-
uraton of every President. Mr.. Lincoln's
address was not truly comprehensive pro-
duction; it did not exactly state either the
condition of the public sentiment of the
country or the position of the new President;
it expressed narrow and uncertain view of
the sauses af dissolution and the means of
maintaining the Union peaceably and yet
forcibly against the fact of absolute secession.
If that address had been delivered by anoh,
er person, it would have been characteristic
of Mr.. Lincoln to OBSERVE "Well, that is
rather al indefinite sort of thing"


The President absnrdly attempts to base
the Withdrawal of the Southern States upon
the apprehension that his individual! acces
sion to the Presidency would endanger the
personal security and the property of the
slave State people Taking this error as a
great prevalent truth, that he has no purpose
directly or indirectly 10 Interfere with the
institution of slavery in the States where it
exists, and he reiterates an expression of the
Republican party platform to press upon
public atei,tion the evidence that the prop
erty, peace and security of no section are to
be in anywise endangered by his admins
tration. These declarations embrace the
|
weakness ever dir, cted against the American
people, and the supposition that that declar
alton is the main assurance needed to satisfy
popular prejudice, evinces the most incom
pent apprehensi n of political realities that
has ever been exhibited by public man in
America. 1t seems to 10 Mr. Lincolns de
sire to rid himself of all connection with
that which has given sufficient offence to
produce dsunion and in doing so he makes
such a charge of ignorance against the dis
satisfied AS to establish in that charge a reas
enable cause of vast sectional desire to be
separated from government which has
that the people know nothing of the nature
Of the relationship subsisting between the
people and the Constitution. Mr.. Lincolns
idea is that the secession of the Southern
States is altogether owing to a misapprehen-
sion of the powers Of a Federal Administration
and Of his individual purposes as the head
of that Administration! In his view the
whole difficulty has been suggested by the
violations of the Fugitive Slave Law in the
Northern States, and that the attempts Of
the Federal Government to sustain i; have
created an an,islavery party which requir
ed only the elevation of Abraham Lincoln
to the Presidency to, independently of the
restraints of the laws, of the Constitution,
of Congress and of usage. deprive the South
of all rights. Mr. Lincoln is not the only
statesman, who has misconceived the cause
of Southern complaint and action. That
cause is not from fear of Republican Pres
idential Administration, not from want of
a correct knowledge of the Presidents pow
ers, not from Northern State legislative and
judicial opposition to the return of runaway
negroes, not from an expectation that the
general government might attempt to abolish
slavery, but it is in the evidences that a North
ern, or free State, public NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
educational, social and politiral-has NOR
ally destroyed HE fraternal equality derived
rom lne CONSTITUTION 10y HI ol the otaleS,
and that this abusive public sentiment
amounts to fanaical aud degrading inter
ference with the principle Of equality upon
which the States are united, and is violate of
the spirit of the Constitution under the pre-
text of obeying the letter of the terms of
| the compact Here is the whole cause of
the difficulty. The Southern people, op
pressed by the obvious determination Of the
North to hold them as the inferior parties
to the guarantees of the Constitution, have
peaceaby chosen to enjoy that Constitution
relieved from the construction of tanatral
preponderating and remote section. Here
is the whole purpose of secession.