Year: 1860




rate in an age Of great pnlJic convul-
sions. Periods of stirring action, and
vigorous national struggles, tend to
bring out the more robust qualities OF
our nature, and the national life becomes
strong, if even to some extent vicious
But in times of long peace, and in the
absense of any great national impulses,
we almost invariably find corrupt stag
nation, or a tendency to faction and
mischief. The restless activity and am
bition of the American mind are too
great to suffer us to fall into an ignoble
and cankering repose; but, on the con-
trary, force us in the opposed vice OF
factious agitation. Like children or
soldiers, when we are idle we are in
mischief. We must and will have ex-
citement, and unless great emergencies
call it forth, we force it by some unnatu-
raj and therefore dangerous stimulant.-
There never was time when the peace
ful enjoyments Of civic life were more
open and accessible to people than the
present. Our national progress and
aggrandizment have been sufficient to
satisfy our widest dreams. The means
of physical, mental aud religious enjoy
ment are within the easy reach Of all
who will labor for it properly. Our liber-
ties are only neglected or invaded by
reason of our own indifference and cor
ruptions. Our public interests are dis
regarded by our public servants, solely
through our own reckless disregard of
them in the selections of those servants.
There is not the slightest reason for al
ienation between the members of our
great Confederacy. The Southern peo-
pie are contented with their institutions,
and demand to be let alone. They con-
stitute the principal external customers
for the products of their farming and
planting labor, maintain, to an incalcula-
bic degree, our commerce, our manufac-
lures, and equilibrium of our interna-
tional exchange. They are to the
Northern people what the colonies of
Great Britain are to the people of Eng
land They constitute huge and per-
manent tributary to our wealth. Their
institutions can never invade our free
soil. 1t is past all reasonable possibility
that they will ever get foothold on
single inch of Territory now belonging
to the Union. They never can by pos
sibility, be planted on our future acquisi-
tions, save such as the free laborer would
never work. The people of the Southern
section are not physically strong enough
to menace us, nor powerful enough in
the Government to invade single
Northern right. All parts of our Con-
federacy are of common origin, cannon
religion and common language. They
have common laws, common devotion
to the same history and past glories of
their race and country, and an equal iu
terest in the future destinies of the Re-
public.


What, then, is there to really justify
all this national strife and bitter sectional
hate Why should the bonds Of fellow
ship and union between us grow weaker
every hour? Why is it that, without
one just cause, or the demand of one
interest, we urge the ship of state to
the very verge Of destruction, in time
of profound peace and national prosperi-
ty? Why do our people suffer design
ing lznaves, for the sake of office, to keep
them in dangerous commotion, by utter
ly absurd and impracticable distractions?
Who can tell 1t would seem as if we
were determined to act like a spoiled
child, who cries for its bauble but to cast
it from him in disgust. We tester and
corrupt under the sunshine of prosperity.


Is it not high time that people had
walked up from their fretful appathy,
and learned anew the lesson that "eter-
nal vigilance is the price of liberty" and
that to rush blindly forward is not al.
ways progress 9-Chiecgo Times and Her
aid. .t -,..... r-....