Year: 1862

For What are the Rebels Fightingl


There are men occasionally to be met with
honest, it may be, but blinded, If honest
who continue TO assert that the South has been
forced, into rebellion, in consequence of the
unwillingness of the North to abide by the
Constitution, and to respect its provisions and
spirit They even contend that the prevalence
of anti-slavery sentiments in the free States,
the non-execution of the fugitive law, the pas
sage of personal liberty bills by Northern leg
islatures, and the "culmination of all political
evils" in the election of Abraham Lincoln to
the Chief Magistracy of the nation, were
grievances sufficiently aggravated to palliate,
If not excuse, the South for taking up arms
against the Federal Government. OF course,
the Government, in its efforts to crush out the
rebellion, is playing the tyrant and despot, and
should receive no sympathy from those who
respect the rights of self-government Who
has forgotten the lugubrious articles with which
a certain portion of the press teemed one year
ago, In relation TO this matter; or with what
apparent JUNCTION it was urged that the seeded
t1s<AsSS WIZ IS, ,heAiies 40 Af1 taiS tblO-
nies in the War ofthe Revolution, for the right
to govern themselves, and for civil libcrty?-
And portion of the English press, led by the
"Thundcrer,r have maintained, and now main
tains, that the case of the South and that of
the colonies are precisely parallel in principle,
and that no man who defends the action of the
latter can consistently condemn the attitude

of the former. We have in mind two papers
in this State, one Of them now happily defilnct,
which took the ground, but little over year
ago, that the South could not, without dishon-
or, submit to the majority will, constitutionaly
her the duty of resistance to the authority of
the Federal Government. A paper in Bangor
even urged that a deaf ear and cold shoulder
should be turned towards the Presidents pro-
clamation calling for troops to defend the Fed
eral capital, even after Sumter had been re-
duced, and the rebel Secretary o. War had
promised his friends to revel in the capitol at
Washington, and to float his rattlesnake flag
over Faneuil Hall in less than ninety days.
And the same paper protested, in the name of
the Maine Democracy, against that procIama-
ton, and declared that 1900 Democrats in the
State should refuse all response to such call
TO invade the rights Of a gallant people, who,
like our Revolutionary sires, had uprisen in
the majesty of freedom to maintain their in
dependence.


A paper still further east, which last year
supported the Winthrop Hall nomination and
platform, and to-day is urging the reunion of
the Democratic party, "blowing" for the Con-
vention which is to assemble in this city in
August, and insisting that the Democratic
party only can bring the nation out of its pres
ent dilemma and save the country, as early as
jan, 1S6l--three months prior to the assault
upon Sumter-said:


aThat the fifteen Southern States will secede
from the Union in a body there Is no doubt.
There is no other resort. Their honor, their
integrity, their independence alike demand
Hr


Now we assert, and think we can maintain
beyond the reach of reasonable doubt, that the
South has never had the least shadow of ius-
tification for even the slightest of her rebel
acts; on the contrary, her whole course in this
lCSuia Has DCtu WfbiOut tACuSts u Wfcktu.
prcmeditated, internal and Godlsss conspiracy
10 break up a government which has secured
tothem all their political andciv blessings, and
which they were disposed TO ruin, simply be-
cause their power to rule it had been taken
from them by superior numbers, and by modes
provided IN the Constitution framed by their
fathers as well as ours, and according to laws
for which their o,on representatives as well as
ours had voted. Had we time and space, on
this point, We would call to the stand few
illustrious witnesses, who would testify in
manner that ought to silence those who daily
betray either their perversity or their igno-
rance, by asserting what is not true. In rela-
ton to the alleged non-exccution of the fngi-
tive law, and the cause of grievance assumed
to be found in such alleged non-execution, we
would summon man who was never accused
Of sore-headedness on the slavery question:
man who, il he erred at all in his political pol
icy, erred In FAVOR of the South and her insti-
tutions. We allude to no less man than the
late Stephen A. Douglas. In one of the last
speeches he ever made, if not the last, he de-
clared emphatically that no federal law had ever
been more faithfully executed than that for the
rendition of fugitive slaves, and that By no ad-
minstration had it been more scrupulously
observed than by that of President Lincoln,
during the brief period he had then been in
power


Another illustrious witness-no more tender
footed than Mr.. Douglas, and like the latter
now in his grave-is the late Thomas III. Ben
ton. Mr.. B. asserts in his Thirty Years. and
those who heard him lecture in this State few
winters since heard him reaifirm the statement,
that more than thirty years since Mr.. Calhoun
deliberately formed the purpose to break up
the Union and to establish Southern indie
pendent government, and that neither slavery
nor the slavery question had anything to do
with inspiring such a purpose in his heart
The notification troubles of 1882 were design
ed to ultimate in dissolution, the tariff oues-
tion having been selected as the cause of criey-
ance; and it was only because the Southern
people could not be united on this question
that the programme of disunion was changed.
and the slavery question was substituted for
that Of the tariff, with a view to unite the peo-
pie Of the South by common interest. so that,
by this common bond they might when ripen-
ed for the work of evil, be drawn bodily into
the vortex of disunion.


Another illustrious witness-now living
never infected with aholifion faal;no ond ,,a,,