Year: 1861

the election of Abraham Lincoln sectional


though the efforts of the fire eaters were


directed to making it so as much as posi-


bic. Whatever Of sectional bitterness may


have existed in warm political times here


tofore is mainly 10 be laid to the doors o


Southern ultraists and Northern Abolition


lists. The people as q general rule have


never sympathized with the ultra dema-
gogues in either section. There has been


uniformly desire for fraternal concord be-
tween the sections. Popular speakers in


the South have long held a powerful influ-


ence over the public mind, and that to q


dangerous extent. They have complained


of Northern aggression at each Presidential


election as far back as our memory run


meth. Daniel Webster, thirty years ago


charged tnat when a united South was re-


quired against northern men, and measures
tending to benefit the free States, a cry


was raised of the aggressons of the North.


He showed that a Tariff supported by


South Carolina and opposed by MassacLu-


setts, was claimed by the former TO be an


outrage and a sufficient cause for disolu-


tion of the Union. And this is not soli-


tsry case of the audacity of the rebellious
State. She has been too much at the die


taton. of demagogues from first to last
| Her selfshness and disloya has exhibit


ed itself on all prominent occasions. She


was willing to accept General Taylor for
| the Presidency as he was southern man,


but her prominent politicians were ready


to reject Mllard Fillmore from the same
ticket for Wm. O. Butler another southern
man on an opposite platform, thus showing
that in their estimation a southern candidate
was paramount to any party principles.


The disposition to sectionalism was
thus evinced first among that people who
have been most forward in throwing the
country into its present crisis, and the cry
of sectionalism, a sectional President and
sectional war comes with a poor grace
from those who are deeply guilty of the
SlliuC tuSl iulpute ~ OlueTS.


We have said the last Presidential con-
test was not sectional one. 1t was not in
any sense of the term. Is any one so silly
as to assert that because both the candi-
dates for President and Vice President on
the Republican ticket were from the free
states that therefore the ticket was section
al? Does any one believe that had the
name of Winter Davis, or John n. Bolts
been substituted for Hannibal Hamlin that
the policy of the Administration of Abra-
ham Lincoln would have been one whit diff
ferent from what it now is? The princi-
Piles of the party would have remained the
same. The Vice President having no voice
in the cabinet could not have influenced
the course of the Administration in the
least. If the Republican ticket WAS there
fore, sectional, it could not have been made |
national by the substitution of the name of !
any southern man for that of the present |
Vice President of the United States. 1t is !
an exploded idea that the principles of the |
Republican party are sectional, except, in
the sense that they are mainly professed in |
one section of the Union. That so far as |
Piles of the men who framed the |
government, is beyond dispute. If because
these principles are mainly professed in the
north by the tyranny of the southern sen
timent, they are sectional, then are the
principles professed by the secession ele-
ment in the south more so, because the
freedom of opinion in the north was no
barrier to those principles in that quarter.


One of the principal alleged causes of
the revolt in the South is the election of a
reputed sect. onal President. Mr.. Breckin-
ridge being more obnoxious to the charge
Of sectionalism than Mr.. Lincoln, as we
have shown, who could have been elected
whom the South would have regarded as
Not Mr.. Douglas certainly. He
lived in the same State with Lincoln The |
latter had the advantage in the eyes of |
Southern men of being a Southerner by |
birth, and so far as the principles of the |
two were concerned, the prime movers in |
TIE Southern rebellion were not backward |
in asserting that Mr.. Lincon's were the |
most conservative and satisfactory of the
two. So thought JEFF. Davis, Hammond, |
Toombs, Brown, Wigfsll, and others, but
for whom the country would now be at
peace. They declared the South would not |
submit to a restriction on her rights as
contemplated by the Douglas or Rcpubli-
can platforms. They asserted the same re-
suit would follow should either of the |
distinguished Illinoians succeed to the
Presidency. is it fair to suppose that the
result would have been less horrible had
Douglas been the fortunate candidate? We
have the same authority to judge the prob
able action of traitors in the one event as
the other. The traitors have kept their
word which is some proof that they meant
what they said when they asserted that the
election of Lincoln would dissolve the
Union. They have therefore established a
claim to right to be believed when they
declared in their estimation that Douglas


was more odious than Lincoln to them,
and if so, the war that is upon US would


not have been averted bad the former in


stead of the latter been successful. The


rebellious spirit of the South wanted