in referring to the vote declaring the war unnecessary and unconstitutional, said: "I had the good fortune-and I deem it extreme good fortune to have the opportunity to record my vote in favor of this sentence of condemnation. In giving that vote my heart concurred with my judgment."-[p. 321. Mr. GIDDINGS said in reference to the same war: "But they (his friends) would permit him to say that he never had and never would, vote for a dollar or a man in a war which he had so long denounced as wicked and barbarous." The following are extracts taken from the leading presses of that day which opposed and do now oppose the Democracy: "The voice of lamentation and war, heard all over the country, from homes and firesides made desolate by the slaughter of fathers, and husbands, and brothers, is sweet music to the ears of the President and his friends, and they seem ambitious to swell the chorus by increasing the victims. We rejoice to see a large and respectable number of Whig papers in this and other states taking ground against further appropriations by Congress of men and money for the Mexican cut-throating business. This is as it should be."-Warren (O.) Chronicle. * * * "They (the Mexicans) are in the right-we in the wrong. They may appeal in confidence to the God of battles, but if we look for aid to any other than human power, it must be to the infernal machinations of hell, for thus far it would seem, the devil has governed and guided all our actions in the premises."-Xenia (0.) Torch Light. "If Congress is opposed to the war-if that body is of opinion that it is unjust, impolitic and of a dangerous tendency, no duty can be more binding than that of refusing the means to prosecute it."-Lebanon, (O.) Star. "No man, no people, looking upon the contest, can help sympathizing with Mexico, and uniting in uttering a bitter denunciation against our own Government.-Cincinnati, (O.) Gazette. "None of the aggressors of Europe or Asia ever resorted to justificatory reasons which were so false and hypocritical as those alleged for our aggressions on Mexico."-Kennebeck, (Me.,) Journal. "Let every one keep aloof from this unrightéous, infamous, God-abhorred war, and it will soon come to an end. The prospect is, that the Administration can get neither men nor Thank the Lord money to carry on the war. for all that."-N. H. Statesman. "To volunteer or vote a dollar to carry on the war, is moral treason against the God of reason and the rights of mankind."-Haverhill, (Mass.) Gazette. [This is the locolity from which emanated the petition presented by Mr. ADAMs for a dissolution of the Union.] Talk of this war as we may, shout, rejoice, illuminate your cities, it is still a war of injustice, of conquest and of unmitigated evil, and it is high time that the virtuous and patriotic should speak out in condemnation of it." - Boston Sentinel, 1848. * * "The Mexican war appears to be fast settling down to a mere matter of plunder and murder. We think the war disreputable to the age we live in, and the country of which it is our boast to be called her children."Boston Atlas. "If there is in the United States a breast worthy of American liberty, its impulses to join the Mexicans, and hurl down upon the base, slavish, mercenary invaders, who, born in a Republic, go to play over the accursed game of the Hessians on the tops of those woful JOY, nevertheless, to hear that the Mexican volcanoes, it would be a sad and hordes under Scott and Taylor were every man of them swept into the next world! What business has an invading army in this?" -Boston Daily Chronotype. "The whole world knows that it is Mexico which has been imposed upon, and that our people are the robbers! So far as our Government can affect it, the laws of heaven are suspended, and those of hell established in their stead. To the people of the United States. Your rulers are precipitating you into a fathomless abyss of crime and calumny!"-N. Y. Tribune. "It is the President's war. Mexico is the Poland of America. If there were excuse for the war, there is none for the measure which opened it. But what excuse is found for the war itself?"-North American. "What is it, then, that makes or allows Mr. Polk to sanction this war, and all the outrages of which it is the consequence? It is this: Mr. Polk is a weak man. He was selected to be the loco foco candidate for President because he was weak. It was this which recommended him to his party. It was this that elected him. It has been said. correctly, that it is a curse upon any nation to have weak minded rulers. We are under the judgment of that curse."Baltimore Patriot. "If there is any conduct which constitutes encourage the country in a war against God, moral treason, it is an attempt to embark or as is the case in a war like that in which we are now engaged."--Louisville Journal. To volunteer, or vote a dollar to carry on the war, is moral treason against the God of Heaven and the rights of mankind."-Nashville (Tenn.) Gazette. Mexico, and can it be supposed by Mr. POLK and his advisers, that an error so glaring a crime so unpardonable, as this Mexican war, can be white-washed?" Mt. Carmel Register. Mr. CORWIN, in a bitter speech denouncing the war, said: "Were I a Mexican, I would welcome these invaders with bloody hands to hospitable graves." CALHOUN favored, contrary to his pretended school of politics.-[See same authority. This was just after an expensive war. Failing to inaugurate that change of Government for which aristocratic aspirations had so long struggled by popular commotions stirred up on the basis of wars, banks, tariffs, distributions, &c., the malcontents naturally turned their attention to measures and acts more promising and auspicious. These quotations might be seemingly in a more appropriate place under some other head, In an old, soiled and torn pamphlet, which but as showing the motives of those who ever favored a "strong Government" to strike when survived the wreck of sundry newspaper files we had laid away years ago, occurs this proto ever the iron of discord was hot, with a vie phetic language. [As the title page is entirely weld together opposing elements, to ultimately demonstrate a seeming necessity for their sys- gone, we have neither the date or name of the author, but should judge it to have been writtem of Government, they are here inserted. ten about the time the old Whig party gave way to the "Republican party."] We freely admit that many of the masses who were influenced to adopt these extreme views were not actuated by the motives that evidently governed the authors, but such is human nature, that when the pride of opinion is once fixed, it can be easily controlled by arch, designing men, to further their views. CHAPTER VIII. CONTINUED EFFORTS TO DISSOLVE THE UNION. "The fragments of the Whig party having joined their fortunes with the abolition party, we may safely predict they will now yield nothing until they can bring about a dissolution of the Union. This seems to be their only purpose, for they see they can never control the whole Government as a unit." Mr. SAMUEL J. TILDEN thus forcibly gives us a clue to the provocations of war, through FURTHER SCHEMES IN THE PROGRESS OF DISSO- the columns of the New York Evening Post: LUTION EXPOSED. The efforts to create a public debt to hasten the "Strong Government" Mr. KING'S $2,000,000 gift, as a "means"...RANDOLPH opposed... CALHOUN, as a means "How long could an organized pauper agitation in England against France, or in France against England, continue without actual hos to an end, votes against his party... Purpose of the "Frag-tilities, especially if embracing a majority of ments of the Whig party"...Continued efforts to dissolve the Union...The Slavery issue used as a lever...The warnings of JEFFERSON...The Slavery Agitation "the death knell of the Union"...Warnings of WASHINGTON ...The voice of JACKSON...of HARRISON, &c. THE EFFORTS TO CREATE A PUBLIC DEBT. Many have been the projects to create a National debt. As long ago as February 7th, 1817, Mr. KING, Federalist, offered in Congress "a proposition to appropriate $2,000,000, to be divided among the states in proportion to their free population, in aid of the funds of charitable and humane institutions, bible and missionary societies, &c."-[See Niles Register, vol. 11, p. 408. On the same day the bill to "set apart and pledge as a fund for Internal Improvements, the bonus and United States share of the dividends in the National Bank," was passed by two majority in the House of Representatives. While some good men favored this scheme, it was generally supported by the Federals and ecessionists Mr. RANDOLPH opposed and the people, and the Governments' wars have as often been produced by popular passions as by the policy of rulers; but I venture to say, that in the causes of all such wars, during a century past, there has not been so much material for offense as could be found every year in the fulminations of a party swaying the governments of many Northern States against the entire social and industrial systems of fifteen of our sister states; so much to repel the opinions, to alienate the sentiments, and to wound the pride." JEFFERSON'S OPINIONS AND WARNINGS. JEFFERSON was a long-sighted statesman. He could see as far into real party aims and purposes as any other man. He was perfectly acquainted with the party and its ultimate designs, that opposed the formation of our Government, and when in later times the 'Missouri question" was seized as a disturbing element, he comprehended at a glance the object of throwing the tub to the whale," and in a series of letters he reminded the people of his forebodings of portending dissolution. On the 12th of March, 1820, he wrote to H. NELSON: "I thank you, dear sir, for the information in your favor of the 4th inst., of the settlement for the present of the Missouri question. I am so completely withdrawn from all attention to public matters, that nothing less could arouse me than the definition of a geographical line, which on an abstract principle, IS TO BECOME THE LINE OF SEPARATION OF THESE STATES, and to render desperate the hope that man can ever enjoy the two blessings of peace and selfgovernment. The question sleeps for the PRESENT, but is not dead!" . tous question, like a fire bell in the night, On the 5th of April, 1820, he wrote to MARK me a second thought. A general emancipation LANGDON HILL: and expatriation could be effected, and gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might "I congratulate you on the sleep of the Mis- be. But, as it is, we have the wolf by the ears, souri question-I wish I could say on its death; and we can neither hold him nor safely let him but of this I despair! The idea of a geograph-go! Justice is in one scale and self preservaical line once suggested, will brood in the tion in the other. * minds of all those who prefer the gratification of their ungovernable passions to the peace and Union of the country!" On the 13th of the same month, he wrote to WILLIAM SHORT. : "The Missouri question aroused and filled me with alarm. The old schism of Federal and Republican, threatened nothing, because it existed in every State, and united them together by the fraternism of party. But the coincidence of a marked principle, moral and political, with a geographical line, once conceived, I feared would never more be obliterated from the mind; that it would be recurring on every OCCASION, and renewing irritations until it would kindle such mutual and mortal hatred, as to render separation preferable to eternal discord! I have been among the most sanguine that our Union would be of long duration. I now doubt it much, and see the event at no great distance, and the direct CONSEQUENCE of this question!-not by the line which has been so confidently counted on; the laws of nature control this; but by the Potomac, Ohio, Missouri or more probably the Mississippi upward, to our northern boundary.My only comfort and confidence is, that I shall not live to see this, and I envy not the present generation the glory of throwing away the fruits of their father's sacrifices of life and fortune, and of rendering desparate the experiment which was to decide ultimately, whether man is capable of self-government. treason against human hope will signalize their epoch in future history as the counterpart of the model of their predecessors !"' * * * * "I regret that I am now to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of thousands, by the generation of 1776, to acquire self government and happiness to their country is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be that I live not to weep over it! If they would but dispassionately weigh the blessings they will throw away, against an abstract principle, more likely to be Union than by secession, they would pause before they would perpetrate this act of suicide on themselves, and of treason against the hopes of the world." Up to the hour of Mr. JEFFERSON's death this subject worked upon his mind, and caused him much uneasiness. It was the theme of his correspondence and of his conversation, for he saw in this agitation of the slavery question the seeds of early and certain dissolution. On the 20th of September, 1820, he wrote to Wm. Pinckney: "The Missouri question is a mere party leaders now] defeated in the schemes of obtrick. The leaders of Federalism, [the same taining power, by rallying partizans to the principle of monarchism [as we have already charged]-a principle of personal, not if local division, have changed their tack, and thrown They are out another barrel to the whale. taking advantage of the virtuous people, to affect a division of parties, by a geographical line. They expect that this will insure them on local principles, the majority they could never obtain on principles of federalism; but they are still putting their shoulder to the He wrote to JOHN HOLMES, of Maine, April wrong wheel-they are wasting jeremaids on 22d, 1820, as follows: the evils of slavery, as if we were advocates for it." This "I had for a long time, ceased to read newspapers, or to pay any attention to public affairs, confident they were in good hands, and content to be a passenger in our bark to the shore, from which I am not distant. But this momen What better proof could be needed to prove the position we have taken, as to the ultimate designs of the party, whose lineage we trace by the blood dripping from their feet? On the 29th of December, 1820, he wrote to | beyond remedy. We are now certainly furnGen. LAFAYETTE: ishing recruits to their school.” On the 9th of March, 1821, he wrote to Judge ROANE: Last and most portentious of all is the Missouri question. It is smeared over for the present, but its geographical demarkation is. indelible. What is to become of it I see not, and leave to those who will live to see it. The University will give employment to my remaining years, and quite enough for my senile fac "The boisterous sea of liberty, indeed, is never without a wave, and that from Missouri is now rolling toward us, but we shall ride over it as we have all others. It is not a moral question, but one merely of power. It's object is to raise a geographical principle for the choice of a President, and the noise will be kept up till that is effected. All know that permitting the slaves of the South to spread into the West will not add one being to that unfortunate condition-that it will increase the hap-ulties." piness of those existing, and by spreading them over a larger surface, will dilute the evil everywhere, and facilitate the means of getting finally rid of it-an event more anxiously wished by those on whom it presses, than by the noisy pretenders to exclusive humanity. In the mean time, it is a ladder for rivals to On the 17th of August, 1821, he wrote to Gen. DEARBORN: souri is at length a member of our Union. "I rejoice with you that the State of MisWhether the question it excited is dead, or only sleepeth, I do not know. I see only that climb into power. it has given resurrection to the Hartford ConOn the 21st of January, 1821, and but short-vention men. They have had the address by ly before his death, he wrote to JOHN ADAMS: playing on the honest feelings of our former friends to seduce them from their kindred "Our anxieties in this quarter are all con- spirits, and to borrow their weight into the centrated in the question: Federal scale. Desperate of regaining power under political distinctions [that is their former political names] they have adroitly wriggled into its seat under the auspices of morality, and are again in the ascendency, from which their sins had hurled them." "What does the holy alliance, in and out of Congress, mean to do with us on the Missouri question?'. "And this, by the by, is but the name of the case-it is the John Doe, or Richard Roe of the ejectment. The question, as seen in the states afflicted with this unfortu nate population, is, Are our slaves to be pre-litical consanguinity of the present party in Thus has JEFFERSON left on record the posented with freedom and a dagger? For if Congress has the power to regulate the conditions of the inhabitants of the states within the states, it will be but another exercise of that power that all shall be free. Are we then to see again Athenian and Lacedemonian confederacies to wage another Peloponessian war to settle the ascendancy between them, or is this the tocsin of merely a servile war? That remains to be seen; but not, I hope, by you or me. Surely, they will parley awhile, and give us a chance to get out of the way. What a bedlamite is man. 27 power, by which we can easily trace their lineage to the old Hartford Convention, and the disunion purposes and aims of the old Federalists. They started out in 1819-20, under a change of name, to work their way into power on the crest of slavery agitation, and as JEFFERSON expresses it, have "wriggled" around, under various phases of political cognomens, with varied success, until they have at length been successful on the sectional or geo On the 15th of February, 1821, he wrote to graphical issue that rang in JEFFERSON's ears Gov. BRECKINRIDGE: "All, I fear, do not see the speck in our horizon [That "speck" is a heavy cloud now which is to burst on us as a tornado, sooner or later. [That cloud has burst.] The line of division lately marked out between different portions of our confederacy is such as will never, I fear, be obliterated, and we are now trusting to those who are against us in position and principle, to fashion to their own form the minds and affections of our youth. If, as has been estimated, we send $300,000 a year to the Northern seminaries for the instruction of our own sons, then we must have there five hundred of our sons imbibing opinions and principles in discord with those of their own country. This canker is eating on the vitals of our existence, and if not arrested at once will be as a "fire bell in the night"-and as the "death knell of the Union." No matter who the individuals, the present ruling party obtained the ascendency on the same principle, that brought the Hartford Conventionists into power in 1820, through the final triumph of which the immortal author of the Declaration of Independence saw in advance, through the lens of prophetic wisdom, the Union expire. General WASHINGTON was President of the Convention that framed our Constitution. As he sat presiding over the deliberations of that body, day by day, he could not fail to have become acquainted with the peculiar views, aims and purposes of those who opposed the form of government he and his compatriots were endeavoring to establish. He knew those men. He knew there was a powerful party at that early day opposed to the government established for he saw the evidence in the Convention, that sooner or later this faction who were opposed to the kind of government adopted, would seek to overthrow the Union, using the sectional slavery question as their Archimedean lever. He knew these things, and he felt he could not retire from office and go down to his grave without leaving the weight of his advice to check the mad passions of those who would be seeking every occasion to overthrow this government,in hopes to build up one more to their liking. In his Farewell Address he said: "My conntrymen, frown indignantly upon every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest. BEWARE OF SECTIONAL ORGANIZATIONS!-of arraying the North against the South, or the South against the North. In the end it will prove fatal to our liberties." General JACKSON had the reputation of "seeing through a man at a glance" He knew there were a large class of malcontents who desired the overthrow of the Union, and like WASHINGTON and JEFFERSON, he readily discovered the lever they would use. He knew the struggle when it came would assume a sectional phase, for by such pretext only, could the Union be overthrowu. He has left his warning voice for us to ponder over. In his farewell address he says: * * "What have you to gain by divisions and dissentions? Delude not yourselves with the hope that the breach once made would be afterwards easily repaired. If the Union is once severed, the separation will grow wider and wider, and the controversies which are now debated, and settled in the Halls of Legislation, will be tried in the field of battle, and determined by the sword. Neither should you deceive yourselves with the hope that the first line of separation would be the permanent one. * * Local interests would still be found there, and unchastened ambition.If the recollection of common dangers, in which the people of the United States have stood side by side against the common foe, the prosperity and happiness they have enjoyed under the present Constitution-if all these recollections and proofs of common interests, are not strong enough to bind us together, as one people, what tie will hold united the warring divisions of empire, when those bonds have been broken, and the Union dissolved. The first line of separation would not last longnew fragments would be torn off-new leaders would soon be broken into a multitude of petty would spring up, and this glorious Republic States, armed for mutual aggressions-loaded with taxes to pay armies and leaders, seeking aid against each other from foreign powersEurope, until, harrassed with conflicts, and insulted and trampled upon by the nations of humbled and debased in spirit, they would be willing to submit to a domination of any military adventurer, and surrender their liberty for the sake of repose." Gen. HARRISON also early saw the disunion purposes of the Hartford Convention-SlaveryAgitators, and he warns us of the danger in a letter to Mr. MONROE, in 1820: ļ 'I am, and have been, for many years, so in a slave state. But I believe the Constitumuch opposed to slavery, that I will never live ernment to interfere in this matter, and that tion has given no power to the General Govto have slaves or no slaves, depends upon the people in each state alone. But besides the constitutional objection, I am persuaded that the obvious tendency of each interference on the part of the States which have no slaves with the property of their fellow-citizens of the jealousy, that will, in the end, prove fatal to others, is to produce a state of discord and the Union. I believe that in no other state are such wild and dangerous sentiments entertained on this subject, as in Ohio."? HENRY CLAY, the cotemporary of HARRISON and JACKSON, and the political opponent of the latter, knew the haters of the Union would, on the first favorable opportunity seize upon the slavery question to further their schemes, and in a speech in Congress in 1839, he said: "Abolitionism should no longer be regarded as an imaginary danger. The Abolitionists, let me suppose, succeeded in their present aim of uniting the inhabitants of the free States as one man against the inhabitants of the slave States. Union upon one side will beget union on the other, and this process of reciprocal consolidation will be attended with all the violent prejudices, embittered passions and implacable animosities, which ever degraded or deformed human nature. * * * will stand in menacing and hostile array One section against the other. The collissions of opinion. will be quickly followed by the clash of arms. I will not attempt to describe scenes which now happily lie concealed from our view. Abolitionists themselves would shrink back in dismay and horror at the contemplation of desolated fields, conflagrated cities, murdered inhabitants, and the overthrow of the fairest fabric of human government that ever rose to animate the hopes of civilized man " |