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wrong in the distribution of 1986, and in the want of statesmanship in those in power, in not providing revenue equal to the necessities of the Government, instead of unlawfully distributing it. These distributions were in conflict with democratic principles, which forbid any such disposition of our public moneys.

77.-DISUNION IN ITS EARLY STAGES.

Washington was a careful observer of passing events. He undoubtedly saw specks as well as clouds of disunion before he prepared his Farewell Address. In it he cautions the American people to be on their guard against both, and to repress them when seen arising. Sectionalism is one of the instrumentalities of disunion, if not the father of it. The very year in which the Farewell Address was issued, the Hartford Courant published a carefully-prepared series of papers urging a dissolution of the Union. Washington wrote with a knowledge of these in his mind. Among other things this writer said:

"The Northern States can subsist as a nation, as a republic, without any connection with the Southern. It cannot be contested, that if the Southern States were possessed of the same political ideas, a union would be still more desirable than a separation. But when it becomes a serious question, whether we shall give up our government, or part with the States south of the Potomac, no man north of that river, whose heart is not thoroughly democratic, can hesitate what decision to make. . . . I shall, in future papers, consider some of the great events which will lead to a separation of the United States; show the importance of retaining their present Constitution, even at the expense of a separation; endeavor to prove the impossibility of a union for any long period in future, both from moral and political habits of the citizens of the Southern States; and, finally, examine carefully to see whether we have not already approached the era when they must be divided."

Among the charges made against the South, the following, which has been a thousand times repeated since, without the slightest foundation to rest upon, would do credit to the abolitionists of the present generation:

"Negroes are, in all respects, except in regard to life and death, the cattle of the citizens of the Southern States. If they were good for food, the probability is, that even the power of destroying their lives would be enjoyed by their owners, as fully as it is over the lives of their cattle. It cannot be that their laws prohibit owners from killing their slaves, because those slaves are human beings, or because it is a moral evil to destroy them. If that were the case, how can they justify their being treated in all other respects like brutes? for it is in this point of view alone that negroes in the Southern States are considered in fact as different from cattle. They are bought and sold-they are fed or kept hungry-they are clothed or reduced to nakedness-they are beaten, turned out to the fury of the elements, and torn from their dearest connections, with as little remorse as if they were beasts of the field."

We have given elsewhere the testimony of Mr. John Quincy Adams and Governor Plummer on this subject. Their evidence covers a period of some ten years after the purchase of Louisiana. This evidence is full, clear, and irresistible. It involves the names of Timothy Pickering, James Hillhouse, Roger Griswold, Samuel Hunt, Aaron Burr, Uriah Tracy, and others.

No one who knew them will question the veracity of Mr. Adams or Governor Plummer. They fasten upon the Federal party the avowed intention, in Jefferson's time, to dissolve the Union, and Mr. Adams says it continued until the catastrophe of the Hartford Convention. No one has ever pretended to connect the Democratic party with it. The plan of operations was through the State Legislatures, in which Southern secession followed their plan. The difference between them was, the one countenanced and intended treason, and the other acted it-many of them by compulsion and against their will. The ghost that Pickering said haunted Washington, seems to have revelled in New England with the Federal party, and then appeared open on the stage in the land of Dixie, with helmet, shield, and bludgeon, and then disappeared when the shrill notes of the American eagle were triumphantly sound ed. Disunion still lurks in the hearts of descendants of these old Federalists in New England to the present time, and occasionally sounds

its hoarse notes in denouncing the Constitution as "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell," in hurling anathemas against all who sustain Democratic principles. Washington understood these men, and pointed out the danger. Neither, they nor their purposes change. As a distinguished New-Yorker once said of a politician, “that he had rather rule in hell than serve in heaven." The Constitution is good and the Government wise and safe, if they can control it. But, in the hands of the Democracy, every thing is wrong and intolerable. Those actuated by antiDemocratic principles will never be satisfied when such principles prevail and Democrats administer the Government. With them, disunion is preferable.

78.-WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS.

Washington had a hold upon the affections of his countrymen never excelled and seldom equalled. He was called the Savior and the Father of his country. Most of the people cherished for him the feelings which children entertain toward a father, and he felt for them as for children. The people placed implicit confidence in his wisdom and patriotism, and looked to him for that advice so necessary in a young Government. He had passed through the perils and vicissitudes of war, and the anxieties and inquietudes of peace, and formed the resolution to retire to the peaceful shades of his own Mount Vernon. He was appealed to by those near him for a parting word of advice, which might add to the value of the services he had rendered his country. It was suggested to him that it would be the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night to guide his countrymen in leading them in the path safety. He complied with their request, and issued his Farewell of Address, dated September, 1796. The country then had its dangers and perils to encounter, but was too weak and feeble, and had too many external enemies to fear, to leave room for suspicion that disunion would ever be thought of, much less attempted. All were laboring for safety and seeking happiness in prosperity. It was under these circumstances that he gave his cautions and tendered his advice. The following extracts will serve as examples:

"The unity of Government which constitutes you one people

is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad; of your prosperity, of that very Jiberty you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth-as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (although often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and to speak of it as a palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of the country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts....

"The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the equal laws of a common Government, finds in the productions of the latter great additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise, and precious materials of manufacturing industry. The South, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the same agency of the North, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand. Turning partly into its own channels the seamen of the North, it finds its particular navigation invigorated; and while it contributes in different ways to nourish and increase the general mass of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime strength to which itself is unequally adapted. The East, in like intercourse with the West, in the progressive improvement of interior communications by land and water, will more and more find a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad or manufactures at home. The West derives from the East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort; and, what is perhaps of still greater couse

quence, it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of the indispensable outlets for its own productions to the weight, influence, and future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interests, as one nation. Any other tenure by which the West can hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength or from an apostate and unnatural connection with any foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious. . . .

"In contemplating the causes which may disturb our union, it occurs as a matter of serious concern, that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations-Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is, to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart-burnings which spring from these misrepresentations. They tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection....

"As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is, to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating 'peace, but remembering, also, that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear."

These are words of wisdom, and should command the entire respect of every American. Had they been heard and observed, the whispers of separation of that day would never have occurred nor the growl of secession at the embargo, or the threats of disunion in the times of the Hartford Convention. Nullification would not have shown its snaky head, nor abolition issued its fierce denunciations, to be met by counter-blasts from the

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