enter our earnings, pay our continental taxes, or aid, inform, or assist any officer in their collection." "In this alarming state of things we can no longer be silent. When our unquestionable rights are invaded, we will not sit down and coolly calculate what it may cost to defend them. We will not barter the liberties of our children for slavish repose, or surrender our birthright, but with our lives. "We remember the resistance of our fathers to oppressions which dwindle into insignificance when compared with those we are called upon to endure. The rights which we have received from God we will never yield to man. We call upon our State Legislature to protect us in the enjoyment of those privileges, to assert which our fathers died, and to defend which, we profess, ourselves, ready to resist unto blood! We pray your honorable body to adopt measures immediately to secure to us especially our undoubted right to trade [with Great Britain] within our own State. "We are ourselves ready to aid you in securing it to us, to the utmost of our power, peaceably if we can-FORCEIBLY if we must, and we pledge to you the sacrifice of ourselves and property in support of whatever measures the dignity and liberties of this free, sovereign and INDEPENDENT STATE, may seem to your wisdom to demand!"-Extract from a Memorial of the citizens of Newburyport, (Mass.,) Jan. 31, 1814, to the Legislature of Massachusetts. "On or before the 4th of July, if JAMES MADISON is not out of office, a new form of government will be in operation in the Eastern section of the Union, instantly after, the contest in mang of the States will be, whether to adhere to the old, or join the new govern ment! Like everything else, which was foretold years ago, and which is verified every day, this warning will also be villified as visionary. Be it so. But, Mr. MADISON cannot complete his term of service if the war continues! It is not possible! and if he knew human nature, he would see it.-Federal Republican, Nov. 7, 1814. "Is there a Federalist, a patriot, in America, who concedes it his duty to shed his blood for Bonaparte, for Madison, for Jefferson, and the host of ruffians in Congress, who have set their faces against us for years, and spirited up the brutal part of the populace to destroy us? Not one! Shall we then, any longer, be held in slavery, and driven to desperate poverty by such a graceless faction? Heaven forbid!" Boston Gazette. "If, at the present moment, no symptoms of eivil war appear they certainly will soon unless the courage of the war party fails them." -Sermon by David Osgood, D. D., Pastor of the Church at Medford, delivered June 26th, 1812, p. 9. events that happen, according to the known laws and established course of nature."—Ibid, p. 15. "If we would preserve the liberties of that struggle, (the American Revolution,) so dearly purchased, the call for RESISTANCE against the usurpations of our own Government is as urgent as it was formerly against the mother country.'--Rev. Osgood's discourse before the Lieut. Governor and Legislature of Massachusetts, May 31, 1809, p. 25. "If the impending negociation with Great Britain is defeated by insidious artifice-if the friendly and conciliatory proposals of the enemy shonld not, from French subserviency, or views of sectional ambition, be met throughout with a spirit of moderation and sincerity, so as to terminate the infamous war, which is calamities and distress of a disgraced country, scattering its terrors around us, and arrest the will be no longer borne with. The injured States it is necessary to apprise you that such conduct will be compelled by every motive of duty, intheir strength, to dash into atoms the bonds terest, and honor, by one manly exertion of of tyranny! It will then be too late to retreat! The die will be cast-freedom purchased."-Extract from a letter to James Madison, entitled "Northern Grievances" and extensively circulated through New York and New England, dated May, 1814, p. 4. "A separation of the States will be an inevitable result. Motives numerous and urgent will demand that measure. As they originate in oppression, the oppressors must be responsible for the momentous and contingent events arising from the dissolution of the present Confederacy, and the erection of separate Governments! It will be their work. While posterity will admire the independent spirit of the Eastern section of our country, and with sentiments of gratitude enjoy the fruits of their firmness and wisdom, the descendants of the South and West will have reason to curse the infatuation and folly of your councils."-Ibid, P. 9. "Bold and resolute, when they step forth in the sacred cause of freedom [how much this sounds like latter day Abolition talk] and independence, the Northern people will secure their object. No obstacle can impede them! No force can withstand their powerful arm. The most numerous armies will melt before their manly strength! Does not the page of history instruct you that the feeble debility of the South never could face the vigorous activity of the North? Do not the events of past ages remind you of the valuable truth, that a single lightened by congenial commerce, will explode spark of Northern liberty, especially when ena whole atmosphere of sultry Southern despotism. [How like late Abolition talk.] Ibid p. 12. "When such are the effects of oppression upon men resolved not to submit, as displayed "A civil war becomes as certain as the in the north and south of Europe, and in all ages of the world, do you flatter yourself with its producing a different operation in this country? Do you think the energies of Northern freemen [very like late abolition boasts] are to be tamely smothered? Do you imagine they will allow themselves to be trampled upon with impunity, and by whom? The Southern and Western states? By men whose united efforts are not sufficient to keep in order their own enslaved population, and defend their own frontiers? [How familiar this sounds with latter day boastings!] By warriors, whose repeated attempts at invasion of a neighboring province have been disgracefully foiled by a handful of disciplined troops? By generals, monuments of arrogance and folly? By coun sels, the essence of corruption, imbecility and madness? "The aggregate strength of the South and West, if brought against the North, would be driven into the ocean, or back to their own Southern wilds. [How valiant Massachusetts was, then!] And they might think themselves fortunate if they escaped other punishment than a defeat which their temerity would merit. While the one would strive to enslave, the other would fight for freedom. [How familiar that phrase.] While the counsels of the one would be distracted with discordant interests, the decisions of the other would be directed by one soul! Beware! Pause!! before you take the fatal plunge."-Itid, p. 13. "You have carried your oppressions to the utmost stretch! We will no longer submit! Restore the Constitution to its purity. Give us security for the future-indemnity for the past! Abolish every tyrannical law! Mike an immediate and honorable peace! Revive our commerce! Increase our navy! Protect our seamen! [That was what Mr. MADISON was fighting for.] Unless you comply with these just demands, without delay, WE WILL WITHDRAW FROM THE UNION-scatter to the winds the bonds of tyranny, and trasmit to posterity that liberty purchased by the Revolution.-Ibid p. 15. "Americans, prepare your arms! You will soon be called to use them. We must use them for the Emperor of France or for ourselves. It is but an individual who now points to this ambiguous alternative; but, Mr. MADISON and his cabal may rest assured there is in the hearts of many thousands in this abused and almost ruined country, a sentiment and energy to illustrate the distinction when his madness shall call it into action."-Boston Repertory. "Old Massachusetts is as terrible to the American now as she was to the British Cabinet in 1775. For America, too, has her BUTE'S and her NORTH'S. Let them, the commercial states breast themselves to the shock, and know, that to themselves they must look for safety. All party bickerings must be sacrificed [That sounds like the cant of Union Leaguers] on the altar of patriotism. Then, and not till then, shall they humble the pride and ambition of Virginia, whose strength lives in their weakness, and chastise the insolence of those mad men of Kentucky and Tennessee who aspire to the government of these states, and threaten to involve the country in all the horrors of war"-N. Y. Commercial Advertiser. This sheet has kept regular pace with its party in all its phases. It was a Federal sheet in 1812-14, &c.; Federal Republican in 1824; Whig in 1833; Republican in 1854; Union in 1863. Has any one a doubt of the geneology of its principles or name? Mr. CAREY, in his Olive Branch, p. 132, says: "It is a most singular fact, that the cause of England [during the war] has been far more ably supported in our debates and in our political speculations and essays, than in London itself." CHAPTER VII. OPPOSITION TO THE MEXICAN WAR LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON-LIKE FEDERAL, LIKE WHIG. Treasonable opposition to the Mexican War... Mr. LINCOLN charges the "Government" with being in the "wrong" ...CALER B. SMITH glories in voting to condemn the war ...GIDDINGS would "not vote a man or a dollar"... The Press of 1848 on the War... From the Warren Chronicle ....Xenia Torch Light...Lebanon Star...Cincinnati Gazette ... Kennebeck Journal...New Hampshire Statesman... Haverhill Gazette... Boston Sentinel... Boston Atlas... Boston Chronotype... New York Tribune... North Ameri. can... Baltimore Patriot...Louisville Journal...Nashville Gazette... Mt. Carmel Register, &c.,... Also CORWIN'S "bloody hands" diatribe, &c. TREASONABLE OPPOSITION TO THE MEXICAN WAR. To the same end, and showing a like animus, we collate sundry extracts from speeches and editorials relative to the Mexican war, uttered by those who were then, as now, hostile to the Democratic party, and as is believed, for the reasons already given. Mr. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, in a speech in opposition to the Mexican war, said: "That he, the President, (Mr. POLK) is deeply conscious of being in the wrong; that he feels the blood of this war, like the blood of ABEL, is crying to heaven against him," &c. He then goos into a summing up of the cost of the war, &c. See p. p. 93, 94, Ap. Cong. Globe, 1st Sess. 30th Cong. Mr. CALEB B. SMITH, at the same session, 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.) Chron icle. * * * "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, (0.) 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 unrighteous, infamous, God-abhorred war, and it will soon come to an end. The prospect is, that the Administration can get neither men nor money to carry on the war. Thank the Lord 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 Mexican volcanoes, it would be a sad and woful JOY, nevertheless, to hear that the 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. Baltimore Patriot. We are under the judgment of that curse." "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. "We cannot possibly look favorably upon this war. Its first act was a gross outrage upon Mexico, and can it be supposed by Mr. POLK | CALHOUN favored, contrary to his pretended and his advisers, that an error so glaring-a school of politics.-[See same authority. crime so unpardonable, as this Mexican war, This was just after an expensive war. can be white-washed?"-Mt. Carmel Register. Failing to inaugurate that change of GovMr. CORWIN, in a bitter speech denouncing ernment for which aristocratic aspirations had the war, said: so long struggled by popular commotions stirred up on the basis of wars, banks, tariffs, distributions, &c., the malcontents naturally "Were I a Mexican, I would welcome these invaders with bloody hands to hospitable graves." These quotations might be seemingly in a more appropriate place under some other head, but as showing the motives of those who ever favored a "strong Government" to strike whenever the iron of discord was hot, with a view to weld together opposing elements, to ultimately demonstrate a seeming necessity for their system of Government, they are here inserted. 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. FURTHER SCHEMES IN THE PROGRESS OF DISSOLUTION EXPOSED. a The efforts to create a public debt to hasten the "Strong Government" Mr. KING'S $2,000,000 gift, as "means"... RANDOLPH opposed... CALHOUN, as a means to an end, votes against his party...Purpose of the "Fragments 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 turned their attention to measures and acts more promising and auspicious. In an old, soiled and torn pamphlet, which survived the wreck of sundry newspaper files we had laid away years ago, occurs this prophetic language. [As the title page is entirely gone, we have neither the date or name of the author, but should judge it to have been written about the time the old Whig party gave way to the "Republican party."] 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 the columns of the New York Evening Post: "How long could an organized pauper agitation in England against France, or in France against England, continue without actual hostilities, especially if embracing a majority of 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!" On the 5th of April, 1820, he wrote to MARK LANGDON HILL: tous question, like a fire bell in the night, "I congratulate you on the sleep of the Missouri question-I wish I could say on its death; but of this I despair! The idea of a geograph-go! ical line once suggested, will brood in the 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!" This * * * ** * "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 trick. The leaders of Federalism, [the same leaders now] defeated in the schemes of obtaining 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 out another barrel to the whale. They are 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: "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 the evils of slavery, as if we were advocates for it." 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? |