Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 January 1879 — LESSONS FOR TO-DAY. [ARTICLE]

LESSONS FOR TO-DAY.

Drawn from the Deeds of the Fathers. i [Freiu a Recent Public Letter from Horatio Key mour.J When we look back on the Sth of January, 1815, we are led to study the , early history of our country, and we learn something that may abate the sectional pride which gives birth to sec- : tional prejudice and hate. These are the seeds from which grow treason and civil war. We shall find that no section is free from imputations of disloyalty or of inconsistency of conduct. New York for a time would not enter the Union. It distrusted the power given to the General Government. The doctrine of States’ rights had its origin with us, and not in Virginia, which at the outset was in favor of a strong central government. Yet in the war of 1812 New York shifted its position and upheld the exert) m of every power claimed by the Pr isident of the United States. On the other hand, in the Northeastern States, which had supported the centralizing doctrines of John Adams, when war harmed their free commerce upon the oceans, official acts verging upon rebellion marked their policy. While a foreign enemy was upon our soil, while the walls of the Capitol of our Union were blackened by the smoke of fires kindled by the torches of hostile invaders, open resistance was threatened to drafts to fill the ranks of our armies. These draft riiots were not made by an excited mob acting under a sense of wrong, but were put forth as the calm conclusions of men who were then, and whose memories are now, honored in the communities in which they lived. As chosen representatives of their State they solemnly declare that, “In this whole, series of devices and measures for raising men this convention discerns a total disregard for the constitution and a disposition to violate its provisions, demanding from the individual Stares a firm and decided opposition.” At an early day Alexander Hamilton, the great leader of his party, warned his followers that they were going too far. So thoroughly convinced was he at one time that there was a plan in progress for the separation of the Union that on June 11, 1801, on the Sunday previous to his death, he said to Col. John Trumbull, with a look of deep meaning, “You are going to Boston. You will see the principal men there. Tell them from me, as my request, for God’s sake to cease their conversations and threatenings about the separation of the Union. It must hang together as long as it can be made to.” It was a distinguished Northern Senator who, at the seat of Government in 1811, first suggested secession. He said : “I am compelled to declare it as my deliberate, opinion that if this bill passes the bonds of this Union are virtually dissolved; that the States which compose it are free from their moral obligations, and that as it will be the right of all so it will be the duty of some to prepare definitely for a separation—amicably if they can, violently if they must.” It was a leading Northern State which placed upon its Legislative records the declaration against the admission of Texas, which taught that it dissolved the bonds of the Union, and asserted that no human authority could make it submit to that act. Although it did submit the spirit of rebellion was there. Among the earliest events in Pennsylvania was the formidable resistance to the laws of Congress known as the whisky rebellion. This grew to such proportions that George Washington was forced to call upon other States to give him aid. At this period the Southern States were the firm supporters of the Union. John C. Calhoun was the able Secretary of War who organized its forces and asserted its powers. When we turn to the history of the late civil war we see how time and interest and passions change the position of States—the South waging war upon the General Government and exciting a Southern rebellion on Northern principles. At the same time some Northern States demanded the very measures they had denounced as acts which should be resisted. They poured forth blood and treasure to hold States in the Union whose membership they declared no human power should make them assent to. States that deemed a war - unjust in 1812, because, among other things, it destroyed our carrying trade, now demand a policy more destructive to American shipping upon the oceans of the world than any embargo which could be devised by the genius of Mr. Jefferson. These changes in the positions of States are full of warning and full of encouragement. They tell us that there will ever be discontent wherever there are real or fancied wrongs; that it should always be the object of political parties and public men to work for the welfare of all parts of our Union: that this spirit can alone preserve its life. On the other hand changes from hostility to our Union to its warm support are brought about when the wisdom of our Government diffuses prosperity into every section. Unless the spirit of sectional hate shall be stamped out as a baleful fire we

do not know in what quarter it may break out and involve us in civil was. The past warns us that the spirit of pat- j riotism or the spirit of rebellion have no permanent seats or no fixed forms for their assertion. Kindling sectional hate at the North to-day is more dangerous to the peace and prosperity of our country than the exhausted passions of rebellion which have burned to I ashes at the South. The fact that the principles of disunion were first put i forth at the North is no reason why they should not be put down when acted I upon at the South. But this fact should | nfake us more tolerant and give us faith that a love of union can grow up there • as it did in sections where disloyalty . was first displayed, and where treason- | able sentiments were first hatched out. I believe that celebrations of a victory gained for the flag of our Union by Southern men upon .Southern soil will not only promote fraternal feelings, ! but by contrast with events elsewhere will teach all the duty of forbearance, of moderation, and of devotion to the interI ests of every section of our great ■ country. All that teaches a knowledge of our i history tells us that other sections of ■ the country have virtues w as well as our ■ own, and that we have errors to atone i for as well as they. These truths make ! us tolerant and disposed to advance t{ie I interests and welfare of every section I of our Union,