Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

significant fact, and one to be truly proud of, that the first duty of the Democratic patriot ever has been, and is, to stand manfully by the country whenever it is assailed by internal or external foes. This, at the present time, is the paramount duty. Questions which have divided Democrats from Republicans are not now prominent. They are held in abeyance. They are merged, for the time being, in the great vital question of the preservation of the government. "Holding as a brother him who stands by the Union, and holding as an enemy him who would strike from its constellation a single star," I see no clearer lights by which to be guided than the revered examples of the patriotic and self-sacrificing fathers of the country, who held the preservation and perpetuity of the Union, and the whole Union, as their first, and last, and chief, political duty.

The country is now involved in a war, the desolating consequences of which, to business, to property, to life, every considerate man will contemplate with fearful forebodings; a war which, for a long period, has been regarded by many of our best men as a future inevitable event, unless the strife between the sections should be hushed, and which thousands of the sincere lovers of their country have intuitively shrunk from as from a deadly scourge.

My heart acquits me of any agency in producing this state of affairs. Indeed, acting under the conviction of threatening dangers, I may claim to have honestly and ardently labored to shun them. Warned that a rupture in the government must inevitably come when the kindly spirit of brotherhood had departed, I may claim to be of the number who have labored incessantly to keep alive those feelings of kindness and regard out of which the Union was created, of that number who have opposed all action and legislation aimed at nullifying any of the provisions of the Constitution, who have endeavored to remove the discussion of the inflammatory subject of slavery from the halls of Congress, and to avert the dark and threatening storm whose fearful mutterings are now round about So long as there was hope of reconciliation, I labored

us.

for peace, for adjustment of disputes, and against a resort to arms. Should the opportunity reopen, my labors to that end would be renewed.

I will not indulge in recrimination and reproach. It would be idle to do so. Our business is with the present, and I mean to deal with it with the candor and sincerity which should always mark the conduct of men.

The Southern States have seceded from the Union, and are in open rebellion against the government. They deny its authority and dare its power. Two powerful armies, one in the South and one in the North, are each combining and concentrating to take the deadly march to battle. On the pending issue rests the existence of the Union. And thus is the contest narrowed down to the single question of country or no country, government or no government.

I am for supporting the government. I cannot ask who administers it. It is the government of my country; it is the constitutional government; and as we should demand that an administration, peculiarly our own, should be guarded and upheld by the strong arm of the people, so we who opposed with humble zeal the elevation of the present administration to power are, in good faith and in stern duty, bound to stand by it, to uphold it, to defend it, against those who pronounce the ancient compact of the fathers to be solemnly broken, and who declare that a reunion will be resisted to the death.

If the views here briefly advanced shall be unacceptable to any of my political friends, it will be to me a source of painful regret; for I esteem their kind approval a boon of no mean importance. And I entreat those who may not fully sympathize with me, to be not too rash or hasty in their judgment, for the startling events of the immediate future, as they shall develop themselves in rapid succession, may soon cause those who might now condemn cordially to approve. . . .

WALTER HARRIMAN.

The first article struck the keynote for every issue of the paper for the next sixteen months, during which it was in the editorial charge of Mr. Harriman. The "Union" was the only Democratic paper in New Hampshire that was not hostile decidedly so-to the National Administration into whose hands had been committed, for safe-keeping, the government which treason had lifted its red right hand to destroy; and it did, during those months of loyalty, service of incalculable value to the righteous cause which it earnestly and unreservedly supported. For its editor insisted that all partisan issues be dropped pending the great struggle for the Union. He cheerfully sustained the administration of Abraham Lincoln in the prosecution of the war, and deprecated partisan criticism of government measures, or other partisan opposition thereto, as only so much aid and comfort to his country's deadly foes. The earnest arguments and appeals of a life-long Democrat for country above party had effect upon minds that could not otherwise have been reached, and powerfully aided in creating and maintaining a correct and patriotic public sentiment.

Selections from the editorial productions of his fertile and vigorous pen will fitly close this chapter.

Editorials of Walter Harriman, appearing in the "Weekly Union," Manchester, N. H., in 1861–62.

[JUNE 4, 1861.]

"UNDER WHICH KING?"

However slow some minds may be to perceive the fact, every man will be compelled in this great emergency to support either the government at Washington or the gov ernment at Montgomery. No other alternative remains. We cannot stand a moment on middle or neutral ground. Nor can indifference to this vital matter exist in the heart of any individual who has a clear apprehension of the mighty results which hang suspended upon the issue be

fore the country. He that is not for us is against us, and the question presses with great force, "Whom will ye serve?"

The government at Washington is the government of the people, the legal government. It is legitimately there. We say nothing here of the principles of the party which put the men in power who are now administering that government. That has nothing to do with the question. Parties are temporary while the government is perpetual, and the government would remain though every party should sink to oblivion. . . . It is our government, and we are in honor bound to defend it. Democrats no less than Republicans are bound to defend it. Indeed, we take pride in the recollection that the support of the government and of the flag of the country has ever been the cardinal principle of the Democratic creed. . . . Shall the government be abandoned to destruction? Must our sympathies for the rebel government cause us to fold our arms, and "let the Union slide"? We have not so learned our duty. Such is not the school in which we have been taught. We stood by the South while they stood in the Union, but we never promised to follow them out of the Union. We never bargained to go with them to Montgomery, nor to cry havoc when they let loose their dogs of war!

[JUNE 18, 1861.]

PEACEABLE SECESSION.

The inquiry is sometimes made: Why cannot the two sections of the American Union separate and live peaceably side by side? We answer the question by asking another: If nothing prevents their living peaceably side by side, why should they separate at all, and sacrifice the Union - their common strength and glory?

[ocr errors]

If we cannot walk peaceably together, but must quarrel and divide, there is no power on earth that could cause us to maintain friendly relations after the partition walls had been set up. We should become at once two hostile na

tions. Interminable questions of discord would keep us constantly embroiled. The custody of the public property, the division of the territory, the navigation of the rivers, the adjustment of the tariff, the rendition of fugitive slaves, and innumerable other intricate and vexatious questions, would prevent, for a century at least, and perhaps forever, the two countries settling down in quiet repose. The youngest child in our midst would not live to see the end of the disputes and wrangles which a dissolution of the Union would inaugurate.

More than that. If the Union be divided, the question is settled decisively, that we have neither government nor country. The sad experience of other nations clearly demonstrates the fact that disintegration, once begun, inevitably continues until the greatest of empires falls into insigficant parts.

We hazard nothing, then, in the declaration, that should this Union be once sundered, division after division would follow in rapid succession, until this once proud republic, split into little contemptible confederacies, without power at home or influence abroad, prostrated in business, rent by internal discords, and ground down by taxation, would finally seek tranquillity and peace under the protection of military despotisms! Our whole country or nothing is the stake at issue in this conflict.

To our vision, the path of duty for every good citizen is clear. We must hold on to the government which the true patriots of the land have transmitted to us. The thought of dissolution, peaceable or otherwise, must not be entertained. For, in the downfall of our nation, and amidst its crumbling ruins, no light would be discernible, creating fond anticipations of the future. All would be dark! dark! And what would be the verdict of history upon the failure of the Republic and the overthrow of its organization! If this disruption of compacts, this repudiation of obligations, is to succeed, farewell to all those theories of government, based upon written or prescriptive constitutions, which ac

« AnteriorContinuar »