The Presidential question at the North.
the opposition to Lincoln.
In view of the fact that the Fremont wing of the Republican party in the
United States has cut loose and is running a candidate on its own account and that the Baltimore Convention has nominated the man in opposition to whose administration this movement was begun, a history of the
Cleveland Convention is decidedly interesting.--The grounds upon which
Lincoln's past administration, and by inference his future also, are to be attacked, are so clearly shadowed forth in the speech of
John Cochrane, of New York, to the
Cleveland Convention, that we republish a large portion of it. As the nominee of that body for the office of
Vice President, his utterances may be taken as the official exposition of the tactics to be used in this scramble for the government of a loosely jointed confederation of Yankee States.
The following are some extracts:
Invasion of individual rights.
The timid voice of the citizen, asserting that his rights have been invaded, seems to be overborne by the terrific conflict that is raging about us. But yet, fellow-citizens, terrible and devastating as war is, there is a more serious evil still.
It is when citizens' rights, in the broad light of day, but with impressive and eloquent silence, perish before the gaze of a free people.
[Loud applause.] While our soldiers are engaged in deadly conflict with the foe, whose deadly weapon is pointed at the vitals of the
Republic, there are repeated blows aimed elsewhere at our rights, at our franchises, at our liberties, and at our institutions.
It is because of this that you assembled here this evening.
Not that you have criticisms to urge upon the conduct of our champions in the field; not that you doubt their ability to sustain the shock of war; not that you are at all in suspense at the result; but that the constitutional period had arrived when citizens throughout this land must speak freely, determinedly, and resolutely upon the subject of the rights of man [Applause] Not, fellow citizens, that I should advise any of you for a moment to impair the power of the
Government.
The Government is ours.
It is we who are assembled here who are participating in yonder conflict, and we would in no degree exhort to rapidly or retain to slowness the pace of those who occupy the lines in the face of the rebel foe.
We have no criticisms to bestow in that direction.
We are content with that portion of the operations of the
Government, and nothing that can be directed toward them must be imputed to us as to unworthy motives, or to that lukewarm doubt which insinuates a question of patriotism.
With the full limit and extent of that most worthy patriotism it is that now at this time — while criticising the measures as we may, a constitutional period, of the rulers constitutionally placed over us, we urge them forward and onward in the great conflict in which they are engaged, and to which we, the people have impelled them, and which they are bound with the people to support and maintain.
But, fellow-citizens, allow me for a few moments to attract your attention to those grievances in civil life, which, if permitted to remain unredressed, and continue in the direction in which they have, their diverging lines will soon open a vast field of deserted interests, rights, and liberties, which will pall the eye of the most stead fast.
The War a question of finance.
There is a time when in my opinion, the question of war is absorbed in the question of finance.
There never has been and never can be a war, conducted as all wars have been and will be, in which, at some one period thereof, the question of the continuation of the war does not become absolutely a question of finance.
For instance, we are destroying our enemy at the front; are we creating a more formidable enemy at home?
We have annihilated him; are we annihilated?
It there be danger of the latter, that danger must be avoided.
Hence, at such a period of the war, when it becomes a question of finance no people can pretend to any degree of wisdom if, in their spirit of fell revenge, they are willing to destroy their enemy at their own expense.
The object of war is not revenge.
It may be the weapon of outrage; but with nations the creation and continuance of the body politic is the prime object, and any attempts upon the enemy that would destroy the life of a nation certainly are suicidal.
We must be careful of the state of our finances, and see that while we are crushing the enemy on the one side, we are not injuring the people on the other.
For instance, if we are expending, as I believe we are, over four millions a day, and if we are in receipt at this time of no more than one million a day, it becomes the people to consider the magnitude of the debt we are rolling up, and to demand at all points such a rigid, exact, and scrupulous economy, that there shall not one dollar issue from the Treasury that does not go for the absolute wants of the country.
[Applause]
Shoddy.
I do not mean to criticise the honesty of our rulers, but I do mean to allude to that bevy of depredators, that fell band of plunderers, that miserable set of public peculators placing their hands in the coffers of the country, and drawing them out reeking with the blood of our citizens and crying "patriotism" and "loyalty;" I aim my remarks at "shoddy; I bid you beware of shoddy; excise shoddy form the body politic like a miserable fungus praying at the vitals of the nation, absorbing the taxes which men are depleting their hard earned savings to pay, in order that they may sustain this Government.
I tell you cut off these shoddy men, and let the people know that every dollar contributed is a dollar for their dear native land.--[Applause.]
About slavery.
There is another subject to which I would direct your attention.
America has been called the land of the free.
We intend that it shall be the land of the free.
We intend that it shall be the land of the free.
You know that while the
South rested under the salubrious shade of that sacred Constitution, my brethren, the Democrats were unwilling to disturb them in their repose.
It was we who stood at the very last moment with our hands raised in protestation against the injurious advance, as we supposed, of the
North against our brethren of the
South.
While we were in this position it was that the bloodthirsty rebel, the fire eating filibuster of the
South, aimed his deadly weapon and fired his missile at the flag which was the emblem of our nationality.
In another moment the clouds swept away, and the
North sprang to its feet without exception, and declared that as we were not willing that any portion of the
North should attempt the coercion of the
South, the
South should never coerce the North And the war began and has raged, and I heard through the atmosphere here and there, in the lawless fierce storm that prevailed, the clanking of fetters shattered and rivers broken; and I have seen men start from the ground with hands cast out, not weaponless, rushing into the midst of the fray; and have discovered that these were the men whom they invoked Northern Democrats in the preceding period to protect.--But because of their disregard of the principles of Democracy this fell war, which they invoked, advanced upon them, struck off the letters, and let the slave go free.
That is the effect of war. Now I quarrel not with any one who is here from
St. Louis because he approached not from the direction of New York.
I have never been the Abolitionist that many of you have; not withstanding my method of ratiocination which has brought me to the conclusion, is different from that which has brought you, we occupy this common ground.
By the practical effect of war the negro is free, and being free, remove from the
Constitution the record of his slavery (applause), and you have a free
America with a free soil and a free atmosphere.
The right of asylum-the Arguers case.
In another sense
America is the asylum of the oppressed.
But what means that arrest in yonder street; why is it that he who flees from a foreign soll and reaches our shores, even though under charges of guilt, is arrested without process of law, and remanded to the place from whence he came?
Is it a question of guilt?
No, it is a question of the privilege and the right of the citizen.
Were Arguelles reeking with crime, the man who imprisons him before proving that he is guilty, when he is presumed to be innocent, is an offender not only against the man charged with guilt, but against the body of the laws, and the liberties of the people, and I arraign yonder administration upon this point, and demand that they hold up before the jury of the country their hands, that we may see whether they are polluted or cleansed; and as they stand there in the prisoner's attitude before their judges, the people, we demand an answer to be made----Did you not, without process of law, and upon your simple command, order this man to be arrested, and without trial or any opportunity of defence, be remanded abroad to be submitted to others laws than ours?" I will pause till next November for the reply of the people.
Newspaper Suppression — Revolutions predicted on such outrages.
These are important considerations, fellow-citizens, and I might still continue in illustrating to you other points of equal importance, but will do so only briefly.
I have heard that the varied machinery that operates for the conveying of intelligence throughout the land was suddenly arrested in its action.
Luckily, perhaps, as our rulers supposed, neither one of those establishments thus arrested was denominated a free press, perhaps because it did not hear that cognomen, but was called
the World, or the
Journal of Commerce; therefore, the Administration may have felt empowered to embarrass and oppress it. Way, gentlemen, when at the bare instigation of a ruler the this great servitor of the rights and franchises of a free people can be arrested in its action, closed and suspended, one of the great bulwarks of freedom is gone.
A free press not and your liberties are lost.
For your liberty is founded upon the understates of intelligence — that intelligence which proceeds in a great measure from the press, and which is reproduced in the shape of the belief, thus making the circle of knowledge completes.--Therefore, to suppress these implements of knowledge or curtail them, or even to establish a courtship ever them, is everywhere by a free people to be an outrage, and upon such outrage, and wrong inflicted, revolution is predicted and revolution accomplished.
The Arbitrary arrest outrages.
And wherever in this bread land, under the processes of this Administration, a man is seized under any plea, although it be that of necessity, which is the tyrant's plea, your political, civil, and social rights are subverted.
To be sure, there is a necessity of war. The spy, the uncertain friend, the doubtful foe — all are under the surveillance of a warlike police.
But where martial law is not proclaimed, and the civil law exists in its plentitude, there to arrest a citizen, to imprison him without recourse to the civil and judicial tribunals, is an outrage which, if permitted, will ultimately lead the
Government into the very slough of destruction.
The Mongor doctrine.
It is many years ago that a solitary hand found their way through the wilderness, under an inclement sky, all uncertain of their future fate, and yet resolute and determined to carve out in this God's land, and that
Lord's wilderness, a home for free men; and they imprinted their footsteps there, and raised their notes of thanksgiving and praise; and the tones of the one have not yet ceased reverberating from crag to crag, until distant
Nevada has heard the sound, and the impress of the other is not yet obliterated.
We their descendants have received their arms, and stood up under the panoply of their strength and their wisdom, and have endeavored to commit to memory and heart the reasons they left, and teach our children to repeat them afterward.
Among those lessons, if my memory serves me right, was this that
America is the land of its people.
Upon her soil grow none but popular rights; from her streams can be reflected none but representative laws; and around the circumambient air which surrounds that happy land, we declare that trumpet and the evening tattoo shall single with but the songs which proceed from the children of the
American republic.
(Applause.) But what is that which arrests your attention in yonder pacific city?
I see the Gallic standard advanced and unburied to the breeze, and he who holds it is of the recreant German stock; and he who would plant his foot there, in the shape of a despot's track, is he whom our free Germans here have to contend against, and his principles, abroad and at home; and the institutions he would establish upon the land they have sworn, and we have sworn, to resist.
The
Monroe doctrine shall receive no; violation.
(Great and continued applause.)
We have justified to the world the ability of free rule to preserve inviolate the honor and integrity of a free country, and that work once completed, as it will be completed, and even now is completing at the hands of your
Generals in the field — when that work is accomplished we have yet, we would teach the despots of the other world, vigor enough to preserve our homes and our country free from the tread of the myriads of a foreign power Gentlemen, you are assembled here with a purpose; that purpose will be best announced in your proceedings.
It is time for you — for us all — to establish the principles and announce them which guide us. Once proclaimed to the world, you will command its respect, nay, you will demand its applause and receive it. Your prime object, therefore, here, is the assertion of principle.
Its support and its encouragement, and opposition and hostility to whatever may wound or lacerate it.
The Press on the Cleveland Convention.
The St. Louis
Anzeiger thinks that the radical faction will submit in
Baltimore to
Mr. Lincoln's nomination, and will merely endeavor to obtain a radical platform, a radical
Vice President, and the promise that
Lincoln will change his present Cabinet for a more radical one, in case he should be elected; all of which the majority will concede, and thus preserve the "unity of the party."
The St. Louis
New Zeil, a supporter of
Fremont, says:
‘
Mr. Lincoln has already let us know through a confidential agent, who was here in
St. Louis a few days ago, that he is willing to make peace with the pestilential radicals and to give them the whole government patronage in
Missouri.
We speak authentically in publishing this offer, and in view of this peace contract, the
Democrat and its small clique will pronounce themselves content with the dictum of the majority, and hoist
Lincoln's name with quite as much joy as that of
Mr. Chase, and recommend him warmly to the people.
’
In this conduct of the
Democrat we see only new danger, and the greatest danger for freedom.
To give up Radical positions and fall back into the camp of those lazybones who are intent to digest the spoils, exposes us to a disastrous defeat.
Our State ticket, so unanimously adopted, will surely be beaten by the tactics of the
Democrat.
For how can that paper advocate Fremont Radicals like Fetcher and
Rodman in the some columns in which it defends
Abe Lincoln, or some other conservative?
It is our duty to point this danger out now, since the
Democrat has declared "the nomination of
Fremont did not change our conviction of the impropriety of the
Cleveland Convention."
The
Republican, on the other side, comes openly out for
Lincoln, and promises him its support and re-election, if he only will chase the few radical fuss makers to the devil, and remain conservative, Kentuckian, and tyrannical, as heretofore.
This is honest on the part of the
Republican. It has judged
Lincoln and the Baltimore Convention correctly; it knows that Convention is overwhelmingly conservative, in favor of prolonging our present condition, and it knows moreover that four years more of such a Government as the present must ruin the
North, divide the
Union, and make the
South independent.
Hence the
Republican supports
Mr. Lincoln and his Baltimore Convention.
The New York
Commercial has the following:
‘
The
Times raves a good deal to-day, as yesterday, over the
Cleveland Convention.
The jeers and sheers have become serious — the fun very solemn, the laughter almost tragic.
The "Radicals and Copperheads" were at
Cleveland, and the latter are at work with the Fremonters!
Then, again,
Fremont and
Cochrane are "inhabitants" of the same State," and the
Constitution prohibits the electors from "voting by ballot for two persons who are inhabitants of the same State. "
Mr. Fremont was a very good sort of a Californian when the "
Times" supported him in 1856--but, letting that pass, we are now told that, --
’
"There are thousands and tens of thousand of men who would gladly have seen
General Fremont continued in command, who approved of his emancipation edict, and did not specially censure his attempt to sweep away the civil power in
Missouri and make himself absolute dictator over all that State; but who, nevertheless, do not intend to show their resentment by electing a Copperhead to the Presidency.
They may wish
Gen. John Cochrane had not withdrawn his valuable services from the army, and that the
Government had indignantly refused to accept his resignation — but they do not see the accessibly of making him
Vice President on that account.
They are probably quite as much in favor of 'integrity and economy' as the gentleman who eased the
Government of some millions in fortifying
St. Louis; and yet they may not see the propriety of placing the
National treasury at their absolute disposal.
The people at large have a good deal of common sense, and the emergencies of the nation have brought it into vigorous exercise.
They will be much less easily hood winked and humbugged than this new combination of Copperhead Radicals seem to imagine."
"Copperhead Radicals" This is a new blast.
Pray, where would
Mr. Lincoln have been without the support of the Radicals in 1860?
They made him
President, and because they like a little more liberty of speech and of the press — a little more honesty and consistency — they, too, are called Copperhead.
In calling names, in partisan abuse, the
Times is entitled to-day to the honors of being at the head of the profession.
If the Radicals are Copperheads, pray what are they who coalesced and cohabited with these Radicals in making
Mr. Lincoln President?
The New York
Sun, in speculating upon the Presidential question, says:
‘
"The importance of the nomination depends entirely on the events that may transpire during the next three or four months. If
Gen. Grant is successful, he will be the next
President, if he chooses, other candidates to the contrary notwithstanding.
Should he fall, contrary to all reasonable expectation,
Fremont will then loom up in large proportions, and the real contest will be between him and the representative of the
Conservative Wat Democracy. "
’
