Some Righteous men left.
We have read with much satisfaction the manly and high-toned sentiments of that able Democratic journal, the Concord (N. H.) Standard. In its issue of May 4th, it thus raises its courageous voice against the war of invasion:‘ "We are for peace. The South, which, in this scandalous civil war, will include every slaveholding State, cannot be reconquered. Her sons may be defeated on the field of battle; her cities destroyed; her fields laid waste; but they will not then be conquered. If defeated, they will flee to their mountain fastnesses and their morasses, and still carry on the war, until ultimately their invaders will be driven from their soil. They never will be conquered. Then, why make war upon them? Why sacrifice thousands of precious lives and hundreds of millions of money, when, in the end, it will avail nothing?
"We are not for the invasion of the South. We are for the defence of the North. If our brethren of the South invade the North, we are for repelling them. We are for defending the city of Washington until Maryland shall secede. As long as that State shall remain in the Northern Union, we are for defending the integrity of her soil, and that embraces the city of Washington. It she secedes, it will be useless even to defend Washington."
’ In reply to threats of violence by the Republicans, the Standard says:
‘ "No. Beware of attempting a Reign of Terror, among the other calamities which your policy has brought upon your country. Do that, and you initiate a civil war at your own doors. You will transfer it from Virginia and Carolina to New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, New York, Illinois--the entire North. No Democrat at the North, with the heart of a freeman beating in his bosom, will submit to your threatened despotism."
’ In an article on ‘"Democrats in arms for the defence of Washington,"’ it speaks as follows:
‘ "So far as we can learn, a large majority of the soldiers enlisted in this State for the defence of Washington, are Democrats. And they understand well what they are going to Washington for. It is not to wage a war of revenge or conquest against the South, but to defend the Government and Capital of the Union.
’ "Of the regiment (the 25th) raised in Albany, N. Y., the Albany Argus says:
‘ "'Of that regiment of soldiers thus marching to the service of their country, nine- tenths are Democrats.'"
’ "And the New York Day Book remarks of the troops going from that city:
‘ "'Many of the troops that have gone from New York said that they would defend Capital, but never engage in an aggressive war on the South.'"
’ The Boston Journal having threatened the editor with an assault on person and property, he thus replies:
‘ "And we now say to the editor of the Boston Journal, that if the mob, at his instigation, shall assail our person or property, if we survive, we will hold him responsible for the outrage in property, person and life.
"We tell that malignant and blood-thirsty miscreant, that the blood of the first Democrat of the Granite State that shall be shed by a Black Republican mob in this contest, will be avenged by all the Democrats of the Granite State. Beware of the entertainment to which you are inviting your countrymen at home, by your barbarous and bloody counsels. It is enough to have a sectional civil war. Beware how you instigate a war of factions at home."
’ The N. H. Patriot says that in Saco, Maine, a large mob surrounded the office of the Democrat, and demanded that a flag should be raised on peril of the destruction of the office! The editor was absent, but a few resolute friends successfully resisted all their attempts to enter the office, and after much disgraceful rioting, they left without accomplishing their purpose. The Democrat says:
‘ "We advise all Democrats of York county, while they stand by the country and its laws, to put their fire-arms of all descriptions in the best order immediately and keep them loaded for immediate and effective service. They may be needed at any moment to protect their families and their dwellings. The rowdy part of the Republican party (and which controls the party) we have reason to believe have planned an extended system of terrorism upon all Democrats who speak out their sentiments, and no man is safe. His own neighbor who meets him with politeneess in daily business may set murderers and incendiaries upon him at night. We have seen and learned enough to be well satisfied that this diabolism has been set on foot and extends through the county."
’ The Patriot protests indignantly against an infernal proposition of the Boston Atlas and Bee, edited by the Adjutant General of Massachusetts, who calls upon the Federal Government to arm the servile population of Eastern Virginia. It has also an article headed ‘"A Patriotic Family,"’ in which three tendered their services to the Government, as Clerk, Postmaster, and Mail Agent!
One Republican paper comes out for Peace. The Hartford Courant, which is the leading Republican journal of Connecticut, is constrained to admit that the only way to obtain peace is to recognize the Government of the Confederate States. It says:
‘ "Public opinion in the North seems to be gradually settling down in favor of the recognition of the new Confederacy by the Federal Government. The thought of a bloody and protracted civil war, except as a matter of absolute necessity, is Abhorrent to all, and its issues may be as perilous to the victors as to the vanquished. To subjugate the seceded States by force of arms and compel them to remain in the Union, if it be possible, must involve great expenditure of treasure and life, and can result only in changing the present alienation into deadly hostility and incurable hats. If they remain in the Union, they must do so as peers of the other States, and not as conquered Provinces.
’ "But here a new peril meets us. Do we not, by the recognition of the Southern Confederacy, recognize the principle of secession? No.
‘"Seven States have seceded from the Union. The act is revolutionary, and may justly be punished with all the severity which the crime of unprovoked revolution demands. But the movement was not checked, as it might easily have been, at the beginning. The Cabinet of Mr. Buchanan, if not Mr. Buchanan himself, helped on the treason. The present Administration must deal with the matter as it stands — not simply as a question of practical politics. The forcible subjugation of these States, under existing circumstances, is not to be thought of."’
The Bangor (Me.) Democrat still keeps its colors gallantly flying. It says:
‘ "In this struggle the Southern States ask the right to govern and tax themselves; they ask what our Revolutionary fathers asked — no more. Is there any man in the North so short- sighted, so destitute of reason, so ignorant of the history of revolutions, as to think that the Southern States will not in the end maintain their independence? For what, then, is this war waged? The war is utterly objectless. Does any one presume that the Federal Government can retake all the forts, arsenals and other public property in the seceded States? The thing is utterly impossible.
"You, then, people of Maine, should not give your voice and arm for the prosecution of a war which can bring neither honor nor advantage to your sovereign State--a war in which the flag can gain no new lustre, and which will bring long years of anguish, distress and poverty upon all our people. Let your whole influence and power be exerted rather in behalf of peace — that peace which must come, sooner or later, either through an amicable treaty between the North and South, or under the drawn sword of some military dictator."
’ The New York Daily News, although it has raised the United States flag, refused to do so upon compulsion. The conduct of the proprietor shows how easy it is for one resolute man to resist a mob. A yelling crowd came to his office and demanded its proprietors to raise the Stars and Stripes, under the menace of the sack and destruction of the office. The proprietors met the mob at the entrance and defied them. They informed the infuriated rabble that they would not be dictated to by them; and that they might proceed with their work of destruction, at their peril. They went away. The next morning, agreeably to their own purpose, they raised the ensign of the Union. We find the following allusion to the event in the New York Express:
‘ "'The News Office.'--From Wall street the mob went to the office of the News, where — by this time increased to about twenty thousand--they howled and yelled like madmen. The News' proprietors were resolute, and would not yield to the demands of the mob to show the flag."
’ What a contrast to the conduct of the Herald and Express! Nothing good was expected of the former, but of the latter, who married a Virginia lady, and has so often received the hospitality of Virginia homes! If there was a true man on earth, we thought it was the man Brooks. Alas! No one expected him to be faithless to his own section, but who would have supposed that he would leap from a conservative position into the front rank of the seething mass that howls for our destruction? The New York Journal of Commerce pursues a much more manly and honorable course.
