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Show WHAT LEADS TO TROUBLE. Many people still recall vividly the rounding to of the British steamship Trent by Capt. Wikes of the United States cruiser San Jacinto, and taking as prisoners from the Trent the two Confederate Commissioners, Mason and Slidell; how the news electrified this county; how furious were the British Brit-ish Ministers; how Parliament roared like an earthquake, ordered the mobilizing of the British Atlantic fleet and a heavy contingent of the British Brit-ish army to be sent to Canada, and raged and raged until a dispatch from Secretary Seward expressing ex-pressing regret for the act of Capt. Wilkes and offering all reasonable reparation reduced the British temperature, and a few days later ran. it down to below normal by another dispatch, tendering, ten-dering, inasmuch as the navigation of the St Lawrence Law-rence was dangerous in winter, the use of the New England ports and railroads for the landing of British troops and their transportation to Canada. Then the Commissioners were sent away, Capt. Wilkes was made Admiral and given a vote of thanks by Congress and the incident closed. But one of those Commissioners, John Slidell, on the fourth of February, 1861, a month prior to the first inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, a Senator of the United States, presented to the Senate the ordinance ordi-nance of secession adopted by the Legislature of his State of Louisiana, and delivered a valedictory address which was intensely bitter, filled with sneers, grandiloquent in some sentences in which he insisted that the South would have no new flag; that the Stars and Stripes belonged as much to the South as to the North, and that the South would not commence the war. The speech was filled with threats and with predictions of "a new era of triumph tri-umph for the Democratic party of the North and the re-establishment of its lost supremacy in most of the non-j3lave-holding States." His eyes were blinded. He could not see that he was helping to set the stage for the great tragedy about to be enacted. en-acted. He died eight years later in a foreign land. He had failed as a Commissioner; he had lived to see all his prophecies come to naught; his sneers had become boomerangs; he had lived to know that his South-land had been swept and devastated by the greatest of modern wars, his own State crushed, thousands of his brave countrymen slain and millions ruined. He saw the Union which he had raised his hand against restored and the Democratic Dem-ocratic party practically destroyed. Who can estimate esti-mate the bitterness of his last days? The sting y was all the sharper because he was a New Yorker fH by birth, and ho knew that while despised in his ,'' jPfl native State, he was not much mourned for in the I South. a ahH This is becoming almost ancient history now, t M and the only purpose that can be served by recall- jl ing it is to remind the people of this land that ' j ; fjl all that sacrifice was made necessary because a ,f!fH sectional quarrel had been growing in magnitude f J JL.H and anger until it could only be settled by an ap- ) 1 f .1 peal to the sword. But just now a good many ' jfjjiM newspapers and some orators are preaching the ,Jj j iLM doctrine of discontent, and are appealing to the ' J Iff J passions of the ignorant and dissatisfied, by telling ' jt j'fj'B them how much they are being wronged by the ' ' j 9 power of wealth which controls the country. These 'I'fH croakers make their appeals in many ways. The ' fffl favorite one is a simulated love for the poor and M,'H for the workingman and grief over their sorrows. '' .$& Such men are as much enemies of the country as ! ,l was John Slidell, and not many of them are as i-T f&l strong reasoners as was the fiery Senator from ' If I Louisiana. W -jil Workingmen should not bo beguiled by such ! wl appeals. The nations of the earth have tried fXI many forms of government; they have been ex- vl' lJifl perimenting for six thousand years that we know M -JiB of, but under no government since the beginning ,,, 'ill of time have there been so many blessings sur- r ' ! rounding the workingman as he now enjoys in this sl our country. ' Jj $! He should keep watch; he should claim all his !fl rights and protest against anything that he deems i lil JhI a wrong, but ho should never take up the idea that w H there is any purpose to oppress him by those in jig jWB power. They may see darkly; they may be follow- J SI jflfl ing a wrong track, but the poor and the lowly are Pm 1H in a vast majority, and they can with a free ballot m H protect themselves. m ll The bad men are in a pitiable minority. The FwilH masses are patriotic and fair, and so are most of If LJIiB the men in ofllce. The thought should be not to Yf Hl tear down but to build up. i'liihlil |
