2

The Establishment of a Despotism.

The sympathizers with secession are very fond of appealing to the Constitution. They forget that their secesh friends are trying to destroy the Constitution, to establish a despotism of the aristocracy. Gov. Pierpont, in a late letter, says:

"When the rebellion broke out last year, I firmly believed it was a premeditated attack upon the Constitution of the United States, with the intant to destroy the liberties of the people of this country."

Gov. Andrew Johnson, in a late speech at Nashville, uses the following strong language:

He knew the leaders of this rebellion well and intimately, both personally and politically, and he declared it was the firm determination of the rebel leaders to overthrow popular government, if they should succeed, and establish a despotism instead of our present liberal institutions. Mr. Clayton, the Assistant Secretary of Howell Cobb, declared to him on one occasion that the people of the South, as well as many at the North, were fully determined to submit to the election of no President who had sprung from the common people as Abe Lincoln had. Andrew Jackson had forseen this attempt to revolutionize the government twenty-eight years ago, and had foretold that the aristocrats in the next struggle would make slavery their pretext. The prophecy is now in its fulfillment, and the leaders of this infamous rebellion were trying to trample down all popular government and establish a despotism.

And yet there is a Democratic party in the North which sympathizes with these enemies of their country. This sympathy is manifested in the bitter denunciations by Democratic leaders of the means used to restore the Constitution and the Union. It began to show itself after the Vallandigham's midnight caucus of conspirators, and so far as developed consists in lying and base slander against the Presidents and his Cabinet, and certain Generals of the army, in attacks upon Mr. Stanton, in attempts to destroy the efficiency of the army, and by a concentrated movement to produce discontent, jealousies, partisan differences and strife among the people, by all sorts of villainous stories, epithets and sneers against Congress, the State Governors and officers and the party in power; and by attempts to destroy Government credit by opposing confiscation and taxation in order that the burdens upon the treasury may thereby become so grievous as will raise up an anti-war party.

So far these are the main developments of the great Locofoco conspiracy, which is aiming to assist the rebels in their attempts to establish a despotism. Of course, as remarks a contemporary, these several points are carried out with every variety of detail, such as we cannot stop to specify. But it is noticeable that very one of these features, so far, is directly calculated to aid the rebe's; and is not calculated for anything else. The only possible effect any of these things can have is to aid the rebels and injure the Union. The attack on the President is a blow directly at the life of the Republic. So is the attack on Secretary Stanton, the attempt to break up the Cabinet, and the attempt to ruin the army by getting up quarrels and jealousies among the officers and corps. In short, the Great Conspiracy is Treason, thorough, perfect, deliberate treason; but treason of that cowardly, underhanded, despicable character that is safe from the punishment it deserves.