San Francisco Daily Alta California, February 7, 1860

The world abroad might well believe that the value of the Federal Union has greatly diminished within the past few years, if the treasonable practices of the political fanatics who have found their way into Congress were to be taken as a criterion. The unparalleled national advancement which has been made by the republic of the United States since the adoption of the Constitution under which our government is organized, puts to shame the efforts of these brawling politicians, however, and leaves the great fact indisputable: that ours is the most perfect governmental system that the ingenuity of man has ever yet devised. It is not to be believed, therefore, that thirty millions of free and intelligent people are ever to be dragooned into following the lead of some scores of ranting political knaves, who, by the wily exercise of the arts of the demagogue, have assumed to lead the political sentiment of the country by the nose over the disunion precipice. The treasonable declarations of this class, whether made in Congress or out of Congress, assuredly finds a narrow circle of believers or sympathizers, and only reflect disgrace upon those who utter them.

Whilst the subject of the organization of a Federal Union of the States was being agitated in 1776, the common benefits to be derived from such a union were elaborately discussed and appreciated. The revolutionary fathers foresaw what a rich inheritance they were about to bequeath to posterity, and we to-day are realizing some of the blessings which they thus handed down to us. In those days the story of Scylurus, the Scythian, was impressed upon the minds of the rising generation as embodying the true sentiment, which should always be perpetuated to the remotest days of their posterity. The story, though familiar to all, is not unworthy of a repetition here:

Scylurus, the Scythian, having fourscore sons, desired nothing so much as to bring them up in the love of each other, and, to show them how invincible concord would render them, as he lay on his death-bed, he called them around him, and giving to each of them a bundle of javelins, bade them try if they could break the bundles. The young men having attempted and declaring it impracticable, Scylurus untied the bundles in their presence, broke the javelins one by one, with the greatest ease, and from thence took occasion thus to address his children: "Behold, my sons, your strength whilst linked together in the bonds of amity; on the contrary, how weak, and what an easy prey you must be, when separated in your interests by discord and sedition."

Among the great mass of American citizens, the moral which this story teaches has lost none of its force. It is the disunion demagogues, who, upon the floor of Congress and in other places, publicly assail our constitutional liberties, and seek to instill their insidious poison into the ears of the people. It is in this latter respect, and this alone, that we have degenerated. The demagogues, by the exercise of their black arts, have succeeded in becoming strong in numbers, in our congressional representation, and they are thus enabled to plot mischief and excite discord throughout the land. Would to God that in the midst of their loud lunged treasonable declamations, the spirit of the eloquent old Jacob Duche, who made the first prayer in Congress, might rise up among them and invoke, as he did on that memorable occasion, Divine protection against these, the most dangerous enemies that have ever assailed us. That prayer is one for to-day as well as then: it is indeed for all time to come, so long as this Republic and this people have a national existence.

O Lord, our heavenly Father, high and mighty, King of kings, and Lord of lords, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers on earth, and reignest with power supreme and uncontrolled over all the kingdoms, empires, and governments; look down in mercy, we beseech thee, on these American States, who have fled to thee from the rod of the oppressor, and thrown themselves on they gracious protection, desiring to be henceforth dependent only on thee: to thee they have appealed for the righteousness of their cause; to thee do they now look up for that countenance and support which thou alone canst give; take them, therefore, heavenly Father, under they nurturing care; give them wisdom in council and valor in the field; defeat the malicious designs of our cruel adversaries; convince them of the unrighteousness of their cause; and if they still persist in their sanguinary purposes, O let the voice of thine own unerring justice, sounding in their hearts, constrain them to drop the weapons of war from their unnerved hands in the day of battle. Be thou present, O God of wisdom! and direct the councils of this honorable assembly; enable them to settle things on the best and surest foundation, that the scene of blood may be speedily closed, that order, harmony, and peace may be effectually restored; and truth and justice, religion and piety, prevail and flourish among thy people. Preserve the health of their bodies and the vigor of their minds; shower down on them, and the millions they here represent, such temporal blessings as thou seest expedient for them in this world, and crown them with everlasting glory in the world to come. All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Savior. Amen!

Could the offended spirit of the reverend patriot who thus invoked Divine aid and protection when this Republic in the early dawning of our liberties, and whose invocation has been generously responded to, rise up before the appalled vision of those who in the thirty-sixth Congress strive to trample the Constitution under foot, and re-repeat these words, they would creep away into remote and secret places, and hide their diminished heads in shame.

There is a sketch written upon the disbanding of the revolutionary army which may well be repeated here, as affording another illustration of the blind disregard and forgetfulness of the past manifested by the few who at this time seem to be in league against the Union. It runs thus:

When has the sun in all his course since time began, shone upon a scene like the disbanding of the Revolutionary army? Where is the history that can show its parallel, or the people that can boast its equal? An army flushed with victory, that had just achieved the independence of its country, and given it a name and a place among the nations; had effected, with indescribable toil and hardship, the high purposes of its enlistment, and that had large and just claims upon the treasury as well as gratitude of the nation, is summoned on parade for the last time. Their arrearages are unpaid—they are without a dollar in their pockets—without comfortable apparel—without a single day's rations in their knapsacks, hundreds of miles from home—which home may have been desolated, in their absence, by savage violence—many of them enfeebled by sickness and protracted sufferings—and all of them goaded by extreme sensitiveness, by a most eloquent exhibition of their deserts, and an existing portraiture to their grievances, by a talented and ingenious factionist. Will their love of country overcome the promptings of selfishness, and the keen and bitter stings of disappointment? Will they refuse to listen to the song of the siren, that justifies and urges self-remuneration? Will these careworn and neglected veterans pile their arms, and literally beg their passage homewards? Will they quietly surrender the means of redress in their heads, and trust cold charity for bread, and the tardy justice of the country for remuneration? Oh, it is more than human—it is God-like! The drum beats—the line is formed—the flag of independence is advanced to the front—the officers, with uncovered heads, bid their men a silent farewell! Filing off, they pile up their arms in solemn silence, and with clasped hands and averted eyes, are dismissed each to his own way. Is there aught in Grecian or Roman story, in ancient or modern revolutions, than can equal the last act of our veteran fathers' magnanimity and patriotism?

When we recall to mind reminiscences such as these, the magnitude of the great wrong which these disunion plotters are striving to perpetrate becomes duly appreciable, and our warmest patriotic impulses are appealed to, to give utterance to an emphatic condemnation of their deeds. This land, and this system of government, form together the richest inheritance that was ever bestowed upon a nation. That inheritance was purchased by the blood of our revolutionary sires, poured out for us like water. In the long and fearful struggle against a seemingly overwhelming physical power, that sought to perpetuate an oppression upon this continent, they were triumphant at last; and not until the memory of their glorious deeds is lost for ever, by the annihilation of the page of history, will the nation of free people that has sprung from their loins, be guilty of the base sacrilege which a few internal enemies to that nation are striving to perpetuate. The constitution is the corner stone of our temple of liberty, esto perpetua.