Semi-Weekly Dispatch
(Franklin, PA)
April 19, 1861
With the deepest anxiety have the American people been watching the transactions of the Administration, since the inauguration of Mr. LINCOLN, with a view to ascertain our true position among the nations, and solve the question, “Have we a Government?” The conditions of affairs toward the close of Mr. BUCHANAN’s career, rendered the question a most absorbing one. Treason stalked abroad in open day in our National Capital; plunder seemed to have become a ruling passion among our officers; he who could dive deepest in the robbery of the public treasury, and, and, in official acts, leave the treason of BENEDICT ARNOLD or AARON BURR furthest in the rear, seemed to enjoy the highest honors. Confusion reigned in Washington.
Since the new Administration has taken charge of the helm of State, in the short space of six weeks, order has been brought out of political confusion, the public offices have been filled with good and true men, a scattered army and a dispersed navy have been gathered together, the public defences have been duly cared for, and in every movement, our new President has thus far shown himself the man.
The consequences of all this firmness and manliness of President LINCOLN may be a war with the so-called Southern Confederacy; but it will merely be an earlier commencement that the end may be the sooner, and will, doubtless, under the Divine blessing, avert from our beloved land, those terrible evils of anarchy, toward which we were so rapidly and fatally drifting. There are worse evils than war. The question is solved, and the fact fully established, for which we nationally and individually should be heartily grateful to high Heaven. We have a Government. Let every patriot be firm in assisting to uphold and sustain it.