Semi-Weekly Dispatch

A liberal course of policy, in the peaceful days of the past, was a benign political philosophy which numerous well-thinking persons respected oftener than they openly applauded. The very some of a noble magnanimity, with this class of persons, was the dispassionate and liberal advocacy of measures of public polity, and the fervent and eloquent appeals to the people to oppose the dangerous tendency of the extreme views of those who were earnestly contending for a principle of right, without regarding the popular cry that they were far "in advance of all political parties. With such advocates of liberal views--such advocates of the boasted "Union-saving" conservatism--concession after concession to the South, which has been preparing to involve our country in her present troubles, was the very height of "National Conservative Democracy"--or, rather, the very depth of Northern political infamy!

This "national" party, entrusted with the administration of public affairs for so many years, had at last lost its once formidable influence. And why? Not because of its disruption during the late Presidential campaign, and the subsequent election of Mr. Lincoln; but because many of its prominent men, among whom was one of its candidates for the Presidency, (Breckinridge), have since joined the accursed conspiracy against the Government. What a comment upon the boasted conservatism of the once jubilant Democracy, whose title of "national" erst attracted to their party standard the multitudes of honest men in the North! With such a "national conservative" party in power, controlled by designing Southern politicians and statesmen, can men marvel now that the least check given in the past to Southern arrogance and pretension, and to the rapid strides of the Slave Oligarchy to power, has been met by brutal outrage and insult, and not by manly discussion? Can they wonder that, while these bellicose Southern oligarchs ever claimed the right to clamor on the pro side of the slavery question, in Northern cities and inland towns, during Presidential contests, Southern "conservative" Democrats have threatened and brutally assaulted anti-legislature for discussing and maintaining the opposite side of the question? Charles Sumner would have been stricken by as many dagder [sic] thrusts as Caesar bore, had he visited the delectable Arcadia of Southern "chivalry" and Slavery, and claimed the right of speech! He well knew that if the "honorable" representatives of Southern Slavery would brutally assault him in the sacred precincts of the Capital of his country, for exercising the freedom of speech guaranteed to all, reason and justice would appeal in vain to the worse than brutal constituents!

How does Democratic "national conservatism" progress now? Is it disposed still to affiliate with traitors, while it maintains a studied reticence upon the treason of its leaders? Democratic "conservatism"! What has it lead [sic] to! All the compromise measures of good and great men had only the effect of securing temporary safety to the Union, and not averting permanently its threatened dissolution. The glowing eloquence of Clay, could he have returned to earth, would have plead in vain to the conspirators on the eve of the Rebellion. No compromise, no concession, no effort made to stay the causeless war made upon our Government, could have been of any avail. The temporizing policy of the "Conservative Democracy" had rendered Southern leaders too arrogant at last to heed Northern counsel, or suffer Northern men to take part in the administration of the Government. And now, in view of the evils which have resulted from the truckling policy of the Democracy, we entertain the hope that the political sky of the future will not again be darkened, after peace shall have been restored, by a too ready affiliation of Northern with Southern Democratic leaders, and the consequent renewal of Southern control and arrogant pretension.

We insert an article in another column, under the caption of "Danger Ahead," which we ask every candid, every thinking and reflecting man, and every lover of the Union, to read, ponder over and digest. It is from "Occasional," the regular Washington correspondent of Forney's Press, a most sagacious, candid and reliable writer, of which the reader will be convinced after reading the article.

As early as the 26th of June, 1860, (nearly two years ago,) he warned the country of what would inevitably occur if the Democratic party would continue to blindly follow its leaders in the path they were conducting it. His predictions were verified, and a perusal of them now must impress all with the idea that they were little less than inspired prophecy.

Again is "Occasional" lifting his warning voice to his countrymen. He warns them that an attempt to reorganize the Democratic party, on its former basis, is now being made, under the leadership of such men as Vallandigham, of Ohio, and says the success of the movement would be "a calamity only second to that civil war produced by Davis, Toombs, and Yancey," and that the struggle in which the people are now engaged "to maintain the Government will have been a struggle for nothing, and the blood shed in defence of the Republic will have been shed in vain," in the event of the restoration of that party to power.

Let honest Union Democrats see to it, in the future, that they are not again made, as they were in the past, to follow the lead of the enemies of the country. In the past, thousands of them did so "ignorantly in unbelief," and knowing that "through ignorance ye did it," being led astray by your false prophets and soothsayers--such as the Valley Spirit--you are, in a measure excusable. "The times of this ignorance" the country was compelled to wink at; but now, seeing into what a miserable and deplorable condition your past career has plunged the country, it behooves all honest Democrats to see well to their future course. We have faith in the ability of the Government to crush the Rebellion, but its future stability, as well as the peace and prosperity of the country, demands that the American citizen, to discharge his duty intelligently at the ballot-box, must not attach himself blindly to party as too many honest Democrats have heretofore done, and through the machinations of bad leaders, lay the foundation for future trouble and danger to the Union and to the Government.

The regular Washington correspondent of Forney's Press, who signs himself "Occasional," under date of the 3d inst., writes the following important communication.--Let every reader peruse it attentively, and see if there is not still more danger ahead for our country, if, as he says, the Democratic party shall be again reorganized upon its old basis, efforts to that end being now actively at work under the leadership of those who sympathize with the Rebellion.

To show that he is correct, "Occasional" quotes a number of passages from his former letters to the Press, which seem like prophecy, and which should add great weight to what he says now:

There are none so blind as those who refuse to see. I may be denounced, as indeed I know I am--by selfish and mercenary partisans, who look forward to a reorganization of the Democracy as one of the methods by which they are to reassume power and to recall the convicted traitors of the Slave States--I may be denounced by such men for insisting that the success of this plan of resurrecting sympathy with treason under the mask of Democracy, would be preparatory to the worst of evils to the country; but such is my fixed and unchangeable conviction.--Those who doubt as well as those who denounce this prophecy--those who believe in it and those who will not see it--have only to transfer themselves back to a period less than two years ago, when in this same correspondence I told my readers that the efforts of the enemies of Douglas were preparative steps to disunion, and that the success of these efforts would be, not merely the overthrow of a brave and well-tried statesman, but eventually of the destruction of the Republic. After the work of the conspirators was done at Charleston and at Baltimore, and all the four candidates for President, Lincoln, Douglas, Bell, and Breckinridge, were formally in the field, I continued to insist that the latter was the leader of the Disunionists, and that the object of his friends was to break up the Government.--There was but one term to designate the principles and the purposes of these men.

On the 26th of June, 1860, I said:--

Gradually but surely, the administration [of James Buchanan] is whipping its adherents into the support of the Disunion Secession ticket, headed by Breckinridge and Lane.

On the 27th of the same month I said:--

The Secession leaders in Baltimore, in and out of the Convention, declared that they preferred to see Lincoln President to Douglas. This was the shout of Yancey and his set from the Gilmore House, and this was the response of the Seceders. I mark down the fact for a special purpose.

On the 14th of August, of the same year, "Occasional" said:--

That there is a strong body of men in the South who are bent upon breaking up the Confederacy, is now beyond controversy. That these men have determinated [sic] to make the election of Lincoln, should he be elected, a pretext for the inauguration of this scheme of Disunion, is as clear to my mind as the noon-day sun.

On the 16th of the same month I said:--

One fact ought to be kept constantly in view by the Democratic masses in the present struggle, and that is the complete identity between Breckinridge and Buchanan. The leader of the Breckinridge or Disunion party is the President.

On the 26th of the same month, the following appears:--

The Breckinridge men not only went out of the National Convention when they found they had lost the game, but will go out of the Union if they lose the Presidency, or the Republicans should win it.

In my letter of the 12th of September, the following appears:--

Any one at this centre, who reads the Southern papers, and hears the Southern extremists, will be compelled to admit that the foes of the Republic in that quarter are resolved to resort to violent courses should their projects in reference to Breckinridge and Lane be defeated in November.

Maintaining the same position steadily down to the day of the election, "Occasional" said on the 24th of October:

The conspirators in the Southern States are actively at work. Undoubted intelligence constrains me to the belief that a wide-spread Disunion movement is in process of secret and rapid formation, and that we shall see the first evidences immediately after the November election, should the result prove to be favorable to Mr. Lincoln. All conservative men will ask, why do not the extreme men of the South wait for the overt act? If Mr. Lincoln is elected, is he to have no chance to show his hand? Is he in advance to be proscribed and persecuted?"

And in a speech quoted from Sam Houston, delivered in Austin, Texas, before the election, this point was made a text of fruitful comment.

"I do not say," he asserted, "that all these Southern constitutional Democrats are Disunionists, but I do say that all the Disunionists are Southern constitutional Democrats."

On the 31st of October, I quoted an extract from the Vicksburg (Mississippi) Citizen, announcing the forthcoming speech of Jefferson Davis on the 4th of November, in that city, in which this language is used:

"Jefferson Davis will doubtless be the generalissimo of the Southern army."

After the Presidential electoin [sic], when the drama began rapidly to unfold itself, I said, December 6, 1860:

Well may James Buchanan, President of the United States, employ the language of the great French monarch--"After me the deluge!" We are on the eve of a revolution, bloodless as yet, to which he furnished alike the initiative and the stimulant.

I make these extracts, not for the purpose of proving the fulfillment of my prophecies, but to remind my readers of the indignation with which the men who supported Breckinridge, and Breckinridge himself, claiming to be Democrats par excellence, denied the allegations herein set forth, and particularly that which distinctly charged that the result of their movements would be the overthrow of the Union. They claimed that they were the true Union men, and denounced me as a calumniator for persisting in a different opinion. They would not see the consequences of their conduct--would not believe that Mr. Breckinridge was craftily preparing to transfer them to the tender mercies of the Secessionists--and, even after the "Star of the West" was fired into, and when their chosen candidate went over to the public foe, they continued blind to the enormous guilt of the conspirators, and saw in the Republican party alone the real enemy of the Union.

I speak, of course, of the politicians in the Breckinridge organization. I have better hopes of the masses. Will they not take a lesson from the page of history here revealed, and now believe me when I tell them that the present attempt to reorganize the Breckinridge party looks to a calamity only second to that civil war produced by Davis, Toombs, and Yancey? Doubtful before, they must now admit that consequences confirmed all my former predictions. Should Mr. Vallandigham succeed in his plan of reconstructing the Breckinridge party, he will undoubtedly flatter himself that the reconstruction of the Union will restore his influence and the influence of his former associates in the national councils. It was well said on a recent occasion that the intellect and power of the late Democratic party are now in arms against the Republic, and if these elements can be brought back, the struggle to maintain this Government will have been a struggle for nothing, and the blood shed in defence of the Republic will have been shed in vain.

OCCASIONAL.

The United States Senate has adopted the resolution recommended by the President, in favor of compensating the States for the slaves that may be emancipated under State laws. The vote was 32 in favor to 10 against the resolution, the opposition being from the Senators from the Border and Pacific States. As this resolution had previously passed the House by a large majority, it is to be understood now as representing the avowed policy of the legislative as well as of the executive branch of Government.

It is a subject for congratulation that, on this difficult and dangerous subject of slavery, the Government has arrived at a policy which, while it imposes no wrong upon any portion of the people, distinctly and avowedly looks to the ultimate extinction of slavery. The civilized nations of the world have never been able to understand how a republic, established on principles of freedom, should foster and protect slavery. We have lost the confidence of the European nations, from this very cause, and during the present war against the slave-owners, we have continually been reproached with the charge that, if victorious, slavery was likely to be perpetuated, and that there was more chance of its extinction by a dissolution of the Union, than by its preservation. The adoption of the President's resolution enables us to deny this. The United States Government solemnly announces itself in favor of emancipating the negroes, though it leaves the formal enactments to the States themselves, offering, however, to pay them for whatever loss their citizens may suffer.--This is a decided step forward and we congratulate the country upon it. Let Congress now pass the bill for abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, and we may, with a still better grace, be able to ask for the sympathy of civilized Europe in our war against the slave-owners.--Phila. Bulletin.