Editor, Gazette-Journal:

Recall the poet Longfellow, who wrote:

“… sail on, o ship of stateSail on o Union strong and great.Humanity … is hanging breathless on thy fate.”

The good ship Union is now neither strong nor greatThe newly elected administration has opened hersea cocks and she is fated to sink without theIntervention of patriots worthy to sail her.

Recall, too, Sir Walter Scott’s query:“Breathes there the man with soul so dead,who never to himself has said,This is my own, my native land? …If such there breathe, go mark him well;For him no minstrel raptures swell …The wretch, centered all in self,Living, shall forfeit fair renownand, doubly dying, shall go downto the vile dust from whence he sprung,unwept, unhonored, and unsung.”

Good riddance!My first ending to this piece was to be: “GoodbyeAmerica, it was good to know you” but that acknowledgeddefeat of some sort. Instead I say: Put on the whole armorof God and do what is right—every way you can.Never, never, ...