The Abolition Of Slavery The Right Of The Government Under The War Power eBook
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Our people also are rapidly finding out that no peaceful
termination of this war will be permitted now by the
Slave Power, except by its thorough overthrow.
The robber has thrown off the mask, and says now to
the nation, “Your life or mine!” Even the
compromising Everett has boldly told the South, “To
be let alone is not all you ask—but you
demand a great deal more.” And in his late
oration, he has most powerfully portrayed the impossibility
of a peaceful disunion. Many men, some anti-slavery,
were at first inclined to yield to the idea of a separation.
But every day’s experience is scattering that
notion to the winds. The ferocious spirit exhibited
from the first by the Secessionists towards all dissentients,
the invasion of Western Virginia by Eastern, the threats
to put down loyal Kentucky, the foray in Missouri,
the plan for capturing Washington, which was part
of the original scheme, are convincing proofs, that
if by any pacification whatever our troops were disbanded
to-day, to-morrow a Southern army would be on the
march for Washington, Philadelphia, New York, and
perhaps Chicago.
The South has sufficiently declared the cause of this
trouble to be the irreconcilable conflict between
their institutions and the fundamental principles
of this government. While the cause remains in
full strength, and after it has once burst forth in
bloody and final collision, nothing will ever check
that strife, whether in or out of the Union.
The cause must be eradicated. Meanwhile, our own
position, both before the world and in our own struggle
at home, is a false one, so long as we blink the real
issue.
Many indications are hopeful. Gen. Butler’s
letter to the Secretary of War, and the Secretary’s
reply, look in the right direction. The Confiscation
Act is pregnant with great consequences, and may yet
be so used as to become an emancipation act in all
the rebel States. It is high time it were so
used. We have serious doubts whether the rebellion
will ever be suppressed till that trenchant weapon
is wielded. We reverently doubt whether the Lord
means it shall be. The quiet passage of the Confiscation
Act was an immense step of governmental progress.
Perhaps it was all that the nation as a whole and
the government were ready for. It may answer as
a keen wedge. But we trust that, in December,
Congress will make clean work by the full emancipation
of all slaves in the rebel States, and by provision
in some way for the speedy and certain extinction
of slavery in the loyal States. To accomplish
the latter event, we would ourselves willingly submit
to any proper amount of pecuniary burden, provided
it could be so arranged as not to recognize a right
of property in man.—Chicago Congregational
Herald.
PROCLAMATION OF GEN. FREMONT.
Headquarters, Western Division,
St. Louis, Aug. 30, 1861.
