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who but a few years since clamored loudly for disunion, pronouncing the
Federal Constitution “a league with hell and a covenant with death.”
Gerrit Smith, the patriarch of them all, says that “both abolitionists and anti-abolitionists should petition the executive to proclaim the liberty of the slaves.”
Wendell Phillips is anxious to proclaim
Mr. Lincoln “the liberator of four millions of bondsmen,” and
Boutwell, once governor of the
State of Massachusetts, thinks that the present war will not terminate until the
Lincoln Government asserts “in some way” the doctrine that “liberty is not the property of any race; that it is not the exclusive right of any class, but that it is the God given right of
all the sons of men” --including of course the African race.
This same incendiary concludes his tirade with the assumption “that this contest marches logically, philosophically, and inevitably toward the emancipation of this people; and the citizen at the ballot-box or statesman administering the government of this country, or general who guides its armies, who does not admit that as an inevitable result of this contest, misunderstands the events, and is doomed to disappointment and disgrace.”
The radical portion of the abolition press echo these infamous sentiments with the most scrupulous faithfulness.
Chief among them we notice the New York
Times, whose editor discourses eloquently against the
South, since his recent ignominious flight from the battle-field of
Manassas, where he had repaired to graphically describe the anticipated rout of the rebels.
After his return home, and the collection of his scattered thoughts, he comes to the sage and deliberate conclusion that “there is one thing, and only one, at the bottom of the fight — and that is the
negro.”
He thinks that both sections are attempting to deceive the country in the alleged excuses for their conduct — the
South erring in the pretence of fighting for independence, and the
North of fighting for the re-establishment of the
Government.
“They know,” asserts the editor of the
Times, “that until slavery changes its relation to Government and becomes its complete
subject, instead of its arrogant master, the peace and safety of the republic are impossible.”
After moralizing on the sweet uses of adversity, as experienced in the late defeat, this editorial Thug concludes as follows:
We have an enemy to meet who has long defied God and man — who has for generations outraged justice and humanity — and who threatens to extend over a whole continent the diabolism of his rule.
Shall we strike the monster where he is vulnerable?
Shall we thrust in our spear where the cancer of his crime invites to surgery?
Shall we ‘fight the devil with fire,’ according to the wisdom of the ancients?
Let a paralyzed army and a reeling nation answer.
As a further evidence of public opinion on this subject, we give the following extract from the
Indiana Journal, a leading Black-Republican organ of that State, whose editor is said to be one of
Lincoln's officials.
It speaks trumpet-tongued and without equivocation:
Settle it now!
For so sure as hour follows after hour, so sure will the North never pause till the cause that brought the war on it is utterly extinguished.
There can be no peace.
There can be no compromise.
It is war to the utter annihilation of slavery.
The day of honeyed words has passed.
The day of bloody deeds has come.
And let those who do the fighting get the pay.
Such an array of proof from those in authority, from public orators, officials, and the press, shows unmistakably the growing tendency of northern sentiment.
The current still flows on unchecked, gathering in swiftness and in volume, and under the auspices of a maddened fanaticism promises to sweep every vestige of human reason.
The propagators of this war, in other words, intend it as a crusade upon the institution of slavery, and they are evidently looking forward to a future time when they will witness
Mr. Seward's prophecy of its “ultimate extinguishment.” --
Memphis Appeal, July 31.
