Worthy of Imitation
Col. Blanton Duncan, of
Kentucky, now in
Virginia, offers to subscribe two thousand dollars towards building an iron clad gunboat at
Richmond for the defence of that city.
He truthfully says;
‘
"There are hundreds of rich men in our community who can give from five hundred to five thousand dollars each and not miss it."
’
It is proposed that the boat shall cost seven hundred thousand dollars. The sum of two hundred thousand has been already conditionally pledged.
There are many rich men in all our cities, parishes, and counties throughout the
Confederacy, who could give thousands of dollars, ‘"and not miss it,"’ towards constructing iron- clad vessels like the
Manassas and
Virginia.
Will they do it, or will they wait for the enemy to capture the towns on our water courses by means of
Ms gunboats, and thereby subject themselves to oil the evils which must follow?
The property of rebels shall be conflicted, say
Lincoln,
Seward & Co, to pay the cost of the war, in what condition, then, will be the property of our rich men?
They will be in a disagreeable dilemma; either they will have to take the oath of allegiance to the
Lincoln Government or lose their property.
Their movable property they will never be able to recover, at least there will be very small chance for it, and their land not until the enemy shall have been expelled.
Will it not cost less to prevent the enemy from obtaining possession of these lands than to drive him off when they are once in his grasp?--Better down with the dust how while it may act as a preventive than wait to apply it as at remedy There are, we doubt not, hundreds of men in this State who could contribute their five, ten, twenty, or fifty thousand dollars for the construction of battering rams, ‘"and never miss it"’ scarcely feel themselves inconvenienced thereby.
All such should recollect that the
Lincoln Congress has passed a bill to take possession of the land and negroes of Southern planters wherever the invaders can obtain a foothold, and proceed to the cultivation of cotton for the
Government.--The perjured conspirators have at last thrown off all disguise, and openly proclaim their intention to rob the
Southern people of their property, both land and negroes, and lease them out at so much per annum to the conquerors.
for the benefit of the despoiling Government.
It is the highwayman coming with torch and sword, and proclaiming aloud his intention to rob everybody he meets who restate him — to desolate the land, and finally to appropriate it to his own use. We cannot hereafter reproach him with hypocrisy, be plumply advertises us that he is a wholesale robber and intends to plunder us!
He does not scruple to avow it in advance.
If this do not rouse our rich men, nothing can. If this do not loose their purse strings, nothing will.
If their eyes cannot see the standard of which the enemy defiantly flaunts in their faces, then those eyes are covered by an impenetrable him.
But we think the enemy has cast aside all disguises, all pretences of good will, and of respecting the rights of the
Southern people, too soon for the success of his purposes.
His legal advertisement to the
South of his intention to perpetrate wholesale robbery will run through her like an electric shock, and nerve the whole Southern people to dispute his progress inch by inch, with all the weapons God and nature have given them.--
N. O. Bull 
