Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 2.
Frank Moore, Ed.

[114] ingenious speech, that all they want is to be allowed to manage their own affairs in their own way. But this is, as every one knows, the merest delusion in the world. So long as their peculiar institution remains, the slave States must adopt a violent aggressive policy, or perish. That is the policy they have adopted and successfully carried out for years past in the Federal Government; they gained power, kept it, and used it for their own ends. But the constitutional despotism they have enjoyed so long having been at length constitutionally broken up, they appeal to the sword. For what purpose? To gain by force the criminal and degrading ends thay have hitherto secured by policy. The one object for which they have broken up the Union and taken the field against their fellow-countrymen, is to extend and perpetuate slavery. It is neither more nor less than a wild and despotic crusade on behalf of the greatest curse that ever afflicted or ever can afflict any people. That this is the true character of the war in the South, is demonstrated by the formal acts and declarations of the secession leaders and representatives. Mr. Stephens, the Vice-President of the Confederate States, publicly declares to all the world, “The foundations of our new Government are laid, its corner-stone rests upon, the great truth, that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is the natural and moral condition of the negro.” Hitherto, while its evils were admitted, Slavery was defended in the South on the ground of its necessity. Now it is declared to be absolutely right, a new moral truth, the centre or cornerstone of a new State, the symbol and watchword of a new and sanguinary crusade. The deepest wrong and most cruel injury that man can possibly inflict on his fellow, is formally consecrated as right, while Heaven is profanely invoked in its defence. The one social curse which destroyed free and noble nations of old, and which modern civilization has repudiated as essentially destructive of national life and progress, is now, for the first time in history, proclaimed as the one grand principle of the new Confederation. Such a State, were it possible to set it up, must be the. permanent enemy, the natural foe, of all free peoples. To talk of coming to an understanding with such a State, of living on terms of amity and peace with it, would be out of the question. Such a State brands the notion of freedom as a falsehood, and stigmatizes industry as a disgrace. The moral influence of a free and industrious people would be more fatal to it than the sword — than any display of mere material force. Its policy must be violent and aggressive in mere self-defence. It would be essentially, by nature, constitution, and necessity, filibustering and piratical. This is the real meaning of the struggle in the South, and this would be its result were it successful. In view of such results, mere constitutional arguments, true as as they may be, sink to the level of idle pedantry. If the Southern leaders and their adherents owed no obligations to the Union, but were perfect strangers, the Northern leaders, intrusted by Providence with the necessary material force, would be morally bound to prevent the formation of such a State--such a portentous anomaly in the history of human progress.--London Daily News, Aug. 9.

'Tis in the New World as in the Old — treason never prospers; for if it prospers, “none dare call it treason.” All the waiters on events, all the idolaters of success, all the secret sympathizers with despotism, are on the alert to catch the first gleam of good fortune that lights on the dark banners of a wicked cause. The rebellion that aims to enlarge and perpetuate slavery, is the only rebellion to which the Times and its tributary streamlets of un-English opinion ever wafted encouragement. As oft as an oppressed people snatched at the sword in tho desperate hope of cutting its way to freedom, they poured derision and censure on the gallant effort. If Frenchmen essayed to establish a French Government — if Germans passed in a moment of energetic inspiration from dreaming to working — if Hungarians renounced an allegiance that had become a national death — if Poles or Italians writhed from prostrate subjection into erect and sublime resistance — the Times and its emulative followers hissed forth their scorn of such romantic courage, their hatred of such irreverent boldness. They maligned the motives, defamed the characters, perverted the principles and objects of the leaders in such adventures for freedom. Men of mild and noble natures were portrayed as blood-thirsty ruffians. Men of the most practical sagacity were painted as reckless enthusiasts. Men whose first acts were the abolition of capital punishment and the institution of legal relief for destitution, were branded as enemies of life and property. Nations whose humble hopes were bounded by the expectation of just and equal laws, were confounded with a few half-crazed philosophers, in whom imprisonment or exile had bred an excess of philanthropy. Yet even Red Republicans were extolled if they chanced to gain a victory at the barricades; and the conspirator who, by superior craft, obtained a crown, was lauded as an example of laudable ambition. When the tide turned again — when deposed kings and proscribed revolutionists were thrown on the strand, fragments of successive wrecks, victims of a storm that uplifted only to abase — when the reign of force was reestablished, and order was vindicated by the crowd of captives and fugitives that looked and longed in vain through the bars of adverse fate, or across the waters that mocked their change of fortunes — the Times was ready again with its parable for the day; ready, as before, to flatter the successful, to fawn on the powerful, to insult the fallen, to libel human nature, and to outrage the generous sympathies of Englishmen, with freedom in arms or with freedom trodden under foot.

As with the European peoples, so with the