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IX.
Impatient at the feebleness of the short-sighted policy with which we were carrying on the war—during the first year acting simply on the defensive—‘Defence, did I say?
With mortification I utter the word.
Rebel conspirators have set upon us, and now besiege the
National Government.
They besiege it at
Washington, where are the
President and his Cabinet, with the
National archives.
They besiege it at
Fortress Monroe, on the
Atlantic; at
St. Louis on the
Mississippi; and now they besiege it in
Kentucky.
Everywhere we are on the defensive.
Strongholds are wrested from us; soldiers gathered under the folds of the national flag are compelled to surrender; citizens, whose only offence is loyalty, are driven from their homes; bridges are burned; railways are disabled; steamers and ships are seized; the largest navy yard of the country is appropriated; commerce is hunted on the sea; and property, wherever it can be reached, ruthlessly robbed or destroyed!
Do you ask in whose name all this is done?
The answer is easy.
Not “in the name of God and the Continental Congress,” as Ethan Allen summoned
Ticonderoga, but “ in the name of Slavery.”
It is often said that war will make an end of Slavery.
This is probable.
But it is surer still that
the overthrow of Slavery will make an end of the war. Therefore do I believe, beyond all question, that reason, justice, and policy, each and all unite in declaring that the war must be brought to bear directly on the grand conspirator and omnipresent enemy.
Not to do so, is to take upon ourselves all the weakness of Slavery, while we leave ’
