[25]
beloved Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist brethren, whose piety was unquestionable, whose zeal for the Lord was worthy of all praise, whose revivals of religion were preeminently owned and blessed of Heaven?
Were they not the very pinks of Democracy, and the most courtly and chivalrous of gentlemen?
But as soon as they began to seize forts, arsenals, custom-houses, and mints belonging to the general Government, to lay their piratical hands upon Northern property, to repudiate their entire Northern indebtedness, and to trample upon the ‘stars and stripes’—then, indeed, another view of their character is taken, and they are suddenly transformed from the most estimable Christian brethren and the staunchest Democratic allies into the meanest of scoundrels and the vilest of robbers!
Truly, “wisdom is justified of her children.”
It will yet be seen and acknowledged throughout the North, in view of the shocking developments of the slaveholding spirit in this terrible conflict, that the abolitionists have correctly delineated the nature of slavery–its disregard of all the rules of morality, all the claims of a common humanity, all the principles of justice—its wolfish greed, its savage ferocity, its fiendish malignity—its utter contempt and murderous hatred of whoever or whatever interferes with the extension of its domains, or attempts to limit its power—its embodiment of the blackest perfidy, the most revolting licentiousness, the most unscrupulous villany, and the most barbarous cruelty; and as there is no sin without a sinner, no oppression without an oppressor, so the abolitionists have exaggerated nothing, but have used language guardedly, justly, and with all possible truthfulness in their exposition of the Southern character, spirit, and purposes, whether in relation to their miserable victims, or to free institutions and the cause of freedom generally.
Our Northern soldiers will find that they are not in conflict with men who are governed by the laws of civilized warfare, or by any rules of honor, but with thoroughly demonized spirits, capable of perpetrating deeds of horror such as have never been surpassed in the annals of savage barbarity.
To those who asked him, ‘What of your peace principles now?’
he replied:
This question is exultingly put to the friends of peace and1 non-resistance by those whose military ardor is now at a white heat, as though it could not be satisfactorily answered, and deserved
