I cannot say that I do not sympathize with the Government,3 as against Jefferson Davis and his piratical associates. There is not a drop of blood in my veins, both as an abolitionist and a peace man, that does not flow with the Northern tide of sentiment; for I see, in this grand uprising of the manhood of the North, which has been so long grovelling in the dust, a growing appreciation of the value of liberty and of free institutions, and a willingness to make any sacrifice in their defence against the barbaric and tyrannical power which avows its purpose, if it can, to crush them entirely out of existence. When the Government shall succeed (if it shall succeed) in “conquering a peace,” in subjugating the South, and shall undertake to carry out the Constitution as of old, with all its pro-slavery compromises, then will be my time to criticise, reprove, and condemn; then will be the time for me to open all the guns that I can
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2 ‘That, until the Government shall take this step [of emancipation] and place itself openly and unequivocally on the side of freedom, we can give it no support or countenance in its effort to maintain its authority over the seceded States, but must continue to labor, as we have hitherto done, to heap upon it that obloquy which naturally attaches to all who are guilty of the crime of enslaving their fellow-men’ (Lib. 31: 111).
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