Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 by Various

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Let it be remembered that this message was based on the most positive
knowledge held by the Executive of the desires of the Union men in the
South, and of their strength. The reader who will reflect for a moment
can not fail to perceive that, unless it had such a foundation, the
views advanced in it would have been reckless and inexplicable indeed.
It was precisely on this basis, and in this manner, that the
CONTINENTAL, in previous numbers, and before it the New York
KNICKERBOCKER Magazine, urged the revival of the old WEBSTER theory of
gradual remunerated emancipation, declaring that the strength of the
Union party in the South was such as to warrant the experiment.[O] We
have also insisted, in our every issue, that, while emancipation should
be borne constantly in view and provided for as something which must
eventually be realized for the sake of the advancing interests of WHITE
labor and its expansion, everything should be effected as gradually _as
possible_, so as to neither interfere with the plans of the war now
waging, nor to stir up needless political strife. We simply asked for
some firmly-based official recognition of the rottenness of the 'slavery
plank in the Southern platform,' and trusted that the _utmost_ caution
and deliberation would be observed in eventually forwarding
emancipation. We were literally alone, as a publication, in these views,
and were misrepresented both by the enemies who were behind us and the
zealous friends who were before us. We have never cried for that
'unconditional and immediate emancipation of slavery' with which the
_Liberator_, with the kindest intentions, but most erroneously, credits
us. We should be glad enough to see it, were it possible; but, knowing
that the immediate-action theory has been delaying the cause for thirty
years, we have invariably suggested the _firm_ but gradual method. That
method has at last been formally advanced by the President, in a manner
which can reasonably give offense to no one. The beginning has been
made: it is for the country to decide whether it--the most important
suggestion of the age--shall be realized.

* * * * *

The news of the capture of Fort Donelson had barely reached us, the roar
of the guns celebrating our rapid successes had not died away, ere that
fragment of the Northern ultra pro-slavery party which had done so much
towards deluding the South into secession, impudently raised its head
and began most inopportunely and impertinently to talk of amnesty and
the rights of the South. There are things which, under certain
limitations, may be right in themselves, but which, when urged at the
wrong time, become wrongs and insults; and these premature cries to
restore the enemy to his old social and political standing are of that
nature. They are insufferable, and would be ridiculous, were it not that
in the present critical aspect of our politics they may become
dangerous. Since this war began, we have heard much of the want of true
loyalty in the ultra abolitionists, who would make the object of the
struggle simply emancipation, without regard to consequences; and we
have not been sparing in our own condemnations of such a limited and
narrow view,--holding, as we do, that emancipation, if adopted, should
be for the sake of the _white man_ and the Union, and not of the negro.
But 'Abolition' of the most one-sided and suicidal description is less
insulting to those who are lavishing blood and treasure on the great
cause of freedom, than is the conduct, at this time, of those men who
are now, through their traitorous organs, urging the cry that the hour
is at hand when we must place slavery firmly on a constitutional basis;
this being, as they assert, the only means whereby the Union can ever be
harmoniously restored.

In view of the facts, it is preposterous to admit that this assumption
is even plausible. He must be ignorant indeed of our political history
during the past twenty years, or strangely blind to its results, who has
not learned that a belief that the North is ever anxious to concede for
the sake of its 'interests' has been the great stimulus to the arrogance
of the South. While the principles of the abolitionists have been the
shallow _pretence_, the craven cowardice of such men as BUCHANAN and
CUSHING has been the _real_ incitement to the South to pour insult and
wrong on the North. Concession has been our bane. It was paltering and
concession that palsied the strong will and ready act which should have
prevented this war; for had it not been for such men as the traitors who
are now crying out for Southern rights, the rebellion would have been
far more limited in its area, and long since crushed out. No cruelties
on our part, no threats to carry all to the bitter end, would so
encourage the South at present, as this offer to shake hands ere the
fight be half over.

When the time comes for amnesty and 'Southern Rights,' we trust that
they will be considered in a spirit of justice and mercy. Till it comes
let there be no word spoken of them. The South has, to its own detriment
and to ours, firmly and faithfully _believed_ that Northern men are
cowards, misers, men sneaking through life in all dishonor and baseness.
When millions believe such intolerable falsehoods of other millions of
their fellow-citizens, they must be taught the truth, no matter what the
lesson costs. Even now the Southern press asserts that our victories
were merely the results of overwhelming majorities, and that the Yankees
are becoming frightened at their own successes. There is not one of
these traitorous, dough-face meetings of which the details are not
promptly sent--probably by the men who organize them--all over the South
to inspire faith in a falling cause. When the rebels shall have learned
that these traitors have positively _no_ influence here,--and the sooner
they learn it the better,--when they realize that the people of the
North are as determined as themselves, and their equals in all noble
qualities, then, and not till then, will it be time to talk of those
concessions which now strike every one as smacking of meanness and
cowardice.

The day has come for a new order of things. The South must learn--and
show by its acts that it has been convinced--that the North is its equal
in those virtues which it claims to monopolize. But this it will only
learn from the young and vigorous minds of the new school,--from its
_enemies_,--and not from the trembling old-fashioned traitors, who have
been so long at its feet that they shiver and are bewildered, now that
they are fairly isolated, by the tide of war, from their former ruler.
Politicians of this stamp, who have grown old while prating of Southern
rights, can not, do not, and never will _realize_ but that, some day or
other, all will be restored in _statu quo ante bellum_. They expect
Union victories, but somehow believe that their old king will enjoy his
own again--that there will be a morning when the South will rule as
before. It is this which inspires their craven timidity. They cry out
against emancipation in every form,--blind to the onward and inevitable
changes which are going on,--so that when the South comes in again they
may point to their record and say, '_We_ were ever true to you. We,
indeed, urged the war, for we were compelled by you to fight, but we
were always true to your main principles.' They have wasted time and
trouble sadly--it will all be of no avail. Be it by the war, be it by
what means it may, the social system and political rule of the South are
irrevocably doomed. It may, from time to time, have its convulsive
recoveries, but it is doomed. The demands of free labor for a wider area
will make themselves felt, and the black will give way to the white, as
in the West the buffalo vanishes before the bee.

We are willing that the question of emancipation should have the widest
scope, and, if expediency shall so dictate, that it should be realized
in the most gradual manner. We believe that, owing to the experiences of
the past year, more than one slave State will, ere long, contain a
majority of clear-headed, patriotic men, who will be willing to legalize
the freedom of all blacks born within their limits, after a certain
time; and if this time be placed ten years or even fifteen hence, it
will make no material difference. By that time the pressure of free
labor, and the increase of manufacturing, will have rendered some such
step a necessity. Should the payment of all loyal slave-holders, in the
border States, for their chattels, prove a better plan,--and it could
hardly fail to promptly reduce the rebellious circle to a narrow and
uninfluential body,--let it be tried. If any of the arguments thus far
adduced in favor of assuming slavery to be an institution which is
_never_ to be changed, and which _must_ be immutably fixed in the North
American Union, can be proved to be true, we would say, then let
emancipation be forever forgotten--for the stability of the Union must
take precedence of everything. But we can not see it in this light. We
can not see that peace and Union can exist while the slave-holder
continues to increase in arrogance in the South, and while the
abolitionists every day gather strength in the North. Every day of this
war has seen the enemies of slavery increase in number and in power,
until to expect them to lose power and influence is as preposterous as
to hope to see the course of nature change. Should a peace be now
patched up on the basis of _immutable_ slavery, we should, to judge from
every appearance, simply prolong the war to an infinitely more
disastrous end than it now threatens to assume. We should incur debts
which would crush our prosperity; we should bequeath a heritage of woe
to our children, which would prove their ruin. While the great cause of
all this dissension lies legalized and untouched, there will continue to
be a party which will never cease to strive to destroy it. The question
simply is, whether we will be wounded now, or utterly slain by and by.

Meanwhile let us, before all things, push on with the war! It is by our
victories that slavery will be in the beginning most thoroughly
attacked. If the South, as it professes, means to fight to the last
ditch, and to the black flag, all discussion of emancipation is
needless; for in the track of our armies the contraband assumes freedom
without further formula. But we are by no means convinced that such will
be the case. The _first_ ditches have, as yet, been by no means filled
with martyrs to secession,--armistices are already subjects of
rumor,--and it should not be forgotten that the Union men of the South
are powerful enough to afford efficient aid in placing the question of
ultimate emancipation on a basis suitable to all interests.

All that the rational emancipationist requires is a _legal beginning_.
We have no desire to see it advance more rapidly than the development of
the country requires--in short, what is really needed is simply the
assurance that by war or by peace _some_ basis shall be found for
ultimately carrying out the views of the fathers of the American Union,
and rendering this great nation harmonious and happy. Every day brings
us nearer the great issue,--not of slavery and anti-slavery,--but
whether slavery is to be assumed as an immutable element in America, or
whether government will bring such influences to bear as will lead the
way to peace and the rights of free labor. Every step is leading us to

THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT.

O Lord, look kindly on this work for thee!
Yes, smile upon the side that's for the right!
To them O grant the glorious arm of might,
And in the end give them the victory!
Free principles are rushing like the sea
Which opened for the fleeing Israelite,--
Free principles, to test their worth in fight,--
And woe to them that 'twixt the surges be!
And as, O Lord, thou then did'st show thy care,
And mad'st a grave to drink thy enemy,
So now, O Father, sink him in despair--
The only blight we own--cursed Slavery.
O then will end the conflict! Yes, God, then
We'll be indeed a nation of FREE MEN!

* * * * *

The N.O. _Delta_ is full of indignation at the Southern men who are
alarmed for their property, and betrays, in its anger, the fact that
these disaffected persons are not few in the Pelican State. But,
plucking up courage, it declares that--

Our people will retire into the interior, and in their mountains
and swamps they will maintain a warfare which must ultimately
prove successful.

Doubtful--very. In the first place, 'our people' can not very well
swamp it like runaway negroes, and, secondly, they will encounter, in
the mountains, the Union men of the South. Give us the cities and the
level country for a short time, and we shall very soon find the
Pelicandidates for comfortable quarters rolling back, by thousands, into
Unionism.

* * * * *

As we write, there is a panic in Richmond, caused by the discovery that
there is a large body of Union men in the city itself, headed by JOHN
MINOR BOTTS, who seems to have determined to 'head off' the secession
party in its stronghold, 'or die'--he having, since the decease of JOHN
TYLER, turned his 'heading off' abilities against JEFF DAVIS. The
_Examiner_ mentions, in terror, the confession of the Union prisoners,
that there are in Richmond 'thousands of arms concealed, and men
enrolled, who would use them on the first approach of the Yankee army.'
One of the arrested, a Mr. STEARNS, when led to the prison, surveyed it
in a most contemptuous manner, remarking 'If you are going to imprison
all the Union men in Richmond, you will have to provide a much larger
jail than this.'

It is the German residents of Richmond who are said to constitute the
majority of these Union men. All honor to our German friends of the
South! They have received, thus far, too little credit for their staunch
adherence to the principles of freedom. Let them take courage; a day is
coming when we shall all be free--free from _every_ form of slavery!
_Noch ist die Freiheit nicht verloren_!--'Freedom is not lost as yet.'
Some of them remember _that_ song of old.

* * * * *

A paragraph has recently gone the rounds, which impudently assures the
friends of Emancipation that, unless they promptly desist from further
interference or agitation, they will speedily build up a Southern party
in the North, which will seriously interfere with the prosecution of the
war!

That is to say, that the majority of the people of the North fully
acquiesce in the justice of the main principles held by the South--the
only difference of opinion being whether these slavery and
slavery-extension doctrines can be practically developed under our
federal Union! Yet we, knowing, seeing, feeling, in this war, the
enormously evil effects of the slave system on the free men among whom
it exists, are expected to endure and legalize _the cause_ which stirred
it up! Either the South is right or wrong--there is no escaping the
dilemma. Either it was or was not justly goaded by 'abolition' into
secession. If the South is _quite_ right in wishing to preserve slavery
intact forever, surely those are in the wrong who would make war on it
for wishing to secede from a government which tolerates attacks on
legalized institutions! What a precious paradox have we here? Yet these
virtual justifiers of the South in the great cause of the war, claim to
be zealous and forward in punishing that secession which, according to
their own views, is constitutional and right!

If slavery be right, then the South is right. No impartial foreigner
could fail to draw this conclusion under the circumstances of this war.
But _is_ it right; we do not say as a thing of the past, and of a
rapidly vanishing serf-system, but as an institution of the progressive
present? Witness the words of G. BATELLE, a member of the Western
Virginia Constitutional Convention,--as we write, in session at
Wheeling,--and who has published an address to that body on the question
of Emancipation, from which we extract the following:--

The injuries which slavery inflicts upon our own people are
manifold and obvious. It practically aims to enslave not merely
another race, but our own race. It inserts in its bill of rights
some very high-sounding phrases securing freedom of speech; and
then practically and in detail puts a lock on every man's mouth,
and a seal on every man's lips, who will not shout for and swear
by the divinity of the system. It amuses the popular fancy with
a few glittering generalities in the fundamental law about the
liberty of the press, and forthwith usurps authority, even in
times of peace, to send out its edict to every postmaster,
whether in the village or at the cross-roads, clothing him with
a despotic and absolute censorship over one of the dearest
rights of the citizen. It degrades labor by giving it the badge
of servility, and it impedes enterprise by withholding its
proper rewards. It alone has claimed exemption from the rule of
uniform taxation, and then demanded and received the largest
share of the proceeds of that taxation. Is it any wonder, in
such a state of facts, that there are this day, of those who
have been driven from Virginia mainly by this system, men
enough, with their descendents, and means and energy, scattered
through the West, of themselves to make no mean State?...

It has been as a fellow-observer, and I will add as a
fellow-sufferer, with the members of the Convention, that my
judgment of the system of slavery among us has been formed. We
have seen it seeking to inaugurate, in many instances all too
successfully, a reign of terror in times of profound peace, of
which Austria might be ashamed. We have seen it year by year
driving out from our genial climate, and fruitful soil, and
exhaustless natural resources, some of the men of the very best
energy, talent and skill among our population. We have seen
also, in times of peace, the liberty of speech taken away, the
freedom of the press abolished, and the willing minions of this
system, in hunting down their victims, spare from degradation
and insult neither the young, nor the gray-haired veteran of
seventy winters, whose every thought was as free from offense
against society as is that of the infant of days.

When an evil attains this extent, he is a poor citizen, a poor cowardly
dallier with opinions, whatever his fighting mark may be, who can make
up his mind to calmly acquiesce in establishing its permanence, or to
stiffly oppose every movement and every suggestion tending in the least
towards its abrogation.

* * * * *

In the present number of the CONTINENTAL will be found an article on
General LYON, in which reference is made to the generally credited
assertion, that the deceased hero was not reinforced as he desired
during the campaign in Missouri. This is one of the questions which time
alone will properly answer. In accordance with the principles involved
in _audi alteram partem_, we give on this subject the following
abridgment of a portion of General FREMONT'S defense, published in the
New York _Tribune_ of March 6:--

Lyon's and Prentiss's troops were nearly all three months men,
whose term of enlistment was about expiring. Arms and money were
wanted, but men offered in abundance. The three months men had
not been paid. The Home Guards were willing to remain in the
service, but their families were destitute. Gen. Fremont wrote
to the President, stating his difficulties, and informing him
that he should peremptorily order the United States Treasurer
there to pay over to his paymaster-general the money in his
possession, sending a force at the same time to take the money.
He received no reply, and assumed that his purpose was approved.

Five days after he arrived at St. Louis he went to Cairo, taking
three thousand eight hundred men for its reinforcement. He says
that Springfield was a week's march, and before he could have
reached it, Cairo would have been taken by the rebels, and
perhaps St. Louis. He returned to St. Louis on the 4th of
August, having in the meantime ordered two regiments to the
relief of Gen. Lyon, and set himself to work at St. Louis to
provide further reinforcements for him; but he claims that
Lyon's defeat can not be charged to his administration, and
quotes from a letter from General Lyon, dated on the 9th of
August, expressing the belief that he would be compelled to
retire; also, from a letter written by Lyon's adjutant general,
in which he says 'General Fremont was not inattentive to the
situation of General Lyon's column.'

* * * * *

A daily cotemporary, in an onslaught on Emancipation, contains the
following:--

Delaware has recently had a proposition before the legislature
to abolish the scarcely more than nominal slavery still existing
in it; but the legislature adjourned without even listening to
it, though it contemplated full pecuniary compensation.

Yes; and the legislature of Delaware, a few years ago, legalized
lotteries,--one of the greatest social curses of the country,--and made
itself a hissing and a by-word to all decent men by sanctioning the most
widely-destructive method of gambling known. The Delaware legislature
indeed!

* * * * *

We are indebted to a friend for the following paragraph:--

It is deeply significant that since the late Federal victories, the
Southern press, even in Richmond itself, speaks nervously and angrily of
the Union men among them, and of their increasing boldness in openly
manifesting their sentiments. A few months since, this belief in Union
men in the South was abundantly ridiculed by those who believed that all
the slave-holding States were unanimous in rebellion, and that therefore
it would be preposterous to hope to reconcile them to emancipation. Now
that the Union strength in that region is beginning to manifest itself,
we are informed that we shall lose it if we do aught contrary to
Southern rights. And this too, although the Southern Union men have
never been spoken of by their rebel neighbors as aught save 'the
abolitionists in our midst!'

* * * * *

The following communication from a well-known financier and writer on
currency can not fail to be read with interest by all:--

THE SINEWS OF WAR.

These are, men and money, but especially MONEY, for on the money depends
the men. In a good cause, with an educated, intelligent people, every
man able to discern for himself the right side of the question
presented, there is no difficulty about men; the state has only to say
how many are needed, and the want will be promptly supplied. The
experience of the last six months gives us evidence sufficient on this
point: an army of six hundred thousand men drawn together without an
effort, every man a volunteer,--a spectacle never before exhibited to
the world,--puts at rest all doubt upon it; and not only that, it
settles beyond all cavil the superiority of self-government, based on
the broadest principles of freedom and the broadest system of education,
over any other form which has ever been adopted. Passing from this,
however, as a fact which needs no argument or illustration, we come to
the more difficult question of how to raise the other sinew--money.

In calling for men the state relies upon the intelligence and patriotism
of its citizens; upon their intelligence to understand the cause, on
their patriotism to respond to its call. It offers them no inducements
in the shape of pay, nothing more than to feed and clothe them, to aid
them hereafter if wounded, to keep their families from starvation if
they are killed. This is all; and this is enough. But these assumed
obligations of the state must be sacredly and promptly kept. Our noble
volunteers must be fed, and clothed, and cared for, and to this end the
state must have the requisite means. And to obtain the needed supply
without oppressive taxation on the one hand, or placing a load on
posterity too heavy to be borne on the other hand, is a question of
difficult solution; and yet we shall see that there is in the present
administration the ability and the will to solve it.

It is said that our expenditures in this great struggle will, by the
first of June, amount to the enormous sum of $600,000,000. It is said by
the arch traitor at the head of the rebels that under this load of debt
we shall sink. It is said by the leading papers of England that we have
no money, have exhausted our credit, must disband our armies, and make
the best terms we can with rebellion. Doubtless, our credit in Europe is
at a low ebb just now, and we are thrown upon our own resources, and on
these we must swim or sink. There is nothing to reject in this. We have
shown the world how a free state can raise troops and create a navy out
of its own materials; and now we will show the world how a free state
can maintain its army and navy out of its own resources; and if the
result proves--as it will prove--that our free institutions are the
safest, strongest, and best for the people in war as well as in peace,
then the great struggle we are now going through with will be worth more
to the true interests of humanity everywhere than all the battles which
have been fought since the dawn of the present century. For a hundred
years, openly or covertly, but without intermission, has war been going
on between despotism and freedom, with varied success, but on the whole
with a steady gain for freedom; and now here, on the same field where
it originated, is the long strife to be finally settled. On these same
fields the same freedom is to culminate in unquenchable splendor, or to
set forever, leaving mankind to grope in darkness and ignorance under
the misrule of despotic tyranny. We are in arms not only to suppress an
odious uprising of despotism against freedom within our own borders, but
to show by our example, to all the nations of the earth, what freedom is
and what freedom means.

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