Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1861-11-30

Alng Cotton, and our Illuminating sub
scryiency to their unjust treatment of
the negro. The sooner we shall con-
sent to those shameful demands against
freedom which caused our late strictly
constitution, polite al, Northern rebell-
ion. They will have driven us into
obedience at our own expense. If any
love Of freedom should still remain at
the North, any Willingness that black
or blackish people should participate
in it, the old hatred of the North, and
every thing Northern would still grow
at the South, and again produce sud-
den, unexpected, calamitous war
For be it remembered that slave
holding community in which the mas
ter class is III excess, has always the
main preparation for war, ABUNDANCE
Of men sp0iltnG to fight.
Either what has been said about the
spirit and temper of the southern peo-
pie is untrue, either their scolding, raw
ing, lynching and rushing en- neasse
to arms, before they were wrongcd in
the least, means nothing, or else the
war has been managed thus far, on our
part, unwiscly. Nearly every blow
our government has struck has been
where the ehemy was strongest. Not
one has been struck, with its approba-
ton, where he is weakest. This could
be done without supreme folly only on
the supposition that the people of the
south are not acting from animosity,
but from misapprshension--from which
they will soon recover, if we accept
coolIy few hard knocks, and give
none, to do any serious damage.
1t is really Il case of national life or
death, and the people must judge ac
cordirg to their own light and obser-
vation whether the terrible fact is as
above stated If it is, then, let every
man as he loves home, wife, children,
liberty, country, cry aloud and demand
Of the government that it lose not one
moment in dealing its deadliest blow
at slavery, that it strike at the enemy's
weakest point, that it sink at once the
soil from which grew and grows the
hatred that produced this rebellion
'Fhe single head and arm of the heroic
Iighlman recaptured ship from the
jeff Davis pirates. We may have a
hundred thousand such heroes with q
word. Are we ashamed Of that word,
liberty?
DO we pretend It would violate the
constitution to utter it now? If we
were at war with Brazil and had one
hundred thousand troops drawn up
around Rio Janerio, would the consti-
tuition forbid us to utter the word llberty
to the blacks Of that empire, if that
word would secure victory? Have the
rebel states, in their present attitude,
any more right to hamper us with
constitution than Brazil has? The
constitution was made for a state of
peace. We are now at war The
contcderates have declared themselves
foreign states, what rights have they
under the constitution? We do not
admit their right to make themselves
foreign states, and intend to bring
them back under the constitution
But are we going to insist, at the risk
Of our national life, that they shall
come back slave states and mot free
states:
Is it objected that uttering the word
'Llberty" to the slaves of the rebel
states would violate our constitutional
obligation to the border slave states
still noninally loyal? The slaves, as
slaves, are aothing but property-apd
the constitution only cxists on compeD-
satlon when the government takes pri-
vate property for the public use. Had
the government paid market price for
all the slaves i'll Maryland, Kentucky
and Missouri, and set them free, before
1t fought the battle qf Bull Run, the
war would probably have been at an
end before this, and the public debt
gould not have been much greater.
No man, not lost in misanthropy,
can believe that the great majority of
the people of the free states are not in
love with free institutions and the hon
eat application of the doctrine of the
Declaration of Independence to all
men, everywhere. Butthey never felt
any special affection for black people
and were never viking to meddle with
the affairs Of other states. Therefore,
SO long as We are at peace with the
slave-holding states, they would do
and suffer anything to maintain peace.
Now, the case is altered. They would
sustain the government in any action
towards the slave-cursed states that
would make them free. 1t is too true
that there gre scattered all over the
North many men who, for variopg rea-
ss{oHns, do not prize freedom, anywhere
/ below their own level, hut sympathize
heartily WITH slave holders in their
eontenqpts for the rights of black peo-
pie and their hatred of white ones who
sympathize at all with the black. The