Nebraska advertiser., 1861-06-27
The Var and SlaYerT.

The rebels and their sympathizers have
ever been busy asserting that the effort to
sustain the Government is a war against
slavery! They have redoubled their
bowling since negroes like other property
are considered contraband when found or
met as belonging to rebels or disloyal
States or communities. All who have
watched at all the progress of affairs can
not fail to see hat that there has been a
studious effort on the part of the Admin
is%tration, if you please, to avoid a perver-
ton of the war for the Union from its
avowed legitimate and essential purpose
into a crusade against the "peculiar insti-
tuition" General Butler took an early
opportunity to inform the people of Mary
land, when a negro i%nsurrection was fear
ed, that his duties were to suppress insur-
rection and rebellion Of what ever kind,
and that his aid if needed, to suppress the
negroes could be relied upon. The in
stances are without number almost in
Virginia, Kentucky and Maryland of
negroes who escaped from loyal citizens
being promptly returned by the military
authorities. While this has, is and will
continue to be the course, slavery must
not get in the way nor must the armies
in defense of our country be expected to
become police officers whose particular
duties are to look up runaway slaves
The advocates of slavery have always
COntended that slave property should be
considered in all respects precisely as all
other property. Very well. If our ad-
v~ancing armies come into possession by
conquest, surprise voluntary delivery or
otherwise, of horses, cattle, provisions,
munitions Of war, or any other species of
property, the appropriation is legitimate.
So it should and will be with negroes.
While we reiterate that it is not the
object of the North even, in the attempts
to sustain the Union to interfer with the
institution of slavery, men who have a
moiety of brains cannot fail to know hat
one of the Legitimate results of this war,
if protracted any length of time, will be
not only to interfere with and cripA sla-
very, but to wipe it from the face of the
earth. Heretofore men of all parties,
North or South, whether advocates for or
against slavery, have felt legally and
morally bound by the constitutional guar
antee to slavery, as the law of the land.
The opponents even of the institution
have always regarded it as a moral evil.
All these, together with thousands North
and South who have cared nothing about
II as a moral question even, will now ad-
vocate It's determination, because it has
ever been the source of all our troubles,
and It's existence continually ~endangers
our national safety. This is undoubtedly
a growing sentiment in all classes who
desire the p~erpetuity of the Union. 1t
is the prOmptings of self-preservation.-
The war if ended to-day, has cost the
country in dollars and cents more than
the cash value of every slave in it, to say
nothing of the loss of life, destruction of
internal improvements and the general
prostration of all branches of busi-
To leave the question unsettled is
but to bring about every few years a like
state of affairs, and in the end
us as a nation, and hurl US as a
into utter and irredeemabIe dark
ness. This we believe is a rapidly grow
ing feeling in the minds Of the masses of
the people.