Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1861-12-26
VOL. XXVIIT.
GEN. pHE1ps's PROCLAMATION.

our readers are. acquainted with its author,
either personally or by reputation, and there
fore they want to see exactly what he did say.
In our mind there can be no doubt of the gen.
uineness Of the document. Gen. Phelps is a
sincere and persistent opponent of slavery, but
he has given expression to his views on an oc-
casion and in a manner ill-tmed and peculiarly
unfortunate His Proclamation is as follows:
HEADQUARTERS MIDDLEsEx BRIGADE, ]
SHIP ISLAND, Mississippi, Dec. 4, 1861. {
To the Loyal Citizens of tile Southeast -
Without any desire of my own, but contrary
to my private inclination, again find myself
among you as a military officer of the govern
ment. A proper respect for my fellow country
men renders it not out of place that l should
make known to you the motives and principles
by which my command will be governed.
We believe that every state that has been adj
mitted as a slave state into the Union since the
adoption Of the constitution has been so admit
ted in direct violation of that constitution. We
believe that the slave states which existed as
such at the adoption of our constitution are, bv
highest obligations of honor and morality to A.
bolsh slavery. 1t is conviction that mon
opoes are as destructive as competition is con-
servative of the principles and vtaities of re-
publican government; that slave labor is
manopoly which excludes free labor and
competition; the slaves are kept in compare
tive idleness and ease in a fertile half of our ar
able national territory, while free white labor
ers, constantly augTentng in numbers from
] INV g., 4 IL, al. L lr
often distressed by want; that the free labor of
the North has more need of expansion into the
southern states, from which it is virtually ex-
cluded, than slavery had into Texas in 1916;
that free labor is essential tn free institution
that these institutions are naturally better adap-
ted and more congenial to the Anglo Saxon
race than are the despotic tendencies of slavery:
and, finally, that the dominant political prnci-
pies of this North American continents so long
as the Caucasian race continues to flow in up
on US from Europe, must needs be that of free
institutions and free government. Any OBJ
| structions to the progress of that form of gov
ernment in the United States must inevitably
be attended with discord and war.
Slavery, from the condition of a universally
recognized social and moral evil, has become at
length political institution, d manding politi-
cal recognition. 1t demands rights to the ex-
clusion and annihilaton of those rights which
are insured to us by the constitution; and we
must choose between them which we will have,
for we cannot have both. The constitution was
made for freemen, not for slaves. Slavery as a
social evil might for time be tolerated and en-
dured, but as a political institution it becomes
imperious and eXacing, controlling, like dread
II, cessity, all whom circumstances have COM
PEELED to live under its sway, hampering their
action, and thus impeding our national progress
AS political institution it could exist as a CO.
ordinate part only of two forms of government,
viz the despotic and the free and it could ex-
| ist under Fl ee government only where public
| sentiment, in the most unrestricted exercise of
a robust freedom, leading to extravaganza and
licentiousneSs, had swaycd the thoughts and
habits of the people beyond the bounds and |
limits OF their own moderate constitutional pro-
visions. 1t could exist under free govern
ment only where the people, in period of un-
reasoning extravaganza, had permitted popular
clamor TO overcome public reason, and had at
tempted the impossibility of setting up perma-
nently, as political institution, social evil
which is opposed to moral law.
BY reverting to the history of the past we
find that one of the most destructive wars on
record, that of the French revolution, was orig
mated by the attempt to give political charac-
Ter o an institution which was not susceptible
of political character. The church, by being
endowed with political power, with its converts,
its schools, its immense landed wealth, its asso-
Citations, secret and open. became the ruling
power of the state, and thus occasioned war
of more strife and bloodshed probably than any
other war which has desolated the earth. Slave |
ry is still less susceptible Of political character
than was the church. 1t is as fit at this mo-
ment, for the lumber room of the past, as was !
in 1893 the monastery, the landed wealth, the !
exclusive privilege &C., of the Catholic church |
in France.
1t behoovcs US to consider, as q self-govern-
ing people, bread and reared and practced in
the habits Of seli-goyernment, whether we can
no., whether we ought not to revolutionize sla-
very out of existence, without the necessity OF
conflict of arms like that of the French re-
volution. Indeed, we feel assured that the mo-
ment slavery is abolished, from that moment
our southern brethren--every ten of whom
have probably seven relatives at the north
would begin to emerge from hateful delirium.
From that moment, relieved from imaginary
terrors, their days become happy, and their |
nights peaceful and free from alarm the aggre. |
gate amount of labor under the new stimulus
of fair competition becomes greater day by |
day property rises in value, invisoratng in |
fuences succeed to stagnation, degeneracy and
decay, and union, harmony and peace-to which
we have so long been strangers--become re-
stored, and bind us again in the bonds of amity
and friendship, as when we first began our ma
tional career under cur glorious government
of 1889.
Why do the leaders Of the rebellion seek to
change the form of our ancient government
Is it because the growth of the African element
of your population has come at length TO rem
der change Necessary viii YOU permit the
free government under which you have thus
far lived, and which is so well suited for the
development of true manhood, to be altered to
narrow and belitling despotism, in order to
adapt it TO the necessities Of ignorant slaves
and the requirements OF their proud and ars-
tocratiS owners? VIII the laboring men of the
south bend their necks to the same yoke that
is suited to the slavep We think not. We
may safely answer dOt the time has not arrived
when our southern brethren, for the mere sake
of keeping Africans in slavery, will abandon
their long cherished free institutions and en-
slave themselves. 1t is the conviction of my
command as part of the national forces of
the United States, that labor-manual labor
is inherently noble; that it cannot be system
atically degraded by any nation, without min
ing its peace, happiness and power; that free
labor is the granite basis on which free institu-
tions must rest that it is the right, the capit-
al, the inheritance, the hope of the poor man
everywhere; that it is especially the right Of
five millions Of our fellow countrymen in the
slave states, as well as of four millions of AZ