Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1862-10-18
OBJ 4ag SPY dolotestr, Saturday gunme, OFT IT, 1882

do | now plead for freedom, through which
alone peace can be secured. Are you earnest
for peace, then must you be earnest for free
dom also. Would you uphold the Union
against treason, then must you uphold free
dom, without which bloody treason will flour
iSh over US. But freedom has been adopted
by congress and proclaimed by the president
as one of the agencies in the prosecution OF
the war Therefore, it must be maintained
with all our souls and all our hearts and all
our minds The hour of debate has passed
the hour of duty has sounded. In opposing
solemn acts of congress, which, according to
the constitution, are now the supreme law of
land, passed for the national defence; in OPP
posing the proclamation of the president; nay,
in discouraging freedom, you are as bad as if
You discouraged enlistments. 1t is through
freedom, as well as the arms of our soldiers,
that the war will be waged; and the same 10y
atty which supports the one is now due to the
other. The Encouragement of enlistmentS is
recognized as sedtious and traitorous; but the
Encouragement of this other force adopted by
the government for the suppression of the re-
bcllion is only another form of sedition and
treason which an indignant patriotism will
Spurn. Emancipation is now war measure
and it must be sustained as you sustain an
army in the field.
If the instincts Of patriotism did not prompt
this support, l should find a sufficient motive
in that duty which we all owe to the supreme
ruler, God Almighty, whose visitations upon
our country are now so fearful. Not raShly
would | make myself the interpreter of his
wills and yet | am not blind. According to a
venerable maxim of jurisprudence, whose
would have equity must do equity and God
plainly requires equity at our hands. We can
not expect success while we set at naught this
requirement, proclaimed in his divine charac-
ter, in the dictates of reason and in the exam
pies OF history; proclaimed also in all the
events Of this protracted war Great judy
ments have fallen upon the country plaques
have been let loose; rivers have been turned
into blood, and there is great cry throughout
the land, for there is not house where there
is not one dead; and at each judgment we
seem to hear that terrible voice which sound
ed in the ears of Pharaoh: Thus saith the
Lord God of the Hebrews. Let my people go,
that they may serve me- | know not how
others are touched; but | cannot listen to the
frequent tidingS of calamity to our arms-of a
noble soldier lost TO his cOuntry-Ot a be-
reavencnt in a family-of youthful son
brought home dead to his mother, without
catching the warning: ''Lct my people go"
Nay, every wound, every sorrow, every hard
ship-all that we compelled to bear in taxa
tion in want, in arrangement Of business, has
a voice saying: ''Let my people go"
But, fellow citizens, the war which we wage
is not merely for ourselves; it is for all man
kind. Slavery yet fingers in Brazil, and be-
meath the Spanish flag in those two golden
possessions, Cuba and Porto Rico; but no.
where can it survive its extinction here.
Therefore we conquer for liberty everywhere.
In ending slavery here we open its gates all
over the world and let the oppressed go free
Nor is this all In saving the republic we
shall save civilization. Man throughout his
long pilgrimage on earth has been compelled
to suffer much; but slavery is the heaviest
| burden which he has been called to bear; it is
the only burthen which our country has been
called to bear. Let it drop and our happy
country, with humanity in its train, all changed
in raiment and in countenance, like the
christian pilgrim, will hurry upward to the
celestial gate. If thus far our example has
failed, it is simply because of slavery. 1t was
vain to proclaim our unparalleled prosperity,
the comfort diffused among a numerous peO-
| pie, resources without stint, or even the edu-
| cation Of our children, the enemies of the
republic simply said, There is slavery" and
our example became pOwerless. But let
| slavery disappear, and this same example will
be of irresistible might Without firing gun
or writing despatch, it will revolutionize the
world. Therefore the battle which we
now fight belongs to the grandest events
Of history. 1t constitutes one of those
epochs from which humanity will date.
It.is one Of the battles of the ages; as when
the millions of Persia were hurled back from
Greece, or when the Mahommedans, victors
in Africa and Spain, were hurled back from
France by Charles Martel and western Eu-
rope was saved to christianity. In such a
cause no effort can be too great no faith can
be too determined To die for country is
| pleasant and honorable. But all who die fol
country now die also for humanity. Wherev-
er they lie, in bloody fields, they will be re-
membered as the heroes through whom the
republic was saved and civilization established
| forever.