New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1862-08-20
THE PRAYER OF TWENTY MILL
Hons,

To ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Pr,sident of me q. SiGf1
DEAR SIR: | do not intrude to tell you
for you must know already-that a great pro-
portion Of those who triumphed in your cleo
ton and of all who desire the unqualified sup
preston of the Rebellion now desoating our
country, arc sorely disappointed and deeply
panied by the policy you seem to be pursuing
with regard to the slaves of Rebels. l write
only to set succinctly and Enthusiastically before
you what We require. what We think we have
right to EXPECT, and Of what We complain.
I. We require Of you. as the first servant Of
the Republic charged especially and pretmi.
nently with this duty, that you EXECUTE TIE
LAWS. Most emphatically do we demand that
such laws as have been recently enacted, which
therefore may fairly be presumed to embody
the present will and to be dictated by the pres
eni needs of the Republic, and which after due
consideration have received your personal sane
ton, shall by you be carried into full effect
and that you publicly and decisiycly instruct
your subOrdinates that such laws exist, that
they are binding on all functionaries aud cit-
gems, and that they are to be obeyed 10 the
letter.
III. We think you are strangely and disa5-
trously remiss in the discharge Of your official
and imperative duty with regard to the eman.
cipating provisions of the new Coniscation
Act. Those provisions were designed to fight
Slavery with Liberty. They prescribe that
men loyal to the Union, and willing to shed
their blood in her behalf shall no longer be
held, with the Nations consent, in bondage to
persistent, malignant traitors, who for twenty
years have been plotting and for sixteen
months have been fighting to divide and destroy
our country. Why these traitors should be
treated with tenderness by you, to the PREM.
dice of the dearest rights of loyal men, We
cannot conceive
III. We think YOU are unduly influenced by
the counsels, the representations, the menaces.
of certain fossil politicians hailing from the
Border Slave States. Knowing well that the
heartily, Internationally loyal portion Of the
White citizens of those States do not expect
nor desire that Slavery shall be upheld to the
prejudice of the UniOn-(fOr the truth Of
which we appeal not only to every Republican
residing in those States, but to such eminent
loyalists as III. Winter Davis, Parson Brown.
low, the Union Central Committee of Balt-
more, and to The Nashville CniOn)-we ask
you to consider that Slavery is everywhere
the melting cause aud sustaining base Of trea-
son the most sayeholdiDg sections of Mary
land and Delaware being this day, though
under the Union flag, in full sympa-
thy with the Rebellion, while the Free
Labor portions Of Tennessee and OF
Texas, though writing under the bloody
heel of Treason, are unconquerably
loyal to the Union. so emphntically is this the
case, that most intelligent Union banker OF Balh-
more recently ayowed his confident belief that
majority of the present Legislature of Mary
land, though elected as and still protesting to
be Unionists, are at heart DESTROYS Of the
triumph Of tho jeff. Davis conspiracy; and
when asked how they could be won back to
loyalty, replied" Only by the complete AbO-
Iition OF Slavery" 1t seems to us the most
obvions truth, that whatever strengthens or
fortifes Slavery in the Border States strengthens
also Treason, and drives home tho wedge in
tended to divide the Union. Had you from
the first refused to recognize in those States,
as here, any other than unconditional loyalty
that which stands for the Union, whatever
may become Of Slavery-those States would
have been, and would DO, far more helpful