Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1862-06-07
Fair Play.

From the Dundee Scotland Advertiser.
We can readily conceive why thousands of
good and intelligent Americans are dsappoint-
ed, disguised, and profoundly panied with the
tone and temper Of a not inconsiderable por-
ton of the British press. They expected bet
ter things of Britain, and they had reason to
expect better. How short time it is since
our newspapers, our magazines, our reviews,
were full of atfectionate appeal, earnest re-
monstrance, or indignant denunciation on the
subject of American slavery. Slavery was
then, by writers of all parties on this side of
the Atlantic, assailed with the vehemence
which all writers employ when they feel that
their theme is one on which the most telling
irony and the most startling antithesis may be
lavishly employed There was no metaphor
too strong for use on such a theme. Slavery,
we are told over and over again, was a stain
upon the free flag of the states, an ulcer on
the fair forehead Of the republic, an apple of
discord sprouting in the soil of the new world,
a social upas tree, injecting the very air of the
western hemisphere The tory found in slave
ry whole armory of taunts against the land
of freedom; and democrats like Jerrold, cou-
pied with vitriolic irony the planters whip and
the red stripes of the star-spangled banner
The travelled American was made to feel that
in Europe he must not boast OF the freedom of
his native country. There was one word that
put him to silence, one institution that COM
PEELED him to be dumb on the subject of Am
erican institutions, one ready .jibe which he
heard wherever he went, and that was-slave-
ry. Well, little more than year ago this
social plague, about which all England had
been indignant-this stock theme of British
wits-this black hydra which all Europe had
counselled the Americans to slay-this slave
ry, at which we were so profoundly shocked,
lilyp of old and mod +bo
supreme power. The war it made was osten-
sibly against freedom in all its phases. The
very word free was, by the organs of the
south, denounced as nuisance. Free schools,
free pulpit, free press-aye, free men were
howled at as perniclous northern institutes, to
be suppressed by the sword.
The free men of the north counted on our
sympathy in the struggle forced upon them
Abolitionism, it is true, was not in the ascend
ant, but it was working and growing; tens of
thousands of brave men and good women,
moved by the appeals and goaded by the re-
monstrances Of Europe, had set heartily to
work to make the war move freedomwards;
and great were their expectations of British
sympathy and support But the slaveocracy
had their friends in the north. All through
the free states were multtudes who secretly
wished that Davis might be installed in Wash
ington, and who did their utmost to embroil
their government with ours. Still the good
men and true worked on against their foes in
front, and against the foes in their midst, eX-
posing the sinister policy of northern slave Or
gans like the Herald, proclaming that the
friendship of Britain must be cultivated and
looking confidently to us for encouragement.
Is the present policy Of our press in harmo-
ny with our principles as politicians, or with
our former very many professions Of sympa-
thy with those who all their lives have, in
America, fought good fight for the extinct
ion Of that system which we said was both a
curse and reproach to our cousins of the
new world. How cold, how heartless, how
characterized by an almost Mephistophlean
cyncism, and how utterly unworthy of the
children Of a great and generous country, is
the tone of such journals as the Saturday Re-
view. A chilling, damping sleet of sneers,
and Of nothing but sneers, is all that that dyS-
peptic negation--the Saturday sneerer, vouch-
safes to bestow on the federal cause. When
the northerners could not keep their own mil
itary secrets, they were written at as incapa-
bles, whose plans were as well known to
Beauregard as to themselves; and now, when
they take measures to ensure themselves
against similar betrayals, their precautions are
pointed at as proofs of federal tyranny. If
to-day they are found unready and Overmatch-
that the men of the free states have neither
patriotism nor spirit, and if tomorrow thew
send into the field such an army as for num-
bers and equipment no European power could
produce, their spirit is called stubborness.
and their patriotism is but 'infatuation. ),
When, at the outset of the strife they refuse
to make it ostenslby a war of emancipation.
they were told that their cause is destitute of
principle, and, therefore, unworthy of sympa-
thy; and when their president comes before
the world with great and noble scheme for
lessening the area of slavery, the scheme is
criticised in detail, and derided in the gross,
and those who were at one time full of ten
derness for the African, mockingly ask the
federals if they are such Utopians as to pro-
tract the strife for parcel of niggers As if
to leave nothing out of their cup OF bitterness,
their very victories, though won against odds
by newly drafted troops, are sneered at scarce
" less than their defeats and in instances
where, as on board the Cumberland, the fed
erals display the sublime of courage-fght-
ing to the last under circumstances the most
appaling-not one word of admiration is
awarded to their heroic bravery.
All this is neither fair play nor prudence.
The federalists feel keenly that we do them
wrong, and will remember the wrong when
the remembrance may cost us many millions
of money, and some loss of blood Why not
let by-gones be by-gones, and manfully ac-
knowledge the merits of the people who lately
offended u.s. and who then made reparation
for the offence. 1t is undignfed and silly to
keep up this small-souled carping at whatever
the northerners do. Let us imagine ourselves
in the position Of the Unionists, with an army
of half million rebels in front of us, and a
band Of disguised traitors in our midst, and
then. would there with us be no limitation OF
the liberty of the press, no restriction on the
ordinary freedom Of a state Of peace, no job
bing contractors, and no panie-stricken voun-
teersf Let us, with philosophic calmness, re-
gard the present strife in the new world as one