Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1862-11-29
Our Fellow-Citizeiss, )"

But when you talk of severe measures
and vigorous prosecution of the war, do you
not forget that the rebels are our fellow-ciii-
zens, with whom, when we have subdued the
rebellion, we must live as tcllow-citizens
still ?"
To call men who hive risen in arms against
this Government without shadow of right
or excusc-for the debate upon slavery was
just as constitutional as that upon tariff or
a bank-and who have pursued tha. purpose
by every dishonorable and bloody means
who have filled with anguish hundreds of
thousands of hearts and homes-who have
paralyzed the prosperity Of great nation.
and, for moment, affrighted the hope of hu-
manity and civilization-to call these meu
"Our erring Southern brethren" is to mock
the agony Of a nation and insult common
sense.
But they are to be our fellow-citizens
Well, suppose they are. They are to be so
only when they have satisfied themselves
that they are not strong enough to break
away from and disown us. They are to be-
made our felow-citizens in tue future bv con-
quest, by subjugation. Pray for what other
purpose have we hundreds of thousands #
men in arms, ships of war, and tremendous
artillery! For what other purpose did we
kill and wound thirty thousand of them, as
General Mcclellan reports, at the battle of
Antietam Why have there been hundred
thousand Of them disabled in the hospital at
Richmond Simply because they do not
yet believe that we mean what we say, when
we declare that the Union shall be maintained.
For the Union we know is the nation; and
to destroy the Union is to ruin the nation.
The rebels arc to be forced at the point of
the bayonet to he our future fellow-citizens.
That is the result to which every loyal man
looks forward. They are not to be concilia-
ted, nor wheedled, nor bamboozled. They
are to be starved and shot and MANNED and
impoverished and exposed in every way until
they submit. There is but one other result
of the war. There can bc but one. AUDI
that is, that ace shall be starved and shot and
MANNED and impoverished and hurt in every
way until we are tir d out and surrender.
Under these circumstances-and there are.
no other-what is the obvious condition of
their consenting to be our frl!ow-citizensg p
Simply that further resistance now and future.
insurrection shall be clearly hopeless. If We
patch up an armistice, truce, a peace, we
shall be merely Sampson treacherously fon-
died to sleep by Delilah. Let us stop before.
the work is done, and We shall have it all to-
do over again. Leave chance, hope,
nucleus Of future rebrllions, and our "fellow-
citizens" will again rebel.
1t is, therefore, for the very reason that we
bear in mind that they are, at every cost, to
bc our fellow-citizens that the most stringent
measures are the most conservative. The
great point is to show the rebels that they in.
cvitably must be tcllow-citiSens, and they do.
not believe it while we pat them and play
war. If the popular mind had justified, as it
did not. upon the breaking out of the rebel
lion, the employment Of every power and re-
source of the Government, and every recog-
nized means Of war, tho peace we all desira
had been long ago conquered, and thousands
of the brave and true, whom we shall see no
more, would have hailed with us the dawn of
that day in which, the seed of war being des-
troyed, we can indeed become fellow citizens.
-Harper's Weekly.