Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1862-12-24
THE STERN MORAL.

THE STERN MURAL.
..The concave is peopled with ascending
spirits;' to the bloody record upon which
appear Manassas, Shiloh, Fair Oaks, Pea
Ridge, Donelson and Antietam, Fredericks-
burg has been added, with all its heroism,
suffering, daring and death. The holocaust
rises before the majesty of heaven; the ghast-
ly wounds with their millions of mouths, the
groans which have burdened the air and
pierced every heart in the loyal North. as
cend and appeal to that Being who has declar-
ed 'sI am the same yesterday, to day and for
ever" History's bloodest and most barba-
ric page whether it reflected Nero as he burn
ed and slaughtered, whether Attila desols-
ting cities and States, whether Diocletion
crucifying victims, Cortez torturing and
butchering, or Hyder Ali moving like an
avengipg demon upon Carnatic plains. has
never been inscribed with more CORY and agon-
izing tragedies than those under which tor
two brief years America has travelled. The
thin mask of civil cation, the veil of courtesy
worn by slave-owniDg aristocrats, have been
torn off and rent assunder, and face to face
the giant Republic, glorious in strength, beauty
ty and all heroic capabilities, stands with her
enemy. Her foe is that same enemy of man
kind who led Pharoah to grind beneath his
heel the Israelites; who inspired Emperors to
torture the early Christians who entered into
the hearts of all the tyrants and butchers of
the Dark Ages; who founded inquistions,
| and who cursed America with dusky bonds
men torn from mysterious African shores, in
the seventeenth century. He is the Spirit Of
Oppression and goes hand in hand over fields
of blood and suffering, with his twin brother
Avarice. Only in dim and vague vision does
the youthful Republic recognize her hoary
enemy. She heard that enemy sharpening
his sword for generation, yet the startled
Nation looked with CONSERVATION when Sla-
very brandished the weapon the Government
itself had furnished, and, like the eagle,
shrank from the shaft plucked from her own
pinion. The Philistines were upon the nation
when Sumter's guns reused the giant, but is
he thoroughly disentangled from Delilah's
lude themselves into the belief that Liberty
and Oppression can yet kiss and be friends
while standing on the debris of battle fields ?
Are there not epauletted individuals who are
more loyal to Slavery than to the Government
| which protects and pays them 2 Yea, verify,
and even beneath the shadow of the Hall of
Liberty traitors loud of tongue or oily and
smooth with the pen, defy the law, without
which America is a chaos, and bereft of which.
| the world loses its last best hope of the ad
| vancement of humanity.
| No loyal man can escape the stern lesson
| forced upon him by every detail of car
mage. Rebel slavery will drown out this
Government in its own hearts blood, il rebel
slavery be not trampled into oblivion by loyal
strength. No compromise ground can be
found between the zenith and the nadir. The
vassals of slavery will strike down every son
of free mother, every freeman whose home
| is on loyal acres, if We do not crush and kill
oppression, and every creature in the North
should feel that conviction, like fire in his
| bones, so that we can
| appeal to the bright years enthroned before u
/ In the dim west
with the hope which, since 1776, has anima
ted the nation, that America has the proudes
mission OF liberty ever accorded to any peo
pie, and that the germ planted in the Revolu
tion shall fill the earth, even though through
generations its roots should be nourished by
blood philadelphia Bulletin.