Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1862-03-26
MASKED ENEMIES.

emancipation message were before the s'"'e
aenate Monday Mr.. SWAN of Dorchester,
one of the class of mo party statesmen VINO
were in high feather last fall, objected to their
passage on the ground that the subject TO
which they related was OF no concern to Mas =
sachusetts, and that the commonwealth had
no business to express an opinion upon it.
Mr.. SWAN, it so happens in the providential
distribution Of sense, and from no fault of his,
doesn't hold such a rank among living states
men as entities his opinions 10 controlling
weight. The sleepy wigh who walked up
on the bonny banks OF the Hudson twenty
years after the revolution and shouted for king
George, was undoubtedly aetuattd by SPLEEN
did motives though he couldn't succeed in
bringing back the good old colony times when
we lived under the king. And the Dorchester
senator, he viewer perfect the delusion seems
to him after his twenty or thirty years indif
ference to public affairs will hardly succeed
in grating on our present public policy the
obsolete ideas of the period when he-went TO
sleep.
But there are among shrewd and far seeing
men-leaders of the class with which he and
such men as be afiiliate-makers of opinions
for the crowd who believe in the divine right
of slaveholders-who watch the progress of
events less because they wish to see the union
restored upon the basis of civil equality and the
rights of human nature" than because they
seek the restoration OF that vast political
power which they lost when their slavehold
ing associates betrayed their country. To be
sure they hold the full development of their
policy in allegiance while the war RACES, and
the star of the union is in the ascendant ; but
they lose no occasion of throwing obloquy and
reproach upon all measures which are calcu-
lated, under the constitution or above it, to
restrain and control the prime cause of all the
nation has suffered during the last fifteen
months. If all officer in the cabinet expires
ses an opinion adverse to slavery, whatever
other sins of corruption, malversation OF in
competency, he may have been guilty of, that
one in their esteem overtops them all. If q
general in the field finds it necessary, in order
to maintain his position, to proclaim freedom
to slaves of ditloyal masters, that in their
judgment seals his condemnation, and fortu-
nate for the country which such general
aims wisely and bravely to serve, if the NAL
ignants do not accomplish his ruin. When
the president himself, with singular eau
ton, proposes to encourage states who will
initiate emancipation, the same voices are
heard, either in the depreciation or open hos.
tility, discouraging every policy which re-
fleets, however remotely, on the purity of
their idols.
These special manifestations OF pernicious
public opinion, of course, amount to very lit
tie while the controlling loyal sentiment of the
country approves and the civilized world ap.
plauds proclamations like Fremonts and mes
ages like the presidents. They are only
significant they foreshadow more formida-
bic and systematic opposition TO the policy of
the government on this and kindred questions
when the returned peace shall make it safe for
them to declare it. Already, with the aid Of
portion of the representation of the border
states, they have succeeded in attracting pub
lie attention to their purposes, which are ma
turing into kind OF settled championship of
slavery as opposed to the policy of the admin
istration upon that subject. 1t is easily appa
rent why they are so strenuous even against
the harmless and inofensive scheme of the
president, when we remember that the only
hope of restoring their political poS yer is con-
ungent on the return of the revolted states
to essentially the same position from which
they left US year or more ago. That
luckless event. however can never happen
The sun will never rise in the west To all
lntents which concern the seven states that
first seeded and have persisted most malevo-
lently in their treason, that position is lost
1t may conflict with favorite theories, and pet
schemes OF reconciliation to be put af1oat here
after TO believe it but the tact smites the
doubter In the face InSa those states ex-
eept Florida and Louisiana, perhaps. the
flag of the Union commands respect with.
in the range of federal guns, and no further.
by and by, when Mcclellan achieves his long
promised victories in the east, aud Commo
dore Foote goes onward past Island Number
Ten, toward Memphis and New Orleans, it
Will be different The naughty states, how
ever proud they may be new in the first sprin.
king OF adversely, Will bend before the storm
those whom the people have constitutionally
chosen to rule over them, the Union will be-
come one again upon conditions under which
rebellion will be impossible and peace secure.
In anticipation of such event, it does not
become any loyal state to be Indifferent or
wholly silent Massachusetts, least of all
should fall into the counsels of the masked
enemies of liberty, and hesitate to welcome
every encouragement of a restored Union in
all the branches of which freedom shall be the
rule and slavery the rare exception. First
among those who FASTENED to the rescue Of
this ark of the republican covenant, she should
be the last to leave it till the hostile star oil
secession gathers up its malignant influences,
and passes into the outer darkness forever.
KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE.