The Portland daily press., 1862-11-06
PORTLAND, ME-, THURSDAY MORNING,

and trusting in the right. deal the blow that
saves the nation. On the first day of January
next, the American republic will celebrate a
golden wedding with Liberty. Truth is on the
tc0r-pdth to duenge herself, and her trusty
blade will not rest in sheath until every system
of falsehood and oppression bites the dust, and
every hostility is subjugated to her domina-
ton.
Will any man of average intelligence and
sanity, deny that the existing state of things has
its origin in the institution of African slavery
If there had been no slavery, there would have
been no agitation of the question, or discus
sion over its morality or lawfulness. If there
had been no heated discussion and reprobation
of it, the shareholders in Congress would not,
they say, have abandoned their seats as repre-
sentatives, or the shareholders out of Congress
passed secession ordinances. In a word, if
there were no slavery, there would be no re-
bellion. Abolish slavery, and you destroy re-
bellion. Alexander III. Stephens of Georgia
himself asserts this -" Slavery" says he, :" has
been the immediate cause of the late rupture,
and the present rerotution. Jefferson saw that
the old Union would, some day, break upon
this rock. He was right. The prevailing idea
admitted by him, and the majority of the
statesmen of his time, was that the slavery of
the African race was violation of the rights
of nature. But these ideas were fundamental
ly false. Our new government is based on
quite opposite ideas. The negro, in virtue of
his nature and by reason of the curse of Ca
naan, is made for the position which he occu-
pies in our system. The stone tchich the build
ers rejected is become the chief stone of the
corner of our new structure"
The utterance of these opinions, and my
course consequent upon entertaining them,
may or may not raise against me the cry of alb
olitionist, black Republican, ,negro-worshipper,
and the like. am wholly Indifferent to this
The sentiments now express may be aboli-
tionsm for all know or care. They are
mine, at least, and the result of my earnest,
honest, intensest convictions hold them to
be democratic, too, in the best sense of that
word. i deny that democracy in America or
elsewhere, means slavery, in any form or de-
gree, or under any circumstances. He is not
genuine Democrat who prefers slavery be-
lore liberty, or who, when the fair opportunity
presents itself, hesitates to strike for freedom
Oppression is the same the world over it diff
ers only in its victims. In England it fastens
upon an lrishman; in the United States upon
an African. The manwho to-day would rob
negro of the result of his labor or skill would,
mutdtts nutdndis, cheat a Caucasian to-mor-
row, and the exied or selfexpatriated Irish
man, who apologies for, and deals tenderly
with, the enslavement of a race because it has
black skin, is not far removed in sympathy,
spirit. or principle, from the aristocratic op-
pressors of his own people. He has no war
rant to speak for a land every acre of which
is cursed with the imprint of tyranny's heel.
Daniel OConnell nor taught nor believed in
such democracy. When he contended with
lords and commoners for Catholic emancipat-
ion, or any of the inalenabe rights of man, if
hit opposers turned to written constitutions to
find authority for venerable imposition, and
proscriptive fraud. and hurled at him. "Ihus
saith the Latr," this man of the people, this
sturdy Democrat. this generous son of Erin,
sienced their sopbistry with, "Thus saith the
Lord" To all men born in Ireland, claiming
TO be Democrats, and striving in this crisis Of
their adopted country's fate to influence the
conduct of their countrymen, say, Go, no
wise. thou, and do likewise.