The Portland daily press., 1862-10-29

overbalance the political power of the free
! States. Had there been no war; slavery was
| already domed to die. under the very action OF
that Constitution which for seventy years had
given it life. For the Constitution, in itself
considered, and regarded as federal docu-
ment is neither pro-savery, nor anti-slavery.
As the federal power is TO pass into the
hands of the majority, the Constitution be-
comes favorable or unfavorablesto slavery ac-
cording to the character OF that majority.-
When the nation by its constitutional repre-
sentatives, is anti-slavery, then the Constitu-
ton becomes SO, and not before 1t did become
so at the last election. To sustain that cleo
ton, to uphold the President. became the first
and most direct policy of the free and Ioyal
States. That policy anticipated no action on
the subject of slavery 1t was TO take care of
itself.
confess that, for one, | anxiously desired
the war to take that course. / dreaded an act
OF emancipation. 1t seemed to me. to be iden-
tical with a servile war, in which the slaves
themselves would be the greatest sufferers
wanted To see freedom proclaimed only as
we took military possession of the country
and conld control the fate of those who were
emancipated. But at that time the war had
not assumed the magnitude and Importance,
nor developed the significance il has at pres
ent attained, nor had various almost universal
deiusions been dispersed. There was sup
posed to be a large Union party under duress
at the South, and large Southern party un-
der similar duress at the North The war was
considered as the result of a conspiracy on the
part of southern politicians TO retain federal
power. We were quite uncertain about eth
er nur power to raise armies or to support
them, as our military organizations, and our
monetary apparatus were neither of them in
running order. We were threatened with for
eign Intervention and an English war; above
all, slavery was supposed 10 be dry powder
magazine, requiring only spark to set il in a
blaze of universal destruction to the white
population. The South, too, had no reputa-
tion for constancy, for resources. for manufac-
lures, for power to carry on long defensive.
OF an oneusWe war.
SLAVERY THE CHIEF STRENGTH OF TIRE
REBELS.
The whole country was out in all its calcu-
lations. Nothing was, as we hoped feared or
asserted. The abolitonists were wrong in de-
scribing slavery as a political Undertook at
home. Instead of the weakness it has proved
the chief strength of the enemy. No tendency
to instructions, no nfidelity TO their masters.
Nogeneral disposition TO welcome our advances
have yet been evidenced among the slaves
4Nol iS tutlt tlit icdcb ItdsOU 10 lilnk IIdI Inc
proclamation of enancipation-despite that
alleged, that wonderous telegraph system. by
which the credulous are made to believe that
the slaves put to shame our civilized methods
OF communication, or that immense negro Car
bonarism, by which the blacks asserted to be
banded and directed-will have any of the
perils associated with it in our alarmed inagi-
nations. Its not freedom, but the want of it.
that created insurrection: and the educated
IL
of the black man for the white, seems to make
the white population far safer amid an over
whelming negro race, though free, than any
theory had prepared US to anticipate. Then
again, proclaim emancipation as much as you
please, you effect it only as you can give those
who uphold slavery an argument which has
two edges. Immediate proclamation of eman-
cpation is while State of rebellion lasts in
the South, Just as gradual emancipation as any
other scheme. The slaves will hold on to their
masters till we have hold of their masters, and
then we can control both.
THE SOUTH NOT INCAPABLE.
Then again the South was not the despica-
Bile enemy, nor the divided people, nor the i'm
povished country, nor the set OF incapable brag-
CARTS, and feeble, physical and moral folk. we
were prepared TO find them. 1t was not a war
of lions and tigers with comics and hares. Mr.
Russell and our English visitors had much
more reason than our preiudices allowed us to
believe in their description of southern mate
rial and southern power. Our President. God
bless him, fairly represented our honest and
most enlightened feelings, when he called out
posse cOmitdtus of seventy-five thousand to
put down the Richmond mob. Our Secreta-
ry of State who had made slavery and the slave
power the principal study of his life, was hon
estiy promising It's peace in notes renewable
every ninety days, till the bank of popular con-
fidenee refused to honor them any longer.
Ourgenerals, by public proclamation, announc-
ed short but sharp work with the enemy.
There was no sense of whereto this cloud no
bigger than mans hand would grow. Who
felt that it was not a mere question of our
quasling riot, but question of whether the
slave power should be crushed, or we as a ma
tion be crushed by it.? Yet to that complex
ion has it come at last.
There can be no doubt; and it is not letter
writers. and rumors, and spies, that furnish
the authority, but public events themselves
that the South hopes and designs to rule this
country under the old stars and stripes, and
that N our imperfect sense of our perils she
has been very near accomplishing her purpose
of seizing our capital, our archieves, and our
rulers; and taking advantage of our reverence
for the old flag and the old constitution to raj
ly great political party to her side on the old
southern democratic platform.
1t Is this which the rise of such political mis-
creants as Seymour and Wood and Vallanding-
ham and company means-a body who are pre-
pairing to take advantage every possible sue
cess on the part Of the enemy to ride into pow
er and place.
The war becoming thus, not a feeble revolt,
sectional rebellion, comfortable evil, to be
soothed or medcined or treated with a course
OF political tactics, but a frightful assault by
a vast public enemy, whose borders extend to
even our capital, TO overthrow our govern
ment, TO refashion our laws, destroy our name
and fame, and make us deeper accomplices in
slave-holding itself-an assault conducted with
tremendous skill, audacity and success-it is
no longer war in defence of the Union, the
constitution and the enforcement of the laws.
1t Is war for national existence-a war for
the possession and control of the American
continent-a war for the defence of the higher
type of the American civilization against the
lower-a war for public schools. pure morals,
enlightened piety, popular equality, respected
labor, universal liberty-for that which the
Union and the Constitution were originally
designed to nourish and protect-and a war
TO be carried on no longer with the aim of re-
establishing the Union and the constitution
with all their old compromises, but of re-estab-
fishing government that will protect us as
they have shown themselves unable to do
the precious, sacred interests they were cho-
sen to guard. OF course, the constitution and
the Union and the laws are not to be one iot
or little abated except when and where they