The Memphis union appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1862-1862, 1862-07-22
Editor and Proprietor

diminish the empire, success would destroy tie
liberties of the nation. Does not the same
danger hang over us2 If we lose the South,
We lose large population and vast terri
tory; but population increases fast in new
countries, and, as for territory, we shall still
have more than we know what to do with If,
however, we conquer the South, we must gov
err them by the sword; and how shall We
contrlye to set up military power and s
strong Executive, able to keep the South in
slavery, and yet unable to encroach upon the
liberties of the North2 The man has got on
the horse to kill the stag, but when he killed
him, are we quite sure he will get of again2
1t was very wrong of the English to make
war on nation speaking their own language
and of their own kindred and lineage, but the
relationship was remote; and, though Eng
land and America both belonged to the same
crown-the could not be said to be the same
country.
The Most Lame and Impotent COnsIu-
sion.
| But here we must suppose the patience of
the audience to be entirely exhausted and the
orator compelled TO make precipitate retreat
! even If he be fortunate enough to escape eques-
trian exercise on a rail in what Sydney Smith
calls 'sthe piumaeian robe" In which the SOW
! ereign people of Ar erica are wont to dress
those whom they do n0t delight to honor. This
! premature impatienee of the audience is the
more to be regretted as our orator has by no
means exhausted his subject He has yet to
/ speak of the policy. of defraying the whole ex-
penses of the war by debt of theenormous is
sues ofpaper money, levying heavy tax on
all creditors for the sake of a small immediate
advantage to the State; Of the proposal to
| arm the blacks and let loose on kindred and
Christian population all the horrors of q ser
/ vile and savage Instruction ; of Gen. Buffers s
| proclamation st New Orleans, and his treat
ment of a sex which America overwhelms with
the most exaggerated HOMAGE. But We are
glad that our orator did not proceed so far, for
the treatment of such topics in the manner we
have indicated would surely have brought
down upon him the very heaviest penalty in
the code of Judge Lynch the last and most
revered of American functionaries.
But we are doing our best to exterminate our
fellow countrymen, with the same language
the same tradition, the same laws, the same
history. How many of US have sons fighting
on both sides, or daughters married, one to a
SoutheTneE and the other to a Northerner
Every volley of artillery sweeps away the very
life and soul of the country. We are shedding
our own blood and mangling our own flesh,
. We have been in the habit of despising Eng
land for her heavy debt and the vast taxation
her people have to bear. But that debt was
mainly incurred in cause for which she had
no reason to blush--in fighting for her own
liberties and those of Europe against two
great conquerors, Louis XIV. and the Empe-
ror Napoleon. That debt took hundred and
forty years to accumulate, while we have in
Cured at least quarter of it in a year and a
half. But in what cause? Not to maintain
liberty, not to preserve the balance of power
but to put down those very principles of free
dom to which we owe onr existence as sepa-
rate Stat, and to cause our children to pass
through the fire to the Moloch of overgrown
pride and distempered ambition. Look how
England has treated us She is starving her
operatives, crippling her trade reducing her
revenues, rather than break Dlochade winch
would melt away before her breath aud vanish
at her touch, while we have been never weary
of loading her with insults. We took from her
the right of search which she only wanted for
the projection of negroes, for the sake of whom
many of as profess we are carrying on the
present civil war. We kept back the mapi
which showed that she was in the right in the
dispute about the Canadian frontier; we bull
lied her out of her rights on the Columbia
, river; we dismissed her ambassador for enlist
ing our people, though we are willing to take
hers wherever we can find them.