Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1862-11-01

lngS, Parties must now be brought 10 the |
touch steRc OF principle. The government
has staked our cause upon its last decisive
measure of war policy. The proclamation of
the president gives us his judgment that the
hour fer the dread alternative has come.
Without this measure he gives up your cause
as lost with this measure, if sustained by the
loyal mind Of the country, he points you to the
overhanging clouds rolling away and the arch
of promise spanning a continent dedicated in
blood to union and liberty. Parker and Child
may walk with muffied step all around it.
never touching it, turning their microscope
toward it, and finally concluding that they
don't see it-but tell you the party that does
| not support the president in this measure does
not support him in the future prosecution of
| the war. (Applause.) Parker, and Child,
and Abbott may tell you the president does
not regard this of any just importance, but the
president has deemed it so important that he
| instructed Mr.. Seward to fOreShadow to all
Europe his forthcoming thunderbolt Of war.
| Says Mr.. Seward to France, writing on the
day on which the proclamation was issued =
In the opinion of the president, the moment has
come place the great fact clearly before the
people of the rebel states, and to make them under
stand that if these states persist i'll imposing upon the
country the choice between the dissolution of this
government and the abolition of slavery, it is the
CniOn and not slavery that must be maintained and
saved, With this object the president is about to
| publish proclamation, in which he announces that
slavery will no longer be recognized in any of the
states which shall be in rebellion ON the first of Jam
| uary next
The president has seen that the institution
of slavery has been to the enemy the very en-
| trenchmcnt Of his strength, and he proposes
now to treat it in accordance with military
law, usage, and necessity. In war, alter
giving notice, you send;-do you not?-the
shower of your shells upon compacted cities,
and the beauties of taste and refinement,
which group the pride of the present with the
traditions Of the past, disappear like dream
after night of horrors; witness the march
of your own army in Mexico; her gilded tenn
Piles, her golden crosses, her bishops palaces,
counted as nothing under the necessities of
war. And history records it with her apprO-
val, because these things stood in the way of
our advancing legions and sheltered the enc
my. In like manner the president has now
given his notice,-and every voice of nation
ality, and every agony Of this bleeding peO-
pie, join with him in his edict, that because it
is a military impeachment and because it is
bulwark to the rebellion, this Bastile OF hui
mainly and civilization, this prson-house of
the creatures of God, just SO far as it stands
| in the way must fall before the Union arms.
| (GTeat applause.)
The enemy have the destiny of their south
at their own option. The terms of peace are
before them. The proclamation places in
| their hands the only honorable basis of adj
justment,-the constitution of the United
States, without addition and without abate-
ment. If before January they shall desire
peace, they have only to lay down their arms,
reScind their ordinances, and return to their
allegiance, and be content with the consttu-
| ton as it is and with the Union as it was I'M
| dor Wa SbinUtpr1 onA would H. uDIar 7
! (Applause.) But if they reject the alterna-
tive, behold a new south looms up in the hori-
zon of human hope. cloud applause.) With
the destruction of slavery in any locality of
the south, the white man who has hitherto been
enSlaved and impressed into the war by the
surrounding and overshadowing aristocracy,
will himself be enfranchised, enriched, and
ennobled. (Applause) The hearts of thou
sands Of such treemen within the sound of
our arms or within the hope OF their approach,
from New Orleans to Richmond, will every
| where kindle with enthusiasm against the
| SelfishneSs and tyranny of the rebellion; a
new and true life for the south will bloom
from the ashes of slavery. (Great applause.)
| A peaceful and enduring union, of free men
! and free labor, in the north and in the s,uth,
| will embalm the memory Of the twenty-sec-
| ond day of September 1862, with the name
Of him who gave it as a holiday to all the gen.
erations Of his countrymen. tremendous
applapse.)
And now think l see Il man peering out
from the shades Faneul Hall, his face CORFU
gated with doubts about the constitutonality
Of the presidents message-and the same man,
the very next day, rising among the benches
OF the democratic convention at Worcester,
and openly pronouncing it unconstitutun.
WE'LL what is there about this war that is con-
! Stitt, al Il,
paradox. The rebellion itself is a stu
pendous anomaly, and the epoch which it
marks in history is .trangely, sublime
ly exceptional. This is not trial at
common law under the constitution; it is
war, outside of and beyond the constitutional.
This is not riot or an outbreak il is con-
tilct for unity and nationality, underlying and
outlying the constitution, and the beligerent
rights Of the world and the necessities of war
are the only rule Of action. (Applause.) All
this ground of argument in hostility to the
government and its measures, whether openly
expressed or half expressed, whether in Ohio,
or New York, or Massachusetts, was traversed
in the same manner, only with more graceful
and studied step, by Mr.. Breckenridge, in his
addresses against the military conduct of the
president, utteredin the senate of the United
States just before he relinquished his senate
rial robes to take up arms against his country
There was but one answer then, and there is
but one now; it is the argument of military
necessity, OF ship on the eve of going down
at sea, Of nation struggling for life. And
yet he knew then, as these men who repeat
him know now, that Mr.. Jefferson said long
ago, that occasions would sometimes arise
when the forms of the constitution must Weld
to necessity for its life. They knew then, they
know now, that the great teacher and master of
conservatism, Mr.. Burke, asserts with his sual
clearness and solemnity "'lhere are occasions
OF public necessity, SO vast, so clear, so evil
dent, that they supersede all laws" Law
says Mr. Burke, being only made for the
benefit of the community, cannot in any one
of its parts resist a demand which may COM
prehend the total of the public interests
He knew and they know, that older than JEFF
terson, older than Burke, is the Roman trusnl
the empire of Caesar conld have lasted thirty
days-that The sGtety Of the republic as the SUI
prenle lar. (Applause.) Oh, my friends, in
this hour of peril there is one thing that is
unconstitutional: a mind that gives to the en-
envy the benefit of its crOtchets; a heart, which
protessingto beat within constitutional limits,
would sacrifice the liberties of the country.
That Is unconstitutional. (CheerS)
This great measure of war policy sets us
right with all mankind in this conflict. 1t will
be felt within imperial circles in France. 1t
will awaken the thoughtful elementary Ger
man mind to just appreciation of our case.
Where before we had in Russia an ally, this
will give us friend. The soul of England
alas. rqdDppd from tho nronort;nne 81