The Portland daily press., 1862-11-04
From the Boston Evening Gazette.
The ProyOcation and the Issue.

know that the Southern ehivalry then in pow
er scattered the navy upon every ocean, and
sent the bulk of our army to New Mexico.
They robbed the North of arms to ill the ar
sepals of the South. They fattened by the
orossest frauds upon the Treasury, and they
organized band Of conspirators, known as
the Knights of the Golden Circle, whose duty
il was to lead the lower classes in the south
ern cities step by step, by secret and at
tractive formalities, to join their conspiracy,
and they even sent their emissaries to the
North, hoping that brilliant promises would
decoy the unwary into their meshes. They
formed the band which undertook the assas-
sination OF the President, believeing, this
accomplished, they could hold Baltimore
and prevent reinforcements passing through,
that the traitors in Washington could then
carry out with impunity their scheme Of seiz-
ing the capital. They did not relnquish their
hopes of perfecting this programme till the
North poured its thousands into Washington
to attend the Inauguration. We know, on the
other hand, how lenient we have been, what
caution our President has exercised, and how
he has resisted the appeals of the ultras, seek
ing every means to avoid touching the pecu-
liar institation, carrying on the war with al
most velvet hand meeting their atrocity and
barbarity with persuasive appeals to respect
the Union founded BY their fathers,-we know
all this, and we know that he has been driven
by the rebels TO strike at the institution, which
is the very marrow of rebellion. And, having
been forced to adopt this extreme measure, we
are met by the cry that it is not constitutional
to deprive these high-toned chivalrous rebels
of an institution which is their tower of
strength. The necessity of war makes it con-
stitutional, the demands of civilization make
1t constitutional, and the claims of humanity
make it constitutional to adopt the speediest
and surest means to crush out the rebellion
Ths President asks the people to sustain him,
he is before the nation as its rightful head, and
he points to the millions who stand on slavery
as their basis, in arms against the General
Government. He knows their vulnerable point,
and yet we must pour out our blood, squander
the means of the North on winter campaigns,
and waste our strength and manhood by en-
countering the malaria Of Southern swamps,
because it is unjust 10 strike at their peculiar
institution. Did they hesitate to rob the North
of its arms? Did they consult any law when
they attacked Fort Sumter? Did they act
constitutionally when they plotted against the
Presidents life? Did they have any regard
for our rights as m .mbers of great confed-
eracy when they drove the Northerners from
;,.t
was a simple love for the old flag and re-
spect for the constitution? We must deal with
these men as we find them, and it is evident
now, all other means having failed, that the
only way to meet them is to strike at the
heart and origin of the war.
The President, after eighteen months of
thoughtful attention, has issued his proclama-
ton of emancipation. 1t will give dignity to
labor and forever eradicate from the Southern
character that assumption or superiority which
has so long been instilled into their blood that
they regard the North as peopled by an infe-
rior race. 1t will raise the poor white man at
the South to a sense of the degradation which
he has been subjected to by the power
which the slave owners have so long exerted.
twill throwopen to emigrants from all nations,
millions upon millions of acres which have
never been cultivated by yintelligentlabor, and
which will yield rich harvests to that race of
men who are willing to gain their bread by the
sweat of their brow, and will weaken at
once that confidence the South feels in its own
resources, when they know that as our armies
advance they will lose forever not only that
army of two million and a half of slaves, which
Gen. Halleck computes are practically assist
ing in this rebellion, their labor producing sup
plies, but all who are held in bondage will be
forever free. Their dreams ofa confederacy,
where the many should labor for the few, viii
become mere dreams OF delusion.
If 1t fails to accomplish any of these things,
III it leaves the South blghted waste
who is to blame? We are fighting to-day for
the Union. Should the South succeed, we
shall be called upon to fight for existence. The
free institutions and progressive spirit of the
North are not congenial elements south of the
Potomac. Two confederacies, based on
slavery, ignorance and assumption, and the
other on freedom, intelligence and progress
uOt 10 speak ol COinmtICiSi uiiuCuitics WHICH
must inevitably arise,-cannot exist without
some dividing line more than river or a range
of mountains; and, as the rebel leaders offer
us no MISUNDERSTANDING their right to Sc
cede and asking a recognition of their claims,
we cannot see that we have any other course
to pursue but to accept the issue they so per-
sistently present Has there been any glim-
mer of yielding? In their darkest hours
the weeks which followed the fall of Fort Dom
eson-has any one detected any shadow of
wish to conciliate? There are politicians at
the North who assume that some plan might
be adopted, some compromise suggested, which
would induce the rebels to lay down their arms.
They are politicians who have ends to accom-
plish, and thus pretend to think that by some
as yet unexplained hocus-pocus political wire
pullingth they shall beable to bring about peace;
and they seek to gull the people into the be-
lief that under new regime, with new men
on the carpet, all this could be accomplished
They have had from the commencement, as
Parson Brownlow recently said, conscientious
scruples on the subject of fighting in this un-
constitutional war! They regard it as an Ab-
clifton war, and SO speak of it. In word, they
are on the side of the South, and show it in AL
they say and do" A moments reflection will
expose the designs of these men. They have
no love for the men of to-day who have crowd