The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1862-11-15
From the Continental Monthly.
AURORA.

Great events are developed by nearness.
ITO day." says Emerson, "is king in dis
guise." Probably half the soldiers Of Con-
stsntine's army regarded their leaders, ad
option Of the Cross as his sign Of hope and
triumph as of small account. Their pay
and rations, their weapons, their officers,
were the same ~ before the enemy before
them, their duty to beat him, were unchang
ed. What avaied symbol more or less on
the imperial bsnnere Even admit that it
indicated the enperor's personal rejection OF
the old and adoption Of the newer faith,
what of that? Would not everybody else
abide by the religion Of his own choice,
whatever that might be? Away, then,
with all theological babble, which plain peo-
pie can never one half understand Rome
and the emperor for ever! Yet in that des-
pissed symbol, announcing that the Empire
had become the protector instead Of the pcr-
secutor of the Christian faith, was the germ
Of greater transformation than w as
wrought by the Deluse.
The Proclamation Of Freedom by Pres-
dent Lincoln is doubtless open to criticism.
Why did he not declare all slaves emancipa-
ted? Why not make such legal manumis-
sion operative al once? Why intimate that
certain States should for might be excepted
from its operation? Why not declare the
slaves liberated because of the essential, in
evitable wrong Of holding them in bondage?
Why not appeal to God for blessing on the
cause henceforward irseparably identified
with that of Right and Liberty !? Such
questions may be multiplied indefinitely;
but to what end? What matters that the
Proclamation might or should be different,
since We have had practical concern only
With the Proclamation as it is?
For more than lifetime, slavery has
been accepted aud regarded as national in
stitution. The American in Europe was
''perplsxed in the extreme" by the question
ings and criticisms of humane, intelligent
observers, who could not comprehend how q
country should contain Four Millions of
slaves by the official census, yet not be .
slave holding country. With our capital
slavsholding city; with our fortresses in
good part constructed by the labor of slaves;
with our flag the chief shelter of the African
Slave Trade, and our statute book disgraced
by the most arbitrary and inhuman Fugi-
tive Slave Law ever devised, it was nice
operation to prove this no slaveholding coun
try, but only one wherein certain citizens,
by virtue Of local laws, over which We had
no control, were permitted to hold Blacks in
slavery. And, when It is notorious that the
Active partisans of slavery filled every Fed
eral Office, even in the nominally free States
and excluded vigorously from Office every
opponent Of the balelul system, it is certain
chat the shrug of the polite Fren:hman who
listened to our demo onstration that ours, after
oil, was not slsveholding country, was an
indication ofcomplaisance rather than Of con-
viction. To prove this nothing Of toe sort,
while Brazil was placed at the head Of mod
srn slavsholding countries, was to over-tax
the resources of human sophistry.
The Proclamation is An immspse fact II
II were no more than recognition from tho
highest quarter of the deadly an'agonism be-
tween slavery and the Union, it would have
inexhaustible significance. The American
republic, bleeding at every pore while fight.
ing desperately for life. arraigns slavery as
her chief enemy and peril. The truth was
long since clear to every candid mind but
truth gains forcs by recognition. Thousands
realize . fact thus proclaimed. who have
hitherto Ignored and resisted it.
For thirty years, the charge Of disloyalty
has borre heavily on the American champ.
ion of Universal Liberty. True, as to q
very few, who could not obtain the assent of
their c,nsc ences to compacts which bound