Cedar Falls gazette. [volume] (Cedar Falls, Iowa) 1860-1895, 1863-01-16
BORDER STATE OPINION.

AN IMPORTANT AND SENSIBLE EXPRESSION.
From the Baltimore American, Jams
PRESIDENTS EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION
The Presidents emancipation proclama.
ton; formidable at the first glance, as such
most formidable rebellion the world ever
seen, will hardly be regarded by the enlight-
ened world, as having Of itself, doomed slav-
cry. TO the casual observer abroad, to him
who is in the habit of dcferrng to the formal
DEGREES of great governments, it will doubtless
appear--backcd by military preparation-as
that final and earnest thrust which is destin.
ed to give the coup de grace to an institution
which has made the principal pretext for an
attempted revolution to acquire political
power. And if the three hundred and fifty
thousand shareholders in the South We're
willing, a majority ofthcm, to allow slavery to
ostensible cause of the present revolt, as the
tariff was the assumed preteXt for a contem
plated one in the time of President jackson,
and ifbetwixt the forces thus set in motion
by them, slavery is ground in pieces and
destroyed, whom have they to blame bat
themselves, and how can they expect sympa-
thy from the great world of humanity whose
whole future interest in the cause of free gov
eminent has been SO sadly and critically
compromised by their INSCRIPTIONS wicked
ness 1t is everything to the friends of the
Union, now, that if any mystery, in the first
instance, enveloped the causes which have
brought us to our present position, there is
no difficulty at present in fixing the respon-
sibility precisely where it belongs. Slavery
wanted more territory, wanted expansion,
dominion, p0,cer-wanted what, in the very
nature of the case and in the progress of the
age, it could not get The territory it had
already by the terms of the Constitution, and
under the sheltering care Of the Union, which
defended it, it could not occupy; and yet,
driven by mad visions Of a great future, i'm
PEELED forward by wild ambition, it was de-
| termined, under the lead of the slavery tran
scendentalists Of South Carolina, to build for
itself, in the language of one of the most
prominent of them, Z" A government they
could call their own and extending their en-
pire across this continent to the Pacific, and
down through Mexico to the other side of
the Great Gulf, and over the isles of the sea"
they were to establish an EMPIRE" based
upon slavery, "never equalled or surpassed"
Such was the dream OF r. Barnwel Rhett,
as revealed 70 his admiring followers before
the conflict was fairly inaugurated. ...
But even in South Carolina they were not
all dreamers after the fashion above shown
We have had occasion hitherto, to refer to
the views of one Of the leading spirits of
South Carolina in the past, the Hon. Mr.
BOyce, a man nOw-lf we mistake not
holding the position of General in the rebel
ranks and when the inquiry Is made in t G
light Of present events, as to how far the
Presidents emancipation proclamation will
be responsible for the doom Of slavery, the
language of Mr.. Boyce may be quoted with
profit as uttered in the projected crisis OF
1851. After giving his reasons in length,
why secession should not be resorted to us a
remedy for asserted evils, he said 81 object
in as strong terms as can, to the secession
of South Carolina. Such is the intensity of
my conviction upon the subject that is seces-
sion should take plsce-of which l have no
idea-.for l cannot believe in the existence
of such a stupendous Madness shall con-
slider the institution of slavery as doomed,
and that the great God in our blindness, has
made us the instrument Of its destruction"
Are not these significant words, considered
in the light of to.days has not slavery been
slain in the hou g of its friends p
! We have taken the ground all along that
no Presidential proclamation, no paper decree
emanating from the Government. was needed
to fix the fate Of slavery. The first gun fred
at Fort Sumter, the jubilant bells of Charles
ton which announced the more than willing
conflict began by the South, pealcd the knell
of slavery and if the proclamation has been
put forth in the presumed interests of "mii-
tary necessity" it is little more than reading
! the buaial service over an institution all rec
ognize as nevermore vital on this continent
Audaciously challenging nation in arms,
it has met with a resistance of which it seems
not to have dreamed and, compelled to sue
cumb, it falls with grim detianc. stamped on
every feature; it perishes in the vain attempt
to make good boast of one of its champions,
when speaking Of South Carolina, its special
representative, and the originator Of these