The Union. [volume] (Georgetown, Del.) 1863-1866, 1864-03-04

d
cradle. The proclamation q sthe President
to deprive the enemy this greatesteIement
Of power, this sinew aof war exerted at all
points, has announced the extinction Of slave
~ as'essential to the success Of the measures
he has. been compelled TO sdoptse conquer a
peaceAfof the Union. The armies Of the Re-
public are on the march to accomplish the
aims which have been submitted without re-
serve 70 the decision Of public.opiniop, and
they hare tho support Of the people's suffrage.
What. then. is the duty of ali who are sensi-
sible that the war is an inevitable evil, from
which there is no safe or honorable deliver
ance but by supporting with united strength
and counsels the Chief Magistrate, to whose
conduct the issueis committed, and in whose
ayowed designs the nation has voted its con-
fidencef Are there any who would rescind
the votes Of the Border States and re-establish
slavery thereini Are there any who would
annul the proclamation, to reinyigorate sne
institution so skillfully piled to inssigate the
war, and so essential TO provide the means
for its prosecution
The Democratic party Of the North was Sc.
aaced to countenance tho measures of the
Southern oligarehs preparatory to the wal
against the Union, under the idea that they
were designed as mere menace, and were
really conservative. The event has shewn
that the whole policy Of the dominant class ir
the South has been war for absolute dominion
in the Slave Statesman to extend the des
putic system en- which it built at home
and abroad. Is this the conservatism tC
which Democracy anywhere should lend it
self Bulwer, though a Tory, has this APP
horism in one of his late papers; "a true
conservative policy for nation is the policy
Of progress" and he gives his conservative
friends the admonition that resistance tc
progress is destructive to conservatism. -
The Democracy was in its better day pro
grsssiEe party. Would it not be an advance
backward to restore the slave institution to
the position it has lost in being used during
the greater partof a century, covertly at first,
but now in open rebellion, to destroy the free
Government by which it had been tolerated
only in the hope it would have been gradual
ly thrown off under the influence OF public
sentimentf
When the masters of millions of slaves have
boldly proclaimed slavery the best basis of
government, and founded on it the military
despotism they have set up within the juris-
dictioh of the United States, with the avowed
purpose of superseding its authority, what
friend of the Union, what friend of free gov
ernment can hesitate to strike down that sys-
tenn which endangers both? The plea that
slavery is a local institution, not to be dealt
with by Federal authority, was universally
admitted to be true till that institution
engendered q rebellion which, by an ad.
mission equally universal, seriously imper.
Ills the existencE Of the National Govern.
ment. 1t could not be called Govern.
-ment if, in virtue of the right of selfdefence
common alike to Governments and individu.
ais, under such circumstances it could moi
destroy its enemies,
It is absurd to consider the war now raging
| 40 OhO iHShuL W uTdW u llut DetW6en cUler-
minous nationalities. 1t is war in the
bosom of one nationality, of people of the
same race and language, on an arena bound
ed by the lakes, the ocean, the Gull, and the
great tributary streams that unite and insu-
late and mark it as the domain of one great
Government. 1t is war for principal and
for dominion. If the dynasty founded on the
slave system triumps, it will give law to the
continent. If it fails, as fail it must, unless
the tendency of the age becomes inverted
there is an end of slavery among civilized ma
tons. What humiliating contrast is pre-
sented for the new world in the attempt of
Jefferson Davis and his coadjutor rebels
striving to fetter their poorer and more igno-
rant iellow-citizens in the chains of their four
millions of negro-slayes, while the Autocrai
of the Russian proclaims the freedom of forty
millions of serfs, delivering them from til,
yoke of naughty nobility and his own RICH
Of seigniory. and established them as free
holders FROM Postmaster General Blair
address to tie Maryland Legislature.
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| n 49,