The Hillsdale standard. [volume] (Hillsdale, Mich.) 1851-1909, 1864-01-05

TO THE PATRONS OF THE HILLsDALEsrAxDAR

Bnthcly trips thc Ourflcr hOyf p"
Bearing to yoH words Of cheer;
Pleased If all in peace and joy
Welcome in the glad New Year.
Welcome, Eighteen Sixty Four
Freighted with our hopes and fears.
Heavier with the work Of years
Than hundred gone before. r
Born amid the battle strife,
Where traitors seek the nations life;
Strong shall be his gfoWing hours
To crush the vile secession powers
As when of old, the Prince of He'll
Rroke up the ancient peace of Heaven;
And gloried when whole squaarons fell,
Into the pit perdtion driven;
So do these rebel leaders, rich
In all that loves and makes lie,
Go backward, boasting, to the "ditch"
Where they are destined soon t9 die;
And where the stencil of their vile flesh
Win rise to Heaven, all future time,
A warning to all proud ''seceshp
In every land and every cline
When the rebellion is to found
nation upon human Vropg-
Where man for aught but crime is bound
That God is just, and will ere long
Bear Human right on topmost wave.
Gods system does not own a slave.
And though His justice seem delayed;
When mans redressing hand is stayed
Like stagnant air in Simmer time,
The very quiet breeds the cure
And Gods red lightning bolt is sure
Thus, oh! my Couniryl in thy guilt
Forgetting Him whose blood was split
For man and not for ''phife' alone;
You suffered toiling man to groan
Meath wrongs my pen might blush to write
And all his crime, he ,gas not ,chite,
No healing breeze the nations air
Was neutrality-suspicious.,
Except New England-which, we were told,
Must soon be left out in the coldD
Our Constitution read for "whiten
We even went so far as quite
To guarantee unto the ,crong
That slacery is perpetual right,
BY State enactment sure and strongl
And bind it with thrice doubled thong
Upon the nations very life;
If traitors would forego their strife,
And leave us in our quiet plane,
TO buy and sell and lay gp gaini
And thus we almost slept beneath
The shade where sleepers wake in deathi
Aroused at last, we see the right
And seek 1t with a nationls might.
The noble Proclamation reignsl
Aud it shall wash away our stains.
Slavery must die!-that giant wrong!-
That essence of all vilanes!---
Heaven has heard its victims cries.
The bonds must loose, however strong
God iolus now: and who shall say
To Him, on this His footstool, nay!
breailes there a soul so lost to all
That makes us human since the fall,
That he shall shed tear or sigh,
To see the demon slavery die?
Great God lives there q man so lost
To all the holy hopes of Heavea
He can forget the precious cost
For which ge all might be forgiven
Which bought for men of every grade
Free homes, with none to make afraid
Who would still longer have down crushed
Poor Afric's sons into the dust?
Slavery essayed to take the nations life;
And slavery now must perish in the strife!
Whate'er the Negroes social standing be;
TO save the nation, he must now be free!
Freedom and Union" Is now calling forth
The hardy freemen ofthe giant North.
From bleak New Hampshire's granite hills;
From pine-clad Maine, her sturdy wills;
From all New Englands shops and mills;
FROM Empire State; from Keystone plains
From Buckeye farms, and Sucker claims;
From Michigan to Oregon,
Our gallant sons are hurrying on
To crush the traitor in his den,
and bind the Union arch again!
The work is nobly going on,
With Gettysburg and Yickgburg won:
Port Hudson, Knoxville, Little Rock;
And Bragg demolished by the shock,
When Grant looked out upon his camli
Ilooke. and Sherman on the tramp!
Old Ben Butler teaching manners
ln the presence of our banners!
Gilmore raining his Greek fires
On proud Charlcston's blocks and spres
With Banks in Texas, marching on!"
And Meade-''protecting Washington"
And Lincoln; pitted some, tits iFue,
Wen 'pit" against the whole vile crew
OF copperheads, the nation through!
Impervious to each fresh attack,
9hcy find him quite too hard to crackl
And Chase, the sinew of the war,
Still stands mong fnanciers peer!
But while we watch the strife afar,
The crowning victories of the year
Were won without the sword and spear.
Strange as it seems, all through the land
There was a sneakng traitor band,
Who joined in sympathy the hand
Of Southern treasQn--oer whose souls
The blood of our dead soldiers rolls!
Whose words of cheer to traitor chiefs,
Prolonged the war with all its griefs;
And brought to many Northern cot
The word. that one beloved was not!
They hated Lincoln:--everythipg
That patriot did was sure to bring
Anathemas from these vile men
Few were deceived by them and when
These ''dcInocrats,p with "FiHdin- ham,
Made issue with the loyal men,
The traitors were, like Morgan, routedl
And their leaders scorned and secuted.
Yet watchers are, with hope aud will,
To help their friend, JEFF Davis, still!
And now through every loyal State,
The people truly, nobly great, lJr
Rallied around the government
And Copperheads were quickly sent
Into their dcns; and toothlcss quite.
They only blss, and cannot bite!
They only live to feel our scorn,
And that of thousands yet unborn!
Forgetting now the nations strife,
We turn unto our own kop.e life.
Our wives, and sons and daughters, arc
The best and fairest anywhere
With pride we look our town around
And note the improvements Of the year,
In blocks and dwellings We abound;- a.
And when our friends shall now appear,
H. the Standard Building we are found.
And where the Standard, tried and true,
Shall weekly make its bow to YOU,
Devoted to our loved Union
And down on traitors, epery one;
Whether of Free Press midnight type:
Called by the leaders "democratc'"'
Or Of John Morgan daylight stripe,
With thieving, murderous raids crratic.
The Standard shall still advocate
The truest interests of the State; y. f.ielt
And over all our hills and daies, '... n
Our streams, and lakes, and interyalcs.