Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1864-01-27
THE OPPOSITION AND SLAVERY.

pray for deliverance from this curse, there
is a sneaking party in the North who would
force us to keep the curse with us. 1t Is
indeed astonishing that men IN the North,
who never saw slave, ana who have not
dollars worth of interest in the institution,
are so much more concerned for the fate OF
Slavery than they in whose social system 1t
had closely interviewer itself, and who had
property in it to the extent OF hundreds OF
| millions.
The chief stimulous of the opposition par
tv of the North against the Administration
is its Anti-Slavery war policy 1t is the
! Emancipation Proclamation, aud the other
measures connected with it, that form their
great grievance They pretend that these
acts Of President LINCOLN are the great
! barriers to the speedy termination Of the war,
and peaceable restoration of the Union
| They insist upon this though they are con-
stantly confronted with new manifestations of
directly the opposite feeling upon the part
Of the resurgent Unionisn OF the South.
/ Hardly day easpses that we do not get
/ tidingS Of new accessions to the Union cause
! in some part of the South within our lines
/ But there has been hardly single instance
of a Southern man Of any character. thus
/ converted. who has borne testimony that
the Anti-Slayery acts Of the Administration
are standing IN the way of the restoration of
the Union. On the other hand. they all
/ bear witness that Slavery is the greatest of
all barriers to any such restoration, and they
4 are the most impatient Of all men for It's
/ the Cincinnati people: You would think,
! II you visited US, that the seat of Abolition
! ism had been transferred from New-Eng-
! land to Arkansas, The whole develop
ment of t'nionism everywhere tends to just
| that farm.
/ Now, We should ike to see this accounted
! for on any theory consistant with the asser-
! ton Of the eAnti-Administration party of the
North that President LINCOLN's policy to-
ward Slavery has been bad policy for the
! Union. Are not these Union men of the
/ South better acquainted, than they, with
the Southern disposition
/ Having lived in the midst of the rebellion
for months, and many of them. in fact, al
most up to the present time, can it be said
that they don understand, as well as those
! i've hundred or Thousand miles away.
| where It's vulnerable point lies, and what
! the best way TO reach it? Orare these men
! hypocrites?. Do they pretend to be Union
men when in fact they are not? And do
/ they thus advocate the EXTREMIST Anti-Siave-
| ~ policy, not as they say because 1t Is best
! calculated to restore the Union, but surest
| Of all methods to make an end of forever
!
/ the country hate the rebellion so intensely,
or have 50 great reason to hate it. 1t has
( subjected them to losses and to sufferings
/ immeasurahly beyond anything known here
! In the North. Their love for the Union is
| not, aS with Us, d mere sentiment 1t Is a
passion fiercely infamed by a sense Of per
sonal wrong
But those Southern men who declare at
| once for the Union and for the annihiation
! Of Slavery, are in no respect of different
mold from Southern men generally. There
Is no earthly reason why they should identi-
F.! fy restoration and emancipation, and not
others, wherever those Others are brought
| within the protection Of cur advancing ar
mics. In fact. the causes which have pro
duced this, will only work with ali the grea-
ter energy IN the States yet to be recovered.
The reaction against the rebellion VIII be all
! the greater the longer and harder the rebel
hon is pressed. If the sufferiDgs inflicted
10y the rebellion in Tennessee, Louisiana and
| Arkansas nave wrought there such hostility
to slavery its cause, the sufferings in Miss
issippi Alabama and Georgia, far more
prolonged and therefore far severer, must
/ generate d still intenser hatred OF it in these
States Our Northern Conservatives. . as
they style themselves, will find that the
interval between them and the Southern
Unionists viii be continually growing wider
as territory is redeemed from the 'Confeder-
acy. A They will fiud that they will have to
change their ground IN spite of themselves,
or else become the laughing-stock of the
world-stickling for what they call Southern
Pro-Slavery rights in the Union. when the
prime concern OF every Union man in the
South will be to get clear of Slavery as
an unmtlgated curse, and an object of 'inde-
scribable lothing.
The truth IS that this concern of the Anti
Administration party of the North for Sia-
very comes mainly from old political prediu-
dIceS IN favor of the institution, with little or
no regard for the vast changes wrought by
the war Ii was their doctrine once that the
safety of the Union lay in religious care for
the interests Of Slavery, and an unquestion-
ing compliance with all of its demands and
they bindly cherish the idea that there can
be no true Unionism now which does not
have a similar spirit Their zone idea Is
that TO bolster up Slavery is to bolster up
this Union, and that the two are inseparable.
Whatever room there might once have been
for this belief. it Is now absurd The rebel
lion has wrought a complete change of rela-
tons, and there Is no applicability OF old ide-
as 10 the new order of things The very
policy, in respect to Slavery, which once
might have been the most conservative OF
the Union, Is now the most hostile to it.
i.Southeln Unionists understand this fact,
and merely accommodate themselves to it.
: 1t is high time that the Anti-Administra-
ton men of the North, who still call them
selves Unionists, should begin to learn of
them.
4 most exciting scene is said to have ta-
ken place In the French Senate a short time
since on the discussion upon the address to
+l E,,na-or Tho Marc,,ic do RoiSS,,