New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1864-08-17
" CONSERVATIVES" WAR POLICY


protest that they will never give up the Union,
vet in the same breath profess hostility to the
war now waged in its defense excited, they
would probably say, by the kind Of war thus
waged. They want conservative, concilia-
ting, easy going war, wherein all the private
property Of Rebels, but especially their property
in slaves, shall be satisfactorily respected
wherein we shall hit them as five loved them,
and bring them by solid knocks to realizing
sense of the folly and wickedness of their revolt,
and 30 to glad return into the bosom of the
Union. To the sincere apostles Of this faith,
we beg leave to commend the following consi-
derations
You are proposing nothing new We had
Just such War as you propoSe-so far as
human infrmity would permt-for the twenty
months succeedngthe bombardment Of Sumter.
Gen. Scott. Gen. Mcclellan, Gen. Patterson,
and Gen. Sherman were, each in his sphere, a
disciple of your school, and so proclaimed them
selves and were recognized. Everything that
could be was done in their day to coax and cod.
die the shareholders and their white satellites
into acquiescence in restored Union. To this
end, slaves, escaping from Rebel masters to our
lines, sometimes bringing important intelli-
gence, were surrendered to those masters ven.
geance Proclamation after proclamation was
issued, surcharged with devotion to Slavery and
the Union Gen. Mcclellan declared that he
would "crush with an iron hand" any insur-
rection Of slaves. When Gen. Fremont de-
clared free the slaves of Rebels in his depart
ment, the President suppressed the order. So
with like order of Gen. Hunter in the Depart
ment Of the South. General Halleck ordered
our lines to be closed against every negro fee
ing to our camps. General Sherman tried to
proclaim his devotion TO Slavery to the South
Carolinans, but could coax none of them to
receive his proclamation. In short, nothing
was left undone that could be done to assure
the Slave Power that its only safety was to be
found under the protecting @gis of the Union.
And all in vain. Not a jot of this salt would
lie on the tail of the shy Bird Slavery. Its in
stincts could not be thus cheated 1t kncw--nO
matter if its foes did not-that the Rebellion
and Slavery were connected as root and tree,
plant and flower. The Union might shut its
eyes to this Slavery could not. Our armies
might shoot or stab, hang or drown, every negro
taking refuge within our lines; but the masters
knew that, if we were not Abolitionists, we
ought to be, and would hare to be if we at
tempted in earnest to put down the Rebellion.
And 80 we 'toiled all night and caught nothing.
The Rebels did not even thank us for repelling
their runaways from our lines.
1t was while we were doing large stroke Of
this negro-catching business that were beaten
off from Richmond to the James, and hurled
back from Cedar Mountain to the defenses Of
Washington while the army of Buell. Gan in.
tense slave-hunter and hater) was cut off by
regiments and brigades, and finally compelled
to retrogade from Huntsville to the Ohio.
Considering the immense p.eponderance OF our
armies at the outset, our campaigns of 1862 were
by far more discreditable and disastrous than
those of any other year of the war.
Emancipation was threatened on the god of
September, 1862, but was not initiated till Janu-
ary lst, 1868. We had thus two nearly full
years Of the War for the Union under oonserva.
tive leaders and a conservative policy. If the
Rebels had been willing " return " the