Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1864-10-26
C,.,,,. Of Fanaticism.

Dur,ng the summer previous to the pro-
muleation of the emancipation proclama-
ton, the radical Abolltionists, now the most
blatant advocates of perpetual war, de-
clared and persisted in maintaining that all
our military efforts were failures, and that
the South could never be subdued until
slavery was abolished. The negroes, the
Abolltionists held, were the backbone OF
the rebellion; abolish slavery and the YER
zebra was instantly fractured and the re-
bellion ended. by persisting in this doc
trine with the tcnacity which has for thirty
years characterized the pestiferous and rest
less demagogues of Abolitionisai, they
wrought upon the weak and vacillating
President, and persuaded him to violate MS
official oath and scores of pledges, and ne
issued the proclamation. The consequences
resulting from this fatal and useless meas
ure are a part of history. Gov. ANDREWS
thousands OF New Englanders, with the
cautiousness of their race, positively re-
fused to "swarm the roads to Washing
ton in response to the Presidents CALL"
and GREELEY's nine hundred thousand
inspired warriors have not yet been heard
from. The President once said that 100000
colored men had been added to the army by
that proclamation; and he might have added
with more accuracy that twice that num-
Der of white men were added to the rebel
armies by the same measure. To show
what real service these 100000 negroes have
performed, we refer to Gen. SHERMAN. The
record of their triumphs, executed in the
lying budgets of STANTON and the bogus
bulletins of BUTLER, is the only equivalent
we have received for their enormous cost.
But has the Abolition prophecy of the
speedy reduction of the rebellion been re-
allied? Are not the ligaments of its ver-
zebra as hard and unbending as ever?
The bitter fruits of this suicidal and fan
atical measure are being brought home, not
SO much to those who insisted upon Its
adoption, but upon our own soldiers, thirty
five thousand of whom are now literally
rotting in Southern prisons, because our
hard-headed Pr; sident and his hard-hearted
advisers dogmatically persist in the error
into which they blundered and were driv-
en-. This Administration is in many re-
speets like the BoURBoNs, but in no one
more than in learning nothing and forget
ting nothing. To free the Union prisoners in
the South would be the first duty and the
first work of any civilized government,
either by diplomacy or force; but this Ad-
ministration refuses to exercise either
Those prisoners, covered with honorable
scars and still carrying with them their
love for the old flag, which can no longer
protect them, stagger about the bull pens
of the South, devoured by vermin and
disease, perish by hundreds of hunger and
despair; and where the physical strength
holds out, the mind gives way under its
load of misery, and they wander like
skeletons about their prisons in hopeless
idiocy. Yet the Administration response
BILE for such indescribable horrors, boldly
shoulders the load of infamy which would
crush a continent and comes before the
people asking the support of the relatives
and friends of these unhappy prisoners, on
the ground of its humane policy and phil
anthropic intentions, and in order that its
arms may be strengthened to perpetrate
such diabolsm and folly through another
term of four years. H.s.r..