The Alleghanian. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1859-1865, 1864-08-11
From the ~ T. Tribune.
To the sincere Friends of
Peace.


vation of Slavery and the triumph Of its
champions in the approaching Presiden-
tial contest. They want no Peace which
shall lay the rebellion and It's cause pros
trate at the feet of the Republic and its
constituted authorities. With these, we
nave no affinity with them, we do not
take counsel. But there are very many
others who desire Peace for its own sake
who are heart-sick of the waste and
carnage of War, and who are disposed to
welcome the return of Peace on almost
any terms These are told-without a
shadow of authority-that the Emancipa-
ton policy is the ouly obstacle to real
ization of their chief desire-that, If that
were given up, the Rebels would at once
lay down their arms and return to loyalty
and the Union. These representations
are swaying some minds and affecting
many. To all thus Influenced, We would
submit the following facts
I. Throughout the South, it was under
stood and agreed, prior to the outbreak OF
the Rebellion, that Slavery deliberately
staked ats orn eaistence on the struggle at
,cds provoking. We doubt whether an
anti-Secession speech was made in any
Slave State between 1850 and 1861 which
did not affirm or imply that the defeat of
the meditated Rebellion must involve the
downfall OF Slavery. This was the key of
the Union position-the chief argument
against Secession. Nor do we believe it
was seriously controverted. 1t was abun-
dantly argued that the North would not
fght-that Disunion would be peaceably
consummated-that slavery, in the Con-
federacy, would be stronger and safer than
in the Union-but rarely or never that
Slavery could fail in determined effort
to divide the country, yet retain its vital
jty and power. Such playing for high
stakes and pocket:ng them when you
have lost, is not the rule, even at the
South.
II. Emancipation is Peace. If. by
some visible act of God, the shackles
should fall tomorrow from the limbs of
every slave, the Rebellion would thence
forth be dead, and DHunion an impossi-
bility. Our armies might be withdrawn
yet the Union would promptly recon
stitute itself and be stronger and fixner
than ever, by virtue of an irresistible law
of political gravitation. All the devices
of the internal regions could not keep our
people at war or at variance six months
longer if Slavery were but dead.
III. On the other hand, S2dvery is Dis
union. Others may see how to make
loyal State out Of slaveholdiDg South
Carolina; we do not and cannot. How
are you to concilitae and reconstitute her
as State of our Union unless on the basis
of virtual admission that your War for
that Union has been utterly wropgI I'm
less you mean simply to put the loyal
States into the Couiederacy by engrafting
on our system al. of its antagonist that Is
peculiar and essential, how are you to make
South Carolina loyal slavehol6iDg State
Will the election of Mcclellan or Nelson
as President satisfy her? She might
have had this IN 1860 yet she deliberate
ly determined that she would not. SEe
broke up and defeated the Democratic
party expressly to be rid forever of. the
doughtace rule which had so nauseated
her. She did not doubt that she might
have prolonged it but that was just what
she did not want. You may lead her to
that nasty water again but how will you
make her drink Unless your Union
shall be substantially and practically the
Confederacy of her choice, how are you to
reconcile her to it !? just try to make a
hen set when she does not want to, before
you undertake to put slaveholding South
Carolina back into the Union as our faith
ers made it.
". Abolish ,Slare'y, and all is trans
formed. The handful of aristocrats who
have hitherto been South Carolina are
South Carolina no longer. New interests,
new hopes, new forces, at once come into
play. As Canning said that, in freeing
Spanish America, he had 'called into ex-
istence new world to redress the balance
of the Old SO you have, by that act,
called new South Carolina into being
A majority of her human inhabitants are
and long have been slaves--'dumb, driven
cattle devoid of power and of hope
Every one of these is Unionist by mex
orable necessity, provided the Union makes
him Free. Then the poor whites, hither-
to living by sufferance on the outskirts Of
great mems plantations, unschooled, indo-
leE., ragged, shiftless, miserable, because
Labor was degraded by Slavery, cease at
once to be serfs and become People. Ed
ucation, Industry, Hope, Ambition, will
so transform them that, ere three years
shall have elapsed, they will bless the
Upion-against which they mistakenly
fought-as the author of their new aud
higher life. But, while Slavery lasts,
they will be the mere satellites and echoes
of the shareholders.