The Soldiers' journal. (Rendezvous of Distribution, Va.) 1864-1865, 1864-03-09
Every Mans Duty.

"What is everybody's business is nobody's
business is saying which contains as much of
truth as is generally to be found in short SEN
tence. 1t is exemplifed daily in thousand diff
ferent ways but none more strikingly than the
spirit in which the question of slavery has been
met in the North.
Almost all agree that it is an evil, monstrous
evil, but one in which individually they have no
part, or lot, and which is possible concern of
theirs With supreme self-complacency they
shift the burden of responsibility upon other
shoulders, and think because they do not own a
slave, handle the whip, that, therefore, they
are free from the crime of the oppressor.
This is a great and fatal mistake The plea
might be urged with some show of propriety in
despotic country, governed by an absolute
authority of which the people constituted no
part. But here in a Republic, where freedom
and oppression, liberty and despotism, all that
we have of good or evil, spring alike from the
people, every man is responsible for the corrup-
tons and abuses which allowed to creep in,
and which having once obtained an entrance
are found exceedingly difficult to eradicate.
1t is this want of individual responsibility
which has perpetuated this barbarism, and al
lowed it to assume such gigantic dimensions, as
ultimately to undertake to overthrow the very
Government, under whose protection it has thriv
en-, and whose natural benignity is thus abused.
Like serpent which had grown up at the hearth
stone, it's first effort on reaching maturity was
to turn and sting the hand which had fed it,
1t is one of the sorriest aspects in which human
| nature presents itself, when men are SO willing
to shut their eyes to injustice which does not
touch their persons their interests; and to OPP
preston, under which only their neighbours wife
and family groan especially is this the case,
when they hold in their hands the power to check
the wrong, and to do away with the evil, by bear
ing witness against it, and assisting to create a
public sentiment which would not permit of it's
existence.
If our boastedliberty and equality are not emp
ty sounds, if our love of freedom is not boast,
if our protested willingness to allow all men a
share in our rights, and in the pursuit of happi-
ness, be not wicked lie then ought every man,
who rests beneath the shadow of these free skies,
to set his face resolutely against oppression in
every form, whether practiced against himself or
another. 1t will not do to selfshly and impious-
ly ask am my brothers keeper for the an
swer will be to come sooner later, in
thunder tones You are responsible for your
brothers oppression.
1t self-interest which closed the eyes of
the North and South against the crime of slavery,
and bitterly are they being punished for it. The
South by the loss of all that slavery and slave
labor have accumulated; the North, by the drai-
ming out of it's best blood and treasure, more by
far than it could have acquired from centuries
of cotton crops. The cost will not, however have
been too great if we learn thoroughly at last, the
great lesson of our individual responsibility for
wrongs done to our ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ~
Illustrated NeVs