The Portage County Democrat. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1864-02-10

+
5se Let US take, counsel from tho wisdom; q
= our fathers. It Is psobabia that those me
who confscated all the property Of arme
Tories would, a few years later, establish y
as a fundamental doctrine of the Constitufio
aktlat no cofisea ion can. be made beyond tb
lifetime of the individual attRinted +? !. It.
not probable that men who had Just don
what they sttbbornly held to be right shoul
enact as a part of the supreme. law of til
land that it should never1be done again &
leone now to the question more. directl
before us. This question. of land. MI
Speaker, is inseparabIy connected with til
= peculiar Institution of the South TITS wei
+ ,knownthat; the pewer of slavery rests i
large plantations; that the planters seapit,
drives the, poor whites to the mountains
. where liberty always loves to dwell, aud. f
4 the swanps aid by-places Of the South bu
5 the bulk of all the landed estates is IN th
Ehands of the slave owners who, have plottet
this great conspiracy. Let me give you, a.
instance of this, one of a thousand tha
4 might be given. In the town of Murfrees
boro', Rutherford county, Tennessee, a plac
made sacred and glorious forever by the valo
4 of our Army, there are fourteen thousant
I fopr hundred and ninety-three acres of lanc
owned by sixteen persons, and three Of tn,
sixteen men own more than ten Thousand o
the acres. -Oneo the three owns more THAI
half of the whole township of Murfreesboro'
j And that Is only a, specimen of what thes,
4 men OF the South are TO the lands of th'
South. Only few hundred men own tn,
4 bulk of the land, in any Southern State, ant
= these men hold the lands and ownthe slaves
These men plotted the rebellion and thrust. i
upon us. They have had the political powe
I IN their hands, and If you permit them to e
back to their lands they viii have it again.
{. The laws of nature, the laws of society, can
not be overcome by the resolutions, of Con.
i gress. Grant a general amnesty, let thes,
men go back to their lands, and he Iand own
ers will again control the South. They have
SO long believed themselves born to rule, tha
they will rule the poor man as with7a rod o
iron. The landless man of the South ha.
learned the lesson of submission so well tha
when be is confronted by landed proprietor
/ he begins9t be painfully fleferential, he il
I facile and dependent, and less man than i
he stood on Gods acre covered by his owl
| title-deed
Gentlemen, If We want a lasting peace, ii
| we want to put down this rebellion so that i
shall stay forever put down, we must put
down its guilty cause; We must put dowr
! slavery; we must take away the platform or
which slavery stands-the great landed es.
! tates of the armed rebels of the South
/ Strike that platform beneath their feet, take
that5land away, and divide it into homes 70,
the men who have saved our country. l put
that,to this House as necessity which stares
| us IN the face. What, let me ask you, vii
you do with the battle e-fields of the South -
who owns them? Who owns the red field
of Stone River? Two or three men own il
! all. And who are these two er three men
! Rebels every one-one of them man who
| once sat in this Chamber, but who is now
leader in thesranks of the rebel army Will
| you let him come back and repossess his land
/ Will you ask his permission, when you go to
! visit the grave of your dead son who sleeps
in the bosom of that sacred field If the
! principles of the gentlemen on the other side
! be carried out, there is notlone of the great
battle-felds of the war (save Gettysburg
/ which lies yonder on this side of the line)
/ that will not descend to the sons of rebels for
I all time to conae--to men whose fathers found
a bad eminenee by fighting against their coun-
try, and who will love their fathers for affec.
TONS sake.issGod forbid that we should ever
visit thosespots made sacred by the blood oi
SO many Thousand brave men, and see our ene-
mics holding the fields and plowing the graves
| of our brethren, while the sweat of slaves
falls on the sod which ought to be forever sa-
cred to every American citizen.
| :, The history of opinion and its changes in
the ARMY is very interesting one. When
the war broke out, men sprang to arms from
all parties by common impulse of generous
4 patriotism, which I am glad to acknowledge
in the presence of those in whose hearts that
impulse seems now to have died. W -5s.aH
! i renlein Der to have said to a friend when
/ entered the Army, "You hate slauery So
do / 4; but hate disunion mere. Let us drop
the slavery question and fight to sustain the
Union. When the supremacy of the Govern
ment has been ra-estabfished We viii attend
to the other question:" / said it in good
1 faith. srogfl sfs !saiiIJI ssggssL s5sTH,i'
5, said to another" i" You loveslavery. Do
you love the Union more IF you do, go
] with me; we will Jet slavery alone and fight
for the Union. When that is saved we will
take up our old QUARREL if there is anything
left to quarrel ahout.'
+ i started out with that position taken in
good faith, as did thousands of Others of all
| parties, but the Army soon found, do what il
would, the black phantom met it everywhere
IN the camp, in the biyouac, on the battle
field, and at all times. It was a ghost that
| would not be laid-slavery was both the
strength and the weakness of the enemy.--
His strength, for it titled the fields and afed
the legions its weakness, for in the hearts oi
slaves dwelt dim prophecies that their deliy-
erance from bondage would be the outcome OF
the war.
q Mr. Seward says, in an official dispatch to our
ministerial Stu James, Mr.. Adams Every
where the American General receives his most
important information from the negro, ,whe
! halls his coming as the harbinger of freedom
These ill-used men came from the cotton
fields, they swan rivers, they climbed motin-
tains, they came through jungles, in the dark
ness and storms of tho night, to tell us that
the enemy was coming here or going there.-
They were onr true friends in every case.-
I There had hardly been a battle, march, or
any important event of the war, where the
/ friend of our cause, the black man, has not
been found truthful and helpful, and. always
| devotedly loyal. The practical truth forced
itself upon the mind of every soldier that be-
! hind the rebel army of soldiers the black ar
myofI laborers was feeding and sustaining the
rebellion, and there could be no victory till its
main support were taken away. s't-1ifs
you take my house when you do ethe prop 10
That doth sustain my house sstsis4. fsfT lssfdss
The rebellion falls when you take away its
chief prop, slavery ard landed estates as IS
Gentlemen on the other side, you tell me
4 thatths is. an abolition war. If you please
to say so / grant it. The rapid war-eurrent
! of events has made the ArmYo of the Repub-
lie anabolition Army i can find you in the
ranks a thousand men, who are in favor OF
sweeping away slavery to every dozen that
are in favoro sustainingit. They have been
1 where they have seen its omalevolence, its
baieful effects upon the country and the I'M
ion, and they demand that it shall be swept
!. y
merits of slavery again, for + deem it unnec-
1 ,sssarx, r,b. SO b.s.s ~ora fo-th ,rd - Z.