The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1864-07-26
Treason in It's Rudimental Form.


The Southern traitors are not all fools, how
ever foolishly they may act. They know very
well that, to make their political economics
and their social system founded on the corner,
stone OF human bondage, revered by their pos
terity, they must corrupt the stream of lie al
It's fountain, and pervert the mind in its germ
inal state. To this end they seek to lay the
ak at the root of the tree, and are paving the
way Cor the permanency OF their slave empire,
when once established, by getting out a new
series Of school books, commencing with the
FIRST rudimenis Of knowledge, to mould the
young mind to the purposes Of treason, and to
beget in 1t love of domination and despotism,
even as a taste for the most nauseating sub
stances, like opium and tobacco, is created by
early habit. M
Our attention has been called TO this mat
ter By having placed before US a copy Of
Spelling Book, printed in Atlanta, Ga, in 1868,
bearing the following title:
"The Elementary Spelling Book, revised
aud adapted TO the youth Of the Southern Con-
Jcleracy, inspersed with the Bible Readings
on Domestic Slavery. BY Robert Fiemming."
slave literature. we are indebted TO Mr.. GEo
b. BuzELLE, of the Bangor Theological Sem
inary, who has been laboring for a season a
mong our gallant soldiers, under the auspices
OF the Christian Commission. Mr.. b. obtain
ed the book in Chattanooga, and will doubt
less preserve it as a relic of the barbarism
which produced it.
Our readers viii be amused ifnot instructed
by examining the following string of pearls
cuiled at random from this delectable eemen-
tary book, designed for the Young America
of the South.
Commencing with the preface, designed for
the parents and guardians OF those to be taught,
We lind the following quilted lie:
"Those friendly relations which once exist
ed between the Northern and Southern States
have been severed by protracted, unjust and
oppressive federal legislation, aud thus We
have been driven from them, and the channel
through which We have, hitherto, been accus-
toned TO obtain our supplies is now closed BY
blockade; the offspring OF an unjustidable and
tyrannical war, which Is waged against us by
those who should have continued to be our
friends"
No man In tho South even, who knows
enough to read, much less to make spelling
book, Is fool enough or ignorant enough not
to know that, at the time the rebellion COM
menced, there was not an act upon the nation
al statute books which was not voted for by
Southern men, and placed there by their aid
not an intelligent man but knows that when
secession.commenced the South. with the aid
n fhar fri de had fl,a
the legislation Of the country. Every man ia
the South who can read, knows, or might have
known, that Alexander II. Stephens, their own
Vice President, emphatically denied that the
South had ever suffered the slightest oppres-
sion at the hands OF the federal government
But we pass along. On pages 50 and 90 we
fad.
The Confederate Congress meets yearly
on the twenty-second day OF February, il
being Washington's birth day. His memory
4 cherished BY the people Of the Southern
Coniederacy"
The bones Of the iIldstrous dead might be
expected TO rattle in their coffin at such an
insult to his name, and the utterance OF such
political biasphemy. Here is a brace of gems
brilliant enough without comment:
Page 90. an free governments, like the
government Of the Confederate States of
America, the people choose their legislators
"rhe legislative councils of the Confederate
States should feel their dependence, under
God. on the will Of a free aud rirtuous PEG
pie"
In sarcastic humor, and probably for
sort of home thrust, it is said, page 60:
1--WE detest robbers, pirates and extortion-
ers.n
At the close OF the Decalogae, page ~, it
Is added, as sort of Eleventh Command
ment:
Slaves are our neighbours property, as much
as his house,
But for this timely information some Of the
youths of the Confederate states" might
never have the conviction fastened in their
minds that the language of the decalogue--
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's, house,
nor his man-servant nor his maid-servant, -
was Intended as protection for the institu-
ton OF negro slavery. Some Of those youths
might Infer that servant could exist without
being slave, Invested of the ownership not
only of his wife and children, but of his own
person, and soul also.
On page 80 the author tou: hes a ticklish
subject, and one which now must be very sug
gestiye to the leaders in the rebellion, where
he says
" A spiral line Is one that winds and rises
at the same time.p
common hempen rope is precisely such
line, and bids fair, by the uses it will soon
have to subserve in rebellion, to sindieate The
exactness of this definition.
Pages "a and 95 contain gem of more
than ordinary lustre. The author quotes LIST
Timothy, 6:l-5,-" Let as many servants as
are under the yoke" &C., and "If any man
teach otherwise, and consent not TO whole.
some words, even the words of our Lord
Jesus Christ" &C.. "from such withdraw thy |
self" He then adds
Southern Christians have withdrawn from
Northern Abolitonsts on this very ground.n I
Page 90 contains definition which, as Ar |