The Portland daily press., 1865-08-11
Friday Morning, August IL, 1865.
LETTING ALcNE.

A familiar cry is heard from the inorganic
ed States. 1t comes from the orators and pa
pers which have been heard before "Just
let us alone. That is all we want As for the
negroes, we know them better than ANYBODY
else, and we must be permitted to manage
them"
Except for the seriousness of the situation.
there would be something exquisitely humor-
GUS in this grave assertion 1t is exactly
what we have heard for the last twenty wears.
When it was perfectly evident that the spirit
and policy OF slavery were endangering tfe
welfare of the country, a firm and vigorous
protest was raised by sagacious citizens who
did not mean to conniVe, under any pretence
whatever, at the national ruin. Then came
the answering shout from the party of slavery .
Let us alone. 1t is our affair. We know the
negroes and understand how to manage them.
Let us alone" And many honest minds were
deceived by the appeal.
Then came secession. The men who had
cried so Justify, "Let us Alone" while they
were plotting, cried still more solemnly, @Let
us alone" when they were ready to consum-
mate the crime. Their armed effort has been
abortlve but bloody. 1t is necessary for them
to recur again to arts and intrigues, and so we
hear the same old cry, "Let us alone. Let us
alone"
And who echo this cry? Those who. in
1869, said that the Government had no right
to maintain itself by arms. Those who, in
1851 said that the war was really OccasiOned
by the loyal States, and that the Government
ought to compromise with treason and con-
ciliate rebellion. Those who, in 1862, said
that our erring sisters should be allowed to de-
part in peace Those who, in 1868, stimulated
a counter-revolution. Those who. in 1864
went to Chicago and declared the war fail
ure. Those who, at the end of 1854, were
politically annihilated by the American people
at the polls.
What is the object of the cry? The over
throw of the Administration, and the policy
which directed the war, and the return to pow
er of that alliance of Southern leaders and
Northern followers which brought on the war
That alliance, we are told, secured peace to the
country Yes, it secured peace at the price o
national honor, and by delaying struggle
which delay embittered a thousand fold. 1t
secured peace as man secures solvency by
paying ffty per cent. day for the money he
borTows. 1t secured peace as he does who
puts his nose into the fingers of a bully, and
obsequiously succumbs to bis kicks. And
when the peace was broken, who broke il? P
When war began, who began it ? What justi-
fed those VINO began il? Who hoped and
worked for their success? Those who now
tell us that while they had the power they
kept the peace. Those who, we know, when
they lost the power broke the peace. They
gave the country peace as highwayman gives
his victim lie, on condition of obedience
Gust give us power again, fenow-citizens,"
they cry, 'and you will see how we win keep
the peace" Their fellow-citizens have already
seen. Enough is as good as feast.
The late rebels say that they know the ne
groes a great deal better than anybody else.-
How have they proved it? BY enslaving them
with unparalleled baTbarity. BY out1aging
every human right and feeling. BY SO treat
ing them that when the war came, every one
of the people they "knew SO welr instructive
ly turned against them, and hailed the enc
mics OF tneir masters, as for that reason, then
own best friends. A society which is ignorant
OF human nature, of history, of Divine JUS
tice, and of the laws of political economy, as
to suppose it can treat half of its members as
brutes, without danger to the general welfare
when its foolish assumption has ended in its
own blood and ruin, might at least affect mod
esty of opinion, if it does not see it. There
was never class in the world which knew
so little of another as the slaveholding class OF
the South knows of the slaves. Its ignorance
has cost us a civil war; but it has also fortu.
nately apprised us that such ignorance is a
mortal peril
And what are the late slaveholding class
now doing to show us how perfectly they un-
derstand the negroes? The Southern States
are paralyzed. They can be invigorated only
by labor. The negroes are the laboring popu-
lation. They are native to the soil and cir
mate, and they are free. Common sense indi-
Gates the only policy. The Inevitable facts OF
the case should be cordially accepted. Liberal
wages should be paid, honest contracts made,
just measures adopted to provide education
and equal rights for the most substantial part
of the population. L In word the public
prosperity should be secured and public peril
avoided by the simplest and most obvious
equality. But, instead of this, farmers are CT
fering five dollars month to freemen who. as
slaves, could hire themselves and make fifteen
dollars a month. White people are gravely
enacting that colored people shall not testify !;
shall not control their own children; shall not
bear arms; shall not vote; and are surround
ing them with disabilities for which there
would seem to be no legal redress. And all
the while the class at the South which has
made educating slaves a crime, protests
against the fearful ignorance of the colored
people; and those VINO have disgraced labor
and degraded the laborer, and have them
selves never lifted finger to work, now COM
plain that the negro is dreadfully lazy fellow,
and will work only upon compulsion.
In truth, the class which wished to be "let
alone" in its assault upon the Union and Gov
eminent, unchanged and unsubdued, now
wishes to be "let alone', to reorganize itself
upon its obsolete, inhuman, and dangerous
prejudiees and passions. 1t hates the Union;
it hates free labor and free society: it believes
in its Interpretation of the Constitution and
in State Sovereignty as much as ever. The
spirit OF this class is the cancer of the country.
Ii the country wishes peace it will not let it
alone. Hdrpers Weekly.