Weekly Trinity journal., 1868-02-08
Calling the Slave = Roll at Bunker Hill

When armed treason had flung her banners to
the breeze, and the hosts in Confederate gray
cheered Justify as they beheld from Sumter's
walls the stars-and-stripes hauled from their
lofty and proud position and the palmetto as
cend to symbolic the newborn nation, whose
Cornerstone was to be founded upon the "great
philosophic and moral truth that slavery and
subordination to the superior race, is the natu-
raj condition of the negro, exultant, treason
proclaimed that, at day not distant lnthe his
tory of the new nation, the empire thus founded
should so disseminate its influence, and complete
its sway over the land that the master would,
as he reclined in the pleasant shadows of Bunker
Hill, call the roll OF his slaves. How the mighty
have fallen For the first time in the history of
nations, people born and educated in repub-
lie, sought to sever themselves from its laws and
protection, and build upon its ruins system of
government based upon the right of human
slavery.
The call to arms and the vigorous conscrip
tons brought to the standard of this new nation
the whole physical and mental support OF those
imbued with the trusts of class prescriptions
from the recesses of darkness and wherever the
melancholy ghost of oppression yet fingered
came forth the jubilant shout or the bland smile
in recognition of the new kingdom. Compacent
smiles dimpled the naughty front of European
despots, who recognized in the new order nat
ural ally blows thick and deep, were thrust
INTO tDe DOSOU ol luc ltpuoiSi Ni'"i"o NOf-oN
fountains of the stream of life ; pale. and falnt
did the nation lean her lacerated breast upon the
pillars of liberty, as her mercless foes again
and again probed their bloody sabers into her
breast shouts of fiendish laughter went up from
the hosts of the banner of palmetto and serpents
as the bleeding soldiers looked up from the dust,
imploring mercy long and weary melancholy
had seized upon the hearts, and the pulse OF the
people stood still the earth darkened by
the smoke of war, and carnage had covered our
fields with mangled bodies-the requiem of lib
erty was heard in every breeze. Freedoms de-
Tenders, whether perched in the Pyrannees, AL
pine heights, the plains of Italy, or by the green
banks OF the Shannon, by the dashing spray of
the Penobscot, or the solemn roll of the Colum-
ba turned their eyes toward the flag of free
dom, and in one mighty convulsion rallied
round the standard of liberty; and grasping the
thunderbolts of war, they hurl them like aveng-
ing fire against the despot who falls to rise no
more. shout of victory, that rends the skies,
goes up from the applauding millions, who now
behold the meteor standard of freedom, its re-
fulgent light and ample folds keeping eternal
guard over the tabernacle built for the refuge of
the oppressed.
The roll is called-but not the roll of the
slave The calling of the roll of the palmetto
hosts to lay down their arms before the gates of
Richmond closed the scene. Bunker Hill still
affords an evening shade, but only to the sons
and daughters of liberty, who there congregate to
drink the inspiration Of halowed memories, and
bless the patriots names that adorn it.-SaIem
(Oregon) Unionist.