Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1875-04-07
COMPENSATION FOR SLAT-ES.

not disappointed.
COKPENSA TON FOR STATES.
The Louisville Courier-Journal having
published q long article complaining that
the North had treated the South with un-
exampled rigor and cruelty because of
its secession and rebellion, the great
wrong inflicted being emancipation of the
slaves, the Chicago Journal makes answer
in an unanswerable article.
..Of the one million Of men in arms
SAYS the Journal, ''first and last at the
South, how many of the six or seven hun
dred thousand survivors were punished OF
disfranchised? How many Of them have
had their lands confscated? 1t is said that
Lee died under the ban, and that JEFF Da-
Wis is still under it. Lee himself was a
Union man, who only went into the War
upon the appeal of Virginia and not of the
C0nfederacy, and who, had he lived until
now, would have had all his disabilities re-
moved. The vice-President of the Con-
federacy has not only been amnestied, but
has been for two years or more in the Ma
tional Congress. The United States,
mourning so many hundred thousands of
her own patriots who persisted in defend
ing their country, against wicked and
unprovoked Rebellion. never punished a
solitary man for treason. AS consequence
of the War, and as an indispensable neces-
sity for the restoration permanently of the
National Union, slavery was abolished.
Why should the non-combatant slavehold-
ers. who melted and pushed on the Re-
bellion in behalf Of slavery, in whose in
terest the Rebellion originated. complain
of being punished by the loss of their
property" in their fellow-men Why
should not slavery have been abolished ?
Was it not morally right, and moral du-
" Of the nation, to abolish itP Was it not
. military necessity Had not slavery be-
come pestilential nuisance, a national
disgrace, shameless blot upon the Amer
lean character, constant reproach to our
boosted free institutional Had it not be-
como the producing cause of civil war and
rebellion, and all the evils and harms that
issued therefrom?
A. we have said. the complaints Of
Northern cruelty inflicted upon the ''brok-
en- and crushed people of the South" when
narrowed down, all end in the emancipa-
ton of the slaves. The War had progressed
two years before there was any move
towards emancipation. The slaves who
had escaped to us were sent to the rear
tary system; they had forfeited their lives
by deserving their masters to join the
Union forces. They had to be protected.
They could never be again surrendered to
their former claimants. The progress OF
the War pointed out the necessity of weak
ening the enemy by offering personal free
dom to the producing class in the Rebel
States. The time and the occasion, moral
and military rights, national credit and pol
icy. all combined to point out the propriety
and necessity of forever abolishing slavery.
It was done. Though the War was COM
pleted before the Thirteenth Amendment
was formally proclaimed, yet slavery was
abolished practically from the date Con-
gress submitted the amendment.
Then came the work of reconstruction.
What was to be the condition OF these four
millions of laborers and producers They
were free in form, should they be so in
fact? How could the Rebel States be re-
constructed without placing them in po-
sition where they could legally defend
their freedoms? Hence, they he'd to be in
vested with all the civil rights of freemen.
Congress did not act hastily. 1t proceed
ed cautiously, step by step. 1t made the
colored people free; it invested them with
the civil rights OF free men. 1t was then
found necessary to clothe them with po-
litical rights, as defense against their
practical and inevitable reduction to serf-
dom or slavery. There was no alterna-
tive but that proposed by Andrew John
sons policy, which was to make the for
mer slave-Owners the sole depositaries of
political power. and the former slaves the
helpless subjects Of such legislation as
their former masters should provide. That
policy would have first reduced the tour
million of freemen to the condition Of
serfs, and next back into chattel slavery.
The Courier-Journal but betrays the
prevailing sentiment among the old-slave-
holding community that there was a pc
culiar sancity in slave property; that this
sapctity lifts it above all other considera-
tons. and that no necessity, nor occasion,
nor emergency, could Justify the transfer
Of that property from the master to the
bondman himself. The ghost of slavery
10 forever sitting at the hearthstone of the
ex-slsveholder. He accepts uncomplain-
ingly Of the slaughter of his brethren and
children In battle, of their deaths by dis
ease and exposure he accepts poverty in
its most cruel forms he accepts the Or
phsnage and widowhood OF millions
around him; he accepts the scattering of
friends and neighbors, and their abandon
ment of homesteads and loss of wealth,
and power. and influence. All these
things he accepts as legitimate conse-
quences Of the War which he himself in
cited, but he refuses 70 accept the destruc-
Ion Of 10 right 10 hold and own his fell
low-nan q property, and therefore num-