Year: 1862

and commences the descending grade, he does
not always know where he will bring up. We
thought in reading the leader in the Portland
Advertiser OF Tuesday, entitled "The next
STEP" in which an appeal was made to the
people to head off the president and "his most
perverse advisers" that it would be difficult
for a man to go much lower towards rebellion,
without stepping off soundngs and becoming
an out-and-out advocate of the schemes and
purposes of JEFF. Davis. But when the paper
OF the next morning came to hand, we found
there was a slower Deep" of the murkiness
and treasonableness of whose atmosphere we
had formed veIy faint conception. We ask
the calm, candid and unbiased judgment of the
reader to lew extracts.


The article referred TO was headed with this
question: "What have the free States done for
the negro, and what has the negro done for
himself, during the rebellion?" In reply to this
question the new editor Of that paper says:


Upon fair computation we think it will be
found, that the free States have fought the reb-
els until the number of white persons, who are
utterly bankrupted in fortune, and cast down
from state of afliuence or competency, in the
South, to a condition of hopeless poverty; and
the number who have been killed in battle, or
have died of disease or exposure, from the
North and from the South and the number
of both, who have been crippled and MANNED
In body, or limb, or in health, so as TO be use
less for future industry: all added together,
will be found equal to the entire number, or
agqreqdte, of negroes In stduery, throughout
The Stare Stdtes-say an aggregate OF four mill
ions at least.


In other words, one white person has been
bankrupted or killed, or ruined by wounds or
disease, for life, siuce the rebellion, and war
upon it. commenced, for every living and un-
harmed negro, about ghom the conflict has
been prosecuted A fearful sacrifice, indeed,
FOR AN EXPERIMENTAL THEORY OF SOCIAL
GOOD


Here is a very distinct intimation that the
present war, with all its catalogue of suffering
and misery, is being waged by the Federal
Government only to benefit the negro,t to estab-
lsh ian experimental theory of social goodr'
But this intimation becomes an emphatic state
ment in the following:


One thousand millions of liquidated and un-
liquidated expenditures in dollars, have, more
over, already been made by the free States !;
and more than five hundred millions more, by
the South; and the uncounted destruction of
individual property at the South, not taken
into the account of Government expenditures,
must equal five hundred millions more, at
least; while thousand millions of damage to
foreign commerce and domestic trade may be
added to the count of costs occasioned by the
rebellion. and by the war of The Free States
upon it. AND ALL FOR WHAT? For a
difference of opinion, or of political and ha-
mdnitdridn rie,cs, among the American peo-
pie, respecting the nature and rights of the
negro race


With this startling announcement in the ed
itorial columns of the Advertiser-tha GALL"
the blood, the loss of life, the manned limbs,
the impaired constitutions, the bankrupt com
munities, and the almost frightful expendi-
lures of treasure,--is simply for "a difference
of opinion, or Of political or humanitarian
views respecting the nature and rights of the
negro race" yet at the head Of the same
editorial column we find emblazoned the unan-
imous declaration of the American Congress,
"That The present deptordbie cira Udr has
been FORCED upon the country by the dis
unionists Of The Southern States" We also
find blazoned in the same column, approving
ly placed there, the language of the Command
ing General, that 1--WE are engaged in sup
porting the Constitution and laws of the
United States, and in suppressing rebellion
against their authority"


In the face of such historical records; in
the face of the authority of Benton and Ev-
erett,-that for thirty years this rebellion has
been in progress in the minds and hearts of
Southern statesmen; in the face of the fact
that John c. Calhoun stated more than thirty
years ago that the South would consent to the
Union so long as they could control the gov
ernment, but would separate from the North
SO soon as their power to rule should depart
from them; in the face of the fact that the
present rebellion was precipitated upon the
country oy political demagogues and men of
unbridled ambition; in the face of the fact
that the South has ever regulated ''the rights
of the negro race" among themselves without
let or hindrance, and that the North has made
no attempts to interfere with her in this re-
gard,-in the face Of all these things, the edi-
tor Of the Advertiser insults the common in
telligence of our people by declaring, that the





simple difference of opinion about the negro
to try an experiment Of social good!


Having proved that the war don't pay-that
it is an expensive concern in all respects, yield
ing no dividend Of good, the writer says:


The world cannot but look upon this con-
tinued conflict between the white men of this
Republic, with feelings of amazement and hor-
IL is aiiLn nnnatnral and
and being without precedent in nature, or hu-
man events, no basis can be shadowed forth in
the dim future, for its termination.


Unable to answer his own question, put
forth in emphatic italics, " Ho,c, when. or upon
,chat conditions can it fthe war be ended,7
the writer comes to this conclusion:


One conclusion must soon gather strength
in the mind of every conservative man. and
convert radicals, ere long, into conservatives !;
and it is, that the white men of the Union
are sacrificing more for the freedom of the
negro, than negro freedom can be worth TO
either the white man, or negro; and WHAT
EVER INTERVENTION, and WHEREBY
Err COMING, can serve to restore peace to
the nation, or the nation TO peace, will be
deemed an acceptable gift of Providence and
God-send of immeasurabe blessings to this,
and all kindred nations.


Have the loyal people of Maine ever before
been treated to such doctrines in journal Of
their own cherishing, dependent upon them for
support? With sea acoast three hundred miles
in extent, exposed to the ravages of foreign
maratme foe; with four or five hundred miles
of frontier, bordered by the territory Of pow
erlul foreign nation; with our goodly city,
once burned by the armed cruisers of an