Year: 1862




among other reasons, beosuse the fugitive
slaves would not be returned. Abolish slavery
and the South therefore has no great control
ling motive TO continue its connection with the
North. Negro slavery produces cotton in great
abundance, as 1t could not be produced under
any other system; and the South being wholly
an agricultural country, and the Eastern States
chiefly manufacturing, the interests Of both sec
lions were mutual. To attempt an inroad upon
the Southern system Of labor is to destroy the
ciprocity and the balance of interests by which
the whole country has hitherto prospered
General Phelps classed "popery' and slavery
together, as standing in the way Of human pro-
gress, and 1t would be just as rational to
wage war against the Catholic Church as
against the domestic institutions of the South.


THE PRESIDENTS MESSAGE AND THE WAR;
Very general are the complaints of the silence
of the President in his annual Message, on the
paramount and all-absorbing question of the
this city, which is seldom given to violent emo
tions cannot restrain its intense feelings Of dis
appointment. It says that "in one respect the
Message disappoints us, and is, indeed, unsatis-
factory. II is entirely silent on the domestic
condition of the country. Except from incidental
mention, the reader of the document would have
no idea Of the mighty and exhausting conflict
through which the country is passing, and which
has been SO fruitful of events during the past
year." That the Message "is without a word Of
commisseration for the brave wounded and
dead, or a genial paragraph for the living;''
that "it is strangely barren of every word or
idea that could lead one to suppose that war
had slain its thousands and disease its tens Of
thousands since the preceding Message was
penned;" that this one "has not word of SYM
pathy for the past or cheer for the future, and
yet we all know that more patriotic heart and
more kindly nature has no man than Abra-
ham Lincoln"


But President Lincoln is entitled to the bene-
fit Of his explanation Of the remarkable omis-
sion~hich is the subject of this complaint. He
refers the two houses Of Congress to the accom-
panying reports Of the Secretary Of War and
the Secretary of the Navy, and says that "these
reports, though lengthy, are scarcely more than
brief abstracts of the very numerous and extern
sive transactions and operations conducted
through these departments; nor could give
summary of them here upon any principle
which would admit of its being much shorter
than the reports Themselves. therefore con-
tent myself with laying the reports before you
and asking your attention to them"


This covers the special object of the Message,
which is the presentation to Congress Of the
transactions of the departments referred to dur
ing the past year. But still, an undesirable gap
in the Message remains, which might have been


filed up with some general conclusions from
the prodigious balance of substantial victories
and solid conquests achieved during the year by
the fleets and armies of the Union. Worried
night, by the abolition fanatics representing the
majority in both houses Of the present Congress,
and with the consequences Of this war upon the
negro race constantly before his eyes, in the
swarms of vagrant "contrabands' with which
the city of Washington is overrun, il is not sur
prising that he left all observations upon the
progress and prospects Of the war TO his Secre-
taries, Stanton and Welles, in order that he
might have free swing to discuss this ever pre-
sent and torturing question OF slavery. One
great point has been gained by this course.
The abolition fanatics have received dose OF
medicine which will serve th0m to the end of
the present century, If vestige OF their mise
rable faction shall last so long.