Year: 1863


atrocity, the breeding of slaves for the
market.


In her early history, Virginia had al
lowed to those of her citizens who were
masters, the poor privilege Of atoning
for the wrong of lifelong oppression
by amancipating, at death, their slaves.
But under this arrangement Tie free col
ored population were becoming incon-
veniendy numerous and when, some
ten years since, humane master be-
queahed to his slaves the privilege of
choosing whether they would be eman-
cipated in America or emigrate to Libe-
ria the courts of that State decided that
the will which left this option to slave
was by that very act invalidated. A
slave is thing, not person he can
exercise no faculty Of choice. The
choice is as impossible as it would be if
such an option had been left to horse !;
and in this denial the highest judicial
authorities in Virginia united. The the
ory of slavery-that a slave is, in the
eye of the law, incapable Of any act or
function of a man-incapable Of any
martial or paternal rights, incapable Of
holding property, Of receiving education,
or even of exercising, by whatever con-
sent ofhis master, any power Of choice
this monstrous and frantic outrage upon
the manhood Of fellow -being-nav, Of
race of fellow. beings-is deliberately
accepted as an improved form of society
to which it is the high privilege and the
grand function Of the slave breeders S
Confederacy TO recall the generation of
vipers which is too abandoned to ac-
knowledge it. Who that has any con-
ception of justice, any remnant of human
sympathy, or any sense Of the response
bilily Of an accountable creature, does
not shudder and shrink al the statement?
II is wickedness naked vet not asham-
ed"


This is war not of geographical sec
tons, nor of political factions, but of
principles and systems. 1t is q REBEL
ion against all that is known in society as
civilization, and in favor of despotismS
the meanest, and oppression the most
cruel which at this day exists among
men The only right which the rebell-
ion claims, aud that which, if success.
fu', its future history is to illustrate and
establish, is the right of a master race TO
hold a servile race in degradation That
there are slave races born to serve" is
the great truth which the Confederacv
is sent TO preach, to which its statesmen
are to adapt their social systems, and On
which "they will stand to tie end"
We say then that our war against this
rebellion is in principle the most sacred
for which a people ever took arms, a war
for social equality, for rights, for justice,
for freedom. This is not, as our breth-
ren across the ocean have proclaimed it,
an aimless or unmeaning strife Its OBJ
ject is quite as distinct as though we had
some national insult TO resent. or some
impending danger 10 repel. We fight to
sustain the claim Of human nature in its
lowliest form to that equal rank before
human laws which il holds BY right Of
manhood before the divine. We contend
for civilization in its profoundest princi-
pies. in its dearest rights, against re-
belion which fights avowedly for moth.
ing under heaven but the prerogative of
making men slaves. Over the vast acres
Of our land we may not consent to estab-
lish the cruel bondage which the rebell.
ion upholds. Hence we fight the good
fight of justice, and truth, and freedom !;
in which through every age brave men
have contended, and good men have born
obloquy, and heroic lives have been off.
cred up in sacrifice


Ono thing alone distinguishes our
cause from the common efforts of man
kind for liberty and the distinction is
one of the grandest facts which mark the
progress of mankind. 1t is not for our
own liberty that we contend Were the
hightful principle of slavery asserted
against ourselves, the right-nay, the
obligation--to resist il would be unques.
tionable, The degradation Of yielding
10 such principle would be an unspeak
able baseness. How, then, is our right
or obligation the less when we resist in
behalf Of millions Of our fellow beings
unable TO resist for themselves ? II our
war were such an intervention as that
by which Great Britain maintains navy
for the suppression Of the slave trade. in
behalf of the millions in Africa with
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