Year: 1863




slave empire; not an empire part ire
and part slave. but an empire all slave; an
empire in every portion of which slavery
will be permitted by law. and restricted as
to the number of slaves by soil and eli
mate alone. The invitation is TO become,
yourselves, part and parcel Of such an en-
pire; to enter into fellowship with those
who, not content to legalize slavery, ran
onize it also: regard it as philosophical,
commend il as moral, extol it as religious:
who adopt it as the corner stone OF the So
cial edifice ana the basis Of the political
system.


The Invitation is. to ignore, or to defy.
the public sentiment of Christesdom--
The invitation is to stand still, or sink
back, while all other civilized nations ad-
vance. An eminent writer, alluding to
certain ancient collegiate foundations of
Europe, declared that they were not with
out their use to the historian Of the human
mind; immovably moored to the same sa-
ton by the strength of their cables and the
weight of their anchors, they served to
mark the rapidity of the current with
which the rest of the world was borne a.
long. Is such to be the fate and the voca-
tion of America, once proud, powerful,
freedom-loving? Is Gods mighty cur-
rent of Progress to sweep past her. as she
lies paralizcd. weighted down, rock strand
ed, by her political sins?


This invitation is given on conditions.
The first is, that throughout this slave
empire, no man shall be allowed to DENY
the "great physical. philosophical and
moral TRUTH" now first recognized. upon
which the new Government is founded:
namely, that slavery is the natural and
moral condition of the African negro
No man is to be permitted on pain of pun
ishment, to argue that slavery is sinful, or
that religion condemns it. We are requir-
ed to go back to the spirit of those days
when it was held to be seditious to ques-
ton, by speech or writing, the idea on
which the question was based; TO the Tu-
dor and Stuart age of England: the only
difference being. that while under the old
English rule il was punishable as scdition
to question the right divine Of Kings. un-
der the new Southern rule, sedition is to
be punished when it questions the right di-
vine of slavery. 1t will be q remarkable
experiment, in the nineteenth century, to
establish government upon q principle
which will not bear question, or suffer an
argument touching its truth or its mer-
Its. The despotism of Naples receHtly
wen! down. crushed by the difficulties and
the odium of maintaining. in these modern
days, similar state Of things.


The second condition demanded of us
is, that the North, before it is admitted to
Southern fellowship, shall cast east off
six of her States. thus curtailing her pow
er and hen possessions by the surrender of
nearly one fifth of her population and
more than one fifth of her wealth.


And here discloses itself the Hereulss
foot of this most audaeious scheme
Think of proposing TO Great Britain that
she should set Scotland adrift, or to France
that she should detach and abandon ell
Normandy! When was dismemberment
ever dreamed of or demanded, except by ,
victor from PROSTATE foe?


And will no other demands be made
based on the same relative condition of
the contracting parties? The Southern in
surrection will have cost its authors q
thousand millions. at least Can any
man doubt that the North, once entrapped
into this base compact, will be held to
pay her full share of that stupendous sum?
net only to accept as justifable an in
surrection against lawful authority. but to
pay what that insurrection cost? And
will nothing be included in that cost but
the bare expenses of the war? 1t is not
certain, beyond possible doubt. tha. there
will be thousands upon thousands of
claims for damages plantations ruin
ed. for dwellings destroyed, for cotton
burnt, for hundreds of thousands Of slaves
lost-irom every Southern State that has
been reached by our arms? and that these
claims will amount to hundreds of mill
ions, exceeding probably the war expenses
themselves? On whom is 10 be imposed
on those who inflicted them? And when
such tax is levied and paid by you. what
acknowledgment can be imagined more
practically conclusive of the admission
that the so-called instruction was no in
surrection at all. but, on the contrary, .
noble war for liberty and indepence. just
in its inception, triumphant in its result?


Their hewers of wood and drawers of
water we should become; the recorders of
their edicts; the submissive agents to exc
cute their good pleasurel


And if we yield now. SO should we BEL
If with bali the territory constituting the
slave States virtually in our possession.
we accept at the hands of armed ene-
mics the very plan they themselves had
chalked out before q cannon was fir
ed, richly shall we deserve cur fatel Un-
der such q plan the insurgents would not
merely have secured their own independ-
ence: conquerors over us, they would have
mastered ours. Have we mercy to expect?
Woe to the vanquished?


Let there be no self deception? If we
are to do this thing, let us look il honest
ly in the face. and make plain to ourselves
what it is we are doing. We give up; we
surrender; we acknowledge Twenty mill
ions against six that we are beaten. Yet.
that is trifle: the bravest may be defeated;
the holiest cause may fail. But we. If We
take this step, must consent to repentance
as we'll a. to submission. Before the
world. we must confess onr sins. Before
the world, our acts must declare that, from
the first, we were In the wrong and the
South in the right. Before the world, our
acts must declare that thousand millions
have been squandered. that hundred