The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 1862: Devoted to Literature and National PolicyVarious
History
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 1862: Devoted to Literature and National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
Yet the daily Overland Mail is an immense, a cheering fact, and the
Pacific Telegraph another. A message dispatched from any village blessed
with electric wires on poles in the Atlantic States will probably reach
its destination in any city or considerable settlement of California or
Nevada within a few hours, while every transpiring incident of the war
for the Union is directly flashed across the continent to the journals
of Sacramento and San Francisco, and will often be devoured by their
readers on the evening after its occurrence. The Republic may well be
proud of having achieved two such strides in her onward, upward course,
in the midst of a great and desolating war, and with confidence implore
a God of beneficent justice to hasten the auspicious day when we shall
be able to telegraph her children by the far Pacific that her enemies
are baffled, vanquished, humbled, and that there opens again before her
a long vista of unbroken and honorable peace.
WHAT TO DO WITH THE DARKIES.
A NEW AND ORIGINAL PLAN FOR SAVING THE UNION ON SOUTHERN PRINCIPLES.
There can be no question that the overwhelming difficulty of the present
day, is the proper disposal of the Negro.
The writer of these lines takes the liberty of believing that the war is
virtually a settled affair. There has been, there is, no diminution of
Northern determination to push on and keep pushing until the wings of
the eagle again stretch from Maine to the Rio Grande. The administration
is sustained, as from the first, by ever increasing majorities. The
daily defeats of those politicians who are known to sympathize with
secession, the wreck of the peace party, and the growing indignation of
the country, as manifested against all halfway men and measures, are
becoming what in sober seriousness can not be regarded as other than a
tremendous moral spectacle. _In medio non tutissimus ibis_.
Yet at the bottom of this foaming cup of joy remain the black dregs. I
would not invidiously compare the unfortunate black to the 'dregs of the
populace,' since labor in any form must not be lightly spoken of. But it
would be the weakest of euphuisms to affect ignorance of the social
position which he occupies, and which, not to increase the misery of his
position, is indubitably 'at the bottom of the ladder.' But that which
is at the bottom of the ladder may seriously affect its position and
standing. There is a fearful and thrilling illustration of this, to be
found in a popular cut graphically described in these words:
A negro on the top of a high ladder, white-washing, a hog lifting
it up from beneath. 'G'way dar,--you'm makin' mischief.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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