The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 2, February, 1862: Devoted To Literature And National PolicyVarious
History
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 2, February, 1862: Devoted To Literature And National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
and nature of her demand for the release of Mason and Slidell, we are
forced to infer that she will seize every opportunity to bring about an
open rupture with the United States. And though Mr. Seward has carried
the country successfully through the difficulty of the Trent, we ought
to expect the presentation of demands which we can not so readily and
justly meet. Indeed, enough is known of the Mexican question to suggest
the most serious apprehensions of foreign war on that account.
The necessity for speedily crushing the rebellion is as strong as it was
at the moment when Lord Lyons made the demand for the release of the
persons taken from the deck of the Trent.
Is there any reason, even the slightest, to suppose that by military and
naval means alone the rebellion can be crushed by the 19th of April
next?
Yet every day's delay gives the confederate States additional strength,
and renders them in the estimation of mankind more and more worthy of
recognition and independent government. Their recognition will be
followed by treaties of friendship and alliance; and those treaties will
give strength to the rebels and increase the embarrassments of our own
government. It is the necessity of our national life that the settlement
of this question should not be much longer postponed.
By some means we must satisfy the world, and that speedily, that the
rebellion is a failure. Nor can we much longer tender declarations of
what we intend to do, or offer promises as to what we will do, in the
face of the great fact that for eight months the capital of the Republic
has been in a state of siege. If, in these circumstances of necessity
and peril to us, the armies of the rebels be not speedily dispersed, and
the leaders of the rebellion rendered desperate, will the government
allow the earth to again receive seed from the hand of the slave, under
the dictation of the master, and for the support of the enemies of the
constitution and the Union? If there were any probability that the
States would return to their allegiance, then indeed we might choose to
add to our own burthens rather than interfere their internal affairs.
But there is no hope whatever that the seceded States will return
voluntarily to the Union.
There could be no justifying cause for the emancipation of the slaves in
time of peace by the action of the general government; and now it must
be demanded and defended as the means by which the war is to be closed,
and a permanent peace secured. If before the return of seed-time the
emancipation of the slaves in several or in all of the disloyal States
be declared as a military necessity, and the blacks be invited to the
sea-coast where we have and may have possession, they will raise
supplies for themselves, and the rebellion will come to an ignominious
end, through the inability of the masters, when deprived of the services
of their slaves, to procure the means of carrying on the war.
* * * * *
SHE SITS ALONE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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