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
We are fighting--dying--to directly uphold ourselves, and indirectly to
effect this very emancipation for which you clamored; we are losing
cotton and suffering everything;--but _you_, when it comes to the pinch,
will endure nothing for your boasted abolition, but slide off at once
towards aiding the inception of the foulest, blackest, vilest
slaveocracy ever instituted on earth! Disguise, quibble, lie, let them
that will--these are _facts_. Because we, in our need, have instituted a
protective tariff, which was absolutely necessary to keep us from utter
ruin, and on the flimsy pretext that we are not fighting directly for
emancipation, proud, free, and honest Old England, as publicly
represented, eats all her old words, and, worse than withholding all
sympathy from us, shows in a thousand ill-disguised ways an itching
impatience to aid the South! Men of England, _we_ are suffering for a
principle common to all humanity; can not you suffer somewhat with us?
Can you not, out of the inexhaustible wealth of your islands, find
wherewithal to stave off the bitter need, for a season, of your
cotton-spinners? Feed them?--why we would, for a little aid in our dire
need, have poured in millions of bushels of wheat to your poor,--one
brave, decided act of sympathy on your part for us would ere this have
trampled down secession, and sent cotton to your marts, even to
superfluity. Or, were you so minded, and could 'worry through' a single
year, you might raise in your own colonies cotton enough, and be forever
free of America.
Or is it really true, as many think, that your statesmen would gladly
dismember this Union? The suggestion reveals such a depth of infamy that
we will not pause on it. Let it pass--if the hour of need _should_ come
we will revive it, and out of that need will arise a giant of Union such
as was never before dreamed of. Let the country believe _that_, and from
Maine to California there will be such a blending into one as time can
never dissolve!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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