broad as to protect the people in times of quiet; but in the midst of civil war, the surest protection; in the face of national disaster the safest refuge.

Hon. H. Winter Davis, 1861.

THE DANGER OF EXASPERATING THE REBELS.

IN all ages respect for the dead has been held to be a necessary virtue in a brave and generous character. To inflict outrage upon a slain enemy, even, has heretofore been confined to dark corners of the earth. Such practices are too vile and mean to be tolerated in the light of civilization. Hence the fiendish spirit of the rebel leaders is painfully apparent in the treatment of our heroic dead. They were stripped naked, and left for days unburied. Many were buried in trenches, face downward, as a mark of indignity. Some were boiled, to get the bones for trophies, and heads cut off, that the skulls might be kept for drinking cups. Many human bones were found scattered through the rebel huts, sawed into rings. By acts of violence and crime like these the rebels signalized their first victory over the army of the Republic. With savage and malignant hate, they tortured, slew, and desecrated. The monstrous treason which was commenced in perjury and theft, was continued in cowardly cruelty and barbarism. Well may I say the climax of malignity was early reached. But has it diminished by long months of forbearance? Let the score of brave officers and men of General Curtis' command, who were slain by the poisoned food left by the retreating rebels, bear witness. Let the fire-ship filled with deadly missiles, sent down upon our vessel, invited by a flag of truce and displaying another, below New Orleans; the throat-cutting of sick and unarmed men at Shiloh, as they lay in their tents; the frequent murder of parties bearing flags of truce; the dismal tales of southern prison-houses; the hanging of Union men; the disregard of age or sex by the rebels in their unrestrained wrath; let these and a thousand other barbarities give testimony how much danger there is of exasperating the traitors in arms. Talk of exasperating men like these! As well might Michael have feared to exasperate the rebellious angels whom he hurled from the battlements of heaven at the fiat of the Almighty. As well might the English have feared to exasperate the Sepoys, who slew in cold blood all whom they overpowered. It is only by sharp and sudden blows you

can put down this rebellion; not by faint-heartedness; not by calculations how your mortal enemies will regard your measures. Why, sir, the same advice that now seeks to induce us to do nothing that will exasperate rebels, would, if carried to lgitimate conclusions, cause our armies to be disbanded, surrender this capital to the enemy, and give over the Union men of the South to hopeless ruin. In the same spirit the last Congress were advised not to pass the Force Bill, to make no appropriations for the navy and army, to do nothing to exasperate the men who had commenced to steal public property, organize rebellion, and trample upon the laws. It will forever remain a blot upon the administration of James Buchanan, that for months after the great conspiracy had developed itself by acts of ruthless violence, he wrung his hands in the halls of the White House, and lamented his hard fate, fearing to strike the blow that should save the nation, lest he might exasperate the traitors who bearded him even in his privacy, and publicly denounced him as a falsifier. The nation is a year older than it then was, and we are burdened with a weighty experience. We see that no act or word of conciliation will avail with the secessionists; that this contest must be fought out to the bitter end by every means in our power consistent with the laws of war. The event has proved that it would have been better for the country had this fact been realized in July last. Then we would have had less talk about conciliation-which has been in vain; utterly idle-and more effective blows upon the front of the horrid monster Secession.-Hon. Aaron Sargent, 1862.

ABOLITION AND ANTI-SLAVERY.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: No public speaker, on rising to address an assembly, has a right to presume that, because at the outset he receives a courteous and even warm approval, therefore they are prepared to indorse all his views and utterances. Doubtless there are some points, at least, about which we very widely differ; and yet, I must frankly confess, I know of no other reason for your kind approval this evening, than that I am an original, uncompromising, irrepressible, outand-out, unmistakable, Garrisonian abolitionist. By that designation I do not mean one whose brain is crazed, whose spirit is fanatical, whose purpose is wild and dangerous, but one whose patriotic creed is the Declaration of American Independence, whose moral line of measurement is the Golden

Rule, whose gospel of humanity is the Sermon on the Mount, and whose language is that of Ireland's liberator, O'Connell

"I care not what caste, creed or color slavery may assume, whether it be personal or political, mental or corporal, intellectual or spiritual, I am for its instant, its total abolition. I am for justice in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God."

I know that to be an abolitionist is not to be with the multitude on the side of the majority-in a popular and respectable position; and yet I think I have a right to ask of you, and of all who are living on the soil of the Empire State, and of the people of the North at large, why it is that you and they shrink from the name of abolitionist? Why is it that, while you profess to be opposed to slavery, you nevertheless desire the whole world to understand that you are not radical abolitionists? What is the meaning of this? Why are you not all abolitionists? Your principles are mine. What you have taught me, I adopt. What you have taken a solemn oath to support, as essential to a free government, I recognize as right and just. The people of this State profess to believe in the Declaration of Independence. That is my abolitionism. Every man, therefore, who disclaims abolitionism, repudiates the Declaration of Independence. Does he not? "All men are created equal, and endowed by. their Creator with an inalienable right to liberty." Gentlemen, that is my fanaticism-that is all my fanaticism. All I ask is, that this declaration may be carried out everywhere in our country and throughout the world. It belongs to mankind. Your Constitution is an abolition Constitution. Your laws are abolition laws. Your institutions are abolition institutions. Your free schools are abolition schools. I bebelieve in them all; and all that I ask is, that institutions so good, so free, so noble, may be everywhere propagated, everywhere accepted, And thus it is that I desire, not to curse the South, or any portion of her people, but to bless her abundantly, by abolishing her infamous and demoralizing slave institution, and erecting the temple of liberty on the ruins thereof.

I believe in democracy; but it is the democracy which recognizes man as man, the world over. It is that democracy which spurns the fetter and the yoke for itself, and for all wearing the human form. And therefore I say, that any man who pretends to be a democrat, and yet defends the act of making man the property of his fellow-man, is a dissembler and a hypocrite, and I unmask him before the universe.

We profess to be Christians. Christianity-its object is

to redeem, not to enslave men! Christ is our Redeemer. I believe in Him. He leads the anti-slavery cause, and always has led it. The Gospel is the Gospel of freedom; and any man claiming to be a Christian, and to have within him the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, and yet dares to hold his fellow-man in bondage, as a mere piece of perishable property, is recreant to all the principles and obligations of Christianity.

It is a shame that we of the North should any longer stand apart. What are all your paltry distinctions worth? You are not abolitionists. Oh, no. You are only anti-slavery! Dare you trust yourself in Carolina, except, perhaps, at Port Royal? You are not an ultra anti-slavery man; there is nothing ultra about you. You are only a Republican! Dare you go to New Orleans? Why, the President of the United States, chosen by the will of the people, and duly inaugurated by solemn oath, is an outlaw in nearly every slave State in this Union! He cannot show himself there, except at the peril of his life. And so of his Cabinet. I think it is time, under these circumstances, that we should all hang together, or, as one said of old, "we shall be pretty sure, if caught, to hang separately." The South cares nothing for these nice distinctions among us. If we avow that we are at all opposed to slavery, it is enough, in the judgment of the South, to condemn us to a coat of tar and feathers, and to general outlawry. William Lloyd Garrison, 1862.

WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE?

WHO are responsible for this war? If I should go out into the streets for a popular reply, it would be, "The abolitionists; it is all owing to the abolitionists. If they had not meddled with the subject of slavery, everything would have gone on well; we should have lived in peace all the days of our lives. But they insisted upon meddling with what doesn't concern them; they indulged in censorious and harsh language against the slaveholders, and the result is, our nation is upturned, we have immense armies looking each other fiercely in the face, and our glorious Union is violently broken asunder."

But, in the language of your chairman, in a brief letter which he sent to the annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, a few weeks ago, "My opinion is this: There is war because there was a Republican party. There

was a Republican party because there was an Abolition party. There was an Abolition party because there was slavery. Now, to charge the war upon republicanism is merely to blame the lamb that stood in the brook. To charge it upon abolitionism is merely to blame the sheep for being the lamb's mother. But to charge it upon slavery is to lay the crime flat at the door of the wolf where it belongs. To end the trouble, kill the wolf. I belong to the party of wolf-killers." And let all the people say Amen!

But consider the absurdity of this charge. Who are the avowed abolitionists of our country? I have told you they occupy a very unpopular position in society-and certainly very few men have yet had the moral courage to glory in the name of abolitionist. They are comparatively a mere handfull. And yet they have overturned the Government! They have been stronger than all the parties and all the religious bodies of the country--stronger than the Church, and stronger than the State. Indeed! Then it must be because with them is the power of God, and it is the truth which has worked out this marvellous result.

How many abolition presses do you suppose exist in this country? We have, I believe, three or four thousand journals printed in the United States; and how many abolition journals do you suppose there are? You can count them all by the fingers upon your hand; yet, it seems, they are more than a match for all the rest put together. This is very extraordinary; but, our enemies being judges, it is certainly

true.

"But the abolitionists have used very hard language." Well, it is certain that a very remarkable change, in regard to this, has taken place within a short time. They who have complained of our hard language, as applied to the slaveholders, are now for throwing cannon-balls and bomb-shells at them! They have no objection to blowing out their brains, but you must not use hard language! Now, I would much rather a man would hurl a hard epithet at my head than the softest cannon-ball or shell that can be found in the army of the North. As a people, however, we are coming to the conclusion that, after all, the great body of the slaveholders are not exactly the honest, honorable and Christian men that we mistook them to be. It is astonishing, when any wrong is done to us, how easily we can see its true nature. What an eye-salve it is! If any one picks our pocket, of course he is a thief; if any one breaks into our house, he is a burglar; if any one undertakes to outrage us, he is a scoundrel. And now that these slaveholders are in rebellion against the Gov