ion, classifying them by law as chattels, darkening the immortal
soul, and making it a crime to teach millions of human beings to read or
write. And shall labor and education, literature and science, religion
and the press, sustain an institution which is their deadly foe?

_But slavery is the enemy of free government._ It has commenced and now
wages an unholy war against this Union, and thus assails the liberty of
our country and of mankind. It has framed a government based on the
eternity of chattel slavery, and demands in its name to rule the larger
portion of the Union. It seeks to sever the lakes from the gulf, and the
mighty Mississippi and its vast arterial tributary system. It asks to be
_let alone_ in the commission of all these heaven-daring crimes. In the
name of my bleeding country, of the millions whom it has doomed to
death, or wounds, or chains, or misery; in the name of the widows and
orphans it has made, whose bitter tears and agonizing sighs now fill our
land with sorrow; in the name of the free and blessed government it
seeks to overthrow, and the glorious Union it strives to dissolve; in
the name of God and man, of religion and liberty, the world arraigns the
criminal at the bar of justice. Now is the day of trial: humanity hopes
and fears, mankind await the verdict. It is rendered: _Guilty_ upon
every charge of the indictment; and heaven records the righteous
sentence--_Slavery must die, that the Union and liberty may live
forever!_

SOMETHING WE HAVE TO THINK OF, AND TO DO.

The President's order for a draft--aside from its immediate purpose--has
an important bearing in a more general view on the education of the
public mind. It is an impressive enforcement of the great principle that
every able-bodied man in the nation owes military service to his country
as sacredly as he owes obedience to his God. This is a principle which
probably few persons will hesitate to admit when plainly confronted with
it. But the conviction of it has slumbered in the mind of the people
during the long years of peace we have enjoyed. There has been almost
nothing to remind us of it for fifty years past. The draft is an
emphatic proclamation of it. It brings it home to the conscience of the
nation; and thousands, who might otherwise have scarcely thought of it,
will be led to recognize and to feel it.

It is to be hoped that we shall go further--that the quickened sense of
obligation will make us consider what