e foolish dupes or allies of this
widespread Southern league, many being desirous of directly reinstating
the old Southern tyranny, while the mass simply hope to keep their
record clear of accusation as Abolitionists, in case Secession should
succeed. 'I was a K.G.C. during the war,' would in such case be a most
valuable evidence of fidelity for these bat-like birds-among-birds and
beasts-among-beasts. Deluded by the hope of being all right, no matter
which side may conquer, thousands have sought to pay the initiation fee,
and we need not state have been most gladly received. It is at least
safe to beware of all men who, in times like these, impudently avow
principles identically the same with those which constitute the _real_
basis of Secession. We refer to all who continually inveigh against
_Abolition_ as though that were the great cause of all our troubles, who
cry out that Abolitionists must be put down ere the war can come to an
end, and clamor for the immediate imprisonment of all who are opposed to
slavery.

And while on this subject, we venture to speak a few words on this
oft-reiterated accusation, that the Abolitionists have directly caused
this war, and from which they themselves by no means shrink. Whatever
influence or aid they may have given, it is now becoming clear as day
that no opposition to slavery was ever half so conducive to Secession
and rebellion as _Slavery itself_. Had there never been an Abolitionist
in the North, the self-generated arrogance of the 'institution' must
have spontaneously impelled the Southern party to treason. The exuberant
insolence which induced the most biting expressions of contempt for
labor and serfs, was fully developed in the South long before the days
of Garrison; long even before the Quakers of Pennsylvania put forth
their protest against slavery, a full century ago. The North was accused
by the Southern wolf of troubling the stream, though its course was
directly toward the wished-for victim. It is time that the absurd cry
ceased, and that the South be made to bear its own load of guilt. Ever
arrogant, chafing at the intellectual supremacy of the North, envious of
its prosperity, despising with all the rancor of a lawless 'chivalry'
our regard for the rights of persons, prone to dissipation, and densely
ignorant of the great tendencies to progress which characterize the
civilization of the nineteenth century, the Southerner has ever felt the
same tendency to break a