epresent
with new guaranties. When they speak of Jeff Davis and his crew, their
feeling is as fierce as that of Tilly and Pappenheim towards the
Protestants of Germany. They would burn, destroy, confiscate, and kill
without any mercy, and without any regard to the laws of civilized war;
but when they come to speak of Slavery, their whole tone is changed.
They wish us to do everything barbarous and inhuman, provided we do not
go to the last extent of barbarity and inhumanity, which, according to
their notions, is, to inaugurate a system of freedom, equality, and
justice. Provided the negro is held in bondage and denied the rights of
human nature, they are willing that any severity should be exercised
towards his rebellious master. Now we have no revengeful feeling towards
the master at all. We think that he is a victim as well as an oppressor.
We wish to emancipate the master as well as the slave, and we think that
thousands of masters are persons who merely submit to the conditions
of labor established in their respective localities. Our opposition is
directed, not against Jefferson Davis, but against the system whose
cumulative corruptions and enormities Jefferson Davis very fairly
represents. As an individual, Jefferson Davis is not worse than many
people whom a general amnesty would preserve in their persons and
property. To hang him, and at the same time guaranty Slavery, would be
like destroying a plant by a vain attempt to kill its most poisonous
blossom. Our opposition is not to the blossom, but to the root.

We admit that to strike at the root is a very difficult operation. In
the present condition of the country it may present obstacles which will
practically prove insuperable. But it is plain that we can strike lower
than the blossom; and it is also plain that we must, as practical
men, devise some method by which the existence of the Slavocracy as a
political power may be annihilated. The President of the United States
has lately recommended that Congress offer the cooperation and financial
aid of the whole nation in a peaceful effort to abolish Slavery,--with
a significant hint, that, unless the loyal Slave States accept the
proposition, the necessities of the war may dictate severer measures.
Emancipation is the policy of the Government, and will soon be the
determination of the people. Whether it shall be gradual or immediate
depends altogether on the slaveholders themselves. The prolongation of
the war fo