In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced,
We may with more successful hope resolve
To wage by force or guile eternal war,
Irreconcilable to our grand foe.”
Such is their spirit. Grounding arms, they now resort to other means. Cunning takes the place of war. As they precipitated themselves out of the Union, they now seek to precipitate themselves back. A “wooden horse” is constructed, which is stuffed with hidden foes, and thus they seek to enter Troy. Already the rattle of arms is heard, and ominous voices, as the treacherous engine is advanced; but, beyond these sounds, there is the record of the past and the present. Who does not know that the South is full of spirits who have sworn undying hatred, not only to the Union, but to reason itself, and whose policy is a perpetual conspiracy against the principles of our Government? Painful proofs come to demonstrate the prevailing frenzy. The freedmen are trodden down, and the land is filled with tragedies. History stands aghast at the Massacre of Glencoe in a retired Scotch valley, and our sympathies overflow at the murder of a solitary traveller by the merciless Indian; but these scenes are now repeated. The barbarism of Slavery rages still. The lash and the bloodhound are at large. Life is of little value, if it beats under a colored skin. Citizens in the national uniform are insulted, mutilated, murdered,—especially if in command of colored troops. And these criminals, besmeared with patriot blood, and boiling with concentrated rage, now strive to envelop themselves in the immunities of State Independence, with two special objects: first, that they may deal with the freedman as they please, without check from the national authority; and, secondly, that they may send a solid representation of more than eighty votes, pledged to Southern pretensions, which, in combination with treacherous votes from the North, may reassert that ancient monopoly and masterdom under which the country suffered so long,—
“and once more
Erect the standard there of ancient Night.”
Reading the proceedings of the Convention in Mississippi, we seem again to hear the ancient voice,—
“To claim our just inheritance of old,
Whether by open war or covert guile,