The American Union Speaker

by John D. Philbrick

EMANCIPATION THE WAR POLICY OF THE PRESIDENT.

At length the skies are cleared, and the oracles have spoken. The ultimate
achievement is already determined in the irreversible purpose of the loyal
States; and that purpose is, a restored republic from the Gulf to the
Lakes,—and a Republic of Freemen.

When the war first broke out, the free States became at once united for the safety of the capital and for vengeance upon those who had dishonored the common flag. Time passed on; the capital was supposed to be secure; changing fortune visited our arms; the people of the North became divided; some insisted upon an instant order of emancipation; others insisted upon no emancipation at all. One there was, as it has seemed to me, who abided the time of Providence and possessed his soul in patience; he was the President. He waited, counselled, struggled for a restored Union, before which and in comparison with which all other things should be subordinated. Within seventeen months after the first gun—so short are the historic stages in our time—he issued his proclamation of freedom with three months of notice. It saved the heart of the North and of a portion of Europe.

In the mean time the loyal arms had rescued several States from the clutch of revolt, and the inquiry everywhere arose, when, and how, and in what manner, the policy of emancipation should be applied. Then again it was, in the fulness of time, that the second Presidential proclamation came forth for the restoration of the States upon the basis of the equality of all men before God. Upon that he will stand, and upon that we shall stand, with no faltering or retracing step, until from the waters of the Gulf to the woods of the North, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific sea, this broad beat of empire shall possess an invincible people with no clanking manacle to fetter the creatures of God.

Accepting this, then, as the fixed policy of the States which are to subjugate the rebellion, we may felicitate ourselves upon the part we are permitted to bear in human events—that a measure, which in other countries and in more peaceful ages would have required a quarter or a half a century for its accomplishment, has become the announced edict of the loyal people of the United States, within the space of thirty-four months. The abolishment of the slave trade by the British Government, initiated by Wilberforce, supported by Pitt and Fox, and Burke and Granville, was accomplished only after seventeen years of parliamentary agitation.

When Mr. Fox, in 1806 submitted this, which proved to be the last motion he ever made in Parliament, and lived to witness its success, nobly did he declare: "That if, during the forty years he had sat in Parliament, he had been so fortunate as to accomplish that object, and that only, he should think he had done enough." If Mr. Fox might take to his heart that gratulation over the first sanction extorted from the Legislature of Great Britain for the abolition of the slave trade, may I not reclaim it with redoubled force for the American Magistrate under whose decree four millions of men will burst the bondage of ages, and mount enriched and ennobled to the enfranchisements of immortality.

The literature of England is rich with the eloquence of eulogium upon the statesman whose star was in the ascendant when freedom became the policy of the Empire; but I choose to appropriate it to him upon this side of the ocean, who has achieved the highest honor of mortal lot; who has won a triumph which leaves every other triumph of humanity and justice out of sight behind it, and for which, to the end of time, mankind will revere his name and bless his memory. A. H. Bullock.

CCCIV.

THE DUTY OF THE HOUR.

As to duty, that is clear from what I have already told you. We owe allegiance to the Government of the Union, and its history to the breaking out of the present foul rebellion, the memory of the men who gave it to us, the untold blessings it has conferred upon us, the support it has given to constitutional liberty everywhere, the gratitude we owe to Washington, whom Providence, it has been said, left childless, that his country might call him father, will all unite in making that allegiance a pleasure as well as a duty. To be false to such a Government, to palter even with the treason that seeks its downfall, to associate with the wicked men or the madmen who are in arms against it, would be as vile a dishonor and as base a crime as fallen man ever perpetrated.