It should also be borne in mind that the most direct causes of our sufferings all involve very practical benefits. The Southern press taunts our soldiers with enlisting for pay. Let us admit that vast numbers have truly been partially induced by the want of employment at home to enter the army. It is a peculiar characteristic of all Northern blood that it can and does combine intelligence and interest with the strongest enthusiasm. No man was ever made a worse soldier by being prudent, any more than by being a religious Christian. Taunts and jeers can not affect the truth. The Protestant mechanic soldiery of Germany during the wars of the Reformation, the men of Holland, and the Puritans of England, were all reviled for the same cause—but they conquered. God never punishes men for common-sense, nor did it ever yet blind zeal, though it may prevent zeal from degenerating into sheer madness. The war, while it has crippled industry, has also kept it alive,—it has become a great industrial central force, giving work to millions. Again, in the creation of a debt we shall find such a stimulus to industry as we never before knew. Taxation, which kills a weak country crippled by feudal laws and nightmared by an extravagant court and nobility, simply induces fresh and vigorous effort to make additional profits in a land of endless resources and of vast territory, where every man is free to work at what he chooses. Taxation may come before us like a raging lion, but, in the words of BEECHER, we shall find honey in the carcass. Let us only cheerfully make the best of everything, and uphold the administration and the war with a right good will, and we shall learn as we never did before the extent of the incredible elasticity and recuperative power of the American.
It is evident that the present war will have a beneficial result in making us acquainted with the real nature of this arrogant and peculiar South-land. It was said that the Crimean struggle did much good by dispelling the cloudy hobgoblin mystery which hung over Russia, and, while it destroyed its prestige as a bugbear, more than compensated for this, by giving it a proper place abreast of civilized nations in the great march of industry and progress. Just so we are learning that the South is perfectly capable of receiving white labor, that it is not strangely and peculiarly different from the rest of the cis-tropical regions, that the negro is no more its necessity than he is to Spain or Italy, and that, in short, white labor may march in, undisturbed, so soon as industry ceases to be regarded as disgraceful in it. We have learned the vital necessity of union and identity of feeling between all the States, and found out the folly of suffering petty local state attachments to blind us to the glory of citizenship in a nation, which should cover a continent. We have learned what the boasted philanthropy of England is worth when put to the test of sacrifice, and also how the British lion can put forth the sharpest and most venomous of feline claws when an opportunity presents itself of ruining a possible rival. More than this, we have learned to be self-reliant, to take greater and more elevated views of political duty, and to be heroic without being extravagant. Since we were a republic no one year has witnessed such national and social progress among us as the past. We have had severe struggles, and we have surmounted them; we have had hard lessons, and we have learned them; we have had trials of pride, and we have profited by them. And as we contend for principles based in reason and humanity and confirmed by history, it follows that we must inevitably come forth gloriously triumphant, if we but bravely persevere in enforcing those principles.
The large amount of political information regarding the South and its resources which has been of late widely disseminated in the North, is a striking proof that, disguise the question as we will, the extension of free labor is, from a politico-economical point of view (which is, in fact, the only sound one), the real, or at least ultimate basis of this struggle. The matter in hand is the restitution of the Union, laying everything else aside; but the great fact, which will not step aside, is the consideration whether ten white men or one negro are to occupy a certain amount of soil. There is no evading this finality, there is no impropriety in its discussion, and it SHALL be discussed, so long as free speech or a free pen is left in the North. So far from interfering with the war, it is a stimulus to the thousands of soldiers who hope eventually to settle in the South in districts where their labor will not be compared with that of 'slaves,' and it is right and fit that they should anticipate the great and inevitable truth in all its relations to their own welfare and that of the country.
We cheerfully agree with those who try with so much energy that Emancipation is not the matter in hand, and quite as cheerfully assent when they insist that the enemy, and not the negro, demands all our present energy. But this has nothing to do with the great question, whether slavery is or is not to ultimately remain as a great barrier to free labor in regions where free labor is clamoring for admission. That is all we ask, nothing more. The instant the North and West are assured that at some time, though remote, and by any means or encouragements whatever, which expediency may dictate, the great cause of secession and sedition—will be removed from our land, then there will be witnessed an enthusiasm compared to which that of the South will be but lukewarm. That this will be done, no rational person now doubts, or that government will cheerfully act on it so soon as the fortunes of war or the united voice of the people strengthen it in the good work. And until it is done, let every intelligent freeman bear it in mind, thinking intelligently and acting earnestly, so that the great work may be advanced rapidly and carried out profitably and triumphantly.
The leading minds of the South, shrewder than our Northern anti-emancipation half traitors and whole dough-faces, foreseeing the inevitable success of ultimate emancipation, have given many signs of willingness to employ even it, if needs must be, as a means of effectually achieving their 'independence.' They have baited their hooks with it to fish for European aid—they have threatened it armed, as a last resort of desperation, if conquered by the North. Knowing as well as we that the days of slavery are numbered, they have used it as a pretense for separation, they would just as willingly destroy it to maintain that separation. Since the war began, projects of home manufactures, and other schemes involving the encouragement of free labor, have been largely discussed in the South,—and yet in spite of this, thousands among us violently oppose Emancipation. In plain, truthful words they uphold the ostensible platform of the enemy, and yet avow themselves friends of the Union.
We have said it before, we repeat it: we ask for no undue haste, no unwise measures, nothing calculated to irritate or disorganize or impede the measures which government may now have in hand. But we hold firmly that Emancipation be calmly regarded as a measure which must at some time be fully carried out. Be it limited for the time, or for years, to the Border States, be it assumed partially or entirely under the modified form of apprenticeship, be it proclaimed only in Texas or South Carolina, it has in some way a claim to recognition, and must be recognized. Its friends are too many to be ignored in the day of settlement.
It is proper that every detail of contract corruption should be brought fully to light, and the country owes a debt of gratitude to Mr. DAWES for his manly attack on the wretches who have crippled the war, robbed the soldier, swindled the tax-payers, and aided the enemy by their wicked rapacity. Let it be remembered that whatever his sentiments may have been, every man who has been instrumental, directly or indirectly, in cheating the treasury and the my during this period of distress, has been one of its enemies, and far more deadly than if he had been openly enlisted under the banners of JEFFERSON DAVIS. Were we anything but the best-natured and most enduring public in the world, such revelations as have by the been made would long since have driven these rapacious traitors beyond sea or into the congenial Dixie for which they have indirectly labored.
We have been accustomed to read much since infancy of the sufferings of our army during the Revolution,—how they were hatless, ragged, starved, and badly armed. We have shuddered at the pictures of the snow at Valley Forge, tracked by the blood from the feet of shoeless soldiers. Yet, in the year 1861, with abundant means and with all the sympathy and aid of a wealthy country, there has been more suffering in the army than the Revolution witnessed, and it was due in a great measure to men who hastened to the spoil like vultures to their prey. If the army has not in advanced, if proper weapons are not even yet ready, let the reader reflect how much the army is still crippled owing to imperfect supplies, and have patience.
It is not the soldier alone who has been robbed by the contractor. The manufacturer who sees only a government order between himself and failure, and who is willing to do anything to keep his operatives employed, is asked to supply inferior goods at a low price. He may take the order or leave it,—if he will not, another will,—and with it is expected to take the risk of a return. When a man sees ruin before him, he will often yield to such temptations. The contractor takes the goods, sells them if he can, and pockets the profits, sometimes ten times over what the manufacturer gains. He thereby robs outright, not only the soldier, but also the operatives who make the goods, since the manufacturer must reduce their wages to the lowest living point, in order to save himself.
It will all come to light. There is a discovery of all evil, and there is a grace which money cannot remove, neither from the thief nor from his children. And we rejoice to see that so much is being made known, and that in all probability the public will be fully informed as to who were principally guilty in these enormous and treasonable corruptions.