To abasement at the footstool of this triumphant wickedness, everything venal and sordid in the yet Free States would inevitably and intensely gravitate: commerce seeking customers; manufactures eager for markets; shipping greedy of cargoes and freights; but, above all, Democratic politicians hungry for power and pelf, and having the strong instinct of American unity and nationality as their fulcrum. They would gradually but surely undermine the mutilated fabric of our once glorious Union, and tear away its pillars to strengthen and extend the pile whereof Slavery is the acknowledged corner-stone. The Union would gradually crumble and disappear, and the slaveholders' Confederacy be built up from its ruins; the Slave Power would resume its arrested march toward the equator, dragging the Republic behind its triumphal chariot wheels; Mexico, Central America, Cuba, Hayti, &c., would be gradually 'annexed' by it; domestic opposition to its dictates would be summarily suppressed as treason or 'abolition;' the masses of our people would become like the Roman populace under the Cæsars; the forms of a republic might for a season be preserved, but the essence would speedily evaporate, leaving a vast, powerful, rapacious Slave Empire, ruled by some master spirit of the slaveholding oligarchy, and wielding all the power of the nation for the gratification and aggrandizement of that grasping, unscrupulous aristocracy. Having ceased to be the refuge of the hunted and the cynosure of the oppressed, this country would thenceforth awe the nations of the Old World by its military power, and shock them by its profligacy, whereof the Ostend Circular and the murders and forgeries of Kansas were but foretastes, until God in His righteous wrath should bring upon it some visitation like the present, and hurl it from its pinnacle in mercy to mankind.
My friend! we must fight on till we conquer. We have no alternative but absolute ruin. Our triumph is far nearer than it seems, if we can but animate the loyal States to put forth their whole strength for the contest. Our armies are mustered; our leaders are chosen; our munitions provided; and the Proclamation of Freedom is an immense make-weight thrown into the right scale. We must and shall conquer, and save the civilized world from a scourge more baleful than any Alaric or Attila.
THANK GOD FOR ALL.
Air—'They tell me thou'rt a favored guest;' or,' Seht ihr drei Rosse vor dem Wagen.'
Look back upon the vanished years,
When all men pointed at our shame;
Think on the curses and the jeers
Which rung and clung around our name:
A byword and a mocking call—
And we may thank the South for all.
The foulness of their Southern slime
Was cast upon our Northern hands;
The curse of murder, craft, and crime
Clung to our fame in foreign lands:
Men thought us prompt to thieve or brawl—
And we may thank the South for all.
Britannia smiles on Davis now,
And blesses all his bayonets;
There was a time when on our brow
She set the shame of Southern debts:
We wore the chain—we dragged the ball—
And we may thank the South for all.
Men spoke of slaves in bitter tone,
When pointing to the stripes and stars;
'The constellation is your own,
The negro gets the bloody scars,
And yet of equal rights you bawl!'
Well—we may thank the South for all.
They stole our starlight—made us blind,
As did of old the Norland elves:
Prometheus stole it—for mankind,
But they—they kept it for themselves,
And held us like their slaves in thrall—
And we—we thanked them for it all.
Thank God! the pact is rent in twain!
Thank God! the light is all our own!
We've burst the bonds and rent the chain,
And drawn the sword, unhelped, alone:
And, holding Freedom's carnival,
We'll thank the South for that and all.
The morning-red is on our brow,
The brand, the curse grows pale with night;
The sword is in our hands, and now
All gleams in glory's golden light:
We're free! Ye nations, hear the call—
We see! and now thank God for all!
A MERCHANT'S STORY.
'All of which I saw, and part of which I was.'