And echoes back the blessings of the brave.”
The “Press,” Forney’s paper, spoke thus, a few days after slavery had died in the District:—
“The emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia was one of the most suggestive events of the age. It was an example and an illustration. The great idea of the past century, the idea which had associated and identified itself with our institutions, was at last tried by a practical test. Good results came from it; none of the evils dreaded and prophesied have been manifested. It was a simple measure of legislative policy, and was established amid great opposition and feeling. Yet it was succeeded by no agitation, no outbreaks of popular prejudice. The District of Columbia is now a free Territory by the easy operation of a statute law,—by what enemies of the measure called forcible emancipation; and yet the District of Columbia is as pleasant and as prosperous as at any period of its history. There has been no negro saturnalia, no violent outbreak of social disorder, no attempt to invade those barriers of social distinction that must forever exist between the African and Anglo-Saxon [?]. It was said that property would depreciate; that there would be excesses and violences; that the negro would become insolent and unbearable; that the city of Washington would become a desolated metropolis; that negro labor would become valueless; that hundreds of the emancipated negroes would flock to the Northern States. We have seen no such results as yet; we know that nothing of the kind is anticipated. We have yet to hear of the first emancipated negro coming to Philadelphia. Labor moves on in its accustomed way, with the usual supply and demand. We do not think a white woman has been insulted by an emancipated negro; we are confident that no emancipated negro has sought the hand of any fair damsel of marriageable age and condition.
“Society is the same in Maryland and Kentucky. In accomplishing emancipation in the District of Columbia, we have shown the timid that their fears were but of the imagination, the mere prejudices of education. Slavery has been the cancer of the Southern social system. We employ an old metaphor, perhaps, but it is a forcible and appropriate illustration. It rooted itself into the body of Southern society, attacking the glands, terminating in an ill-conditioned and deep disease, and causing the republic excruciating pain. It became schirrous and indurated. It brought disaster and grief upon them, and the sorest of evils upon us. It brought us blood and civil war, ruined commerce and desolated fields, blockaded ports, and rivers that swarm with gunboats instead of merchant vessels. It was tolerated as a necessary evil, until its extent and virulence made it incumbent upon us to terminate it as such, or to be terminated by it. The champions of this institution, not content with submitting to the toleration and protection of our great Northern free community, have made it the pretext for aggression and insult, and by their own acts are accomplishing its downfall. The emancipation of slavery in the District of Columbia was the necessary and natural result of the Southern Rebellion. It is but the beginning of the results the Rebellion must surely bring. The wedge has only entered the log, and heavy blows are falling upon it day by day.”
Great was the rejoicing in Washington and throughout the Free States; for every one saw “the end from the beginning.” Our own Whittier strung his harp anew, and sung,—
“I knew that truth would crush the lie,—
Somehow, sometime the end would be;
Yet scarcely dared I hope to see
The triumph with my mortal eye.
But now I see it. In the sun