to all their native and inherent rights as men. Such people are honestly opposed to slavery, and can never, without the last struggle, submit to the formation of an aristocratic state with slavery for its corner-stone. It might have been wise and prudent to acquiesce in the institution of slavery as a local institution in some of the States of the Union, where it existed prior to the Union itself, or had since been suffered to acquire, a legal, or quasi-legal existence, so long as it could not be reached without doing violence to the Constitution; but it would be something very different to consent to the reconstruction of the Union on the basis of slavery, and to give it through the Constitution a legal status.— Slavery, say what we will of it, is a great moral, social, and political wrong, and that, too, whatever be the complexion of the slave. If there be any truth in Christianity, if there be any truth in the teachings of the great Fathers and Doctors of the Church, God never gave to man the dominion of man; and hence St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, and others, tell us that the first rulers of mankind were called pastors or shepherds, not lords or dominators; and that God gave to mankind dominion over the irrational creation, but not over the rational. The Church has tolerated slavery, where she lacked the power to abolish it; but her whole history proves that she sets her face against it, and uses all the means at her disposal, without shocking the public peace, or creating tumults and disorder, to prepare the slave for freedom, and to secure his ultimate emancipation. The negro is a man-is a human being—a member of the human race; and, whether naturally inferior or not, to the boasted Caucasian variety, he has the same natural and inherent right to liberty that has the white man, and the wrong of enslaving him is just as great as it would be if he were white. The laboring man, whether white or black, may be a poor man, but God has given him the right to be a free man, to be his own man, not another's.

As to the argument of our Southern slaveholders, and apologists for slavery, that the slave is better cared for, better fed, and better clothed than our poor laborers at the North, they weigh nothing with us; because they relate only to the human animal, and not to the man. If the slave were a mere animal, had no rational soul or moral nature, if he were indeed an ox, a horse, or a dog, we should not complain of his condition, or offer any objection to slavery. We believe that the animal in the slave is often better pro

vided for than the animal in the poor white laboring man; but the man is and must be neglected. It is the man that is wronged and outraged, the man that is debased and enslaved; and the slaveholders know very well that, in order to keep their slaves in subjection, they must close to them, as far as possible, all the avenues to intelligence, debar them from all intellectual and moral culture, and keep them as near the level of brutes as they are able; they must stifle in them the man, and prevent the development in them of that "image and likeness" of God in which they were created. It is this that renders slavery an outrage upon humanity, and has excited against it the indignation of the whole Christian world.

We cannot, therefore, consent to the reconstruction of the Union on the basis of slavery. We believe in the rights of man; we believe in liberty; we would secure to all others that liberty which we demand for ourselves; and we believe slavery a great wrong, a sin against humanity, which is sure, sooner or later, to bring down the vengeance of God upon every people that adopts and insists on perpetuating it. The nations of antiquity had slaves; where are those nations now? Pagan Greece and Rome had their slaves; and where are Greece and Rome to-day? The Ottomans have had their slaves, and the Ottoman empire is now in its agony. Spain became a great slave power through her colonies. Most of those colonies has she lost, and she herself has fallen from the first power, below the rank of a second-class power of Europe. The same may be said of Portugal. Only those nations in Europe, which have emancipated their slaves, freed, or are freeing their serfs, show any signs of longevity. Let the fate of all slaveholding nations be a warning to all those weak, cowardly, or traitorous men at the North, who would consent to the reconstruction of the Union on the basis of slavery. Let them reflect that "the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God;" and every slaveholding nation, whatever its spasmodic piety, or its hypocritical professions, does forget God, who never refuses to hear and ultimately to avenge the slave.

4. Finally, passing over all thus far adduced, we cannot. consent to such a reconstructed Union, because it would contain in it no element of strength and durability, but the seeds of its own dissolution. It would be based not only on slavery as its corner-stone, but on the right of any or

every State to secede, whenever it should choose, without the other States having any right to call it to an account for its secession. This recognized right of secession may work no great harm to-day, while the Confederate States are united in a grand struggle for separate existence, or national reconstruction; but the moment that struggle is over and peace is restored, it would begin to operate, and render the Confederate bond a mere rope of sand. State jealousies would spring up, and new secessions would cominence; the Union would hardly be reconstructed before it would be redissolved into its original elements, and there be as many separate and independent governments as there are individual States. We tried confederation before constructing the Union, and found that it would not work; and the Union itself, if it has any defect, is in the fact that it leaves the Federal power too weak for an effective central power, or to constitute the people of the several States really and practically one political people. The new Confederacy would be still weaker, exaggerate this defect, inasmuch as it would recognize the right of every individual State to secede whenever it judge it for its own interest, convenience, or pleasure to do so. Is it to be hoped that the Confederacy would be conducted with so much wisdom and propriety as never to give umbrage to any State, or that disappointed and ambitious politicians in any State would never find or make a cause for dissatisfaction, and, like the politicians of South Carolina, whirl their State out of the reconstructed Union? Even now, we are told, South Carolina and Georgia are beginning to manifest symptoms of dissatisfaction with the Confederate government, and we can readily believe that, if the pressure of a common danger were removed, each of them would lose no time in raising the "Lone Star" of independence, and seceding from se

cession.

However attractive, then, might be the dream of a reconstructed Union on the basis of slavery, we could never hope to realize it; for we could never hope to preserve it for any considerable length of time in its integrity. There would soon be disaffection at the South; there would be disaffection at the North; and there would always be disaffection in the consciences of all good men, of all true Christians in all sections, created and sustained by the moral and social plague of slavery. Here are reasons amply sufficient why we should not discontinue our efforts to pre

serve the Union as it is, and why we should not make peace with the Rebels on their own terms, or accept their proposition of substituting the Constitution of the Confederated States for the Constitution of the United States.

The government, we insist, had no alternative in the outset but to abdicate itself, or to resist the rebellious movements with all the forces at its command. It has no other alternative now, and the men who would urge upon it any other policy can be commended for their loyalty only at the expense of their intelligence. The only fault of the government has been in having too long pursued a conciliatory policy, in having delayed too long the necessary measures to vindicate its own dignity and authority, in adopting timid and half-way measures, and in having prosecuted the war with too little vigor, and with too great tenderness toward the Rebels. But it is no time now to call up its past delinquencies, and parade them before it. Nothing remains for it but to let the past go, and henceforth treat secession as rebellion, and the seceders and their aiders and abettors as traitors. We wish it to prove that it has the courage and the disposition to treat them as traitors, wherever it meets them, or is able to seize them. We desire it to understand that there is war, real war, downright earnest war, and a war to be conducted not on the principle of respecting the feelings of the enemy, and of doing him no harm, but on the principle of striking him where he is weakest and sorest, and availing ourselves of every advantage against him allowed by the laws of civilized warfare. The Rebels offer no advantage to us; they avail themselves of every advantage against us in their power, respect none of our susceptibilities, and take no pains not to wound our feelings; we must mete them the measure they mete. They allow in their States, where they have the power, the utterance of no Union sentiments, of no Union speeches, or Union harangues, and they hang, imprison, or banish every Union man they can lay their hands on, who keeps not his Union sentiments to himself. We must mete out a like measure to every rebel or secessionist we find in the loyal States, and silence every voice raised against the right of the government to vindicate and preserve the Union by force of arms. It is madness to send our sons and brothers to fight rebels in Virginia, Tennessee, or Missouri, while we suffer their friends, aiders, and abettors to spout their treason and disloyal sentiments

here at home. It is not only madness; it is a moral wrong; it is, as some would say, worse still,-it is a blunder.

Do not tell us that this would be contrary to the Constitution and the free expression of opinion. Traitors and friends of traitors have no Constitutional rights, for they are in rebellion against the Constitution itself, and no man can stand on his own wrong. Free expres: ion of opinion! Just as if the question between lawful authority and rebels were a question on which there could be two honest opinions! Is it a question of opinion, when a nation is engaged in a struggle for its very existence, whether its children shall support it or not? Is it a matter of opinion whether the nation shall be preserved or not? Is it a matter of opinion, when I am assaulted by an assassin, whether I have the right to resist him or not; whether I shall quietly submit to be assassinated, or snatch the dagger from his hand, and plunge it into his own heart? Have men lost their senses? Are we to argue the question whether the sun shines in the heavens or not, when we see it with our own eyes? Down with such intolerable cant about "Constitutional liberty," and "freedom of speech or opinion!" How, if the Constitution is gone, trampled underfoot by rebels, do you expect to maintain constitutional liberty, or any other kind of liberty worth having? Understand at once that we are in war, and in a war for the preservation of the Constitution, for the preservation of liberty, political, moral, mental, civil, and social, and that it is never permitted to plead the Constitution and liberty against the measures necessary for their maintenance. Do understand, if understanding you have, that we are in war for the very existence of the nation, and that, if the nation goes, constitutions and liberty go with it. It is only by preserving the nation in its integrity and its majesty that the Constitution can be maintained, and the liberty it secures enjoyed. Neither the nation nor the Constitution can afford protection to those who would only use their liberty and the Constitution to destroy them.

The measure we suggest may be severe, and such as in ordinary cases of rebellion ought not to be resorted to by a free government. But we are engaged in suppressing no ordinary rebellion; we are engaged in suppressing a rebellion of vast proportions, of vast resources, and of strength hardly inferior to that of the loyal States themselves. We can put it down; and, God helping, we shall put it down;