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T g E
WAR AND SLAVERY;
OR,
V I C T O R Y
ONLY THROUGR
EMIANCIPATION.
B OSTON:
PUBLISHED  BY  R. F. WALLCUT,
No. 221 WASHINGTON STREET.
18 61.
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YICTORY ONLY THROUGH EMANCIPATION.
IT is undeniable that the Southern rebellion is a war for
slavery through the overthrow of the Federal Government.
Its antecedents, its inception, the speeches and official papers
of Davis and Stephens, its history thus far, all show it.
Slavery is not only the object of the rebellion, but it is the
right arm of its strength. The slaves, by their toil, furnish
the sinews of the war the rebels are waging. Without their
labor, they could not carry forward their project. The slaves
not only till their soil and produce their supplies, but they
build their fortifications, strengthen their columns, perform
the menial service of their camps, and in a thousand ways
contribute to their power, comfort and success.   No  matter
how many men they put into the field, they do not weaken
their agricultural force, for the whites do not labor, but
almost every man who enters the Northern army is taken
from some department of productive labor, and, by so much,
diminishes our resources for conducting the war.
If this rebellion, therefore, is to be put down, it will be
found necessary to strike the decisive blow at the vulnerable
and vital point to be found in the system of slavery. Not
only is this necessary to weaken the power of the rebels, but,
until it is done, there cannot be that unity, enthusiasm and
strength in our own effort that is equal to the task we have
in hand to accomplish. There has always been a large class
at the North who have believed it to be the duty of the government, at all times, to suppress slavery. To this class,
tens of thousands have recently been added, who, while they
have had scruples as to the right of the government to do it
before, believe it to be both its right and duty to do it now.
,.S it.., 
VICTORY ONLY THROUGH EMANCIPATION.
They know that whatever protection the slaveholders might
claim for their institution while loyal to the Constitution,
now that they have rebelled ayainst that Constitution?, the
government is not only absolved from every obligation to
protect it, but is bound by its duty to the imperilled nationality -to say nothing here of its duty to the poor slaves
themselves-to put an end to the curse and scourge at once
and for ever.  WAhen, therefore, the government rises to the
level of this now almost universal feeling of the people, it
will call out that unity of effort and overwhelming enthusiasm that will sweep like an avalanche of power against the
rebel forces, and annihilate their strength and scatter them
like chaff before the whirlwind, while a mighty phalanx of
eight hundred thousand emancipated and able-bodied bondmen
would meet them in the rear to finish the glorious victory.
But the dallying policy of the government on this subject
causes the spirit of the people to flag in the contest, while the
moral support of England, France, and other European governments is well nigh lost to our cause, but which a bold and
decisive measure of emancipation would fully and effectually
secure.  Can we hope to succeed in our struggle without
evoking the highest type of the heroic endeavor of the people?  without  calling  to our side the moral force of the
nations? without rallying the slaves themselves to the standard of the Union and Freedom? If it were possible to gain
a bare victory over the rebel forces, and plant our standard
once more on our stolen forts and arsenals, and yet leave
slavery untouched and the slaveholding oligarchy in possession of its former power, its insolence and domination and
the " irrepressible conflict" would still continue, and leave us
without any substantial victory or abiding peace, ever and
anon to be torn by political convulsions, Kansas raids and
slaveholding lynchings and outrages, until the flames of civil
war become again enkindled, and we resort once more to the
arbitrament of the sword, with this same question confronting
us for a settlement. So much for the military and political
reasons for emancipation.
But there is other and higher reason to doubt even the
tenmporary success of our arms, while we endeavor to fight
rebellion and at the same time preserve for the rebel South
their darling institution-while we profess to be fighting for
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TICTORY ONLY THROUGII E.IANCIPATTON.
civilization, and yet shield the sternest de-otion — and the
vilest barbarism the world has ever known. That higher
reason is found in the fact, that God still governs this world;
and he has said, "At what instant I shall speak concerning a
nation to build and to plant it, if it do evil in my sight, that
it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good where-with I said I would benefit them, and I will pluck them up
and destroy them." Hle has pledged himself to the cause of
the oppressed, to " hear their cry," and to " break in pieces
the oppressor." Now, while the Federal Government holds
its present attitude on the subject of slavery, it is as really
the oppressor as the rebel South, and God will hold us to the
responsibility, and cause us to share the penalties of the transgression. The government has admitted the right of slavery
in the States; has protected the inter-State slave trade; has
assumed the duty of returning fugitives, and has ever held
itself ready to quell the efforts of the slaves to throw off
their bondage; and even now, its generals, fighting for the
government which slavery is seeking to destroy, pledge themselves beforehand to " put down slave insurrections with an
iron hand."   Now, as before God, though constitutional obligations were piled heaven high, no government could be
justified in doing these things, for I-is authority is supreme
for governments as well as for individuals, and  the nation
that discards this principle and proceeds to acts of tyranny
and injustice from a fancied political necessity, is on the
high road to destruction, and, without repentance, its doom is
inevitable.
The history of all oppressive governments in the past
shows that our statement is not the utterance of fanaticism.
Wvhere  is mighty Babylon, with her " golden cities," her
nagnificent palaces, her "hanging gardens," and boundless
glory and wealth?  And where is rich and luxurious Persia, withli her "hundred and twenty-seven provinces," stretching " from India over to Ethiopia,"' and commanding armies
of millions?  And warlike Greece, famed for her world-wide
conquests?   And iron-booted and brazen-helmeted Rome,
with her millions of slaves, symbolized in the vision of the
old prophet by a monster beast, " dreadful and terrible, having great iron teeth, devouring and breaking in pieces, and
stamping the residue with his feet," where is she?  And 
6         VICTORY ONLY THROUGH EMANCIPATION.
Egypt, with her atheistic King, who said, "Who is the Lord
that I should obey his voice to let Israel go?" and then
commanded the bondmen " back to their burdens "-where
is she?  Where are they all?  In the language of another
of the old Seers, "They. have all gone down  to hell with
their weapons of war, with their iniquities upon their bones,
though they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the
living."  And wherefore are they fallen?  They were murderous and oppressive governments-" they destroyed their
land and slew their people," and according to the decree of
the Almighty, He has "swept them with the besom of destruction." And shall the American government, persevering in its oppression of millions of its people, constitute the
solitary exception in the history of the world of a nation
escaping the just penalty of its deeds? Not till the fixed
laws of God are abolished, and His throne shall take the side
of the oppressor.
Therefore, though the Constitution should forbid emancipation, it should nevertheless-be done.  But it does not forbid,
it demands it.  It was "ordained to establish justice, and
secure the blessings of liberty." But apart from this, no
one has attempted to deny the right of the government, now
in a state of war for its very existence, to abolish slavery as
a means of preserving that existence.  Neither the President, nor Congress, nor the Judiciary has gainsayed this
doctrine.  If, therefore, the government fails now to act,
where its duty is clear and its right undisputed, it must be
friom the most cowardly or jesuitical policy, involving the
most gratuitous, and, therefore, the wickedest complicity with
the crime of slaveholding.   We  now have an opportunity
thrust upon us, in the providence of God-that we may be
without the shadow of an excuse for not doing it-to
redeem the oath, made eighty-five years ago, that, if God
would give us victory over our enemy, we would found a
government on the doctrine declared to be "self-evident,"
that "God has created all men equal, and endowed them with
certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness." I say we made oath to do this,
for when we put forth the Declaration and entered upon the
struggle to make it good, we "a appealed to the Searcher of
heartsfor the rectitude of our intentions."  Not having ful 
VICTORY ONLY THROUGH EMANCIPATION.
filledCthis-lj1e-g, so solemnly made, we   D for God a
perjured nation to-day. For eighty-five years we have endeavored to cement the Union with the blood of the slaves,
to bind it together by laws bfor their capture and return to
bondage, and to fortify it with compromises, leaving our oath
unaccomplished; and the " Searcher of hearts" has seen it.
Now behold the retribution! These bloody sacrifices to the
Slave Power have whetted its appetite for dominion and
cruelty, and more blood, and now it seeks to satiate itself by
slaughtering the very people who have officiated at its altar
in these bloody rites; not now to cement the Union, but in
diabolical effort to destroy it for ever.  If we  are not a
nation of atheists, how can we hope for success in this war
until we free our soul of perjury by "establishing justice and
bidding the oppressed go free"?  The war, itself, is a retribution for our complicity with slavery. By compromise and
concession we have strengthened the Slave Power, and now it
demands supreme sovereignty, and lays hold of conspiracy
and treason to compass its ends. This is God's law of compensation.  Ie have "sown the wind," and now we "reap
the whirlwind."
The loyal souls who take this view of the case, though they
mourn over the loss of brave men slaughtered at Big Bethels
and Bull Runs, and hide their faces in shame at the defeat
and disgrace of our arms, yet they accept it all as a divine
chastisement of the nation, and they will expect disaster upon
disaster until the National Government, clothed as it is with
national responsibilities towards all its subjects, shall "proclai'n liberty throughout  ALL THE LAND, unto ALL THE INHIIABITANTS thereof." But instead of doing this, in the very
hour of the nation's defeat, disgrace and great calamity, in
which the voice of the Almighty seemed as audible as when
He spoke in the "tempest and thunderings" of Sinai, Congress proceeds to declare "that the war is no', -or the overthrow of the institution of any Sta'u-'  mea,ing thereby slavery. One would have thought that if the bombardment of
Sumter, the massacres of Big Bethel and Vienna, and the
assassinations of Baltimore, were not enough to prevent fur ther compromises, at least the enemy's cannon of Bull Run
and the rebel barbarities of that battle scene would have
silenced the voice of concession and called forth stern meas
is
ol
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8    VICTORY ONLY THROUGII EMANCIPA3TION.
mlee  of, retbL~tio. at,ainiist that in-fitqultous system thaw  jiad
hatched the foul treason into existence and made strong the
conspirators  0or their work of destruction and overthrow.
The rebellion is now so formidable, so defiant, so murderous
in its character, that all attempts at conciliation are not only
useless.  hut are actually affording  aid and comfort to the foe,
andl placing the government il the ridiculous posture of ex ertingr itself againist its own cause. This is plainly a war of
slavery a(gainst freecldom, of a bloated aristocracy against the
equal rights and dignity of the poor and laboring many, and
the government  should boldly meet-the  enemy on his own
~ issue and strike for the freedom of all; restore the national
sovereignty wherever the slave oligarchy has caused it to trail
in the dust.  How long shall we by concessions and half measures weae;, our own  cause only to provoke the contempt
o;',~.,. i.:,? ~itri  C,s ii the name  of God, at his valnerable
point, free the sl     and let them  swell the army of freedom,
antl thus save the lives of our brave  men, and prevent the
Itter -iuiruptcy of the people, by bringing the war to a,
peedy and triiumphal close.  All the blood and treasur;l that
are expended, that emancipation would save, the government
is rsponsible  for.   Dare it take  this  responsibility any
lon er?  Hadl it rather welcome bloody battles, disgraceful
and ruinous defeats, and the lamentation and mourning of
the people, than to lay its crushing hand upon that accursed
thin", namiied human slavery?  If' so, God will give us battle,
defeat andi mourni,ng to our full.  North and South will both
iuffer iuntil the one great object for which God means the war
is accclnplislhedc-TIE FREEDOM OF TIIHE ENSLAED.
O~~; YA  ol:.i, Augusl t 2$tl; 18t3l!