Subjugation an impossibility.
From an able editorial in the Raleigh State Journal, of Saturday last, we copy the following.The fall of New Orleans has not astonished us, but it hangs heavily and sadly on our almost drooping spirits. It has inflicted a stunning blow on the Confederacy, whose loss is doubly distressing by the contemplation of the enemy's gain. It was distinguished throughout the world for its marts and its commerce. The ships of every civilized nation in the world had rode in its harbors and traded at its wharves. To every European school-boy its name is a familiar term, while in the exchanges of the Eastern continent it is known as the city whence many of their merchant princes have derived their vast fortunes. As in this country, so all over the world, its fall, as it becomes known, will be productive of deep regret or great joy as it falls on the ears of the friends or foes of the Southern Confederacy. As we had never looked abroad for succor, nor expected a recognition, as an independent power, by any of the European States or Kingdoms, until, by patient endurance and the prowess of our own arms we had proved ourselves worthy of the independence we have asserted, and conquered it, the news cannot, in our opinion, affect us as adversely in that quarter. The nations of Europe had long ago resolved to be indifferent spectators of our bloody struggle, and therefore we can afford to regard with indifference any effect which the news may produce on their minds.
But not so with regard to the results upon ourselves and the holy cause in which we have resolved to conquer or die. Those results it becomes us to compute with probable accuracy and meet with unflinching fortitude. It will lead to new and serious complications which none but giant minds and hearts of steel can meet and disentangle. The enemy gets control of the great Mississippi valley and of the navigation of that river. Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, and whatever of Missouri was worth claiming, are out off from the other States. The supplies of provisions and wool which we have been receiving from Texas are out off and a new base of operations, entirely new and advantageous, has been opened to the enemy. These are the immediate results of the disastrous fall of New Orleans — its remote consequences are yet in the womb of futurity, and must be left to take care of themselves, under the guidance of Heaven, and the instrumentality of those whose duty it is to provide against them. But every picture has its lights, its shades and its shadows; and the darkest day has its sunshine. Every town taken and every battle lost, darkens the picture, and in the nature of things, tends to multiply difficulties and to extend the field of suffering and blood through which we have to pass. In the fall of New Orleans, we can see no positive or negative good, however remote which can possibly accrue to the Confederacy, and it would be an idle fancy which would affect to derive consolation from the fact, that the enemy's forces are weakened in other quarters, by the forces which are required to occupy and garrison it. True every town captured by the enemy requires a force to garrison it; but a corresponding force must be kept by us in order to keep the enemy within proper limits.
But, looking at the darkest side which the picture can possibly present, does it afford any pretext to despair of the Confederacy. Was the successful defence of New Orleans essential to the safety of the Republic or the ultimate triumph of our arms? By no means. It may increase our difficulties, dangers, and privations; it may lead to the sacrifice of more of our noble sons on the blazing altars of our country; but what are all these in view of the only alternative of liberty or slavery which the case presents "Subjugation is an impossibility" Let these words be cut in letters of brass and nailed on the lintels and door posts of every man's house in the land. Between honor and dishonor, liberty and slavery, life and death, freemen will accept no alternative. Our houses may be pillaged and given to the flames; our property may be wrested from us by mobs of thieves and bands of ruffians, but our honor and the rights of freemen can never be lost, but will survive all our sufferings.
In the fall of New Orleans we yet perceive one blessing. It offers a new incentive to a yet wilder and fiercer resistance than we have yet made to the foe. We must unite our energies. From the seaboard to the centre, from the centre to the mountains, from every hill and valley, from the point of Cape Henry to the mouth of the Rio Grande we must all assemble, take counsel of each other, and determine, by the honor of freemen, by the valor of soldiers, by the blood of our sons already slain, and the chastity of our daughters already violated, that we will achieve our independence.
"Subjugation is an impossibility." Every true son of the South can rejoice in the thought. He appreciates the sentiment and detests the traitor whose base mind cannot grasp its beauty. He kneels devoutly at the tree of Liberty watered by his father's blood, smiles at the drawn dagger of the tyrant and defies its point, and pours out the holy sentiment, "subjugation is an impossibility." It is his abiding, ruling thought. Town after town, city after city may fall; fields may be post and armies routed, but he remembers his motives are holy, his cause just, his arm strong; and looking up to and relying on a just God, he still believes that "subjugation is an impossibility."
