The last Felly of Federalism.
The last folly of the Lincoln Government is, like its other follies, doing the cause of the South great service. The proclamation freeing the slaves changes in no wise the fate of the people in those districts of the seceded States overrun by the enemy, while it involes in their misfortunes all the people of the border slave States. Wherever the Northern hordes have spread themselves over the South they have taken away all the negroes they could by persuasion, and generally force. Therefore, the proclamation makes matters no worse, in respect to that kind of property, for the States-rights men of the South.But the proclamation is absurd in another view. The Federal Congress has passed laws confiscating the entire property, personal and real, of all rebels, and they of course sweep everything. The Southern patriot knows that if the Southern army fails to protect him the Northern robbers will despoil him of everything he possesses, and may not spare his life. It matters not with him, therefore, that Lincoln by proclamation declares his slaves free.
Since, then, it accomplishes nothing more than the policy already legalized by the Northern Congress, there could be nothing gained by issuing this proclamation but some popularity with the insane fanatics of abolitionism. To propitiate them and relieve himself from the pressure of their continued appeals, Lincoln must have taken the step. But it will raise up enemies against him in the border States that will plague his imagination, and rob him of many a night's rest. We have only to read Mr. Nelson's eloquent address to the people of East Tennessee, to be satisfied of this. That gentleman was the ablest of the Southern Union party in the Federal Congress before secession. He has proved himself to be one of the most devoted of them; holding on up to the date of the proclamation to his hope of reconstructing the Union, and his aversion to the Southern cause. That paper has aroused the dormant spirit of State rights and State sovereignty in his heart, and he comes out like a man and a true patriot in their defence. He is worth a thousand men to the South. He will have worthy compeers standing by him, struggling nobly for that just cause which Northern tyranny and outrage have at last forced him to response.
The next folly of the Brigand Government in its war of rapine will be the arming of the slaves by authority from Washington. That act is an essential part of the brutal policy to which they have been forced by submitting to the pressure of the fanatical public sentiment of the North. It is the next step in the course of degradation and inhumanity of the Northern Government. It will still further help along the cause of the South on both sides of the Atlantic. From the beginning we knew they would invoke all the powers of earth and hell in their war upon us. Their public avowal of their horrid measures do not surprise or alarm us, while we have the benefit of the object of their acknowledgment upon the civilized world as well as upon a large portion of their own people.
