The Impotency of their Malice.
We lately published from a Massachusetts newspaper a statement of the puissant editor that the only terms the North would give the South would be to hang a hundred of the ringleaders, make the Southern States pay the debt of the war, and hold them thenceforth as territories of the United States.And suppose they could do it, the South would even then hold a grander place in history than the victorious North. They cannot degrade us; they cannot humiliate us; they cannot rob the South of its place among the Immortals. Does not Hungary, conquered by colossal odds, hold a higher place this hour in the estimation of all mankind than Austria? Is not the blood of martyrs for the truth more precious in the eyes of God and man than the brute force which dragged them to the stake? Is not the fallen oak, uprooted by the hurricane, a nobler object than the wild winds which have laid its leafy glories in the dust?
Suppose we could be subjugated, and our name and country taken from us, they cannot take away our place in history and in the admiration of all mankind. They cannot obliterate the fact that a feeble population heroically battled for years against four times its numbers, having the resources and the men of the whole world at its command, and only succumbed when resistance was no longer possible. They cannot blot out the sacrifices which men and women have made through all this war of life and worldly goods, and case and home, for the sake of principle and liberty.--They cannot achieve for their own name anything but the intense scorn and disgust which all mankind must feel for a nation which can only overcome its adversary by an enormous preponderance of numbers, and which is base enough to glorify itself on account of victory thus achieved. Who would not rather hold the place in history of the heroic South thus conquered than of besotted conquerors, who have proved themselves inferior to their fallen adversary in everything but brute strength?
No. Even if we perish we shall live and triumph. Every Southern battle field will shine on the pages of history in immortal light. Every Southern soldier's grave will be a spot more sacred than the enemy's triumphal arch of victory. The heroic dead of every valley shall rise and stand upon their feet, and lead the vanguard of all future struggles of the oppressed for liberty. Every Southern warrior's tomb shall be kept green by the tears of grateful generations, and their posterity shall be proud of the blood that once coursed through their veins, whilst the descendants of their conqueror shall blush to remember that it was only by four to one, and by piling upon the top of such tremendous odds hordes of foreigners and negroes, that they could crush a struggling handful to the dust.
But, Heaven helping us, we shall neither be conquered nor crushed. If there were no God, if numbers and cannon were God, if Eternal Justice were a dream, we might have despaired of the result at the beginning. But the same Providence which has so signally delivered us from the beginning is able still to vindicate the righteous cause. We are in less danger of subjugation at this moment than we were at the very outset of the War. If we learn to put our trust in God, and not in man, God, who has so often crowned our arms with victory, will conduct our armies to still more glorious success. All in His own good time, He will achieve our deliverance, and will chastise with a retribution as gigantic as their crimes the incarnate fiends who are panting for our destruction.
