In yesterday's Dispatch we published the late legislation of the Yankee Congress abolishing slavery, and the scenes attending its adoption. The proposition which that body has passed is for the incorporation into the Constitution of an amendment ordaining that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."In order to be incorporated in the Constitution, the amendment must be ratified by a majority in each House of the Legislatures of three-fourths of the thirty-six States belonging to the Union, of which (the Yankees having twenty-eight States) there can be no doubt.
If we had ever doubted that this was one of their Revolutions, not designed to go backward, if we had ever harbored a suspicion that reconstruction of the old Union was within the limits of possibility, or that a beneficent Heaven had led us forth from the land of Egypt only to return to the dominion of Pharaoh, the crowning consummation of the Abolition triumph has set at rest forever this idle and unworthy thought. The hand of Heaven has written on the wall the eternal separation of the United States, and no Confederate man will longer even desire to join together that which God hath put asunder.
From the bottom of our heart we thank the Federal Congress for this most timely and decisive legislation. We assure them that it did not come a moment too soon; that it is not in any way too stringent or too sweeping. We look upon it as the manifest hand of Heaven interposed in the very way, and at the very hour, that our condition required. It is a greater boon to us than a grand victory in the field. We echo back the shouts of delight that rang through the House of Representatives. We should like to see gun for gun fired with their frantic population in honor of the event, only that we wish to save our gunpowder and give them shotted salutes on the battle-field. Do these Chinese summer-set-turners and tom-tom-beaters ever-reflect that the Confederate people have never yet fired a salute in honor of any of the magnificent victories we have gained these four years? Do they see the difference between men and children? If we do not now ring all our bells, fire all our cannon, sing Te Deum in all our churches, it is not because there is no music, joy and gratitude in our hearts. Just the right thing, and just the right time.
‘ "I thank thee, Roderick, for the word.
It nerves my heart, it steels my sword."
’
It was but a few days ago that the military organ of the United States conceded that the Southern Confederacy could not be subjugated by simple force; that it was upon the overthrow of its "will," of its "moral Strength," that the United States relied for its conquest. If ever there was a time when its "will" was weakened, or its "moral Strength" decayed,--thanks to that Abolition Congress — thanks to Lincoln and Seward's reply to our commissioners — it stands now upon a Gibraltar. Henceforth the most sordid spirit in the whole Confederacy will not dream of reconstruction; the veriest poltroon will be brave. The dream of a re-united country will vanish even from lunatic asylums, and every eye will see in the face from which the Federal mask has been dropped by itself the undisguised features of the Thug and the Devil.--They will have our property, our lands, our lives. Will they? Let them come and take them.
The United Sates Congress has abolished slavery in the United States. We could laugh at their folly, if gratitude for the service they have rendered us did not forbid us to treat our benefactors with irreverence. Why did they not abolish it in Dahomey? Why do they not command the sea to stand still, and say to the ocean, "Thus far shalt thou come, and no further?" Our very slaves will teach them to respect their rights. Let them make good their laws by deeds instead of words. We are going to resist them henceforth as one man, and to defend our hearthstones and our lives as men do who have no hope but in God and in their own right arms. The "moral strength" of the Confederacy is this day restored as by a miracle. Laus Deol We shall maintain our cause, our institutions, the integrity of our soldiers. We ask no more for peace, nor do we expect it, nor will we have it whilst the foot of a Yankee soldier pollutes this soil, or a hostile Yankee flag is unfurled on this continent.
