So far as nine-tenths of the North ever cared, or do now care, slaves
might have hoed away down in Dixie, until supplanted, as they have been
in the North, by the irrepressible advance of manufactures and small
farms, or by free labor. 'Keep your slaves and hold your tongues,' was,
and would be now, our utterance. But they would not hold their tongues.
It was 'rule or ruin' with them. And if, as it seems, a man can not hold
slaves without being arrogant and unjust to others, we must take his
slaves away.
And why is not this the proper time to urge emancipation? Divested of
all deceitful and evasive turns, the question reduces itself to
this,--are we to definitely conquer the enemy once and for all, the
great enemy Oligarchy, by taking out its very heart? or are we to keep
up this strife with slaveholders forever? It is a great and hard thing
to do, this crushing the difficulty, but we must either do it or be done
for. In a few months 'the tax-gatherer will be around.' If anybody has
read the report of the Secretary of the Treasury without a grave
sensation, he is very fortunate. How would such reports please us
annually for many years? So long as there exists in the Union a body of
men disowning allegiance to it, puffed up in pride, loathing and
scorning the name of free labor, especially as the ally of capital, just
so long will the tax-gatherer be around,--and with a larger bill than
ever.
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