The Edinburg Review on the American Civil War (1862)

Source: The Polynesian. Honolulu: July 19, 1862.

In an article upon "Belligerents and Neutrals," relative to the Trent affair, the above Review says:

The Americans of the Northern States seem from the commencement of this contest unable to perceive or unwilling to admit its essentially revolutionary character-revolutionary, not only as regards the States which had quitted the Union but as regards those also which remained united. For by the removal of so imp[ortant a portion of the former Confederation, the relations of all that still adhere to it are entirely changed. It can no more stand erect than an arch after one half of it has been swept away. The Federal tie being thus broken, the law which was the basis of the national existence of the United States lost its authority-if based on agreement, the agreement was dissolved: if based on authority, the authority was disarmed. Hence, in place of a definite Constitution and a positive Law, a state of things has succeeded which can only be described as revolutionary. The Federal Government has assumed, under the plea of necessity, powers which were certainly never contemplated by the authors of the Constitution-it has suspended at pleasure personal freedom and the liberty of the press, it has confiscated property, it has crushed the State of Maryland by an armed occupation, and suspended in some cases the independence of the judges. The Congress now sitting in Washington is in fact a Rump Parliament, inasmuch as it represents but one section of the country, though it claims to legislate for the whole. Yet such is the state of anarchy into which men's minds have fallen, that with all their hereditary jealousy of illegality, the Americans not only submit to this intolerable state of things but defend it.

Unhappily, this revolutionary condition of the American people is not of very recent origin, though it has only recently overthrown their political union. But the history of the United States for the last twenty-five years is full of examples to show that the respect of the people for the law was rapidly declining, and that the law itself was undermined by the action of the democratic current. 'It would appear,' says Mr. Spence in his Essay on the American Union, 'that the real object of popular respect in the United States, is not law but force. Uncontrollable force in the people-despotic force in party-unlicensed force in Lynch law-indignant force in vigilance committees-daring force in individual outrage-vigorous force, however employed, at once awakens latent sympathy and commands intuitive respect.' That is precisely the description of a revolutionary state of society. What was the repudiation of public debts but a breech of the law sanctioning public engagements? What were the filibustering expeditions which prepared the annexation of Texas, plunged the nation into the Mexican war, threatened Cuba, and instigated Walker, but breaches of the law against neighboring states? What are the numerous affronts and injuries we ourselves have till now condescended to endure-the sympathizers on the Canadian frontier, the suppression of the original maps of the north-east frontier, the protection afforded by the American flag to the slave-trade, the lawless seizure of a portion of the Island of San Juan, the discourteous exclusion of a British Minister and British Consuls, and lastly this outrage on the Trent-what are they all but proofs that the rulers of the American people have established their popularity and power on revolutionary appeals to the passions of the populace, rather than on the restraints and obligations of law and reason? Can any one wonder at these injuries to foreign nations, when, in the very Senate of the United States, a man like Mr. Sumner, illustrious by his talents and his virtues, was struck down by a ruffian, who in his turn received the thanks of his fellow citizens; and when another man, a red-handed assassin like Mr. Sickles, is acquitted by an American jury, and now commands a brigade in the army of the United States? When such things as these happen, and happen unavenged, they betoken the approach of a great convulsion, perhaps of the dissolution of society itself. Indeed, the very same remark was made many years ago by Dr. Channing in a letter to the late Mr. Clay: 'Among us,' said that eminent man, 'a spirit of lawlessness pervades the community, which if not repressed, threatens the dissolution of our present forms of society. The invasions of the right of speech and of the press by lawless force, oblige us to believe that a considerable portion of our citizens have no comprehension of the first principles of liberty. It is an undeniable fact that in consequence of these and other symptoms, the confidence of many reflecting men in our free institutions is very much impaired. Some repair. That main pillar of public liberty, mutual trust among citizens, is shaken. That we must seek security for property and life in a stronger government is a spreading conviction. Men who in public talk of the stability of our institutions, whisper their doubts-perhaps their scorn-in private.' If this was the language of this great and virtuous man in 1837, what would he say in 1862?

Poem: Reflections (Honolulu, 1862)

Source: The Polynesian. Honolulu: August 30, 1862.

Molders of our Age?-the Iron;

   Men of action, men of thought,

Each mechanic, quick creation

Tells some wonder ye have wrought.

Ever molding, molding, molding,

   Changing all things into new-

Molding while the o'er wrought metal

   Runs the fiery furnace through!

By tour rapid respirations,

   Busy brains and busy hands,

Ye have compassed a dominion

   Over all the seas and lands.

For the power of life is action;

   And ye labor with the sun;

While the men of sloth, who slumber,

   Dream not what your tolls have won.

Blow to blow, the metal hammer-

   Metal-beating hammer showers,

Ere they waken, though its ringing

   Tongues the changes of the hours.

Molders of our Age!-the Iron;

   Whither do your labors tend?

Will they end but in confusion,

   As the Babled Past did end?

There-through all my early summers,

   In that Past, my thoughts are bound;

Habitations vacant, broken;

   Vacant, broken tombs I found.

And along the dim horizon,

   Where the earliest Nights were born,

Ignorance and Error clouded

   All the East, the lights, the morn.

Westward, where for ages flourished 

   A philosophy of fools,

On the broader world's experience

   Rose the pride of other schools.

But in all I found confusion

   Discord, opposition, change;

Old engrafted superstitions,

   Creeds opposed to creeds as strange.

And I said-Not in division-

   Not in fractions, great or small,

Lies the Truth, for which we struggle,

   But in unity of all.

All the atoms of creation,

   All the life, by primal laws

Of dependency, relation,

   Forms a unit of their Cause.

But "the thoughts of men are widened,"

   As the great true-poet sings;

Yet is all our boasted knowledge

   But the surface-show of things.

Though our souls, in their immortal

   Tendencies beyond control,

Thrown on Nature's superficies,

   Struggle toward the Central Soul.

Yet o'er Truth's unsounded ocean,

   Like a vanity we skim;

Delving with our might of reason,

   Lo! we bubble to the brim.

Flows the stream of human knowledge,

   Ever deepening, widening on,

All the truths of all the ages

   Slowly merging into one-

In the Alpha and Omega

   Of all being, the unknown

Source and sum of mind and matter-

   God-the universal-one.

Molders of our Age!-the Iron;

   Let us hope to you 'tis given,

You, to solve the social problem-

   Sages, saints, in vain have striven.

Let us reason, though but darkly,

   That Necessity's great bar

To the ocean-covered navies

   Will arise-your "Monitor!"

That the end of war is vapor;

  Victories a losing gain;

Modern war-a beggared thousand

   For a single hero slain.

Honolulu, August, 1862.   W.S. HUGHSON

   

Poem: After the Battle (1862)

Sources: Pacific Commercial Advertiser: November 14, 1861, first page. 
              The Polynesian. Honolulu, February 15, 1862, fourth page.

The drums are all muffled, the bugles are still;
There's a pause in the valley-a halt on the hill;
And bearers of standards swerve back with a thrill,
   Where sheaves of the dead bar the way;
For a great field is reaped; Heaven's garners to fill,
   And stern death holds his harvest to-day.

There's a voice on the winds like spirits low cry-
'Tis the muster roll sounding-and who shall reply?
Not those whose wan faces glare white to the sky,
   With eyes fixed so steadfast and dimly,
As they wait that last trump which they may not defy,
   Whose hands clutch the sword-hilt so grimly.

The brave heads, late lifted, are solemnly bowed,
And the riderless chargers stand quivering and cow'd,
As the burial requiem is chanted aloud,
   The groans of the death-stricken drowning;
While Victory looks on, like a queen, pale and proud,
   Who awaits till the morrow her crowning.

There is no mocking blazon, as clay sinks to clay;
The vain pomps of the peace time are all swept away
In the terrible face of the dread battle day;
   Nor coffins nor shroudings are here;
Only relics that lay where thickest the fray-
   A rent casque and a headless spear.

Far away, tramp on tramp, peals the march of the foe
Like a storm wave's retreating-spent, fitful and slow,
With sounds like their spirits, that faint as they go
   By yon red-glowing river, whose waters
Shall darken with sorrow the land where they flow
   To the eyes of her desolate daughters.

They are fled-they are gone; but oh! not as they came,
In the pride of those numbers they staked on the game;
Never more shall they stand in the vanguard of fame,
   Never lift the stained sword which they drew;
Never more shall they boast of a glorious name,
   Never march with the real and the true.

Where the wreck of our legions lay stranded and lorn,
The stole on our ranks in the mists of the morn;
Like the  giant of Gaza, their strength it was shorn,
   Ere those mists had rolled up to the sky;
From the flash of our steel a new day-break seemed born
   As we rung up-to conquer or die.

The tumult is silenced; the death lots are cast;
And the heroes of battle are slumbering their last,
Do you dream of yon pale form that rode on the blast?
   Would ye free it once more, O ye brave?
Yes! the broad road to honor is red where ye passed,
   And of glory ye asked-but a grave! 

"The Georgia" 1864

Source: The Friend. Honolulu: August 8, 1864.

The editor of the London Star thus expresses his opinion of the Confederate vessel, the Georgia. A loyal Yankee could not do more. 

"The Georgia is not merely a Confederate privateer —an armed vessel carrying the commission of a belligerent power, or acting under letters of marque ; she is British in everything but her flag. The AttorneyGeneral gravely objects to her being called a British pirate, as a gratuitous dishonor to our country. But our reticence and selfish spirit cannot blind the judgment of the world on plain facts. Delicacy in the use of words is of little advantage when the ideas to be expressed are themselves shameful in the last degree. The well-known truth is that the Georgia is British built and British manned, that she was made and equipped in a British port, owned by a British merchant, twice manned by a British crew, and is a living defiance of British law. Till the Attorney-General can contradict these dishonorable facts, nothing is gained by the discussion of a dishonorable degradation. No one in all the world would suppose that the British Government or nation is responsible for the piracies of the Georgia, but she is, nevertheless, a blot upon the British name. Every argument of justice and good faith, of honor and of prudence, binds us to make the utmost reparation in our power to the American Government and people. When the largest allowance has been made for the force of legal pleas—when we have exhausted, as the Attorney-General did last night, the apologies that may be drawn from American jurists and precedents—when we have said all that can be said in defense of our motives and in extenuation of our mismanagement— it yet remains unhappily and undisputably true that enormous mischief has been wrought by vessels of war illegally built and equipped in British ports.

"Uncle Sam's Web Feet" 1863

Source: The Friend. Honolulu: December 1, 1863.

In a letter addressed by President Lincoln to the "Mass Convention of Unconditional Union Men of Illinois," we find the following rather quaint allusion to the exploits of the Navy, in the opening of the Mississippi: 

"The signs look better. The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea; thanks to the great Northwest for it. Nor yet wholly to them. Three hundred miles up they met New England, Empire, Keystone, and Jersey, hewing their way right and left. The sunny South, too, in more colors than one, also lent a hand. On the spot, their part of the history was jotted down in black and white. The job was a great national one, and let none be banned who bore an honorable part in it. While those who have cleared the great river may well be proud, even that is not all. It is hard to say that anything has been more bravely and well done than at Antietam, Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, and on many fields of lesser note. Nor must Uncle Sam's web feet be forgotten. At all the watery margins they have been present; not only on the deep sea, the broad bay, and the rapid river, but also up the narrow, muddy bayou; and wherever the ground was a little damp they have been and made their tracks. Thanks to all for the great Republic, for the principle it lives by and keeps alive—for man's vast future —thanks to all."

"The Negro Cook a Good Navigator" 1863

Source: The Friend. Honolulu: December 1, 1863. 

The following amusing anecdote is found in Baron Zach's Correspondence Astronomique, Vol. IV. p. 162. It is a part of the Baron's account of his visit to Cleopatra's Barge, which entered the harbor of Genoa in 1817. 

The Baron was told by the proprietor and commander of the vessel, that his black cook could find the ship's longitude by observation. "There he is," said the young man, pointing to a negro at the stern of the vessel, in his white apron, with a fowl in one hand and a dressing knife in the other. "Come here, John," cried the Captain, "this gentleman is suprised at your calculating the longitude; tell him about it." 

Zach. What method do you employ in calculating the longitude by lunar distances? 

The Cook. "It is indifferent to me. I make use of the method of Maskelyne, of Lyons, of Witchell, and of Bowditch; but I prefer Dunthorne, with which I am more familiar, and which is shorter." 

I could not but express my surprise at language like this from a black cook, with a bleeding fowl in one hand and a larding knife in the other. 

Foreign Gleanings: Iron War Ships (Letter by Mr. Donald McKay, 1863)

Sources: The Pacific Commercial Advertiser. Honolulu: April 16 1863. Page 4, col. 2.
               The Polynesian. Honolulu: March 7, 1863.

Donald McKay, in a recent letter from Paris on the subject of the French navy, throws out the following hints in reference to the contemplated construction of iron vessels-of-war by the United States:

I regret very much to see, from the late accounts received from the United States, that our Government intends to construct a number of iron cased ships (cursers) of 7,300 tons each. How such a plan could be adopted with the English experience of such large iron ships before our eyes, is more than I can understand. The comparatively small draft of water which these ships only can have, on account of the depth of our harbors, prevents a possibility of giving any great speed to such immense structures, and their necessarily immense length will render them less manageable yet than their mercy of a much smaller opponent, whose superior steering powers allows a choice in position.

The contraction of such vessels would be as great an exaggeration as was the construction of a whole fleet of Monitors, which, I know, all be acknowledged are only fit for harbor defense, and which leave our navy of sea going ships just as it was before we commenced the construction of iron-cased ships.

In comparison with the power of the navies of France or England, I must confess ours is not worthy the name of a navy. In conclusion I may be allowed to say, in order that we may be respected by all the European naval powers, we ought to commence without delay the construction of at least 12 iron cased frigates of from 36 to 52 guns, each of not more than 25 feet mean draft of water. these will form the nucleus of our real fighting ships at sea. 

We ought further to have an equal number of corvettes of high speed, and of about 14 to 16 guns each, and of about 20 or 30 to 50 gun frigates, and an equal number of screw steam sloops-of-war of about 20 guns each, both latter classes of the highest speed obtainable, so as to allow them to evade their iron-cased opponents. The latter vessels will always prove of excellent use in case of a foreign war, in harassing the enemy's commerce. 

All these ships ought to be built of timber, and on the most substantial manner. Not until this increase has been accomplished shall we commend respect as a nation.

Iron ships ought not to be adopted in our sea-going fleet, for the following reasons:

1. The fouling of their bottoms (against which no remedy has thus been found yet), and consequent loss of speed.

2. The weakness of their bottoms and consequent liability of soon breaking up whenever they touch.

3. The impossibility to give them a good ventilation, all the artificial means having failed to produce a good ventilation on account of the many water-tight bulkheads necessarily used in their construction.

4. Their great unhealthiness, as proved already by the few cruises made by the Warrior and Defense.

                                                                Yours truly,

                                                                        DONALD MCKAY

Thomas Jefferson's Prophesy of a Southern Confederacy (1861)

Source: The Polynesian. Honolulu: Saturday, July 20, 1861

It is a remarkable fact that at the time of the acquisition of the Louisiana territory, 1804, the opponents of that measure predicted the ultimate formation of a new confederacy which would usurp the control of the eastern affluents of the Mississippi river. It was in reference to such sinister prophesies that Mr. Jefferson wrote as follows to Mr. Breckinridge, under date of August 12th, 1803. We quite from the fourth volume of his writings, as published by Congress.

"Objections are raising to the Eastward against the vast extent of our boundaries, and propositions are made to exchange Louisiana, or a art of it, for the Floridas. But, as I have said, we shall get the Floridas without, and I would not give one inch of the waters of the Mississippi to any nation, because I see in a light very important to our peace the exclusive right to its navigation, and the admission of no nation into it, but as into the potomac or Delaware, with our consent and under our police. These Federalists see in this acquisition the formation of a new Confederacy, embracing all the waters of the Mississippi, on both sides of it, and a separation of its eastern waters from us. These combinations depend on so many circumstances which we cannot foresee, but that I place little reliance on them. We have seldom seen neighborhood produce affection among nations. The reverse is almost universal truth. Besides, if it should become the great interest of those nations to induce them to go through that convulsion, why should we, their present inhabitants, take sides in such a questions?

"Wen I view the Atlantic States procuring for those on the eastern seaters of the Mississippi friendly instead of hostile neighbors on its western waters, I do not view it as an Englishman would of procuring future blessings for the French nation, with whom he has no relations of blood or affection. The future inhabitants of the Atlantic and Mississippi States will be our sons. We leave them in distinct but bordering establishments. We think we see their happiness in their union and we wish it. Events may prove otherwise! and if they see their interest in separation, why should we take side with our Atlantic rather than our Mississippi descendants? It is the elder and younger son differing. God bless them both, and keep them in union if it be for their good, but separate them if it be better. The inhabited part of Louisiana, from Point Coupee to the sea, will of course be immediately a Territorial government and soon a State. But above that the best use we can make of the country for some time will be to give establishments in it to the Indians on the east side of the Mississippi, an exchange of their present country, and open land offices in the last, and thus make this acquisition the means of filling up the eastern side, instead of drawing off its population. When we shall be full on this side, we may lay off a range of States on the western bank, from the head to the mouth, and so, range after range, advancing compactly as we multiply." -National Intelligencer. 

A "Secesh" Flag Hoisted in Honolulu under Government Patronage (1862)

Source: Pacific Commercial Advertiser. Honolulu: September 25, 1862.

"We never presumed for a moment to mock the genuine sorrow of the Union men, the fearful ordeal, the great calamity of a whole land, by aping on a small scale the heart-rending exhibition of a divided people."

"We never by "word or line" or "on the street" gave the warmest of the least sympathy to any course that tended to dismember the Union by revolt or disenfranchise a portion of it by conquest."

Thus spake the official organ in March, 1862. Six months later, and in its last issue, it whistles to another tune:

"We are grateful for our neighbor's permission to crow over the retreat of M'Clellan."

"And yet history tells us that for more than 60 years, those children of moral and social darkness [the slaveholders] ruled the land and made it a rose in the desert, a star of hope to the oppressed of every clime, a flaming sword in the horizon of their oppressors."

"We do not contemplate nor do we wish for a restoration of the Union under the name of the "United Northern States and their Dependencies South." "we do not wish a Union of boundaries, if thereby the unity of sentiment and feeling, which we knew in the days of old, and which is the living force of every nationality, must be scarified." 

In March last, we charged the editor of the Government organ with being a secessionist. He denied it; will he do so again? His last issue is filled with a bitter tirade against the American Government and with loving sympathy for the South; and yet he says he is no secessionist. If there is any meaning in language, then the last Polynesian is openly and unequivocally for the rebellion. And yet he says, "we never by word or line gave the least sympathy," &c. Perhaps he has not got the hang of the English language yet, or does not understand the meaning of the words he uses; and if so, he had better take hold and learn it again. We will furnish him with an Elementary Grammar, if wanted, to correct the grammatical errors observable in every paragraph.

But seriously, who is this that seeks to fan the embers of treason, though in a foreign land? What journal is it that seeks to laud the gallantry and privations of rebels against their government? It is a Press supported by a government that affects to be friendly to the nation within whose borders the rebellion unhappily exists. It is a Press to which $3800 per annum are voted from the public funds, that aids in misrepresenting the most liberal government on earth. Talk about what a "disinterested, impartial journal" should do, when such baseness is exhibited in one owned by a government avowing friendship to the nation thus insulted.

Imagine the case changed, and Ireland in rebellion against England. Would Mr. Wyllie or the Government permit the Polynesian to malign England in behalf of the long-enslaved Irish, even should the editor's sympathies run that way as strongly as they do for the slave-holders? Or, bring the case a little nearer home-suppose a rebellion existed on Maui or Hawaii. The editor's sympathies might be with the rebels, as they always are with traitors and treason, but would he be permitted to prostitute the paper under his charge to aid and comfort them? No, never. We speak of the Southern rebellion, as we would speak of an Irish rebellion, or of a rebellion in Hawaii nei, even if headed or defended by the Polynesian corps. Rebellion or treason anywhere and everywhere, should me with the unqualified rebuke of all. To encourage it is to become a participant in it, and if this government, through its official organ, encourages Southern rebellion, it is guilty of an open breach of international courtesy and friendship, and affords another evidence of the impolicy of owning a newspaper. 

The American Government is not now fighting for the North, nor for the South, but for the Union, for the integrity of the American republic, and if it cannot be restored with slavery, it will be restored without it, the accursed bone of contention removed, and, if necessary, every rebel hung, not as slaveholders, but as rebels. The subjugation of the South and the abolition of slavery will be the results of the war, not the objects of it. The North has not begun to feel the weight of the contest, and reverses alone will bring it to that point. Should such reverses come then, they can only hasten the uprising of the people to that point that is needed to suppress the rebellion. Many have feared lest the arms of the government might be too successful, and the war be terminated before the public mind has become unanimous on the great slavery question-unanimous for the removal of the cause of the trouble. But there is a PROVIDENCE that overrules the issue of this war, and if it is his design to terminate slavery with it, the temporary victories of the rebels may prolong the struggle, but will make the issue more decisive. We trust that this war may not cease, even if it lasts for ten years, till the last vestige of slavery is destroyed, and the accursed bone of contention removed from what has been and will yet be a happy and united Republic. 

For the Polynesian, a paper owned by the Hawaiian Government, to be thus lending its aid and comfort to the rebels, is, to say tyne least, base, unmanly and cowardly, and betrays in its organ malice prepense. Although it can have but little weight beyond the circle of its 147 1/2 subscribers, yet we must condemn it, for the animus exhibited. It is just as if, in any rebellion that might arise in this kingdom, California journals should misrepresent the existing government and inflame discontented persons to embark in expeditions against it, shouting with all their voice, that the rebels though "fighting on their knees have kept a government at bay," that they "have amply vindicated the birthright of freemen, and their title to be called Hawaiians." We can easily conceive of the bitter animosity of the editor of the Polynesian towards the free American Union, but we cannot conceive how this government can honorably tolerate such conduct in its agent and organ. 

The Negro Taking Part in The Great Contest (1863)

Source: The Friend. Honolulu, December 1, 1863

President Lincoln concludes his Illinois letter with the following paragraph referring to the part now taken by the negro: 

"Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay, and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time. It will then have been proved that among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case and pay the cost. And there will be some black men who can remember that with silent tongue and clenched teeth, and steady eye and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while I fear there will be some white ones unable to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful speech they strove to hinder it. Still let us not be over sanguine of a speedy, final triumph. Let us be quite sober. Let us diligently apply the means, never doubting that a just God, in His own good time, will give us the rightful result. 

                                Yours, very truly, 

                                    "A. Lincoln."

Two Men and Two Books, or President Lincoln and Edward Everett (1863)

Source: The Friend. Honolulu: December 1, 1863. Editor: Rev. Samuel C. Damon. 

We have lying on our table two books, which make us acquainted with two distinguished Americans—but how marked the contrast between these two men. The one is Edward Everett, and the other Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Everett's orations and speeches are before us, in three octavo volumes, finished in the best style of Little, Brown & Co., while the Life of President Lincoln is presented in a neat volume, entitled ''The Pioneer Boy, and how he became President." This book is written by Wm. M. Thayer, and published by Walker, Wise & Co., of Boston. Believing that men are very much the creatures of education and circumstance, it is highly worthy of a thoughtful man's study, to ponder well the institutions of a country which can bring forward two such remarkable men as Mr. Everett and President Lincoln. Both were at the same time candidates for the highest offices in the gilt of the American people. Both are truly representative men of very large portions of the American nation. Mr. Everett embodies traits of character and represents a class of cultivated minds, such as are rarely to to be found in America, except in New England, in Massachusetts, in Boston, the Athens of America and "Hub of the Universe." The same is true of President Lincoln—he possesses traits and represents a class of people no where else to be found in America, except in the far West—the region of great rivers and boundless prairies. 

No one can carefully peruse, we think, either Thayer's Life of the Pioneer Boy, or these noble volumes of Mr. Everett, without admiring the two truly great men whose characters are there presented. The very name of Edward Everett has become a synonym for everything that is to be admired in graceful eloquence, classic scholarship, successful diplomacy, refined culture, and all those nameless charms which enter into the character of the very highest type of a well-educated and courteous gentleman and statesman.. In all of his speeches and orations, there is a polish, finish and completeness which makes them almost perfect models in their peculiar style of oratory. If our limits would allow, how easily apt and striking illustrations, from the volumes before us, might be presented. But we must remember that Mr. Everett stands not alone, but is a representative man. He is only one among many similar men. Old Massachusetts has many such. Its schools, colleges and institutions are designed to turn out just such nobly educated specimens of humanity. We do not wonder that that State speaks, as she always has done, with authority in the councils of America, and now how nobly she is represented, in the person of Mr. Sumner, in the Senate of the United States; but we must look to the other representative man, President Lincoln. 

The work of Mr. Thayer is an interesting narrative of the early life and struggles of President Lincoln. Although not educated in the schools, academies and colleges of America, he yet passed through a school of poverty, hardship and discipline, which has fitted him, in no ordinary manner, to know men and their fitness for office. He is an honest, upright and deserving man, and possesses traits a thousand times more to be prized than those which characterize the pettyfogging and corrupt politicians who have succeeded in obtaining high offices of trust in the United States. In his native State —Kentucky—he saw the blighting influence of slavery. When his father sold out his farm for three hundred dollars, the family removed to Indiana, and subsequently to Illinois. This book of Mr. Thayer depicts in vivid colors the struggles of the young man, noted in all the region around for his honesty, industry, sobriety, modesty and integrity. Suppose he was not schooled in books, he was acquainted with the people, and endowed by nature with a sort of Cobbett or Franklin-like turn of mind. In some of his early state-papers, there were inaccuracies of style which offended the nice and fastidious critics, but these have gradually disappeared as he has become more familiar with the peculiar duties of his office. Some of his late efforts are masterly performances. Read, for example, his letter to the Democratic Convention at Albany, or his letter to his friends in Illinois. We do not wonder a writer in the London Star thus refers to the Illinois letter : 

"It places in the clearest, strongest light the wicked unreasonableness of the rebellion and the religious duty of all loyal citizens. As a vindication of the Washington Cabinet, it is a masterpiece of cogent argument. As an appeal to the spirit of the nation, it is sublime in the dignified simplicity of its eloquence. No nobler state paper was ever penned. It is the manifesto of a truly great man in an exigency of almost unequalled moment. It is worthy of a Cromwell or a Washington. 

"It breathes the calm heroism of a Christian patriot—trusting in the blessing of God upon dauntless exertions in a just cause. It is such as Garibaldi and Mazzini might have written from Rome if events had placed them at the head of an Italian commonwealth threatened by a formidable combination of enemies to its freedom and integrity. It is the utterance of a statesman who has nothing to conceal—of a ruler guiltless of oppression—of the genius that consists in transparent honesty and unflinching resolution. Addressed to friends and neighbors, to supporters and opponents, it is open to the world to read. It really challenges the judgment of contemporary civilization, though it contains scarce a hint of any country but the United States." 

We never before were so fully persuaded as now, that President Lincoln is the right man in the right place, at the right time, and most sincerely do we hope ho will receive the suffrages of twenty millions of free men electing him to occupy the Presidential Chair during the next four years. He is not a man who is ashamed to do right, or acknowledge that there is a God in heaven, who rules among the nations of the earth. All honor to the President of the United States, who does not hesitate to take the colored man by the hand, and pledge all the power of the Nation's army and navy in his defence!' As an American residing in a foreign land, we feel a pride in having such a man at the head of our country. He is doing more to make America respected abroad, than any other President since the days of Washington. Some of our readers may question the truth of this assertion, but wait a few years, gentlemen, and we have no fears that a grateful posterity will not assign him his proper place! He is the representative of the future America—free, fearless, noble, true. It makes the blood quicken in our veins when we reflect upon what America, is and is yet to be, with her Everetts and Lincolns scattered all over that land from the shores of the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the great lakes to the great gulf, all along the shores of those great rivers, and over those wide-spread prairies.

American Thanksgiving (1863)

Source: The Friend. Honolulu: December 1, 1863. 

In accordance with the President's Proclamation, Thursday the 26th ult. was observed by the American citizens of Honolulu, and those sympathizing with them. A very large assembly, composed of foreign residents and the sea-faring community, convened in Fort St. Church, at 11 A. M. A highly appropriate and eloquent discourse was delivered by the Key. E. Corwin. The singing was excellent, and the exercises generally were becoming the occasion. 

Prayers, suited to the occasion, were also offered at the Reformed Catholic Church.

The True Spirit of a Federal Soldier (1863)

Source: The Friend. Honolulu: December 1, 1863. 

John B. Marsh, son of Rev. Leonard Marsh, living South, was conscripted into the rebel army. Being a Union man, he deserted, but was captured and shot at Vicksburg recently. Before being taken from prison, he left the following note with a fellow prisoner lately returned: " Kind friend—If you ever reach our happy lines, please have this put in the Northern papers, that my father, Rev. Leonard Marsh, who lives in Maine, may know what has become of me, and what I was shot for. It was for defending my noble country. I love her, and am willing to die for her. Tell my parents I am also happy in the Lord. My future is bright. I hope to see you when I pass out to die. JOHN B. MARSH." When Marsh was placed on his coffin, he took off his hat and cried, "Three cheers for the old flag and the Union ;" then swung his hat and shouted, "Hurrah ! Hurrah ! Hurrah !" and fell pierced by a dozen bullets.

Colored Churches in Philadelphia (1864)

Source: The Friend. Honolulu: August 4, 1864

There are in Philadelphia about 23,000 colored people. A large majority of them are sober, industrious and intelligent, sustaining themselves by laboring in various ways; many of them in the capacity of servants, scattered promiscuously over the city. These people have eighteen churches of their own, with an average capacity of 300. Of these 23,000 people, there are 4,000 in communion with these eighteen churches. Those worshipping in Roman Catholic churches do not amount to more than 200, which is the extreme number. The sum total of those who are in church communion, and of those not members who attend worship on Sabbath, does not exceed 7,000.

Sandwich Island "Veteran." (1864)

Source: The Friend. Honolulu: August 4, 1864. 

We learn that Mr. Nathaniel Emerson, son of Rev. J. S. Emerson, of Waialua, has been honorably discharged from the Army of the United States, having served the full period (and over) of his enlistment. At the time of entering the army he was a member of Williams College. He has now returned to renew his studies. During the period of his enlistment he has experienced much hard service. At the battle of Fredericksburg, under Burnside, he was wounded in the knee. After lying awhile in the hospital, he was ready to join the army to be ready for the battle of Chancellorsville, under Hooker, where he was wounded in the wrist. That wound healed in season for him to be at Gettysburg, where he was much exposed, but escaped, an exploding shell merely taking off the back side of his cap.

His term of service expired just before the opening of the campaign under Grant, who was unwilling to allow his regiment to leave just upon the eve of battle, hence Mr. Emerson remained and took an active part in all the battles from the Rapidau to Richmond, escaping uninjured, while his comrades fell on his right hand and left. During a period of two weeks and longer, he was almost constantly under fire. Surely such young men deserve well of their country, and are an honor to their friends. 

We also hear good reports of young Armstrong, who is now in command of a colored regiment at Hilton Head. Of late we have heard no reports respecting the three sons of the Rev. Mr. Forbes, formerly of Kealakeakua.

Mr. Sumner's Great Speech. (1863)

Source: The Friend. Honolulu: December 1, 1863.

On the 10th of September, Mr. Senator Sumner delivered a speech before an immense audience convened at Cooper Institute, New York. His subject was : 'Our Foreign Relations." He fully discussed the Law of Intervention, with its applicability to France and England. The ability of the speech may be inferred from the fact that it attracted the attention of the British Ministry as soon as it was published in England. We have read this speech with great pleasure, and recommend its perusal to our readers. It is worth more than a great battle terminating victoriously!  The following paragraph will show that he handles slavery and the rebellion "without mittens" : 

The rebellion is slavery in arms ; slavery on horseback; slavery on foot; slavery raging on the battlefield ; slavery raging on the quarter-deck, robbing, destroying, burning, killing, in order to uphold this candidate power. Its legislation is simply slavery In statutes; slavery in chapters;  slavery In sections —with an enacting clause. Its diplomacy is slavery in pretended embassadors; slavery in cunning letters ; slavery in cozening promises; slavery in persistent negotiations—all to secure for the candidate power its much desired welcome. Say what you will; try to avoid it If you can; you are compelled to admit that the candidate power Is nothing else than organized slavery, which now in its madness—surrounded by its criminal clan, and led by its felon chieftains—braves the civilization of the age. Therefore any recognition of this power will be a recognition of slavery itself, with welcome and benediction, imparting to it new consideration and respectability, and worse still, securing to It new opportunity and foothold for the supremacy which it openly proclaims. 

Vain is it to urge the practice of nations in its behalf. Never before in history has such a candidacy been put forward in the name of slavery; and the terrible outrage Is aggravated by the Christian light which surrounds it. This Is not the age of darkness. But even in the Dark Age, when the slave mongers of Algiers "had reduced themselves to a government or state," the renowned Louis IX, "treated them as a nest of wasps."

"Negroes in Paris" (1864)

Source: The Friend. Honolulu: August 4, 1864. 

Negroes in Paris.—In Paris we have seen negroes at balls, and Southern ladies dancing with them, apparently cured of all repulsion toward their color and race. Among Parisians there is no prejudice such as exists among us. French and colored servants in the same family eat and sleep together on a perfect equality, and we see every day a young colored girl and a pretty blonde, walking arm-in-arm, under the same parasol, chatting and laughing, exactly as two blondes with us. In a French family of pride and wealth we have dined often with a colored lady, whose hue was jet black. At first, we confess, it spoiled our appetite, but to have acknowledged this would have subjected us to ridicule and contempt. It would be something they could not understand " why we could not as willingly dine with a black person as a white." But here they are very few, and have never been seen in chains. There is no class of negroes so degraded as their own peasantry. — Cor. of California Paper.

“All Men are Born Free and Equal.” (Honolulu 1864)

Source: The Friend. Honolulu: August 4, 1864. 

The American people have moved slowly in coining up to the truth of this sentiment announced in the Declaration of Independence. They are however being educated to receive this truth in its practical application to the African race. They have made vast strides in the practical recognition of this truth during the last three years. There is no one aspect of affairs in the United States more cheering and encouraging than the union of all religious sects and denominations upon the abolition of slavery and the complete enfranchisement of the negro. This is what now seems to be fully demanded—place the negro upon the same equal terms with the white man in the army and before the courts; " let him cast a ballot as well as shoot a bullet;" let him enjoy his social, civil and political privileges the same as a white man. When this is done, we believe we shall begin to see the beginning of the end of this cruel war. 

The old school assembly of the Presbyterian Church lately made this declaration: 

"We believe the time has at length come, in the providence of God, when it is His will that every vestige of human slavery among us should be effaced, and that every Christian man should address himself with industry and earnestness to his appropriate part in the performance of this great duty." 

Bishop Mcllvaine, of Ohio, lately uttered the following sentiments in the city of New York: 

"Let the enfranchisement of our colored brethren be 'a complete enfranchisement.' Let it not stop in the removal of the shackles till 'all' are taken away. If the colored man is fit to be a soldier in the full pay and uniform of our citizen armies, standing at least upon an equality of danger and trial with the white man in defense of our Government and its blessings,' he is fit to be a citizen under our Government, in full liberty and privilege. We must boldly face and honestly accept that result.' With me it requires no effort. God is leading us to it. All consistency requires it. Our past history is full of inconsistency in that direction. We have never come up to the logical requirements of our Declaration of Independence. God be praised that he is making our path straight." 

When old school Presbyterians and Conservative Episcopalians utter such doctrines, depend upon it public sentiment in the United States has taken a long step forward in the right direction. The utterance of such doctrines is of more importance than a victory on the Potomac or in Georgia. It shows that a moral victory has been achieved. The people of other lands and countries may discard the freedom and equality of the human race, hut we bless God that there is one country where the true Scripture doctrine is asserted upon this subject, viz.: that God "hath made of one blood all nations of men." Acts 17:26. This is the doctrine announced by Paul on Mars' Hill, at Athens. This sentiment may be denied, but it cannot be refuted; it may be ignored, but its influence will still be felt; it may be overlooked, but it will assert its power. This idea has been hatched, and as some one has aptly remarked, it cannot be put back into the shell!

President Lincoln's Proclamation for a Day of Humiliation and Prayer (Honolulu 1864)

Source: The Friend. Honolulu: August 4, 1864

We copy the following dispatch from a late American paper: Washington, July 7.—The President, in accordance with the resolution of Congress, has issued a proclamation appointing the first Thursday in August as a Day of Humiliation and Prayer for the people of the United States, commending them to implore the compassion and forgiveness of the Almighty, and to pray that, if consistent with His will, the rebellion may be speedily suppressed, and the supremacy of the Constitution and Laws of the United States be established throughout these States; that the rebels may lay down their arms speedily and return to their allegiance ; and that we may not be ut'erly destroyed, and that the effusion of blood may be stayed, and that amity and fraternity may be restored and peace established throughout our borders.

Observation of the Day in Honolulu.— At a meeting held in the Session Room of Fort Street Church, Mr. Henry Dimond, Chairman, on Monday evening, August Ist, it was unanimously voted to observe the day in accordance with President Lincoln's Proclamation. It was also voted to meet on the morning of the 4th at the Bethel, at eleven o'clock, when exercises and addresses suited to the occasion might be expected. All Americans and others interested in the great struggle now pending in the United States, and desirous of imploring the Divine blessing, in accordance with President Lincoln's Proclamation, are cordially invited. Per order.

Can the Emancipation Proclamation be Recalled? (1863)

The Friend. Honolulu: December, 1863

Can the Emancipation Proclamation be Recalled?—President Lincoln, in his famous letter to his fellow citizens of Illinois, employs the following language in regard to the Proclamation: 

"But the proclamation, as law, either is valid or is not valid. If it is not valid it needs no retraction. If it is valid it cannot be retracted any more than the dead can be brought to life. Some of you profess to think its retraction would operate favorably for the Union. Why better after the retraction than before the issue? There was more than a year and a half of trial to suppress the rebellion before the proclamation was issued; the last one hundred days of which passed under an explicit notice that it was coming unless averted by those in revolt returning to their allegiance. 

"The war has certainly progressed as favorably for us since the issue of the proclamation as before. I know, as fully as one can know the opinions of others, that some of the commanders of our armies in the field, who have given us our most important successes, believe the emancipation policy and the use of colored troops constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebellion, and that at least one of those important successes could not have been achieved when it was, but for the aid of black soldiers. 

"Among the commanders holding these views are some who have never bad any affinity with what is called Abolitionism, or with Republican party politics, but who hold them purely as military opinions. I submit these opinions as being entitled to some weight against the objections often urged that emancipation and arming the blacks are unwise as military measures and were not adopted as such in good faith." |

John Quincy Adams an Opponent of Coercion (1861)

The Polynesian. Honolulu: Saturday, August 3, 1861.

John Quincy Adams an Opponent of Coercion
In 1839, ex-President John Q. Adams delivered a lengthy address upon the principles of our Government, before the Historical Society of New York. He took a strong ground against any attempt to hold States in the Union by force, against their consent. We make the following extract from it. -N.O. Daily Crescent.

Nations acknowledge no judge between them upon earth; and their Governments, from necessity, must, in their intercourse with each other, decide when the failure of one party to a contract to perform its obligations, absolve the other from the reciprocal fulfillment of his own. But this last earthly power is not necessary to the freedom or independence of the States, connected together by the immediate action of the people, of whom they consist. To the people alone is there reserved, as well the dissolving power as the constituent power, and that power can be exercised by them only under the tie of conscience binding them by the retributive justice of Heaven.

With these qualifications, we may admit the same right as invested in the people of every State in the Union, with reference to the Great Government, which was exercised by the people of the United Colonies with reference to the supreme head of the British Empire, of which they formed a part; and, under these limitations, have the people of each State of the Union a right to secede from the Confederate Union itself. 

Comments by Daniel Webster (1830)

The Polynesian: Saturday, July 20, 1861.

MASSACHUSETTS.-Here is what Daniel Webster said to Hayne, of South Carolina, in 1830. Will she now fulfill this prophesy?

"There she is. Behold her and judge for yourselves. There is her history; the world knows it by heart. The past at least is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons fallen in the great struggle for Independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State, from New England to Georgia; and there they will lie forever. And, sir, where American Liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives in the strength of its manhood, and full of its original spirit.

"If discord and DISUNION shall wound it-if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it, -if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraint shall succeed in separating it from the UNION by which alone its existence is made sure, -it will stand in the end by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will stretch out its arm with whatever of vigor it may still retain over the friends who gathered round it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monument of its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin." 

Flag Raising (Honolulu, June 1861)

Source: Pacific Commercial Advertiser. Honolulu: Thursday, June 20, 1861. 

One of the most gratifying outbursts of patriotism witnessed here for many a day, occurred on Saturday last. A flag staff had been erected over the large building occupied by A.J. Cartwright and H.W. Severance, and about 12 o'lock a beautiful new American flag was unfolded and hoisted on it amid the cheers of a crowd of spectators. The crowd rapidly increased till the street in front of the building was filled, and being somewhat patriotic, they called for a speech, which was promptly responded to by C.C. Harris Esq., in his usual felicitous style, in which the flag, the constitution, and the country were held up as more worthy of defense now than when our fathers fought in 1776. 

He was followed by J.C. Spalding and A.J. Cartwright, in some brief remarks-the former representing the old Bay State, and the latter the little Empire State. The proceedings not being considered complete without the presence of the United States Commissioner, Coffin's carriage was dispatched to his residence, Washington Place, and soon returned with him. 

Col. Dryer, on coming forward, was vociferously cheered, and made some very appropriate remarks on the present state of affairs in America, the attitude which the Government has taken, the firmness of Abraham Lincoln, and his determination to see the rebellion crushed. 

After the flag raising and speeches were concluded, the auditors were invited to a liberal lunch, provided in the store of Mr. Severance. We noticed but one "seceder" present, our worthy friend "the marshal," who was doubtless attracted by the quality of the champagne, which he declared was unequalled even by the best "sparkling Lahaina." The whole affair was impromptu, and shows that Americans in Honolulu are true to their country and their country's flag in this hour of its peril. 

The Downfall of American Slavery (1863)

(Note: This article originally appeared in The Illustrated London News, dated October 18, 1862. Vol.41, no.1169, p.427). 

Source: The Polynesian. Honolulu: January 10, 1863. 

THE DOWNFALL OF AMERICAN SLAVERY.

(Note: This first paragraph does not appear in The Polynesian edition. It does appear in the original Illustrated Sunday Times.)  

It is one of the standing reproaches against the American Democracy that the good work of the abolition of slavery in the British West Indies called forth from them no responsive congratulatory echo. It is our ambition as journalists that, so far as it depends on us to prevent it, a similar reproach may not lie against the English people. This is our apology for recurring once more to the momentous step lately taken by the Cabinet of Washington.

This generation is fortunate in living in an age one of whose chief characteristics is the emancipation of enslaved races and the liberation of oppressed nationalities. Middle-aged men can remember the occasion of the abolition of slavery in the dependencies and colonies of the British Empire. The Revolution of 1848 extracted from the Provisional Government of the French Republic a similar measure. The emancipation of the Jews is always in progress in various quarters of the civilized world. In the Austrian empire, Poland, and Roumania the peasants have of late years been freed from the vestiges of mediæval servitude, the Christian Rayahs of the Turkish empire have obtained concessions of which neither the conquering nor the conquered race dreamed a generation ago, while the crowning triumph of all is the manumission and endowment of 20,000,000 of Russian serfs. Even war itself, normally an instrument for the subjection of humanity, sometimes puts on in this [a]ge an exceptionally liberating character. Italy has but just been the theatre of two phenomenal wars which shed lustre on the names of Napoleon III, and Giuseppe Garibaldi. And now the 22d of September, 1862, has inaugurated a policy which enables us to add another to this select class of wars.

While we have never made these columns the vehicle for willful disparagement of the Northern cause, we have always spoken of the American war as being, on the part of the Federals, a war for empire. We regarded the words of Garibaldi contained in his "Address to the English Nation" --words which spoke of the United States as "struggling for the abolition of slavery"--as at least premature if not altogether fallacious. Six days before the penning of those words Abraham Lincoln had announced a policy which imparts to them a retroactive justification. The war is still, on the part of the North, primarily a war of empire; but it is henceforth, though secondarily, a war of emancipation also. The President, whose name will go down to history in connection with this memorable event, is too truthful and unaffected a man to endeavor to put a false gloss upon it. "I declare that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the Constitutional relation between the United States and the people thereof in which States that relation is or may be suspended or disturbed." It is therefore, we repeat, primarily a war for empire, in which the question of boundary plays no part and the question of emancipation but a subordinate one.

We are not unmindful of the consideration that the wholesale and sweeping concession of freedom to all slaves in the "rebel" States, whether belonging to loyal or rebel masters, only comes into effect on the first day of 1863; but the ninth section of the Confiscation Act, quoted by the President as henceforward to be rigorously enforced, is tantamount to a proclamation of general emancipation, inasmuch as in the "rebel" States no "loyal" slave-owners, to whom the Confiscation Act is inapplicable, have yet been discovered. Wherever the Union flag shall penetrate it will, from this time forth, bring liberty to the enslaved.

There is but one qualification to be made to this statement. It is that if the "rebels" deign to accept Mr. Lincoln's proffered bribe--the bribe of condonation--and will dutifully proceed this autumn to elect members of Congress, to appear at Washington on any day before the 1^st of January next, then the presence of such representatives "shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State and the people thereof are not then in rebellion against the United States." There is, perhaps, another contingency to be dreaded. A too rapid career of success on the part of the Northern armies might induce Congress at its next Session to repeal the Confederate Act and annul or declare unconstitutional the remaining portions of the President's proclamation. The possibility of such a tergiversation may justify the friends of the slave in hoping that the Confederates may continue to possess their capital until the 1^st of January, when the Rubicon which separates the Union "as it was" from the Union "as it ought to be" will he crossed without possibility of return. The Abolitionists of Europe and America cannot afford to forget that the Federals' difficulty has hitherto been their opportunity, and that the leaven of their ideas has mingled with the public mind according as the Federal armies have retreated before the hosts of Beauregard, Lee, and Jackson. Had either M'Clellan's summer campaign or Pope's subsequent strategy succeeded, who is simpleton enough to believe that the proclamation of Sept. 22 would now have seen the light? Even now, in spite of the humiliating reverses of the North, in spite of the resentments caused by the uncontradicted tales of barbarities inflicted on the Northern dead and wounded (of Northern skulls used as soap-dishes, of finger-bones used as toothpicks, and so forth), so strong is the sentiment of Negrophobia in the North, so bitter the thought that out of this war there may accrue to the sovereign citizens on either side nought but loss, while the slaves will reap all the gains--that all the world turns to see how the proclamation is received at the North. And how is it received? By no burst of enthusiasm, but with an ominous and sullen silence, which conceals a more positive sentiment of aversion. Not only the Democratic journals, but the Conservative Republican ones also regard the measure as a nauseous pill, which they gild and sweeten by the assurance, which they do not themselves credit, that the proclamation itself will remain a dead letter. Never were there more unwilling liberators than the Northern people, politicians, and army. There was an élan about the manner in which this undemocratic British nation set about the work of slave emancipation, in which the Autocrat of all the Russias set himself to a similar duty, and in which the Emperor of the French proclaimed the liberation of Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic, which, at least, did credit to our European human nature, but for whose slightest trace we look in vain into President Lincoln's manifesto, countersigned though it be by that deft master of rhetoric, William Henry Seward. In this feature of the proclamation, in its total absence of false pretences, and what in his mouth would savor of hypocritical cant, we may again admire the President's native candor. The emancipation of the slaves is denounced as a penalty against the contumacious owners, who are informed in the same breath that they may avoid the penalty by an act of homage to the powers that be at Washington. The idea of bringing liberation to an oppressed race is as unwelcome to the American democracy as it is welcome to us "servile and pauperised" Europeans. There is some danger that on this occasion their jaundiced prejudices may infect our English judgment. Else why do we already hear from influential quarters that appeal to the commonplace claptrap of slave-owners and their friends, the horrors of St. Domingo? As if it was not rather to be feared lest the Federals will do too little than too much; as if it were not time enough to speak of St. Domingo when its massacres are re-enacted; and as if, even in this extreme case, the slave-owner and his family are to count for everything and the slave and his family (we will not say the negro slave, for the American chattel is oftentimes as much, and even more European in his lineage than African) for nothing. There is another slave-owners and "sham-democratic" calumny afloat among us--namely, that the American slaves do not desire freedom. As if such a sentiment did not run counter to human nature itself, and were not belied by the whole history of American slavery from the establishment of the "Underground Railway" into Canada until the recent highly-gratifying experiment at Hilton Head, the very focus of South Carolinian chattelism, and the still more recent report of General Phelps upon the temper of the slaves in Louisiana! When the autumn rains, swelling the currents of every Southern river, shall enable the unconquered gun-boats of the North to penetrate on all sides into the heart of the South, not as heretofore to repel, but to "recognize and maintain the freedom" of the fugitives, we shall see that the opportunity of throwing off the ever odious yoke of chattel slavery will be joyfully seized by the American bondman as previously by his brethren in other parts of the continent and the adjacent islands.

The time chosen for the issue of the proclamation, though open to the general objection stated by us last week, is nevertheless, in some other and subordinate respects, well appointed. It could not have been uttered with any dignity while Washington was threatened and the Administration knew not whether they should next hear of the Confederates in Pennsylvania or Baltimore. It follows on the heels of a Federal victory; it is not wrung from the despair of a discomfited host. It is bold and manly to issue it just on the eve of the imposition of the severest test on Northern loyalty--the conscription; and just in time to affect unfavorably to the Administration the October and November elections. The same steamer which brings the news of the proclamation of freedom to the enslaved brought also the intelligence that the free white citizen and voter had been deprived of the right to the writ of habeas corpus during the pendency of the draught. This is the act of a Government which is conscious of its strength and does not cower before the consequences of its own acts. In the performance of this solemn historical act Mr. Lincoln has eschewed any approach to that chicane and petty cunning which are apt to be the besetting sins of lawyers who have turned statesmen.

The new policy should be welcomed even by those among us whose sympathies on this occasion are with the slave-owner, for all parties in England concur in the desire for the restoration of peace. The policy of emancipation brings matters to a crisis. If the North can ever subdue and occupy the South she will be able to do so now. If, on the other hand, the resources and high spirit of the Southerners are more than a match on their own territory for the Federal armies, then the conviction of this fact will begin to dawn upon the North from this day forth. Hitherto defeats, and disappointments more numerous then defeats, have not shaken one jot of Northern resolution or impaired their faith in their ultimate success. The secret of this equanimity has been the knowledge that they held in reserve one of the most effective weapons of war, which hitherto they had allowed the enemy to wield against themselves. So long as this was the case a military reverse was without moral or political significance to them. Under the former conditions there was nothing to prevent the war from dragging on for ten years. Expensive as all wars are, a "Conservative" war is the most wasteful and profitless of any. Henceforth the war becomes a revolutionary one. Revolutionary wars, while they are impregnated with the bitterness partake also of the shortness and decisiveness of civil revolutions. Burying its guilty hopes of compromise, the North summons up its whole energies for a supreme effort. The Confederates, with a heroism which we do not seek to disparage, have held at bay the more populous and richer North so long as they have been able to rely upon the uninterrupted labors of their human chattels. Will they be able to do so when this prop is knocked from under them? We know not; the future of the Union is obscure, but one event is clear. The delicate and poisonous plant of American slavery, if it be not torn up root and branch, will emerge from the storm which now threatens its existence shorn of its once luxuriant foliage and of most of the qualities which gave it so baneful an ascendancy on the Western Continent, and therefore on the whole civilized world. Should this be so, civilization will receive a solid permanent gain in compensation for some severe temporary losses occasioned by the war of the second American Revolution.