The Dawn of Reason. Signs of Returning Sense of Patriotism in the South (1863)

Source: The Pacific Commercial Advertiser. Honolulu: Thursday, October 22, 1863.

The Mobile News, says: -"We have multitudes of reports, horribly detrimental to the character of the patriotism of the people in many places in Alabama and Mississippi; some of them too disgraceful to publish. A portion of our people have gone stark mad. They are bastard Southerners, and recreant Confederates."

Which being interpreted, means that "the people  in many places in Alabama and Mississippi," are deserting the cause of secession and rebellion, returning to their senses, and learning that patriotism means love of country not of a section or a party. And even more significant than this is the language of the North Carolina papers, and the Richmond editors confirm the statements by the earnest and bitter denunciations of the reviving patriotism of the South. The Raleigh Standard of a recent date copies an article from the Raleigh Daily Progress, which expresses great fear that unless the war is soon stopped slavery will be obliterated, &c., and then adds:

"We agree with our contemporary in much of the above. But we have no idea that peace can be obtained upon our own terms. The most powerful nations seldom succeed in doing that; what the great mass of our people desire is a cessation of hostilities and negotiations. If they could reach that point they would feel that the conflict of arms would not be renewed, and that some settlement would be effected which would leave them in the future in the enjoyment of life, liberty and happiness.

"It is a great crime, especially at a time like this, to conceal the truth. We intend to tell the truth as far as we know it, let the consequences be what they may. From the beginning of the war until the present the enemy has slowly but surely gained upon us; and but for the extraordinary endurance and courage of our troops, his flag would now be floating at the capital of every State. We have lost Missouri, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, the Mississippi Valley, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and considerable portions of other States. Vicksburg has fallen, as we feared many months ago it would. Port Hudson has fallen; Charleston, Mobile, and Savannah will probably go next. Gen. Lee is attempting to retire from Maryland with his spoils, but no substantial victory has crowned his arms. We are weaker to-day than when he crossed the Potomac into Maryland. Our recruits in the way of conscripts will scarcely keep our regiments full, and we cannot hope to add materially to our forces. Our fighting population is pretty well exhausted. Everybody knows this-the North knows this and so does Europe. On the contrary, our enemies, flushed with triumph, have a large army in the field, and their President has just called for 300,000 more. He will get them. The movement on Pennsylvania by Gen. Lee, and the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, have hushed all clamors for peace in the North and have banded the people there are one man for the prosecution of the war. We have nothing to hope for from foreign nations, and just as our cause is, we see no indications that Providence is about to interpose in our behalf. The war, then, will go on. One side or the other must conquer. Will five millions of whites conquer twenty millions of the same race? Will they conquer a peace on the very soil of these twenty millions? Not in any event, if these twenty millions possess ordinary manhood and will fight. They fought at Sharpsburg and Gettysburg, and they worsted us at the latter place. Northern troops are not cowards-they fight nearly as well as Southern troops. We cannot achieve signal victories over them on their own soil. What then? If the worst is destined to overtake us, would it not be wise and prudent to take less than the worst, provided we could do so compatibly with honor?"

Again, the same paper says:

"Notwithstanding the predictions of the South, the Yankees have fought on many occasions with a spirit and determination worthy of their ancestors of the Revolution-worthy of the descendants of those austere old Puritans, whose heroic spirit and religious zeal made Oliver Cromwell's army the terror of the civilized world; or of those French Huguenots, 'who thrice in the sixteenth century contended with heroic and various fortunes against the house of Lorraine, and all the power of the house of Valois.'" 

"Instead of an early and permanent establishment of the wealthiest and best Government in the world, with unbounded credit, what have we got? Spite of all the victories which we profess to have obtained over the Yankees, we have lost the States of Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana, Mississippi and tennessee, and, in my humble opinion, have lost them forever; and, in all probability, Alabama will soon be added to the number. This will leave to the Confederacy but five States out of the original 13, and of these five the Yankees have possession of the most important points, and one third of their Territory. So far, the Yankees have never failed to hold every place of importance which they have taken, and present indications are, that Charleston will soon be added to the number. The campaign of General Lee into pennsylvania, has undoubtedly proved a failure, and with it the last hope of conquering a peace by successful invasion of the enemies country. Our army has certainly been very much weakened and dispirited by this failure and the fall of Vicksburg, and how long even Richmond will be safe, no one can tell. 

J. S. Mill on the Contest in America (1862)

J. S. Mill on the Contest in America

Source: The Polynesian. Honolulu: Saturday, June 28, 1862.

But we are told, by a strange misapplication of a true principle, that the South had a right to separate; that their separation ought to have been consented to, the moment they showed themselves ready to fight for it; and that the North, in resisting it, are committing the same error and wrong which England committed in opposing the original separation of the thirteen colonies. This is carrying the doctrine of the sacred right of insurrection rather far. It is wonderful how easy, and liberal, and complying people can be in other people’s concerns. Because they are willing to surrender their own past, and have no objection to join in reprobation of their great-grandfathers, they never put  themselves the question what they themselves would do in circumstances far less trying, under far less pressure of real national calamity. Would those who profess these ardent revolutionary principles consent to their being applied to Ireland, or India, or the Ionian Islands? How have they treated those who did attempt so to apply them? But the case can dispense with any mere argumentum ad hominem. I am not frightened at the word rebellion. I do not scruple to say that I have sympathized more or less ardently with most of the rebellions, successful and unsuccessful, which have taken place in my time. But I certainly never conceived that there was a sufficient title to my sympathy in the mere fact of being a rebel; that the act of taking arms against one’s fellow citizens was so meritorious in itself, was so completely its own justification, that no question need be asked concerning the motive. It seems to me a strange doctrine that the most serious and responsible of all human acts imposes no obligation on those who do it, of showing that they have a real grievance; that those who rebel for the power of oppressing others, exercise as sacred a right as those who do the same thing to resist oppression practiced upon themselves. Neither rebellion, nor any other act which affects the interests of others, is sufficiently legitimated by the mere will to do it. Secession may be laudable, and so may any other kind of insurrection; but it may also be an enormous crime. It is the one or the other, according to the object and the provocation. And if there ever was an object which, by its bare announcement, stamped rebels against a particular community as enemies of mankind, it is the one professed by the South. Their right to separate is the right which Cartouche or Turpin would have had to secede from their respective countries, because the laws of those countries would not suffer them to rob and murder on the highway. The only real difference is, that the present rebels are more powerful than Cartouche or Turpin, and may possibly be able to effect their iniquitous purpose.

Supposing, however, for the sake of argument, that the mere will to separate were in this case, or in any case, a sufficient ground for separation, I beg to be informed whose will? The will of any knot of men who, by fair means or foul, by usurpation, terrorism, or fraud, have got the reins of government into their hands? If the inmates of Parkhurst Prison were to get possession of the Isle of Wight, occupy its military positions, enlist one part of its inhabitants in their own ranks, set the remainder of them to work in chain gangs, and declare themselves independent, ought their recognition by the British Government to be an immediate consequence? Before admitting the authority of any persons, as organs of the will of the people, to dispose of the whole political existence of a country, I ask to see whether their credentials are from the whole, or only from a part. And first, it is necessary to ask, Have the slaves been consulted? Has their will been counted as any part in the estimate of collective volition? They are a part of the population. However natural in the country itself, it is rather cool in English writers who talk so glibly of the ten millions (I believe there are only eight), to pass over the very existence of four millions who must abhor the idea of separation. Remember, we consider them to be human beings, entitled to human rights. Nor can it be doubted that the mere fact of belonging to a Union in some parts of which slavery is reprobated, is some alleviation of their condition, if only as regards future probabilities. But even of the white population, it is questionable if there was in the beginning a majority for secession anywhere but in South Carolina. Though the thing was pre-determined, and most of the States committed by their public authorities before the people were called on to vote; though in taking the votes terrorism in many places reigned triumphant; yet even so, in several of the States, secession was carried only by narrow majorities. In some the authorities have not dared to publish the numbers; in some it is asserted that no vote has ever been taken. Further (as was pointed out in an admirable letter by Mr. Carey),the Slave States are intersected in the middle, from their northern frontier almost to the Gulf of Mexico, by a country of free labour—the mountain region of the Alleghanies and their dependencies, forming parts of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, in which, from the nature of the climate and of the agricultural and mining industry, slavery to any material extent never did, and never will, exist. This mountain zone is peopled by ardent friends of the Union. Could the Union abandon them, without even an effort, to be dealt with at the pleasure of an exasperated slave-owning oligarchy? Could it abandon the Germans who, in Western Texas, have made so meritorious a commencement of growing cotton on the borders of the Mexican Gulf by free labour? Were the right of the slave-owners to secede ever so clear, they have no right to carry these with them; unless allegiance is a mere question of local proximity, and my next neighbor, if I am a stronger man, can be compelled to follow me in any lawless vagaries I choose to indulge.

But (it is said) the North will never succeed in conquering the South; and since the separation must in the end be recognized, it is better to do at first what must be done at last; moreover, if it did conquer them, it could not govern them when conquered, consistently with free institutions. With no one of these propositions can I agree.

Whether or not the Northern Americans will succeed in reconquering the South, I do not affect to foresee. That they can conquer it, if their present determination holds, I have never entertained a doubt; for they are twice as numerous, and ten or twelve times as rich. Not by taking military possession of their country, or marching an army through it, but by wearing them out, exhausting their resources, depriving them of the comforts of life, encouraging their slaves to desert, and excluding them from communication with foreign countries. All this, of course, depends on the supposition that the North does not give in first. Whether they will persevere to this point, or whether their spirit, their patience, and the sacrifices they are willing to make, will be exhausted before reaching it, I cannot tell. They may, in the end, be wearied into recognizing the separation. But to those who say that because this may have to be done at last, it ought to have been done at first, I put the very serious question—On what terms? Have they ever considered what would have been the meaning of separation if it had been assented to by the Northern States when first demanded? People talk as if separation meant nothing more than the independence of the seceding States. To have accepted it under that limitation would have been, on the part of the South, to give up that which they have seceded expressly to preserve. Separation, with them, means at least half the Territories; including the Mexican border, and the consequent power of invading and overrunning Spanish America for the purpose of planting there the “peculiar institution" which even Mexican civilization has found too bad to be endured. There is no knowing to what point of degradation a country may be driven in a desperate state of its affairs; but if the North ever, unless on the brink of actual ruin, makes peace with the South, giving up the original cause of quarrel, the freedom of the Territories; if it resigns to them when out of the Union that power of evil which it would not grant to retain them in the Union—it will incur the pity and disdain of posterity. And no one can suppose that the South would have consented, or in their present temper ever will consent, to an accommodation on any other terms. It will require a succession of humiliations to bring them to that. The necessity of reconciling themselves to the confinement of slavery within its existing boundaries, with the natural consequence, immediate mitigation of slavery, and ultimate emancipation, is a lesson which they are in no mood to learn from anything but disaster. Two or three defeats in the field, breaking their military strength, though not followed by an invasion of their territory, may possibly teach it to them. If so, there is no breach of charity in hoping that this severe schooling may promptly come. When men set themselves up, in defiance of the rest of the world, to do the devil’s work, no good can come of them until the world has made them feel that this work cannot be suffered to be done any longer. If this knowledge does not come to them for several years, the abolition question will by that time have settled itself. For assuredly Congress will very soon make up its mind to declare all slaves free who belong to persons in arms against the Union. When that is done, slavery, confined to a minority, will soon cure itself; and the pecuniary value of the negroes belonging to loyal masters will probably not exceed the amount of compensation which the United States will be willing and able to give.

The assumed difficulty of governing the Southern States as free and equal commonwealths, in case of their return to the Union, is purely imaginary. If brought back by force, and not by voluntary compact, they will return without the Territories, and without a Fugitive Slave Law. It may be assumed that in that event the victorious party would make the alterations in the Federal Constitution which are necessary to adapt it to the new circumstances, and which would not infringe, but strengthen, its democratic principles. An article would have to be inserted prohibiting the extension of slavery to the Territories, or the admission into the Union of any new Slave State. Without any other guarantee, the rapid formation of new Free States would ensure to freedom a decisive and constantly increasing majority in Congress. It would also be right to abrogate that bad provision of the Constitution (a necessary compromise at the time of its first establishment) whereby the slaves, though reckoned as citizens in no other respect, are counted, to the extent of three-fifths of their number, in the estimate of the population for fixing the number of representatives of each State in the Lower House of Congress. Why should the masters have members in right of their human chattels, any more than of their oxen and pigs? The President, in his Message, has already proposed that this salutary reform should be effected in the case of Maryland, additional territory, detached from Virginia, being given to that State as an equivalent: thus clearly indicating the policy which he approves, and which he is probably willing to make universal. 

As it is necessary to be prepared for all possibilities, let us now contemplate another. Let us suppose the worst possible issue of this war—the one apparently desired by those English writers whose moral feeling is so philosophically indifferent between the apostles of slavery and its enemies. Suppose that the North should stoop to recognize the new Confederation on its own terms, leaving it half the Territories, and that it is acknowledged by Europe, and takes its place as an admitted member of the community of nations. It will be desirable to take thought beforehand what are to be our own future relations with a new Power professing the principles of Attila and Genghis Khan as the foundation of its Constitution. Are we to see with indifference its victorious army let loose to propagate their national faith at the rifle’s mouth through Mexico and Central America? Shall we submit to see fire and sword carried over Cuba and Porto Rico, and Hayti and Liberia conquered and brought back to slavery? We shall soon have causes enough of quarrel on our own account. When we are in the act of sending an expedition against Mexico to redress the wrongs of private British subjects, we should do well to reflect in time that the President of the new Republic, Mr. Jefferson Davis, was the original inventor of repudiation.  Mississippi was the first State which repudiated, Mr Jefferson Davis was Governor of Mississippi, and the Legislature of Mississippi had passed a bill recognizing and providing for the debt, which Bill Mr. Jefferson Davis vetoed. Unless we abandon the principles we have for two generations consistently professed and acted on, we should be at war with the new Confederacy within five years about the African slave-trade. An English Government will hardly be base enough to recognize them, unless they accept all the treaties by which America is at present bound; nor, it may be hoped, even if de facto independent, would they be admitted to the courtesies of diplomatic intercourse, unless they granted in the most explicit manner the right of search. To allow the slave-ships of a Confederation formed for the extension of slavery to come and go, free and unexamined, between America and the African coast, would be to renounce even the pretense of attempting to protect Africa against the man-stealer, and abandon that Continent to the horrors, on a far larger scale, which were practiced before Granville Sharp and Clarkson were in existence. But even if the right of intercepting their slavers were acknowledged by treaty, which it never would be, the arrogance of the Southern slaveholders would not long submit to its exercise. Their pride and self-conceit, swelled to an inordinate height by their successful struggle, would defy the power of England as they had already successfully defied that of their Northern countrymen. After our people by their cold disapprobation, and our press by its invective, had combined with their own difficulties to damp the spirit of the Free States, and drive them to submit and make peace, we should have to fight the Slave States ourselves at far greater disadvantages, when we should no longer have the wearied and exhausted North for an ally. The time might come when the barbarous and barbarizing Power, which we by our moral support had helped into existence, would require a general crusade of civilized Europe, to extinguish the mischief which it had allowed, and we had aided, to rise up in the midst of our civilization.

For these reasons I cannot join with those who cry Peace, peace I cannot wish that this war should not have been engaged in by the North, or that being engaged in, it should be terminated on any conditions but such as would retain the whole of the Territories as free soil. I am not blind to the possibility that it may require a long war to lower the arrogance and tame the aggressive ambition of the slave-owners, to the point of either returning to the Union, or consenting to remain out of it with their present limits. But war, in a good cause, is not the greatest evil which a nation can suffer. War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things, the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice—is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other. I am far from saying that the present struggle, on the part of the Northern Americans, is wholly of this exalted character; that it has arrived at the stage of being altogether a war for justice, a war of principle. But there was from the beginning, and now is, a large infusion of that element in it; and this is increasing, will increase, and if the war lasts, will in the end predominate. Should that time come, not only will the greatest enormity which still exists among mankind as an institution, receive far earlier its coup de grâce than there has ever, until now, appeared any probability of; but in effecting this the Free States will have raised themselves to that elevated position in the scale of morality and dignity, which is derived from great sacrifices consciously made in a virtuous cause, and the sense of an inestimable benefit to all future ages, brought about by their own voluntary efforts.

Gov. Seymour's Speech: Why the Republican Party Cannot Save the Union (1862)

Source: The Polynesian. Honolulu: December 6, 1862
[Transcriber's note: This is an excerpt of a speech by Gov. Horatio Seymour, D-New York. Here is a biography. It was published here in Honolulu. The original speech was delivered in September, 1862. Go to this link for a New York Times review of his speech). 

On the other hand, the very character of the Republican organizations, makes it incapable of conducting the affairs of the Government. For a series of years, it has practiced a system of coalitions, with men differing in principle, until it can have no distinctive policy. In such chaotic masses, the violent have most control. They have been educating their followers for years, through the press, not to obey laws which did not accord with their views. How can they demand submission from whole communities, while they contend that individuals may oppose laws opposed to their consciences? They are higher law men. They insist that the contest, in which we are engaged, is an irrepressible one and that therefore the South could not avoid it, unless they were willing at the outset to surrender all that abolitionists demanded. To declare that this contest is irrepressible, declares that our Fathers formed a government which could not stand. Are such men the proper guardians of this government? Have not their speeches and acts given strength to the rebellion, and have they not also enabled its leaders to prove to their deluded followers, that the contest was an Irrepressible one? 

But their leaders have not only asserted that  this contest was irrepressible unless the South would give up what extreme Republicans demanded, (their local institutions,) but those in power have done much to justify this rebellion in the eyes of the world. The guilt of rebellion is determined by the character of the government against which it is arrayed. The right of revolution, in the language of President Lincoln, is a sacred right when exerted against a bad government. 

We charge that this rebellion is most wicked because it is against the best government that ever existed. It is the excellence of our government that makes resistance a crime. Rebellion is not necessarily wrong. It may be an act of the highest virtue — it may be one of the deepest depravity. The rebellion of our Fathers is our proudest boast — the rebellion of our brothers is the humiliation of our nation is our national disgrace. To resist a bad government is patriotism — to resist a good one is the greatest guilt. The first is patriotism-the last is treason. Legal tribunals can only regard  resistance of laws as a crime but in the forum of public sentiment the character of the Government will decide if the act is treason or patriotism. 

Our Government and its administration are different things; but in the eyes of the civilized world, abuses, weakness or folly in the conduct of affairs go far to justify resistance.  I have read to you the testimony of Messrs. Greeley, Weed, Bryant, Raymond and Marble, charging fraud, corruption, outrage and incompetency upon those in power. Those who stand up to testify to the incompetency of these representatives of a discordant party to conduct the affairs of our government are politically opposed to us. Bear in mind that the embarrassments of President Lincoln grow out of the conflicting views of his political friends, and their habits and principles of insubordination. His hands would be strengthened by a Democratic victory, and if his private prayers are answered we will relieve him from the pressure of philantropists who thirst for blood, and who call for the extermination of the men, women and children of the South. The brutal and bloody language of partisan editors and political preachers have lost us the sympathy of the civilized world in a contest where all mankind should be upon one side. 

Turning to the legislative departments of our government, what do we see? In the history of the decline and fall of nations, there are no more striking displays of madness and folly. The assemblage of Congress throws gloom over the nation; its continuance in session is more disastrous than defeat upon the battle field. It excites alike alarm and disgust. 

The public are disappointed in the results of the war. This is owing to the differing objects of the people on the one hand, and of the fanatical agitators in and out of Congress on the other. In the army, the Union men of the North and South battle side by side, under one flag, to put down rebellion and uphold the Union and Constitution. In Congress a fanatical majority make war on the Union men of the South and strengthen the hands of secessionists by words and acts which enable them to keep alive the flames of civil war. What is done on the battle held by the blood and treasure of the people is undone by Senators. Half of the time is spent in factious measures designed to destroy all confidence in the government at the South, and the rest in annoying our army, in meddling with its operations, embarrassing our generals and in publishing undigested and unfounded scandal. One party is seeking to bring about peace, the other to keep alive hatred and bitterness by interferences. They prove the wisdom of Solomon, when he said: -"It is an honor to a man to cease from strife, but every fool will be meddling." 

This war cannot be brought to a successful conclusion, or our country restored to an honorable peace under the Republican leaders, for another reason. Our disasters are mainly due to the fact that they have not dared to tell the truth to the community. A system of misrepresentation had been practiced so long and so successfully that when the war burst upon us they feared to let the people know its full proportions, and they persisted in assuring their friends it was but a passing excitement. They still asserted that the South was iunable to 
maintain and carry on a war. They denounced as a traitor every man who tried to tell the truth and to warn our people of the magnitude of the contest. 

Now, my Republican friends, you know that the misapprehensions of the North with regard to the South has drenched the land with blood. Was this ignorance accidental? I appeal to 
you Republicans, if for years past, through the press and in publications which have been urged upon your attention by the leaders of your party, you have not been taught to despise the 
power and resources of the South? I appeal to you to say if this teaching has not been part of the machinery by which power has been gained? I appeal to you to answer if those 
who tried to teach truths now admitted have not been denounced? I appeal to you if a book, beyond all others, false, bloody and treasonable, was not sent out with the endorsement of all your managers; and is it not true that now, when men blush to own they believed its statements , that its author is honored by an official station? It is now freely confessed by you all, that you have been deceived with respect to the South, who deceived you? Who, by false teachings, instilled contempt and hate into the minds of our people? Who stained our land with blood? Who caused ruin and distress? All these things are within your own knowledge. Are their authors the leaders to rescue us from oar calamities? They shrink back appalled from the mischief they have wrought, and tell you it is an irrepressible contest. That reason is as good for Jefferson Davis as for them. They attempt to drown reflections by new excitements and new appeals to our passions. Having already, in legislation, gone far beyond the limits at which, by their resolutions, they were pledged to stop, they now ask to adopt measures which they have heretofore denounced as unjust and unconstitutional. For this reason they cannot save our country. 

As our national calamities thicken upon us, an attempt is made by their authors to avoid their responsibilities by insisting that our failures are due to the fact that their measures are not carried out, although government has already gone far beyond its pledges. The demands of these men will never cease, simply because they hope to save themselves from condemnation by having unsatisfied demands At the last session Congress not only abolished slavery in the District of Columbia, but, to quiet clamorous men, an act of confiscation and emancipation was passed, which, in the opinion of leading Republicans, was unconstitutional and unjust. By this act the rebels have no property, not even their own lives, and they own no slaves. But to the astonishment and disgust of those who believe in the policy of statutes and proclamations, the rebels still live and fight and hold their slaves. These measures seem to have reanimated them. They have a careless and reckless way of appropriating their lives and property, which by act of Congress belong to us, in support of their cause. 

But these fanatical men have learned that it is necessary to win a victory before they divide the spoil — and what do they now propose? As they cannot take the properly of rebels 
beyond their reach they will take the property of the loyal men of the Border States. The violent men of this party as you know from experience, my conservative Republican friends, in the end have their way. They now demand that the President shall issue a Proclamation of immediate and universal emancipation! Against whom is this to be directed? Not against those in rebellion for they came within the scope of the act of Congress. It can only be applied to those who have been true to our Union and our flag. They are to be punished for their loyalty. When we consider their sufferings and their cruel wrongs at the hands of the secessionists, their reliance upon our faith, is not this proposal black with ingratitude? 

The scheme for an immediate emancipation and general arming of the slaves throughout the South is a proposal for the butchery of women and children, for scenes of lust and rapine, of arson and murder unparalleled in the history of the world. The horrors of the French Revolution would become tame in comparison. Its effect would not be confined to the walls of cities, but there would be a wide-spread scene of horror over the vast expanse of great States, involving alike the loyal and seditious. Such malignity and cowardice would invoke the interference of civilized Europe. History tells of the fires kindled in the name of religion, of atrocities committed under pretexts of order or liberty; but it is now urged that scenes bloodier than the world has yet seen shall be enacted in the name of philanthropy!

A proclamation of general and armed emancipation at this time would be a cruel wrong to the African. It is now officially declared in Presidential addresses, which are fortified by congressional action, that the negro cannot live in the enjoyment of the full privileges of life among the white race. It is now admitted, after our loss of infinite blood and treasure, that the great problem we have to settle is not the slavery, but the negro question. A terrible question, not springing from the statutes or usages, but growing out of the unchangeable distinction of race. It is discovered at this late day, in republican Illinois, that it is right to drive him from its soil. It is discovered by a Republican Congress, after convulsing our country with declarations of equal rights and asserting that he was merely a victim of unjust laws, that he should be sent away from our land. The issue is now changed. The South holds that the African is fit to live here as a slave. Our Republican government denies that he is fit to live here at all. 

Poem: Bury Me in the Morning (by Stephen A. Douglas, 1861)

Source: Pacific Commercial Advertiser. Honolulu: October 31, 1861. 

by Stephen A. Douglas

We find in our exchange papers the following plaintive and very peculiar poetical composition, which is attributed to the pen of the late Senator Douglas:

Bury me in the morning, mother-
     O, let me have the light
Of one bright day on my grave, mother,
     Ere you leave me with the night;
Alone in the night of the grave, mother,
     'Tis a thought of terrible fear-
And you will be here alone, mother,
     And stars will be shining here,
So bury me in the morning, mother,
    And let me have the light

Of one bright day on my grave, mother,
     Ere you leave me with the night.

You tell of the Savior's love, mother;
     I feel it in my heart--
But oh! from this beautiful world, mother,
     'Tis hard for young to part;
Forever to part, when here, mother,
     The soul is fain to stay;
For the grave is deep and dark, mother,
     And heaven seems far away.
Then bury me in the morning, mother,
     And let me have the light
Of one bright day on my grave, mother,
     Ere I'm alone with the night. 

The Czar's Sympathy With Union (1861)

Source: The Pacific Commercial Advertiser. Honolulu: October 31, 1861

Alexander of Russia's letter to the President of the United States has been the subject of intense excitement among the diplomats. Both the matter and the manner of the letter, and the extraordinary precaution taken by the Emperor to have proclaimed to the American people his sympathy with the Union, and his desires for the permanence and prosperity of Republican institutions, cause what the diplomatists pronounce a "profound sensation." 

Of course, its effect upon the other Governments of Europe is the first question asked. Is os the conceded opinion that it must cause England to think before she attempts a recognition of the rebels, even though she go without cotton for the next five years, and that she will soon conclude it to be in her interest to unite with the Governments of the Continent in such a demonstration as will leave the rebels no room to hope for European sympathy or assistance. 

Patriotism Among the Lower Animals-Dogs, Cats, Donkeys, Mules, Vermin, the Editor of the Alta, etc. (1863)

Source: The Polynesian. Honolulu: Saturday, April 4, 1863.

The Alta of the 20th inst. gives a "remarkable instance of Patriotism, a canine seeking protection of the Stars and Stripes." It tells us how an Englishman "swore allegiance" to the "British" Government, to avoid the draft; how this Englishman had a "dorg;" how the "dorg," directly he found it out, ran away from his master, and turned up his canine nose at a sirloin steak with which his master tried to entice him from his new home, "a few doors from the recruiting office."

We are in a position to state emphatically that is nothing. We know of several much more extraordinary cases of patriotism among the lower animals:

1. Mrs. Lincoln has a favorite cat, of there male persuasion; the cat's name is Tom; color black; white spot upon the nose, three-quarters of an inch from the tip. When the news of the recent disaster before Fredericksburg reached the White House, Tom was lying on the rug before the fire; Mr. Lincoln told Mrs. Lincoln what had happened; Mrs. Lincoln said, "Oh, my!" Mr. Lincoln was going to say that "it reminded him of a little story," when the feline animal sprung to its feet, jumped three feet and a half in a perpendicular direction, howled, and fell in an epileptic fit on the floor. Restoratives were administered in the shape of several leading articles from the daily papers, proving that, under the circumstances, the reverse was "just the best thing that could have happened, because it taught us a lesson." The cat recovered , but the next morning every hair on its tail turned as white as snow!

2. It is currently reported that all the vermin which the papers said were attached to the Rebels, have come over to the Union.

3. There is a mule in the Army of the potomac that has on several occasions been missing for several days, and has returned with a new set of shoes. It was at length discovered that the patriotic animal, when it found its shoes wearing out, would desert to the enemy, and as soon as re-shod would return to the Union army-thus subsisting on the enemy, and saving the Government a complete set of shoes.

4. No less patriotic sagacity is shown in a male donkey, who is in the habit of gaining the affections of female donkeys in the Rebel army and leading them to the Union side. It is stated that this patriotic animal has espoused, and thus delivered into the hands of our army, no less than seventeen females in the last few months. It is rumored that a vote to thanks to him will be proposed in Congress, and also that a gold medal is to be presented to him at the same time that Com. Wilkes gets that which Congress voted him for his spirited conduct in taking Messrs. Slidell and Mason.

5. To descend still lower, we are credibly informed that the Editor of the Alta refused an advertisement of an auction sale of furniture, because among the effects were two likenesses of Jeff Davis and one of Gen. Beauregard! We shall be on the lookout for interesting facts in natural history similar to the above, and we are determined that the Editor of the Alta shall not get very far ahead of us. 

Stand by Our Country's Flag! (1861)

The Fort Sumter "Storm Flag," lowered by Major Robert Anderson on April 14, 1861, when he surrendered Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, S.C., at the outset of the American Civil War. —National Park Service

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

MR. EDITOR: -For many years past the Fourth of July has been a holiday here. It is now again close at hand, soon to dawn upon our country under circumstances gloomy to the extreme. Would it not be eminently proper for Americans in Honolulu, on their next anniversary of their country's freedom, to meet together to testify their devotion to the land which gave them birth? 

Now, when the rebellion and treason are doing their utmost to overthrow our government, is the time when those who are true ion their allegiance to American institutions, should not hesitate to give their country at least the benefit of an open adhesion to its cause. Let us see who are Americans in heart and feeling, as well as in name, and who are not. It is time we should know. 

Some men in high places here do not scruple to sympathize with traitors and robbers. A hireling and irresponsible editor takes advantage of the times to fling his sneers against our country and its government. Viper-like, he seeks to sting the land which for many a year protected him, and in which, it is fair to presume, he acquired much of the knowledge which he now prostitutes to so graceful a purpose. He cooly announces the destruction of the American Union, and talks of it, in his wordy editorials, with as much complacency and self-satisfaction as if his weak conclusions settled the whole affair. He, no doubt, would like to see such a result. With him the wish is father to the thought. He has heard the expression before, and is quite welcome to the clue it will give him to the identity of the writer of this.

I am almost ashamed to put it in print, that even among native-born Americans here there are some who favor disunion-some who have the unblushing audacity to justify the acts of the Confederate States at Charleston; and for one feel like taking measures to put such men in the place they belong. Let Americans here know who their countrymen are, and let all secessionists, and Southern sympathizers, be spotted as such.

Let us on the coming Fourth have a general rally of all true-hearted Americans in Honolulu. We have among us eloquent men, who, with patriotic inspiration and heartfelt words, can make such a meeting interesting and effective. While our friends and relatives at home are battling for the existence of their Government and the preservation of the laws and institutions under which every state has so greatly prospered, let us not idly look on, but rather encourage them with our unanimous voice. A Union demonstration here will not be without its effect at home, and we can have it without showing any disrespect to this Government, or in any way trespassing upon the privileges it gives us in the freedom of speech. Who will take the lead? 
                  UNION.
Honolulu, June 19th, 1861. 

A Proposition (1861)

[Correspondence of the Pac. Com. Advertiser]

Source: The Pacific Commercial Advertiser. Honolulu: June 27, 1861

Americans residing at the Hawaiian Islands, being unable to defend the Union by personal efforts, might do something towards crushing the revolt and treason at home by other means. Those who have seen Jeff Davis must be aware that he id gifted with a long, learn and altogether splendid neck to fasten a noose to; but being also of a slim and lean build, he will be apt. eel-like, to slip from the grasp of the rope. Therefore, it would be expedient to rid the country of him by some other means, and a purse of $1000 or more should be offered to the man who delivers the arch-traitor for trial at Washington or New York. As a nest egg, $100 is subscribed by
                                                                                                  TEXAS.

Honolulu, June, 1861. 

Foreign Miscellany: "Candid Review of the Effect of the President's Proclamation" (1863)

Foreign Miscellany: "Candid Review of the Effect of the President's Proclamation" (1863) 

Source: The Polynesian. Honolulu: March 21, 1863

Lieut. Col. Billings, who went out as Chaplain of the 3d New Hampshire regiment, but subsequently received a commission as Lieutenant Colonel, write a New Hampshire paper, under date of Camp saxon, Beaufort, S.C., Dec. 29 as follows:

"I was authorized to order the evacuation of St. Simon's Island, georgia, and took off ex-slaves, horses, cattle, rice, corn, etc., leaving nothing of value. The splendid mansion once occupied by that ex-United States Senator and arch-rebel T. Butler King, is on this island, and we stripped it of every thing. I write this letter on the writing-desk, which, with his piano, were presented to me on my return."

We copy the following candid review of the effect of the President's Proclamation, from the Newburyport (Mass.) Herald, a republican paper which advocated Mr. Lincoln's election and supports his Administration:

The effect of the Proclamation of Emancipation must have been very small on the slaves. They were well aware tat it was to be issued, and form the state of its promise to its appearance they had ample time to prepare for insurrection, if so they had been inclined and opportunity had presented. It came out during the holidays, when they had the greatest liberty; when they would most assemble, and more than at any other period of the year talk to each other. But the holidays came and went, and no sign of insurrection appeared in the whole South; and we put it down as certain, if not then, that never will the negroes rise against their masters at our call. A few contrabands in Norfolk, Beaufort and New Orleans, were jubilant overt their newly received freedom. They were negroes influenced by the whites around them; and if Jeff Davis had held the same place and given them a holiday, there would have been as much rejoicing. 

We were told by those demanding the proclamation that no sooner would it be issued than the slaves would respond to it from all quarters, and in the most distant States; that the troops from the far South would be obliged to leave Virginia and Tennessee to protect their homes-the lives of their wives and children; that the whole Confederacy would be thrown into confusion, and a single regiment of Federal soldiers might march from Washington to Richmond. Can anybody see to-day where the rebels have been weakened by it? Can anybody tell how the Federal army has been strengthened by it? On the contrary, are not the rebels more determined and stronger than before? and are not the loyalists more divided and weaker? Is not this the main cause of the struggling of our army-that men are opposed to the policy, and care not to fight on the question of emancipation? If it be not so, we are mistaken. The larger part of the army would confine the war strictly to a defense of the Union and the Constitution; and when they struggle now, the nine hundred thousand who were to rally at the call of Horace Greeley do not appear; nor are the roads thronged in New England by fresh volunteers, as Governor Andrews predicted. To make the best of it, the proclamation falls a dead letter.

In regard to emancipation, we mistook on two points. First, we mistook-that is everybody who believed so-in thinking that the slaves sympathized with us, and looked to us for help. The contrary is true universally, and their education for generations has made it so. They hate us; distrust us; have no hope in us; while they cling confidently to their masters, work for them patiently, and will die bravely for them, if their masters are present where their eye can direct and voices command. We may may make ten thousand arguments to the contrary, but here is the plain and stubborn fact, substantiated by every day's experience. Thousands of slaves might come within our lines to-day and be free, who refuse to do so, quietly working on their owner's plantations. There are probably not more fugitives this year than common, where they do not come in an immediate contact with Northern white men.

Then we are mistaken again in deeming this a favorable time for insurrection. We said, when the men have gone to war the slaves will rise; but be it noticed that slaves seldom rise in time of war, for then the country is armed. Every man and every woman in the South can at once lay their hands on rifles and revolvers; and then, too, they are more closely guarded. If there was an insurrection in peaceful times the slaves could flee, many escaping, and of those taken few would be killed. Now let there be an insurrection and the massacre will commence, and the blacks will be indiscriminately butchered in the whole region of the country alarmed. There has never been a day since the Dutchmen landed the first cargo of slaves, when an insurrection would be so promptly;y and so thoroughly subdued as now. The negroes know better about this than their white friends at the North, and they will keep still; and if there is no insurrection, the proclamation of emancipation will have no more effect to shorten the war, than did Mr. Lincoln's first proclamation ordering the rebels to disperse in thirty days. 

[From a private letter dated New Orleans, Jan. 29, 1863]

The Tiltons were immensely wealthy; had built the most splendid house in New Orleans, furnished it entirely from Paris in corresponding style. Just before the war they shut up this house and went to Europe for Mr. Tilton's health. When Butler came to New orleans he immediately too possession of this grand house, confiscated all the property it contained, stripped it of its valuables and sold all, even Mrs. Tilton's dresses and other clothes, which she had left at home. Her sister, still in New Orleans, not dreaming that such property would be taken, asked to have her sister's wearing apparel and was refused. Butler sold them all!

Mr. Lincoln's Letter (1863)

Source: The Pacific Commercial Advertiser. Honolulu: October 22, 1863

The following epitome of the Letter of the President to the Union Mass Meeting at Springfield, is another evidence of the plain, unpretentious character of our Chief Magistrate. It does not possess the elegance which characterizes the productions of the Secretary of State, but it treats the great issue of the day in a clear and simple style which appeals to the intelligence of every one, and carries and irresistible conviction of the sincerity of the author.

It is fortunate for the United States that the control of its destinies has been confided to a man so little influenced by personal ambition. Mr. Lincoln has been tried and found faithful, and as a change of administration cannot fail to be fraught with evil, the people should reward his faithfulness by electing him a second time to the Presidency:

After regretting his inability to attend, he says:

"There are those who are dissatisfied with me. To such I would say: you desire peace and you blame me that you do not have it. But how can we attain it? There are but three conceivable ways. 

First, to suppress the rebellion with force of arms. This I am trying to do. Are you for it? If you are, so far we are agreed. The second way is to give up the Union. I am against this. If you are, you should say so plainly. If you are not for force, nor yet for a dissolution there only remains some imaginable compromise. I do not believe any compromise embracing the maintenance of the Union can be possible. All that I learn ears to a directly opposite belief. 

The strength of the rebellion is in its military, and the army dominates the country and all the people within its range. Any offers of terms made by any man or men, within that range, in opposition to that army, is simply nothing for the present, because such man or men have no power whatsoever to enforce their side of the compromise if one were made with them. A compromise to be effective must be made either with those who have control of the rebel army or with the people first liberated from the domination of them by the success of our army. 

Allow me to assure you that no word or intimidation from the rebel army, or from the men controlling it, in relation to any peace compromise, has ever come to my knowledge or belief, and all charges and intimidations to the contrary are deceptive and groundless; and I promise you that if any such preposition shall hereafter come it shall not be rejected or be kept secret from you. 

You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation, and perhaps would have it retracted. You say it is unconstitutional. I think the Constitution invests the Commander-in-Chief with the laws of war in time of war. The most that can be said is that slaves are property. Is there, or has there ever been, any question that by the laws of war property both of enemies and friends may be taken when needed, and it is not needed when our taking it helps us or hurts the enemy? Armies, the world over, destroy the enemy's property when they cannot use it, and destroy their own to keep it from the enemy. Civilized belligerents do all in their power to help themselves or hurt the enemy, except a few things regarded as barbarous. 

The Proclamation is the law and valid, or not valid. If it is valid, it cannot be retracted any more than the dead can be brought back to life. Some of you prefer to think that a retraction would operate favorably to the Union. Why better after 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 since the issue of the Proclamation as before. I know, as definitely as one can know the opinions of others, that some of the commanders of the armies in the field, who have given us our important victories, believe in the emancipation policy, and that colored troops contribute the heaviest blows yet dealt to rebellion, and that one at least of these important successes could not have been achieved unless it was with the aid of the black soldiers. 

Among the commanders holding these views are some who have never had any affinity with what is called Abolitionism, or with the Republican party in politics, but who hold them purely as military opinions; and I submit their opinions as being entitled to some weight against the objections often urged that the Emancipation Proclamation and arming the blacks are unwise as military measures, and were not adopted as such in good faith. Some say they will not fight to free negroes. Some of the negroes seem willing enough ti fight for you; but no matter, fight you then to save the Union. I issued the proclamation for the purpose to aid in saving the Union; and whenever you shall have conquered all resistance to the Union, if I shall urge you to continue fighting, it will be an apt time then for you to declare that you will not fight to free negroes. 

I thought that in our struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the negroes should cease helping the enemy, to that extent it weakens the enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think differently? I thought that whenever negroes get to be soldiers leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people, act upon a motive. Why should they do anything for us if we do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they should be protected by the strongest possible motive, even a promise of freedom; and a promise must be kept. 

"An Amusing Sword Presentation" (1862)

Source: The Polynesian. Honolulu: Saturday, April 5, 1862.

An amusing sword presentation was made on the 17th by the officers of the Seventy-eighth Pennsylvania to their Colonel, William Sirwell.

The presentation speech of Captain Gillespie was: "here we are, and here it is. This is a bully sword, and comes from bully fellows. Take it, and use it in a bully manner." Colonel Sirwell's reply was: "Captain, that was a bully speech. Let us take a bully drink."

Pickets on the Potomac (1862)

Source: The Polynesian. Honolulu: Saturday, April 5, 1862.

Down the Potomac it is said that the pickets sometimes put off their boats, meet and converse with each other; but this we hardly believe. 

Up the river, where the men are within hail, there are frequent interchanges of rough sentiment and the hardest kind of jokes. On one occasion a Federal picket inquired of a secesh of they ever played "bluff" over there, when the rebel smartly replied, "Yes, Ball's Bluff, sometimes." Fed. was Union down," during the remainder of the interview. 

Kentucky: "Negroes...putting on airs and making themselves free and easy." (1862)

Source: The Polynesian. Honolulu: Saturday, April 5, 1862.

The Frankfort (Kentucky) Yeoman says the negroes in that part of the State north of the Federal lines are putting on airs and making themselves very free and easy. They run off by the scores, taking horses and wagons to help them along, and in some places they parade the streets o'nights. singing and shouting over their deliverance.

The Rat Hole Squadron (1862)

Source: The Polynesian. Honolulu: Saturday, April 5, 1862

The fleet is comprised of old whalers, which have been purchased by the Government for the purpose of effectively blockading the Southern ports.

Among them is true old ship Corea, whose history is well worthy of record here. She was formerly an armed store-ship belonging to the British navy. During the Revolutionary war she came overloaded with supplies for the British army. A storm coming on, she sought shelter in Long Island Sound. It became known to the Yankee fishermen that she was in their waters, and they determined to capture her. 

Accordingly they formed a company of nearly one hundred stout-hearted and hardy men, and put out into the Sound. Shortly after leaving New Bedford harbor they discovered the Britisher in the distance. All hands, save an elderly man and three men and one boy went into the little fishing schooner's hold, all well armed. 

On the little fishing crafty stood until she reached the fishing ground, when they threw out their lines and were soon engaged in catching fish. The store-ship altered her course  and ran down toward the fisherman and fired a gun, and the Yankee boys headed their vessel toward the ship. 

As soon as she came within hail they were ordered to come alongside, which they did after some murmuring. The fish which had been taken were transferred to the deck of the store-ship, and carried over to the other side of the vessel, away from the side were the schooner lay. Curiosity prompted the British sailors to crowd around the fishermen weigh their fish.

In the mean time one of the boys took a fish and threw it out one of the ports, and it striking the schooner's deck gave the signal for the men in the hold to come up. This was but the work of a moment, and before the Britisher could arm his crew or recover from the surprise his ship was a prize. 

The ship was taken into New Bedford, where she was discharged of her stores, and when the war was over she was converted into a whaler, and she has been employed in that business from that time to within a year past. She now goes to assist in sealing up one of the the Southern ports. The Corea was a very fast sailer, and has been ordinarily a very lucky ship. But now her sailing days are over, and she will find a white sandy bed on which to lie until broken up by strong waves of old ocean. -Harper's Weekly. 

Rifles for America (1862)

Source: The Polynesian. Honolulu: Saturday, April 5, 1862

When the Queen's proclamation prohibiting the export of munitions of war was issued, the American agents, who had been exceedingly busy in the market, were, of course, very much disconcerted. Various schemes were tried for evading the law, but in the face of the proclamation, and the regulations adopted for enforcing it, it was found impossible to execute the large orders for arms, and some of the makers applied to the Government, representing the hardship of their case, and asking if they would take a portion of the weapons off their hands. In reply, specimens were asked for, and these having been supplied were sent to Col. Dickson, superintendent of the small-arms factory at Enfield, with instructions to report upon them. We are informed that upon examination and trial they were found to be of most inferior make, and that many of the so-called "rifles" were merely grooved a few inches from the muzzle. -London Morning Post

Polynesian: "To be impartial" (1862)

Source: The Polynesian, Honolulu. September 20, 1862. 

"To be impartial," say the Advertiser, in dilating upon the state of military affairs in Virginia. What a naive confession of former one-sidedness, braggadocio and bigotry; what an unusual emotion in the Advertiser's sensorium! "To be impartial"- not once, when no purpose can be subserved and longer by unfairness and partiality; but to be impartial, candid and fair in recording events, as well as advancing conclusions, is what the Advertiser has yet to learn. We hail its commencement, however, with pleasure. It does well to acknowledge that the rebellion is something more than a flea-bite, and will require something more than cold steel to suppress it. 

In one thing, however, we see that our contemporary still follows its old habit of jumping at conclusions. It predicts that the general emancipation of the slaves, by proclamation of the President of the United States, is an event close at hand, and that it will prove an invincible weapon in subduing the rebellion. We fear the Advertiser's prophesy will meet with considerable interruption in its fulfillment, from the rebellious slaveholders, who are so "terribly in earnest," and whose strength has hitherto been so singularly underrated. We have been led to believe-though we may be wrong-that the President's proclamation were not kindly received at the South, and generally speaking, a dead letter, unless presented at the point of the bayonet. But it is the sharpness of that very point which the impending battle in Virginia will probably decide. It therefore seems to us a little premature to build much faith on emancipation proclamations until the authority of the Federal Government has been restored at the South. General Hunter tried emancipation proclamations in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, and the foolish slaves would not avail themselves of the opportunity as long as their masters had arms in their hands to prevent them. The old proverb says: "first catch your fish, then stew it." When the Federal Government has re-established itself throughout the length and breadth of Dixie land, it can dispose of Dixie's secants as it pleases.

The Advertiser quoits the whole of the circular letter of Doctor Doupanloup, Catholic Bishop at Orleans, in France, formerly editor of Ami de la Religion, in Paris. As Mr. Doupanloup is well known, we believe, as a sensation preacher, and we have not the space to quote the various strictures which his letter has received from his own co-religionists, we refer the Advertiser to the "New York Freeman's Journal and Catholic Register" of June 7, 1862, as one of the several reviews which that letter has called out, and which- "to be impartial"- it might not be amiss to know. 

"To be impartial," when speaking of the abolition sentiment in the Northern States, why not intimate that journals of so widely circulated as the New York Herald speak of the abolition "pressure" upon the Federal Government in this wise:

"As the reason for this indecisive policy of the administration, the President says that the abolition faction comprises 'many whose support the country cannot afford to lose.' There never was a sadder mistake than this. The country can afford to lose the support of every man who prefers the negro to the Union. The abolitionists are so small, though so noisy a a faction, that the country would not miss them if every one of the were hung. Their only services to the country consist in the 'pressure upon him,' of which the President speaks. The abolition party does not number one-tenth of the people of the loyal States. The abolitionists in the army and the navy are so few and far between that they are never heard of. Even in the Massachusetts regiments the conservatives largely predominate. The 'support' of the abolitionists is a delusion. They talk much, they write much, they fill offices, but they do nothing for the Union. On the contrary, we have often demonstrated that they do much against it. For a few weeks, recently, abolitionism, through its intrigues with Secretary Stanton and its majority in Congress, had practical control of the war power of the the government. Now, what possible good has it accomplished? Where is the abolition Genera who won a battle? Where are the negroes who were to rise against their masters at the issue of such a proclamation as that of Gen. Hunter? How many negroes have the abolitionists induced to join their black brigades? Gen. Hunter has obtained but four hundred negroes from three Slave States, though he has made his parade ground a camp meeting, and intersperses the military drill with religious hymns of which negroes are passionately fond. Where have the abolition plans for the war succeeded? When has abolitionism saved the State of the Union, as conservatism saved Kentucky and Maryland? When has abolitionism won back the State of the Union, as conservatism has won Missouri and Tennessee, and is fast winning Louisiana? At Hilton Head, where the abolitionists have had full swing, what have they done to restore the Union? Abolition intrigues have only resulted in defeats. Abolition interference with recruiting and with our armies has killed volunteering, and the very men who offered and refused a month ago now have to be sought for and hired with extra bounties. Abolitionism has even killed its own party, and driven such old fashioned abolitionists as Seward and Weed into a coalition with conservatives. The scum of the abolition faction only remains. Would gradual emancipation satisfy these fanatics? Would they cites for the President's bill in Congress? Is their 'support' with the trouble of asking for it? Is it worth more than the Union?"

And to be still further "impartial" why not indicate that the Border States, through their Representatives in Congress expressed themselves in the following manner:

"We have anxiously looked into this passage to discover its true import, but we are yet in painful uncertainty. How can we, by conceding what you now ask, relieve you and the country from the increasing pressure to which you refer? We will not allow ourselves to think that the proposition is, that we consent to give up slavery, to the end that the Hunter proclamation may be let loose on the Southern people, for it is too well known that we would not be parties to any such measure, and we have too much respect for you to imagine you would propose it. Can it mean that by sacrificing our interest in slavery we appease the spirit that controls that pressure, cause it to be withdrawn, and rid the country of the pestilent agitation of the slavery question? We are forbidden so to think, for that spirit would not be satisfied with the liberation of seven hundred thousand slaves, and cease its agitation, while three millions remain in bondage. Can it mean that by abandoning slavery in our States we are removing the pressure from you and the country, by preparing for a separation on the line of the cotton States? We are forbidden so to think, because it is known that we are, and we believe that you are, unalterably opposed to any division at all. We would prefer to think that you desire this concession as a pledge of our support, and thus enable you to withstand a pressure which weighs heavily on you and the country. Mr. President, no such sacrifice is necessary to secure our support. Confine yourself to your constitutional authority; confine your subordinates within the same limits; conduct this war solely for the purpose of restoring the Constitution to its legitimate authority; concede to each State and its loyal citizens their just rights, and we are wedded to you by indissoluble ties. Do this, Mr. President, and you touch the American heart and invigorate it with new hope. You will, as we solemnly believe, in due time restore peace to your country, lift it from despondency to a future of glory; and preserve to your countrymen, their posterity, and man, the inestimable treasure of constitutional government." 

The Decree of Emancipation (1862)

Source: The Pacific Commercial Advertiser. Honolulu: Thursday, October 16, 1862.

Since the rebellion in America culminated in the storming and capture of FORT SUMPTER, no more important event has transpired than that announced by the last advices, viz: the DECREE OF EMANCIPATION, issued on the 17th of september by President Lincoln. It inaugurates a new era in the war, and cannot help being accompanied by the most momentous results. The following is the report of this document, as abbreviated by the telegraph:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 22.-A proclamation issued by the President, the substance of which is as follows: 

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I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy proclaim and 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 the relation of the States is or may be disturbed. It is my purpose at the next meeting of Congress to again recommend the adoption of practical measures tendering pecuniary aid to the States and people thereof who may not then be in rebellion against the United States, and which states may then have voluntarily adopted, or may voluntarily adopt, the immediate or gradual abolishment of slavery. That on the first day of January, 1863, all persons held as slaves within any state, or part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States; shall be then, thenceforth, and forever after free. On that day the Executive will designate by proclamation the States, and parts of states, in which the people shall be in rebellion. The fact that any State or part of a State shall on that day be in good faith represented in Congress chosen by a majority of the electors, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed sufficient evidence that such States have not been in rebellion.  The President quotes the new article of war, approved March 30th; also, the 9th and 10th sections of the act to suppress insurrection and punish treason and rebellion, approved July 17th; and enjoins upon all persons in the military and naval service to enforce said acts and sections. The Executive will in due time recommend that all loyal persons shall, upon the restoration of Constitutional relations, be compensated for all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss of slaves. 

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It is idle to predict the effects which may follow this proclamation. Whatever they are, they cannot be other than of the most important nature of the future of the American Republic. It may be followed by immediate, certain and permanent separation between the north and the south, or it may hasten the suppression of the rebellion by exciting the rebels to such a desperation as to react to their own destruction, and the total extinction of slavery in America.

The President has held back as firmly and as long as it has been possible for him; but the fact that the proclamation of emancipation is now issued is evidence that he is satisfied that it is a step that is necessary to preserve the Union. Nine months ago, this journal stated as a result of its observation of the current of public opinion throughout the North, that if the rebellion continued to the close of 1862, a proclamation of emancipation would become a military necessity. The law of self-defense is the highest law known on earth. The man who refrains from using all means of self-defense in his power, when attacked with weapons of death by a midnight assassin or robber, (on the plea that he is a peace an,) deserves to be robbed or butchered. So with a nation. Any government which fails to use every means in its power to preserve its national integrity, when threatened with dismemberment, is unworthy of existence. This is the position of the American republic at this moment: and no law, human or divine, no constitution of any kind or nature, should be allowed to stand in the way of the natural order of self-preservation. 

The first question that will be asked, is, What will be the effect of the proclamation on the slaves? While it must be admitted that the authority of the government does not extend over any rebel territory, except nominally, yet it will not for that reason alone be powerless there. Before the first of january, 1863, when the decree goes into effect, the mass of the slaves will not that by a proclamation of the government they are legally free. This must lead to discontentment, which will everywhere develop itself, till finally, as in the case of the enslaved Israelites in Egypt, their masters will fain have them depart.

But the greatest result of the proclamation will be this, -that a decisive policy is adopted by the American government. The question for the North is now reduced to this, slavery and treason, or loyalty and freedom. Heretofore there has been any amount of skulking by partisans sympathizing with slavery and the rebellion under the plea of its being unconstitutional to meddle with slavery. There is to be an end to this: and the man who henceforward sands up for slavery because of the constitution, is a traitor to his country. He had better forswear his country and sell his birthright.

All Europe has been taunting America for its indecision on this slavery question. The proclamation will meet the unqualified approval of the masses of Europe, and at the same time disarm the politicians there of their strongest argument in favor of recognition of the South. There will be no recognition or intervention in favor of the south at present.

The coming few months will be the most important and the most stirring of the rebellion. The proclamation will excite the desperation of the rebel leaders to its highest pith, and the fight will be accompanied with an energy and terribleness not yet witnessed. Undoubtedly the next six months will witness either the triumph of the government, or the triumph of the rebels. The enormous efforts now being made by both the contending parties to increase their fighting resources, must soon reach their limit, beyond which they cannot go; and one or the other mist succumb, or acknowledge the contest useless. This can only be the rebels. 

The Present Commercial Panic in the United States, its Causes and its Effect Upon Us, Should the Same Continue (1861)

Source: The Polynesian. Saturday, January 19, 1861.

The last mail brought intelligence of a commercial crisis in the Atlantic seaboard States, which bids fair to surpass in its deplorable effects upon trade the revulsion of 1857, inasmuch as it is more extended in its influence, and springs from other than the natural causes which have governed part stringencies and collapses of markets. 

The pecuniary panic to which we allude has been mainly brought about by political causes, and the cloud at present no bigger than a man's hand may yet assume such a portentous aspect, that it will behoove every merchant to take in sail in time and get his ship of adventures under snug sail to meet the coming storm.

It is a pecuniary panic springing it is said from political causes, which is worse than one arising from financial derangements, because it is more difficult for business men to understand its workings, and to handle the matter. It is so Protean in the shapes it assumes, that no sooner is one phase met, than lo! another arises to bewilder the negotiant. In a few words, then, it appears from what we can gather from the public prints from the Northern, Southern and Western sections of that great Republic, that the South has initiated an attempt to commercially to cut clear from trading with the North. She has refused to take any manufactured goods from the North, and to accept nothing but gold for the balance of her last crop, and expresses a firm determination not to let a bale of the present crop go North, nor aloo a single article of goods manufactured at the North to come in at the South, thus virtually tabooing all commercial intercourse. This has produced an immediate derangement of inland and foreign exchanges always the commercial pulses that show the state of the fever that rages inwardly. The magnitude and intimacy of the commercial relations of the United States with all the world is so great, that whatever affects them may extend to those nations with whom they trade; and it is from this possibility, that a panic originating in the struggle between the North and South, is but the commencement of one of those great commercial revulsions, which may to some extent create embarrassment in pecuniary matters throughout the world.

The South, it is said, will not sell her cotton to England unless for gold. Should this be so, the Bank of England will raise its rates of interest to prevent its efflux, which in such an event will be followed by immense embarrassment and failures in that country. 

Should this estrangement of the South from the North continue, and end in secession, how will it effect us? If the South will not supply cotton to the North, for their manufactories, nor purchase northern manufactures when made, the Boston and New York manufactures will cease to give orders to the factories, and turn their capital to other branches of trade. These steps will compel the manufacturers to discharge their workmen, and stop their works. This will affect at once the price of oil, shutting it off as it will so great an outlet for the consumption of that article. 

Should the difficulties between the North and South end in disunion, sugar, rice, tobacco, cotton, and all the products of the Southern States, can be raised in our Kingdom, and they will immediately feel the impetus given by the disintegration of the United States to these articles, which, in the language of the Southern States "is King." 

Louisiana, which has always controlled the sugar interests in the Republic, and used her influence to keep up the duties, will belong to the Southern Confederacy, and the North, the great consumer, will probably admit our sugars duty free. This course and the difficulties there, would immediately bring further capital and emigration to our shores, and lead to a development of the industrial resources of our islands. 

But the foregoing reasonings may all be conjectures, nevertheless, it is impossible for the careful business man to look at the state of affairs at present existing in the United States, and the tone of the most conservative of its journals, to avoid shuddering at the distress which, commercially, is in prospect, should it continue.