It is evident enough that all questions between North and South must
settle themselves, should the war only _go far enough_. When it comes to
the struggle for life; to the last most desperate effort on either side
for political and personal existence, then people will begin to open
their eyes to the fact that the one who conquers must conquer
effectually, and hold the vanquished at utter will. Very few among us
have as yet realized this extreme case as the nations of the Old World
have done a thousand times. We who lived at home, have, looking at the
late wars of Europe, imagined that 'the army' might beat or be beaten,
but that 'the country' and the mass of its in-dwellers would remain
unharmed. We have not seen cities captured, farms laid waste, and
experienced the horrors of war. When it comes to that, the case becomes
desperate, and nothing is left at last but unconditional victory or
defeat. Had we done so, we should have 'gone to extremes.'
The South has begun the war, dared its terrors, encountered them, and
become desperate. It is win or lose with them. We too, with every loss
gather fresh strength. Ere long we shall probably have every man in the
Federal Union capable of bearing arms summoned to the field, and that
less by Executive command than by an individual sense of duty, _or
dread_. Our people have learned very slowly indeed what disasters may
befall them in case of defeat, but they are gradually coming to the
knowledge, and are displaying a rapidly advancing energy of interest and
of action. They have immediate and terrible disasters from hostile
armies to repel, and they have to apprehend in the future such a picture
of ruin and disorganization as the result of secession as no one can
bear to contemplate. We are coming to it, and may as well make up our
minds at once to the fact that it is to be a Southern rule in the North
or 'Northern' rule over the South--if we may call that 'Northern' which
means simply the principles of the Constitution as applied to all
States, and of justice as recognized by all nations. He must be blind
who can not see that it is to this extreme stage of war to the knife
that we are rapidly advancing, and that its result is far more likely to
be complete conquest than reconciliation.
The nations of Europe are waiting for the crisis of the fever to be
passed before they intervene. The sympathy of England is in great
measure with the South; yet England may well doubt the expediency of any
partial interference. This tremendous North can yet send forth another
million if needs must be, and still leave those who with tears in their
eyes and stern resolve in their hearts would plant and weave and work to
sustain the soldiers a-field. When it comes to this death-struggle--when
we begin to live in the war and for the war alone--where can the foe be?
They have long since sunk in great measure from the social condition of
peace into that olden-time state of full war, when as in Sparta, or
Rome, in her early days all things in life were done solely with
reference to maintaining the army. With us it has been--is as yet--very
different. The voice of the highly-paid opera-singer is still heard in
our large cities--Newport and Saratoga never saw gayer seasons than
those of 1862--splendor and luxury are still the life of thousands, and
even yet there exists in the North a large political party who are so
far from feeling that there is any desperation involved as to still
dally and coquet with the political principles of the enemy, and talk
largely of compromise. When it comes to the bitter end, those trivial,
superficial, temporary men will, we believe, in most cases, be changed
into good citizens, for necessity is a hard master.
For surely as we live it is approaching; the terrible struggle of rule
or ruin, which so few have dared to anticipate. We have ever been so
free from tremendous crises of life and death that even with a war
devouring scores of thousands of our best men, very few have realized
what we _must_ come to with a brave and desperate foe. Union victories
may defer such a struggle--and God grant that they have such
result!--but in case they do not, what hope remains for our foe? They
have fought well, they are willing to hang out the black flag; but what
then? They have not and can not establish a real _superiority_ of
strength, and yet have voluntarily forced upon a stronger opponent a war
which must become deadly.
The tremendous enthusiasm which spread over the country on the last day
of August, 1862, was after all only an awakening. The extraordinary
voluntary response to President Lincoln's calls for six hundred thousand
men was merely a beginning. The South, in proportion to its strength did
as much long ago. But the ball is rolling on and the storm grows more
terrible. We have great trials, probably, still before us, but let no
one despair. Out of our agony and our desperation _must_ come victory--a
dire and terrible victory it may be for us all--but it will be
overwhelming, and after that victory there will be left no strength in
the South to lift a hand.
And in those days the different principles involved in this war will
have forced themselves so fiercely to a result that those who contended
for them will seem to have acted almost as vainly as those who were such
children as to resist them. What will become of the Negro if the South
strives to the death, dragging the North down on and after it! What
became of Serfdom during the Thirty Years' War and the other desperate
and exhausting wars which followed it? What will become of Cotton if new
markets are opened, as they must be? England has not realized, as we are
beginning to do, that there is not, can not, and will not be a time,
when both combatants, mutually wearied, must let go. Men do not weary of
war; the new generation grows up fiercer than its fathers. The sooner
England begins to plant her cotton in Jamaica, and Asia Minor and India,
the better it will be for her. Unless we gain some extraordinary Union
victories this autumn, there will be but little cotton planted next year
in Dixie.
We are becoming too strong and fierce for intervention. These be the
days of iron-clads and of great armies. Before England and France engage
in war with a desperate nation like ours, it will be well to think
twice. And we are not at the end yet.
Every man and woman in the North may as well, therefore, be warned
betimes, and give _all_ his and her aid to forwarding this war. It will
not avail to be feeble, or lukewarm, or indifferent, to wish it well and
do nothing, to give a little or dribble out mere kind wishes. Every
one's property is at stake, or will be, and the sooner we go to work in
right earnest the better. Had we one year ago done what we are even now
doing--had we sprung up like a grizzly bear on a buffalo, and given it
for its insolent kick a sudden, tremendous blow, tearing through its
very heart, we should not have dragged out a year of doubt. It is our
curse that we are always 'just a little' behind the enemy in enthusiasm.
In due time we shall be in the struggle for life--the faster we advance,
the better it will be for us.
On and on and on! We are marching on, and will we, nill we, must conquer
or perish.
'Ye mountains that see us descend to the shore
Must view us as victors or view us no more!'
It is written that North-America is to rise purified, regenerated, and
perfectly free from the most tremendous and probably exhaustive struggle
in history. Believe it, you who live in it--_premonitus,
premunitus_--'forewarned is to be forearmed.'
* * * * *
If President Lincoln were to call out _every_ man in the North capable
of bearing arms--according to medical judgment--between the ages of
sixteen and sixty, there would be less difficulty in assembling them
than in drafting a minority. If it were once realized that _all_ must
go, all _would_ go, and with rare exceptions, right cheerfully. It is
not so much the dread of battle and the trials of camp-life which keep
men back as the idea that there should be any exempt. Unless the six
hundred thousand be speedily brought into the field, and unless when
once there, they secure us a speedy victory, the voice of the whole
country will cry out for a general and unexcepted conscription.
And if so--why, then, hurrah for it! Let us show Europe and history how
far a great nation can go for a great truth and for its rights. Why
should we not _all_ arise in tremendous power as whole races rose of
old, and trample to the dust this insolent, slaveholding,
liberty-defying foe to us and to the holiest rights of man? Such an
uprising would be worthy of us--it would rank as the noblest deed of
history--it would cast fresh lustre on the name, already great, of our
noble President--it would be unparalleled in grandeur, in daring, and in
majesty. Its very greatness would thrill the people and inspire them to
do each man his utmost. Hurrah for the onward march of the millions!
Watch the times well, Father Abraham--and the instant that the time
comes, call for us _all_. _You_ are not afraid of great
measures--neither are your people. What a thing it would be to have led
such a movement--what a glory it would be for every man who marched in
the great uprising.
Let us continue by singing:
'TRELAWNEY.'
Shall Freedom droop and die
And we stand idle by,
When countless millions yet unborn
Will ask the reason why?
If for her flag on high,
You bravely fight and die,
Be sure that God on his great roll
Will mark the reason why.
But should you basely fly.
Scared by the battle-cry,
Then down through all eternity
You'll hear the reason why.
* * * * *
'Great _Onion_ victory!' cried a little newsboy, lately, through the
streets of a certain village, wherein we were 'over-nighting,' as the
Germans say. He had not well learned orthoëpy, and held that _u-n_, un,
was to be pronounced as in 'unctuous.' Still there are some droll sounds
to be extracted from the word--witness the following song in which by a
slight modulation of sound the word _Union_ is made a war-cry to
advance: