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To the better part of their faction, they expatiated on the expenses of the war, the growth of taxation, the impossibility of success. They magnified the errors of the administration, denounced the tardy seizure of a few traitors as "arbitrary arrests," and bemoaned the prospective rigors of the draft. The sole hope of the country for the correction of these evils, for the restoration of peace, and for the introduction of a political millenium, lay in restoring those hungry demagogues to office! And many believed them - dull, credulous, honest mnen who would not have betrayed new-born Liberty to Herod, had they known the hearts of those emissaries of his who abused their confidence.

To the baser part of their faction- the uneducated, clanish and impulsive Irish- they declaimed on the exciting topic of the Negro. Taking an infamous advantage of the prejudice of the Irish toward the colored people, and of their seditious and lawless propensities, they made it their study to inflame the cruel hatred of one race, and to launch that hatred upon the other. They taught the Irish to believe that the war was being waged in the sole interest of the Negro, that they were to be unjustly torn from their homes, and exposed to the risks of the battle-field, to effect the liberation of the blacks; and that this detested race, emancipated from bonds, would become their competitors for labor and bread. Thus their passions and their interest were artfully appealed to, with reference to a two-fold result their alienation from the Federal Government, and their fierce loyalty to the Democratic party.

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the austere and insult

For several months, it seemed fearfully probable this plot might succeed. The reverses suffered by the Federal arms, during the first period of the war, the mistaken policy with which the war was first prosecuted, ing attitude of foreign powers, the disappointment and anxiety that oppressed all loyal hearts - these things facilitated the conspiracy. The ominous results of the elections, in

2 Speech of M'Masters, editor of Freeman's Journal, May 18th, 1863.

1862, emboldened the plotters, and threatened to take the form of a national endorsement of their designs. The Government saw some dark days. With the iron array of Rebellion scarcely broken- with lukewarm support in the Free States with treasonable combinations in New York, Ohio, Indiana coquetting with the Richmond Usurper with stolid conservatism braying in the cabinet with eloquent radicalism thundering at the door with English "neutrality launching privateers, and French diplomacy making its lair in Mexico we fancy that the Administration did not repose upon roses.

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But one thing was auspicious, God kept the madness of the Rebels at the maximum. They continued to spurn the idea of a compromise. They did not reciprocate the ardent affection of their Northern brethren. The Rebel chiefs preferred to reign in the hell of Secessia, to serving in the paradise of the Union. They had no desire to sit again in Congress, and serve as cement to the fractured body of the Democratic party. They bade their suppliant Northern friends to cease knocking at their kitchen doors for the broken victuals of a cold affection, and to be gone! The South had been divinely elected to fulfil a unique mission. It was to build up a barrier against Christian civilization, and restore the ideas and customs of the ancient world. For Freedom, it was to substitute Slavery; for equality, caste; for fraternity, the triune glories of the bowie-knife, the chain, and the whip. From this glorious work they were resolved to exclude the Yankees. Not even a sympathising Governor nor a Bowery alderman should have part or lot in their mission.* discouraging; but those demagogues did not despair. No man holds to his purpose with such tenacity as a politician, whose aspiring nose has caught the odor of office.

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This was

The climacteric effort of the Northern traitors was to be made in July last. A Rebel army, invited into Pennsylvania, capturing Washington on its way, and advancing upon Harris

3 Richmond Examiner, May, 1863. Richmond Enquirer of Oct. 16th, 1863.

burg and Philadelphia, was to form, as we have ample reason to believe, the base of the assault. While the panic thus created should extend its paralysis over the North, the flame of insurrection - lighted in New York should spread from city to city, fed by the combustible foreign element already prepared for the torch, till every Free State should stand aghast before the apparition of "bloody Treason."

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Then the Government should come to its knees, a clamorous mob should extort a truce, Vallandigham and Company should become mediators in the interest of the Rebels, the Administration should be impeached and deposed, and, God only knows the further details of the scheme. Our people at large have never realized how near they stood to the brink of the direst catastrophe in all history.

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What led to the failure of the plot? Certain providential elements, which ever make a part of social forces, and which bad.men habitually overlook. The Federal army of the Potomac, with unwonted celerity and vigor, turned the Rebel legions from Washington, and routed them on the immortal field of Gettysburg. Simultaneously, the army of the SouthWestbronzed with battle-fire and opulent in victories— marched over the trenches of Vicksburg, and ran up the Federal banner over the Gibraltar of the Mississippi. The telegraph, that flashed these tidings to the North, fired the enthusiasm of an anxious people, and "scotched the snakes" that were waiting to strangle liberty. The Government became, at once, too strong to be defied. The patriot became confident, the copperhead became sick at heart. The hopes of

5 Speech of C. C. Burr, at Riverhead, in June last.

❝ In moulding these passages of cotemporary history from events still fresh in the public mind, it is not deemed necessary to verify every statement by a reference to my authority. The account given above of the acts and designs of the Northern conspirators, is based upon evidence furnished (1st) by the speeches and letters of the Democratic leaders, especially those of Mr. Vallandigham and Gov. Seymour, by the resolutions adopted at Democratic Conventions, and by the general tone of the Democratic press; (2dly) by the moral sympathy constantly betrayed for the Rebellion, the irrepressible antipathy manifested toward the Administration, the open emulation of the Southern temper in appeals to popular passion and violence, the frantic hatred of liberty, &c., &c.

traitors went down like Confederate Stock in the London market.

In New York, however, the barbarous and criminal element of this movement had become too far enlisted in the plot to be restrained, or baulked of their sport. The attempt to execute the draft became the signal of insurrection. And what a bloody parade the world then witnessed! A rabble, such as only a great city can condense out of its ever-flowing crimes and hidden woes ; a pack of human wolves, with every beastly instinct rampant and vocal; a brotherhood of thieves, a confederacy of convicts, the dregs of Sodom's grog-shops and brothels; such monsters as the lava buried at Pompeii, such scavengers of blood as encompassed the guillotine, brethren of Barabbas, armed with bludgeons and with votes, and fawned upon by the accom-lished standard-bearer of "Democracy;" they demolish the homes of the chief Samaritans, drag the sick from their beds and hang them at lamp posts, fire the asylum of the orphan, assault the house of the widow, and murder the fugitives as they fly. The very democracy of Bedlam and of Tartarus !

But the massacre and pillage of the thirteenth of July ranks with other great crimes which God mercifully overrules for the future good of society. It has taught our people some truths which they could hardly have learned by any other means. It has taught them how unscrupulous a demagogue can be in the pursuit of his object. It has taught them how a party can bear the noblest title, and yet lend itself to the foulest deeds. It has taught them that, to array one class of our community against another, and especially to awaken the prejudices of the ignorant, and stimulate the passions of the depraved, for political effect, is to encourage violence and crime, and unsettle the very pillars of society.

The New York Riot has tended, perhaps more than any other single agency, to disgust our people with a paltry partyism, that is base enough to feed its sinking vitality with the blood of its afflicted country. Henceforth, if the late popular verdicts given at the polls signify anything, no party will live

in the Free States, that arrays itself against the dictates of a generous patriotism. In time of peace and of national safety, partizanship is lawful, and political emulation is salutary; but, in time of war, when the honor and life of the nation tremble in the balance, the men who weaken the Government become allies of the enemy, and merit the severest reprobation that public opinion can visit upon them. And we thank God, therefore, that those who have tried to roll the rock of Partyism into the regenerating stream of events, have become crushed beneath it, while the REPUBLIC keeps her course, unimpeded and unharmed.

Finally: Seeing what formidable dangers the ship has providentially surmounted, we are authorized to trust that the remainder of the cruise will be fortunate. Since the Captain opened his last sealed order, and announced that EMANCIPATION is the port to which he is bound, a fairer prospect opens upon the Nation, and friendly greetings come to us from every civilized people. We are sure now that God has guided us through great tribulations that we may see his glory lighting up the house of bondage, his mighty power in moulding a purer nationality in the furnace of war, and his miraculous mercy in changing the hell of Rebellion into the paradise of Liberty.

Already, throughout the valley of the Mississippi, and along the coast of the Atlantic- in the heart and on the front of the land chosen to maintain Slavery forever we see hundreds of plantations rescued from the curse, by the flight of their Rebel owners, and successfully cultivated by freedmen, the quality of the cotton being pronounced better than that grown under the old system, and the cost of production less. There we see the first fruits of free labor in the South. There the Government is demonstrating the vast superiority of voluntary and compensated labor, over the dreary, hopeless toil of the slave. There the Federal authority advances with a two-fold

7 Report of Adjt. Gen. Thomas, recently printed.

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