2

A White Man's War.

There is no more infamous lie put forth by the open and secret agents of treason, North and South, than that the Republican party, or any portion of it, advocates emancipation now as a war measure merely for the sake of the negro. They care little what becomes of the negroes in this war, if the interests of white men are properly defended. It is essentially and wholly, on the part of loyal men, a white man's war. The slaveholders of the South, who have brought this war upon the country with their insolence and fury, number less than three hundred fifty thousand, while the white non-slaveholding portion of the United States foots up, in round numbers, to twenty-seven millions. Here we have a war of awful proportions forced upon us, requiring the services of 500,000 men, and at an expense of $1,000,000 or more a day, to meet the views of about one seventy-seventh of the population. A treasonable and infatuated oligarchy, which stands to the whole people as only 1 to 77, is attempting to destroy our liberties, and to foist their own infamous institutions upon the country by calling to their aid all the infernal enginery of civil war!

The Northern treason sympathizers, who are too cowardly to go South, where they legitimately belong, say that we would "make this a war for the negro." No; we care precious little for the negro. If the earth would open and swallow up every one of the black bondmen in this country, and also carry off with them their 350,000 masters, the white men of this country, and of the civilized world, might rationally go into thanksgiving for such a signal display of Divine mercy toward the nation. Ordinarily, it is true, it might be regarded as a calamity, but now, with this terrible war upon us, inaugurated solely by the slaveholders that their rule may be extended and their black curse perpetuated, it would at once restore peace and make us again a united people. But though this would settle the matter, there are slower means at our command, which we can employ without making this a war "only for negro emancipation."

It is a white man's war — a war to preserve the rights, liberties and blessings that now attach to nearly twenty-seven millions of white men and women, and to all "the rest of mankind" who look upon this country as an asylum for the oppressed. The condition of the negro may or may not be bettered by freedom — it is a question in which the white men of this country (who have the right to control its destinies) feel little interest when all their own rights are at stake. Whether philanthropic or not, drowning men do not pause to consider the claims of philanthropic enterprises, and true loyal men, we fancy will be excused of Heaven if just now they act upon the principle that the interests of six or seven white persons are superior to the claims of one negro. He may go or stay — nobody cares much so far as he is concerned; but if his going will in any way help to close this horrible war, then we are the greatest fools the earth ever saw if we do not hasten his progress on the road to freedom.

And this is the all of this question. Will or will it not aid the cause of liberty and peace for ABRAHAM LINCOLN, as Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy, by a stroke of his pen forever to end the legality of American slavery? Will it aid us essentially to secure, in advance of the traitors, the sympathy and aid of four millions of bondmen? While now the slaves are at home raising the means on which to subsist the rebel hordes, will it aid us to see them run away, and their rebel masters forced to raise their own "hog and hominy," throw up their own entrenchments, and do all their own "nigger work?" Will our cause be advanced by seeing the rebel army at Washington dissolve some fine morning at the agonizing cry that each rebel leader's niggers have stampeded for the North, and must instantly be caught, or the cause of treason will be lost forever? There can be but one answer to these questions. There are evils attending the step — very great ones indeed, for an increase of negroes at the North is not at all desirable — but contrasted with the continuance of this war even a single year, they sink to even less significance than are the spots on the disk of the sun. We want a peace that shall be lasting, and a Union redeemed from shame, and then he must have small faith in our national ability who fears that we cannot deal with such a question as the best disposition to make of vagrant negroes!