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Loyal Leagues.

If talk would save the country, God knows we have talkers enough in the nation to put down the rebellion in less than a week. But unfortunately talk is a commodity for which we have no use now-a-days. The conscription law was not passed to call out an army of speakers, to tell the people what a monstrous crime is secession, or how contemptible a whelp is a copperhead. The act calls for men who believe in sustaining the government by shouldering muskets and going south to fight.

We have read, with a deal of interest, the "pledges" of our double-refined, only original Loyal Leaguers, in the hope to find something said about fighting the rebels. But if there is anything of the kind embodied therein, we "can't see it." We find that they pledge their "fortunes, their influence and their honor," to help suppress the rebellion, but not a word about their "lives." We have had exhortations and resolutions enough to abolish twenty rebellions, if palaver would ever accomplish it. The government don't want its "arms held up" with words. "Man cannot live by bread alone;" neither can "pledges," no matter how strong, how patriotic, carry on a war.

In our boyhood we used to hear of "Temperance Leagues," organized by the old topers in the village, to steady each other, and help to prevent them from getting drunk any more, as well as to convince other people of their reformation. We presume Union Leagues are gotten up for very much the same purpose — to convince outsiders of the loyalty of the Leaguers, by making a great parade of their devotion to the government, and crying "crucify him!" to all who don't belong to their church. But "pledges" never saved many drunkards, neither are they now-a-days tests of loyalty. We have seen men deliver temperance lectures when they were far from being sober, and have other heard Union Leaguers making loud professions of loyalty when their secret actions favored disunion. Democrats, knowing themselves to be loyal, require no such demonstrations to keep them so. The times require something besides "pledges." The gentlemen of the Union League have made a mistake. Instead of a "pledge," they should have signed a muster-roll.

But their "pledges" do not deceive the people, who know that they are only new dodges of the abolitionists, who care more for the negro, and for office, than for the Union. Forney, the chief "Leaguer" of them all, discloses the real object of the association in a paragraph thus:

"I stated in a recent letter that the campaign for the presidency in 1864, has been [unknown]ened by the Union men. I made the statement deliberately — I repeat it now. The Union men in such organizations as Union Leagues, or in whatever capacity they may please to act — [unknown] opened the campaign, and intend to support the president in 1863, and, if possible, to control the election of a president in 1864."

And this explains the reason why the Leaguers do not pledge their "lives" to the support of the administration. They want to vote, [unknown] to fight. They are not organized for a vigorous prosecution of the war, but for the prosecution of a presidential campaign. This, in their opinion, is unloved, unmistakable patriotism. But it will [unknown] do. Loud talking will not kill rebels. The roar degenerates into a bray. The cars project too plainly from the lion's skin. The "Union League" conceals nobody but abolitionists. Take any other shape than that!"