ing it. Had one of
our generals won the Battle of Jena, he would have rested for six weeks,
and permitted the Prussian army to reorganize, instead of following it
with that swiftness which alone can prevent brave men from speedily
rallying after a lost battle. Had one of them won Waterloo, he would
not have dreamed of entering France, but would have liberally given to
Napoleon all the time that should have been necessary for his recovery
from so terrible a defeat. They have nothing in them of the qualities
even of old Bluecher, who never was counted a first-class commander.
Forbearance has never ceased to be a virtue with them. Whether their
slackness is of native growth, or is the consequence of instructions
from Government, it is plain that adherence to it can never lead to
the conquest of the Southrons. There is now a particular reason why
it should give way to something of a very different character. The
Proclamation has changed the conditions of the contest, and to be
defeated now, driven out of the field for good and all, would be a far
more mortifying termination of the war than it could have been, if we
had already failed utterly. We have committed the unpardonable sin
against slavery, and to fail now would be to place ourselves in the same
position that is held by the commander of a ship of war who nails his
colors to the mast, and yet has to get them down in order to prevent his
conqueror from annihilating him. The action of the Confederate Congress
with reference to the Proclamation, so far as we have accounts of it,
shows that the President's action has intensified the character of the
conflict, and that the enemy are preparing to fight under the banner of
the pirate, declaring that they will show no quarter, because they
look upon the Proclamation as declaring that there shall be no quarter
extended to them. The President of the United States, they say, has
avowed it to be his purpose to inaugurate a servile war in their
country, and they call fiercely for retaliation. They mean, by using
the words "servile war," to convey the impression that there is to be
a general slaying and ravishing throughout the South, on and after the
first of next January, under the special patronage of the American
President, who has ordered his soldiers and his sailors, his ships and
his corps, to be employed in protecting black ravishers of white women
and black murderers of white children. All they say is mere cant, and
is inte