labor with
its affinities to capital, endeavoring to prepare the way for a grand
coming North American Union, in which poor and rich hand in hand shall
press on, extending civilization, and crushing to the ground all
obsolete demagogueism, corruption, and folly.
It is time that the word 'radical' were expunged from our political
dictionary. Under the old system of warfare men were regarded as being
divided into the 'poor,' who were 'out' of capital, and the rich, who
were 'in.' The progress of good, honest, unflinching _labor_ is causing
men to look higher than these old limitations. We want no 'outs' or
'ins'--in this country every man should be 'in,' given heart and soul to
honest industry. And no man or woman who can _work_ is without capital,
for every such person is a capital in self. When politics are devoted,
as they must be, to extending education and protecting industry, we
shall hear no more of these absurd quarrels between the 'conservative'
and 'radical' elements.
When the government shall have triumphed in this great struggle,--when
the South, with its obsolete theories of the supremacy of capital over
labor, shall have yielded to the great advancing truth of the age,--when
free labor, rendered freer and nobler than ever, shall rule all powerful
from ocean to ocean, then we shall see this great American republic
restored to its original strength and beauty, progressing in the path
laid down by our Revolutionary forefathers, and stripped of the cruel
impediments which have clogged its course for years, proving to the
world the great assertion of all time, that man is capable of
self-government. It is this which lies before us,--neither a gloomy
'conservative' prospect of old-fashioned unchangeability, and still less
the gorgeous but preposterous dreams of Fourierite or other socialist;
but simply the healthy future of a hard-working country, in which every
impediment shall be removed from free labor and its every right
respected. And to bring this to pass there is but one first step
required. Push on the war, support the Administration, triumph at any
risk or cost, and then make of this America one great free land.
Freedom! _In hoc signo vinces_.
* * * * *
THE BLACK FLAG.
You wish that slavers once again
May freely darken every sea,
Nor think that honor takes a stain
From what the world calls piracy;
And now your press in thunder tones
Calls for
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