s still continued in
the pleasant level of Texas, slavery has rolled away from either
mountain side like a flood, leaving it the home of a hardy population
which regards with jealousy and dislike both the wealthy planter and the
negro. James W. Taylor, in his valuable collection of facts, claims that
through the whole extent of the Southern Alleghania slavery has
relatively diminished since 1850, and that the forthcoming census tables
will establish the assertion. 'The superintendent of the census,' he
says, 'would furnish a document, valuable politically and for military
use, if he would anticipate the publication of this portion of his
voluminous budget.' If government, indeed, were to communicate to the
public what information it now holds, and has long held, relative to the
numbers and strength of the Union men of the South, an excitement of
amazement would thrill through the North. It was on the basis of this
knowledge that our great campaign was planned,--and it can not be denied
that thousands of stanch Union men were greatly astonished at the
revelations of sympathy which burst forth most unexpectedly in districts
where the stars and stripes have been planted. But the Cabinet 'knew
what it knew' on this subject. Much of its knowledge never can be
revealed, but enough will come to-night to show that in our darkest hour
we had an enormous mass of aid, little suspected by those weaker
brethren who stood aghast at the Southern bugbear, and who, falling
prostrate in nerveless terror at the windy spectre, quaked out repeated
assurances that _they_ had no intention of 'abolitionizing the war,' and
even earnestly begged and prayed that the emancipationists might all be
sent to Fort Warren,--so fearful were the poor cowards lest the united
South, in the final hour of victory, might include them in its catalogue
of the doomed. What would they say if they knew the number and power of
the ABOLITIONISTS OF THE SOUTH,--a body of no trifling significance,
whose fierce grasp will yet be felt on the throat of rebellion and of
slavery? It is grimly amusing to think of the aid which the South
counted on receiving from these Northern dough-faces,--little thinking
that within itself it contained a counter-revolutionary party, far more
dangerous than the Northern friends were helpful.

It should be borne in mind that where such an evil as slavery exists
there will be numbers of grave, sensible men, who, however quiet they
may keep, w