New York, December 11,1864.
. . . War to the knife to slavery. Let us have no “slavery
is dead.” It is not dead. Nothing is dead until it is killed. I trust our
President feels this in his inmost soul. His message seems to pin him down to
it. Now let the nation pin itself down by the Amendment. This Amendment is the
clear idea, the distinct formulation, motto and principle, of all the inarticulated
roar of our battles — the test, the battle-cry, the article of faith. The
sooner it is pronounced, so that no receding is possible, the better for all
concerned. . . .
Slavery dead? Why, did you see how the secretary of the
Citizens' Association but yesterday spoke of Abolitionists? A man who now
declares himself for the Union but not against slavery seems to me much like
one who might have begged St. Chrysostom to baptize him fully and wholly unto
Christ, but to allow him not to give up his Jove and Venus, and the rest. We
fight for our country, that is, for its integrity, and slavery cuts it asunder
far more clearly and injuriously than any geographic division could do. Such a
division can be removed by a treaty, by force of arms, by the brush of the map-maker;
but slavery is an institution, and has all the tenacity of institutions,
whether they be for weal or woe, until they are destroyed, and the life is
bruised out of their head.
If you see the President, and have an unofficial
conversation with him, tell him how much those citizens who have no office or
place, but simply love their country with all their heart, and have given their
sons for that country, have thanked God for the passages in his message which
relate to slavery. . . .
SOURCE: Thomas Sergeant Perry, Editor, The Life and
Letters of Francis Lieber, p. 352-3
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