The act of emancipation for the District of Columbia, recently passed and signed by the President is the act not only of the session, but of the war. It is worth to our country more than all we have collaterally gained in battle, great as that is and will be. It shows that the heart is right. The central forces move everything; and the pulsations from the District of Columbia will be felt in the remotest corner of our land and throughout the world! The wave in the heart of the sea will not rest until it breaks on every shore.
Amid the roar of cannon and the pageantry of war, this significant act may excite little attention, but history will give it prominence in the events of the day. It will open the eyes of Europe and place us in our true position before the world. Asia and Africa will feel its influence, and future generations will hail the day as the proudest in the annals of a free people. It is the first clear note struck by the trumpet of freedom in the temple of liberty, and how welcome is it to our ears! It is the herald of the year of jubilee to the slave and the captive. It will do the cause of universal freedom more service than if Louisiana and its confederates, should have taken the initiative. It is the expression of the people, through the Congress of the United States, and the people will maintain it.
The District of Columbia now is neither North or South, East nor West. It is the circle of freedom. It is the sacred ground of liberty, enclosing with its mighty ramparts the treasures of the only true republic on earth. The capitol lifts up its awful dome to catch all the light of heaven and stands there as the Temple of Freedom. The territory embraced in the District, henceforth, shall never be touched by the foot of a slave, and if an owner of human flesh and bones shall go there, he appears as a man among men, not among chattels. He will breath the atmosphere of freedom, and feel the eloquence that her voice shall send from the hills and valleys; from every public building; from the halls of legislation and of justice; from the mansion of the President. He will look upon the equestrian statue of Jackson as the symbol of warning to rebellion; and the towering monument of Washington, as the fiery pillow which led us through the wilderness to all our greatness. The Potomac River, rising in the mountains of Maryland and Virginia, runs through the District, and its waters, before they reach the ocean are purified from the taint of slavery. Here they perform a solemn lustration ere they are sent forth to other lands; each wave as it joins the ocean exults and leaps for joy, and says, “We are free!”
We now earnestly request – the nation will demand – we from the far west require it, that the grave of Washington shall be embraced in the District of Columbia. It must not remain on the soil tainted with slavery. It belongs not to any one state, free or slave. It contains the dust of a nation’s chief. It should be found alone in the consecrated District of Columbia. We call upon the Congress of the United States at once to enlarge the boundaries of the district to enclose Mount Vernon within it. A thousand reasons can be offered for it, and now is the time to accomplish the act.
– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport Iowa, Friday Morning, April 18, 1862, p. 2
Amid the roar of cannon and the pageantry of war, this significant act may excite little attention, but history will give it prominence in the events of the day. It will open the eyes of Europe and place us in our true position before the world. Asia and Africa will feel its influence, and future generations will hail the day as the proudest in the annals of a free people. It is the first clear note struck by the trumpet of freedom in the temple of liberty, and how welcome is it to our ears! It is the herald of the year of jubilee to the slave and the captive. It will do the cause of universal freedom more service than if Louisiana and its confederates, should have taken the initiative. It is the expression of the people, through the Congress of the United States, and the people will maintain it.
The District of Columbia now is neither North or South, East nor West. It is the circle of freedom. It is the sacred ground of liberty, enclosing with its mighty ramparts the treasures of the only true republic on earth. The capitol lifts up its awful dome to catch all the light of heaven and stands there as the Temple of Freedom. The territory embraced in the District, henceforth, shall never be touched by the foot of a slave, and if an owner of human flesh and bones shall go there, he appears as a man among men, not among chattels. He will breath the atmosphere of freedom, and feel the eloquence that her voice shall send from the hills and valleys; from every public building; from the halls of legislation and of justice; from the mansion of the President. He will look upon the equestrian statue of Jackson as the symbol of warning to rebellion; and the towering monument of Washington, as the fiery pillow which led us through the wilderness to all our greatness. The Potomac River, rising in the mountains of Maryland and Virginia, runs through the District, and its waters, before they reach the ocean are purified from the taint of slavery. Here they perform a solemn lustration ere they are sent forth to other lands; each wave as it joins the ocean exults and leaps for joy, and says, “We are free!”
We now earnestly request – the nation will demand – we from the far west require it, that the grave of Washington shall be embraced in the District of Columbia. It must not remain on the soil tainted with slavery. It belongs not to any one state, free or slave. It contains the dust of a nation’s chief. It should be found alone in the consecrated District of Columbia. We call upon the Congress of the United States at once to enlarge the boundaries of the district to enclose Mount Vernon within it. A thousand reasons can be offered for it, and now is the time to accomplish the act.
– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport Iowa, Friday Morning, April 18, 1862, p. 2
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