The Richmond Dispatch says –
The people of the North are divided into two parties, in the present war, as in the peace that preceded it – the conservatives and destructives. The latter are our old enemies, the Abolitionists, who are crazy people – honest, perhaps, in their fanaticism, but fit only for a straight jacket. The former are our old friends, who used to declare that they loved us better than themselves, and that before an army of invasion should march against the South, it should march over their dead bodies. It seems to be supposed that they have changed their character, and been merged by the war into one seething cauldron of abolitionism. This, however, is a great mistake. The war has not changed their character, but only discovered it to the world. It has shown them to be the falsest, the most treacherous and hypocritical of mankind. But for conservative money and conservative men, it could not be carried on a single day. Conservative cities have provided the cash and the soldiers; conservative Generals have lead their armies; conservativism has, in time proved the most formidable of our enemies. We are not aware of a single Abolitionist General who occupies a conspicuous position in the Federal hosts. McClellan, Rosecrans and others are somewhat ultra in their conservatism; and McCook, who said that if he had an Abolitionist in his army he would cut off his ears, is the same who proclaims, “The South must be subdued or exterminated.”
The conservatism of these men is still, however, conservatism only it does not mean, as we formerly supposed, the preservation of the Constitution and the rights of the States, but the conservatism of Northern commerce and manufacturers, at any cost whatever to the South – at the cost of every life and hearthstone in its limits – at the cost of converting its whole territory into one vast scene of blood and tears. That is what Northern conservatism means, and nothing else. It is, in a word, the most detestable avarice – a love of money so passionate and absorbing that it would murder a whole people to fill its pockets. That is Northern conservatism! In what is better than Abolitionism!
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 10, 1862, p. 2
The people of the North are divided into two parties, in the present war, as in the peace that preceded it – the conservatives and destructives. The latter are our old enemies, the Abolitionists, who are crazy people – honest, perhaps, in their fanaticism, but fit only for a straight jacket. The former are our old friends, who used to declare that they loved us better than themselves, and that before an army of invasion should march against the South, it should march over their dead bodies. It seems to be supposed that they have changed their character, and been merged by the war into one seething cauldron of abolitionism. This, however, is a great mistake. The war has not changed their character, but only discovered it to the world. It has shown them to be the falsest, the most treacherous and hypocritical of mankind. But for conservative money and conservative men, it could not be carried on a single day. Conservative cities have provided the cash and the soldiers; conservative Generals have lead their armies; conservativism has, in time proved the most formidable of our enemies. We are not aware of a single Abolitionist General who occupies a conspicuous position in the Federal hosts. McClellan, Rosecrans and others are somewhat ultra in their conservatism; and McCook, who said that if he had an Abolitionist in his army he would cut off his ears, is the same who proclaims, “The South must be subdued or exterminated.”
The conservatism of these men is still, however, conservatism only it does not mean, as we formerly supposed, the preservation of the Constitution and the rights of the States, but the conservatism of Northern commerce and manufacturers, at any cost whatever to the South – at the cost of every life and hearthstone in its limits – at the cost of converting its whole territory into one vast scene of blood and tears. That is what Northern conservatism means, and nothing else. It is, in a word, the most detestable avarice – a love of money so passionate and absorbing that it would murder a whole people to fill its pockets. That is Northern conservatism! In what is better than Abolitionism!
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 10, 1862, p. 2
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