Rational Triumph, or the Dangers of Victory

22 ern market may be opened, — whose sole principle is money — who would be bosom friends with the most malignant traitors in a week. Ministers are waiting to come north and go south to convince the respective parties how much in the wrong they have both been. Congressmen are waiting for that “good time coming,” when again the shrewd politician may ride to power on the necks of Massachusetts and South Carolina ; and thus far at the hands of government it has been a goodly thing to be a rebel, and a bad thing to have known sympathy with the unwilling hands which support rebellion. Halleck is in Missouri using Fremont’s labor to support the action of the Illinois legislature in erecting a wall against the flying slave. Fremont, with a patient patriotism which future times will applaud, stands by waiting till the hand be taken from the throat from which issued the people’s voice, and the voice of liberty. Butler for months has been suspended from the peg of delay. Now paper war is at a close ; blood has been shed, homes have been desolated, — the bereaved ask for what ! Mothers, sisters, wives, brothers, fathers ask with peculiar emphasis as they cover up their dead, “ why have they died?” The voice of the free people is rising — taxation is coming — patriots in congress are asking cpiestions solemn and hard, — Butler has been started off, and Fremont begins to be spoken of for a new command, and the President asks the nation what it wants. Now is the time for the very stones to cry out, Liberty! Justice! We long and fear for the hour of victory. * If it is the weakness of the generous conqueror to loose sight of truth and justice in the moment of triumph, how great is our danger, when throughout the whole body such a mass of matter is gravitating to the side of wrong.

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