The Commanding General will labor vigilantly for the public welfare,
and, by his efforts for their safety, hopes to obtain not only
acquiescence, but the active support of the people of the country.
(Signed,)
J. C. FREMONT,
Major General Commanding.
SLAVERY HAS DONE IT.
Let us not for one moment lose sight of this fact. We go into this
war not merely to sustain the government and defend the
Constitution. There is a moral principle involved. How came that
government in danger? What has brought this wicked war, with all its
evils and horrors, upon us? Whence comes the necessity for this
uprising of the people? To these questions, there can be but one
answer. SLAVERY HAS DONE IT. That accursed system, which has already
cost us so much, has at length culminated in this present ruin and
confusion. That system must be put down. The danger must never be
suffered to occur again. The evil must be eradicated, cost what it
may. We are for no half-way measures. So long as the slave system
kept itself within the limits of the Constitution, we were bound to
let it alone, and to respect its legal rights; but when, overleaping
those limits, it bids defiance to all law, and lays its vile hands on
the sacred altar of liberty and the sacred flag of the country, and
would overturn the Constitution itself, thenceforth slavery has no
constitutional rights.
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