into a St. Domingo, by appealing to the cupidity, lusts, ambition and ferocity of the slave. Abraham Lincoln is but the lineal descendant of Dunmore, and the impotent malice of each was foiled by the fidelity of those who, by the meanness of the conspirators, would only, if successful, have been seduced into idleness, filth, vice, beggary and death.
But we tire of these indignities and enormities. They are too sickening for recital. History will hereafter pillory those who committed and encouraged such crimes in immortal infamy.
General Robert E. Lee, in a recent battle order, stated to his invincible legions, that "the cruel foe seeks to reduce our fathers and mothers, our wives and children, to abject slavery." He does not paint too strongly the purposes of the enemy or the consequences of subjugation. What has been done in certain districts is but the prologue of the bloody drama that will be enacted. It is well that every man and woman should have some just conception of the horrors of conquest. The fate of Ireland at the period of its conquest, and of Poland, distinctly foreshadows what would await us. The guillotine, in its ceaseless work of blood, would be revived for the execution of the "rebel leaders." The heroes of our contest would be required to lay down their proud ensigns, on which are recorded the battle-fields of their glory, to stack their arms, lower their heads in humiliation and dishonor, and pass under the yoke of abolition, misrule and tyranny. A hateful inquisition, made atrocious by spies and informers; star-chamber courts, enforcing their decisions by confiscations, imprisonments, banishments and death; a band of detectives, ferreting out secrets, lurking in every family, existing in every conveyance; the suppression of free speech; the deprivation of arms and franchises; and the ever present sense of inferiority, would make our condition abject and miserable beyond what freemen can imagine. Subjugation involves everything that the torturing malice and devilish ingenuity of our foes can suggest—the destruction of our nationality, the equalization of whites and blacks, the obliteration of State lines, degradation to colonial vassalage, and the reduction of many of our citizens to dreary, hopeless, remediless bondage. A hostile police would keep "order " in every town and city. Judges, like Busteed, would hold our courts, protected by Yankee soldiers. Churches would be filled by Yankee or Tory preachers. Every office would be bestowed on aliens. Absenteeism would curse us with all its vices. Superadded to these, sinking us into a lower abyss of degradation, we would be made
