Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D.
C.
[Untitled]
To the People of the United
States of America, from the Executive of the Glasgow
Union and Emancipation Society :
American Citizens: The protracted
and sanguinary struggle in which you are engaged has excited
our profoundest sympathy. We regard that struggle as a
contest between constitutional government and human freedom
on the one hand, anarchy and the extension and perpetuation
of slavery on the other. We watched with intense
satisfaction the patriotic efforts of your present
administration
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to
maintain the Union, and, by the adoption of a restrictive
and suppressive policy, to foster the growth of sound
anti-slavery sentiments throughout your continent.
You are now approaching the crisis of this terrible
contest-—the result of which depends not more on the valor
of your arms as soldiers, than on the wisdom of your votes
as citizens. The gravest issues are involved in the fidelity
with which you are about to exercise your electoral rights.
The fate of millions is in your hands. Already you have
evinced to the world your hatred of the black spot of
slavery, which defaces your escutcheon. The programme of
your present administration guarantees its extinction. Rally
round that administration by giving your undivided support
to those who, while acting loyally within the limits which
your Constitution prescribes, have shown themselves to be at
heart the consistent friends of freedom.
Under their guidance, you have taken your stand on the bases
of liberty and social progress, against brute force and
lawlessness; you have successfully resisted a selfish and
retrograde conspiracy to revive the dark ages on western
soil. You have been led from defeat to victory, through
self-sacrifice and suffering, the predestined expiators of
national guilt, to the threshold of a nobler national life.
In their service your black countrymen have fought, laying
down their lives on the altar of the freedom of their race,
and vindicating their brotherhood on the fields where you
and they have bled together. Hold fast by those who have
well established a claim to your confidence; the only pilots
who can carry the ship of your state safely through the
storm.
Compromise should have no place in a death-grapple of right
and wrong. It is the word of the faint-hearted, whose policy
has ever been fatal to patriotism; the cold breath of
self-interest, damping the ardor of nations aroused to a
comprehension of their cause. But such a compromise as that
which your democratic party advocates would re-enslave
thousands of your most valiant warriors, and lay the spoils
of conquest at the feet of your conquered adversaries. Were
such to be the upshot of your manly protest, of your four
years’ weary war, of your lavish offering of life and
treasure, the voice of all free peoples, and the blood of
myriads slaughtered in vain, would cry out against your
stupendous folly. For to what end has this blood and
treasure been poured forth like water, if not for an end
worth all the cost, the crushing of a traitorous slave
oligarchy, desperately bent on the overthrow of free
institutions? The game of this treason is nearly played out,
and your enemy, baffled and hemmed in on every side, only
struggles to conceal his weakness in order to impose on your
credulity.
Are you in earnest to maintain the Union in its integrity,
and to hand down to your children an unscathed inheritance?
Support the administration which has pledged itself to that
result. Are you resolved to suppress this rebellion?
Re-elect the President whose chosen chiefs are leading your
chosen armies within the walls of the confederate cities,
and whose principles and policy can alone save the
nation.
An armistice! For what? That the slaveholders may cajole you
into a truce, and from a truce to a treaty, and from a
treaty to a recognition of their triumph, and a confession
of your defeat. Are you prepared for this? The platform
which proposes a “cessation of hostilities, with a view to
an ultimate convention,” is at this moment the worst enemy
that you have to dread. It bids you hold your hand when the
plough is fairly among the furrows; it bids you do what the
rebels hope, and abstain from doing what they fear. Let them
first beg for an armistice and become your suitors for a
cessation. Then we shall look to you to tell them that their
overtures can only be entertained on terms of unconditional
surrender; that the time for half measures had gone by, and
its memory is blotted out in the red floods which flow
directly from their doors.
The present revolt is subversive of your great republic.
While “slavery is the sum of all villanies,” to make a
compromise with either would be an attempt
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to be stronger than God, and
wiser than the Providence by which He rules the world.
Citizens, the die is cast; continue in armor, faithful to
the awful trust committed to your care, assured that, to
nations as to men, the path of duty is the way to glory.
The crisis is come. Be steadfast, unanimous, faithful.
Re-elect your President, a wise ruler, and an honest
patriot; one who has sworn, “come what will, to keep faith
with friend and foe;” that under his auspices a new and
loftier era of American civilization may be inaugurated. Be
strong in this the hour of trial; quit you like men, and may
God defend the right.
In name and by authority of the executive.
JAMES SMITH, Chairman.
Offices of the Glasgow Union and Emancipation Society,
Forsyth’s
“Cobden” Hotel, Glasgow, October 11,
1864.
