Hon. William H. Seward
Secretary of State, &c., &c.,
&c.
Address of the Oldham Auxiliary Union and
Emancipation Society to his excellency Abraham Lincoln on his
re-election to the presidency, November 8, 1864.
Sir: We hasten to congratulate you on the
welcome intelligence that you have again been elected to the high
dignity of President of the United States of America, an election
which, whilst it has sealed the fate of slavery in your great
country, cannot fail, under the circumstances of the case, to
impress thoughtful minds as being one of the most sublime spectacles
of the world.
Ever since the Baltimore convention adopted its platform of
enlightened patriotism and radical anti-slavery principles, and so
unanimously nominated you for the presidency, we have not faltered
for one moment in our conviction that the people of the free States
of your great republic would be true to their instincts and highest
aspirations, and that their vote on the 8th of November, 1864, would
prove them loyal to liberty, unity, and nationality.
Nobly have they responded to the claims of duty and humanity, and
gloriously have they vindicated and illustrated the value and safety
of popular representative government, proving themselves worthy of
those free institutions and beneficent social arrangements that grow
out of enlightened, educated, and civilized commonwealths.
[Page 72]
The federal Union and Constitution are dearly and wisely prized by
them as a sacred trust bequeathed by their forefathers, and ought
not to be yielded in the spirit of compromise or concession to that
system of cruelty and iniquity, human slavery, which has been the
blot on your national reputation.
We mourn with you over the desolation that civil war is making” among
the families and homes of your people who gave their choicest sons,
their bravest brothers, their best beloved of earth, and who are
still heroically struggling to save the national life with all that
free-men hold dear and that brave men cling to—equal, civil, and
political liberty for men of all races and countries—and we believe
that they will succeed. Already, during the term of your past
presidency, you have conquered for freedom an area of one million
three hundred thousand square miles, which three years ago was
claimed by the rebels, and doubtless your brave and patriotic armies
will, ere long, wrest the remaining three hundred and fifty thousand
square miles from the grasp of the slaveholders’ confederacy.
We rejoice in your re-election because we have observed in your
presidential career a grand simplicity of purpose and a patriotism
that knows no danger, and which does not falter. We have recognized
in you an honest endeavor faithfully to do the work of your great
office, and, in doing it a brightness of personal honor on which no
adversary has as yet been able to fix a stain. We believe that you
have been raised up by the providence of God to rescue your nation
from anarchy, disruption, and ruin.
By this election your people have pledged to the world their lives,
their fortunes, and their sacred honors, that they will redeem your
great country from the crime and curse of slavery; that it shall,
indeed, and, without exception, be the home of the free and the
brave, and that its government, in form and in administration, shall
continue to be the best and freest, the most equal in its rights,
the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in its measures,
and the most aspiring in its principles to elevate the race of man
that the sun of heaven ever shone upon.
We have deplored the undisguised sympathy which has been manifested
towards the slave confederacy in this country, but we rejoice to be
able to assure you that, from the very commencement of the struggle,
the great majority of the working classes, and no inconsiderable
proportion of the middle class, together with the profoundest
thinkers of our country, have been true to the principles of right
and liberty, and, by their united voice, have prevented any hostile
action on the part of those who were only too anxious to recognize
an empire based upon the “corner-stone” of slavery.
We are not unmindful of the fact that, in advocating the full and
complete adoption of the principles of civil, religious, and
political liberty, the destinies of the peoples of this nation and
of America are inseparably linked together; and we believe that we
declare the conviction of all intelligent, honest, and unprejudiced
lovers of liberty and justice, when we express our unshaken faith
that you will crush the rebellion, restore the Union, maintain your
national integrity, and thereby secure the priceless heritage of
freedom to your people throughout all generations.
Adopted by the Auxiliary Executive
of the Union and Emancipation Society, Oldham, December 10,
1864.
THOMAS EMMETT, President.
Resolved, That the address adopted by the
Executive of the Union and Emancipation Society be accepted as
the expression of opinion of the friends of union and
emancipation in Oldham, and that a copy thereof be sent to his
excellency Charles Francis Adams, with a request that he will
transmit it to President Lincoln, on our behalf, together with
this resolution.
