The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862

As regards the seceded States, the proclamation only applies to such of them as shall persist in rebellion after the first of January next, and even in those States compensation for their slaves is to be made to all who are loyal.

The friends of Secession in Europe, and especially in France and England, have contended that slavery was not the cause of the rebellion, and it has been suggested that the rebels would themselves adopt a system of gradual emancipation. Even now it is alleged that if Mr. Lincoln had not issued this proclamation, we should have had something very similar from Jefferson Davis.

However this may be, these professions of the friends of the South in Europe, and particularly of their friends in France and England, will soon be tested.

If the South objects to emancipation, and denounces this proclamation, they will make this contest, on their part, still more clearly a war for the maintenance, perpetuity, and unlimited extension of slavery.

If, under such circumstances, England continues to support the rebellion, she must do so as the open and avowed advocate of slavery. What is to be done with the slaves when they are emancipated? is a grave question, which we shall discuss at a future period. There can be little doubt, however, that emancipation, on a scale so extensive, would give a great impulse to the cause of colonization.

There are, however, three classes of States in which this proclamation will have no effect on the 1st of January next:

1st. The Border States.2d. Such of the rebel States, and suchparts of them, as shall return to their allegiancebefore that date.3d. Such of the rebel States, and suchparts of them, as shall not then have beenconquered.

In the mean time there may be rebel States, or portions of them, where the apprehended loss of their slaves, as a consequence of persisting in the rebellion, may induce a return to the Union, and thus hasten a successful conclusion of the war.

How far this proclamation, merely as such, would avail to change the status of slaves in such seceded States as may not be occupied by us and conquered before the first of January next, may be more appropriately discussed when, if ever, such a contingency shall happen.

In the mean time, whatever may be the effect of this proclamation upon the institution of slavery, which was the cause of the war, let us all unite in its vigorous prosecution, and in carrying, promptly and triumphantly, the flag of the Union throughout every State, from Richmond and Charleston to Mobile and Savannah. Our next campaign must witness the final overthrow of the rebellion.

THE REBEL NUMBERS

The whole number of males in the rebel States, by the census of 1860, between 15 and 60 years of age (excepting East Tennessee and Western Virginia), is less than one million; of whom, from physical disability, sickness, alienage, &c., at least 100,000 are not available. Of the remaining 900,000, at least 200,000 have been withdrawn by death, wounds, sickness, parole, capture, &c., reducing the number to 700,000; of whom, for indispensable pursuits, at least one third must remain at home, reducing their present maximum forces to 466,000. Now, if these disappear no more rapidly in the future than in the past (although the war will be prosecuted with much more vigor), their numbers would be diminished at the rate of at least 12,000 a month. Therefore, as there are no means of obtaining new recruits, it is clear that the rebellion must soon fail for want of troops to meet our immense armies. It is true no allowance has been made for recruits from the Border States; but these (greatly overestimated) would be more than counter-balanced by the inability to obtain troops from that large portion of the Rebel States occupied by our forces, such as all the coast from New Orleans to Norfolk, nearly all the Mississippi River, and considerable sections of West and Middle Tennessee, North Alabama, North Mississippi, and Arkansas. The days of the rebellion, then, are numbered.

Sharpsburg is a name which will be long remembered, and is destined to be found in many a lay and legend. Among the earliest written commemorating it, we have the following, from one whose lyrics are well known to our readers:

THE POTOMAC AT SHARPSBURGBY H. L. SPENCEROnce smiling fields stretched far on either side,Where bowed to every breeze the ripening grain;But now with carnage are those waters dyed,And all around are slumbering the slain.Patriots and heroes! unto whom in vainNe'er cried the voice of Right,—their names shall beGraved on a million hearts, and with just prideShall children say, 'For Truth and LibertyOur fathers fought at Sharpsburg, where they fell—They bravely fought, as history's pages tell.'Not for the fallen toll the funeral bell,—Their rest is peaceful—they the goal have won.Let the thinned ranks be filled, and let us seeComplete the glorious work by them begun.

Yes—forward! onward! Let it be complete. Scripta est—it is written, and it will be done. After going so far in the great cause which has become our religion and our life, it were hardly worth while to retreat. Life and fortune are of small account now in this tremendous opening of new truths and new interests. And we are only at the beginning! With every new death the cause grows more sacred, and the North more grandly earnest. 'Hurrah for the faithful dead!'

MRS. H. BEECHER STOWE AND THE DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND

My Dear Mrs. Stowe:

Your great work, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' will no longer circulate in England. Mr. Mason, the Southern ambassador, has convinced us all that slavery is a divine institution, that whipping and branding are really good for the negro, and education dangerous. Indeed, we dare not educate our own working classes. We begin to perceive the truth of the corner stone principle of the Southern Confederacy, that capital should always own labor, whether white or black. Then we would have no more strikes, or riots, or claims for higher wages, or for the right of suffrage, and all would be peace. You see my opinion of slavery has changed; and so has that of England in church and state, except the working classes, who wish to vote, and such pestiferous democrats as Bright and Cobden.

This rebellion came just in the right time for us. In a few years more of your success, we should have been compelled to establish free schools, give the vote by ballot, and extend the suffrage, until the people should rule here, as with you. But now that your rebellion has proved the failure of republics, we shall yield no more. Slavery, in dissolving your Union, has accomplished all this for us, and therefore must be a good institution. Some one has sent me one Edmund Kirke's anti-slavery novel, entitled, 'Among the Pines.' Your people seem to have gone crazy over it; but it will have no readers here. Is this Kirke a Scotchman? I had a tenant called Kirke, who was evicted for avowing republican opinions. Can this be the same man? I told the Confederate minister, Mr. Mason, that if some Southron would write a good novel in favor of slavery, it would have a great circulation here; and he said he would name this in his next despatch to his Government. He has a fine aristocratic air, and could scarcely be descended from the women (imported and sold as wives for a few pounds of tobacco to the Virginians) who were the mothers of the F. F. V.'s. But Mr. M. says slavery will soon build up a splendid nobility in the South.

Jefferson Davis is very popular here, and was lately cheered in Exeter Hall; but Yancey and Wigfall are idolized. Our great favorite in the North is Ex-President Buchanan. When did the head of a Government ever before have the courage to aid a rebellion against it, so gracefully yielding it the national forts, ships, mints, guns, and arsenals? But what we most admire is his message, in which he proved you have no right to coerce the South or suppress rebellion. This was a splendid discovery for us, as it demonstrated how superior our Government is to yours. If Mr. Buchanan would come here, we would raise him to the peerage, and, in commemoration of his two great acts, would give him the double title of the Duke of Lecompton and Disunion. Floyd, Cobb, and Thompson should each be earls. Thompson should be called Earl Arnold, in gratitude for the services to us of the celebrated Benedict Arnold.

I told Mr. M. how much we had condemned his fugitive slave law; but he convinced me that it was a most humane and excellent measure. Fugitives from the kindest masters, and ungrateful for all the blessings of slavery, why should they not be brought back in chains? He reminded me of Generals Shields, Corcoran, and Meagher, Irishmen commanding Irish troops for the North, and said they should be brought back to Ireland and hung on Emmet's scaffold. You know we keep that scaffold still standing, as a terror to Irish rebels, although we admire so much rebellion in America. Mr. M. spoke also of Sigel, Heintzelman, Rosecrans, Asboth, and expressed his surprise that the Bourbon princes would fight side by side with the mudsills of the North.

In a few years, Mr. M. said, the South would establish a monarchy, and that a son of the Queen should marry a daughter of Jefferson Davis, and thus unite the two dynasties by kindred ties. It was his opinion that the South would limit the right of suffrage to slaveholders, numbering about two hundred thousand; that they would have a house of peers, lords temporal and spiritual, composed (including bishops) of all who held over five hundred slaves; but that their Archbishop of Cantingbury should own at least one thousand. He thought the number requisite for the peerage would be enlarged after the reopening of the African slave trade, which would soon furnish England cheap cotton. His remarks on this subject reminded me how large a portion of my fortune was accumulated, during the last century, by the profits of the African slave trade. Mr. M. told me the King of Dahomey would furnish the South one hundred thousand slaves a year, for twenty dollars each, and that England should have the profits of the trade as before, and Liverpool again be the great slave port. He alluded to the Continental Monthly, which he said was an abolition journal, and denounced Kirke, Kimball, Leland, Henry, Greeley, Stanton, and Walker. He was specially severe on Walker and Stanton, charging them with the defeat of the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution, and the consequent accession of Kansas and all the Territories to the free States, He said Walker and Stanton had no right to reject the Oxford and McGee returns, although they were forged. And now, dear Mrs. Stowe, if you would only change, as we all have here, and write, as you only can, a great novel to prove the beauties of slavery, its circulation here would be enormous, and we would make you a duchess. Adieu until my next.

P.S.—I have invested all my United States stock in Confederate bonds.

The style of the foregoing letter would point to the Duchess of Sutherland as the author, but such a change would be miraculous. Was the copy of the letter found in an intercepted despatch from Mr. Mason to Jefferson Davis?

THE

CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:

EDITORS:

HON. ROBERT J. WALKER, CHARLES G. LELAND,

HON. FRED. P. STANTON, EDMUND KIRKE

The readers of the Continental are aware of the important position it has assumed, of the influence which it exerts, and of the brilliant array of political and literary talent of the highest order which supports it. No publication of the kind has, in this country, so successfully combined the energy and freedom of the daily newspaper with the higher literary tone of the first-class monthly; and it is very certain that no magazine has given wider range to its contributors, or preserved itself so completely from the narrow influences of party or of faction. In times like the present, such a journal is either a power in the land or it is nothing. That the Continental is not the latter is abundantly evidenced by what it has done—by the reflection of its counsels in many important public events, and in the character and power of those who are its staunchest supporters.

By the accession of Hon. Robert J. Walker and Hon. F. P. Stanton to its editorial corps, the Continental acquires a strength and a political significance which, to those who are aware of the ability and experience of these gentlemen, must elevate it to a position far above any previously occupied by any publication of the kind in America. Preserving all "the boldness, vigor, and ability" which a thousand journals have attributed to it, it will at once greatly enlarge its circle of action, and discuss, fearlessly and frankly, every principle involved in the great questions of the day. The first minds of the country, embracing men most familiar with its diplomacy and most distinguished for ability, are to become its contributors; and it is no mere "flattering promise of a prospectus" to say, that this "magazine for the times" will employ the first intellect in America, under auspices which no publication ever enjoyed before in this country.

Charles Godfrey Leland, the accomplished scholar and author, who has till now been the sole Editor of the Magazine, will, beside his editorial labors, continue his brilliant contributions to its pages; and Edmund Kirke, author of "Among the Pines," will contribute to each issue, having already begun a work on Southern Life and Society, which will be found far more widely descriptive, and, in all respects, superior to the first.

While the Continental will express decided opinions on the great questions of the day, it will not be a mere political journal: much the larger portion of its columns will be enlivened, as heretofore, by tales, poetry, and humor. In a word, the Continental will be found, under its new staff of Editors, occupying a position, and presenting attractions never before found in a magazine.

TERMS TO CLUBS

Postage, Thirty-six cents a year, to be paid by the SubscriberSINGLE COPIESThree dollars a year, in advance. Postage paid by the PublisherJOHN F. TROW, 50 Greene St., N. Y.,PUBLISHER FOR THE PROPRIETORS

As an Inducement to new subscribers, the Publisher offers the following liberal premiums:

Any person remitting $3, in advance, will receive the magazine from July, 1862, to January, 1864, thus securing the whole of Mr. Kimball's and Mr. Kirke's new serials, which are alone worth the price of subscription. Or, if preferred, a subscriber can take the magazine for 1863 and a copy of "Among the Pines," or of "Undercurrents of Wall Street," by R. B. Kimball, bound in cloth, or of "Sunshine in Thought," by Charles Godfrey Leland (retail price, $1. 25.) The book to be sent postage paid.

Any person remitting $4.50, will receive the magazine from its commencement, January, 1862, to January, 1864, thus securing Mr. Kimball's "Was He Successful? "and Mr. Kirke's "Among the Pines," and "Merchant's Story," and nearly 3,000 octavo pages of the best literature in the world. Premium subscribers to pay their own postage.

EQUAL TO ANY IN THE WORLD!!!

MAY BE PROCUREDAt FROM $8 to $12 PER ACRE,Near Markets, Schools, Railroads, Churches, and all the blessings of Civilization1,200,000 Acres, in Farms of 40, 80, 120, 160 Acres and upwards, in ILLINOIS, the Garden State of America

The Illinois Central Railroad Company offer, ON LONG CREDIT, the beautiful and fertile PRAIRIE LANDS lying along the whole line of their Railroad. 700 MILES IN LENGTH, upon the most Favorable Terms for enabling Farmers, Manufacturers, Mechanics and Workingmen to make for themselves and their families a competency, and a HOME they can call THEIR OWN, as will appear from the following statements:

ILLINOIS

Is about equal in extent to England, with a population of 1,722,666, and a soil capable of supporting 20,000,000. No State in the Valley of the Mississippi offers so great an inducement to the settler as the State of Illinois. There is no part of the world where all the conditions of climate and soil so admirably combine to produce those two great staples, Corn and Wheat.

CLIMATE

Nowhere can the Industrious farmer secure such immediate results from his labor as on these deep, rich, loamy soils, cultivated with so much ease. The climate from the extreme southern part of the State to the Terre Haute, Alton and St. Louis Railroad, a distance of nearly 200 miles, is well adapted to Winter.

WHEAT, CORN, COTTON, TOBACCO

Peaches, Pears, Tomatoes, and every variety of fruit and vegetables is grown in great abundance, from which Chicago and other Northern markets are furnished from four to six weeks earlier than their immediate vicinity. Between the Terre Haute, Alton & St. Louis Railway and the Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, (a distance of 115 miles on the Branch, and 136 miles on the Main Trunk,) lies the great Corn and Stock raising portion of the State.

THE ORDINARY YIELD

of Corn is from 60 to 80 bushels per acre. Cattle, Horses, Mules, Sheep and Hogs are raised here at a small cost, and yield large profits. It is believed that no section of country presents greater inducements for Dairy Farming than the Prairies of Illinois, a branch of farming to which but little attention has been paid, and which must yield sure profitable results. Between the Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, and Chicago and Dunleith, (a distance of 56 miles on the Branch and 147 miles by the Main Trunk,) Timothy Hay, Spring Wheat, Corn, &c., are produced in great abundance.

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS

The Agricultural products of Illinois are greater than those of any other State. The Wheat crop of 1861 was estimated at 35,000,000 bushels, while the Corn crop yields not less than 140,000,000 bushels besides the crop of Oats, Barley, Rye, Buckwheat, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes, Pumpkins, Squashes, Flax, Hemp, Peas, Clover, Cabbage, Beets, Tobacco, Sorgheim, Grapes, Peaches, Apples, &c., which go to swell the vast aggregate of production in this fertile region. Over Four Million tons of produce were sent out the State of Illinois during the past year.

STOCK RAISING

In Central and Southern Illinois uncommon advantages are presented for the extension of Stock raising. All kinds of Cattle, Horses, Mules, Sheep, Hogs, &c., of the best breeds, yield handsome profits; large fortunes have already been made, and the field is open for others to enter with the fairest prospects of like results. Dairy Farming also presents its inducements to many.

CULTIVATION OF COTTON

The experiments in Cotton culture are of very great promise. Commencing in latitude 39 deg. 30 min. (see Mattoon on the Branch, and Assumption on the Main Line), the Company owns thousands of acres well adapted to the perfection of this fibre. A settler having a family of young children, can turn their youthful labor to a most profitable account in the growth and perfection of this plant.

THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD

Traverses the whole length of the State, from the banks of the Mississippi and Lake Michigan to the Ohio. As its name imports, the Railroad runs through the centre of the State, and on either side of the road along its whole length lie the lands offered for sale.

CITIES, TOWNS, MARKETS, DEPOTS

There are Ninety-eight Depots on the Company's Railway, giving about one every seven miles. Cities, Towns and Villages are situated at convenient distances throughout the whole route, where every desirable commodity may be found as readily as in the oldest cities of the Union, and where buyers are to be met for all kinds of farm produce.

EDUCATION

Mechanics and working-men will find the free school system encouraged by the State, and endowed with a large revenue for the support of the schools. Children can live in sight of the school, the college, the church, and grow up with the prosperity of the leading State in the Great Western Empire.

1

Lucan, Pharsalia.

2

The Lotus was to the Egyptian and Hindu not only an image of physical life, but of life in all its strength and splendor, the type of the generating and forming force of Nature in itself, expressing the idea of 'water, health, life.' The Hindu imagined in its form the whole earth, swimming like the lotus on water; the pistils represent Mount Meru (the world's central point and the Indian Olympus), the stamens are the peaks of the surrounding mountains, the four central leaves of its crown are the four great divisions of the earth, according to the four points of the compass, while the other leaves represented the circles of the earth surrounding India. On the lotus is throned Brahma the creator, and Lakshmi, the goddess of all blessings.

Die Symbolik und Mythologie der Natur, von J. B. Friederich, Würzburg, 1859.