The Continental Monthly, page 119 by Various Authors
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Slave-Power; such apologists and supporters of Wrong; such pusillanimous, weak-hearted advocates of the unpopular Right; such slaves to Cotton and its threats, that we had almost lost the God-given independence of American freemen, and seemed--thank God! events have proved only _seemed_--to be entirely given up to money and mechanics, to have become, indeed, a nation of peddlers. So much so, indeed, that our prophets were stoned in their own lands, our apostles stricken down in the national councils, and the few voices that were raised for God and humanity, from out the miry slough of a trafficking age, were almost unheard in the general din which went up from all the nations, and the burden of whose song seemed to be: 'There is no God but Cotton, and we are all his prophets.' But the moment the first gun was fired, how all this changed! How regally the whole nation rose up! How magnificently she threw off the garment of rags and filth which had hidden her fair proportions, and donned the imperial toga of humanity, and wrapping the rich folds of the gorgeous mantle around her, stood out before the world in all the dignity of freedom and virtue--a form which made the whole earth glad and the heavens clap their hands in exultation. What giant leaps the nation made in manhood and heroism, strides following each other thick and fast, until the most cynical of the doubters of humanity began to open their eyes, and acknowledge that they would not have thought her capable of such unexampled deeds. The national heroism which the Northern people have displayed is indeed unparalleled. They have risen up as one man to the support of the Government. They have offered property and life and the most sacred treasures of the heart upon the shrine of constitutional liberty. At the sound of the drum, they have left the farm and the barn, the anvil and the mill, the church and the forum, and formed into the grand army of invincibles which, at the word of command, have marched forward, conquering and resistless. They have borne pati