Continental Monthly The , page 209 by Various Authors
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y was the true condition of labor. That these are the deliberate convictions of the Southern leaders, and these the doctrines on which the Montgomery constitution is based, no reflecting person can hesitate to believe; and the boastful declaration of the rebel vice-president, that slavery was the corner stone of the rebel confederacy, serves to confirm our conclusion beyond possibility of doubt. What these things prove is nothing more nor less than that the Union with such an element in it to feed the ambition of politicians with, as this slavery has shown itself to be, is henceforth impossible. For we see now that for the sake of slavery the slaveholding leaders are willing to destroy the Government. Who can complain if the basis of their rebellious scheme is annihilated? The answer to those who say, Touch tenderly the institutions of the South, is, Nay, but let them first cease their rebellion. Therefore, so long as the rebellion lifts its unblushing front against the Government, so long it is the duty of every lover of the Government, in the language of the third resolution of this platform, to 'uphold and maintain the acts and proclamations by which the Government, in its own defence, has aimed a death blow at this gigantic evil.'
But that makes us, Abolitionists, says the reader. Be it so. Are we not willing to be Abolitionists for the sake of saving the Constitution and the Union? And if, despising our proffers of 'the Constitution as it is,' which we have now held out to them for three years and a half, the rebels continue to defy the authority of the Government, who can complain if we proceed to adopt an amendment to the Constitution that shall leave no possibility of slaveholding treason hereafter? Surely none but themselves. Let them, then, come back and vote against it; for three fourths of all the States must concur in such an amendment before it can become part of the Constitution. Ah, the leaders of the Southern rebellion know full well how the great masses at the South would vote on such a