We saw slavery enter Kansas, with bowieknife in
hand and curses on its lips; we saw the life of the Union struck at by
secession and rebellion; we heard of the bones of sons and brothers,
fallen in defence of freedom and law, dug up and wrought into ornaments
for the wrists and bosoms of slave-holding women; we looked into the open
hell of Andersonville, upon the deliberate, systematic starvation of
helpless prisoners; we heard of Libby Prison underlaid with gunpowder,
for the purpose of destroying thousands of Union prisoners in case of the
occupation of Richmond by our army; we saw hundreds of prisoners
massacred in cold blood at Fort Pillow, and the midnight sack of Lawrence
and the murder of its principal citizens. The flames of our merchant
vessels, seized by pirates, lighted every sea; we heard of officers of
the rebel army and navy stealing into our cities, firing hotels filled
with sleeping occupants, and laying obstructions on the track of rail
cars, for the purpose of killing and mangling their passengers. Yet in
spite of these revelations of the utterly barbarous character of slavery
and its direful effect upon all connected with it, we were on the very
point of trusting to its most criminal defenders the task of
reestablishing the state governments of the South, leaving the real Union
men, white as well as black, at the mercy of those who have made hatred a
religion and murder a sacrament.
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