Testimonies for the Church Volume 1 - A New You Ministry

apologies return to their allegiance. The North have had no just idea of the strength ofthe accursed system of slavery. It is this, and this alone, which lies at the foundation ofthe war. The South have been more and more exacting. They consider it perfectly rightto engage in human traffic, to deal in slaves and the souls of men. They are annoyedand become perfectly exasperated if they cannot claim all the territory they desire.They would tear down the boundaries and bring their slaves to any spot they please,and curse the soil with slave labor. The language of the South has been imperious, andthe North have not taken suitable measures to silence it.The rebellion was handled so carefully, so slowly, that many who at first startedwith horror at the thought of rebellion were influenced by rebels to look upon it asright and just, and thousands joined the Southern Confederacy who would not hadprompt and thorough measures been carried out by our Government at an early periodof the rebellion, even as ill-prepared as it then was for war. The North have beenpreparing for war ever since, but the rebellion has been steadily increasing, and thereis now no better prospect of its being subdued than there was months ago. Thousandshave lost their lives, and many have returned to their homes, maimed and crippled forlife, their health gone, their earthly prospects forever blighted; and yet how little hasbeen gained! Thousands have been induced to enlist with the understanding that thiswar was to exterminate slavery; but now that they are fixed, they find that they havebeen deceived, that the object of this war is not to abolish slavery, but to preserve it asit is.Those who have ventured to leave their homes and sacrifice their lives toexterminate slavery are dissatisfied. They see no good results from the war, only thepreservation of the Union, and for this thousands of lives must be sacrificed and homesmade desolate. Great numbers have wasted away254