The New York Herald
May 22, 1862
The last proclamation of President Lincoln, we are sure, from the abundant evidence around us and the testimony of our newspaper exchanges, has greatly strengthened and extended the public confidence of our loyal States in his sagacity, patriotism and firmness of purpose as the head of the government and the responsible Commander-in-Chief of our Army and Navy.
There can be no doubt that the inspiration which produced the late preposterous abolition manifesto from General Hunter was drawn from Washington. We apprehend, too, that Mr. Secretary Stanton (falling into the serious abolition mistake which was so fatal to Mr. Secretary Cameron as an aspiring politician) is largely responsible for General Hunter’s sweeping abolition edict. At all events the President revocation of this edict involves a reprimand to all its contrivers, and if Mr. Stanton can be justly counted among them, every consideration of propriety demands on his part an explanation to the country.
The President, in every possible way and by every possible device, has been embarrassed by the radical abolition or separation faction, in order to inveigle him, drag him or thrust him into this destructive abolition programme of a war of extermination against Southern slavery at all hazards. President Lincoln, however, from the day when he left Springfield, en route for Washington, to the present hour, has unflinchingly pursued the tenor of his way upon his own programme of fighting this war for the of the Union. Upon this grand idea the six hundred thousand Union soldiers now in the field have enlisted for this war; upon this sound, consistent and conservative war policy the great body of the people of our loyal States have rallied to the support of the administration.
All this is thoroughly understood by our wide awake President; and hence the quiet and unobtrusive way in which he has baffled all the schemes and movements of our disunion abolition radicals in the Cabinet, in Congress and in the army, to change this war for integrity of the Union into a war for the extirpation of Southern slavery. The important ultimatum kept steadily in view by the abolition radicals is the political power of the country; and, as they cannot secure this power with the restoration of the old Union, their object is simply to destroy it. Mr. Senator Sumner, in his notorious scheme proposing to reduce or rebellious States to the condition of Territories – in which condition their local institutions and their state boundaries would be swept away – has fairly indicated the wishes and purposes of the disorganizing faction of which he is anointed apostle.
This faction of disorganizers are still devoted to the Jacobin purpose of pushing this war into an abolition crusade, because they fully understand that, with the restoration of the revolted States as they were in the Union, there is an end of the political power of abolitionism. Every Southern State restored to the Union and to its representation in Congress as it was diminishes the power of abolitionism in both branches. This, with the restoration of the full representation from Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Arkansas and Louisiana, the radical anti-slavery element in both houses would be pretty effectually silenced. This is the special danger which just now threatens this abolition faction. Their game is to defeat the restoration of the old Union, to abolish slavery, to lay waste the South by fire and sword, and to drive this war into a regular Jacobin revolution, to secure the political power of the country and the enormous spoils and plunder of the government resulting from this war establishment.
Against these destructive designs, however, the country feels secure with Honest Abraham Lincoln at the helm. In his appointment of that sound conservative Southern Union democrat Andrew Johnson, as Provisional Governor of Tennessee, and of that conservative Southern old line Union whig, Edward Stanly, as Provisional Governor of North Carolina, President Lincoln cannot be misunderstood. His object is to give every possible encouragement and assurance to our revolted States that in returning to the Union they will return to its constitutional landmarks of protection and safety.
We think that we may therefore congratulate our readers with the assurance that after the expulsion of the rebel armies from Richmond and Corinth, so clear and satisfactory will the war policy of President Lincoln become to all the South that there will be a very speedy end to the secession falsehoods and deceptions by which the people of the South have been led astray, and to all the schemes and contrivances of our abolition disturbers to make this war a fanatical crusade against Southern slavery. The country will adhere to the President, and still strengthen his hands for the Union.