December 19 and 26, 1862
“The war has not only crippled the circulation of the newspaper press generally, but is has produced such a scarcity in the materials of making printing paper, — owing chiefly to the failure of the cotton crop - that the price per ream is more than doubled…” Then the readers are warned that there must be a diminution in the size or the amount of reading matter provided, or an increased subscription price. …The price in the new year “will be enhanced fifty cents per annum”…. of course, we shall reduce the altered subscription price to its former state, at the earliest practicable period.”
December 5, 1862
After expressing a belief that “the President is not competent to write his own official papers.”, editorial comments focus on ” what the President submits as his method of bringing the rebellion to a close.” ….His plan for compensated emancipation, gathers “astonishment at the folly and infatuation evinced in this plan for buying up Southern treason”… “The President is demented - or else a veritable Rip Van Winkle, who, for the last thirty years, has been oblivious to everything going on in the country!..”
November 21, 1862
This account is signed by Richard J. Hinton, Adjutant, 1st Regt Kansas Colored Volunteers. “Our nine days’ campaign proved that negroes are splendid soldiers, will march further, fight as well, and live on as hard fare without grumbling, as any soldiers now in the services of the government…..Yet we are not mustered. Four months have nearly passed. The men have done their duty faithfully. Find me the six hundred white men, who, with such patient patriotism and perseverance, would have adhered to their organization through all the discouragements and disadvantages we have had to encounter. I have yet to see them…
November 14, 1862
Here is an account of the beginnings of this college, in Monrovia, including excerpts from speeches on the occasion of its inauguration. Comment by the editor includes: “we deem it not invidious to remark, that, in none of the addresses delivered on this occasion, nor in any of the proceedings, do we find a single reference or sentiment expressive of any interest in the tremendous struggle going on in this country between the American government and the slave oligarchy, and their degraded minions….”
October 24, 1862
Notes from C.K.W. come from a friend of his who attended the recent meeting. “The majority of the delegates to that body, as well as of the Episcopal churches in this country, continue faithful in their adherence to the interests of slavery. They have long been accustomed to see slavery supported by the United States Government….Now that the State has turned against slavery, “they are disconcerted and puzzled, and hesitate even at condemning rebellion, when it is made by their friends the slave holders, and supported by those venerable fathers in God, the Southern Bishops.” … In all the action of this Convention there was nothing recognizing slavery as the cause of the rebellion, or recognizing it as a sin or an evil, or referring to it in any way whatever…”
October 10, 1862
A note from Wm. H. Johnson, New Bedford, tells of a speech in Fairhaven, at which Wm. A. Jackson, former coachman ( now escaped fugitive), of Jefferson Davis, was the speaker. “He says the slaves down South had been waiting for the Proclamation of Emancipation long before he left the South, and when that was issued, the slaves were ready to a man to put their shoulders to the great Union wheel of this nation, which would result in the utter destruction of the rebellion before the new year should dawn upon the heads of this guilty people.”
October 10, 1862
This is a report of a “great meeting”, held at Faneuil Hall, at which Charles Sumner speaks eloquently. Resolutions are passed, expressing satisfaction and support in light of the Emancipation Proclamation.
October 3, 1862
‘The Chicago delegation, recently with the President, presented to him a memorial in favor of national emancipation, adopted by Christians of all denominations, at a meeting held in Chicago. The notes are arranged as Detailed remarks of the Chairman of the delegation, the President’s Reply, a Rejoinder by the Delegation, the President’s Answer, and the President’s Final Remarks.
September 26, 1862
The editor poses the choices for Abolitionists in response to the draft and the war.
“Already, some Abolitionists have joined the ranks as volunteers, feeling that, in so doing, they are justified by the nature of the rebellion, and the altered relations of slavery to the government. There are others who, abhorring the treasonable conduct of the South in the strongest manner, are still precluded from entering into the conflict, so long as the government refuses to “proclaim liberty throughout all the land, and unto all the inhabitants thereof.” …… The editor holds out a standard, “that every obstacle to CONSTITUTIONAL EMANCIPATION is taken out of the way, and the government is, and must be, if true to itself, wholly on the side of liberty…Such a government can receive the sanction and support of every Abolitionist, whether in a moral or military point of view.”
September 26, 1862
After the text of the Proclamation there are “Remarks”. “Though we believe that this Proclamation is not all that the exigency of the times and the consequent duty of the government require, — and therefore are not so jubilant over it as many others - still, it is an important step in the right direction, and an act of immense historic consequence…..
The objectionable features of the Proclamation are its avowed readiness to return to bloody stripes, and horrible torture, and life-long servitude, (if he be not killed outright,) any hunted bondsman on the mere oath of the villain claiming him, that he is loyal to the government - its seemingly contradictory talk (for the first portion of it is a characteristic jumble of words) about emancipating the slaves in all existing rebel States, on the first of January, 1863 (a time sufficient to enable Jeff. Davis and his traitorous confederates to anticipate that measure themselves, and thus secure their independence by foreign intervention) - its proposition to make a new overture to the Slave States to sell their slave system at a bargain - and its mean, absurd and proscriptive devices to expatriate the colored population from their native land.
