Valley Spirit

The Independent of this week is brimfull of pestilent abolitionism. The most objectionable part of it, to be sure, is in articles written by correspondents, but the prominence assigned them in the make-up of the paper, and the strong leaning in the same direction in its editorial columns, justify us in attributing to the Independent a deliberate purpose to make itself a vehicle of abolition sentiments. It allows Dr. Cheever to expatiate on "the irretrievable mischief produced by the Northern Government and Administration in refusing to direct the war against slavery," and on the infinite importance of immediately striking that blow against slavery, and which will retrieve our affairs and our reputation, and save us from the dreadful disaster," etc. It gives space to a long article by Charles L. Brace, entitled "The Key to Victory," which opens with the inquiry, "Why will not we people see that the only key to victory is a Proclamation of emancipation."

It is plain to people of practical sense that a proclamation of emancipation would have no other effect than to weaken and brake [sic] down the Administration. If it should be stupid and foolhardy enough to venture in this experiment it would not only stultify itself by contradicting all the professions it has heretofore made that the war is to be waged for the attainment of none but constitutional objects, but it would totally divide the North, and render powerless all the friends of the Union in the rebel states when the time shall come for its re-construction. But Mr. Brace sees so little need of the cooperation of loyal slaveholders in restoring the Union, that he admits that his plan would result in blotting them from the face of the earth. He winds up his article as follows:

The slaveholding class in such a contest would inevitably be almost exterminated, and if any class of men ever deserved punishment from the Almighty for countless wrongs done to the innocent and the weak, it is they. The non-slaveholding class would, no doubt, after a while see the utter uselessness and folly of resistance and settle down under what, for a time, will probably be a military rule.

This is not the method we should any of us have chosen for emancipation. But Providence has forced it upon us. We must choose between that and defeat.

Instead of being shut up to choose between a proclamation of emancipation and defeat, such a proclamation would bring sure and irretrievable defeat from the day on which it was promulgated. Two-thirds of the army would refuse to march another step or serve another day in such a crusade. Men would no longer enlist, (except a few abolitionists,) capitalists would no longer furnish means for prosecuting a war; and we should immediately have a powerful revolutionary party at the North as well as at the South. It would plunge the country into general anarchy, and destroy the hopes of the Union forever.

But would such a proclamation emancipate the slaves? Pray, how would it ever reach them? Who is to carry copies of the proclamation to the plantation and distribute them there? If the agents of distribution go, singly or in small squads, they will swing from the next tree. If it is carried by armies, it cannot reach the slaves until the opposing armies have first been conquered. But how can it be the means of victory if it can take place only after victory has been achieved?

It would not be strange if the enemies of Secretary Seward and the administration should infer his sympathy with this reckless abolitionism from the fact that along side of it he orders the publication of the aws [sic] of the United States. Independent journals of large circulation, however, are not dwindled to government organs because the Government finds it profitable to advertise in their columns, and President Lincoln and Congress have left the cavilers no excuse for supposing that any authority exists for such utterances or any sympathy with the sentiments which the Independent advocates, except among Abolitionists and the most radical of Republicans.

There are a few unscrupulous papers published in the North that so far forget their own honor, and the interest of the country, as to insist that the North is full of secessionists. The Chicago Times says of this class of treasonable papers:--"We believe that they desire and design to give aid and comfort to the Southern Confederacy, by causing the rebels to believe that they have a large number of influential friends at the North. What other design can they have? Certainly the traitors will fight with more energy against a divided than against a united North. This is so plain a fact that the journals which assert that there is a submission 'party' in the loyal States must understand it, and therefore by publishing falsehoods intend to encourage the enemies of the Republic.

The newspapers we refer to continually harp upon the theme that there is a 'party' dangerous in designs and formidable in numbers, who are determined to dishonor she [sic] Republic by submission to the Southern traitors. The result is, that the South believes that we are divided in sentiment as to the conduct of the war--that we are losing what little sympathy lingers in the hearts of foreign powers for the United States, and that our own people are kept in a state of agitation which seriously interferes with their business and conduces to inaugurate scenes of panic and violence.

We repeat it, it is the worst of crimes to deceive the people. Men and newspapers who do it deserve the severest reprehension of the Government as disturbers of the public peace and as friends of the enemy."