Emancipation
Summary
The stance of the Examiner regarding emancipation is written in response to a paper addressed to the people of Maryland by the chairman and several members of the "Conservative" State Central Committee. Thomas Swann and John P. Kennedy were among the paper's signers. The address attempts to make the Unconditional Union Party wear the "stigma of Abolitionism and premeditated revolutionary violence" and implies that the Unconditional Union Party supports emancipation without consideration of the rights of slaveholders in Maryland. Authors of the address insist that they are totally loyal Union men, but that making "peremptory emancipation" the goal of the Union Party will disturb the "harmony" of the party. "The laborious effort of the Address is to represent Emancipation in Maryland as a 'side issue' calculated to 'disturb the harmony of the Union party' and to prevent the combination of 'all shades of opinion in a common effort to restore the Union.'" The Examiner suggests that the "intelligent reader" will recognize that the address is aimed at the preservation of slavery in the state in spite of the protestations of the authors. Those men admit that the institution of slavery is now only a "skeleton." The Examiner suggests that if the institution is now a "skeleton," then why not bury it.
Article Source
Newspaper: The Frederick Examiner
Publication Date: September 16th, 1863
Page/Column: 2A
Town: Frederick, MD
County: Frederick
Subjects
- Slavery / Emancipation
