MONTGOMERY BLAIR.—This gentleman was appointed postmaster-general in 1861, forming one of the Cabinet under the administration of Abraham Lincoln.
Perhaps history affords no parallel to the state of affairs in our country when Abraham Lincoln took the Presidential chair. Our readers are all familiar with the history of this rebellion. We will not go over the grounds, dark and bloody as they are: suffice to say, the blow was struck, and treason assumed a bold and formidable front. The Constitution, even from its adoption, with all its amendments, has ever been a fruitful subject of dispute, more particularly with those whose interests were identified with the institution of slavery. To keep that peculiar institution—a relic of barbarism—intact, with their ideas of labor, men South advocated the idea that a sovereignty of States and their separate independency of the Union were guaranteed to them by the Constitution. This fatal error misled the ignorant: men of intellect, men educated in the Union, living under its Constitution and heretofore abiding by its laws, preached up a Utopian scheme to these misguided men. The South was to become the Eden of the world, and slavery its _Magna Charta_.
In the early part of Mr. Lincoln’s administration we edited a paper established for the purpose of maintaining his position and opposing the spirit of treason working its way North. We annex the following extract from an editorial article we wrote in 1861, being one of the editors of the “National Guard,” a paper devoted to the cause of the Union, the whole Union, and nothing but the Union:—
“When this distinguished man was first nominated for the Presidency, the grounds taken by the opposition were his abolition proclivities. Few people in the North were willing that the institution of slavery should go down beneath the Lincoln banner, and hence the increased opposition to the nomination and the powerful efforts to frustrate his election. _He was elected_: he became the President of these United States lawfully in the sight of men and of nations, and equally so in the sight of the Almighty. As President of the whole Union he took his seat. Men who expected to hear the thundertones of his official voice, “down with the South and slavery,” were surprised when they read his opinion upon the subject as President, differing in some respects from that expressed as a mere citizen. Being President, the various State interests had to be consulted: the South was upheaving with the curse of slavery upon it, and four millions of human beings were crying out for mercy. The position in which Mr. Lincoln was placed was a most delicate one: he could not maintain the high fanatical notions of many Northern men, nor would he indorse the actions of the Southerners, who feared that if the administration limited slavery it would ultimately lead to a decadency in their trade in human flesh. This was the state of matters when, in his appeal to the people for aid, he assured the South that he did not intend, in his official capacity, to interfere with their peculiar institution. Then the South dashed back the offered cup of peace presented to them in good faith, and spurned the hand that held it towards them. They feared the man; they feared the popular opinion uprising against slavery, and, deeming a portion of the North favorable to their cause, reared at once the standard of rebellion.