Page:The Civil War in America - an address read at the last meeting of the Manchester Union and Emancipation Society.djvu/85

REPORT OF THE FINAL MEETING
OF THE
UNION AND EMANCIPATION SOCIETY
(Published by desire of the Society).

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At a General Meeting of the Union and Emancipation Society, held in the Town Hall, Manchester, January 22nd, 1866, Thomas Bayley Potter, Esq., M. P., President of the Society, in the chair, the following Report was read by Mr. E. O. Greening, one of the Honorary Secretaries:—

REPORT
OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE TO THE MEMBERS AND FRIENDS OF THE UNION AND EMANCIPATION SOCIETY, AT THEIR LAST MEETING.

The Executive of the Union and Emancipation Society, in presenting their final Report, congratulate the members and friends of the Association on the auspicious termination of their labours.

Five years ago a section of the United States of America, then known as the Slave States, sought by revolt and armed force the disruption of the Republic, and declared an intention to establish a Confederacy, whose corner stone should be Slavery.

To aid in the accomplishment of this gigantic crime societies were established in this country; and the press, the platform, and the pulpit became to a very large extent sympathetic with the wicked enterprise. The aristocracy, the gentry, and the commercial classes (with many noble individual exceptions), were dragging the nation into a partisanship with rebellion and slavery.