The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-26 00:00:00

a man alive in his brigade ! His aide-de-camp
added that the Secessionists should sleep under a
loyal flag one night, any how. General Smith's
aide retorted that he did not think that would be
any great honour. Whereupon General Wallace's
aide-de .campknocked General Smith's aide-dc camp
down. The paper from which this astounding story
is taken adds that the "men" had expressed the
greatest indignation against General Smith ; and
further, that another of that officer's subordinates,
General Paine, had sent word to General Wallace
that he might rely on the forces under his command
in case of a difficulty. The dissension, however,
commences in the Cabinet itself, where Mr. Cameron,
the Secretary of War, is making a bold bid to take
the lead out of the hands of all his fellows, and to
head the Republican party on the question of
abolition. The Secretary is one of those remark-
able men who are developed, or who de-
velope themselves, so wonderfully in the States.
By incessant labour, by vast energy and industry,
he raised himself from profound obscurity to high
station and great wealth, Untravelled, he knows
men and manners as well as Ulysses for all his own
purposes, and has an insight into character, a tact,
and address which many a veteran diplomatist
might envy. Whether he is right in his judgment
or not, he evidently believes the Union is to be
saved by destroying slavery; and, having in vain
endeavoured to force the President to an expression
of his opinion to the same effect, he adopted a bold
expedient to state the differences which existed
between him and the head of the State before the
country. On Monday last the members of the as-
sociated press were furnished with copies of the
proposed report of the Secretary of War, in sealed
packages, with instructions not to open them until
the President's Message should be in process of de-
livery. From time to time during Monday and
Tuesday despatches were received by the associa-
tion, instructing them not to use this report until
specially advised by the President. After midnight
on Tuesday night, the association received a para-
graph, to be substituted for certain portions of the
report, and, with that substitution, were authorised
to publish the whole. The tribune publishes the
draught report as originally sent, and prints the
modifications it was directed to make in a separate
article. The account of the transaction from the
Washington correspondent of the New York Tri-
bune, which there is every ground to think authen-
tic, is this :

" The Secretary presented his report to Mr. Lincoln on
Saturday. On Sunday afternoon he mailed it to the prin-
cipal papers of the North and West, as is customary on the
day preceding the reading of the Message. On Sunday
night the President, having found time to read it, found it
not in his heart to agree with the Secretary's doctrine of the
right and duty to make a military use of the slaves of rebels
—to arm them, if necessary—and in all ways to use
them as we would any other property of the rebels to
suppress the rebellion. He sent for Mr. Cameron, and re-
quired him to suppress this whole portion of his report, on
the ground that its recommendation was premature and ill-
timed. The Secretary promptly and resolutely refused to
suppress a word of it. The discussion between them was
protracted. It ended as it began, the President insisting
upon the alterati n, and the Secretary respectfully but firmly
refusing to change a syllable of the recommendations. A
subsequent interview in the afternoon had a similar con-
clusion of debate, but a new and strange conclusion of
Executive will. The President announced his purpose to
strike out the entire passage about the emancipation and
arming of the slaves before sending in the report with his
Message to Congress. Mr. Cameron declared he should not
recall or suppress the document in the hands of Northern
and Western editors, and that the printers were at liberty
to do with his report what they pleased."
As originally printed, that portion of the Secre-
tary's report relating to slavery read. as follows:

- -
" It is already a grave question, what shall be done with
those slavos who are abandoned by their owners on the
advance of our troops into Southern territory, as at Beau-
fort district, in South Carolina. The whole white popula-
tion therein is 6,000, while the number of negroes exceeds
32,000. The panic which drove their masters in wild con-
fusion from their homes leaves them in undisputed posses-
sion of the soil. Shall they, armed by their masters, be
placed in the field to fight against us, or shall their labours
be continually employed in reproducing the means of sup-
porting the armies of the rebellion ? The war into which
this Government has been forced by rebellious traitors is

carried on for the purpose of repossessing the property vio
lently and treacherously seized upon by the enemies of the
Government, and to re-establish the authority and laws of
the United States in the places where it is opposed or
overthrown by armed insurrection or rebellion. Its pur-
pose is to defend and recover what is justly its own. War,
even between independent nations, is made to subdue the
enemy, and all that belongs to that enemy, by occupying
the hostile country, and exercising dominion over all the
men and things within its territory. This being true in
respect to independent nations at war with each other, it
follows that rebels who are labouring by force of arms to
overthrow a Government, justly bring upon themselves all
the consequences of war, and provoke the destruction me-
rited by the worst of crimes. That Government would be
false to national trust, and would justly excite the ridicule
of the civilised world, that would abstain from the use of
any efficient means to preserve its own existence, or to
overcome a rebellious and traitorous enemy, by sparing or
protecting the property of those who are waging war against
it. The principal wealth and power of the rebel States is a
peculiar species of property, consisting of the service or
labour of African slaves, or the descendants of Africans.
This property has been variously estimated at the value of
from 700,000,000 to 800,000,000 dols. Why should this
property be exempt from the hazards and consequences of a
rebellious war ? It was the boast of the leader of the re-
bellion, while he yet had a seat in the Senate of the United
States, that the Southern States would be comparatively
safe and freefrom the burdens of war, if it should be brought
on by the contemplated rebellion, and that boast was accom-
panied by the savage threat that ' Northern towns and cities
would become the victims of rapine and military spoil, and
that Northern men should smell Southern gunpowder and
feel Southern steel.' No one doubts the disposition of the
rebels to carry that threat into execution. The wealth of
Northern towns and cities, the produce of Northern farms,
Northern workshops and manufactories, would certainly be
seized, destroyed, or appropriated as military spoil. No pro-
perty in the North would be spared from the hands of the
rebels, and their rapine would be defended under the laws
of war. While the loyal States thus have all their property
and possessions at stake, are the insurgent rebels to carry on
warfare against Government in peace and security to their
own property ? Reason, justice, and self-preservation forbid
that such should bo the policy of this Government, but
demand, on the contrary that, being forced by traitors and
rebels to the extremity of war, all tho rights and powers of
war should be exercised to bring it to a speedy end. Those
who make ',war against the Government justly forfeit all
rights of property, privilege, or security derived from the
Constitution and laws, against whieh they are in armed
rebellion ; and, as the labour and service of their slaves con-
stitute the chief propertyof the rebels, such property should
share the common fate of war, to which they have devoted
the property of loyal citizens. While it is plain that the
slave property of the South is justly subjected to all the
consequences of this rebellious war, and that the Govern-
ment would be untrue to its trust in not employing all the
rights and powers of war to bring it to a speedy close, the
details of the plan for doing so, like all other military mea-
sures, must, in a great degree, be left to be determined by
particular exigencies. The disposition of other property
belonging to the rebels that becomes subject to our arms is
governed by the circumstances of the case. The govern-
ment has no power to hold slaves, none to restrain a slave of
his liberty or to exact his service. It has a right, however,
to use the voluntary service of slaves liberated by war from
their rebel masters, like any other property of the rebels,
in whatever mode may be most efficient for the defence of
the Government, the prosecution of the war, and the sup-
pression of the rebellion. It is as clearly the right of the
Government to arm slaves, when it may become necessary,
as it is to use gunpowder taken from the enemy. Whether
it is expedient to do so is purely a military question. The
right is unquestionable by the laws of war. The expediency
must be determined by circumstances, keeping in view the
great object of overcoming the rebels, re-establishing the
laws, and restoring peace. It is vain and idle for the Govern-
ment to carry on this war, or hope to maintain its existence
against a rebellious force, without employing all the rights
and powers of war. As has been said, the right to deprive the
rebels of their property in slaves and slave labour is as clear
and absolute as the right to take forage from the field, or cotton
from the warehouse, or powder and arms from the maga-
zine. To leave the enemy in the possession of such pro-
perty as forage and cotton and military stores, and the
means of constantly reproducing them, would be madness.
It is therefore equal madness to leave them in peaceful
and secure possession of slave property, more valuable and
efficient to them for war than forage, cotton, and military
stores. Such policy would be national suicide. What to do
with that species of property is a question that time and cir-
cumstances will solve, and need not be anticipated further
than to repeat that they cannot be held by the Government
as slaves, It would be useless to keep them as prisoners