To complement Wills's article in the September issue, we're providing the complete texts of some articles by Emerson and Douglass, two American orators who, along with Lincoln, stand among the most effective prose writers of the nineteenth, or any, century. But the rude and early state of society does not work well with the later, nay, works badly, and has poisoned politics, public morals, and social intercourse in the Republic, now for many years. We cannot but remember that there have been days in American history, when, if the Free States had done their duty, Slavery had been blocked by an immovable barrier, and our recent calamities forever precluded. The Free States yielded, and every compromise was surrender, and invited new demands. Here again is a new occasion which Heaven offers to sense and virtue.
Emancipation is the demand of civilization.
In so many arid forms which States incrust themselves with, once in a century, if so often, a poetic act and record occur. These are the jets of thoughts into affairs, when, roused by danger or inspired by genius, the political leaders of the day break the else insurmountable routine of class and local legislation, and take a step forward in the direction of catholic and universal interests. Every step in the history of political liberty is a sally of the human mind into the untried future, and has the interest of genius, and is fruitful in heroic anecdotes. Most important to Emerson was that the proclamation firmly set the North's political and military agenda, even as it showed the world that the United States would now pay more than mere lip service to the idea of freedom. It is not a measure that admits of being taken back.