Year: 1864




The most startling proposition that ha,
recently appeared in tho Rebel pressis tha
OF giving freedom to the slaves able to bea,
arms. and putting them as soldiers into The
Confederate service. Such a proposal pro
sents many important features 1t involves
| not only q confession Of weakness, Tut an
evidence of desperation. 1t is an admission
that their white soldiers have been exhaust.
ed, and that utter ruin stares their cause in
tho face, unless thoy can place before the
advancing forces of the Union some other
| obstacle than their own white army. To do
this they must fall buck upon their slaves
Now, it It be true. as the South have pro.
claimed for years, and as many persous
affect to believe, that slavery is tho natural
and proper condition Of the black race; that
they are happier in il than In state of froc-
dom; that they love it, aud even prefer it to
liberty; then all that would be necessary for
tho slave master TO do, 10 this crisis, would
be to inform his slaves that their condition
was in danger; that the Yankee hordes wore
coming down upon them. to set them free
and mako them miserable; and that, If they
wished to avert so dire calamity, and pre-.
serve their happiness in state Of bondage
they must turn in and help him secure it,
by taking musket and a place III the Con
federa,e ranks. But tho Southern papers
who are presumed to know tho mental tenn.
per of the slaves, make no such offer as that
to them. However Democrats at the North
may think about it, they have no faith in
the efficacy of such arguments 10 the man
ufscture of soldiers out Of slaves.


As the aim of tie Rebellion, according to
Vice President Stephens, was to found an
empire whose corner stone should be human
bondage, and an exhaustipg war has hccu
waged for nearly four years. TO accomplish
that eud, during which larger part of the
territory at its nutset occupied by the Reb
els, has been reclaimed by the Union srmios,
the Rebel forces driven back and their cause
to them well nigh hopeless, they turn, as u
last resort, in their pride and rage, to tboir
slave, and propose that the boon of freedom
should be offered them to fight for South
ern independence. Aence. Henry w. Allen,
styling himself Governor OF Louisiana, writes
20 the rebel Secretary OF War. on tho Goth
OF September last, saying "The time has
come for US to put into the army every able
bodied negro man as a soldier. He caused
the fight, ard he will have his portion of tho
burtben TO bear. l would free all ablo to
bear arms, and put them in the field ut
once" He calls upon tho Rebel Congress
to take action in this important matter.-
Following in the came path, the Richmond
Enquirer says, that il formally advanced
the proPriety @: conscriptipg slaves. on tho
9th OF last month, since which it has ere.
ceived many assurances of it's popular ia.
vor." 1t then uses this remarkable Ian.
guage: THE conscription of negroes should
be accompanied with freedom, and the priv.
Eege OF remaining in the States. This is
no part of abolition; it is the exercise by the
master OF the unquestionable right of man
umIssioD; it is remunerating those who de-
fend our cause with the privilege of free.
DOM" and, further. "that at an early day the
next Congress will DO called upon to pro.
vide for it by law" .- u. -.


What effect this offer of freedom will have
upon the slave men of the South, should
the Rebel Congress make it, remains to bo
seen. Should the offer be of freedom to the
slave only who enters the army, leaving his
family still in bondage, will tho inducement
be sufficient to lead him to accept of it -
Should it DO extended to the family of the
slave soldier. and thereby bring about a
practical abolishment of Slavery on tho part
of the South, there will after that be no real
cause of difference between it and the
North; and, should the South force into its
armies the able bodied slaves, without giving
freedom to their families, as well as TO
themselves, what security have they that
they will not desert to the Union side at the
first opportunity? Whatever form this
proposition may take, it clearly appears that
Providence has in this war made tho slave.
master the instrument for the destruction
of the servitude he has so fondly cherished;
and that, between the neibor nilstone, the
South. and the upper millstone, the North.
the institution of Slavery will be ground
to powder.


M.