Year: 1863




cation Of decree And the force is vigorous without
the decree as with it,


!" Where the President has control the law of
any relation his sole authority that relation must re-
suit from actual force applied under stress Of military
necessity And this actual force may be eRitimstey APP
Piled wherever whenever is to enforce the
laws It, then the President instead Of assuming TO declare
slaves Free had announced bis purpose in conducting the
within certain Districts hold and treat all slaves as


free so far they should come under the Federal sway he
would have avoided the objection which justly lies against
mere edct of emancipation Those who love the Union
better than slavery be prepared to see slavery over
thrown wherever it stands in the way OF national autho
rity but they prepared to admit that the Pres
dent by the breath of bis mouth make unmake the
law OF freedom and bondage For to declare slaves free
does not lie within the province Of tb Executive depart
ment of the National Government any theory of the
Presidents duty, whether c0mmandern-chief Of the
army and navy or as civil ruler he consistently
this gislars function any more in time of
than OF peace. But to make slaves free may not only
rghtuy but must almost necessarily be the incident of
his Executive duties in conducting large military opera
lions on slayeholdng territory"


Such were our original, and, we may add, our
unchanged objections to the proclamation; but if
that paper means no more than the exposition OF
the President signifies, we have nothing to say
against it-cxcept that never was an expedient SO
il-adjused to the end for which it was conceived.
IF by the proclamation the President intended no
more than to authorize our Generals to employ
slaves in the military service, army order would
have done the business infinitely better, because
infinitely more directly, than proclamation Cor
dering and declaring" certain persons to be free,
when it was foreseen that such proclamation could
have no practical effect. The employment Of slaves
for military purposes is thing; the theoretical
emancipation of slaves in whole States where the
Federal power, well civil military, is, for the
time, imperative and void, seems to u. quite an
other thing; because in point Of principle it in
volves as we conceive, an unconstitutional assump
tion Of power on the part Of the Executive, and,
in point of practical effect, it is a mere inutiity-
serving only to create dissensions among loyal
citizens and to consolidate the power Of the ere-
my. Those who argue in defence of the procla-
nation on the presumption that without it we
could not avail ourselves of the services of slaves
prove nothing but their own confusion of ideas.
Congress, by the act of July IL, 1862, authorized
the President " to employ many persons Of Afri-
can descent as he might deem necessary and pro-
per for the suppression of this rebellion and this
was months before any proclamation of freedom"
issued 1t is safe to say that by this edct not
single slave has been freed who would not have
been otherwise freed by the progress Of our arms,
and that in consequence of this edict not single
negro recruit has been added to our armies who
would not have been otherwise added. The in
efficiency of the declaration, considered a, prac-
tica measure, may be read in what the President
says in his late letter about the ineicacy of pa
per compromise" On this point he says:


Suppose refugees from the South and peace from
the North get together in Convention and frame and pro-
claim compromise embracing restoration of the Union,
in ,ohat ay that compromise be used to keep Lees
srmy out Of Pennsylvania Meades army can keep Lees
army out of Pennsyvana and think ultimately drive
it out Of existence bat paper compromise TO nhch The
controllers of Lees army not agreed at all affect
that army. In an effort at such compromise we should
waste time which the enemy would improve to our aisad
vantage and that would be ALL compromise, to be ef
ecve must be made either with those who control the
rebel army with the people first liberated from the
domination of that army by the successes of our army


This is perfectly sound and sensible, but it is
just sound and sensible to say that no "paper
proclamation" ordering and declaring slaves in
Richmond or Mobile to be free, can possibly have
any more effect than "paper compromise to which
the controllers of Lees army are not agreed" We
do not ask for "paper compromise" which the
enemy, as the President well says, ''would improve
to our disadvantage" And our complaint against
the "paper" proclamation Of freedom is that it is
no whit better in this respect than "paper COM
promise" We know the President sees this as
clearly as we do Utterly powerless engine
of war on our side, the proclamation has served
only to distract the course, and parayzs the en-
ergies Of loyal men, while to the enemy it has fur
nished magazine Of just such weapons as the in
surgent leaders know how to use adroitly for the
purpose of arraying all classes against the Federal
Government-the STAKEHOLDER by pointing him to
the predestned loss of his slave property, and the
non-slavcholder by pointing him to the hateful
prospect of being reduced to equality with the
emancpated slave. Thus it is that all ranks have
been banded against us, and so they will remain as
long as this policy lasts.


The insurgent leaders know that the proclama-
ton robs the south of no slave who would not
otherwise be freed by the progress of our arms,
but because it is thus harmless to them they do
not forbcar to use it as topic of adjuration aud
a motive Of alarm, 1t suits their purposes only
the more perfectly because it is SO innocuous iu
point of fact and injurious in point of principle.
They can never enough confess their obligations
to its authors for the "aid and comfort" it has
afforded them, by giving them new motives and